Rupert's Read

Check out my new piece on Talking Philosophy: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=3033

Over fifteen years have passed since Cora Diamond and James Conant turned Wittgenstein scholarship upside down with the program of "resolute" reading, and ten years since this reading was crystallized in the major collection   The New Wittgenstein . Showcasing one piece alternately from each "camp",   Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate  (edited by Rupert Read and Matthew A. Lavery)   pairs newly commissioned pieces addressing differing views on how to understand early Wittgenstein, providing for the first time an arena in which the debate between "strong" resolutists, "mild" resolutists and "elucidatory" readers of the book can really take place. Request a complimentary e-inspection copy  

This very-well-read blog has signed me up as its newest regular contributor  :-) Here's my first contribution thereto in this capacity, on 'green philosophy' in the context of the philosophical canon: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=3027

An intriguing and dismaying excerpt from the Guardian's live blog on Libya, concerning our ex-MP here in Norwich Souh and his own closeness to the (now utterly discredited and ousted) Gaddafi regime:   [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/24/libya-rebels-take-gaddafi-compound-live-updates#block-48#block-61  ] >> 7.05pm: Luke Harding has...surveyed the now derelict residence of Britain's ambassador in Libya, which was trashed and looted in March while Gaddafi's soldiers looked on. Among the debris he found signs of the dubiuously close relationship between the ousted dictator and the UK's former New Labour governments: " The once-attractive art deco building was today a spectacularly gutted ruin. Fire had completely razed the ground floor; debris covered the sweeping marble staircase. All that was left of Her Majesty's billiard table was a charred frame. Pieces of Minton bone china and the bottom of a Whittard...

My latest piece on framing and values, published today: http://greenwordsworkshop.org/node/34  

Just found out that I had a letter in last week's INDY  :-) http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-perspectives-on-banning-masks-2338625.html Scroll down for it. Here's the text (and the letter that followed it)...   Syria shells its own people Years ago, I spent some time in Lattakia. It is a pleasant, bustling seaside town, where one can enjoy typical Syrian hubbly-bubbly cafés, swim in the Med, and so on. Or rather, it was. Now, incredibly, Lattakia is being shelled, day after day, from both land and sea. How many more outrages is it going to take before the UN Security Council issues a clear condemnation of the Syrian government for criminal violence against its own people? And before our own government and the EU put serious sanctions in place against all Syrian businesses with any connections to the Assad regime? Rupert Read, East of England Green Party Co-ordinator, Norwich The murder and mayhem in Sy...

Big news here. It's on Radio Norfolk and the EDP today. What's happening is that Green Party councillors have asked the Audit Commission to investigate whether chief officers at Norfolk County Council acted legitimately in spending at least £170,000 of public money between 2008 and 2011 on planning preparation costs that benefitted a private company, without first obtaining formal authorisation from elected Councillors (1) . The work relates to a joint planning application between Norfolk County Council and Ifield Estates Ltd for a business park (Broadland Gate) and a County road scheme (the 'Postwick Hub', a key element of a Norwich Northern Distributor Road (NDR)) (2) .   On 17 August, Broadland District Council Planning Committee intends re-confirming the original planning permission given in December 2009 (3) . A good friend of mine, County Councillor Andrew Boswell, Green Party spokesperson for Environment, Transport and Waste has said: ...

It was very striking in Cameron's first speech responding to the riots and looting ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8690895/David-Cameron-condemns-sickening-riots-across-UK.html ) that there was not one word – not one – about why this violence may be happening. Cameron was happy to enunciate very clearly that "If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment", which appears to me to be an incitement to jail children however young they be; but he said literally nothing about why these crimes are taking place. This is a complete failure of thought and of leadership. Come back Lord Scarman and 'Hezza', all is forgiven?… Why is the violence happening and spreading? Why is so much criminality so easily sparked? As has been argued fairly convincingly over at LeftFootForward ( http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/08/a-crowd-psychology-analysis-of-the-riots/ ), it is simply not enough ...

Inspiring demo for Syrian democracy yesterday afternoon outside the Syrian embassy in London. (I gave a short speech which was well-received.) Long live the Arab revolutions!