Month: December 2018

Does Africa Need a Religious Reformation?

December 23, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
While Africa is rapidly changing and progressing in many ways, Christian and Islamic fundamentalism hold the continent and its people back. Africa’s religious landscape is changing very rapidly, in various ways. These changes include the introduction of new religions and adjustments in the modes of worship as well as the personalities that are revered. Transformations […] Read more

Back to the Bad Old Days? Football, Racism and Raheem Sterling

December 17, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
Does the abuse hurled at the footballer Raheem Sterling signify a return to the bad old days of Eighties racism? Or does it represent an excuse to slam the working classes as racist and ignorant? The question of racism in football bubbles up to the surface every now and again. Whether Ron Atkinson calling Marcel […] Read more

Criminalising Vulnerable Women Groomed into Prostitution

December 16, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
This is the story of ‘Ann’ – a woman who grew up in the care system, groomed and exploited, still marked by permanent records for the sexual crime of prostitution. Ann* is now 43 and a project worker living in Middlesbrough and she knows she is lucky to be where she is now, compared to […] Read more

Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts: A Missed Opportunity To Unite Voters

December 16, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
Trump’s corporate tax reform – arguably the most important provision in what is colloquially known as the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, was in retrospect very badly marketed. Intuitively, it seems highly likely that the package of corporate tax cuts alienated Trump’s supporters and thus, in turn, contributed to Republicans’ midterm losses in November. […] Read more

Cracking at Consciousness: Why I Love Lucy

December 15, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
Luc Besson’s 2014 film Lucy garnered criticism even before it premiered. This criticism stems from the movies foundational claim that “we only use 10% of our brain.” It is an obvious myth that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of neuroscience could debunk. The famous case of railroad construction foreman Phineas Gage is enough to debunk […] Read more

The Weakness of Free Speech Warriors

December 13, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
Free speech warriors should stop whining, get up, and do something useful to counter censorship. This idea of free speech warrior weakness is a strange idea for me to be playing with, maybe even dangerous, since I fear that I’m edging ever closer to hypocrisy. But with the last few days’ news of Gavin McInnes […] Read more

Deprivation and Integration in Blackburn

December 12, 2018 | by | 2 Comments
In the old mill towns of North West England such as Blackburn, deprivation is making integration more difficult to achieve. How far should we push communities to come together? Is it even possible to force integration along? I was born and raised in Blackburn, Lancashire. Blackburn was the subject of a recent Panorama documentary, ‘White […] Read more

The Myth of the Soy Boy: Veganism and Masculinity

December 11, 2018 | by | 0 Comments
Despite vegan men often being dismissed as ‘soyboys’ in popular culture, there is no inherent contradiction between veganism and masculinity. The popular neologism soy boy, “used to describe males who completely and utterly lack all necessary masculine qualities,” has brought back the trite equation of veganism with sub-masculinity. Real men eat meat, as the cliché […] Read more