From the International Journal of Conflict and Violence, a special issue on ethnic and racial violence. The cure for metaphysics is the retemporalization of its founding myth, not as the rediscovery of originary violence, but as the beginning of the never-ending history of its deferral. Red skateboard baby: A review of When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood by Said Sayrafiezadeh. From New Statesman, an interview with Frank Kermode (and more from TLS). A year and a half after the launch of a controversial online game about the homeless, the Pennergame is a runaway success. It is high time for the media to scrutinize the behavior and motives of judges and prosecutors, both individually and collectively, in the same way they do elected officials. Catching sight of a cockroach tends to make us behave chaotically, but it appears that chaos might actually explain how we, and the cockroach itself, behave. A review of A Study in Survival: Conan Doyle Solves the Final Problem by Roger Straughan A review of Nine Wartime Lives: Mass Observation and the Making of the Modern Self by James Hinton. Vegan Jihad: An interview with Sean Muttaqi. New Zealand is a simmering hotbed of volcanic activity; while eruptions have largely avoided populous areas, Auckland is sitting on a ticking time bomb. America’s New Hope: Afghanistan is built on its tribes — how they work, how power flows, who matters most. Simon Blackburn on how politicians and people profess to prize authenticity and integrity, but discerning the truthful person from the sincere but self-deceived and the dissembling is tricky.
