Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category
Of smacking and schools; a story of odd class alliances in British politics.
Posted by: melissabenn on: January 31, 2012
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How depressing that the debate on smacking children, like that of a woman’s right to choose and sex education ( which never seems to go away ) has reared its head once more. I was astonished, and somewhat appalled, to hear a discussion on the Today programme recently about whether poor children were becoming too [...]
What Hannah Arendt called thinking…
Posted by: melissabenn on: October 26, 2011
I have just come across this thoughtful essay from the New Statesman, published in the late summer, by Margaret Heffernan. It makes many important points – but I particularly love its last paragraph. It touches on so many aspects of human life and behaviour I find most interesting – in particular the things we deliberately [...]
Rozsika Parker
Posted by: melissabenn on: November 18, 2010
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I was sad to hear of the premature death of Rozsika Parker, the writer and psychotherapist, author of the important feminist book, ‘Torn in two: the experience of maternal ambivalence’ published by Virago. I first spied Rosie when I was a rather serious young student revising for my finals and swimming very early every morning [...]
Better late than never: the great Theodore Dreiser
Posted by: melissabenn on: September 5, 2010
- In: Musings | Reviews
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Below, a piece I wrote about eighteen months ago, for an ongoing series on normblog and which I never put up on my own site. So here it is: It is not always easy to write about a favourite book or even to understand why some works are so much more meaningful to us than [...]
Something to believe in…
Posted by: melissabenn on: April 7, 2010
….or is it? Am I being too optimistic in my latest post- more of a note – in Public Finance? You tell me. But the Labour manifesto, as drafted by Ed Miliband, and much discussed, even derided, in recent weeks, seems to contain some very good things. Now if only there had been more about [...]
The Mother Load
Posted by: melissabenn on: March 28, 2010
- In: Musings
- 5 Comments
I really liked this piece in today’s Observer. Too many mothers deal with their own insecurities/competitiveness by focussing on the all too human failings of others. But mothers also need each other, particularly in the early years when it is all so bewildering and overwhelming. Motherhood unites, but it also divides, women or the competitive/ [...]
In treatment
Posted by: melissabenn on: March 17, 2010
Nowadays, I mostly watch TV for current affairs: News at Ten, Newsnight, Question Time and the occasional political documentary. If I miss something, I can spend ages trying to load up my – slow broadband – computer to watch it again, not always successfully: for instance, quite a few people have told me how great [...]
I wish I’d said that! (1)
Posted by: melissabenn on: February 17, 2010
Another one of my ongoing series * in which I highlight articles or speeches that I admire so much I – kind of – wish I’d written or given them! So, to kick this particular series off: a terrific comment page piece by David Edgar in today’s Guardian about the values and innovation underlying the [...]
Reasons to be cheerful (1)
Posted by: melissabenn on: February 9, 2010
One of the many things that currently keeps me cheerful is the unswerving committment of so many thousands of parents to their local state school and the hard work that they put in to support and extend the work that the school does. These efforts are largely unsung and often wrongly pigeonholed as a form [...]
Go Ed!
Posted by: melissabenn on: January 10, 2010
- In: Musings | Uncategorized
- 1 Comment
I’m glad to see Ed Miliband, in his Observer article today, nail the lie that there remains a yawning gap between so called aspirational citizens and so called core Labour voters. Miliband talks instead of self interest and shared interest, and the need for Labour to build on common values rather than make a lame [...]
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