tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60593282008-07-19T22:59:34.651+01:00Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comBlogger164125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-80293389207754348802008-07-19T22:43:00.002+01:002008-07-19T22:48:11.262+01:00

The FT had a few good articles on religion last week. Richard Tomkins took a look at the Church of England’s finances and found it to be in recession. Christopher Caldwell asked more or less rhetorically why sex is such a big issue in religion today, to which Mr Cesar A. Garcia, an FT reader, (Letters, 19th July), replied that it says so in the Bible. In a few sentences he managed to wipe out

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-61286830887294290162008-07-06T17:30:00.004+01:002008-07-19T22:50:02.044+01:00

The Anglican Church seems to be at the end of the line over their policy on the appointment of priests. Traditionalist bishops have set up the Global Anglican Future Conference in protest to the consecration of gay and women bishops. Over 1,300 bishops are threatening a schism over this matter while others seek to form a church within the church (Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans). Among the

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-41794693367598628792008-07-06T15:52:00.006+01:002008-07-06T16:19:08.527+01:00

One wonders what point Lord Phillips was so clumsily trying to make. Was he misunderstood or pre-empted? While Charles Moore shouted extremism on the Telegraph, Madeleine Bunting defended Lord Phillips, Alexandra Fawcett worried that if religions were granted legitimacy in the public realm, it would lead to discrimination (ignoring current legislation). Matthew Parris on the Times warned that the

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-32321611911890854542008-05-12T15:03:00.003+01:002008-07-19T22:50:02.045+01:00

The Embryo Bill finally gets its second reading in Parliament today. The three main questions put to MPs will be: Hybrid embryos: scientists want to create embryos that are over 99% human for research into stem cells by implanting DNA from an adult human nucleus into a cow or rabbit egg. Access to IVF for lesbian couples: the bill changes the wording of the current act to remove the "need for a

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-76250544894362118552008-05-12T14:57:00.002+01:002008-05-12T15:03:12.016+01:00

This blog is a way for me to think through the moral aspects of interesting issues I stumble upon in the news. It is my attempt to create a space for the development of liberal morality. I welcome comments that are pertinent to my articles and that pose questions on the philosophical principles of the issues discussed. I am unlikely to answer any comment that I deem irrelevant. I will also not

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-24781467260068863442008-04-14T13:30:00.000+01:002008-04-14T13:41:00.823+01:00

I don’t know how Americans have come to restrict their vocabulary so much, but the dichotomy Liberals (which in the US is taken to mean left, from centre-left to loony-left) and Conservatives (meaning right-wing) seriously distorts any meaningful understanding of political science. Such acception empties the term ‘liberal’ of its authentic meaning. Liberal does not mean lefty!!! When such flawed

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-90767107780479993642008-04-10T15:50:00.001+01:002008-04-10T15:53:14.377+01:00

I feel like being trivial today so here we go: the West Wing. Let me start by saying that I really enjoy the show. It’s well written, has rhythm and is generally well acted. Now, let me demolish it. The boys' club: There is an underlying patronising attitude to the female characters, which I can't stand. It would have been nice if the writers had put more effort into making these characters

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-51814684063957845772008-04-07T11:07:00.007+01:002008-04-07T11:37:48.268+01:00

I have to say that, like many Italians right now, I flirted with the idea of not voting. There are many reasons for this: Italy is in deep crisis with too many groups defending vehemently their own interest with no regard for the rest of the population and the future of the country (see the opposition to TAV – high-speed trains; the opposition to the sale of Alitalia; opposition to the

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-43658125150065501802008-03-28T13:54:00.001Z2008-03-28T13:57:11.881Z

It’s that time again of a long series of doubts, questions and lack of information. No, I’m not talking about the elections in Cardiff!! I’m referring to the Italian elections being held on the 13th of April. Voting by post, I only have time until the 7th apparently. I haven’t thought much about it, I haven’t checked the political parties’ websites and know very little about the candidates. It

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-29653789319365647882008-03-26T21:58:00.003Z2008-03-26T22:12:36.632Z

I realised I condensed a few thoughts in a very short piece in my post Sexy, so here are a few more thoughts. Dignity: my main objection to the perpetual portrayal of people, mostly women, as sexual objects is that people are deprived of their humanity. I’m fed up with seeing mainstream media trashing our human dignity. Our imagination and psyche are being desensitised to the humanity of those

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-83114296825936233082008-03-20T12:41:00.007Z2008-03-20T14:36:27.534Z

I keep on coming across appalling music videos where women act or are paraded as if they were for sale. There seems to be a very fine line between what is deemed 'sexy' in a woman and the debasing display of body parts. Men (and women) are fed an awful lot of nonsense about what a man is supposed to like and what women are supposed to be like. The driving force is supposedly sex, which is

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-31919324453387752472008-03-16T22:39:00.004Z2008-03-16T23:00:27.123Z

I find John Gray’s critical review of the new ‘atheists’ a little sweeping and weak. He rightly points to their lack of self-understanding and their little knowledge of religion and indeed science and liberalism. That’s the easy bit though. What the article lacks, although admittedly it would have become an essay, is a deeper understanding of what religion is; what faith is and why it’s coming

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-88614738100420862692008-03-09T20:38:00.005Z2008-03-12T08:56:51.455Z

I’ve recently been in a discussion on capital punishment and here are some reflections on the moral issues surrounding it. [I therefore will not discuss crime as a whole, its causes and what we should do about it. I would obviously want more to be done to tackle the causes of crime, including corporate crime, and create more opportunities for all.] I believe capital punishment to be morally

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-68644855301054820762008-03-06T08:57:00.005Z2008-03-06T09:13:00.746Z

Yep! I've never thought I would come across a headline such as this one. There may be many reasons why Adams has commended Paisley, including political strategy. Is the great enemy defeated? However, it's irrelevant. Things are being understood in a different way now, even radicalism is changing. Adams calls Paisley 'a fascinating, gracious man'. He was certainly impressive. The most impressive

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-80727015950130933342008-02-12T14:20:00.000Z2008-02-12T14:20:51.990Z

Mohamed Salmawy, Egyptian journalist and president of the Egyptian Writers Union, among others, called for the boycott of the Turin Book Fair in May. The boycotters object to Israel being the ‘guest of honour’ this year at the fair. They feel insulted because of the Israeli state’s politics towards the Palestinians. Tariq Ramadan, who joined the boycott being always so keen not to miss an

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-1426234463905397782008-02-11T11:44:00.000Z2008-07-19T22:51:43.786+01:00

I read Rowan Williams’ long pages of ambiguous woolliness and managed not to get too irritated. He’s right, of course, to say that as soon as you mention sharia most people (or the media?) think “it is repressive towards women and wedded to archaic and brutal physical punishments”. No wonder it caused such a bang, which, I assume, was Rowan’s intention to ‘diffuse’ or confuse tensions ahead of

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-44696593405265552572008-01-25T14:33:00.000Z2008-01-25T14:37:30.768Z

Last week I was telling a friend of mine that if it weren’t for the fact that Italy is a democracy, there would be a revolution. The issues facing the country are deep and permeate the whole of society. They reach far back in history and cannot be summarised easily. There is the crisis of refuse collection in southern Italy which reaches far back to the re-creation of the mafia near the end of

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-82626441236298330182008-01-22T13:26:00.000Z2008-01-22T13:37:19.234Z

This dating thing is not going too well. The first time I logged on I felt really awkward. Most people don't write much. Some are overconfident, some try not to undersell themselves by adding 'my friends say', some stick to plain descriptions and some paint a rather boring picture. You end up looking at a series of photos, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I cannot look at people as if I

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-57996557075931480802008-01-21T12:47:00.001Z2008-01-21T12:47:43.617Z

From a colleague's email: A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for cancer research?" I said, "All right, but we won't get much done." - Jimmy Carr

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-8958578946864369722008-01-21T07:10:00.000Z2008-01-21T10:04:20.800Z

Sometimes I come across rather frightening blogs where the author twists the information, has no regard for objectivity, historicity and is filled with paranoid propaganda. The sad aspect of this is that the authors of such blogs/sites and many of their readers believe their own nonsense. Ideology and propaganda have always been around, but the new means of information have much wider

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-85764256115972465462008-01-18T13:48:00.000Z2008-01-18T14:08:13.103Z

I was going to write the story behind this, but it could be misinterpreted, so to those of you who know me, just ask! I cannot access this facility any longer from my laptop, but you won't have problems. Go to yahoo italia (click on musica on the left hand column and then video). Once you've launched a video, you can search the music you like. I would strongly recommend the following: Carmen

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-56411701837984307602008-01-16T12:06:00.000Z2008-01-18T14:05:03.175Z

I’ve come across an e-mail with rumours that Obama is a Muslim. The details can be found at Urban Legends and more on CNN, Washigton Post etc. It is clearly a paranoid attack trying to induce fear in the electorate. The most uncomfortable aspect of it is the fact that it implies that American Muslims are not American. It is rather reminiscing of the McCarthy era, although I doubt this is what

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-21040827886973345012008-01-15T10:02:00.000Z2008-01-16T22:01:04.985Z

I’ve been nagged left, right and centre about registering with a dating website, so in the end I did. I lied a bit about location & name given that I’m likely to be the only Italian Jewish woman living in Cardiff. I still manage to come across people I know and, worse still, who know me. Lucky I didn’t talk myself up at all, in fact I told the awful truth pointing out that I’m awkward and

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-49090848408078421932008-01-11T12:30:00.000Z2008-01-11T13:48:14.615Z

Yes, Clinton is arrogant, she's not a good communicator and is seen as divisive, but she has brains and substance. More importantly I don't think Obama can win. Europeans are holding the breath and crossing their fingers hoping for something good to come out of the Primaries and the election later this year. After all, the rest of the world is affected by the choice of President Americans make.

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059328.post-2201860503044432412007-12-29T19:49:00.001Z2007-12-29T23:35:45.346Z

This was one of those times when I wondered why I still bother going to the cinema at all. The Golden Compass is visually unimaginative, the acting is perfunctory, the script is bland and the morale utter trash. The experience is made worse by the tendency of cinema theatres to keep the volume ridiculously high. I’m not sure whether that is done to compensate for lack of substance or to keep you

Francesca Montemaggihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05132839900986084824noreply@blogger.com