From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Sat Jul 07 2007 - 21:01:54 EDT
Why don't you tell us what you had in mind when you told us that as far as you know Selbourne was still writing great stuff? Of course in the days before you wrote that Selbourne has just published another vitriolic statement against Islam in Timesonline, and let's forget that as you were writing what was in the press was the controversy over his book The Trouble with Islam. How could one not read what you had written as an endorsement of his politics which had long been conservative and Eurocentric. Of course you distanced yourself later from what Selbourne was still writing a few days later. Just as you lauded David Landes and then admitted that you needed to think about it, and this was long after there had been a lot of controversy about his book on the wealth of nations. And isn't that the point--you are totally out of control, recommending one thing one day, taking it back the other in a form of bipolar writing, writing in a stream of consciousness, then reflecting or qualifiying what nasty retrograde position you gave your imprimatur to in public as if there are no consequences to this kind of thing. This is basically what Cyrus accused you of as you were calling his work a postmodern joke, and I think he is right. The noise to information ratio should not be tolerated. Believe if it had been me who wrote what you did about Cyrus, i would have been booted. But such are standards of this list. Look you haven't even been booted for writing what you do about me. Rakesh
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