The Critical Commentator

  Justice Trampling on Injustice 1600-1650 (unknown artist) Photo Credit: West Suffolk Heritage Service  [CC BY-NC]  What drives someone to become a journalist? A good journalist, someone whose keyboard is a tool for exposing injustice, a truth seeker who would risk life and limb to report their experiences back to the world? I know I couldn't do it. I've interviewed people for a research project and was hopeless. I found myself shying away from asking the really difficult questions.. There's no way I could confront a corrupt official, or race to file a story before a hostile regime tried to silence me, possibly for ever. I like to think of myself as someone who would speak truth to power, but would I really, if my life was in the balance?... In the film Words of War , I have the honour of portraying the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya - a woman with immense courage and integrity who, despite the threats to her life, continued to be a blazing beacon of truth in a ti...

  As the vast crowds patiently filed past his coffin in St Peter's Basilica, the message was unmistakeable: Pope Francis was, above all else, a pope for the people. He strove to resist the splendour and remoteness that can come with the papacy. He chose simplicity in life and in death, from the moment he stepped out onto the balcony of St Peter's in 2013, asking the world to pray for him before he blessed them... Francis stood out for his humility, his accessibility and his open heart. His model of leadership was one of presence, not power. He rejected the grand papal apartments in favour of a modest suite in the Cas Santa Marta. His language, too, was striking - he famously likened the church to a "field hospital": a place of immediate care and unconditional welcome, particularly for those wounded by life...   The Good Samaritan George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]  He never shied away from confronting the pain of the ...

  A Girl Writing Henriette Brown (1829-1901) Photo Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum London  Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: "Write for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author". Today, most of us wouldn't need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We'd get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri. Offloading cognitive effort to artificial intelligence has become second nature, but with mounting evidence that human intelligence is declining, some experts fear this impulse is driving the trend... One of our most vital cognitive skills at risk is critical thinking. Why consider what you admire about a British author when you can get ChatGPT to reflect on that for you? Research underscores these concerns. Michael Gerlich at SBS Swiss Business School in Kloten, Switzerland, tested 666 peo...

  Woman in Space David Sullivan (b. 1969) Photo Credit: The Priseman Seabrook Collections [CC BY-NC]  Six women - including the pop star Katy Perry and the US morning TV host Gayle King - yesterday safely completed a trip to the edge of outer space and back from a private Texas ranch on a rocket owned by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon co-founder and commercial space flight entrepreneur. The women, who also included Bezoz's fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, made the trip to the Karman line - the internationally recognised boundary of space - to float about, weightlessly, in the rocket's capsule for three minutes before returning to Earth... King's longtime friend, the TV chatshow host Oprah Winfrey, was on hand in Texas for the launch. Winfrey said that, for King, "this is bigger than just going to space" and "more than just overcoming fear". "Life is about continuing to grow into the fullest expression of yourself," she said... As the rocket reached its highest...

 Beer Talking 26 February : Trade body the British Beer and Pub Association - which has been urging the government to raise the alcohol-by-volume threshold for "alcohol-free" beer from 0.05 to 0.5 percent - forks out £450 for Labour MP Jacob Collier to attend the British Kebab Awards. 4 March : Jacob Collier asks in the Commons whether the chancellor will "consider raising the alcohol-free threshold to 0.5 percent alcohol by volume, in line with international markets, to improve consumer choice." Gifts William Davis (1812-1873) Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery [CC BY-NC] Lucky Gamble 4 March : Tory Baroness (Anne) McIntosh submits two written parliamentary questions on gambling, one asking how much tax had been raised from gambling over the past three years, the other what steps the government is proposing to tackle black market gambling - the threat of which is being used by the industry to argue for limiting reforms. 12 March : Baroness McIntosh receives a fancy f...

  Dogs George Armfield (1810-1893) Photo Credit: Glasgow Life Museums [CC  BY-NC-ND] Vets have reported a surge in the use of "puppy Prozac" as owners seek medication for anxious lockdown dogs. Research has revealed a ten-fold increase over the past decade in the number of dogs in the UK on fluoxetine, an anti-depressant sold under the brand name Prozac when used in humans. Fluoxetine increases levels of serotonin in dogs' brains and is licensed in tablet form to treat pets with separation anxiety, or those displaying forms of aggression... In some cases people wanted their pets to be "fur-babies" that stay quiet, and believed medical intervention was needed if dogs ran around, jumped up or barked too much, vets added. Others were "projecting human emotions" onto their pets, making the mistake of trying to "psychoanalyse" their dogs. Dr Dan O'Neil, an associate professor at the Royal Veterinary College, analysed data from 2.3 million dogs...