nthposition online magazine: author

Noel Rooney

Rooney is a poet and essayist whose interests range from ancient cultures to modern art, via european esoterica, scripture and canonical poetry, science (orthodox and otherwise), languages and language.

gifted

[ poetry - april 09 ]

Jewish history, Jewish religion

[ bookreviews ]

"Every nation, religion, and culture shrouds its history in a miasma of myth and legend; the job of a good historian, in the first place, is to see through the fog and get at the facts."

Dark matters: the baleful lustre of the Litvinenko affair

[ opinion - march 07 ]

"Litvinenko's shape-shifting faculty equals, and even surpasses, that of polonium. There is of course his transformation from athletic and good-looking young man to the emaciated icon of his deathbed portrait; but there is more."

the diamond market, the man who had the least of his worries, the things that were beautiful that day & a parliament of saints

[ poetry - january 07 ]

What’s got the non God squad so cross?

[ opinion - april 06 ]

"The profession of secular atheism by people who are more properly described as liberal humanists is a propinquitous heresy, relating ironically to the neo-con orthodoxy."

Bushit!

[ bookreviews ]

Deus ex machination.

Standing behind time’s wishes

[ bookreviews ]

Two very necessary, and necessarily depressing, books on the Rwanda genocide.

Bangs for bucks and Ariel’s dream

[ politics - february 06 ]

The coming war in Iran is being reported in mainstream media as the ultimate ploy in a concerted effort to rid the world of a nuclear threat. Facts and events suggest otherwise, as does the make-up of the partnership limbering up for war.

ariel’s dream

[ poetry - january 06 ]

Translating a tragedy

[ opinion - november 05 ]

Media and state reactions to the shooting of Sharon Beshenivsky and Teresa Milburn

The rotting goddess

[ bookreviews ]

From divinity to defamation.

The critical bias to faith

[ bookreviews ]

Thoughts on a second read of The End of Faith.

Fundamentalism and its discontents

[ opinion | people - february 05 ]

"I spoke to Norton Mezvinsky the night after the deliciously ironic spectacle of a Jewish professor lecturing on Christian Zionism at a Muslim cultural institute, an irony only compounded by the realisation that a Muslim audience was almost bound to be better informed about Christian fundamentalism than a Christian one."