Christopher Pearson, and once more, with distractions, because how can you have a sensible debate with a cloth-eared serial breacher of Godwin's Law?

(Above: Charlie Chaplin back in the days when Godwin's Law didn't count).

Saturday is always a code word for a longer phrase - Christopher Pearson doesn't have a clue - and sure enough his cluelessness is happily on view once again, this time in Right of reply on right to die.

It seems his addled contribution to the euthanasia debate - Test of conviction on a life and death issue - produced some eleven letters to the editor expressing outrage at the smug simplifications and righteous certainties delivered up by the pompous pontificating Pearson.

Naturally it's time for Pearson to smote his critics mightily, in a way that makes us think of him as something of a prattling personal prelate (yes, as always the Catholic church has a special category, and perhaps personal prelature, a kind of lay doing of the work of prelates, is the perfect category for Pearson).

Oops, I see this is merely a kind of idle securalism, according to our lay pontiff:

Ina Borger of Marion, SA, suggests the editor tell me "the inquisition happened a long time ago" and says she doesn't need me "or the pope to make my mind up". This is a gambit known in contemporary politics as "playing the secularist card". It invites disdain towards a policy position because of the advocate's religious affiliation, without entering into debate about the merits of the (in this case, rational rather than faith-based) argument.

Oh dear. We stand fully corrected. It seems this is a rational rather than a faith based argument.

Let us resort to a calm, rational, thought based way forward. Show us the way Mr. Pearson:

Crawford also said my arguments were based on religious conviction and "don't influence atheists, who comprise a substantial part of society". In fact, my opposition to euthanasia first arose from a study at university of Nazi policy for dealing with the disabled, the socially deviant and the racially impure, long before my conversion. Religious conviction probably fortified my stance, but I know plenty of philosophically minded atheists who share it.

Yep, there it is, and cheekily enough in the preceding para, a linking of the current debate on euthanasia to the Nazis and Nazi policy.

You see, Pearson did a study at university, of Nazis of course, and philosophically minded atheists and perhaps nine out of ten dentists agree, and say what you will, we're on the slippery slope to Nazification and involuntary euthanasia ...

Well there you go, so much for a rational discussion, so much for Godwin's Law, and so much for Pearson's capacity for logic.

What's astonishing is the mealy-mouthed, cloth-eared tone he manages to replicate in all the rest of his responses to his readers. There's the evocative image of taking grandma out behind the tank and putting her down, in a kindly but involuntary way, as you might do with a dear sweet dog now blind and toothless, the best years of service a faded memory:

Putting old or suffering animals "out of their misery" is an entrenched attribute of the Australian ethos, but when the practice suddenly extends to take in human beings of any age - and not necessarily dealing with a terminal illness - a lot of voters are likely to change their minds.

Yes, there's no evidence in the Netherlands, or Switzerland, or wherever voluntary euthanasia is enabled by law that Nazi-like forms of involuntary euthanasia are the go, but hey when we're on a slippery slope of irrational arguments, always go the full hog. After all, look at how all those dominoes fell in south east Asia once the spectre of communism won in Vietnam ...

That's how you get the jesuitical casuistical 'not necessarily dealing with a terminal illness' or the breathtaking evocation of mass slaughter, with the practice suddenly extending willy nilly to take in human beings of any age.

But assuming you don't want to take grannie out the back and put her down like a dog, or perhaps drown her in a chaff bag like a bunch of unwanted kittens, what's the alternative?

Peter Brown of Byron Bay, NSW, doubts my claim that, for those who want to do so, "there are foolproof, painless means readily to hand". I don't want to encourage suicide, but anyone who reads the paper or watches the news on TV is bound to be familiar with the means I'm talking about. A fatal dose of carbon monoxide in the confined space of a car is one. A number of websites offer recipes for judicious overdoses of alcohol, prescription drugs and anti-nausea tablets.

Yes, there's the perfect solution. Grannie can put herself down like a dog, alone and without family or friends around her, but instead a solitary, pathetic figure in a car surrounded by carbon monoxide gas and misery (make sure you take the alcohol and prescription drugs first to ease that sense of misery and nausea and existential aloneness, not that we're encouraging suicide, so much as mealy mouthed hypocrisy and a complete lack of empathy).

Now there's caring in its purest Christian form ...

Clive Huxtable of Beaconsfield, WA, shares Brown's reservations and invites me to put myself in the place of a victim of advanced motor neurone disease, "beginning to drown slowly in his own mucus". The disease takes a long time to run its course and provides ample opportunity to reflect on end-of-life issues.

Short of timely suicide, it's the sort of situation where a carefully prepared "advanced medical directive" can contribute a measure of peace of mind.

An advanced medical directive contributing a measure of peace of mind? What on earth does the prattling prelate mean? Is this the euthanasia that dare not speak its name, even if it's common enough in Australian hospitals, as anyone with an aged parent with an advanced, debilitating condition will discover ...

But then Pearson is full of Christian caring as he gang tackles another reader:

She concludes her letter by talking about a Dutch relative who chose voluntary euthanasia at home, surrounded by family. "Better than hanging yourself or cutting your wrists, isn't it Christopher?" The first thing to be said is that it's a melodramatic way of summing up the options. The second is that, while it might well be a more comfortable end for the individual concerned, there are others to be considered. What effect will it have on the children to learn the family doctor is here to give grandpa an injection to make him not wake up? What effect will it have on the doctor?

Yes, it's way too melodramatic a way of summing it up, when you can have the melodrama of the children - why won't anyone think of the children - afflicted and infected with a rom gloom goth existential attitude to life, sure to see themselves die by their own hand before the age of twenty one as a result of seeing grandpa put down in the living room - perhaps you can even arrange for the child to hold the needle - and what about all those doctors killing themselves like lemmings, such is their unhappiness and misery, even though we're a little short of statistics at the moment to back up that evocative conjuring act ....

Yep there's a melodramatic way to conjure up the benefits of making sure children and doctors go on for years watching unendurably stoic suffering by old people ...

How it toughens them up emotionally ... gets them ready for a nice colonial adventure in Iraq or Afghanistan, where killing is much more rewarding and so conducive of democracy ...

And so on and so forth. At every turn Pearson bats away his readers' questions with a timing and certainty the Australian cricket team can surely envy:

Ron Gray of Kalinga, Queensland, cites his experience of a 72-year-old sister-in-law suffering terminal cancer and choosing euthanasia in The Netherlands. He says "there is no logical reason why Dutch law can't be followed by all civilised societies". Of course I'm not privy to the details of the case and can't comment on it, but must respectfully disagree with his general endorsement.

Yep when it comes to an unanswerable point, mum's the word, and did we mention putting grannie down like a dog.

So in the end it comes down to Pearson respectfully disagreeing, and producing the involuntary euthanasia card out of his sordid and well-worn hat (babies are being killed in the Flemish region of Belgium) even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of euthanasia being proposed. It's just another part of that slippery slope ...

Well let's just disrespectfully disagree with the wretched Pearson, especially for making the world suffer two weeks in a row, and since he ends on a lighter note - about a thirty year old not wanting to die - it's time to recommend Daniel Kitson's The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, which is way funnier than a Christopher Pearson column, and with a heck of a lot more insight into humanity, and if you miss it, never mind, just don't kill yourself unless you feel the urge ... (Kitson will be doing his thing in Sydney in March at the Seymour Centre, other dates in other capital cities).

Speaking of social notes, and ignoring the way the band The National once endorsed that Kenyan Muslim president, the pond faithfully attended their gig at the Enmore last night, surrounded not so much by inner suburban 'leets as by young people ...

What a restless fidgety bunch they are and with stern dads waiting outside, clutching their umbrellas, worried about the fornication going down in the mosh pit ...

All the same attending a gig surely beats reading Christopher Pearson. The Drum Media, our free in the street music magazine of choice (amazingly now on line for reading here) had breathlessly assured us that High Violet was the album of the year, and the band most likely the band of the year, and they surely delivered a very slick session to the satisfaction of the audience ...

But if I can just take a moment to chide the support band The Middle East, not that there's the remotest chance any of them will read it. But hey it's better than being one of eleven readers who wasted their time denouncing Christopher Pearson, expecting him to listen or be generous in his responses ...

Guys, stop fiddling about on stage, get the guitar changes organised, stop fretting about the tuning, and as you've got a redhead in the band - always a sign that the sun god looks on you favourably - don't just stick her on the side without a spot, forced to prance about to gain attention. And dear heavy handed drummer, get your glasses more firmly attached (there's a squash device that does the trick). When they fell off in the middle of the last number, I was riddled with anxiety for you.

Oh and for heaven, or hell's sake, don't end your set with a forlorn attempt at Mazzy Star, but with your best number. And get rid of that song about 1971, you're not Paul Kelly or even Redgum, and thank the lord for that, and if you must visit history, at least visit a more modern war. And take a little inspiration from The National while on tour, and clean up your sound, which inclined to be muddy. Sure you can make it deafening in the usual way, but watch the sibilance and the vocals ...

And yes, damn you, you might be from Townsville and not from Tamworth, but for all the high powered efforts of The National, I emerged with the hook for Blood running through my head, and sure it somehow got connected to that dog of an ersatz American Australian film Accidents Happen, but I still can't get rid of it.

And as it's vaguely relevant to Christopher Pearson and the theme at hand, here it is:

Grandfather, weary soul, you’ll fly
Over your life once more before you die
Since our grandma passed away
You’ve waited for forever and a day
Just to die
And someday soon
You will die

It was the only woman you ever loved
That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
And there’s nothing you can do about it now

(click through for the wide screen effect)