Christopher Hitchens, Anne Henderson, and a festival of silly ideas

(Above: Christopher Hitchens in a silly pose, used as the promo for the festival of dangerous ideas).

Ripe fruit from low hanging vines for the gourmet connoisseur from last week's Q & A on the ABC.

It's the kind of program designed to cause a frisson rather than a resolution, and things brewed up nicely when Christopher Hitchens met "the lady from the Sydney Institute", who identified herself as Anne Henderson. After promises of intimacy by the end of the program, Hitchens took objection to Henderson smearing the Fabian Society and the Fabian Society for not being part of the volunteer system helping out at Villawood Detention Centre:

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: .... Why I asked her about - because she wasn't content just to say religious people volunteer for charities, if that was news to anybody, but she had to couple it with a smear against Fabianism and social democracy. Now, as a matter of fact...

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, they weren't there, Christopher, that's all I was saying.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I'm sorry to say that without the....

ANNE HENDERSON: I didn't say it was a smear.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: No, the efforts of Fabianism is you...

ANNE HENDERSON: But you're good at smears.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The efforts of Fabianism...

ANNE HENDERSON: What's wrong with a smear?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I'll get to the end of this sentence if it kills you, let alone me.

ANNE HENDERSON: We have to interrupt you, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The efforts of socialists and social democrats to make sure that things like education and health do not depend upon private charity given by rich people and religious institutions to the deserving poor are the reasons why a lot of it is taken care of because it's taken care of, because we would have welfare and...

ANNE HENDERSON: Hang on, I wasn't rich. But, just a minute, there's another smear. I wasn't a rich person giving charity where it wasn't got. You have to understand the problem...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I didn't say that you were.

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, it seemed to come across that way.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I didn't even imply that you were. No, the efforts of Fabianism and social democracy - socialism - were to make sure that these things didn't depend on the voluntary whim...

ANNE HENDERSON: Yeah, but they don't do that now.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: ...or the idea of the deserving poor. Now, that's the first point.

ANNE HENDERSON: I know about Fabianism.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The second point - well, because it's so taken for granted now, I love to remind people. Actually this meant...

ANNE HENDERSON: But that was a long time ago.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: This meant social, political action, as you correctly say...

TONY JONES: Hang on for one second.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: As you quite correctly say, and I can help you out here by emphasising it, quite a while ago. That's why I said not to forget it. Now, to the point about religious activism. Isn't it true - haven't you all heard that Hamas does so well because it supplies social services? Are you going to say that the same is true for Hamas, an Islamic jihad? Never mind that they're religious. They distribute services where otherwise there'd only be secularism and corruption. Well, if you want to claim that, you can't just claim the charitable part of it, it seems to me. Mother Teresa endlessly praised for work that most of the time she actually never did. I went to watch her very closely in Calcutta. You don't mind that she thinks that what Bengal and Calcutta mainly needs is a campaign, a clerical campaign, against birth control and family planning. Has anyone here ever been to Bengal and concluded that's what it really needs? That's what she was really campaigning for, in case you are worried. But never mind. She gives a wonderful impression of being a charitable person. So what Indians need is more missionaries to cure poverty, when everybody knows there's only one cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women, which means giving them some control over their reproduction. You name me - you name me a Catholic or Muslim charity that goes into the fields determined to secure the empowerment of women...

Ah the joys of a rampant atheist set loose in the antipodes. A lot of heat, even if not much light.

Then we got on to the question of violence when Anne Henderson seemed to get a bee in her bonnet about people being violently different:

ANNE HENDERSON: ... I mean, there's so many different ways in which people see God and even within the Catholic Church there's violently different ways in which people practice their faith. And the idea...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Did you say violently?

ANNE HENDERSON: Pardon? I missed that.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You did say violently?

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, violently, as well.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I know you didn't mean to.

ANNE HENDERSON: I agree with you. I agree with you on all that that you say about violence among religion. And that's the point. I like the old Greeks and the Romans. You had a god of war and a god of peace and, you know, you had different kind of gods. I like that. But the idea that we're all following the Pope, I think, is a bit misguided.

TONY JONES: Okay, I want to...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You're either Roman Catholic or you're not, but you can be tonnes of kinds of Catholic.

ANNE HENDERSON: Oh, you'd be surprised, Christopher.

Well I guess quite a few were surprised at the thought of membership of the Holy Roman Church not necessarily involving much of a role for the Pope. Even the Society of Jesus rep on the panel skipped around that one. Itt seems it's possible to be a cultural Catholic, which presumably means you go along for the tea and scones and the social outing, with the hope of eternal life as the reward for being a convivial soul, with fear and comfort the main inspirations for belief. So much for the ecstatic life of the eternal spirit and the place of the soul in the afterlife.

At the wrap up, as usual it was Hitchens who saved the best lines for himself on the matter of God:

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: When Voltaire was dying the priest came and said, "You should renounce the devil," and he said, "This is not time to be making enemies." It's a religious falsification that people like myself scream for a priest at the end. David Hume very famously didn't and was witnessed by James Boswell not doing so. Most of us go to our ends with dignity. If we don't and if it is the wish for fear or comfort, then both of these things are equally delusory, as religion is itself.

There's more - you can get the transcript here and also watch the show online here - but there's even more tonight, as Hitchens didn't just turn up in the antipodes to monster Anne Henderson. He's one of the star attractions at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, which really should have been titled the festival of loon pond ideas. Talk about heat and not much light.

It's happening in Sydney - known to Melbourne and Adelaide folk as the centre of the universe - and apart from Hitchens' usual routine about religion poisoning everything, you can also fork over hard cash to hear Keysar Trad argue that polygamy and other Islamic values are good for Australia, and Cardinal George Pell contend that without god, we are nothing. Dear lord, pay twenty bucks to listen to Pell parrot on?

Even more bizarrely, there's Baroness Susan Greenfield expecting punters to fork over thirty nine bucks to hear her once again ask whether online networking harm children's brains, when all we have to do is read Miranda the Devine and Janet Albrechtsen recycling her ideas second hand for free.

Throw in Germaine Greer and Garey Foley, and then you'll be ready to listen to Rear Admiral Chris Barrie argue that we should bring back conscription. Well bring back witchcraft and black cats and broomstick flying, which will surely reduce time spent on housework and make the world a happier place (thank the lord we now have re-runs of Bewitched on the new FTA channel 99).

Barrie should really whet your appetite for Ray Evans arguing that we should allow child labour and say no to the minimum wage. Yep, they've even let in the H R Nicolls society and the Lavoisier group, and got Michael Duffy - the original inspiration of this site - to host the talk. I'm not happy with Evans' minimalist stance - I say bring back slavery, and slip a hundred million of the poorest Chinese over to Australia to work as housekeepers, maids and butlers. 'Every home with a Chinese slave' is a slogan surely going to win the Loon Pond Happy Birthday party a vast majority at the next election.

Oh yes, it's as fine a gathering of loons as could be mustered, but Hitchens, with the prime Saturday night slot in the Opera House concert hall is the star (and is even shown decked out in prattish trench coat looking like a Humphrey Bogart of ideas in the advertising for the event). At $65 bucks, he's also the heavyweight in pricing, with the likes of Greenfield and Greer at $39, and the Pells and the Trads and Barries and Evans clocking in at twenty bucks.

There's also a keen hierarchical division in seating, with the heavyweights scoring the concert hall (yes Greenfield is a heavyweight, oh weep antipodes, weep) while the likes of Trad and Evans and Pell have been consigned to low rent venues like The Studio, or in a few cases, even the Utzon room.

Luckily I can't afford to attend, having spent my readies going to the Opera House last night to listen to the SSO, which did a mixed banquet of English composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams celebrating music, and quoting Shakespeare:

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet-sounds,

Is fit for treasons, strategems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus;

Let no such man be trusted.

Or woman for that matter.

Oh there'll be a plentiful squawking of the loons this long weekend at the Sydney Opera House, but not much by way of sweet sounding music. Let not an idea that emanates from the din be trusted.

The only good result so far? The first pope of the un-united church of anti-theism being worth sixty five bucks in the marketplace, and Cardinal Pell worth only twenty. Put it another way, in terms of market power Pell is the Pepsi of the event, up against the real thing ...

(Below: Cardinal George Pell looking particularly silly wearing some kind of frock while relentlessly opposing gay marriage).

Tim Blair, Little Green Footballs, a coup, nutters and splitters

It must be Friday, because I've only just caught up with Tim Blair waging yet another mini-blog war, this time with Little Green Footballs.

Blair has the habit of furtive little asides, and snide remarks of a cutting kind, and played a game of 'Then' and 'Now', by linking to Little Green Footballs to demonstrate that the tone had shifted to - gasp - liberal. (here).

At issue was the notion that Thomas Friedman might be right in suggesting that the right was going dangerously fruitloop in America.

Well I don't know where Little Green Footballs got so strange and weird an idea from. I found John L. Perry's ideas for saving America from Obama curiously uplifting:

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

It - and a lot more that would pass for treason in the good old Stalinist days - was written by Perry for Newsmax, with Perry described as a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer, who served on White House staffs of two US presidents.

Of course if you go looking for the column these days, all you get is this:

In a blog posting to Newsmax, John Perry wrote about a coup scenario involving the U.S. military. He clearly stated that he was not advocating such a scenario but simply describing one.

After several reader complaints, Newsmax wanted to ensure that this article was not misinterpreted. It was removed after a short period after being posted.

Newsmax strongly believes in the principles of Constitutional government and would never advocate or insinuate any suggestion of an activity that would undermine our democracy or democratic institutions.

Mr. Perry served as a political appointee in the Carter administration in HUD and FEMA. He has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger.

Cut off at the knees, by a right wing site that's so loopy you'd swear they were training for an aeronautical aerobatics championship.

But was it any better than Michael Steele calling Friedman a nut job? We use those kinds of familiar terms on loon pond, but then here we're not posing as the alternative government of the United States.

Strangely enough Little Green Footballs struck back with their own thoughts on Blair, under the header Tim Blair Goes Cherry-Picking.

Of course cherry picking can be a dangerous thing, what with the acid in the cherry and the pips and all. If you look back into Blair's murky past, you can find him boasting about how as a royalist he saved Australia from becoming a republic - thereby putting the country only a heart beat away from long being reigned over by bonnie Prince Charlie, as raging a global warming fiend as can be found on the planet (and why is Blair so strangely silent on the matter of the raving loon royal?)

It's all great fun, feeding the chooks this kind of confected chance for a little spleen venting. It's surely a living, but is it a life? Why am I reminded of the Jesuits, and their hair-splitting ways? It seems Little Green Footballs has stepped out of the tent, and might even be gone for awhile, while the hard core faithful remain inside the tent crooning their scepticism about anything and everything to themselves.

Hang on, I've got it. Blair and his gang are just like those old fashioned Trots and Stalinists. Why is it that the hard right and the hard left end up looking and behaving exactly like each other, and over life's journey, often end up switching sides, so long as they can stay firm, upright, unbending and inflexible, and in a righteous way? Is there something in the psychological make-up that requires certainty over doubt and inquiry?

As usual, we must turn to the gospel of Python for insight and enlightenment:

Reg: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really hate the Romans.

Brian: I do!

Reg: Oh, yeah? How much?

Brian: A lot!

Reg: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah...

Judith: Splitters.

P.F.J.: Splitters...

Francis: And the Judean Popular People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

Loretta: And the People's Front of Judea.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

Reg: What?

Loretta: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.

Reg: We're the People's Front of Judea!

Loretta: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.

Reg: People's Front! C-huh.

Francis: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?

Reg: He's over there.

P.F.J.: Splitter!

(Below: spot Tim Blair in the photo).

Tory Maguire, Brooke Shields, Bill Henson, child pornography and further questions for Australia's most fatuous conversation

Shocked by the above image? Think it's paedophiliac, sick and disgusting, dirty and outrageous? Creates uncomfortable, disturbing thoughts in your mind?

Please see a psychiatrist, they can sometimes help a troubled mind. Let's place the image in context:

Yep, it's The Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome aka The Vision of St. Jerome, painted 1526-27 by the Italian high Renaissance artist Parmigianino, and last I knew it hung in the National Gallery in London (I ripped this incomplete frame from a book on the artist, you can find more details online at the National Gallery and a better picture (here)).

Does it change anything to realize you're looking at a portrait of the young Christ, complete with small penis, done in the florid style favored by Parmigianino's inspirations, such as Correggio, Raphael and Michelangelo? The painting's interesting on a gestural level (the dynamics of the figures) as well as the graceful elongation of the work, but perhaps you got caught up in a primal response, and didn't think of the work as art.

Perhaps you still don't. Perhaps you still find it somehow queasy, sick inducing and disturbing, because there's something sexual and erotic about the image? After all, it features a nude child. Never mind if he's the son of god.

No worries, go read Miranda the Devine. She'll confirm your prejudices are surely worth a small moral panic. Perhaps fig leaves should be deployed world wide, or Vatican style, offending bits and pieces smashed off or painted over?

Art is always in the eye of the beholder, but again can I suggest if you feel that way please consult a shrink. They can help.

Because nudity isn't pornography, and a nude child isn't an invitation to paedophilia.

How are we back on this tired old saw?

Well it's no thanks to Tory Maguire, who in The Punch, Australia's most feeble and fatuous conversation, yesterday yet again tried to stir the possum with Is it child porn if the subject is famous?

Using the news that the Tate Modern in London has just withdrawn a picture of Brooke Shields taken when she was ten, she takes the opportunity to trawl through The Blue Lagoon, and Pretty Baby, and then in case you're wondering what the fuss is all about, she provides a convenient link to an uncropped version of the controversial photo in question, available at artist Richard Prince's own website (and here it is, so she doesn't get any bonus hits out of this particular bit of shamelessness).

I don't think much of the piece by Prince. It's pretentious - with referential maquette in foreground, and a vulgar flourishing of steam - and at the centre a coy oiled up pose which is reminiscent of cheesecake. So I'm not running it here.

Up against the best works of Bill Henson, it shows its age, and its provenance - photos taken on assignment as a result of Brooke Shield's mother's determination to give her daughter a showbiz career.

Naturally Tory Maguire can't resist dragging Bill Henson into her column:

The scandal at the Tate has been likened to the Bill Henson affair in Sydney last year when police raided the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington and seized some of the celebrated photographer’s works.

And by whom has it been so likened? Well the likes of Tory Maguire, even thought the situations are entirely different. But still it allows her to get off a random shot at Henson:

I was uncomfortable with some of the shots, not because I thought dirty old men were going to go to the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery to get off on the pictures, but because I thought the children involved were too young to decide for themselves whether or not to take part.

I also reckon it’s very easy for a photographer to cloak their work with an artistic purpose like “exploring innocence”, or “provoking thought.”

For the love of the lord, go tell that to Parmigianino, and hundreds of others. Because you know it's very easy for bubble heads to slur photographers with sly innuendos about misuse and abuse of artistic purpose, especially when misrepresenting someone like Bill Henson.

And you know the funniest thing? I'm not such a big fan of Bill Henson, but when you read the level of musings on offer from Maguire, I suddenly have a deep sympathy, because indirectly and by way of innuendo, she's hinting that he's a fake and a fraud, cloaking porn with the contrivance of artistic purpose.

It's about as offensive as she can get without calling him a child pornographer directly. And all the more outrageous that in the process of slagging off Henson, she provides a link to a photo by Prince of much more dubious quality and merit.

Does that mean I can call her a child pornographer, as she cloaks her real intent with a 'journalistic purpose' that means she can hide behind being fair and balanced, and interested in discussing the 'puncturing of innocence' and the 'provoking of thought'?

Well it wouldn't be a wrap in this kind of column without an attempt at a redemptive disclaimer:

The subjects of the Henson pictures had their anonymity protected it they choose that.

And then a final flurry of floozies:

Shields has none. She now has to live with her entire childhood as part of the public record.

Her entire childhood as part of the public record? You mean a couple of photo shoots and a couple of movies? Or the standard biogs we get as fans slobber over their favorite stars? Or perhaps Maguire's talking about the way she's shamelessly provided a link to Prince's photo, so if we weren't aware - or didn't care - about the public record, we could be brought up to speed.

By being told these photos are somehow naughty and arousing. Well check out the mote in your own eye before you start telling me about the mote in mine ...

Which brings up my own question. Is Maguire part of the cure, or part of the disease? Part of the spread of discomfort throughout the intertubes? Part of a media willing to trade in moral panics just to crank up the hits?

Never mind, I tend to think that anyone who looks at art and gets sexually aroused is likely to be mistaking the point of the art. If that's it's only ambition, then it's a very limited and limiting ambition ... the distinctive quality of porn is that it just gets on with the job at hand, and doesn't worry too much about arty farty nonsense.

Meantime, here's a few nude images to go on with. See how they work for you.

How about we start with a photo of nudists by Diane Arbus?

Okay, still not cooking? Well how about a couple of works by John Currin? He's always controversial, and sells well, and some hate him and some love him for his post-modernist irony:

Still not sure? Well how about Marilyn Monroe?

Ah, at last some decent art! I can't generally recognize art, but I like it when I see it, and perhaps now I'll get busy curating a retrospective look at nineteen fifties calendar art as signifiers of a pop art sensibility. And the patriarchal stare.

What do you mean, they've already done that?

Oops, drifted off the track a little bit.

What's all this got to do with art in general? Absolutely nothing. Does it answer the question "Is it child porn if the subject is famous?" Not really.

As opposed to the equally incisive question "Is it child porn if the subject is infamous?" Probably not.

As opposed to the insightful question "Is it child porn if the subject is completely unknown?" Only if you're determined to be silly.

As opposed to the perplexing question "Is it child porn if the subject is exploited for sexual purposes irrespective of whether they're famous or the janitor's daughter?" Remind me which tabloid rag you work for again?

Or the more problematic question: "Is it art if a journalist wants to write a story about child porn?" Come again? Oh no, when I wrote come again, I didn't mean that ...

Perhaps all we can hope is that we've gone a small way towards answering the quintessential question: "Is it really a fatuous stupid question if the questioner framing the question is a journalist in search of a quick, simple minded column?"

Oh heck, how about we just get back to landscapes and urban decay. The 25 best of urban decay will get you going, and here's a couple of figure-less samples:

Henry Ergas, Bundanoon, bottled water, and a mug punter born every minute of the day

(Above: the sweet shops of Bundanoon).

Not content with saving Australia from the national broadband network, Henry Ergas is determined to save the small town of Bundanoon from its anti-bottled water folly. Bad economics not harmless, his header shrieks, and then he's off at a canter into the latest incorrect political thinking calamity:

Last Saturday, Bundanoon made headlines as the first town in the world to stop the sale of bottled water. Nestled in the hills of NSW's southern highlands, Bundanoon, with its environs of spacious country homes, seems more likely to figure in magazines such as Town & Country, if they still exist, than to be splashed across the world's press.

But no sacrifice is too great to save our planet and the good people of Bundanoon, when next they feel the hark of the bubbles, will have to break out a bottle of Bolly rather than bellow for the Perrier.

Which of course entirely misses the point, because the canny burghers aren't just giving the water away. This, from that esteemed paragon of reporting news from the south, the Illawarra Mercury, under the header Bundanoon gives up bottled water:

Retailers in the Southern Highlands town will now only sell refillable water bottles. The basic Bundy on Tap bottles will sell for $3.50 - around the same as a commercial bottle of water - while a commemorative bottle will sell for $29.

Bottles can be refilled for free with chilled filtered water available in stores. From today, four filtered water stations on the street will operate 24 hours a day and another water station has been installed at Bundanoon Public School.

29 smackeroos for a commemorative bottle as the curious punters who land up in town to gawk at the hicks as they sell the punters fancy bottles and then offer them the bonus water for free?

By golly, Henry could do with a bit of that kind of spirit while reviving his currently in financial trouble consulting business.

Henry also resolutely misses the point about the Bundanoon action - which apart from generating commemorative bottles at 29 bucks a hit - is ostensibly designed to draw attention to environmental concerns, on the basis of what's now routinely termed localism.

Henry buys the argument and tries to prepare an economics brief to tear it down:

The paradox, of course, is that Australian consumption of bottled water is far more likely to be too low than too high.

If the choice really is between the bottled stuff and the flow of the tap, then it is surely relevant that water charges in Australia are generally below efficient levels.

Were water charges to fully reflect costs, including the value of otherwise forgone environmental uses, demand for imported water should and would rise.

Far from being derided, those annoying young women one sees sipping water hauled from the fjords of Norway should therefore be hailed as public benefactors who selflessly ignore distorted relative prices to help save the Murray.

I recognise what irks the voters of Bundanoon is that bottled water comes in bottles. That it indeed does is difficult to argue with. But tinned tomatoes come in tins, silken tofu in plastic and designer muesli in cardboard boxes. If we are to ban packaging, let's be even-handed about it.

Which is as charmingly stupid and irrelevant set of points as only an economist could muster, when Bundanoon, when you think about it, is acting like any small, desperate, huckstering for attention country town.

When, for example, was the name of Bundanoon last on Henry Ergas's lips, before the current outcrop of interest generated by the bottled water ban? Who knows - he might have travelled beyond the Hume highway, beyond the Illawarra highway to the gateway to the Wingello State Forest - but I doubt it.

Now maybe he'll make the trip, to gawk or marvel at the economic folly of the small town of plastic bottle rebels. Why he might even laugh at their naivete and fork over 29 bucks for a commemorative bottle. Well maybe he wouldn't go that far, but he might buy a pie with sauce before heading on his way.

You see, every small town needs a gimmick. Where I come from boasts the greatest country music festival in Australia, and quite possibly the world, and when you come to think about its breadth and dimensions, almost certainly the universe. Nearby, even the small hamlet of Nundle manages a Chinese themed festival (a riff on the old gold mining days, even if the Chinese were hated in those days), and an art competition, and a day dedicated to a great dog race.

Scratch most country towns, and you can find them busy working out an angle to attract the punters, from the classy - like Mudgee mixing wine and classical music - to the contrived. And into that honeyed trap has stepped the verbose Henry to babble on about how the burghers have missed the point.

Still, if he doesn't make the trip immediately, they've no doubt reserved a space for him on the 17th April 2010 when Bundanoon turns into Brigadoon:

For one day every year the mythical village of Brigadoon rises from the mists, and Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands become Brigadoon - one of the world's largest Highland Gatherings.

Hundreds of pipers and drummers, a street parade, massed bands, Highland Games (toss the caber!), and hundreds of stalls, displays and activities.

Bundanoon is Brigadoon normally attracts up to 20,000 visitors from around Australia, and is one of the major events of the Southern Highlands.

Not to be missed! Whether you are of Scots ancestry, or looking for one of the most enjoyable and interesting of days out with the family, a trip to Brigadoon (perhaps on the steam train) will be a day to remember.

Lots of things to do and see, and heaps of activities for the kids to join in.

Go Henry. Fun for all the family, and you get to keep your commemorative 29 buck bottle and fill it from the tap at home! For free!

Never mind, I'll keep on drinking bottled water as Henry demands, nay, as he insists, as a way of making a point about freedom and choice and anti-wowserism and being trendy and keeping up with the young in Scandinavia, but I'm afraid this time it's Henry who's missed the point with his ideological zeal for freedom of choice, and his rant about economics:

However, it would be more sensible to simply ensure prices for packaged goods reflected any otherwise unaccounted environmental costs they may cause, which, on the best estimates available, are likely to be extremely low.

Of course, merely getting prices right would hardly seize the world's attention. But it would have the great benefit of not preventing those who enjoy the taste of fizzy water, or who hanker for those strange combinations of water with what are loosely described as flavours, from indulging their preferences.

I think that passes for an attempt at humor from Henry, but it's hard to tell when someone so dessicated isn't in fact just sounding like a coconut. Hmm, perhaps it's time for him to make a booking to see the play Dimboola, staged in Dimboola by Dimboolans for the paying punter, with the next performances on Friday 30th October and Sunday 1st November as part of the 150 years celebration - not to mention that there's now water in the Wimmera, and the town still offers bowls, a brass band, a DMSC Hall of fame Dinner, a concert, a birdwalk and a school open day. And so much more!

But yes, I think Henry is trying to be frivolous, and even - dare we say it funny - though that might best be left to an expert like Jack Hibberd.

This is not to say that prohibitions have no place. After all, Moses brought down from the mount 10 commandments, not nine relative price signals. You shouldn't be free to murder me, no matter how much pleasure you would derive: the optimal number of murders, at least of me and a few others I can think of, is strictly zero. But why shouldn't you be free to drink water from the oases of the Sahara, if that is what you want and are willing to pay for, rather than that provided by the oh-so-prosaic water utility?

That said, Bundanoon's ban, however ill-conceived, only affects the people of Bundanoon, who, after all, have brought it on themselves. No such inhibitions afflict the national Preventative Health Taskforce, which would have us all live in flinty rectitude.

Yep, these verbal pyrotechnics are a bit like watching an elephant dance after it's suffered an anal probe. It's funny, but not entirely in the way the elephant might imagine.

Which is funny really, because Ergas purports to be a sensual hedonist of the first water, terribly upset by the Preventative Health Taskforce suggestion that we might be better off getting a little slimmer and drinking less.

Usually this is the turf of a Miranda the Devine logic trap. First rabbit on about how ladettes should turn into ladies and stop their binge drinking ways so they can be demure and learn to sew, and then get outraged about big brother nanny state bureaucrats turning us into an Orwellian nightmare by attempting to tax alcopops.

Henry doesn't bother with any of that. No, he thinks it's a great idea for us to all get as bloated as elephants and pissed as parrots.

For a start, the taskforce is just being a bunch of Savonarola Pollyanna wowsers, and second their calculations are all wrong.

Like somehow the drongoes think that when you've had a third drink, somehow the health benefits of the first two drinks will disappear, as if by drinking in excess you'll somehow fuck your brain cells or perhaps affect your kidneys or your liver. When it's well known that you have to have at least ten drinks within the half hour before that happens.

Just like the well known health benefits of cigarette smoking only kick in when you're on forty a day, so that you too can develop a healthy understanding of the joys of emphysema.

But Henry isn't really that concerned about health issues, not when he can roll out that all time favorite adjective of those dedicated to a world of choice:

It would have been better if the taskforce had grappled with these issues before dispatching us to a future in which an Orwellian national prevention agency sends tobacco control workers to implement strategic goals of smoking reduction.

Yep, Orwellian yet again! If that dedicated socialist George Orwell knew how many times the likes of Ergas abused his name in the cause of free markets, he'd be revolving in his grave faster than a Stalinist sent to a gulag.

And after all this, since perhaps, it might seem silly of Henry to suggest that getting lung cancer or rotting your brain with grog is hardly the most sensible of activities, how to round out a very Seinfeldian column about nothing?

Well of course there's the standard mealy-mouthed Savanarola, Pollyanna waffle disclaimer:

None of this is to denigrate well-meaning efforts to improve our lot.

WTF? So we've been reading the standard diatribe about choice and costs and Orwellian futures to find out that none of this is to denigrate well meaning do gooders and wowsers and their interfering ways? Please explain:

But woolly thinking is no way to save the world. And reliance on bad economics, a preventable disease that has reached epidemic proportions, is or should be a crime. Until it becomes one, the world will not be safe for drinkers. Not even of bottled water.

Woolly thinking? Henry old chum you're the one with the wool, and you're likely to get fleeced by an expert shearer.

Please, please make sure Henry Ergas never gets to Bundanoon. They'll have the 29 bucks out of him for the commemorative bottle quicker than a flash, and he'll think he's being handsomely treated when they fill it full of water, leaving just enough room for him to toss in a dose of gin, so he can wash down the smoke from his coffin nail ...

(Below: and since silly old Henry doesn't know how to play the country game, here's a cap of the 'Bundanoon is Brigadoon' site, proudly displaying its Bundy on logo. You can access the site here, and take pleasure in the news that the major sponsors include a couple of Scottish shortbread suppliers. Och aye.

But at the same time, since we live in Orwellian times, it would be remiss of me not to pass on in full the risk warning attached to the front page of the web site:

RISK WARNING - Wingecarribee Shire Council, Bundanoon Highland Gathering Committee Inc - CIVIL LIABILITY AMENDMENT (PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY) ACT 2002
The recreational activity you are about to engage in or be a spectator at may cause you physical harm. For example, because of the risk of being injured by • tripping and falling • being proximate to vehicles and machines • collision with an object • something that falls or is propelled forcefully on you • a support giving away unexpectedly and • other kinds of accidents including things done or left undone negligently in the management of this activity.

Och aye).

Thomas Sowell, Obama, Hitler, South American dictators, a banana republic and everywhere bananas

(Above: cartoon by Doonesbury. Punchline below)

The intertubes are full of such wonders and weird strangeness that it's rarely necessary or wise to stray too far from home.

But every so often I go for a romp and then return home with some treasure - a mouldy sock, a long buried bone, or some marvel of illogical thinking.

Like that presented by Thomas Sowell, in The Brainy Bunch, almost as a way of proving that he's certainly no member of the brainy bunch. Not even the Brady bunch.

His thesis is elegantly simple, necessary if you intend to be profoundly dumb, and re-write history to fit your viewpoint:

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

First Sowell slags off Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose policies are increasingly recognized as having prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s. rather than ending it. Neglecting to mention that this view has been lathered up by conservatives anxious to demolish FDR, while studiously ignoring the response of Herbert Hoover to the depression (why did I not guess that Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution).

And instead marveling at how depressions used to end on their own, much faster without government intervention or massive government spending. Come to think of it, what was wrong with the feudal system and monarchical rule?

Why next he'll be marveling at how wars used to end on their own, without government intervention or massive government spending.

Sorry, got that wrong. Next he'll be contemplating how governments can't seem to run a decent war these days, when it should all be left to private enterprise. So he pauses to contemplate Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's mis-handling of the Vietnam war under Lyndon Johnson, while studiously failing to mention the mis-management under Nixon. Presumably that's because Nixon qualifies as a dull or stupid person:

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to overestimate their own intelligence, more fundamentally they tend to overestimate how important individual brilliance is when dealing with real-world problems.

Well ain't it grand that the bombing of Cambodia, and the regime of Pol Pot can't be counted as a truly monumental disaster. Unless of course he thinks of Nixon as a man with a high IQ.

It occurs to me that as a stupid analysis of monumental disasters, that's pretty ... stupid.

Based as it is on some exotic notion of how Forrest Gump would do better at most things up against people who can actually work out how the world works, and deal with it. Because you need to set up the kind of false dichotomony: dumb = clever, smart = dumb, which come to think of it is about as smart as spending an hour arguing over whether white is black, or vice versa, or whether most situations tend to verge on the grey.

The kind of argument only a dumb cluck with devious intent could manage.

The intent of this dumb cluck? Why once again to compare Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, thereby proving that stupid is as stupid does when it comes to breaking Godwin's Law with impunity:

Many crucial things in life are learned from experience, rather than from clever thoughts or clever words. Indeed, a gift for the clever phrasing so admired today by the media can be a fatal talent, especially for someone chosen to lead a government.

Make no mistake about it, Adolf Hitler was brilliant. His underlying beliefs may have been half-baked and his hatreds overwhelming, but he was a political genius when it came to carrying out his plans based on those beliefs and hatreds.

Ah yes, Hitler was a brilliant orator, full of clever phrases, like Lebensraum. Remind you of anyone? You know, a clever orator full of half baked hatreds, a deviant political genius?

Starting from a position of Germany’s military weakness in the early 1930s, Hitler not only built up Germany’s war-making potential, he did so in ways that minimized the danger that his potential victims would match his military build-up with their own. He said whatever soothing words they wanted to hear that would spare them the cost of military deterrence and the pain of contemplating another war.

Ah yes, so damnably clever with the soothing words, while building the world to war. In Iraq and Afghanistan for starters. Oops, sorry, wrong President.

He played some of the most highly educated people of his time for fools — not only foreign political leaders but also members of the intelligentsia. The editor of the Times of London filtered out reports that his own foreign correspondents in Germany sent him about the evils and dangers of the Nazis. In the United States, W. E. B. Du Bois — with a Ph.D. from Harvard — said that dictatorship in Germany was “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.”

Ah that'd be the Du Bois who at the end of his life became a naturalized citizen of Ghana. Remind you of anyone? Anyone from Kenya?

And if you want a full review of Du Bois and his assorted eccentricities, which ranged through a full 720 degrees of the political spectrum, go here. Quoting Du Bois as a man with a Ph. D. as part of a thesis of the kind being mounted by Sowell is an even more extravagant device to prove the point that stupidity has a wondrous universality.

But how to link Hitler to Obama, without actually seeming to do so? Well how about spreading FUD?

In an age when facts seem to carry less weight than the visions of brilliant and charismatic leaders, it is more important than ever to look at the actual track records of those brilliant and charismatic leaders. After all, Hitler led Germany into military catastrophe and left much of the country in ruins.

Yep, a brilliant man left the country in ruins. Remind you of anyone? No stop it, stop mentioning George W. Bush. He's the dumb stupid kind who can leave a country in ruins, which is not the same as a brilliant charismatic man leaving a country in ruins. That's so much worse.

Now I won't feel sated unless we mention a crackpot South American dictator:

Even in a country which suffered none of the wartime destruction that others suffered in the 20th century, Argentina began that century as one of the ten richest nations in the world — ahead of France and Germany — and ended it as such an economic disaster that no one would bother to compare it to France or Germany.

Politically brilliant and charismatic leaders who promoted reckless government spending, among whom Juan Perón was only the most prominent, managed to create an economic disaster in a country with an abundance of natural resources that had been spared the stresses that world wars had inflicted on other nations in the 20th century.

The only good to come from Perón? Didn't he inspire that musical with that wonderful song, Don't cry for me Michelle Obama.

Stop it, you're missing the point. Which is how much Barack Obama's style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots. He's not just like Hitler, he's the spitting image of Juan Perón.

Why? Because he's clever and I don't like his policies, and the GFC had nothing to do with George Bush, but perhaps had something to do with Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and certainly FDR.

Don't believe me? Let Sowell tell the story:

Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama’s style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots — the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses, and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. Do we want to become the world’s largest banana republic?

Reading Sowell's column, I did indeed think that America had already become a banana republic, and Sowell was well on his way to becoming a chief banana. Stupid is as stupid does. Or as the new testament put it, Ye shall know them by their fruits.

And his column, which dresses up simple dislike and irrational prejudice in the guise of rational argument, is genuinely fruity.

How mad is the right in America these days?

"There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the 'Obama problem.' Don't dismiss it as unrealistic...A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible."
-- Newsmax columnist John L. Perry

Well as the great Harry Belafonte used to sing:

Day-o, Day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-ay-ay-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Work all night on a drink a' rum
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Stack banana till the mornin' come
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home

It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot BUNCH!
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot BUNCH!
Daylight come and me wan' go home

(Below: really I only wanted to write about Sowell so I could put up this Doonesbury cartoon. More Doonesbury here).

Miranda Devine, Roman Polanski, the Catholic church, Bill Henson, shrillness and moral panicill Henson

(Above: Roman Polanski directing Nastassja Kinski in Tess, based on Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urvervilles).

Things are hotting up in the world of opinionated opinion-makers and shakers and breakers, at least in the hothouse world of the newly badged National Times sub-division of The Sydney Morning Herald.

Eager to suggest the extreme value of the new boutique label, the editorial team have generously been distilling and bottling up to two serves of the likes of Paul Sheehan and Miranda the Devine in a week, perhaps on the basis that double the loonacy will entice subscribers into paying for such generous helpings (but my mother always taught me that swimming immediately after a double serving of ice cream was sure to make you very sick in the tummy).

Anyhoo, it's not just me that's sick today. It's Miranda the Devine, and as she outlines in Repulsion: Polanski's horror story, she's sick, sickened, sickening:

How sickening is the chorus of sycophants and enablers defending Roman Polanski, the 76-year-old Polish director arrested at a Zurich film festival over a three decade-old statutory rape case.

Well let's not brood too long on the Polanski matter, with the world seeming to have divided into the revenge at all costs, never forget, never forgive school - with Miranda the Devine amongst that cheer squad - and others in a more forgiving mood, including the victim.

Well the Devine won't hear anything from the victim - as if justice depended only on the attitude of the victim. She's in the hang him high, hang him hard school (no doubt helped along by him being a film-maker and an intellectual and a darling of the liberal elite):

Polanski was a sexual predator. Who cares if it was three decades ago? Who cares if his wife was butchered? Who cares if the victim has grown up and absolved him? None of that is the point. If he were a Catholic priest arrested for child sex abuse 30 years ago there would be no pleas for leniency, nor should there be.

Well there's compassion and generosity of spirit for you. Who cares if his wife was butchered, who cares if he survived the holocaust and his relatives didn't? Who cares about anything, except the need to shed blood to redeem the past.

But um, there's just one problem. Catholic priests arrested for child sex abuse 30 years ago tend to have been treated relatively leniently, whether brought to court or seeking shelter within the church, by being shifted from parish to parish.

Indeed if you want to explore the Catholic church's relationship to child abuse, as usual there's a wiki on the subject on the header Catholic sex abuse cases, but frankly I find it too depressing to read, especially as with all this evidence, few will talk about the elephant in the room - the compulsory vow of chastity which lightly taken opens the door to children in the classroom.

If you're a glutton for punishment, you can even take a look at the Irish Commissiont to Inquire into Child Abuse's report, which can be accessed here.

Or you could read The Guardian's short hand summary here.

As for the Devine's own attitude to the Catholic church, you can get the flavor here in Beauty personified on our streets:

The joy and sweetness of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims who flooded into the city, in the words of Cardinal George Pell, simply "overwhelmed" the rancid negativity of sections of our sex-fixated media, and those aggressive secularists who regard religion as an irrational threat to their way of living.

Uh huh, well lucky that Polanski's crime has nothing to do with aggressive religionists who regard secularism as an irrational threat to their way of living. Or does it?

Polanski's defenders complain those who think he should face justice are "shrill". But the shrillness is from them. It is the same tone we heard from the defenders of Bill Henson's right to photograph nude 13-year-olds, who branded those opposed to exploiting naked pubescent children as philistines gripped by "moral panic".

In this cowardly age, cultivated people seem terrified of being seen as unsophisticated on such matters.

Now what does the matter of the Bill Henson photos controversy have to do with the crime or Roman Polanski? In other, more world weary times, this would be called conflation - wrap up one issue with another, and damn all and sundry, never no mind the lack of relevance.

And if you want shrillness of tone, can you imagine anyone being more shrill than Miranda the Devine, especially when she gets a chance to smote mightily at all those who labelled her as a shrill purveyor of moral panic when it came to Bill Henson? As an unsophisticated philistine?

Oh heck, how can I resist the temptation. Bring me that sorbet, while I call her an unsophisticated philistine.

And what on earth - in this cowardly age - leads her to suggest that cultivated people (as opposed to what, uncultivated people?) are terrified as being seen as unsophisticated on such matters.

Is it possible to confuse a crime of rape - as confessed by Polanski - with photos that were - at the time of the controversy - labelled "mild" and safe for many children, with the Director of Public Prosecutions advising the plods that any prosecution of Henson was unlikely to succeed?

Not really. (You can find a neat summary of the moral panic and the scandal here at Refused Classifcation, a handy guide to all forms of censorship in Australia).

Only the Devine's tormented, conflicted mind could conflate such a range of prejudices, as always using events in the real world to flail away and foam in indignation at her many perceived enemies.

Polanski did the crime, and evaded the time, and now the law has caught up with him. He's well-heeled enough to wheel in lawyers in his defence, and the prosecution is still determined to nail him. So it goes.

He doesn't need vigilante justice from the likes of the Devine, and nor does the victim, and there's no need for the Devine to go over the top and far away by calling this a cowardly age (as if there was some heroic, brave age? In her dreams, perhaps, but not in reality, unless you like to think of war and death as heroic activities).

I guess it's the job of a scandal monger commentariat columnist to whip up hysteria and moral panic - that way you get more attention paid, and the more extreme the view, the less rational the consideration of the issues involved, the more likely the shit-stirring will result in attention being paid.

But somehow I'm still feeling like I've just had way too much ice cream, and instead of going for a swim, might lie down for a little while. And as for the Herald charging for this kind of content? Well I can get the details of Polanski's case from The Smoking Gun - just as Miranda the Devine did - and I can get the shrill hysteria about Polanski and Henson from dozens of sources (not to mention any amount of detail about paedophilia in the Catholic Church).

Still not seeing a business model in conflation and moral panic and shrillness. But hey maybe that's why I'm not an intertubes business person ...

(Below: and now to get you in a moral panic, here's a Bill Henson photo that toured NSW as part of a retrospective exhibition under the aegis of the NSW Art Gallery, with nary a peep, back in 2005. The work's untitled #106, 2000-2003).

Piers Akerman, Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust, and a mountain of horse dung

(Above: an old League of Nations cartoon from Punch - the original and interesting Punch, that is. The title was"Moral Suasion" and the caption: The Rabbit: 'My offensive equipment being practically nil, it remains for me to fascinate him with the power of my eye.')

Searching for the truth at the Daily Telegraph is like looking for kernels of wheat in a mountain of horse dung.

From the unscientific blather about global warming from our own Piers Akerman and meaningless posturing by Tim Blair and his colleague in bubble-headedness Glenn Milne, the nuggets are rare, and when they fall, the do so largely unnoticed.

Well it's an opener of sorts, and of course it leads us to Piers Akerman, bashing away as usual in A playground for the vile and dangerous, in which he manages in his usual offensive way to link Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama with Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad. Here's how he does it:

Searching for truth at the United Nations is like looking for kernels of wheat in a mountain of horse dung.

From the unscientific blather about global warming from our own Kevin Rudd and meaningless posturing by Barack Obama to Libya’s President for Life and Eternity Muammar Gaddafi and his Iranian colleague-in-evil President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nuggets are rare and, when they fall, they do so largely unheard.

Akerman, a regular United Nations denier, is irritated that both Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad were given an opportunity to deliver numbingly tedious addresses at the United Nations. He might have - if he was so intent on moving these leaders outside the fold - spent some time on the way Gaddafi has been allowed back inside the tent because of the need for Libyan oil, with Britain leading the charge. Or he might have wondered why the powerful movement for change within Iran is being tip toed around by foreign leaders intent on not upsetting the Iranian oil cart.

But then he might have to discuss the so-called nonsense of so-called peak oil and the pinch the west is already facing in relation to its preferred forms of transportation.

He might also have had to explain how the world would be best served by excluding all the half-baked tosspots and dictators from the United Nations, which is supposed to be a forum for discussion of world issues, a world body where even a mad uncle is allowed into the venue. In much the same way as Wilson 'Ironbar' Tuckey is allowed to stay in the Liberal party.

But the main point of Akerman's column is that the Holocaust did indeed occur, an issue which he seems to think has been made only an issue by the ravings of Ahmadinejad. When of course the likes of David Irving (here) have long been a feeder of this flame, and especially on the loony right in the United States, there remains much talk of international conspiracies involving Jewish control of banks, resulting in the recent GFC (yes, Holocaust denying is just one branch of the conspiracy theorist business).

Well, let's not go there. There's your everyday loon, and then there's the holocaust denying loon, and that's where loonacy shifts from amiable eccentricity into offensive behavior.

Instead, let's see where Akerman's recognition of the reality of the Holocaust takes him, as he quotes Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Ahmadinejad:

“Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.”

Netanyahu said the current Iranian regime was fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that had in the past 30 years swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims.

“It has callously slaughtered Muslims and Christians, Jews and Hindus and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times,” he said.

“Wherever they can, they impose a backward society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed a true believer is brutally subjugated.”

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress and strengths of the 21st century.

The allure of freedom, power of technology, reach of communications should surely win the day.

Oh yes, suddenly Piers - who hates the National Broadband Network and wants it thrown away - is a believer in the power of technology and reach of communications. Suddenly he's a believer in the rights of minorities and gays, except blacks who live handsome lives exploiting the Australian taxpayer, and gays who insist on outrageous absurd notions like gay marriage (two bolts in search of a nut, or was it two nuts in search of a bolt).

And suddenly he's a believer in the rights of women, unless that involves him giving up the sly innuendo he loves when talking of women and their rights. Well not so sly really, since Akerman uses the word 'feminist' as one of his strongest term of abuse (as in that feminist Quentin Bryce), even more heavy hitting in terms of perceived loonacy than socialist or environmentalist.

But perhaps the funniest bit of incoherent, illogical contradiction? Who is going to do something about Iran and its nuclear weapons? Which organization should we call upon to take a stand?

Yep, you guessed it. The United Nations.

But, he pointed out, the most urgent challenge facing the UN was to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The big question is whether the member states of the UN are up to that challenge, is the international community prepared to confront a despotism that terrorises its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Unfortunately, there is no moral clarity at the UN, as Netanyahu says, the jury is still out and recent signs are not encouraging.

Curse you UN, curse you to hell. Just like women really. You can't live with 'em and you can't live without 'em.

Oh and one last note from one of Piers readers, correcting any false impression his readers might have gained about the Holocaust from Akerman himself:

Indeed. To deny what happened to the Jews in WW2 is to be an accomplice after the fact. It should never be forgotten. However, I have serious reservations about the 6 million figure. I also think the suffering and murder of other non Jewish groups in the camps has been radically understated. Does this make the holocaust any less significant? NOPE! Because it is not about numbers. If even one Jew or Christian or Muslim was killed for their beliefs then that is an atrocity.

Dearie me. It's not about the numbers. So now we argue about the numbers, diminishing them, while contemplating the suffering of non Jewish groups? To what end? For what purpose? Suddenly talk about 6 million is reduced to the atrocity of killing one person for their beliefs?

But then searching for the truth in the comments section of Akerman's blog is like looking for kernels of wheat in a mountain of horse dung ...

Should we judge Akerman on the basis of his comments section? Well no more than I'd judge the usefulness of the broad temple of the United Nations, which by its nature must open its doors to all kinds of maddies, because it is also one of the few alternatives to unilateral action (such as the United States recently attempted) and one of the few international structures that offers mechanisms for dealing with the likes of Iran and North Korea.

Unless we'd like to return to the nineteen thirties, when the League of Nations fell under the weight of the combined lunacy of the Axis powers. The entry in the Wikipedia (here) is revealing:

When during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the League accused Benito Mussolini's soldiers of targeting Red Cross medical tents, Mussolini responded that Ethiopians were not fully human, therefore the human rights laws did not apply. Benito Mussolini stated that "The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. In May 1933 the League was powerless to convince Hitler that Franz Bernheim, a Jew, was protected under the minority clauses established by the League in 1919 (that all minorities were fully human and held equal rights among all men). Hitler claimed these clauses violated Germany's sovereignty. Germany withdrew from the League soon to be followed by many other totalitarian and militaristic nations.

When even Piers Akerman suddenly becomes a supporter of communications technology like the NBN, and concerned for the rights of minorities, women and gays, I guess we'll just have to stay in that mountain of horse dung, and start fossicking for kernels of wheat.

Second thoughts, perhaps Akerman should keep up his perennial abuse of the UN. We could always have a third world war as an alternative to negotiations and speech making, in much the same way as those who degutted the League of Nations marched eagerly towards the second world war and the Holocaust ...

(Below: another Punch cartoon on the fatal weakness of the League of Nations, from the Wiki on the League. Everything changes so it can stay the same?)