Glob-a-log

(Not the company you want to keep…)

I’ve got a lot of time for Jean-Christophe Rufin, the French doctor who was one of the founders of Médecins Sans Frontières but I still have to nominate him as the originator of today’s (Most Idiotic) Quote Of The Day.

It’s as stupidly short-sighted as Palin’s apocryphal ‘I can see Russia from my house’ and as weird & inconsequential as George Bush and his ‘I couldn’t imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah.’

It even manages to be slightly more annoying than the 56 percent of Wall Street bankers who were asked about their bonuses and claimed that they were “not enough.”

Enough already, here’s Jean-Christophe Rufin, writing for Le Monde (as reported in the Guardian), explaining why Lybia is really all about France:

‘Our heritage means people turn to us when their liberty is at risk.’

O, really?

Like the people of Algiers did, when France oppressed, tortured, raped and murdered them…

… or like those hacked to death by machetes and burnt alive in Ruanda, when France sabotaged any international plan to intervene on their behalf?

Or perhaps Monsieur Rufin was simply talking about two of those secret agents who blew up the Rainbow Warrior and murdered one of its crew in Auckland Harbour: Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafar.

Those two were captured by the New Zealand authorities, so, in the words of Jean-Christophe Rufin, their liberty truly was at risk…

… and yes, France and its heritage came to the rescue, threatening the New Zealand government with economic sanctions, resulting in the two murderers being handed over to the French authorities on a nearby French military base, who soon gave the pair two tickets home, where they received a hero’s welcome.

Some heritage indeed.

Look, I’m not suggesting France is the only country with its fair share of sulphurous skeletons in the cupboard; just that it really, really is a stupid idea to serve up these kinds of pathetic and preposterous platitudes.

Better leave those to numbskullish figures like Palin & Bush.

(The only thing that sunk – and sucked – deeper: France’s reputation…)

I’m still reading John Gray’s latest book, ‘The Immortalization Commission’; a weird and wonderful opus – though not something which will disabuse anyone from the idea that humanity is married to both the idea and the reality of insanity.

Or, if you want to take a kinder line, those old T.S. Eliot lines will also do:

‘Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind

Cannot bear very much reality.’

Anyway, this from Gray’s book:

‘Nietzsche’s fantasy of the Übermensch, a superhuman figure that rejected all moral constraints, had a large following in Russia. There were Nietzschean anarchists and Nietzschean reactionaries, Nietzschean Christians and Nietzschean pagans. Later there were Nietzschean Bolsheviks.’

Which reads like the first doodles that will develop into a classic Monty Python sketch. You can hear echoes of both the philosophers’ football match and the various Jewish resistance groups featuring in the Life of Brian.

Still, I didn’t mean to spend too much time with that Nietzschean stuff. That’s just introduction – ’cause straight after the Nietzschean anarchists, reactionaries and what not, Gray mentions a Bolshevik Futurist opera, called ‘Victory over the sun’, that starts with Nietzsche’s famous, if somewhat fatuous phrase, “God is dead.”

On stage a superman sing:

‘We are striking the universe

We are arming the world against ourselves

We are organising the slaughter of scarecrows’

Maybe it’s just me being a bit loopy but I find that line about organising the slaughter of scarecrows terribly sad.

That has nothing to do with the Dorothy books, by the way. I always found that scarecrow a wildly irritating figure.

Still, to me, in a way, the scarecrow is one of those almost Jungian creatures – cousin of the Gorgon and the monster-under-the-bed. They are part of us and without them we would not be human.

So, small wonder that Bolshevik Futurists would boast on stage that they were organising the slaughter of scarecrows.

Only monsters would make a song and dance out of such a squalid quest of self-mutilation…

… and the millions and millions of people who died in various famines and who were tortured and killed in prisons and Gulags still bear silent witness to this mad devotion.

“Alright, so here we are in front of the elephants.”

Isn’t that a great opening line (or, yes, Quote Of The Day)?

Worthy of a moon landing – and wouldn’t that bit of news have rocked the good people of NASA: Elephants on the moon…?!

Sadly, those were just the first words spoken on the very first YouTube clip (and you can read about more geeky firsts here.)

Still, a great line, ‘Alright, so here we are in front of the elephants.’

I mean, consider this bit of news:

‘Filming on the two Hobbit movies has begun following months of delays caused by funding problems, a row over actors’ wages and surgery for its director.’

Wouldn’t it be rather marvellous if the first words spoken at the first press conference after this relaunch had been:

“Alright, so here we are in front of the elephants…

… and one of them just sat on Gandalf.”

So, now we have that no fly zone over Libya. I’m not sure that will actually work. No matter how much money you spend on such operations, be it to buy some cheap sticking paper or the latest stealth missiles, the only thing that really leaves an impression on flies is an ice age…

… and that’s not even talking about the effects on local mad dictators like Gadaffi & Sons.

Of course, Gadaffi is not the target – the way that Iraq was not about regime change, or absent weapons, or human rights, or oil (or whatever it was not about at any given moment.)

Still, if the aim would have been (which it is not, as we have been told by the same reliable sources that gave us all the reasons we were not doing Iraq & Afghanistan) to get rid of Gadaffi, a no fly zone seems to be a weird way to go about things. It isn’t as if Gadaffi’s tent also doubles as his Air Force One.

Not that I know how we could rid the world of this and other mad dictators. Me, I would have no problem if someone would do a Thomas Becket on any of the world’s more incorrigible tyrants.

Will no one rid me of this turbulent…

a) Gadaffi

b) Mugabe

c) Gbagbo

d) Kim Jong Il (et cetera, et cetera)

Then again, you could hardly trust the Dallas Police* with jobs like this (and it would be even harder to train and keep a sufficient number of tame Lee Harvey Oswalds.)

Of course, we could try psychological warfare.

I mean, take this story:

‘Craven Cottage will be the site of a statue of Michael Jackson. The memorial will be unveiled before the Barclays Premier League match against Blackpool on April 3. “I hope that many fans of his will visit the statue and that Fulham fans will appreciate seeing the finest performer in the world, in and amongst them, the finest fans in the world,” Mohamed Al Fayed, the Fulham chairman, said.‘

I know I would cease & desist doing whatever the fuck I was doing if someone threatened to put up such a God damn ugly statue of me anywhere near the smallest and least advertised crazy golf link in the untrimmed heart of Tasmania…

… but would that work for the likes of Gadaffi? Mad dictators are quite famous for their Liberace-esque love of the most garish tat.

So, I guess we’re stuck with dumb shit like no fly zones.

Oh well, just more of my tax Euros at work, I guess – ’cause I’m sure that, like the poor, mad dictators and the Dallas Police will always be with us.

Here’s a nice one for you:

‘An aircraft created by scientists in Iran is, they claim, the world’s first flying saucer.’

Now, I don’t want to upset any Muslim sensibilities but I have to admit that my first reaction upon reading this story was a snorting, ‘If pigs had wings’.

Onwards and upwards with the story, though:

‘The flying saucer was said to have been unveiled at an exhibition of ‘strategic technologies’ attended by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.’

That’s nice.

Anyway, as A.A.K. once said, “The only way to confront the Zionist enemy is the continuation and fortification of resistance and Jihad.”

That and flying saucers, of course.

Still, let’s move on from the world of tall stories and end with a more heavy hitting tale:

‘Kelly Gneiting, a 29-stone hospital statistician and sumo wrestler from Arizona, will become the heaviest person ever to run a marathon if he completes the Los Angeles marathon in California on Sunday.’

Let’s hope more of his colleagues will follow his example. I’ve never quite seen the point of watching people run through the streets of New York, London, Tokyo and Los Angeles – unless they were trying to flee the death rays of some evil flying saucer, obviously…

… but I would pay good money to see a city wide marathon for sumo wrestlers only.

Back to the saucer – pardon me, source:

‘Mr Gneiting, 40, said he wanted to run the 26-mile race as an inspiration to “people who are overweight, have low self-esteem and think they can’t achieve things”.’

Hear, hear.

Mind you, I don’t quite see how the low self-esteem of those who were gravitationally challenged would be raised by having them wear nappies and run through the the streets of Los Angeles, in front of thousands upon thousands of lippy spectators…

… but then I guess people with self-esteem issues do the weirdest things – like going for obscure world records or pretending to build flying saucers in their garden sheds.

(It really does look kinda alien…)



(I can see why Scalzi doesn’t like this Muppet…)

Let’s do another Quote Of The Day post – or make that ‘Quotes’, since I have a rather nice if only casually related triumvirate of them for you.

Let’s start with John Scalzi (from his book ‘Your hate mail will be graded’) who is somewhat disappointed with the line up of new Sesame Street characters, post Henson…:

‘The Zoe Muppet, for example, has a personality of the sort that makes you wish that she were real, so you could stuff her in a sack and drown her in a river and be done with her.’

Though I’d never heard of Zoe, I’m more than willing to hand Scalzi a few heavy stones…

… as long as he promises to pick a bag that’s big enough to put up with a highly obnoxious bit of loose change as well.

Enter 50 Cent, with his Twitter take on the situation in Japan:

“Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoes from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol.”

For those of you who still wonder what the soul of 50 Cents would look like, I’ll give you this final quote, plucked from a QI site – by way of the Guardian’s MBM:

‘When he was old, [the poet] W. H. Auden had an incredibly lined face. David Hockney was once commissioned by him to do some paintings. Upon looking at Auden, Hockney said, “Blimey, if that’s his face, what can his scrotum look like?”‘

Indeed, those man bags would look exactly like the much shrivelled, sad sack soul of 50 Cents.

(Sex & Snackfood: It’s the new celebrity SS…)

Okay, so I admit that it is incredibly unsurprising to hear some expert from the English publishing world describe…

‘the big book trends in Britain as “celebrity memoirs, celebrity cookbooks and Nazis”.’

… and yet: what business opportunities simply beg us to take advantage of these trends?

Nigella Lawson, dressed in a skimpy SS uniform, selling her ‘I kissed Jamie Oliver behind Sainsbury’s frozen Führer food section’ to Hello Magazine…

… while Katie Price announces her upcoming wedding with Gordon Ramsay in the Sun, claiming, ‘When I saw his ‘One Reich, one Frühstück’ tattoo, I knew he was the one’.

Ah yes, and thus the winter of economic discontent gets Lebensraumed by the green shoots of Springtime for Hitler.

I heard about this latest conspiracy theory on Slate, in this ‘Dear Prudence’ column , of all places…

… in which a woman asks advice how to deal with a fiancé, who, amongst other things ‘believes that Charlie Sheen wasn’t always crazy and that someone targeted him to make him look crazy because he said that 9/11 was an “inside job.”‘

Don’t you just love people?

Anyway, I don’t give a good God damn about Charlie’s Sheenanigans. This is the conspiracy theory I’m talking of:

‘JAPAN EARTHQUAKE TSUNAMI CAUSED BY US HAARP-WEAPON ATTACK’

Don’t you also just love people who talk CAPITALESE?

I mean, isn’t it nice of them to walk around with this modern day version of the leper’s bell, giving us continuous updates of the meltdown status of their diseased minds, even before their malevolent spittle reaches our own, relatively sane area code?

By the way, don’t you think HAARP would make a lovely acronym?

Hopeless Arseholes Advocate Retarded Policies

or:

Hitler Abducting Aliens Rape Puppies

or, an even more attractive:

Harassing Aardvarks Ain’t Right, People

(Fire, make your body cold; I’m gonna give you mine to hold…)

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

‘Wood smoke harmful to health and DNA, study finds’

Right.

Wood smoke’s harmful – yeah, and paying attention to every fucking health scare story could seriously screw you up.

Also, inhaling squirrels may seriously damage your health…

… and no sun block will protect you if the sun suddenly chooses to drop from the sky.

So, let’s please stop it with all this bloody nonsense. I know that newspapers need to be filled, each and every day but do we really need all these quite futile memento moris?

We have masses of people dying in Japan and Libya, right now, to name but two trending lethal hotspots.

Most of us will have (older) relatives and/or friends who are close to crossing that final frontier.

Shit, only yesterday I read another column by Christopher Hitchens, who is still boldly (and baldly) refusing to go gentle into that good night that awaits us all.

We know already: life’s the ultimate deadly disease.

So, yes, we’ll snuff it.

Now, could we please just get on with living these brief candle lives of ours?

(… and then we finally understood, if he was fire, then we must be wood…)

Well, of course I was tempted to write about this…:

‘Russian bomb squad called in to defuse sex toy’

… and yes, this story appealed as well:

‘Knee-high fence to halt poisonous Australian toads’

I mean, what’s not to like about the idea of dozens of heavily armed men, aiming their phallic instruments of power at a blameless dildo…

… or to envision thousands of seriously pissed-off garden gnomes, marching on Sidney, complaining that building miles and miles of knee-high fences to frustrate poisonous toads is alright for some…

… and yet, wouldn’t it be nobler in the mind to fling some slings & arrows in the general direction of the stupidity of articles like this…

‘Incest, blackmail, murder – but no minorities in Midsomer, please, we’re English!’

… or, perhaps, this…:

‘Naomi Campbell is opening an exclusive pop-up shop at London’s Westfield shopping centre for charity’

… ’cause what’s not to like about prigs attacking politically incorrect fairytales…

… or violent maid bashers suddenly having a go at ‘exclusive’ charity shopping?

Still, I simply had to decline all these kind – if rather low-hanging – invitations, since I just had to spend some serious head time meditating on this delightful & intriguing headline:

‘Kate Moss gets drunk and seduces a teddy bear’

Yes, it would be so easy to picture the two in bed, afterwards:

Kate Moss, all sweaty and still as cool as shit, lighting that post-coital ciggie, asking the bear if the earth had moved for him too…

… with her partner then being rather spoiled for repartees, either going for:

A) Where do you bloody think you are: Japan?

B) Hey, it was no picnic for me

C) I can’t bear to face my wife now or

D) The fucking things they make me do for charity

(… and if you want your trailer trash even worse, just watch this…)