Glob-a-log

Now, this is quite interesting:

“The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns ants into zombies and makes them stagger to their death has been uncovered by scientists. The gruesome hallmark of the fungus’s handiwork was found on the leaves of plants that grew in Messel, near Darmstadt in Germany 48m years ago.”

Of course, human beings don’t need a fungus (or any outside help, be it animal, vegetable, mineral or Scriptural) to behave like staggeringly stupid zombies – as the following story shows:

“Poll held before Ground Zero mosque furore finds 18% of people believe US president is Muslim, not Christian.”

Talking of stupid zombies – and Muslims:

“A Muslim woman who works as a hostess at a Disney-owned restaurant filed a discrimination complaint against the entertainment giant Wednesday, saying they have repeatedly sent her home without pay for refusing to remove her headscarf at work.”

It probably should leave me feeling confused and unsatisfied but I actually find it quite liberating – at times even exhilarating – that more and more news stories of a confrontational nature have me snorting in contempt for all the parties involved, which very much includes the journalists or TV talking heads who feel the need to feed us this pap…

… which is less wholesome, tasteful or ethically sourced than a Central Park hotdog at the tail-end of the Fourth of July (or a kebab at the fag-end of a Friday night pub crawl in Newcastle.)

The only question this sorry piece of journalistic fast food shite raised with me was if there was a Halal/Haram viewing list for Disney characters…

… or for working with them, since my other thought was that the litigious Imane Boudlal could simply have worn her headscarf under one of those mascots’ heads.

Back to that vexed question of kosher characters though.

Ducks are obviously okay but those three little pigs should be a big no-no.

Equally, Mickey’s faithful companion, Pluto, would be terribly Haram, dogs being unclean and all.

It’s harder to give a simple answer about the suitability of a Mickey suit (or mere head, if you don’t feel the need to go the full burqa.)

One simple Google search told me that you do have Halal mouse pads. On the other hand, the mighty Google also informed me that mouse paddies are decidedly Haram, so perhaps a good Muslim shouldn’t wear a Mickey head, whatever a certain Palestinian TV programme suggested…

… which could, on the other hand, explain how some, slightly less sophisticated Muslims might believe working for Disney would be the dream job for any true believer, wearing a headscarf – or a Kalashnikov:

O tempora, o mores – as Julius Caesar used to say each time his troops had been defeated by a village packed with doped-up Gauls:

“A new McDonald’s advert featuring Asterix enjoying a hamburger and fries has sparked outrage among French comic purists who claim the Gallic hero has surrendered to the American fast food chain.”

Is nothing sacred, then?

Will we see adverts featuring Mother Theresa playing a slot-machine in the latest Russian owned casino opening in Saint Tropez?

Will we have to grin and bear it through another televised UNICEF do, presented by a knickerless nitwit whose agent told her charity is the new sex tape?

Will we have to witness the Disney Company signing a contract with the Republican Party, offering to use the latest computer technology to slightly alter their old classic movies – so that we may see a sexily yet demurely drawn Sarah Palin as Snow White and a hagged-up Hilary offering her that famous poisoned apple?

What do you think?

What do I think?

Well, call me a cynical so-and-so but I’d say that the last paragraph of that article I quoted above gives us a pretty good idea where we are heading:

“[D]espite the country’s reputation as the birthplace of haute cuisine, the French have shown their love for the American chain with their stomachs: France is the company’s second-most profitable market after the United States. It is also the country where customers spend most money per visit.”

(How the mighty have fallen, indeed…)

Ah, how the mighty have fallen…:

“In July, one of the longest losing streaks in the history of culinary combat finally came to end. According to the Nielsen Company, 52-week dollar sales of packaged wheat bread topped those of white bread for the first time in U.S. Supermarkets.”

On the other hand, and talking of the end of another long losing streak, it’s not all bad news…

… for today we can announce that things can – and will – only get better in Afghanistan:

“In a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with The Washington Post, [General David Petraeus] said he sees incipient signs of progress in parts of the volatile south, in new initiatives to create community defense forces and in nascent steps to reintegrate low-level insurgents who want to stop fighting.”

Ah yes, my friends, the dance goes on and on…

Now in the Post there are two pretty pieces
There is one where Death comes to cry
With a lobby of Afghanistan salesmen
Made of trees where the doves go to die
There’s a piece of white bread torn from the morning
As it’s banned from the fridge and your plates

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws…

… or something. (Sorry about that, Leonard!)

Ladies and gentleman, a big hand please for the most astoundingly stupid question asked this Millennium…

… and no, it wasn’t young Levi Johnston asking Sarah Palin if it was okay for him to call her Mom again.

It’s this:

“American cinema is omnivorous. It has swallowed almost every subject from the trivial to great historical events, and then spewed them up. However, there is one subject it has refused to tackle directly: the bombing of Hiroshima and its consequences. As it is now 65 years since the horrific event, the omission seems even more astounding.”

Astounding?

Only if you have very, very bad taste – or the brain of a quail (senior or junior.)

Whatever you think about the decision to drop those two bombs on the civilian population of two large cities, to expect Hollywood to go all John Wayne about it, or give it an angst-y Woody Allen comedy make-over would be a bit much…

… or a bit like asking why the National Association of Catering Butchers don’t show a clip of the death of Bambi’s mother at their annual convention.

Now, here is something that had me nodding in grave agreement – someone who is not afraid to state the democratic emperor is wearing no clothes; someone, in effect, who says that the people are right stupid; who is talking about ’serious misrepresentations’

“that the public, often pretty gullible in these matters, is inclined to accept at face value.”

Indeed.

It made me think of all the snake oil salesmen that have conned that same public so successfully and greedily from that first serpentine apple vendor onward to the latest mad hatter Tea Party promoters on FOX News.

Our gullibility has made us believe in virgin born Saviours who turn water (and blood) into wine,

in Gods with elephant heads,

in prophets calling down child-eating bears,

in a saint defending a golden temple with his head in his hand,

in UFO based and Kabbalah For Dummies sects that have made themselves fishers of celebrities…

… and, to return to Christianity for a moment, in a religion that claims that the once and future Hitler Jugend leader of a world wide paedophile network is Christ’s replacement on the earth.

So, yes, it’s hard not to agree with that anonymous sage I quoted at the start of this post.

Humans can be fucking stupid – or ‘pretty gullible in these matters’, if you insist on being polite.

Which simple observation doesn’t become any less valid when we learn who, so hilariously inappropriately, made this claim…:

“Father Gerald O’Collins, author of over 50 books and professor of theology at the Gregorian University in Rome for over 30 years, will publish a book later this month taking on Pullman’s assertion, in his novel The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, that “this is a story”.

“Jesus is not in a position to correct misrepresentations, especially serious ones that the public, often pretty gullible in these matters, is inclined to accept at face value,” O’Collins [said.]”

Let’s start with a poem by Koi Bashi – one that was used as dedication by Sheri S. Tepper in her wonderful novel ‘Sideshow’. The poem is called ‘Man’:

heaven longing ape
angel who stumbles
blind light bearer
who falls and fumbles
worshiper of error
seeker after truth
hurting and aging
lover of lovely youth
wild beast raging
craven and brave
freak of fashion
and custom’s slave
puppet of passion
lowest and loftiest
a sideshow gape
god’s fool, nature’s jest
heaven longing ape

So, a few days ago, I used a quote from an article by Times writer Simon Barnes. This one:

“In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver, in the land of giants, boasts to the King of Brobdingnag about the advanced technology that humans have created for warfare. The King replies: “I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.””

In case you wondered, today’s column is not about me being struck blind en route to Damascus. In other words, I’ve not converted to the ‘That’s why I love mankind’ church…

… but, as with all things, you can introduce witnesses for the prosecution as well as witnesses for the defence…

… and as strange, and even perverse, as it might seem, today’s two witnesses for that defence come with tales that have their roots in one of the most disgusting periods in human history – a history that’s not exactly shy of episodes that would revolt your average Brobdingnagian monarch.

I’m talking about the Holocaust – and if you don’t mind, I’ll stop talking now. I’ll just leave you with these two tales. Make of them what you want; take comfort from them if you can…

… and us being these ‘heaven longing apes’, God knows we need all the comfort we can get.

1) “A Jewish Holocaust survivor who danced with his family at the entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp and other Nazi death camp memorials has attracted a growing following on the internet with a film of their performance. Adolek Kohn, 89, a former Auschwitz prisoner who is now an Australian citizen, said the video, which shows him, his daughter Jane and her three children bopping to Gloria Gaynor’s hit song I Will Survive, is meant as an affirmation of life and stands as a celebration of his own survival.”

2) [T]he Tour of Poland set off from Oswiecim, the Polish town better known since the second world war as Auschwitz. Before the start, the riders assembled outside the gate of the main extermination camp. Stijn Devolder, the Belgian champion, was the first to remove his helmet and sunglasses, and the rest followed suit. Silence reigned while a rider from each of the 34 countries in the field stepped forward to place a rose at the spot. “The emotion,” La Gazzetta dello Sport reported, “had no nationality.”

One of my favourite writers in The Times is Simon Barnes. He mostly writes about sports, and about wildlife, but everything his pen touches turns to gold.

He is both level-headed and passionate and has a good eye for the absurd.

He would probably make an excellent after dinner speaker but when you read him you also feel he would be perfectly comfortable being a silent and attentive guest at any table.

Anyway, yesterday I read another one of his ‘nature notes’ and, as always, it was a pleasure to spend time in his company.

You should read the whole article, of course. Birds feature heavily – as do bombs and grenades, including an atom bomb turned tourist attraction…

… and this is how he ends the piece:

“It’s a banal thought to end a really remarkable day, but someone’s got to have it. Think of all the money, and all those brilliant minds, working here in secrecy on this strangely lovely spot, giving the best we had to the ideal of killing as many people as efficiently as possible. What if — I mean really, just think — what if all those millions and all those minds had given themselves up to the task of looking after the planet rather than killing people? Life, not death?”

It’s a good question but not one that would enter the mind of a politician, bureaucrat or general.

Pete Seeger wrote the song and the voice of Marlene Dietrich turned it into a monument, made of indelible notes & tremors.

It’s not the title but it’s the one unforgettable line: “When will they ever learn?”

The answer: Most probably, never.

Simon Barnes chose another voice from the past, to make the same point – and since this post is more about him than about me, I will happily give him the final word:

“In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver, in the land of giants, boasts to the King of Brobdingnag about the advanced technology that humans have created for warfare. The King replies: “I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.””

Today, I’m not going to talk about Iran’s justice system…

… or the tempest in a tea cup row between Britain’s Prime Minister and the president of Pakistan…

… or about the first all-female crew to try and sail to Gaza…

… or rightwing Diggers…

… or the latest (fears of escalating) violence in Rwanda…

… and yet, in a way, I’m talking about all of these matters – or, to be more precise, it won’t be me who will do the talking, because, today, my ‘Thought For The Day’ is, luckily for you, not one of mine but something both more profound and articulate than I could ever manage – so take it away, Mr Rushdie:

“So we are paradoxical beings, both individual and social, both of our time and part of history’s flow. We are mortal but have, like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, immortal longings in us; and contradiction is our life-blood. There are great social benefits in such broad definitions of the self, for the more selves we find within ourselves the easier it is to find common ground with other multiple, multitude-containing selves. We may have different religious beliefs but support the same team. Yet we live in an age in which we are urged to define ourselves more and more narrowly, to crush our own multidimensionality into the straitjacket of a one-dimensional national, ethnic, tribal or religious identity. This, I have come to think, may be the evil from which flow all the other evils of our time. For when we succumb to this narrowing, when we allow ourselves to be simplified and become merely Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Hindus, then it becomes easy for us to see each other as adversaries, as one another’s Others, and the very points of the compass begin to quarrel, East and West collide, and North and South as well.”

(Milking the immortal Cleopatra angle indeed…)

As T.S. Eliot – more or less – wrote:

“The Naming of kids is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a child must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.”

Et cetera.

Enough with the poetry though; it’s time to climb that old soap box again.

So, far be it from me to question the wisdom of the New Jersey State Appeals Court but…

… oh well, whom am I kidding: They’re a right set of plonkers – as the following case shows:

“A US couple who gave their children Nazi-themed names, including “Adolf Hitler Campbell, have been denied custody by a New Jersey court. Their children – Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell – have been in foster care since January 2009.”

Let’s first say though that I do think that the parents of these children are most probably unfit to raise dandruff, let alone kids but then they are hardly the first or the last ones you can say that about.

People being people, you will always have a fair share of those who, to use a phrase I’ve used before, would most probably drown in the shallow end of the gene pool.

You have your political nuts, religious fanatics and those who think their children will thrive on a strict diet of Big Macs and jumbo milkshakes. God or the ghost of Darwin knows how many children live(d) miserably blighted lives because of the idiocy of their parents…

… but I’m not sure it’s the state’s place to judge which set of potential parents can become actual parents with the judiciary’s blessing.

There are exceptions to this, obviously. The state should be there to actively frown upon parents who want to sacrifice their children to Baal or Jaweh, or those who mutilate their daughters’ genitals, or those who starve them, beat them or sexually abuse them.

We have, so to speak, been there, done that, bought the headlines – and yet I would say that the state should not interfere if the madness of parents does not directly threaten the well-being of the child and I’m not so sure naming your child ‘Adolf Hitler’ should count as reason enough to take that child away from the parents.

Still, these parents were easy pickings, I presume. They’re probably what’s so lovingly called ‘trailer trash.’ The kind of folks we watch and laugh at on the Jerry Springer Show.

I seriously doubt these kids would have been taken into care if their parents had been rich, or politically well-connected.

I mean, yes, to call your child ‘Adolf Hitler’ is insane and quite vile but not much more so than to raise it in the belief that God is an alien, all psychiatric help is wrong and women should give birth to their children in silence – while even aspirin supposedly interferes with ‘forming mental images’, so good luck with that last bit…

… but even if he had lived within their legal grasp, I seriously doubt the New Jersey State Appeals Court would have taken little Suri away from Tom Cruise.

Ah yes, now to be a Shakespeare and to declare, with one hand on my heart and the other on my bulging, bald forehead…:

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on”

… though in truth, the following line is more in the ‘As B-movies are made on’ category:

“Sir Winston Churchill is at the centre of a cover-up as the Ministry of Defence release new UFO files.”

So, what I want to say is, “Never mind those bleeding UFOs: You’re saying ole Winnie is alive and well – like Elvis…??!!”

Now, that would really be a ‘Stop the presses!’ moment.

It’s a pity he probably is still dead as a dodo wearing a Monty Python T-shirt, ’cause I would love to have heard what he might have to say about the current and quite recent incumbents of No. 10…

… or failing that, he would have looked truly magnificent on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ or, perhaps even better, ‘Dancing on Ice’…

… and yes, Elvis would have been a sight for sore eyes too, during those eating challenges on ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here’.

What…?

Oh, you want to know more about those UFOs?

Okay, but then I will have to bow out now and leave you to the tender care of the dead parrot – I beg your pardon: the immortal Sweet Swan of Avon:

“Our revels now are ended. These darn UFOs,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless rumours of these visits,
To cloud-capp’d council flats, the gurgling sewers,
The solemn strip clubs, all over the great globe itself,
Yea, all these space ships shall dissolve,
And, like an insubstantial fantasy faded,
Leave not a taser behind. Little green men are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and the journos’ little lies
Must turn sensible folks to sleep.”