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6-9-02
Quote
of the day
One of
the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's
work is terribly important.
-Bertrand Russell
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Hugh Mackay can stuff up even a Sep.11 article
Australia's
proclaimed intellectual giant Hugh Mackay's great contribution to the
Sep.11 anniversary is his new Sydney Morning Herald column The
fundamental things. A remarkable title, considering Mackay fails to
make any point whatsoever in his murky, waffling prose. It's a stunningly
bad effort, even by his standards.
Some
'choice' excerpts:
Oh,
we try to minimise the sense of doom by our use of that cheeky diminutive,
"9/11", but who are we trying to fool? Are we trying to convince
ourselves that, hey, it's just another date, just another milestone,
just another entry in history's bleak almanac?
Well no
actually, you dummy. "9/11" is the american date-format shorthand
for the whole horrid series of events. Mackay loves answering his own
stupid rhetorical questions.
September
11's significance transcends its appalling death toll. It was a precisely
targeted attack on one of the icons of American capitalism, and a stark
reminder that sophisticated military machines can never protect us from
the fanaticism of the terrorist.
Well, shit
hey! Stunning depth of analysis. Someone forward this to the few highschool
dropouts who didn't think exactly this by midnight, September 11, 2001.
Children
needed to be counselled at school, frightened by the endless repetition
of television pictures of the attack and its aftermath, and, in some
cases, deeply traumatised by the idea that anyone's mum or dad could
go off to work in a big city and never come home. The world began to
mourn the loss of the victims, sharing in the grief of strangers who
appeared on television, bedraggled and bewildered, desperate to share
with anyone the precious recollections of their last contact with a
spouse, a lover, a parent, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a
friend, a colleague.
....and the
revelations keep rolling in. Why isn't this man writing for The New
York Times?
We searched
desperately for the psychological defences, the distractions, that might
protect our minds from the awful possibility that acts of terror might
be visited on us, too.
A beautiful,
classic Mackayism: an emotive, yet vague and quite meaningless suggestion,
bereft of examples or evidence, posing as intellectual insight.
The
New York Times reported an upsurge in visits to New York art galleries
in the days immediately following the attack. Was this because artists
have always been better than wordsmiths at explaining us to ourselves,
preserving our folk memory, and signposting our futures? Perhaps those
New Yorkers were consulting the only oracle they could think of.
Jean Baudrillard
couldn't write such florid piffle. Exactly how many of the millions
of New Yorkers sought semiotic solace in art galleries then, Hugh? You
wouldn't be drawing out more dodgy analysis from cretinous generalisations
would you?
In Australia,
the most significant response to the events of September 11 was the
declaration, heard repeatedly, that we should embrace those we love,
while we have them to embrace.
I must have
missed this declaration. Who made it exactly? Surely Mackay isn't just
- *gasp*! - making this stuff up as he goes, is he??
The
inherent fragility of life is well known to us, but the news of any
act of devastation - war, terrorist attack, plane crash, natural disaster
- punctures our complacency and introduces a piquancy into the conduct
of our daily affairs.
Hugh Mackay's
mind wanders where few others dare: the long-forgotten bloody obvious.
The
real tragedy is that we need such catalysts to rethink our priorities.
But perhaps Wednesday's anniversary will remind us of a universal message:
we need to live as if there's no tomorrow and, in particular, we need
to recognise that love's work - nurturing our relationships, making
our peace - is urgent work.
The scary
thing is that this is probably the most specific and relevant point this
supposedly great social researcher and intellectual has made in years.
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The nasty side of Hanan Ashrawi
The charming,
soft-spoken Palestinian spokeswoman aint
quite as "hugs-n-cuddles" as she's made out to be.
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Princess Di - bah, who cares....
Whaddaya
know, a column
from The Mirror I actually enjoyed. Wish I'd read something like this
5 years ago. Fortunately, Christopher HItchens did an excellent TV show
saying pretty much the same things.
"De
mortuis nil nisi bonum," they say. "Say nothing but good of
the dead," but I disagree. The dead are precisely the ones you
should speak ill of (because they cannot hear you, nor can they sue),
and in Diana's case it has to be pointed out that her stay on this earth
was virtually worthless.
St Diana
(Our Lady of Liposuction) may still be revered by many ordinary people,
but in truth she never had much time for anyone except the rich and
famous when she was alive, unless the cameras were there to witness
her occasional displays of compassion.
SHE lived
a superficial life devoted to pleasure, even leaving her young children
with staff for months so she could sashay off to Australia.
Hehehehehe.
Read the rest of it.
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