Bizarre, bewildered and unconscious

Recently I've seen an interview with bizarre Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) and frankly, I didn't think him all that funny. But now, it seems, he's got the Hysterical Women's Lib up in arms ("It doesn't really matter that a woman's brain is smaller than a man's", or words to that effect). Now I'm all for him. Long live Borat! That he may continue shocking the P.C.s for a very long time to come. In fact, I can even do better than that: here's The Unofficial Site! Watch, read, listen and imagine the indignation ... enjoy!


Which brings me to a very pressing bit of discourse, which I thought we were done with some forty years ago, when it became the done thing to poke fun at royalty, clergy and authority. Compared to what we are seeing today, makes what was done then, seem like a stroll in the park. Elsevier is reporting about a website (geenstijl.nl, no style dot nl) for youngsters (pfff, am I getting old!) which shows a girl being sick by undue cannabis use; this picture is obviously hilarious and the author is paid due homage as the true hero that he is. Clips and footage shown on this site are often undergoing an editing process for comic and unseemly result and never mind facts or truth. One of it's victims (who is no angel himself!) is considering legal action; the authors so confronted had one typical reaction: "Krijg de tyfus", which means exactly what you think it does! As if that is not representative enough of the moral and philosophical low ebb of the discourse, one commentator's contribution to the critical article in Elsevier is "your attempt at censoring annoys me" (Ik vind de sensuur ... storend"). Let us pray ... long and hard!


It's not all bad news though. The BBC is reporting that Pakistan's parliament has voted to amend the country's strict Sharia laws on rape and adultery. There may be some hope yet of bringing Islamic practice somewhat into step with what we have come to think of as universal human rights and civilization.


Back to polder now where a right-wing politician Marco Pastors, a follower of the assassinated Pim Fortuyn, makes no bones about the self-censorship under Islamic fundamentalist duress of journalists, comedians, columnists, politicians, and so on and so forth, in short the apologists, appeasers and cowards:

The islamization of The Netherlands resembles the growth of Nazism in Germany
in the twenties and thirties (red. of the last century). The extremists are setting the agenda and the establishment sits idle.

It's a bit of a tall order (?) and it is after all campaign time, but I am reserving judgment until 20 years from now.