Is it the season for silliness? I thought that ended when the kids went back to school. Here's the first of two really classic examples:
Michelle Obama yesterday described health-care reform as "very much a women's issue" and said the current system was preventing women from achieving "true equality".
Right, I understand. Men have no place in healthcare. We're robust and macho and need no provision - therefore that's why we're so racist about the issue in America, even though many of us are not in America.
Understood.
And of course, with logic like that, it really is preventing women finding "true" equality, only ... if there are no men involved in healthcare, then does the hegemony of women constitute "equality" or "positive obliteration"?
The second is this beauty from a conservationist:
The campaign to eliminate alien species like grey squirrels and rhodendrons from Britain is a form of "eco-xenophobia", according to a leading conservationist, who claims native plants and animals are doing just as much damage.
Eco-xenophobia. Yep, that's a good one - prefixing the phobia of the month with "eco" to produce a new issue PCists can rail against, presumably with the gayist, feminist and racist war already won.
When we lived in Soiuth Australia there was a campaign to exterminate exotic ducks; horror was expressed at their pernicious tendency to crossbreed with the native species. I took to referring to the crosses as "Cape Coloureds". Unfortunately, the Aussies bright enough to see the joke did not include any Greens.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem with fanatics, they undergo a sense of humour bypass.
ReplyDeleteMethinks that is a black squirrel, not a grey quirrel. The black ones are truly evil little things. But they look way cool!
ReplyDeleteDearieme - I refer to this tomorrow morning.
ReplyDeleteQuiet Man - yes.
Mark - do you know your squirrels? I don't.
You always find the good ones James! Well done.
ReplyDeleteHmm that is a pretty stupid expression. I doubt the mouth breathers of the BNP et al will not be adding the eradication of japanese knotweed or the grey squirrel to its manifesto
ReplyDeleteSome alin species are a menace - the knotweed, giant hogeeds for example. Other invaders are benign and now for part of the landscape eg Fuchsia magellanica hedges in S W Ireland
I just read what Michelle Obama said in context, James and of course she doesn't suggest that healthcare issues don't affect men or that you poor dears never get sick. She points out that a lot of U&S women are discriminated against in healthcare because women are more likely to have part-time jobs and a lot of the companies that employ them do not provide sickness cover. At least she's getting out there and saying what she thinks rather than sitting in the White House looking pretty and owing her atatus to her man.
ReplyDeleteI think the "eco-xenophobia" label is quite a good one. Poor little squirrels!