Couldn't Help Noticing

Some sense on porn

Further to Gordon's letter below, this article by Clive Hamilton in The Australian makes far better sense of the issue.

Glass half full

I was thinking of adopting my friend Sam the butcher's favourite saying as my motto of the week: “Mate, any day above ground is a good day”. But then my mind, cynical and depressive as always, came up with this response: “Yes, but some of us are out there diggin' holes”.

It occurred to me, however, that the book of Ecclesiastes backs us both up:

Sam's bit: “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy...”

My bit: “But to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

See the original in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26.

Pornography research?

Once again the papers fail to recognise literary genius when they see it, and rejected this letter for publication...

Dear editor,

Dr McKee reports that “a little porn is good for you” (The Australian, Aug 17). He discovered this in ‘research’ that asked porn users themselves whether they thought their habit had a positive effect!

This surely has to be a joke—a bit like asking parliamentarians whether they should get a pay rise, or journalists whether they want another drink.

Lobby or litigate

Yet another threat to take a matter of public debate to the High Court (see Funding Challenge).

According to a report in The Australian, a homosexual rights group are investigating the option of a Constitutional challenge to the new definition of marriage being between a man and a woman for life.

The Australian Constitution gives the right to legislate in respect to “marriage” to the Federal Parliament, so you would think that constitutionally the new Act would be on fairly solid ground.

It seems like a vital part of the P.R. game is to show how unjustly you are being treated by threatening a constitutional challenge, no matter how weak your potential case might be.

Sin and cynicism

From Charles Baudelaire, the 19th century novelist, comes this quote:

If I had voted, I could only have voted for myself.

He was referring to the coup by the man who named himself Napoleon III. Both the coup and the quote illustrate sin and cynicism in equal measure.