The apocalypse:

Justin Templer writes: Re. “Rundle: in the face of blinding hypocrisy, the apocalypse goes on” (yesterday, item 3). Guy Rundle is much cleverer than I am, or maybe vice versa — I’m never sure. But certainly his latest meanderings through the mystical fields of the neos of religion and conservatism left me wondering.

Of the failure of Professor Camping and his rapturalists to reach apocalypse on the predicted date Rundle writes that:

“…the excitement and sheer glee with which their inevitable disappointment was awaited was a new thing … In part it was a measure of the weakness of militant neo-atheism as a movement, its perpetual need to have (sic) the most absurd religious expressions to ridicule.”

Quite nicely worded but … no. So-called militant neo-atheists enjoyed it because they regarded the proposition as no more ridiculous than those made by organised religion and yet it could be shown to be wrong.  Organised religion is more careful with its propositions — you have to die to prove your case.

Rundle then complains about the “fervent attention” paid to the rapturalists, after himself devoting paragraphs to the gentle derision of their cause, culminating in amazement at the coverage this non-event garnered from the world’s media and, especially, the (rather spooky) “global network of atheists and humanists”. If you think it’s really all so boring then keep your derision in your pocket and don’t waste our time. Leave it to the atheists and humanists, whoever they are.

Then Rundle was off on a gallop again, suggesting that in the US the Ayn Rand cult has crowded out conservatism on the right. Alan Greenspan (apparently a prominent Randian) and his ilk wish to destroy government and render it unworkable.  If that is true then one might think that Greenspan would rather destabilise the system by (say) founding a nihilistic and contrarian hedge fund, but he seems strangely to have decided to undermine government from inside the tent. A cunning plan.

And then Rundle (because he must somehow rejoin the crazy paving paths) links the potty rapturalists with the equally potty Randians — because (he argues) it is easier to attack  the former than latter, if you are in the attacking frame of mind:

“Jeering at their dazed followers in Times Square (rapturalists) was satisfying because it is all but impossible to make any sort of impression on far more powerful figures — such as Greenspan (Randian).”

Of course, I’ve got it now. This morning I got out of bed intending to attack Alan Greenspan and US banking regulation but I got distracted by the false suggestion that the world might end this month. Who is Guy Rundle?

Q&A:

Peter Lloyd writes: Re. “Q&A: intellectual Wizz Fizz or prunes for the brain?” (yesterday, item 13). The school chaplains question on Q&A “generated a vigorous debate” Peter McEvoy? The result I saw was Eric Abetz denying that the program was religious at all, and getting away with it. And Bill Shorten, a key figure in an ALP desperate to open the city gates to fundamentalist quacks as well, presumably because he thinks Australia needs its own Sarah Palins and apocalyptic doomsday merchants, or perhaps because splitting the right in this way will serve as a substitute for the ALP finding a platform of its own, agreed.

With the party men in general agreement, Tony Jones of course lost all interest in getting at any hypocrisies or inconsistencies.

As Gary Newman and Lindsay Tanner say: no partisan conflict means no entertainment, no smug sniping. Punters want responses to questions that are ignored on a bipartisan basis, and this is where Q&A promises, but fails to deliver. Spot-on, Mr Newman.

Complementary medicines:

Geoff Russell, Animal Liberation SA, writes: : Re. “Why won’t govt put community health above complementary medicines?” (yesterday, item 12). I agree entirely with Carol Bennett that more scam controls are needed on complementary “medicines”, but I’m not quite sure about the bang for buck of such an approach.

ACCC has been active in pursuing a few of shonky operators who pop up, and re-pop up from time to time, but doesn’t care that Meat and Livestock can mislead with blanket advertising about a product which causes 6000 new cases of bowel cancer annually.  I doubt any complementary medicine can boast a body count to compete with that.

The CSIRO told the Australian public that experimental subjects lost more weight on its high protein high red meat diet than subjects on a control high-carb diet … when they didn’t. They sold over a million copies of their diet on the back of that claim. Has any dodgy diet advocated high levels of a food known to cause this much cancer and on the back of a false claim? Not to my knowledge.

So sure, go after the little scams, but don’t forget the really big ones.

P.S. The 6000 number comes from Professor Graham Giles of Cancer Council Victoria based on their research cohort and the attribution of causality is from the World Cancer Research Fund’s 2007 report. The CSIRO made the claim in the first edition of its Total Wellbeing Diet book but a check of the actual published peer reviewed research papers showed that the claim was false (i.e., didn’t match the published data).

Sl-twalk:

Guy Rundle writes: Re. “Feminism is alive and kicking and wearing whatever it wants” (yesterday, item 11). Karen Pickering, in defending Sl-twalk, suggests that I argue that the event is not authentic, not genuinely radical, and not what I want it to be. To repeat an earlier reply: read the article, where I made several arguments in favour of the event.

She then goes on to label all criticisms of the event as being an “anxiety” over not being able to control it. This seems to refuse the possibility that reasonable debate about strategies and purposes is possible — or that some strategies may be, on balance, in error in what they’re trying to do.

That appears to be the criticism that many feminists have made of the event — that it is not merely a strategy they don’t feel comfortable with, but a step backwards, which is a more serious criticism than Pickering makes it out to be — and one which deserves a more serious answer than psychobabble about “anxiety”, or avoiding actual argument with accusations about “control”.

Employment:

Marcus L’Estrange writes: Re. “Rich support middle-class welfare — but not for low income earners…” (yesterday, item 1). Australia doesn’t have a low unemployment rate at all.

Australia’s current real unemployment rate is 20% or 2 million plus, according to the ABS survey “Persons not in the labour force” and I haven’t added in the 800,000 who want more hours of paid employment.

Lest not forget that Centrelink is paying the dole to 1.75 million Australians so I have won the argument almost automatically.

Any reader who believes in the “official” monthly figure of 5% or 600,000 from the “Labour Force” monthly survey might as well go and see Alice in Wonderland or better still join the Flat Earth Society.

Yes, Spain does have a higher rate than most countries but that’s only because they are more honest than most in how they tabulate the figures, that’s all.

Honest John:

Chris Virtue writes: I can recall when the term “Honest John” was created (yesterday, comments). It was during the ABC’s federal election night coverage in 1990.

Andrew Peacock was opposition leader and Howard was on the ABC’s tally room panel. When it became apparent that the Liberals were being flogged, Howard mused about how the result might have been had “an honest man” being leading the party. This lead compere Andrew Olle to quip ironically, “Honest John Howard, eh?”, to which Howard emphatically said “Yes”.

Olle chose not to follow up on this claim of honesty from the man who massively mislead the electorate about the size of the domestic deficit during the 1983 election. Some would say that by 1990 Howard was a proven liar, but I’m too polite.