Archive for March, 2008

Today’s news has been usurped by viral marketing direct from the dungeons of Vatican 2.0. And how pathetic and loathsome these addendum’s are! The addition of pedophilia in particular makes one’s stomach churn with rage when this addition on its surface seems to reek of the Catholic Churches vain attempt to make amends for the sins of its very own. How insulting to the victims. Yet the omission of covering up for pedophiles in the ranks of its priesthood from the addendum is testimony to the phoniness of these alleged “sins”, singing loudly of the churches arrogance and guilt mongering. Its purported infallibility a sham at best and absolutely bestial at worst.  If it wasn’t enough; to add insult upon injury they have now heralded the sinfulness of genetic engineering, all whilst they dish out crackers made from genetically modified wheat metamorphosed into the “body of Christ”. Isn’t this transmutation a genetic modification in of itself anyway? Hypocrisy abounds, the whole remake of sins would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. One need only look at the millions of people the Catholic faith kills with its idiotic and insane demands, case in point; the sin of putting a piece of rubber on ya dick to prevent transmission of AIDS. With such absurd doctrines I am perpetually aghast at how anyone with sane disposition can believe in articles of faith filled with such tripe.

On more insanity infecting the landscape, it was reported on Four Corners that the residents of Camden are riling against the coming of a school espousing Muslim ideals. I sit here in ignorant apathy and am more than a little perplexed by the passionate attitudes by people sitting on both sides of the divide. I personally see no problem with having a school exclusively devoted to the Muslim faith considering we already have Judea-Christian schools and its not all that uncommon for religious memes to infect all manner of peoples to the same incoherent extent. Although it probably isn’t in the best interests for Muslims to build a school where its residents are racially/religiously fired up. It may be of some concern if tensions should escalate beyond peaceable means. But perhaps the media beats up this tension to levels that are not representative of reality. Who really knows but it wouldn’t surprise me if the attitudes of so called Australians are in keeping with media portrayals and on the same token that Muslim sensitivities are offended beyond reasonable comprehension. I’ll not beat around the bush and say I’m outraged by such religious intolerance, however I’d also point out that I’m not at all unsympathetic to the concerns the residents of Camden are expressing. However this Country has in its constitution the freedom to practice whichever religion takes one’s fancy and as citizens of this country it perhaps is the Australian thing to do, to adhere to the constitution lest such religious intolerance is turned towards traditional Christian values also (although it may not be such a bad thing if all religious schools are disbanded all together – especially when Catholicism has announced its particular brand of absurdity to the world and further dumbfounded secular communities around the globe, who now have extra work to do to just appeal to the rational sensibilities of the pious).

Perhaps all the fear and intolerant attitudes that follow are exclusive of religious sentiment and can be transcribed into racial prejudice only, but is it? I can’t really say if religious sensibilities are the cause for all this conflict when I have no experience with religious life. To me any faith is bad faith if it is beyond rational discourse and I couldn’t say one way or another if said religiosity has any influence in the position one has with regards to cultural and thus racial differences and conflict. In any case and in particular Camden; I can imagine that it does play a significant role in fueling intolerant points of view. The fact that the school is explicitly a Muslim school will invariably invoke images of planes flying into buildings, whether justly or otherwise, this appears to be the world we live in and everyday ours fears are somehow reinforced by the slogan “War on Terror” or should it read “War is Peace”?.

It’s hard to imagine that belief in an imaginary God can cause so many problems on so many planes but it does appear that faith in the supernatural does pertain to violent passions and at the very least to idiotic rhetoric. If the school in Camden wasn’t dedicated to Muslims would it have such heated discussions such as those that have been portrayed in the media? Would a secular school for middle eastern peoples invoke such protest?

If it wasn’t bad enough that our Soma, Prozac and other antithetic depressive derivatives were heralded as purely mythical in their efficacy; it seems now Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has metamorphosed into the new Bi-polar Disorder and children as young as two are in the line of sight for frontier psychiatry. Tonight’s Cutting Edge on SBS aired this disturbing trend in medicalising childhood. I don’t know if I ought to laugh or cry at the outlandish hypothesis that children can be effectively diagnosed with such illnesses and to medicate what may very well be normal behaviour seems to be a recipe for disaster. The whole proposition seems counter intuitive and perhaps even ludicrous but that could just be due to my ignorance or bias. I am concerned that the parents in the program were being led into some experimental psychiatry that was beyond their comprehension and that perhaps their own ignorances and fancies of normalcy were influencing their consent in participation of this experiment. Of course it is easy for me to make armchair commentary without really having any experiential reality in parenting or having to deal with difficult children. But still, pumping psychotropic drugs into the mouths of babes seems like an overly extreme way of dealing with the problem.

The questions which arise in my armchair analysis or popcorn gallery perspective are:

• In what way do we judge normalcy and acceptable behaviours?
• How can we judge the moods of children and how do we reconcile deviation from a perceived norm?
• In what way does our own sense of normalcy, thoughts and actions impact upon our children?
• Are we looking for a magic wand?
• Does modern living effect children’s behaviour in detrimental ways ?
• What motivations are involved in the therapeutic and medical community?
• Does every nuance and deviation from the norm need to be medicalised?

In my opinion it is a dangerous road that is being embarked upon when every part of human existence is a symptom of disease, when behaviour is increasingly being managed by pharmaceuticals it seems to me that we are placing an extraordinary amount of power into the arms of business and inevitably Government. Are we effectively allowing a society to become a “Brave New World” where homogeneity is the desired model for society and any deviation from the perfected norm is cast away?