Ho Bloody Ho

A vision of things to come was provided for us in New Zealand this week, with the Singaporean Government using security guards to belt a few union organisers in Palmerston North. The union folk were trying to get a better redundancy deal for some call centre workers whose jobs are flying off to Manila for the duration. When the ACTU described call centres as the "sweat shops of the 21st Century" they weren't kidding. In a time honoured fashion plod has decided to charge the union organiser for repeatedly headbutting a security guard's fist. A fan of this sort of harmonious social interaction between labour and capital, Mr Peter Hendy, has packed his comb-over and left the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry - where he did such a sterling job defending WorkChoices with such success at the recent elections - and has gone onto the staff of the obviously doomed Dr Brendan Nelson. The good Doctor appears intent on surrounding himself with intellectual and social winners in much the same way that General George Custer surrounded himself with the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn. Why Nelson would plumb for such a Capital L Loser as his chief of staff is anyone's guess - perhaps no one else wanted such a poisoned chalice. Meanwhile, back in the real world, we slouch towards Bethlehem and K Mart as the annual festival of consumption rattles apace. I am avoiding Sydney until this whole thing blows over as I have reports of how that whited sepulchre is descending into a hell hole of third world proportions. It appears, from reports, to be suffering from an epidemic of 'Freedman's Disease' - a condition named after the frontman for the band The Whitlams - symptoms include a vastly exaggerated sense of self importance, a propensity for impotent violence, and a vacuous worshipping of of middle class banality. A town where creativity is competition and the nearest thing to a soul is on the bottom of your shoe is best avoided. After all, the next big thing planned is the post Christmas sales, where mild mannered people claw and scratch at each other to get hold of 'stuff'. It makes cargo cult riots in Papua New Guinea seem mild by comparison. We live in dark days indeed. The one redeeming feature was confirmation this week of something I had hitherto suspected for some time - this report from the delectable Annalee Newitz reveals that humans are not much smarter than dogs or monkeys. I believe that monkeys are probably, and dogs certainly, a lot smarter; as any witnessing of a post Christmas sale will evidence. The blog that never sleeps will be continuing to spew forth right through the festering season. These are the last days, and someone needs to keep these clowns accountable.