Canaries, craziness and indignation

Indignation. It’s anger aroused by a perceived offence or injustice. I wrote here [1] I have a heightened, maybe overdeveloped, sense of indignation. Or perhaps not, and I’m a figurative coal mine canary [2] responding sanely to a crazy world [3]. The UN’s Commission on the Status of Women [CSW] [4] is an arm of the UN’s Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] [5]. Set up in 1946, the CSW’s the global peak body dedicated to gender equality and women’s advancement. Last week ECOSOC ‘elected’ Iran to the 45-member CSW, for a 4-year term starting in 2011. Iran – a country where women are buried from the waist down and stoned to death for adultery; spousal rape’s not illegal; conviction for non-spousal rape needs at least four male (or three male and two female) witnesses; a man may kill his wife caught in an act of adultery if he’s certain she’s a consenting partner; 50 honour killings were reported during seven months in 2008; a husband need cite no reason to divorce his wife yet a wife must not only cite reasons to divorce her husband but he must sign a document confirming those reasons; laws permit polygamy; employment laws favour men; and family laws grant women 50% of the entitlements they grant men [6]. Yes – it’s a crazy world. And the UN’s a crazy body that mirrors the world’s craziness. If the foregoing doesn’t convince you of the UN’s dysfunction, read this [7]. Indignantly.

farmdoc's blog post number 196

Last Monday I wrote of Philip Roth’s novel Indignation. That got me thinking, and I’ve decided I have a hefty dose of indignation – righteous anger – in me. Here are some matters I’m currently indignant about: The Nine Network extending the contract of the offensive misogynistic ex-footballer in a long-term A$3m deal [1]. Following the recent disgraceful animalistic violence in a Tasmanian forest, the police charging not only three thugs with common assault, but four conservationists with trespass [2]; and the concurring bully-boy statements of Tasmanian premier Bartlett and logging chief Edwards that the conservationists are responsible for the violence [3, 4]. The Victorian Government's backing of the police’s infiltration of community activist groups [5]; its fascist legislation that anyone who’s made a submission on an issue and then become a municipal councillor cannot, whilst a councillor, vote on that issue [6]; its reliance on commercial-in-confidence laws – which it attacked in opposition – to hide from the public how Connex and Yarra Trams will spend A$0.5b of public money [7]; and its pathetic annual bleat that spiralling Grand Prix losses are good for Victorians [8]. Folks, this is nowhere near the entire list – merely a sample. I try not to let my indignation raise my blood pressure. I know society will never be perfect. So I think that to some degree I’ll remain indignant for the rest of my days.

farmdoc's blog post number 190

Over 55 years ago, when I was a skinny little kid attending Middle Park Primary School, my mates and I would sail icy-pole sticks in the holy water at the nearby Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. I couldn’t understand why the people in the pictures inside the church had gold plates behind their heads. I later learned, I can’t recall how, that what I thought were gold plates were really haloes. Since then the only haloes in my life have been halo traction for patients’ neck injuries, and the halo effect. I thought about the halo effect two weeks ago when I was reading Philip Roth’s latest novel Indignation. Born in 1933, Roth is one of America’s most prolific and most celebrated writers. In recent years he’s published a book a year, with Indignation his 2008 offering. I found it immensely disappointing – the plot pedestrian, the writing competent but not extraordinary, and like his recent books, little more than novella length (256 pages, but big print) allowing insufficient scope for character and thematic description and development. Yet it’s been universally positively reviewed [1,2,3]. I wonder if this is the halo effect at work. Or perhaps no reviewer would dare review negatively, the work of as decorated a writer as Roth. I’d like to think I’m wrong and the reviewers are right.