.no Sleep no sleep no sleep no sleep and no mad Video machine to eat time.

Well I suppose I do have a mad video machine of sorts.

This is the third night I'm unable to sleep properly because of my flu. I start drifting off to sleep, then I have to get up, blow my nose, cough a bit and drink some water to get rid of the disgusting alien goo that has slid down the back of my throat.

What I really need is a good light read - some kind of fantasy epic or space opera, but the only books I have unread are on philosophy and programming, neither of which I'm up to at the moment.

And tomorrow I'm supposed to be introducing my students to William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. Oh dear.

Dead poets against the war #1 - William Blake

I wandered down a crowded street
Where men and women cryed aloud.
And on each angry, fearful face
I thought I saw a funeral shroud.

"What brings you here?" I called to them.
One answered, with a frightfull stare:
"We come to bury Albion,
Killed by the bloody hand of Blayr."

"Who is this Blayr?" I asked of her.
She answered, with a rueful smile:
"He works the mills of war each day,
And speaks of Mercy all the while.

"And though he speaks of Freedom too,
And spreading Justice far and wide,
He binds our souls to Urizen,
And never leaves his Master's side.

"He sends our sons to far-off lands,
And tho' we see the last of them
He says their deaths, and others' too
Will build a new Jerusalem.

"A Serpent rules America,
And Liberty lies lost in sleep.
The daughters of dead Albion
Have nothing now to do but weep."

Dead poets against the war #2 - e.e. cummings

dubya was born in the land of the free;
his i's were ice, his tongue was fire
he tried to put food on his family;
and fought to make the pie much higher.

dubya is not a revengeful man;
they misunderestimated his toil
our children is learning (as best as her can)
to die in the desert defending his oil.

The Beastly Hun

The Australian Prime Minister's speech today took a number of people by surprise, largely because he was actually committing himself to a political position, which apparently is quite unusual for this administration. What interested me was the way, in order to justify Australian participation in any war on Iraq, he dwelt on Saddam's atrocities in loving detail, talking about children having their eyes gouged out and so on.

I am confused. I thought the reason for our going to war with Iraq is that Saddam Hussein is in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Or is developing weapons of mass destruction, or at any rate has some weapons of some kind, which are probably quite destructive. That is what UN resolution 1441 was about, and the general consensus of world opinion is that either Saddam doesn't have these weapons, or doesn't have enough of them to pose a serious threat, or has them but isn't likely to use them unless, of course, he is attacked by America. Now we are being told that we should be making war on Saddam because he tortures his own citizens.

If the UN were actually to agree that member states would use military force to dpose any government that killed and tortured its own people, I'd say "By jingo, let's go and show those filthy blighters what for!" Unfortunately, such a resolution has never been on the table, and will not be for the foreseeable future, since if the non-torturing states were to declare war on the torturing states, they'd be seriously outgunned, especially if you count American treatment of Taliban prisoners as torture.

What we are seeing here is just another variation on the "Beastly Hun" rhetoric of the First World War. German soldiers were supposed to routinely rape nuns and bayonet babies (ironically, they probably didn't commit any atrocities of note in the First World War, though they made up for it in the Second).

Persuading people to go to another country and kill people they've never met is not easy, and persuading your public that it's a fine idea is no easier. Every little atrocity helps.

( Dulce et decorum est )