Archbishop Arsehole stays mum over corruption

Amid claims of Nigeria’s presidential elections being conducted in the same climate of anarchy and corruption (see this report in today’s Independent) that marked last week’s general elections, you’d have expected the moral fulcrum of the nation, Archbishop Arsehole, to have a word or two of reproach and guidance.

But no. He’s got other things on his mind. Like an anti-homosexuality bill imposing five-year sentences on people accused of deviant behaviour (like, er, sharing a table in a restaurant).

Maybe the dozen or so churches in Virginia whose congregants voted to join Arsehole’s archdiocese in December (you don’t believe me? Read this) are immune to the moral dilemma of electoral corruption. They know from their own experience that a dangling chad is a small price to pay to keep the nation pure.

Travelling

What’s in a name?

According to this story, The University of Florida is about to be forced to rename its education school the Jeb Bush College of Education.

Whatever next? The Berlusconi College of Business Probity? The Ratzinger College of Religious Tolerance?

Minima

Hey! I’ve lightened up! I’m tired of being confused with all those gloomy, moody blogs that think dark is cool. It’s spring, the swallows have arrived, it’s time to let in a little clarity.

What do you think?

It’s official: Foeti go straight to heaven

Eggs Benedict pronounced a couple of days ago that Limbo no longer exists.

We’re still waiting for announcements on Narnia, Moominland and Gotham City.

Dirty business

Reports have emerged of a massive toxic waste dump found in Abruzzo, one of Italy’s loveliest and most unspoilt regions. The largest dump of its kind in Italy, and probably in Europe, it’s the work, not of the Mafia, traditionally involved in illicit dumping, but of a nearby chemical plant.

Investigators know who’s responsible, but may not be able to do very much about it. As Patrizia Fantilli, a legal expert with WWF, said:”Italy’s laws on ecological crime are too weak.” She might have gone on to say that the government that passed the law decriminalising activities of this type by businesses was the work of polluter extraordinaire, Silvio Berlusconi.

Little Britain

It’s reassuring to know that the ‘normal family’ continues to be the most suitable environment in which to bring up children. Don’t believe me? Read this. Or this.

Berlin, Belfast, Baghdad…

Good fences may make good neighbours, as Robert Frost said, but there’s little doubt that the building of a 12-foot-tall wall through the middle of a city is an indication of something more destructive than a desire for neighbourliness. Yet that’s what the US army is doing in Baghdad. Its purpose, according to a press release from Camp Victory, is to “protect the largest predominately (sic) Sunni neighbourhood in east Baghdad. The wall is one of the centrepieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence.”

A venture that begins with the stated aim of introducing democracy to a country and ends up by dividing its capital into two by night has clearly lost its way. Sorry. Changed strategy.

Peckish?

This comes from the label of a small jar of a local speciality. The hairs have been removed.

Fortuitous errors

In the following line from, I think, Letters from Iceland, ‘And the ports have names for the sea’, Auden originally wrote ‘poets’, but preferred the printer’s error and left it as it was.

Similarly, in the previous post, I intended to say ‘home-made wine’, but actually typed ‘hole-made wine’. This captures the flavour, foetid, unsunned, acidic, of the stuff so perfectly I’m going to take a leaf from Auden’s book.