Author: Mick Hartley

rs.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2007-01-12T142527Z_01_N11166575_RTRUKOC_0_US-DYLAN-1.xml”>Simon Cowell.

Other tracks include the wonderful “Draw Your Brakes” by Scotty, from the soundtrack of “The Harder They Come” (the best soundtrack album ever?). It’s noticeable how over the course of his shows he’s played a quite a number of Jamaican tracks, but all, as far as I remember, from the early days, before what might be called the golden age of the late Seventies. Strange, too, that when he played the Melodians “Rivers of Babylon” (again on “The Harder They Come”) in his Bible show, he didn’t mention the clear Rastafarian significance of the lyrics, given how he likes to provide background details. Still, it’s a minor point.

Then, after reciting W H Auden’s Night Train, he plays the legendary Lord Buckley. It’s a track I’d never heard before – “The Train”. It’s superb.

For those not familiar with Lord Buckley, here’s a good overview. In the old days (phew!) a liking for Lord Buckley was a sure sign that you were hip. Sadly there’s very little on YouTube – just this brief clip from him performing his most famous routine, “The Nazz”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHPrNCQQBvY&w=425&h=350]

There’s also this odd and rather depressing clip from You Bet Your Life in 1956 with Lord Buckley doing his hipster version of “Friends Romans and Countrymen” for compere Groucho Marx. I say depressing because Groucho isn’t, to be honest, very funny (boorish, more like), and Lord Buckley is like a fish out of water in that context: he was better suited to a nightclub with the smell of reefer wafting across the stage. Mind you, “The Nazz” hasn’t dated very well either – it’s more the spirit of the guy which appeals now, rather than the actual lyrics themselves. Or at least that’s what I thought till I heard “The Train”. That’s a feature of Dylan’s shows – the excellence of his selections.

For another take on the Trains show, check out RightWingBob.

, a topic that has stymied philosophers for 2,000 years, is finally yielding to science. Researchers have scanned brains and tickled babies, chimpanzees and rats. They’ve traced the evolution of laughter back to what looks like the primal joke.

If you think you’d like to read the rest of the article to find out what exciting breakthrough they’re talking about – don’t bother. Like so many articles nowadays with the by-line, psychologists have discovered that…, it’s all hot air. What they’ve discovered – or rather, the results that came out of their contrived little experiments – is that laughter acts as a social lubricant, and that generally speaking the more people see themselves as inferiors in a social setting, the more they’ll laugh. To which the reply has to be – well, who knew? If this is unlocking the secret of laughter then discovering that women in shorter skirts attract more glances from men would be to unlock the secret of sex.

As it happens I have my own theory about laughter. Being an astute observer of the human condition I’ve noticed that people tend to laugh more when they’re drunk. Why might that be? I’ve given this some thought, and here are my tentative conclusions…

Consider – alcohol is common to nearly all societies. It clearly serves an important function, perhaps in terms of the necessity for altered states of consciousness as a way of increasing overall cognitive flexibility. If you’re only familiar with one form of consciousness – sober as a judge – your thinking tends to run along familiar and unoriginal lines. Clearly there’s an adaptive advantage to those societies where minds can work from different perspectives, ie drunk or sober. [As evidence for this I might cite the rather poor showing recently in innovative terms of alcohol-free Muslim societies, but perhaps that’s a little too controversial.]

So, given the advantages of drinking – and note here that my theory as to why drinking is important is not significant: the point is that the advantages are there, whatever the reason – it follows that drinking should, psychologically, be encouraged. It should also be a social activity, given that our cognitive faculties are more readily challenged in the company of others, in the cut and thrust of conversation and debate, rather than in solitary contemplation. We evolved, remember, prior to the introduction of books, television or the internet.

So what’s the solution? In a word, laughter. Laughter is our reward for drinking. It is that mechanism whereby the act of drinking is consolidated and reinforced as a social bonding. It is, if I may borrow some Nietzschean terminology here (and try spelling Nietzschean when you’re drunk), a mechanism for ensuring that the Dionysian forces of creativity, intuition, artistic achievement, can survive against the Apollonian call to reason and order – a balance necessary for the very survival of our species.

Well, that’s the theory. All I need now is the money from some forward-thinking institution so I can subject it to those long hours of rigorous testing in the field….or, indeed, the pub.

ans as uncivilized- which is nothing but a lie. In addition to distortion of history, the Zionist Warner Company is also pursuing cultural and political objectives by producing such a film which has a very shallow script. From the cultural point of view, the Zionists and the elements affiliated to the U.S. have tried to launch a propaganda front against ancient and historical roots of Iranians, and the hasty production of this film is an indication of its propaganda aspect. But political intentions of Warner have been more important than anything else. This film tries to paint a violent image of Persians who are against peace in today’s world, in order to increase the international political pressure on Iran. This is while films should be made of crimes committed by the Americans, throughout history, all around the world, and it should be shown what the so-called civilized Zionists and Americans are doing today with human rights and humanity.

Hey, we had to put up with Patriot – though with Mel Gibson’s involvement no one could claim that was a Zionist plot.

the pigs in a performance at Huddersfield Town Hall. Now the restyled section will include the Three Little Puppies instead.

And the BBC updates:

Organisers of a children’s concert have given the go-ahead for the three little pigs to appear, after they were banned over fears they might offend Muslims.

Honley Junior School in West Yorkshire was to perform the Roald Dahl story of Little Red Riding Hood and the pigs – but was told to substitute puppies.

Now Kirklees Council has stepped in to allow the pigs a reprieve.

No complaints had been made about the pigs appearing in the Kirklees Primary Music Festival event.

The committee organising the concert decided Muslim children may not want to sing about pigs.

However, council education spokesman Jim Dodds told BBC Five Live the decision had been overturned.

He said: “There is something barmy going on here and it has happened on my watch.

“I can tell you now that the three little pigs will be back into the school musical festival.

“The decision (to ban the pigs) was made by well-meaning people – it was the wrong decision, so let’s stick with the traditions.”

All part of the dedicated Mick Hartley service: bringing you the hottest news – as and when it happens.

The Spring 2007 issue of Democratiya is now available at a computer screen near you.

g that a statistic doesn’t purvey the full horror of the reality, well of course it doesn’t. Whoever thought it did? Reading the headline “Twenty thousand dead in earthquake” doesn’t have the same impact as watching someone being crushed to death under a collapsing wall and multiplying the effect twenty thousand times. Similarly with press stories: the statement “a man was killed in a car crash” doesn’t convey the full horror of what really happened to Mr Adrian Smith, financial consultant, father of Jane and Mark, husband to Fiona, who suffered multiple contusions when his car was in collision with another on the A302 just outside of Barnstaple…the broken limbs, the smashed windscreen, the body slumped forward in the seat, the blood dripping from the head wound, the glazed eyes, the devastation of his family, a life – just like yours, just like mine – cut short in its prime. Of course statistics or bald statements of fact don’t convey the true meaning. And that bit about “psychologists have found” – what right have psychologists to claim for themselves something so completely bloody obvious? I mean, have these people no shame?

Then there’s this experiment:

A recent study I conducted with Deborah Small of the University of Pennsylvania and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University found that donations to aid a starving 7-year-old child in Africa declined sharply when her image was accompanied by a statistical summary of the millions of needy children like her in other African countries. The numbers appeared to interfere with people’s feelings of compassion toward the young victim.

The assumption is that people are behaving irrationally, but what’s irrational about that? Your donation could make a difference to an individual, but to have the sheer overwhelming scale of the problem pointed out to you is inevitably going to dampen your enthusiasm.

Anyway, this isn’t really a question of human psychology in isolation as conceived by these academics: culture and politics determine our reactions. Why, to take a topical example, was slavery considered perfectly acceptable throughout most of human history, but at the end of the Eighteenth century, first in Britain and then elsewhere, came to be seen as a monstrous crime against other human beings?

As for Darfur, which is the ostensible spur for the whole dreary article, again there are political and cultural reasons why there’s a lot of talk but precious little action. It’s not psychology which is going to help us here: we don’t need, as Slavic suggests, to look at our “psychological deficiencies”, to “re-examine this human failure”. It’s about politics.

Mind you, if you look at the comments to Jonathan Freedland’s article at CiF yesterday (not something I’d recommend, to be honest), you may well come to the conclusion that a little psychology might help.

Another dismal display from British academia:

The University of Leeds was accused of infringing free speech last night when it cancelled a lecture on “Islamic anti-Semitism” by a German academic.

Matthias Köntzel arrived at the university yesterday morning to begin a three-day programme of lectures and seminars, but was told that it had been called off on “security grounds”.

Dr Köntzel, a political scientist who has lectured around the world on the antiSemitic ideology of Islamist groups, told The Times there were concerns that he would be attacked. He said that he was “outraged” that his meetings had been cancelled and had yet to receive an explanation.

The university, which acted after complaints from Muslim students, denied that it was interfering with the academic freedom of Dr Köntzel, and said that proper arrangements for stewarding the meeting had not been made.

The lecture, entitled “Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic antiSemitism in the Middle East”, was organised by the university’s German department and publicised three weeks ago. A large attendance had been expected.

Dr Köntzel, a former adviser to the German Green Party, said: “I have been told that it has had to be cancelled for security reasons. It seems there were concerns that there could be violence against my person.

“I have lectured in lots of countries on this subject. I gave the same talk at Yale University recently, and this is the first time I have been invited to lecture in the UK. Nothing like this has ever happened before – this is censorship.

“It is a controversial area but I am accustomed to debate. I value the integrity of academic debate and I feel that it really is in danger here. This is a very important subject and if you cannot address it on university property, then what is a university for?”

From an interview with the children of Palestinian suicide bomber Rim Al-Riyashi, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 8, 2007:

Interviewer: Let’s talk with the two children of the jihad-fighting martyrdom-seeker Rim Al-Riyashi – Dhoha and Muhammad.

Dhoha, you love mama, right? Where did mama go?

Dhoha: To Paradise.

Interviewer: What did mama do?

Dhoha: She committed martyrdom.

Interviewer: She killed Jews, right?

Interviewer: How many did she kill, Muhammad?

Muhammad: Huh?

Interviewer: How many Jews did mama kill?

Muhammad: This many…

Interviewer: How many is that?

Muhammad: Five.

[…]

Interviewer: Are you doing well in kindergarten?

Muhammad: Yes.

Dhoha: I am in kindergarten, I want to tell.

Interviewer: Go on then, tell us. You’re in kindergarten too? Are you in kindergarten, Dhoha? In kindergarten or at school?

Dhoha: In kindergarten.

Interviewer: That’s great.

One should talk about the innocence of children…

It’s good to see that the Guardian’s CiF has a sense of humour. This spoof CiF article by “Rebecca Solnit” manages to take the piss beautifully out of that smug type of leftist Bush=Hitler thinking.

I mean, that absolute belief in ones own moral superiority – nobody could be that self-righteous, could they? Wonderfully well done.

My guess is, it’s really Craig Brown.

a Victorian parlour or a 30s-style suburban front room without bothering too much about the actual details of, say, the design of the chairs or the style of flooring – though of course you can focus in on the specifics if you want.

If you can ignore the schoolkids, that is. The place seems incredibly popular with school parties, and it’s easy to understand why: much more entertaining for kids to imagine what it was like to live in London in the past than to look at paintings hung on a wall and be lectured on how important such-and-such an artist was in breaking away from the rules of blah blah blah.

The exhibition itself is delightful in a way that these small exhibitions often are. The pictures are unfamiliar – at least for someone like me who’s not particularly up on early to mid 20th Century English painters. And the commentary on the pictures is to the point without being patronising or hectoring, as is so often the case in, say, Tate Modern. Instead of being told that such-and-such challenges traditional conventions or subverts our preconceptions, we’re informed that the crossed hands may be an allusion to the crucifixion, that the dark clouds over a garden painted in the late Thirties may well hint at the gathering storm-clouds in Europe and their threat to the English way of life, or that the house of cards in front of the child is probably meant to symbolise the fragility of a happy family. Like one intelligent adult talking to another, in fact, which comes as a pleasant surprise.

In his review in the Telegraph, Richard Dorment goes so far as to suggest that the show chronicles the “disintegration of a whole class”, ie the middle class, who over the course of two world wars lost their self-confidence. I can see what he means, though the gallery introduction suggests that the fact that most of the individuals in the paintings don’t look boldly out at you, as they would have done in earlier times, reflects rather an increased interest in psychological states and the social interactions being portrayed than any loss of confidence. The days of aristocrats gazing down haughtily from the security of their social position are long gone.

Dorment cites Charles Burleigh’s “The Burleigh Family Taking Tea at Wilbury Crescent, Hove”, c1947, as an example of his loss-of-confidence theory: “In one sense, this is a classic family conversation piece, as Hogarth might have painted it. But instead of Hogarth’s exuberant celebration of material prosperity, here the atmosphere is subdued. Each family member is lost in his or her own world.”

Superficially it’s a delightful and redolent picture, but as you look more closely the atmosphere does seem, as Dorment suggests, muted and rather sad. But then, as the commentary informs you, Burleigh’s son, the figure on the left, had a disability which severely limited his mobility, and his wife, on the right, was seriously ill at the time, so we don’t really need to draw on sociological factors to explain the sense of melancholy. But it does provide a peculiarly English kind of poignancy: summer, teatime, windows open on the garden, a sense of repressed feelings, isolation….