Man, I love this paper. Each and every day I sneak a peek, the columnists at The Guardian amuse and entertain me immensely with the insights they provide into how the British Left see the world. This post is a sequel to one I did a long time ago with the same name, though it would be easy to do this literally every day after reading the Guardian. Here are a sample three of the articles from this morning’s Comment section:
David Adam’s piece was based upon the finding that solar activity is not responsible for global warming. He describes this several times through his column as “the final nail in [the skeptic’s] coffin.” I’m not sure how he’s been able to come to this conclusion. The climate is an extremely complex thing, and to do what he’s done is practically to assert that there are only two possible causes for climate change: solar activity or human-caused greehouse gases. Aren’t the Left supposed to have the monopoly on rational, educated, considered opinion on this subject? By simplifying the debate thus, Adam is doing a huge disservice to his own cause. Perhaps Monbiot will call him up to inform him of the variety of ways climate change can occur regardless of either solar or human activity? (Probably not.)
Zoe Williams decided to write about the UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s cleavage and how it has amassed some attention in recent days. Williams is a fertile writer of “new feminism.” You may be wondering what “new feminism” is exactly, and when you finish reading her article you’ll be wondering even more. Her basic point seems to be that, under old feminism, conspicuous mammaries were avoided whereas, under “new feminism”, they’re something that every woman should be free to exhibit whenever they feel like it. So what makes that belief feminist? What is “new” about “new feminism”? I have no desire whatsoever to see Jacqui Smith’s breasts, but agreeing with Williams that she should feel free to pummel them into a tight top and display them in the House of Commons does not make me a “new feminist”. Feminism continues to find its muddled way forward, I guess.
Neil Boorman made me snigger most. The opinion he seems to advocate in his article is that people in the United Kingdom are being forced to go to the shopping mall because of the lack of anything else to do. This dear populace of Britain, he would have us believe, are railroaded into shopping because they’re so helpless, so incapable of controlling their time and their destiny, so pathetic that they can’t find anything else better to do. “Imagine,” he gushes, “the next time an old hospital or school building was vacated, the local council gave consent for conversion not into coffee bars and flats, but a proper leisure centre where locals could spend time amusing themselves for free.” For free! How wonderful. And he believes it sincerely, which makes it so much more amusing. Boorman is the perfect example of what makes me so tickled by The Guardian every time I choose to glance over its demented pages: he genuinely sees the public as one huge stupid collective being manipulated by smarter people, of which he is one enough to notice! Classical socialist delusion has never been more accessible.
And this is just a random day.
John Wright