Peg O' My Heart After a willy-nilly day of gavaunting about the office and egging on the girls—which is always a lark except for the broken shells and screaming, I wimble my way homeward along Wellytown's byways, which being antipodean, means I actually have to travel backward like Alice down the bunny-chute. It's all fun and games because you can wave at people stopped in trolleys who think they're going forward as you slide along outside in reverse, poor blighters. Did I mention choco-bits? I didn't think so. That's the trouble with airing out your wet clothes with a fan because the dryer's on the blinky, and you wouldn't want to re-wire it with scavenged bits of circuit board, as you could inadvertently build a time machine while watching Buffy on the telly. Serves me right for tinkering carelessly with Marmite, toasty doodles, and the spacetime continuum, and— [Bzzzt! and other accidental time-machine sounds] How now this be most irregular, mine shoes being buckled & hat conically constructed, mayhap yon Salem village burghers can set me right ways 'round. "Hallo," sayeth I, "Goodly town gentlefolk, wouldst thee pause in thine meerschauming puffery to guide a wayward traveller?" "Whither goest thou?" cometh the reply. "'Struth I ken that not," I say, & espying their suspycious manner swyftly addeth, "Knowth ye a goodwyfe named Buffy?" Now the squires tumbleth to their feet, a-dusting themselves and removing their hats likewise being conical. "Be ye the vampyre hunter?" inquireth one. "Aye," I answer, "verily 'tis so." No sooner sayeth I this than swyftly be I taken to ye olde Towne Hall. Whereupon happenstance I see a largish signboard with colored stripes of cloth, the word "vampyre" promiscuously affix'd to the penultimately highest stripe. "This be our 'Vampyre Threat Warning Level Metre'," I am told. "Note ye well we be at a level high." "Be this dangerous?" I ask. "Only if ye cannot stand oranges," sayeth the first burgher, at which all laugh most gregariously and I suspecteth this be ye olde towne joke. Burgher two cometh forward, jabbing a wet pipestem in the air, "And build ye a safety kit! Thou shalt need garlic, crosses, and ducks—yea duckies I say!" "Enough!" commandeth I, "bringe thy vampyre to me for the Testing of the Undead." After much consternation & hemming of the haw, a dishevel'd lass bound in hempen cords is brought before me. Her cries and weeping being most distressful, I inquire of her with utmost polititude, "Be ye a vampyre, good woman?" "Nay! Nay!" sayeth she, "'Tis untruth—I am a God-fearing soul, same as thee." Laughing aloud, I take the mallet and stake, "Thou knowest me not." Hereforth be Three Tips for Lyfe on Earth when thou art a wooden stake: Avoid campgrounds. You've got a job to do, and a shortcut through the park might look sensible. But you'll wind up on tent duty every time. Never underestimate the importance of good grooming. The camera always—and I mean always—zooms in for the pounding bits, so look sharp. Besides, these productions aren't cheap and you don't want to disappoint the stakeholders. Be an original in everything you do. That means no being a broken-off piece of furniture. That's really tacky.

10:48:08 PM       

At times like these we discover who our real friends are, and who's just been going along for the ride. For example, Tony Blair seems to be falling on his sword on our behalf, and even if you aren't happy to see him bolstering support for our side, there's something noble about his stance that underscores a reality about leadership and priniciple. Some alliances this week had that sort of heartwarming integrity about them, and some were just plain looney.

A Little of Both

It's been amazing to see the worldwide recognition of the role of artists in shaping our perception of moral conduct. Over in Europe, the champions of the humanities are finding themselves forced to weigh in on the question of whether war in Iraq is justified. People like Imre Kertesz, the Hungarian novelist and Nobel Prize winner.

"There are very important ties between Europe and America, which helped save Europe from two dictatorships. This applies especially to Western Germany, where I now live, which has a lot to be grateful for."

A Slight Miscalculation

That would be our assessment of Chirac's bizarre extension of hospitality toward African strongman and psychotic thug Robert Mugabe. Maybe Chirac felt that Mugabe's presence would add legitimacy to the 22nd Franco-African summit held in Paris over the last two days. Headlines like "Chirac rolls out the red carpet for Mugabe" certainly weakened his moral authority—made him look like an idiot, not to put too fine a point on it. The London papers weren't molified by Chirac's failure to kiss Mugabe on the cheek, since he did pump the chump's hand. Alan Duncan, a Tory foreign affairs spokesman, said: "This will be marked out as the grubbiest handshake of the year. The thought of Mugabe gorging himself on French food while his people starve is morally repugnant."

In London the Government made no distinction between a kiss and a handshake. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, sanctioned a strongly worded rebuke for the French leader.

Officials said the Government had received information that desperate Zimbabweans were now having to sell their daughters to buy food.

Consider Mugabe's accusation that Britain and any other country that dares to find fault with Zimbabwe's forced land transfers is guilty of "neo-colonialism." Some sanity entered the picture when British human rights activist Peter Tatchell put on an anti-Mugabe protest in front of the French Justice Ministry, with demonstrators waving banners that read "Arrest Mugabe for Torture."

Ten protesters from the gay rights group ACT UP were arrested in front of Mugabe's hotel, a police spokesman said. Mugabe has likened homosexuals to dogs. Four journalists were briefly detained.

Just What We Needed

We've got our own problems here the States. Poverty, social services, class warfare, the list is rather large. But one thing we do have a handle on is sex. This country's obsessed with it. So why, I have to ask, is the University of San Francisco funding a National Sexuality Resource Center?

San Francisco State University unveiled the center and its Web site Thursday, hailing it as an unprecedented clearinghouse of all things sexual. The idea is to provide accurate answers to questions some people are too embarrassed to ask.

Dissent in the Ranks

In a related item, it seems that America's gay community is suffering from its own success. A group called Gay Shame is addressing the failure of America's gays to remain on the outside of mainstream culture by exercising its moral authority to excoriate sell-out organizations like ACT-UP. I know this doesn't seem to make sense, but then, this is the politics of victimology we're talking about. From Gay Shame's mission statement:

Gay Shame is a radical alternative to the gay mainstream and the increasingly complacent left. We seek nothing less than a new queer activism that addresses issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality, to counter the self-serving "values" of the gay mainstream. We are dedicated to fighting the rabid assimilationist monster of corporate gay "culture" with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance. Gay Shame is a celebration of resistance

On the Saturday of Pride weekend, the Fruit Brigade will hold a free series of workshops and skill-sharing sessions on topics such as silk-screening, bicycle repair, drag, fat activism, being a trans ally and guerrilla theater. They'll crash the Seattle Pride March, distributing anti-capitalist/pro-diversity stickers and flyers. Afterwards, the Brigade will host a free party.

This ends our political coverage today. This evening's Raven contemplates Life on Earth. Giles, you are warned.

12:49:11 PM