Haven't You Got Anything Useful To Do?

A little comment in a paper that I picked up yesterday ridiculed the redundancy of a new report disclosing the unshocking-by-virtue-of-its-patent-obviousness news that UK students drink too much. Or rather inadvertently revealing, in the writer's opinion, the shocking news that today's students drink far too little at only a few units over the recommended weekly allowance. I disagree with the attribution of the useless-investigation-into-the-unremarkable award to this study though - a couple of weeks ago I found a whole centrepage spread (one part of a serialisation I think) in the Mail revealing cocaine use at Boujis nightclub. Following a lengthy undercover investigation by the reporter herself:

"Revealed: The Royals' favourite nightclubs and a culture of rampant drug abuse."

Obviously she must have realised that the article was wholly un-newsworthy and that this was best disguised by using overblown investigative journalism cliches to rouse the geriatric right-wing readership into automatic grumbles about moral decline. The opening line:

"At a darkened London nightclub at 2am on a Wednesday morning, a crowd of twenty-something partygoers are dancing with utter abandon to the thumping beat of a fashionable rap song."

Seriously, that's actually what it said.

Dubious Science

The front page of The Independent today reports the outrage at Nobel (although its controversial) scientist James Watson's outrageously racist assertions that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites. And that (I'm paraphrasing) our social policies are all erroneously constructed and bound to fall short in their non-reflection of this fact. Its always a bit shocking when an academic of respected standing comes out with this sort of thing. Although its not entirely rare. I remember similar outrage at my uni last year when a member of the psychology dept (Dr. Philippe Rushton) came out with some similiar crap on gender - he was already well known in the controversial scientific studies stakes for having reached the same conclusions as Watson via psychological methods... something about it being a trade-off between brain size and penis size. Watson's new outburst comes not to announce the results of any fresh scientific evidence but rather the release of his new book. In which, as quoted in the Independent, he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically." Leaving aside the complex problematics of the term 'intellectual capacities', and the problems of drawing such implications from whether or not there is 'firm reason to anticipate' anything, yes of course there is biological difference between races of people that evolved apart. Strikes me though that all the responses which try to rubbish the possibility of scientifically 'proven' racial difference in such areas miss the key point - which is that, on Watson's own terms, this is totally irrelevant. If we are talking on a social level then we are talking about human beings in social terms - as members of society, as citizens. This is the framework within which the term 'intellectual capacities' gains its meaning. To talk about genetic difference of races in such terms has no valuable meaning - that concerns human beings as a species, as animals. If we are to credit human beings with human intelligence - with the ability to exist as part of a society, with the power of choice - then we are no longer talking of humans in animal terms. They are two incommensurate perspectives. Only by considering human beings from the first perspective can you have compassion, morality etc. etc. ... can you draw conclusions about the structure of society. Probably all best just ignored I think. Although I imagine that with regard to his imminent UK lecture tour the opposite will now be true.

Napalm Death Consigned to the Dustbin of History

So apparently Telegraph readers* don't feel no love for Napalm Death no more. Source: Telegraph Twat Craig Brown's column on the unresolved rivalry between housewive's favourite Tony Blackburn and the late, great John Peel, as detailed in Blackburn's two autobiographies ('Tony Blackburn: The Living Legend' and 'Poptastic! My Life in Radio'), of which Brown professes to have read both. A fraud and merciless opportunist is the accusation levelled at the dead John Peel by the unfortunately still alive Tony Blackburn, who alleges that John Peel never actually liked any of the terrible tuneless crap that he played on his shows, but thought he could gain a following with it nonetheless. But scandalous accusations aside (given that no one who matters is ever going to read them), Brown sides with Blackburn as likely to survive Peel's inevitable historical obsolescence on the basis that only "a catchy tune and a simple lyric" will truly pass the test of time. Drawing from the bands listed in each of their autobiographies, he reasons: "Comparing these lists it seems inarguable that posterity will crown Tony Blackburn the surprising victor. Groups such as The Supremes and The Temptations who were scorned by Peelite hippies as "commercial rubbish" in the Sixties are still played by us all, whereas Napalm Death and Captain Beefheart lie untouched in old cardboard boxes at the back of the cupboard beneath the stairs."

*Old people who spray spit at you when they talk (most likely about the societal menace of 'hoodies' and immigration) - and me, when they're free in coffee shops.