Ian O'Doherty: So, how liberal are you?
The proposed mosque, to be built just two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan, has really brought out the wackos from both sides.
On the one hand, you have the kind of people who are convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim sleeper agent out to ruin America, like some villain from 24, and on the other you have people who think any criticism of Muslim behaviour is automatically racist.
In fact, both sides seem determined to deliberately misunderstand -- and misrepresent -- the other.
In his otherwise excellent column in the Guardian this week, one of Britain's best writers, Charlie Brooker, turned his keen mind to the issue and had this to say: "New York being a densely populated city, there are lots of other buildings within two blocks of Ground Zero, including a McDonald's and a Burger King, neither of which has yet been accused of serving milkshakes and fries on hallowed ground."
That, indeed, is a fair point, but it misses one crucial factor -- Mohammed Ata and the rest of his scumbag cohorts weren't dressed as Ronald McDonald when they took down the towers.
Oh, and for the record, the 'moderate' Muslim group plans to call the building the 'Cordoba House' -- Cordoba being particularly resonant because that's the Spanish city where Muslim soldiers razed a Christian Church and then built a mosque on its ruins.
But that's entirely coincidental ...
WELL, WOULD YOU GET IN A CAR WITH HIM?
Well, it looks like George Michael's bizarre predilection for getting completely baked and then driving his car has finally caught up with him.
Michael is a happy stoner who likes nothing more than having sex with strange men in public places and then driving home while whacked, but the courts have finally put a stop to it.
He appeared in Highbury court yesterday after being done for the fifth time for driving while stoned and, due to be sentenced later this week, he potentially faces jail time, although given the fact that he is famous, I wouldn't bet on it.
Prosecutors quite rightly argue that driving after smoking half your body weight in hash is dangerous but let's look at it this way -- would you rather be knocked down by George Michael or some boy racer with a souped-up penismobile?
After all, when Michael hits you he's only be doing about two miles an hour because any faster and he wouldn't be able to handle the rush.
YOU SEE, WE NEED EUROPE
Any time someone accuses the EU(SSR) of being a vast, totalitarian, monolithic organisation that has eroded national integrity and ultimately intends on forcing us all into a federal Europe with Brussels dictating to us all, they're accused of being xenophobic racists who live in the past.
Indeed, one of the most famous accusations levelled by pro-Europeans is that those opposed to the EU make up silly accusations such as the fact that Brussels wastes its time discussing bananas.
In fact, the banana regulation was real, and was called Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94 (My God, did you actually do some research for this? --ed.).
And now they have turned their beady, foreign eyes to the thorny subject of . . . Cornish pasties.
According to new EU rules, the swede vegetable must never be never confused with a turnip, but because Cornish folk use turnip in their pasties, yet call it a swede, a new law has been brought in giving the Cornish a "linguistic exception".
Confused yet?
Well, as UKIP MEP William Dartmouth puts it: "The case of the phantom turnip is only the latest in a long line of EU food-related chaos."
In fairness, I don't think a semantic row over a vegetable's provenance qualifies as "food-related chaos".
AND YOU THOUGHT YOUR MA WAS BAD?
As Philip Larkin so perceptively wrote: "They f**k you up, your mum and dad; they don't mean to but they do; they fill you with all their faults; and some extra, just for you."
Larkin could well have had the face of Courtney Love in his head when he wrote those words, and it looks like the worst mother in the world is back at it again.
In many ways, it's a miracle that Love's daughter, Frances Bean, has remained so relatively normal.
She wants to work as an artist and her latest collection of pictures have caused comment because they all seem obsessed with death -- but when you consider that a) she's a teenager and b) her da topped himself, that hardly comes as a surprise.
Indeed, when you consider the way other famous children behave, Frances is a remarkably well-balanced kid -- and she has just turned 18, which means she can now touch the trust fund that was set up for her after Kurt shot himself.
Presumably Courtney -- who happens to be broke, but that's neither here nor there, obviously -- is happy for her? Um, not quite.
As a birthday Twitter to her daughter, the repellent Love wrote: "Why are you trying so desperately to ruin my life and reputation? You've done a damn good job Frances of destroying anything I could build that was positive, and I want to know why now that you're of age."
It's a hideous thing to publicly say such stuff about your kid -- and also incredibly factually inaccurate.
After all, we all know that Love trashed her own reputation many, many years ago.
DVD TIME
You want to give yourself a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling? You fancy watching the kind of flick that will have you wearing a big goofy grin on your face and a lump in your throat?
Then check out Robert Donat's performance in 1939's Goodbye Mr Chips, where he plays Mr Chippins, a much-beloved teacher in a British public school whose wife dies young, leaving him only his pupils to care for.
It is, quite simply, a beautiful, deceptively simple movie, and if you're not moved when you watch this, then you're a bastard and I forbid you from ever reading this column again.
Sample quote: "I thought I heard you saying it was a pity . . . pity I never had any children. But you're wrong. I have. Thousands of them. Thousands of them . . . and all boys."
BOOK WORM
Edited by the great Kirby McCauley, Dark Forces is a 1981 anthology of the finest horror writers of the day.
It is also the place where Stephen King's novella The Mist first appeared (I got an email yesterday complaining that I only ever mention Stephen King, so I didn't want to disappoint the reader) as well as one of the most disturbing short stories you will ever read, T E D Klein's sublime Children Of The Kingdom.
Irish Independent
