I believe our society is in danger of juicing every little bit of fun out of life. The example of the five police officers stood down, a month ago, over a harmless buck’s night prank is a symptom of this. Brendan Fevola was basically sacked because of his drunken antics on Brownlow night. Brendan did not glass his girlfriend or assault anybody – he had too much to drink. Haven’t we all been in this position?

Football players and police officers are ordinary people. People mess up. Most importantly people have fun. As long as this fun does not injure anyone else what is the harm? In fact, I feel we are harmed by not allowing people to be people. What is the point of living if you do not enjoy life?

We all have had those great nights with our friends. We drink share stories, jokes and of course perform pranks. We have all been in a car and someone has pressed their bare arse to the window to shock passers by. My most memorable occasion were when a friend of mine lit his own fart. I don’t think I have laughed so hard since. It is not sick or perverted – it is normal and everyone does it in their own way. We might be the last generation to enjoy such freedoms unless we fight to maintain them.

It started with politicians being exposed for sexual indiscretions. We hold people in power to a higher standard than the common person. When a politician is exposed it is deemed to be for the public good. Many people have an inbuilt distrust of those who seek power. This probably stems from the fact that there is a long history of people being abused by those in power. In these modern times in most democracies we are protected from the abuse of the powerful. Our rulers are ordinary people, but we still hold them to a higher standard.

Many people felt this was okay, but it was the thin end of the wedge. Now sportspeople and just about any other person in the public eye is also held to this unrealistic moral standard. They are role models you see, we want our kids to grow up like them. Most disturbing of all, ordinary people are now starting to be held to this standard as evidenced by the five police officers being stood down for a harmless prank.

One day soon you might get too drunk at a friend’s birthday party. You may take your clothes off and run around the house naked. Some people will record it on their phones and pictures of your indiscretions will be posted on Facebook. The following Monday morning you will be called into your boss’ office and immediately stood down without pay. You may even be forced into a humiliating public apology on You Tube. Your life would be thrown into turmoil for a single harmless prank.

The way the world is heading everybody in a position of power, such as your boss, becomes the moral arbiter of everybody under them. Mobile phones with cameras and websites like Facebook mean all your indiscretions will be known about – you will be judged and held accountable.

This is the world we could be living in if we do not stop the slide into moral totalitarianism. We all need to show politicians and our bosses that they cannot judge what we do in our private lives.

Being cool in my opinion is not about your fashion sense or whether you were popular at school it is how you handle situations. Like being cool under pressure or not being offended easily.

A cool person doesn’t appear to be offended when somebody calls them an arsehole, but instead comes up with a witty comeback that makes their detractor an item of ridicule. I always thought young people were supposed to be cool as they had not yet been filled up with opinions, prejudices and had not yet developed a hatred for the human race.

In high school I remember this kid, who suffered slightly from small man syndrome. He yelled across the schoolyard to one of the larger female members of our class, “Why stroll when you can roll?” The girl not looking the slightest bit bothered, yelled back, “You should have been drowned at birth you little turd.” This response caused the boy’s friends to fall into immediate fits of hysterical laughter. The boy turned into a beetroot – the colour of one in any case. From this moment I strived to be cool in just that way.

The other day I was talking to someone much younger than me I work with about the current ‘refugee crisis.’ They said some extremely intolerant things possibly in an effort to make me angry. I continued arguing using logic and reason. They got very annoyed when I disagreed with them. I was damn sure that I didn’t actually say anything that was offensive (I asked them later and they agreed). But the person refused to speak to me unless to answer simple yes or no questions for the next four hours.

A couple of days later the same person broke a fingernail, I made a small joke about it and again they did not talk to me for the next two hours.

It is not just me that is having trouble with supersensitive ridiculously easy to offend people. At a pub this girl got cut off from the bar for calling the bartender a “fuckstick”. She went to the toilet or something and her friends started discussing the incident and whether or not it was a case of mistaken identity from the bartender. Later the girl flew into hysterics crying and everything because her friends were talking behind her back. What exactly do parents do to raise somebody that unstable?

I would like to know if anybody else is having trouble with supersensitive young people? If so I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Yesterday, I was reading the science-fiction classic Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. One of the characters in the book does not like religion very much and was complaining about the terrible things written in some holy books. The character mentioned chapter 19 of Genesis verse eight and 2 Kings chapter 2.

In chapter 19 of Genesis Lot offers a crowd of men around his house his two virgin daughters if they would just go away and leave him alone. By the way these men were from the town of Sodom and you know what they do there. These girls would have been brutally raped by the entire male population of the town. The thing is any bible basher will tell you what a great bloke Lot was.

Genesis 19

8: Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Okay so Lot was pretty evil, but now it is God’s turn. In this scene there was this guy Elisha who is travelling from town to town doing good things. Until that is he comes to the town of Bethel where the town’s children run out and start teasing Elisha about his bald head. He then curses the children and two bears come out of the nearby wood and tears the children into 42 pieces or tears 42 children into pieces – I’m not quite sure, but far out how bad is that?

2 Kings, chapter 2

23: And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24: And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Many Christians say they believe the Bible literally. If they are reading the same bible that I have how can they possibly believe their God is fair, just and good. If I met that God I would be forced to say, “see you next Tuesday”, if you know what I mean. Even if you don’t take the Bible literally what possible lesson could this passage teach you?

Some may say this is the Old Testament and that it doesn’t really matter any more. But it was the same God then as it was 2000 years ago and today. In my experience leopards do not change their spots.

But the world was a different place back then and who are you to question the will of God? I’m sorry, but there are some things that are wrong in any age if they are committed by any being divine or otherwise. In my opinion killing innocent children is always wrong.

There is a website devoted to evil Bible passages. There are atrocities in there attributed to God and many of his prophets, from mass killings to amateur abortions where mothers were ripped open to kill the growing fetus (Hosea, chapter 13:16).

In my opinion there is only one word to describe this and it is: evil!

Many bloggers have no doubt heard about Rupert Murdoch’s swipe at Google, Wikipedia and blog sites over theft of news articles. He believes that free online websites should not quote news articles without paying for them. To some people this may sound fair, but I think if Mr. Murdoch goes through with this plan to try and make blogs and news aggregators pay for quoted content it will seriously damage his business.

Rupert Murdoch is forgetting that almost every single time one of his precious news articles is quoted there is a link showing where the article came from. 99% of bloggers quote a small part and then link back to the article that inspired their story. There are not many bloggers who will quote an entire article and if they do that is stealing. Fair use provisions in copyright law in most countries mean that it is legal to quote a small part of a copyrighted article as long as you say where you got it from.

By taking a swipe at Google he is also on the wrong track. Seldom does Google News contain an entire article. Google News collects the most popular articles and then provides numerous links to a wide variety of similar articles. I never visit the website of the Sydney Morning Herald or the Washington Post I get sent there by Google News. These sites probably wouldn’t get half the visitors they do without the Google search engine and news site.

Wikipedia does cop a lot of flak from academics and those in the media. Wikipedia does seem to be updated very quickly, but it is not a news site. Users of Wikipedia are not allowed to copy articles word for word and if they do the piece is quickly taken down. An absolute defence against plagiarism has always been to write what you have taken in from a particular article in your own words. Wikipedia articles also link to the source material.

I believe Rupert may be upset about the slow death of traditional media. It is sad when a newspaper dies, but I believe there is no reason why newspapers cannot transform themselves for a new age. It is possible to make money online and if the Murdochs embrace their entrepreneurial spirit their empire will not crumble. If Rupert picks a fight with the Internet, that is kind of like fighting the ocean or the weather – it is not a fight a man can win.

I let out an annoyed groan when I heard Hey Hey it’s Saturday was coming back. It was a show that needed to die and die it did, much to many people’s relief. But like anything evil it did not stay dead.

As Victor Frankenstein and the owner operators of Jurassic Park found out bringing the dead back to life is not without its risks. This was proved again last night when they dredged up an old 80s skit the Jackson jive. This featured five guys painted black with Afro wigs.

This skit was in bad taste when it originally aired in 1989. There are many people who are still trying to defend the Jackson jive. This skit is racist and I can’t believe that anybody could possibly believe otherwise. If they do they are nothing but ignorant fools who are most likely closet racists.

This skit references the black minstrel theatre shows that were popular before the Second World War. This was used as a tool to ridicule black culture and made out that black people were, ignorant, lazy, superstitious and lacked personal hygiene. When you ridicule someone on the basis of their race – this is racism. To argue otherwise is like saying day is night.

For many years now Australia has been trying to convince the rest of the world that we are no longer a racist nation. The publicised attacks on Indian students have been seriously damaging Australia’s reputation and now it has been completely destroyed.

This is going to be all over American news and talk shows. It is already difficult to defend allegations that Australia is a racist country. And now… how do you say we are not racist when people have absolute proof that a good proportion of us are racist?

I am so pissed off about this is that I need to stop writing…