An ethical question
A NEW TRIBE has been discovered in the Amazon rain forest, a people who have never before had contact with the modern world. They live in the Kugapakori Nahua Nanti reserve, in the south-east of Peru, and have been filmed by an organisation calling itself the National Institute of Development of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvians (Indepa).
The footage has been shown on television and a small exhibition of the tribes's tools, arrows and handmade pottery, along with skeletons of hunted animals, has been put on display.
The discovery raises all kinds of moral and ethical questions. Should these people – they are not even named in this news report – be allowed to continue their semi-nomadic life in a state of nature? Or should they be dragged into the 21st century and exposed to the horrors of reality TV, TV-driven professional sport, celebrities and social do-gooders?
Surely they should be left to themselves. Why should they be forced to join a global village that is increasingly ravaged by greed, economic collapse, terrorism, environmental degradation and hideously amplified rock music?
It is an ethical dilemma that should be taken to the United Nations for a resolution that the tribe be left undisturbed; that it should never be forced to take its seat at that body.
The question recalls the lines of Ogden Nash:
In far Tibet
There live a lama,
He got no poppa,
Got no momma,
He got no wife,
He got no chillun,
Got no use
For penicillun,
He got no soap,
He got no opera,
He don't know Irium
From copra,
He got no songs,
He got no banter,
He don't know Hope,
He don't know Cantor,
He got no teeth,
He got no gums,
Don't eat no Spam,
Don't need no Tums.
He love to nick him
When he shave;
He also got
No hair to save.
Got no distinction,
No clear head,
Don't call for Calvert;
Drink milk instead.
He use no lotions
For allurance,
He got no car
And no insurance,
No Alsop warnings,
No Pearson rumor
For this self-centered
Nonconsumer.
Indeed, the
Ignorant Have-Not
Don't even know
What he don't got.
If you will mind
The box-tops, comma,
I think I'll go
And join that lama.
Action men
EUROPEAN leaders are cutting a dash these days. Vladimir Putin, prime minister of Russia (the term "European" is used rather loosely) has just topped 150 miles per hour in a Renault racing car on an empty road outside St Petersburg, at one point spinning out but safely correcting.
Recently he was photographed firing harpoons at a whale, while not long before that he took the controls of an aircraft dumping water on a fire in Moscow. He once flew a fighter jet into conflict-ridden Chechnya and he has also been photographed on a Harley-Davidson, riding a horse bare-chested in the mountains and doing the butterfly stroke in a Siberian River.
All this is macho stuff. He will have the red-blooded Rusky lads on his side, probably the lassies as well.
Where do you begin with Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister of Italy? Mistresses, call-girls, prozzies – it never stops. His latest is an under-age girl staying at his pad, to which he responds: "So what? It's better than being gay."
The Italian voters love him. When will Barack Obama start hang-gliding from the Empire States Building? When will David Cameron pose nude on a calendar? When will they learn?
You've got to be attuned to the heartbeat of democracy.
Wrinkly rascal
IT'S AN ODD story this about the young Asian man who boarded a flight in Hong Kong wearing a highly realistic latex mask of an very wrinkly old Caucasian man – flat cap, glasses and all. He removed the disguise at some stage during the flight then was arrested when he landed in Vancouver, Canada, after a tip-off by the flight crew.
The authorities are investigating. Some people will do anything to get pensioners' rates.
AN AUSSIE stockman and his sheila have just got married and found a nice hotel.
The stockman approaches the front desk and asks for a room.
"'We're on our honeymoon and we need a nice room."
The clerk winks. "You want the Bridal?"
"Nah, I reckon not. I'll just hold onto her ears."
Last word
I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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