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Sometimes the metaphors just leap out at you don't they ('Titanic sunk by giant metaphor')? I see one of the actors who played a terrorist in the movie about the hijacking of Flight 93 was refused entry to the film premiere in the US, presumably because he 'looked like a terrorist', the same reason, presumably, he had been given the role in the film. This is the make-believe world of the war on terror in essence.
On the other hand the Australian creationist John McKay has been free to visit the UK to spread his toxic views on 'Intelligent Design' to British schoolchildren, and was I guess, not being on a no-fly list like the banned actor, also welcomed with open arms into the US when he toured.
I was tempted to suggest that these religious fundamentalists who spread the enormously damaging creationist propaganda, inflicting a kind of mental terrorism on schools, should also be on 'no-fly lists'. Most countries (except when prevented by Free Trade Agreements) have quarantine arrangements for dangerous plant and animal diseases, and creationism is a potential disease affecting young minds.
But then something in the story (http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article359111.ece) caught my eye "John Mackay, an Australian geologist who believes he has uncovered fossil evidence which dismisses evolution and proves that Noah's flood really did happen will speak at several state schools and universities during his eight-week visit to the UK." And I was reminded of another story (see http://www.arkvannoach.com) about a Dutchman with similar views who is building a 'replica' of Noah's Ark. And then it hit me (it would be unworthy, dear reader, to suggest that I was inspired in any way by the Titanic story). We do need a 'no-fly' list but we would call it the 'must sail' list. Whenever one of these people wants to travel from Australia to Britain or from the US to Australia they will be allowed to do so as long as they travel not by plane but on a replica (a true replica, gopher wood and wooden pegs and papyrus sails, none of your steel bottoms and auxiliary engines) of 'Noah's Ark'. Noah of course must have crossed the Pacific, and the Atlantic, and all the other oceans to distribute the ancestors of kangaroos and opossums and all the rest.
So, Tony Blair could say 'Come on over John, I'll meet you on the Portsmouth docks and help you shovel elephant dung. See you in a few year's time.' He will of course make it, I mean, the Noah story couldn't just be a metaphor, could it? It was? Oh, too bad.
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