The interconnectedness of all things

I heard the news that my sister gave birth to her first child and that Heath Ledger had died at exactly the same time. I’m not saying there was any transference of energy going on. I’m just say­ing it got me thinking about the interconnectedness of things. On the baby front, Persephone is well. I saw her at 12 hours of age and, in true Bobo style, she was still covered in dried blood. They like to keep them rustic and authentic-looking as long as possible these days in case you were in any doubt as to where babies come from.

So I’ve been pondering life and death and keeping tabs on Persephone and Heath because to me they represent cosmic book-ends. At times like these “God” sometimes creeps into the equation as a way of explaining births and deaths, beginnings and ends, the wheel of life stuff. Another group who like to use God to draw together disparate data under the one umbrella are The Westboro Baptist Church, who announced their plans to picket Heath’s funeral because of his portrayal of the gay cowboy Ennis del Mar in the film Broke­back Mountain. They believe his role “glamourised” homosexuality. I’m not sure if WBC and I saw the same film because I’d hardly file marriage break­downs, a lifetime of unrequited love, getting fired from one’s job and having your partner bashed to death with a car jack under “glamour”. Maybe I’m just unromantic.

It’s probably a waste of time trying to under­stand the logic involved with Westboro, but I’m go­ing to, because understanding extreme right-wing religious groups and their beliefs is my substitute for not being good at Sudoku.

The Westboro Baptist Church have been busy picketing the funerals of American Soldiers. Of course, the entire Iraq war is God’s punishment for homosexuality in the US. Why several hundred thousand dead civilian Iraqis have to suffer because of a few homos in the States is kind of beyond me. The God in the minds of Westboro has a very American-centric focus, that’s for sure. According to Westboro, even hurricane Katrina was God’s response to Ellen Degeneres hosting the Oscars. This suggests that God is both incredibly interested in popular American culture and wildly inaccurate with his smiting. I may be lacking in imagination, but I can’t join those dots. God’s wrath appears to be somewhat oblique. Why can’t he just punish gay people directly? Face it, he’d only need to take out a few vineyards, shut down gaydar.com, kill Kylie and wipe out Chihuahuas and he’d be well on the way. No, apparently he has to kill thousands of black people in New Orleans. Maybe he got his mardi gras mixed up.

I get that life is complicated and sometimes we need to see the interconnectedness of things, but we can’t check our brains into the cloakroom of life before we enter the club. Germaine Greer famously said that Steve Irwin’s death was a result of the animal kingdom exacting its revenge for his habit of barging insensitively into fragile habitats. This would suggest the animal kingdom is a highly vin­dictive, well organised unit, capable of communica­tion on such a level that if Steve molested a lizard in South Australia, word could somehow be sent north, overland and then underwater, to stingrays in northern Queensland’s coastal reefs where they could carry out a hit.

Perhaps we need to stop bending reality to suit our own purposes. Life and death are mysterious, that’s for sure, and maybe the link between one set of phenomena and another are best observed with a kind of detached awe. Or maybe we should think before we open our stupid yaps.

Kate Nielson recently spoke out on life and love after her boyfriend, Wayne Carey, was arrested (again). “Love is a roller-coaster.”

Maybe. But last time I rode one, I don’t remem­ber being smashed in the face with a wine glass and having to call the police. Then again, I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter model, Fabio, got smashed in the face with a seagull whilst riding a roller coaster…

So maybe she is right.