This is very clever. Marion Bataille’s ABC3D. Published in October.

You know, for kids. Via Infosthetics.

The chocolate anus. // Chicago from 36,000 ft. // Stop-motion Tron. // Crayon Physics Deluxe. // Dreamlines. How it works. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus.) // Unusual instruments. Including the bubble organ and the bowafridgeaphone. // High end watchmaking. // “Dr” Charlene Werner’s “homeopathic lecture.” A world of stupid. // Mary Jackson on “hegemonic masculinities” and other gratuitous plurals. // Steven Malanga on poverty and family structure. // Robert Spencer on “defaming” Islam. // At home with the Ahmadinejads. // Bert Teunissen’s domestic landscapes. (h/t, Mick Hartley.) // Islands of the world. // The door to hell, Uzbekistan. // Remarkable bulbs. // Tokyo taxi lights. More. // There’s so much to know about shoelaces. // The Puma “speed legs” advert. // Body Care and Grooming. (1948) // Things to do with your body. (h/t, DRB.) // Balloon animal anatomy. // Teddy bear skulls. (h/t, Ace.) More. // Giant mechanical animals. // Comic vendors of yore. // Science fiction book covers. (h/t, Coudal.) // Via Drunkablog, Arthur C Clarke’s The Sentinel. Sausages on the Moon. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Mel Torme.

Seumas Milne’s readiness to abandon facts and rhetorically fellate theocratic thugs has been noted many times, along with his fondness for Stalinism and nostalgic Communists. At the Guardian, under Milne’s editorial wing, Milosevic groupies and other assorted rogues have been favoured with a platform from which to misinform readers. In today’s Guardian, the former comment editor and current associate editor accelerates his descent into cartoonish absurdity and attempts to paint religion as an ally in some radical crusade against the evil capitalist system. A system of which Seumas, son of Sir Alasdair Milne, is a notable beneficiary.

Milne sees the scope for

Stronger alliances between the secular left and religious progressives against poverty, capitalism and war… Religion can play a reactionary or a progressive role, and the struggle is now within it, not against it. For the future, it can be an ally of radical change.

Well, perhaps. But given Milne’s extensive history of regarding religious fantasists and bigots as “progressives” and worthy of propaganda space in a “progressive” newspaper, some doubts may spring to mind. This, after all, is a man who gave space to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir and apologists for ritual murder, and who describes Tariq Ramadan, who dreams of an Islamised Europe, as “progressive” and a “liberal academic.” Even less convincing is Milne’s depiction of those who take a different view – say, by criticising aspects of Islam or insisting on the separation of church and state – as

Secular absolutists whose attitudes uncannily mirror those of religious literalists.

Thus, an advocacy of critical thought and self-determination is deemed to “mirror” an urge to impose on others the purported will of hypothetical deities. The arguments of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are, it seems, in no way distinguishable from those of people who do this. Or this. Or this. Perhaps Seumas has started channelling the wisdom of his colleague, Madeleine Bunting, whose search for “authenticity” and disdain for Enlightenment values – of which she, a female journalist, is another beneficiary – are aired at regular intervals. Certainly, a sense of déjà vu is hard to miss, not least when those who criticise religion, and one in particular, often for very good reasons, are denounced by Milne as

Apologists for western supremacism and violence.

As Alan Johnson pointed out, and as was subsequently confirmed, it’s a signature of Milne’s commentary that practically no-one may disagree or refute his claims, even on matters of basic fact, without immediately being labelled a “NeoCon”, “Islamophobe” or “warmonger”. Words which, among some, are immensely effective in shutting down rational thought. One particular passage stands out to illustrate Johnson’s point and highlight Milne’s contortions:

Panicked by the rise of radical Islamism and the newly assertive religious identity of migrant communities in a secular Europe, the anti-religious evangelists are increasingly using atheism as a banner for the defence of the global liberal capitalist order and the wars fought since 2001 to assert its dominance. At the same time, they are unable to recognise the ethnic dimension of their Islamophobia, let alone the deeper reasons why people continue to search for spiritual meaning in a grossly destructive economic environment where social alternatives have been pronounced dead and narcissistic consumption is king.

One might wonder if the above also illustrates how the mind of a true believer, in this case Mr Milne’s, can so easily come undone.

On Radio 4 this morning, Quentin Letts asked, not unreasonably, What’s the Point of the Arts Council?

The reason Arts Council officials demand “challenging and contemporary” work is not that the new is necessarily better; it’s because the new gives them an edge. They can be its arbiters and make sure it follows approved creeds.

To hear a glittering cast opine, along with the notion of subsidised beer and what may be the first broadcast use of the term “tickboxery”, click here.

Masaru Tatsuki has spent nine years photographing Japan’s decorated trucks and the people who drive them. 

A book, Decotora: 1998-2007 Japanese Art Truck Scene, is available here.

Related: Smart Car Monster Truck.