world youth day
15 Jul 2008
The Church that Stole God
As the Pope rolls into Sydney, Jeffrey Nicholls welcomes him with some heartfelt criticism
I wish to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to my neighbourhood with a little heartfelt criticism.In my youth I studied to be a Catholic priest in the Dominican Order. The motto of the Order is "Truth", and I looked for it. I read long and hard in the works of Thomas Aquinas, still the doyen of Catholic theologians.
Thomas launches his magisterial inquiry, Summa Theologica, with a series of proofs for the existence of God. All such proofs follow a similar line. The world exists, but it cannot explain its own existence. We must therefore postulate something else to account for it. This something we call God.
After a few years I realised that these proofs depend completely on the assumption that the world is not God.
So I came to the idea of identifying God with the world. I wrote a little essay entitled 'How Universal is the Universe', and circulated it. Not long afterwards my vows were dispensed and I was walking secular streets in a new suit.
The Catholic story is simple enough. God created the world and all who live in it. Life was easy in the Garden of Eden - on one condition. The people - represented by Adam and Eve - charged with obedience to God, were forbidden from eating the fruit of a certain tree in the middle of their garden. Encouraged by a very famous Serpent, Adam and Eve ate. This so angered God that He introduced death, pain and work into human life. Catholics call this the Fall.
The ancient Hebrews kept God happy by killing and burning sacrificial animals. To get Himself over the Fall, the Catholic God needed a greater sacrifice. So He sent his Son, Jesus, to become human and be killed painfully. This event is known as the Redemption. The Church holds that the Redemption will ultimately erase the damage caused by the Fall.
There is no historical evidence for the Fall.
They pushed me out of the seminary and I walked out into those secular streets 40 years ago. Identification of God and the world still seems to me a very fruitful application of Occam's razor. The power of humanity lies in imagination and the Catholic story is a commanding work of the imagination. In practical matters, however, imagination must be curbed by the observable world. This is the role of science.
For every art, there is a complementary science. As physics underlies engineering, so theology is the foundation of religion. I think of the observable universe as God's body and accept that all information is encoded physically. We communicate with God through our bodies, sometimes quite lusciously, sometimes painfully. This no more limits our dialogue with the Universal God than the ink and paper of Bibles restricts our communication with the Catholic God.
By appropriating God and freezing theology into an infallible block, the Church has killed them. I am making a plea for an alternative view which values the world itself as Divine. The world is not an arbitrary creation defected by the Original Sin and due for demolition. We might call this approach to theology natural theology - think natural science.
The institution that is the Roman Catholic Church exists today as a cross between a nation state and a multinational corporation. It has branches almost everywhere. Its constitution, the Code of Canon Law, gives absolute power to the Pope: "No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff." (Canon 333§3). The key to Papal power is the claim that the Church is the sole legitimate channel of communication with God.
Many have disputed the Papal claim to absolute power and knowledge. The Papacy has responded to every such threat with assertions of its absolute authority. Pope Pius IX, King of Rome from 1846 to 1878, took a dramatic precautionary step, declaring himself and his successors infallible. As far as the Pope is concerned, the Catholic story is true, Canon Law is right, and that is that.
For natural theology, the window through which we see God is the whole universe of experience, not just one ancient and powerful institution. If the Pope is really infallible, then he has infallibly declared himself to be infallible and all is well. We had better fall into line.
And if not? Perhaps it is time to open the windows of the Church and look out into the world.
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I hate to be picky with someone who has obviously hoed a tough row, but there is an odd use of Occam’s Razor in this post. Occam wouldn’t lead to "identifying God with the world" but to just considering the world as, well, the world. To apply Occam even more succinctly, would be to remove entirely any concept of "god" which many of us have seen no need of a hypothesis for over the years. I realise it may be hard to entirely throw away your early upbringing and education, but you really need to if you are going to see through a glass clearly, and accept reality as, just reality.
Right on David, while I sympathise with the journey and even to some extent the destination, it troubles me to see the knots Jeffery has tied himself in to retain some semblance of sprituality, in a world that has no demonstrable magic in it.
The universe is our home. It gave rise to the conditions that allowed us to be. Is that not enough? I think that is totally awesome, in the less modern sense of the word. I don’t need to worship this but do try to respect it.
In light of this awesome reality the arrogance of the Pope or any religious leader that claims infallibility is gobsmacking. People need to get over themselves. We are no better than any other aspect of the universe, be that a grain of sand, a monkey or a medically qualified canine.
There is still right and wrong, but we have to modify that to right or wrong for us; now. There is no everlasting moral truth. The Catholic Church is just an long lasting organisation. It would have to be around for a further 2000 years to even get close to Egypt’s or many other belief systems in longevity. It is just a way of living that has become codified and established.
In the end this empire, like all others, will fall or decline. Where will be the infallibility of the Pope then. In the same place as the infallibility of whoever was heading up the priests of Baal when he claimed it thousands of years before Christ. It is a huge and baseless claim and must be resisted in the interests not of truth but of progress.
Dr Dog,
I agree with you, but I also suspect that you are a bit miffed with this whole spectacle because there are so few references in the Bible to dogs, and that this colours your judgment. Jesus didn’t befriend any dogs, as far as I can tell, which is a great pity, because I reckon dogs would have got on well with him. Perhaps not so well with God: I imagine them hiding with their tails between their legs when She/He was in one of his/her moods.
The only possible references (?) in the whole Bible seem to be to the hounds of hell, and the dogs of war, but they could be out of Shakespeare ?
Perhaps there were no dogs in Palestine ? You’d imagine Adam having one, and Noah surely had two on his Ark. A dog would have been a great comfort to Job after God wiped out his kids and slaves and crops and vines and animals and wrecked his house, all for a bet with Satan. Do you think that God was a bit jealous of the affection that people have for dogs ? He/She wanted people to worship only Him/Her and not any other creature. Look how he smote whoever it was for worshipping cows, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be a sheep or a goat when God was around. And out of the billions of mosquitoes, of thousands of species, he allowed Noah to take only two of each on board, and the same with the 650,000 types of beetles, only two of each.
You’re medically qualified ? Forgive me, I partly took it to be an honorific title, perhaps for some great works or heroic deeds that few other dogs have ever achieved; and partly to assume that it was a doctorate in philosophy, which would explain the erudition of your contributions. Are you a GP, or a vet ?
Joe
Hi Joe,
I am a vet, which for a dog means that I work with people. It mostly involves licking sores and smelling out cancers. Nasty stuff really and I am no longer practicing. If I keep having to deal with some of the more ignorant posters on this site I might give myself a promotion to Prof. Dog. It has a nice ring to it.
I think I might have liked Jesus, if he was real. I am pretty sure he would not take the attitude his so called followers have toward the world of nature.
Dogs do get a poor run from Christianity, but don’t most animals? I have a real problem with concepts around the supremacy of people. For an organisation that preaches humility you might think the church would get on board in regard to climate change for instance, but instead we see Pell coming out as one of the last of the climate change sceptics.
Perhaps they are so confident about the second coming and renewal of the earth that they are happy to screw the environment and trust Jesus to have a resurrection plan for everyone, including beasts of the field etc.
As usual they are happy to gamble with everyone’s future because of their own subjective beliefs. They even take the same attitude to those that they continue to treat as less developed humans, such as the African peoples. Again it is the arrogance rather than the misunderstanding that most shocks me.
Hi Dr Dog,
Fascinating ! Actually, what would you recommend for an itchy backside ?
I suppose Christians are trapped with their own paradigm: having created a God who gives back ‘free will’ (and yet predestination - beats me) and in her own image, so they can’t intellectually admit that, as implied by their own construction, their creation’s creations could have chosen to exercise that free will by stuffing up the environment which their creation has created for them to have dominion over. Having created a Creator in their own image who then, they propose, went on to create the world, how can they admit to breaking the most important covenant that they have constructed as having with this created Being, to look after, to have stewardship for, the world ? So they have to assert that there can be NO environmental change, at least for the worse, not ever, no way: their creation wouldn’t have created them to do that sort of thing, free will has its limits, and anyway people are created in the image of their own creation. And so religions all have their contradictions.
Joe
Jeffrey, I am sorry your time in the Dominicas did not work out. Needless to say with remarks like
"Thomas launches his magisterial inquiry, Summa Theologica, with a series of proofs for the existence of God. All such proofs follow a similar line. The world exists, but it cannot explain its own existence. We must therefore postulate something else to account for it. This something we call God.
After a few years I realised that these proofs depend completely on the assumption that the world is not God."
I am guessing you did not get passed the introduction of Suma Theologica.
Hi Joe,
I know you want me to say dragging yourself across the carpet but I think unbitten fingernails and a good hand wash is probably the best, and unless done in public will not earn you a swift kick from your so called betters.
Contradition, especially in the attempt to cover for the lack of understanding of their forebears always gives religions away as the constructs they are. I am amazed at what can be bourne under the banner of faith, which to me is simply the suspension of disbelief.
Once you have faith apparently God can be perfect yet changable, popes who make bad decisions yet are infallible and the church everything a person needs but constantly behind the encroaching reality as revealed by science. Either the pope is fallible or the sun revolves around the earth. Ask Gallileo, who among many others was jailed for knowing more than the church.
Trapped they are Joe, but trapped in a construct of their own making. All that is required is the decision to walk through life without the comfort provided by faith. I find the fresh air of freedom invigorating, cold as it may sometimes be.
I am fine with anyone retaining that comfort if they wish. Jeffery sounds like a lovely bloke and really whatever gets him through the night is OK by me. In a political sense though it is high time we treated religion as a purely cultural matter.
Hi Professor Dog,
You’ve got it ! People construct a cage then get in it. It isn’t there, but as you say, people can still feel cosy and protected. The problem comes when they feel that there must be a bigger cage, so if they go through a crisis of faith about their first cage, as Mother Teresa did, they still feel as if they enclosed in something, the arms of Jesus, whatever, but always ultimately within the limitations of their own making. It seems all so pointless. To use your exquisite phrase, we should practise more suspension of disbelief.
Joe
Jeffry, thanks for this. I’m something of a scientist, and an athiest. The trouble is that religion is still a lie, constructed by people to explain what they did not understand and to obtain and retain power - it was ever thus. There it is all of theology expained in one sentence!
The universe is all there is, and still will be long after the human race and all of our religions are erased by time.
splinta: I think it’s a bit brave to say "the universe is all there is" unless by "universe" you simply mean "all there is", in which case you’re saying "all there is is all there is", which is charming but not a lot of help to anybody. I’m not a theologian or even a believer, but I’ll give you my theory anyway. Our universe is possibly a single splinter of matter in the chair of a baby in another universe, and that baby’s universe is just the scraping from a creature’s scalp in another universe, which is a tiny particle of matter in another universe and so on to infinity or God, whichever comes sooner. Perhaps the universes form an Esher-like series of loops and whorls until the last one folds into the tail of the first one. The one thing of which I’m very confident is that there isn’t some benign silver-haired deity taking a personal interest in each and every one of us and doling out praise and blame accordingly. "You’ll get breast cancer! ", "You’ll win the lottery!" "You haven’t prayed lately. Down goes your plane!" "I don’t like the shape of your nose. I’ll make your cat fall off the roof!" The Catholic Church, like all churches, is just a business designed to reward its executives with the trappings of grandeur and the exercise of power. When Pell says "Go forth and multiply" he might be talking to the parishioners or to the Vatican’s share advisors.
umm - not sure how we got onto biblical dog references - but for interests sake there are 19 references to dogs in the bible… mostly in a negative light.
sad really…
Steve Robinson
Pharmacotherapy Advocate
Perth WA
Steve,
Well, I like to think that God made dogs in his own image. Or in the case of Catholic dogs, vice versa.
Joe
Only an RC priest can make Christ on a biscuit to give to frightened people who need a crutch and get it by chewing. That frightens me.
Harry,
There is NO bogey-man there ! No Mister Wolf, no big angry bearded man. You don’t have to be frightened :)
There’s no tooth fairy, Father Christmas, Easter Bunny or cookie monster either. What there is is the real world. Which I suppose is scary enough.
Yes, folks, there is NO cookie monster !
Joe
rmg I may have worded that wrongly. What frightens me is that young people (and older ones) can accept that a priest (bloke in a frock) can make Christ on a biscuit. And think God is a grumpy old man hiding behind a rock with an abacus counting sins to see if the sinner, whatever that means, can come into a place unknown or go in a direction down, also whatever that means to a place called hell after a stopover in another undefined place called purgatory.
As a dog I can chew my crutch, is that OK? We need a resident theologian on this site.
Lets do all we can to popularise the expletive ‘Christ on a biscuit!’. It really rolls off the tongue.
Harry,
Most societies have at some time or other been cannibalistic, so there is nothing unique about devout Catholics wanting to eat Christ: I think Levi-Strauss wrote quite a bit about the subject of anthropophagism, as a form of identification and absorption of someone else’s power or goodness or luck with the shielas.
Yeah, if you read the Book of Job, you can see that if anything, God is a bit of a bastard: read especially the last part, where he stands over Job, just like so many bosses that so many of us have had to put up with, the incompetent bullfrogs with the power to sack you, those sort of bastards. Actually, in Job, God reminds me of Mugabe - that sort of total incompetent, but one with all the power, who lords it over every poor bastard they can, with his cabal of bullies and mongrels safely around him. Job is a real antidote to the notion of a god of peace and love.
Jeez, I wish I could chew my crutch, it’s the only action it might see.
Joe
Christ on a biscuit Joe, you’re right! The so called merciful god only really seems capable of mercy when you have given every bit of power over to him, or his self appointed representatives here on planet Earth. It is all starting to sound like a political organisation designed to control people rather than messengers of peace.
Like the song what has love got to do with it, what has peace got to do with it? When George W announced the invasion of Iraq he mouthed a Freudian slip and called it a Crusade. Of course the Iraq population would have known that was what it was even if he hadn’t said it. This time the Crusade was also lubed by oil but it was certainly anti-Islam. As things turned out George W got very little oil and it united millions of international Muslims who were previously not very entusiastic about being involved in yet another religious war to rally to the cause
The awful thing about that is that Muslims and Christians are worshipping essentially the same god. If you take the whole spectrum of human superstitions they would be right next to each other. Perhaps a jealous god begets jealous worshippers. They are not fighting for right, but for ownership of Jehovah/Allah.
That really is an horrible song Harry. Thanks for putting it in my head.
Job was B.C. and therefore did not know J.C.
Now J.C. taught the Catholics how to be on the wnning team for all time.
Get with the Faith guys!
BC, AD, same God, n’est-ce pas ?
Come to think of it, I reckon Job and Jesus might have got along quite well, and Job might have had a very subverting influence on Mary’s boy, and one wonders what might have happened if, between them, Job and Jesus (in his form as a human, a son of god, rather than god himself [no, I have never understood the triune nature of the Christian god])might have had the courage and strength to stand up to a dictatorial god and demanded that he quit punishing people who were, after all, in his own image, and to whom he himself had, after all, given ‘free will’. Surely, logically speaking, if god gave humans free will, then he also had to butt out and leave them to it - he can’t have it both ways, giving people free will and then shoving it up them when they exercise it. If free will, then an otiose, hands-off, god. Unless of course he is a sadistic bastard, which might explain a hell of a lot about Catholic philosophy.
Joe
mg1859 Make that Roman Catholic mate, the Anglicans are small (very small) catholics. Of course the Vatican never accepted that because they always make a big deal of Apostlic Succession claiming Pete had Christ’s hands laid on him and they have had a non broken line from Pete right through to the present German one. Once Henry Number 8 gave the Vat the shove, any of the bishops ( all with hands laid) who went with Henry were considered heretics and could not give the head tap. The Vat likes to rubbish Anglicans because they claim Henry formed this church to bed a sheila. That does not explain how the Poms later on when they could have gone back to Rome would not., because they could not cop it. Where the Oz Catholics are missing the bus is unlike the Oz Anglicans who are independent of the Pommy church but still a part of it . This allowed the Oz church to get rid of some of the old Pom garbage. If the Oz Catholics did the same they would be much better off. As far as th two churches are on a local basis there is a mutual appreciation and the RC’s don’t take any notice of what the Vat says to divide them
Like it all, funnily, Dominic’s (the founder of the dominicans) symbol is a ….
you guessed it, a dog!!!
Aaaaah ! There’s a clue to Dr Dog’s first name !
Personally, as a Marxist, I’ve always preferred the Franciscans, vows of poverty, working with the poor, etc. And I knew a really nice Pallotine once, great bloke. So they’re not all toadies and Opus Dei.
So as I take it God was an AH in BC then JC came and taught the RCs how to get ‘on the winning side for all time’. Get with the faith. Great.
Catholics are more small time than all time in regard to longevity. Hell, even the Egyptians lasted tousands of years more than the Catholics have so far. RCs will have to stand in line.
But of course they have the direct lineage to Peter. Sure, the papal line was interrupted a couple of times by warmongers, pedarists, incestuous rapists and serial thieves, but with all that wonderful history of course some popes are going to be better than others.
The poor Anglicans don’t even have that. Their godly representative on earth, at least immediately post-reformation, was the king or queen of England. How very godly. Plus they don’t have to wear the whacky hats and stuff. They couldn’t go back because they couldn’t wear the gear, not the dogma. It takes a special kind of European to look good in robes.
Given the impossibility of establishing any real authority, and since God seems disinclined to come and sort out his mess, I am planning to start my own church. I will call it the Assemblies of Dog. As of now I am in direct communication with the Almighty. He has asked me to pass on his apologies for being absent for the past 2000 years but promises that if you follow me I will be able to pass on his will. He seems very keen on large donations, so at least the major churches have gotten something right.
Oh, and he says the ‘moving in mysterious ways’ is all about getting chicks.
A hundred years ago roughly, miracles used to be performed at the Melbourne Royal show: a sheep-dog used to herd three chicks into a jam tin. So you have a precedent there, Doctor.
Now if only I could fit into a jam tin with three chicks…..
There you go. The proud tradition of the Assemblies of Dog is building already. The great prophet Rusty has shown us that it is easier to get three chicks in a jam tin than for a rich man to smoke a filterless camel. Or somesuch.
All good stuff and ripe with analogy. Joe do you have any interest in a position in the church? You seem a very dog friendly fellow and could easily pass for a earthly incarnation of either Dominic or my personal favourite, St Francis of Assisi.
Suggestions of outfits and trappings would be welcomed.
Well, I do have a way with dogs, if I do say so: a grumpy old Staffy was being led past me the other day and I stopped her for a chat and an ear-scratch and a mutual growling and she was happy as Larry.
Can I propose cat-hats for the various functionaries of your church, Dr Dog ? In fact, membership should be barred to cat-lovers and prospective members should fill out a form swearing that they have never owned a cat (well, who can ‘own’ a cat ?).
And Australian rough-haired terriers should be given preferential treatment over those poncy French things, or is that being discriminatory ? Sheep-dogs would be great for rounding up a flock. Instead of an altar, we could have a post ? Members of your church could save up their chop-bones and put them in the plate each week ?
Hey, you know, this could work !
Joe
Excellent suggestions all, Joe!
Every religion has to have its Satan. I think cats fit the bill very well. We could have a yearly festival where we release a few and then chase them from the temple. They sure look evil, what with all that sneering and retractible claws.
I think a post would be outstanding. With a sniff the local priest could tell who had been attending church. It could be no worse than the piss the Catholics use for their sacrament.
The issue of poodles is a difficult one. I would be inclined that they could be members of the church, but as they are more a stay at home dog they can’t have the experience and understanding that working dogs have, and therefore can’t hold positions within the church. Likewise pugs and spaniels. Their role would be to open cans of Chum at social events and generally look after the ‘proper’ dogs .
With regard to other breeds I agree, sheepdogs as missionaries fits nicely. Dobermans could form a sort of hard core Opus Dei style group. Staffies already remind me of rough old mildly alcoholic Irish priests, a bit scary but lovely when you get to know them.
We must apply for Deductible Gift Recipient status immediately so we can start taking donations. God has shown me a vision of a huge doghouse somewhere in the Hills District of Sydney, where all canines can come together and howl their songs of praise to him.
I realised last night, God never stopped talking to us, its just that he has a very, very high voice. It takes a dog to hear the word. SEND CASH NOW!
Hi Doc,
Yes, such a church would have to distinguish itself clearly from other ingferior fetish-oriented ones, it would outlaw slavery for example, which features so prominently in the Bible. But I think we should stick with polygamy, and add polyandry as well, they are admirable institutions. To that end, of course we should have female bishops or mullahs or llamas and allow our clergy to marry (see above). ‘We’ ?? I’m really getting into the spirit of it all.
Now all we need are a couple of martyrs (a couple of dogs hit on the road by speeding priests? a puppy who has been sexually molested by another one ?), and a few symbols whose utter irrelevance we can build up into something mysterious and wonderful and ‘spiritual’, like Brian’s shoe, or a couple of sticks crossed, or a circle, or a dot, or whatever, and just let our followers make of it whatever they like, under the wise guidance of those who know better. I think that’s how it works.
Yours in the faith,
Joe
Hi Joe, now I can really smell your arse (rhetorically).
Of course the clergy will be able to go at it like…well…dogs! Not much point taking the vow when the nuns can come on heat.
Already the modern version of the Roman Empire (local government) is trying to keep our doggy brothers and sisters down. They lock them up in pounds and small children are brought in to view the spectacle. These children and their parents can give the thumbs up and take our followers as slaves or give the thumbs down consigning them to martyrdom.
Perversions abound! There will be no tolerance for trying to hump the leg of a fellow church member, nor will we allow the cruel practice of asking me to go and get a stick, only to callously throw it away again. Sometimes this torturous process can go on for ages. I mean if you don’t want it don’t ask me to get it for you.
Catholics who convert can continue their life of service by following us and the other clergy around with a plastic bag.
That leaves us with the difficult choice of an icon. We can certainly knock up the odd statue of the saints - Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and The Littlest Hobo (wasn’t that guy cute, and he did more travelling for the cause than Paul. No epistles for him, he just jumped the next train out of town). Another saint might be that little guy who has waited for years to hear the word of God out of a gramaphone.
But I digress. We need a definative symbol like the Christian cross. An empty collar and lead dangling from a kitchen chair? A nice big brown dog’s egg on a piece of pavement? A chewed and battered frisbee? Maybe the gramaphone itself. It is a great representation of god really. The imagery is too rich.
This could go on forever. The more we write the more I worry that some Californian is going to read these posts and get in before us.
In faith, Reverend Dog.
Hi Reverend, you can smell my arse any time, I’m that sort of dog.
You put forward some very workable and sensible suggestions - at least as sensible as some of the other lesser religions. As for icons, maybe you could pick any item, any image, anything whatsoever, ruminate on it and some plausible story could be made up, linking that symbol in some way to dogs. A stick ? Or as you suggest, a holy dog-egg. A dot ? It could resemble Dog’s freckle.
And we would need new myths: the origin of the universe as a result of Dog and his mother mating and producing a litter of twelve archangels, Adam and Eve discovering sex by watching humans and being cast out for trying it human-style, the Ur-dog and his Ark taking two humans on board who caused no end of trouble, or sending one of them off swimming to dry land never to be seen again, Jonah and the dog-fish, some other dog chasing away the pigeons bringing manna from heaven to Elijah or whoever, Solomon the super-dog with his thousand bitches, Joshua the dog burrowing under the walls of Jericho, Dog’s own special sack-cloth covered in dog-hairs - a committee could knock up a Holy Book in a good weekend, as was done back in 500 BC, and in 342 AD, and 612 AD, etc.
One important icon could be of the mother-Dog suckling a dozen infants. There’s your symbol, Reverend ! six dots down one side of the page and six dots down the other, representing nipples. Very cryptic.
Perhaps a lead and collar are symbols of pre-Liberation, before we saw the light, symbols of colonial servitude ? I don’t know, I would be happy worshipping a post or a stick. But of course, there would probably be some schism sooner or later, with one lot worshipping a stick or a post leaning one way ( / ) while a minority could only worship if it leaned the other way ( \ ), then each group could excommunicate the other, after which we could expect a couple of hundred years of war before the ‘orthodox’ side prevailed.
Maybe we could try it without any hierarchy of dogs at all, or ‘one right way’ to lean the stick (damn those relativists !), perhaps also without priests or bishops or archimandrites, like the Quakers (and those socialists, too !). We could call ourselves the Holy Rollers, and on our one day of the week, we could all roll in each other’s droppings, eat each others’ bones from the plate, then howl and bark for a couple of hours, then root each others’ legs. Sounds just about as sensible as the Nazinger Protocol.
Cheers,
Joe
We are on. Wait for the signal and we will unleash our new world religion. I love the six dots, perfect and could be interpreted many ways - just the way god botherers like it.
Ciao for now. NM is moving on and so should we. I miss the pope, don’t you? Now its back to Federal politics. Not much to laugh about there.
Woof