...but only in China.

It's illegal in China to use the "names of historical persons" for any place, product, or service.

So no Zhou Enlai International, Deng Xiaoping Boulevard, and even ordering the "Mao Zedong" at the local barbershop/massage parlour is out.

Given a choice between that and president-named-things, I think I can tolerate the occasional airport named after Ronald Reagan.

After all, airports are places you sleepwalk through, alternating emotionally between slight background annoyance and bewildered anger -- rather like a certain presidency of living memory...

Which bit am I misunderstanding!? I agree with you on practically everything, except your hair-splitting over "crit in comedy" vs. "comedy in crit".

I just don't see the difference between "everything is sophisticated humor" (me) and "sometimes he uses jokes to soften real opinions" (you).

The mistake, of course, being believing your summary of an article I still can't find on the site you referenced.

Mea culpa.

On Australia, Clive James, and his latest book (which I've read, along with everything else he's ever penned) being comedy just like everything else he's ever done, I'm standing my ground.

Greatest critic? No. Very funny pop-culture commentator? Yes. Comedian? Absolutely.

The Left's greatest mistake -- and I say this as someone who has made this mistake many times -- is to assume that, if we only just explain things, the truths we hold self-evident will become so for everyone.

As I wrote last time, in a response entitled "How to Read Camille Paglia", it's not what she says that's useful, it's how she makes you refine your own arguments.

Because what it is possible to do with a Paglia article is to use her arguments to sharpen your game, and not against those on the Right. Frankly, we'll never convince them, and yet we spend all our energies training for an argument we can't win.

Where Paglia helps out is honing your rhetorical moves against the very people that you actually need to convince -- the people just oh so very slightly to the right of you -- you know who they are:

The people you know who believe in global warming but just bought a speedboat for their vacation home situated on former wetlands.

The people you know who believe that globalization needs checks and balances, but just maxed out their credit cards to buy a zillion-inch plasma made in China.

The people you know who say "yeah, I see your point!" when you talk about how congestion charges are making London livable, and then complain to you about gas being $3.50 a gallon.

The people you know in your book group who say "post-structuralism sucks!" and yet their argument against it is that, well, aren't all opinions valid? (Hello Camille! I got it! I giggled! Point to you.)

By bringing on their best game, Paglia helps you shape yours. Because those people are actually the only people you have a chance of convincing, and once convinced, we might actually have the numbers to do something useful around here.

Since Clive James claiming Australians are somehow superior in the cultural endowment department directly conflicts with everything else he's ever written on the subject, I'm still plumping for "joke".

Australians are famous for cultural cringe (a subject James has exploited many, many times to hilarious effect) but not for mixing cricket and Mozart... it's such obvious hyperbole that I'm still a bit surprised you were taken in!

Get it? Cricket -- world's slowest game, reeking of establishment and Empire -- plus Mozart -- fussy, elaborate, up-tempo composer reeking of anti-establishment and hedonism -- equals "joke".

...like in an interview with Howard Jacobson (www.clivejames.com) where he claims that Australians are the most cultured people in the world; that after playing cricket with his chums they used to go home and listen to different performances of Mozart and compare

Um, that was a joke.

So are many (I would plump for all) of the one-liners that Allen Barra mistakes for doughty criticisms in the article.

I've read everything Clive James has written, including his excerable "Japanese" porn. He never lets the truth get in the way of a good story, and never lets anything at all get in the way of a good joke.

The book Barra "reviews" is a massive series of laugh-out-loud-funny parodies, summaries, and elegies to, from, and about, popular culture.

It will astound, anger, sadden, gladden, and tickle you. But "criticism" it is not. In calling it criticism, James is just setting the reader up for the biggest of his jokes, and setting the tone in which you will read the text, to get maximum value out of the sort of flippant brilliance at which he above all things excels.