6 August

Jeans for Genes, one of those fundraising things that people give to, often without having the first idea where the money goes. I don’t like it for 3 reasons, one that genetic approaches to disease are nearly always a waste of time, a bottomless pit of funding without real smarts. Two that it’s a private research body that gets the money, which isn’t bad in itself but is anybody thinking about which research in Australia really needs the money most, not just the people with the best marketing strategy? And three that it shows that our society runs on brainless sentimentality, dress anything up as a cause and we swallow it without a moment’s thought. Like the bushfire fundraising debacle. Criticising stuff like this makes you look like a miserable bastard. That’s what it’s designed to do, make you feel bad for not coughing up your cash.