Oh Shut up Waters, and get a haircut!

John Waters, former Sinead O'Connor lover and writer of the worst Eurovision Song in Irish History, which fair dues to him is an achievement in itself, whines in the Irish Times with regard to what has become known as #picturegate, the unauthorised hanging of nude portraits of Taoiseach, Brian Cowen in two prestegious Irish art galleries.

He writes of the artist, Conor Casby:

He did not intimate what he thinks they might be saying. That the artist has an infantile obsession with toilet humour? That he nurtures some deep animus towards politicians?

What a gobshite. Casby made no such statements, he said he would let the piece of art speak for itself. and it has a different message for everyone, whether it be that the emperor has no clothes, or that politicians in this country have gotten fat off the boom while the rest of us struggled. It is up to the observer what message the works have had.

The only amusing thing here is Casby’s deluded belief that he has something to say. His response is typical of a public discourse almost fatally degraded by internet auto-eroticism and an obsession with what is called “comedy”. His works are crude, unfunny, vindictive, without intrinsic content and wholly lacking in artistic merit.

This unshaven gobshite failed to recognise that this was floating around in the print media long before it hit the internet. It wasn't so much an issue until a member of the Gardai in Dublin marched into a radio station demanding e-mails without a warrant.

On the same day, Gardai in St. Mary's Park stood gormlessly by, oblivious that associates of criminal Philip Collopy were holding a twelve-gun salute as his coffin passed through the estate.

Waters has had a bee up his arse for a while about the Internet, and in particular bloggers. In an interview with NewsTalk last year he stated that if he ever met a blogger he would ask them to leave the room. A few weeks later he shared a panel on Questions and Answers with a blogger and there wasn't a peep out of him.

They would never have been heard of had the national broadcaster not misplaced its editorial instincts and, faced with an alternative between soberly reporting a minor crime and engaging in a snide attack on the Taoiseach, chose the latter.

Wrong! it was in the Sunday papers the previous day. It would have been forgotten about had certain individuals had not abused their authority and put the screws on both RTE and later, Today FM.

The second phase involved a breach of security at a national institution.

Its a public gallery, which was open, and he didn't take anything., hardly a breach of security Were it me, I would be considering my legal position and exploring defamation proceedings against John Waters for this statement.

Well, no. One difference is that Brian Cowen is Taoiseach and Pat Kenny is not. A second is that these paintings were not hung in the toilet of a private house, but placed in two prestigious galleries, without permission.

Both are public figures and should expect to be exposed to, or victims of satire. If you find this upsetting, then fuck off back into obscurity. The only place where I know of where it is a crime to mock the head of state is Thailand. If you insult or satirise the king, God help you. Taking the piss out of people like Kim Jong Il, or Robert Mugabe may be frowned upon in their respective countries too. Is that the type of press freedom Waters wants us to have?

The idea that everything exists to be laughed at is now almost unchallengeable.

Points and laughs at John Waters' stupidity

The internet has reduced public debate to the level of a drunken argument, in which no holds are barred

Ah long gone are the days where our grannies humbly ate their statues in churches while our clergy molested our children without being questioned, Oh, happy times. No one should be immune from satire. Satire is as old as politics itself. Even older than the copy book scrawls of schoolchildren which Waters compared Casby's work to.

in which deeply unpleasant people get to voice their ignorant opinions in the ugliest terms, in the name of “free speech”.

Not much different to the Irish Times by the look of it.

Intrinsically devoid of intellectual content, they nevertheless cumulatively contribute to a climate in which public discourse is cheapened and debased, rendering it less likely that people of intelligence and sensitivity will participate. What kind of society do we expect such a culture to conceive?

Oh shut up Waters, and get a fucking haircut!