Fission for a reason

By Richard Glover

(SMH) -AS IS well known, Napoleon only waged war because he was short and Hitler was forced to destroy Europe because of his unrelieved diet of vegetarian food. Why can't we recognise that Kim Jong-il is behaving badly because he can't do a thing with his hair?

Every morning the North Korean dictator stands in front of the mirror, prodding and teasing his hair upwards. With every touch, he just makes it look worse. The combination of a bouffant style and male pattern baldness is not a happy one. There are birds with neater nests.

After half an hour of pure agony, the pint-sized despot throws down the comb, stomps his tiny feet and starts planning Armageddon. Who among us has not stared at the mirror one miserable Monday and formulated just such a plan to destroy all humanity? "If I look this bad, why should the rest of the world be allowed to exist?": this is Kim Jong-il's view exactly.

Note also the way Kim Jong-il's hairdo increasingly resembles a nuclear mushroom cloud. In Freudian terms, he's trying to tell us something. It's not so much a hairdo, as a blackmail note written in over-teased locks: help me, or you'll be seeing exactly this shape on a horizon near you.

Here's the chance for Australia to step in and save the planet. Julia Gillard, our Deputy Prime Minister, is shacked up with a bloke who distributes hair-care products. Not every country has this now-crucial advantage. Tim Mathieson must be dispatched instantly to Pyongyang with a suitcase of his finest product lines. No expense should be spared. The Prime Minister's own jet must be provided. Give Tim Mathieson half an hour in Dear Leader's boudoir with a packet of Rogaine and some volumising shampoo and things will be a lot less tense north of the 38th parallel.

Of course, bad hair is not Kim Jong-il's only problem. He's also trying desperately to get the world's attention. His method so far has been to yell and scream and then to let off a nuclear bomb right underneath himself. If Obama doesn't agree to a meeting, he'll let off two bombs underneath himself.

So far, the only effect of the bomb has been to add another three centimetres to the height of his hair. Another three devices and he'll look like Jimi Hendrix on the cover of Axis: Bold As Love.

Kim Jong-il isn't the only person to be motivated by a desire to make up for his own inadequacies. Most human behaviour can be explained in this way. Note the way Stalin and Hitler both had stupid moustaches, while Julius Caesar struggled for years with comb-over issues. (That's no laurel wreath atop his head in all the statues; it's all he had left of his hair.)

Even our own Prime Minister's endless vaulting ambition is surely the result of being named Kevin - not so much a name as a spur to action. As it happens, Rudd was this week named a "psycho chicken" by Barnaby Joyce - a man whose own first name must derive from the same Boy Named Sue theory of child-raising. Presumably Barnaby's mum and Kevin's mum knew each other, up there in Queensland and were involved in some sort of competition. "I'm saddling mine with the name Kevin, just to give him something to overcome in life," said Mrs Rudd, only to be left gasping in admiration when Mrs Joyce leaned over the fence to reveal the turbo-charged bully-attractor that is "Barnaby".

Of course, it may be just a Queensland thing. The Treasurer, I note, was christened Wayne, and yet there is no evidence of Queensland's version of DOCS being notified at the time.

But back to the "psycho chicken". Barnaby was busy attacking the PM over allegations that he reduced an RAAF flight attendant to tears. Apparently she was unable to offer him a vegetarian food option during an official flight. As Barnaby put it: "The guy's a psycho chook. Who in their right mind gets onto a plane and because he doesn't get the right colour birdseed has a spack attack?"

I may be the only person on the PM's side. I have personal experience of the deep anguish that comes over one on the Qantas flight to Brisbane when they've run out of the apricot chicken and try to palm you off with the overcooked fish.

I'm also a little concerned by the news that members of Australia's defence force can be reduced to blubbering wrecks by a few harsh words from an unhappy passenger. Will we find ourselves, in a decade or two, locked in battle with Indonesia or China, only to find them throwing harsh epithets over the trenches? "Oh, you Australians, you can't even get the entrees right during cabin service." Exit left the Army First Division in a flood of tears.

And will they now have to hand over cabin service on the PM's jet to battle-hardened members of the SAS? Only after three years in the desert in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban, are people tough enough to endure the withering gaze of a Kevin denied his vegetarian option.

Which brings us back to Kim Jong-il. With our defence forces thus weakened, we need to act fast to ensure world peace. Tim Mathieson to the rescue. Grab that can of Vo5. Lock and load, Tim, lock and load.

Even our own PM's endless vaulting ambition is surely the result of being named Kevin.