A cocktail of biases
Jumping to conclusions — the easiest kind of exercise, especially on a Sunday morning
I learned three things this week: two things I didn’t know, and one thing I did know, but regularly seem to forget. All of this occurred in less than 10 minutes, last Sunday morning, at the crack of dawn. Here is what happened.
I was listening to the morning news show on Belgian radio, and just after 6am I heard that the people of Australia observe Father’s Day on the first Sunday in September. Well, why not, I thought — they celebrate Christmas in high Summer, and they walk upside down, so it’s hardly the most unusual thing about Oz from the point of view of a dude in Western Europe.
And certainly not particularly worthy of a news report. But there was something afoot with Australian Father’s Day. Every year for the last 15 years, the non-profit organization Dads4Kids produces a television commercial to mark the occasion, encouraging fathers to “love their children and put their families first”. A bit sentimental maybe, but going by this year’s edition, they are really quite charming. Nevertheless, the advert got pulled by the free-to-air TV industry body in Australia.
The reason? The commercial could be seen as making a political statement: it featured only families with mum, dad and…
