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Letters-to-the-editor 10 Jun 23

Letters – 10 June 2023

Poetry Letters & HumourBy Various June 6, 2023

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Euthanasia-Book-Review

Book Review – Euthanasia: Seven Questions about Voluntary Assisted Dying

Music Cinema & BooksBy Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen June 6, 2023

Peter Kurti’s book, Euthanasia: Seven Questions about Voluntary Assisted Dying, addresses one of the most serious issues of our time: the legalisation of a form of killing. Traditionally prohibited by the great world religions, it is now becoming increasingly routine and validated by contemporary cultural doctrine. Aside from its strong, substantive arguments against euthanasia, this book – intentionally or not – prompts a vital question, namely the level at, or the terms in, which the debate between those who oppose euthanasia, primarily from a religious standpoint, and the primarily secular proponents of euthanasia should take place. Even though “assisted suicide”…

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Ahmad-Jamal-Music-Review

Music Review – How to Stop Playing and Listen to the Music

Music Cinema & BooksBy David James June 6, 2023

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing jazz virtuosos is to know when not to use that virtuosity. Too often the soloist in a jazz group pushes the supporting musicians into the background as he explores his ability to play with speed and complexity. It is rare that the soloist has an ear for the whole ensemble and seeks to be first among equals. This is an area where jazz tends to be weaker than classical music. A composer necessarily thinks of all the parts and how they interplay. Improvising jazz musicians tend to find it all but impossible; they are too…

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Vatican-Catholic-Church

The Catholic Crisis Over ‘Us’

Culture & Society, ReligionBy a News Weekly contributor June 6, 2023

Cambridge historian Richard Rex has provocatively proposed in his review at First Things of Ross Douthat’s book, To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, that Catholicism today is embroiled in the third great crisis of its bimillennial history. The first crisis was the fierce, Church-dividing debate over “What is God?” That…

Man-woman-legal-definition

Why States Must Define ‘Sex’ Precisely

Health & Education, Rights Freedoms & Justice, Culture & SocietyBy a News Weekly contributor June 6, 2023

Until recently, no precise legal definition of sex – especially the terms “male” and “female” – was needed because no one contested it. Unfortunately, because of gender ideology’s growing influence on our laws and institutions, states no longer have this luxury. Gender activists are now working to redefine sex in federal laws and regulations, such as Title IX, to include “gender identity”. If this succeeds, it will subvert all pre-existing legal references to sex, contrary to their original intent. Some state legislators are proposing to define sex by tying it to biology but in an artfully vague or general way…

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Masks-heresies

Old Ideas Behaving Badly: Heresies Take on New Forms

Religion, Culture & SocietyBy Gary Furnell June 6, 2023

T.S. Eliot wrote that one measure of a society’s maturity was the quality of discussion around religious matters. By this measure, many of Australia’s current leaders and commentators are immature, lacking adequate knowledge of their own culture’s history and philosophy. Too often – based on their public statements – they make crude judgements, bigoted pronouncements and formulate misguided policies. One consequence of this widespread willed ignorance is that not only do we have simplistic, obfuscated conversations about religious issues, but people now pursue ideas that the Church long ago considered – and rejected. We are hampered by our religious illiteracy…

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Canberra-Observed-Justice-System

Hype and Hysteria Blunt our Justice System … Again

Culture & Society, Aus Politics, Rights Freedoms & JusticeBy Mystery Canberra Correspondent June 6, 2023

With benefit of time, it is becoming more and more apparent that the level of hysteria that occurred over the Brittany Higgins saga is another stark example in recent times of how easily the justice system can be bent and manipulated for political purposes in the social-media era. It is a case where no one comes out well, neither the politicians, the media, the plaintiff nor the accused, the judiciary, the taxpayer-funded human-rights advocates, the police, or the baying public who are now apparently able to use social media to convict, punish, silence, cancel or ruin the reputations of people…

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State of the States ACT

State of the States – ACT’s Broken System

Aus PoliticsBy News Weekly Team May 30, 2023

This week’s State of the States brings to your attention the broken healthcare and education system in the ACT, where abortion is free and accessible, Catholic hospitals are seized by the government, and the rights of faith-based schools are threatened.

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Cinema-Review-Marlowe-Renfield

Cinema Review – Irish Refraction of a Gumshoe and a Self-Defeating Dracula: Marlowe and Renfield

Music Cinema & BooksBy Symeon Thompson May 30, 2023

There are many films out there, but not all of them can be well-managed in a single review. Either there’s too much in them, or too little, or perhaps what makes them interesting is their side themes or their background. Marlowe, for instance, is an interesting film. It has a good cast and a good crew. It is engaging enough, but there is something in it that makes it incomplete – that makes it not work as well as it might have. Adapted from Benjamin Black’s The Black-Eyed Blonde, Marlowe is a very Irish imagining of the very American private…

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Housing-crisis

How Albanese Could Tackle the Housing Crisis

Economics, Aus PoliticsBy Peter Westmore May 30, 2023

Under pressure from surging interest rates and rising rents, the Federal Government unveiled a raft of policies in its 2022-23 Budget designed to show that the Government recognises the growing pressure on families and households, and is doing something about it. Unfortunately, these policies will do little to fix neither the short-term problem facing households, nor the long-term problem of a shortage of new homes and affordable rental properties. This shortage has been caused by a lack of investment in housing over years, exacerbated by supply issues going back to the pandemic, rising prices and rising interest rates. The centrepiece…

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Calvary-Hospital-Canberra

Rule of Law at Stake in Calvary Hospital Enforced Takeover

Aus Politics, Health & Education, Rights Freedoms & JusticeBy Chris Rule May 30, 2023

On May 10, 2023, the ACT Government announced that it was introducing the Health Infrastructure Enabling Bill 2023 into the ACT Legislative Assembly to compulsorily acquire Calvary Public Hospital at Bruce on July 3. The Government is acquiring the land so as to build a new hospital to cater for increased population in the north of Canberra. Once the hospital has been built, the current Calvary Public Hospital will be demolished. The legislation was introduced on May 11 and, at the time of writing, was to be debated on May 31. The Government suspended standard procedures and the Assembly was…

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Candle-in-the-dark

Defence Strategic Review: If Not This Candle in the Dark, Which and When?

Aus Politics, Defence & SecurityBy a News Weekly contributor May 30, 2023

By Edward Gray Broadly speaking, the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) is a good thing and the National Defence Report is a more suitable model than anything that came before it for Australia’s current security concerns. However, National Defence is criticised for conceptual and practical reasons. The conceptual criticisms hinge on the argument that National Defence is trying to do everything and thus risks doing nothing. This criticism is based on the idea that strategy is about making choices among competing options as to what is the most pressing threat and what can be done about it with the resources available.…

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Australia-America-Economics

NCC Anticipated for Australian Policies Behind $US3.5 Trillion Economic Reset

Pat's Point of View, Economics, Aus Politics, Foreign AffairsBy Patrick J. Byrne May 30, 2023

NCC policy proposals for building Australia’s strategic industries, presented to the recent Defence Strategic Review (DSR), remarkably parallel America’s economic policies reset in the face of Beijing’s belligerence and Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. Driven by new global strategic challenges, Washington says that the deep globalisation (the old “Washington Consensus”) policies of recent decades are finished. The United States priority is strategic concerns over economic liberalism. Washington aims to rebuild the nation’s strategic industries, infrastructure and middle class, while revitalising the global strategic and economic architecture framed by the 1944 Bretton-Woods Agreement. It aims to “de-risk” from China’s economy while rebuilding…

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Little-people-hobbit

We are the little people, living our own histories

Special Feature, Culture & SocietyBy Luke McCormack May 30, 2023

I discovered mountain bike riding when I was 16 years old. I was living near Templestowe, outside of Melbourne. The mornings were cold and the tracks were slippery and muddy. I’d see Cadel Evans at some races, he was riding in “experts”, while I was still in amateur class. It was the perfect challenge for…

The-Voice-divisive

The Voice Looks Good and Sounds Great, But …

Rights Freedoms & Justice, Culture & Society, Cover Story, Aus PoliticsBy a News Weekly contributor May 30, 2023

Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO is an advocate for empowering the First Nations of Australia to build businesses and sustainable economies. He has advised successive Australian governments since 2004. He fears that the Voice will reverse the 1967 Referendum, and entrench race and segregation in the Constitution. This article first appeared on the SBS website on…

HMS-Pinafore

Music Review – Echoes Around Parnassus: A Word in Your Shell-Like …

Music Cinema & BooksBy David James May 23, 2023

How much does the sound of words that are sung communicate meaning? With the spoken word, even with poetry, the sound of the language tends to be seen as subordinate. It is, if not exactly an ornamental addition, at least to some extent in the background. Techniques such as alliteration, assonance, rhyme and repetition supplement the emotional effect but they are not considered to carry much meaning in themselves. Things become subtly different when music is involved, especially in genres such as opera and musical theatre. The emphasis that applies in poetry tends to be reversed. The sound takes prominence…

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Albanese-Pandora-box

‘The Voice’: Jury, that is, us, is still out – Part 3 of 3

Aus Politics, Rights Freedoms & Justice, Culture & SocietyBy Paul Santamaria QC May 23, 2023

Even before the joint Parliamentary committee, considering the bill to establish the forthcoming referendum, and to incorporate The Voice as a permanent institution in the Australian Commonwealth, it is all but certain that the community will be asked to vote on the Bill in its present form as read in Parliament by the Government earlier this year. There is no realistic prospect of the Government moving to confine the Bill to recognition of First Peoples and their unique and ancient connection to the lands, seas, and sky of the continent within the Preamble alone. Nothing short of The Voice, as…

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Trans-minors-insurance

Major Trans Risk to Minors: Australian Insurer Reassesses

Health & EducationBy a News Weekly contributor May 23, 2023

Australian doctors in private practice may come under pressure to cease involvement in medicalised gender change of minors following an insurance decision that stresses the significant risk of litigation. “In response to the high risk of claims arising from irreversible treatments provided to those who medically and surgically transition as children and adolescents, [medical indemnity insurer] MDA National is restricting cover for practitioners in private practice,” the insurer says in an email to members with this exposure. There is intense international debate about the safety and efficacy of medical transition for an unprecedented number of teenagers, mostly female and presenting…

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Defence-Review-countercultural

Is Report too Counter-Cultural for ADF, Defence Department?

Aus Politics, Defence & SecurityBy a News Weekly contributor May 23, 2023

By Edward Gray Despite my overall praise for the National Defence Report on the Defence Strategic Review, it has problems and I am aware of concerns in the broader strategic community. These concerns all boil down to the same question: will it work? From there, critics ask different questions and highlight different concerns. First, there are concerns that the concept is not sound and not achievable. Second, there are concerns that there are too many gaps in the Report, too many things left out or otherwise under-explained that really matter. And third, there are worries that even if the Report…

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Tertullian-Unborn-Child-book-review

Book Review – Tertullian and the Unborn Child, Christian and Pagan Attitudes in Historical Perspective

Music Cinema & BooksBy a News Weekly contributor May 16, 2023

Julian Barr’s Tertullian and the Unborn Child: Christian and Pagan Attitudes in Historical Perspective is a carefully argued book of essentially three parts: an examination of Tertullian’s (not entirely consistent) opinions concerning human development in the womb and the immorality of abortion; a survey of the early Jewish and Christian literature that deals with abortion; and a consideration of whether early Christian attitudes to abortion were that much different from those of the pagans whom they lived alongside. Mindful that both sides of the modern abortion debate have been known to cherry-pick from Tertullian’s writings to strengthen their own positions…

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Religious-freedom-rights

International Covenant Ignored as Faiths Granted Only Negative Rights

Religion, Rights Freedoms & JusticeBy a News Weekly contributor May 16, 2023

Historically, threats to religious freedom have arisen mostly from the dominance of one religion over others, or from the state sanctioning an official religion. More recently, some states, such as the Chinese communist regime, have endeavoured to repress religious belief and practice entirely. While these situations are still the case – formally or informally –…

AUKUS-China-dice

AUKUS: Friends and Others in the Neighbourhood – Part 3 of 3

Aus Politics, Foreign Affairs, Defence & SecurityBy a News Weekly contributor May 16, 2023

PETER WESTMORE: Some opposition to the AUKUS agreement has come from some of our allies in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, which has expressed criticism of it, and some of the Pacific-island states. What significance do you put on such comments? GREG SHERIDAN: I put almost no significance on those comments. A number of Southeast Asian diplomats have said to me, look these are positions that we more or less have to adopt, but we are actually very happy that there is an alternative to China in the region. Of course, some Southeast Asians have come out a million per…

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