On the fortieth anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England, Matthew Parris in The Times has declared himself a "post-homosexualist" and Simon Fanshawe in The Guardian says that "Forty years on from the decriminalisation of homosexuality, individuality is now more important than sexuality."

Parris:

I have finally become bored with the whole damn thing. Bored, not with being gay, but with talking about it. I blame Tony Blair.

Do cats witter endlessly on about being cats? Do redheads drive us to distraction with their thoughts on being ginger? How many serious comment columns in the editorial pages of newspapers are devoted to the musings of straight men on what it is to be a heterosexual? No, they just get on with it--with being cats, redheads or straights. Such things are for the lifestyle sections of weekend magazines, not rubbing shoulders with the debate on global warming, housing or the terrorist threat.

Fellow-queers: stop moaning. How interesting is any of this to the rest of the world any more? Other groups out there have it worse than we do in Britain. We've got the political changes we asked for. . . . Our main persecutors now are religions--the "faith community": Islam, Catholicism, Anglicanism, evangelicals, Judaism, Hinduism--but most of our fellow Britons don't seriously subscribe to any of these superstitions, so why take it out on them? The brave thing now is to take the battle into the cathedrals, temples, synagogues and Rastafarian dives, not the opinion pages of The Guardian.

To the mosques, homosexualists! Post-homosexualists--to the opera!

Fanshaw:

I have to confess: I don't want to be "a homosexual" any more. . . . In the words of the Smashing Pumpkins, "I just want to be me"! I want to come out of the closet that is "gay".

. . . They may think we're a group, that it matters if you're gay, but are we and does it any more? Do we have anything in common with each other just because we're gay? Are we really proud of being gay? What's to be proud of in just being something? It mattered then, when we weren't citizens. But is there any sense in it now?

. . . The time has come for the end of the heterosexual, the end of the homosexual. It was just a phase we were going through. And the only people who believe it any more are the gay identity freaks, the religious nuts and the bigots. Individuality is the new black, don't you think?

It's good that these British commentators are relaxed about gay identity in the UK and that they need no longer to make any point of it.

Not so in Australia. A recent report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found at least 58 federal laws that explicitly discrimate against same-sex couples. Is British law now so discrimination-free?

Much remains to be done. Still second-class. Where do I get this tee shirt?

The government's graceless actions are bringing Australia into disrepute. Patrick Barkham argues in the Guardian that the Australian government's treatment of Mohammed Haneef reveals its struggle to justify alarmist anti-terrorism legislation.

[I]nstead of an apology, Haneef's name and reputation was further besmirched by the Australian government. Immigration minister Kevin Andrews said the doctor's eagerness to be reunited with his wife in Bangalore "actually heightens rather than lessens my suspicion".

This is groundless scandal mongering.

Haneef's request for an apology from the Australian authorities after the investigation (labelled "incompetent" by the former chairman of Australia's national crime authority) against him failed to find evidence he had "recklessly" supported UK terror was also met with derision. "What do you expect them to do--fall on the ground and grovel, eat dirt? I mean, get real", said Alexander Downer, the foreign minister.

Actually, resignations would suffice.

To add insult to injury, Andrews revoked Haneef's work visa and said this was based on secret police information--implying without offering any evidence that Haneef was somehow of dubious, and perhaps criminal, character. Haneef's colleagues have described him as dedicated and hardworking: his employer, Gold Coast hospital, promised to give him his job back if he regained his visa.

Government-sponsored character assassination may not be illegal but it is a grotesque abuse of power. John Howard's 11-year regime has long been acclaimed for its Machiavellian mastery of "dog whistle politics" -- sending the voters shrill messages about race and immigration without making any direct statement. Yet Howard's administration has never been subtle about hyping the risk of terrorism and the supposed links between immigrants and terrorism.

There has never been a terror attack on Australian soil--although many Australians understandably view the 2002 Bali bombing atrocity, in which 202 people were killed including 88 Australians, as an assault on their nation--but Howard has repeatedly emphasised the terror threat, bringing in tough new anti-terror laws and issuing alarming guidance on how citizens can survive terror attacks.

Some of this may be responsible government; much looks like irresponsible electioneering. It is hard not to see the abuse of Haneef as the desperate lashing out of a government on its last legs, trailing Labor in the polls and desperately seeking a "Tampa moment" to push it to victory in the federal elections later this year.

In 2001, Howard was also trailing in the polls until he used troops to repel a Norwegian ship, the Tampa, which had rescued a sinking vessel of Afghan asylum seekers. The prime minister dumped them on Nauru, an impoverished Pacific Island. This tough, expensive and disproportionate stance won him the election.

The government's treatment of Haneef matches its treatment of other immigrants. In the run-up to the 2001 election, Howard also claimed another group of refugees arriving by boat deliberately threw their children overboard, sparking outrage over these apparently inhumane "illegals". Despite being quickly advised this story was completely false, Howard only admitted as much after he had won the election. Howard will seek other immigrants to demonise but, this time, his grubby government may be beyond rescue. Voters are increasingly seeing their ageing prime minister as the boy who cried wolf over immigrants and terrorism in Australia.

Incredibly, Howard has not only refused an apology, but implies that Dr Haneef may yet be found to be terrorist. This is very close to slander. Haneef indicated he may choose to sue the Australian government over his detention, but no decision had been made yet.

The Australian is not known as a left-wing journal. All the more remarkable that its editorial criticism of the Government's incompetence in the Dr Haneef affair has been so stringent.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews can't have it both ways. Either he is privy to secret information that paints Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef in a light so bad that he should be detained while the matter is properly investigated, or the secret information possessed by the minister is now of so little consequence, Dr Haneef should have his visa reinstated and be allowed to continue to practise medicine in Australia. But what we have witnessed over the past three days bares all the hallmarks of a political charade designed to preserve a shred of credibility for a government that has overplayed its hand.

. . . [I]t is not possible to review Mr Andrews' actions in dealing with Dr Haneef without feeling uneasy that they were guided by politics, rather than good policy.

. . .While a suspicious mind is one thing, and the precautionary principle a worthy bedrock when deciding matters of national security, what appears to be craven political opportunism at Dr Haneef's misfortune should serve as a warning beacon for everyone.

Journalist Hedley Thomas, comments in The Australian 30 Jul 07 that there is no option but to sack Mr Andrews.

The spectacle of Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews trying to slither from blame for his contribution to the ongoing debacle over Mohamed Haneef shames Australians. Andrews is the ministerial monkey in this international embarrassment, not the organ-grinder.

His decision a fortnight ago to cancel Dr Haneef's visa and keep him in detention -- despite the granting of bail by a Brisbane magistrate on grounds including that the evidence at the time was "exceptionally weak" (before the "evidence" all but vanished in a puff of smoke) -- had to be endorsed by John Howard.

Now, having failed to score political points on national security with Dr Haneef, the Prime Minister and Andrews are sticking like glue to avoid further ignominy. Andrews was insisting yesterday that despite the most humiliating public backdown by the criminal justice system in recent memory, nothing had changed in relation to Dr Haneef. Accordingly, he argues, the 27-year-old Dr Haneef, whose freedom was snatched and his life almost ruined because of a trumped-up terrorism charge, cannot look forward to having his cancelled visa restored.

But it gets worse than that. Andrews said yesterday the decision of Dr Haneef to leave Australia for his family home in India to meet his newborn daughter for the first time, and see his wife, "actually heightens rather than lessens my suspicions". Andrews has adopted an untenable position to save his skin at the continuing expense of Dr Haneef. The minister is unwilling to restore the visa because to do so would admit what everyone, including Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, knows -- he made a serious error in cancelling it in the first place.

In his "statement of reasons" a fortnight ago, before the case completely imploded, he discloses how, "having formed the necessary suspicion that Dr Haneef does not pass the character test, and having decided that cancellation of Dr Haneef's visa would be in the national interest", he exercised his discretion to cancel the visa. Andrews says he relied on Direction No.21 [of 2001], relating to the Migration Act, as a guide.

Direction No. 21 states in its preamble: "In exercising this power, the minister has a responsibility to the parliament and to the Australian community to protect the community from criminal or other reprehensible conduct and to refuse to grant visas, or cancel visas held by non-citizens, whose actions are so abhorrent to the community that they should not be allowed to enter or remain within it." Andrews cannot seriously believe this is now valid in view of the effective clearance the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Damian Bugg QC, afforded Dr Haneef on Friday.

Back on July 16, when Dr Haneef was still facing a criminal charge, Andrews also disclosed in his statement of reasons that he gave "primary consideration to the protection of the Australian community, taking into account the seriousness and nature of Dr Haneef's suspected conduct, the likelihood that such conduct might be repeated (risk of recidivism), and general deterrence". Andrews disclosed that "protection of the Australian community" weighed in favour of visa cancellation, and he gave it "significant weight". Does Andrews seriously believe that this, too, is still valid? That we need protection from a medical practitioner who is generous with a mobile phone SIM card?

Andrews also said he weighed the category "expectations of Australian community", and, accordingly, he resolved "that the Australian community would expect that a non-citizen, who has had an association with persons suspected of involvement in an act of terrorism and who has been charged with an offence of providing resources to a terrorist organisation, including those persons, would have their visa cancelled".

He gave this consideration "moderate weight". It is hard to believe Andrews seriously thinks this category, as well, is still valid.

Most Australians have an expectation that Dr Haneef will be treated with scrupulous fairness and honesty to make up for the appalling conduct thus far. All the circumstances have changed since Andrews cancelled the visa. As Andrews can't accept this as a reality, we should change our Immigration Minister. And he should be followed out the door by Keelty, who wants Australians to believe he is not a blunt political instrument; that there has been no bungling by him or his officers; and that journalists should not criticise or challenge miscarriages of justice.

Quite. It really is time for this rabble to go.

Postscript It's interesting that, in the middle of the fuss surrounding Dr Haneef, the Joint Communiqué of the 24 Jul 07 meeting of the Australian Health Ministers' Conference praised the contribution made by overseas trained doctors in Australia.

Health Ministers today joined in recognising the critical role of international medical graduates in providing high standards of health care in Australia and noting that many of our world renowned clinical leaders trained overseas. Almost a quarter of Australia's medical workforce are international medical graduates and Health Ministers, like the many families who rely on these doctors, thanked them for their contribution in meeting the nation's health needs.

At the age of 60, Brian May CBE, formerly lead guitarist of rock band Queen, is close to completing work for a doctorate in astrophysics -- more than 35 years after quitting his studies to become a rock performer.

His thesis, Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, is to be submitted to Imperial College, London, this week. May co-wrote Bang! The Complete History of the Universe with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, which was published last year. He is already a 'doctor', as he holds honorary Doctor of Science degree from Exeter University, awarded on 10 July 2007 in recognition of his work in music and in precise yet popular explanation of science.

On 21 July Dr May was made an honorary fellow of John Moores University, Liverpool, for his services to astronomy (left).

All this has been widely reported and I'm no great fan of Queen or similar music. But I've pasted this here, because it reminds me that I may yet return to studies at 60-something! It's a reminder to never let go of one's dreams.

Well done Dr May.

I'm attracted to this work of John Granville Gregory Still doubting painted in the 1990s and hanging in St. Philip's Church, Alderley Edge, Cheshire Bangor Cathedral in North Wales


Gregory emulates the style of Caravaggio's, The incredulity of St. Thomas (1601). Schloss Sanssouci (Staatliche Schlösser un Gärten) (below).

Besides their own profound meaning, these pictures remind us that the depiction of sacred images in contemporary dress and contemporary guise is a long-established tradition. Caravagio did so, as others did before him. To me, this seems more real than poorly drawn, even kitsch, attempts to imagine how century Palestine and its people may appeared.


The differing proportions of the two images are interesting. Gregory's seems stronger.

The Church of Ireland Gazette reports remarks by the Bishop of Winchester that six out of ten senior Church of England bishops could boycott next year’s Lambeth Conference if the US does not row back on its 'pro-gay' agenda. The Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt told the Gazette that as many as six in ten diocesan bishops, from the Church's evangelical and Anglican-Catholic wings, would be "constrained" in their protest by their loyalty to Dr Rowan Williams, but he warns that if the bishops of The Episcopal Church do not meet the demands of the Dar es Salaam Primates' meeting by the 30 September deadline, and if the bishops of the Global South decline to attend next year's Lambeth Conference, six in ten English bishops could stay away.

Yet the Archbishop of York warns that those who stay away may effectively expel themselves from the worldwide Church by severing their links with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with historic Anglicanism. "Anglicanism has its roots through Canterbury," he said. "If you sever that link you are severing yourself from the Communion. There is no doubt about it."

Does this mean that English bishops will be out of communion with Canterbury?!

So much has been said in this book about our communion with the natural world by the way of Intelligence that it is hardly necessary to underline what the ecologists have been telling us about our rape and ruin of the earth on which we live. This first came to people's notice in the period between the two world wars as the result of soil erosion, which sprang from the exploitation of the earth on a vast scale for commercial profit, leaving once fertile lands a desert. And it prompted T. S. Eliot in the Boutwood Lectures he gave at Cambridge in March 1939 to warn us that " a wrong attitude towards nature implies somewhere a wrong attitude towards God and the consequence is an inevitable doom". [T.S. Elliot. The idea of a Christian society. Faber, 1939, p. 62]

Eliot here put horse and cart in the right order. The ultimate protest against the rape of the earth cannot be on the utilitarian grounds that the world's resources will soon be exhausted. That may be true, although it always remains possible that technology will produce alternative sources of energy when we have exhausted all those now available. The ultimate protest against the earth's exploitation is our apprehension by the way of Intelligence that the earth is the dwelling-place of God's joy and therefore demands the forbearance, respect, reverence and love by which alone we can establish communion with Him.

The wrong attitude towards God of which Eliot spoke is that which regards Him as an object up there who lives in a kind of benevolent isolation from what He has created, a God who never walks in the garden He has planted, so that the garden may be turned into a rubbish heap without any sense of desecration or blasphemy. Such an attitude is totally impossible for anybody in whom the joy of God has gone out to meet His joy in the earth. Such a person will do everything in his power to preserve the Garden of the Lord from all the forms of pollution and exploitation which may threaten it, however much people tell that person to mind his own business. For it is his business, and everybody's.

--H.A. Williams. The joy of God. London: Mitchell Beazley, 1979, pp.119-120.

His 501s leave this guy plenty of freedom to move. But s501 of the Migration Act 1958 and Australia's anti terror laws took away Dr Mohamed Haneef's freedom

Now the Director of Public Prosecutions has decided that it was all a mistake. The case against Haneef began to unravel after a transcript of his interrogation by the national police was leaked to The Australian. Journalists quickly discovered discrepancies in what Haneef said during the interrogation and what the police and prosecutors told the court.

The Minister for Immigration is to grant Dr Haneef a new visa, keeping him in 'residential detention', unable to work. The Minister recently used under s501 to cancel his work permit and as recently as this morning confirmed that decision. There was nothing to prevent the Minister placing Dr Haneef in jeopardy again. And there could have been new charges.

Dr Haneef has now left Australia. May he travel well. I am sad that Australia treated this guest so poorly.

What a farce.

501. Refusal or cancellation of visa on character grounds
Decision of Minister or delegate--natural justice applies
(1) The Minister may refuse to grant a visa to a person if the person does not satisfy the Minister that the person passes the character test [as defined by subsection (6)].
(2) The Minister may cancel a visa that has been granted to a person if: (a) the Minister reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test; and (b) the person does not satisfy the Minister that the person passes the character test.
Decision of Minister--natural justice does not apply
(3) The Minister may: (a) refuse to grant a visa to a person; or (b) cancel a visa that has been granted to a person; if: (c) the Minister reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test; and (d) the Minister is satisfied that the refusal or cancellation is in the national interest.
(4) The power under subsection (3) may only be exercised by the Minister personally.
(5) The rules of natural justice, and the code of procedure set out in Subdivision AB of Division of Part 2, do not apply to a decision under subsection (3).
Character test
(6) For the purposes of this section, a person does not pass the character test if:
(a) the person has a substantial criminal record (as defined by subsection (7)); or
(b) the person has or has had an association with someone else, or with a group or organisation, whom the Minister reasonably suspects has been or is involved in criminal conduct; or
(c) having regard to either or both of the following: (i) the person's past and present criminal conduct; (ii) the person's past and present general conduct; the person is not of good character; or
(d) in the event the person were allowed to enter or to remain in Australia, there is a significant risk that the person would: (i) engage in criminal conduct in Australia; or (ii) harass, molest, intimidate or stalk another person in Australia; or (iii) vilify a segment of the Australian community; or (iv) incite discord in the Australian community or in a segment of that community; or (v) represent a danger to the Australian community or to a segment of that community, whether by way of being liable to become involved in activities that are disruptive to, or in violence threatening harm to, that community or segment, or in any other way.
Otherwise, the person passes the character test .
[The remainder of the section defines "substantial criminal record", "conduct amounting to harassment or molestation" and other terms.]

This has long been the iconic image of the Australian surf lifesaver: white, Anglo and, presumably, straight. Surf Life Saving Australia has more than 300 clubs, but just 5 per cent of its membership comes from a non-English speaking background, even though 28 per cent of Australians were born overseas. It is working to change that. The Cronulla riots have definitely accelerated the process. But it's a challenge to overcome ingrained prejudice in beach culture. Muslim women are now training and on duty as lifesavers, with newspapers as far away as Scotland (not noted for its sunshine and surf) declaring that the burqini-clad lifesavers like Ms Mecca Laalaa are "turning the tide on racism". They are joining young Muslim men. "Surf's up for Australian Muslims" is the BBC's headline. Thankfully, action following the riots of last year is having a desirable effect.

This image has been much published lately. A burqini or burkini is a type of swimsuit designed by Lebanese Australian Aheda Zanetti and sold through her Ahiida brand name. The suit covers enough for the modesty desired by Muslim women, yet is light enough for safe, strong, swimming. It's made of light swimsuit material and comes in loose-fitting and closer-fitting versions. The polyester suits were designed to accord with Islamic laws that require women to dress modestly and to eliminate the risk of drowning when the yards of fabric used in traditional burqas get soaked. The suits, pioneered by two Muslim women on opposite sides of the globe, are like lightweight, loose and hooded hiding everything but the face, hands and feet. Australian Aheda Zanetti, was inspired to design her Burqini after watching young Muslim girls struggle to play netball in bulky layers. "I'm a very small business with a product the whole world wants," says Zanetti. Non-Muslims are interested, too, including conservative Christians, cancer patients, burn victims and seniors. Time says that some Muslims are critical, as well as anti-Muslims and feminists. "This is like playing a game with Allah," asserted a poster on the website ShiaChat, complaining that the stretchy fabric reveals curves. Zanetti's design has also brought out anti-Muslim sentiment since she's become a high-profile member of the Islamic community. She has been called a terrorist online; she says she has even received a death threat. Some feminists charge that burqas in any form are offensive to women. "Clearly you're not considered a full human being if you're mandated to cover yourself head to toe in this tent," says Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of Equality Now, the international women's-rights watchdog. Now lifesavers are marching in the Mardi Gras parade, alongside other services, making speedo uniforms 'official'. (picture by Morgan Carpenter) I Like what Ms Sabet (who also makes a burkini style suit) says. "I know it sounds like an oxymoron," says Sabet. "But this is really about freedom." And that's the point. The beach, above all, is a place of freedom to mix together, all ages races and types, whether they wear a burqa or budgie-smugglers.

The 25th July is St. James day, a patron saint of the Spaniards, and Galicia in particulalar. The old Chambers Book of days says that according to legend, James preached the gospel in Spain and afterwards returned to Palestine, where he was bishop of Jerusalem. James is mentioned in the Book of the Acts.

The Spaniards hold St. James in the highest veneration, and if their history was to be believed, with good reason. At the battle of Clavijo, fought in the year 841 between Ramiro, king of Leon, and the Moors, when the day was going hard against the Christians, St. James appeared in the field, in his own proper person, armed with a sword of dazzling splendour, and mounted on a white horse, having housings charged with scallop shells, the saint's peculiar heraldic cognizance; he slew sixty thousand of the Moorish infidels, gaining the day for Spain and Christianity. The great Spanish order of knighthood, Santiago de Espada--St. James of the Sword--was founded in commemoration of the miraculous event; giving our historian Gibbon occasion to observe that, 'a stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the ninth century, when from a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of Gennesareth, the apostle James was transformed into a valorous knight, who charged at the head of Spanish chivalry in battles against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostella displayed his power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors of the inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of profane criticism.'

The city of Compostella, in Galicia, became the chief seat of the order of St. James, from the legend of his body having been discovered there. The peculiar badge of the order is an blood-stained sword in the form of a cross, charged, as heralds term it, with a white scallop shell; the motto is Rubel ensis sanguine Arabum--Red is the sword with the blood of the Moors. The banner of the order, preserved in the royal armory at Madrid, is said to be the very standard which was used by Ferdinand and Isabella at the conquest of Granada. But, as it bears the imperial, double-headed eagle of the Emperor Charles V, we may accept the story, like many other Spanish ones, with some reservation.

The shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostella capital of Galicia, remains a place of pilgrimage, destination of the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James. A compostela is sought by many pilgrims, attesting to completion of the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage is now well known, even in Australia. There are many websites this one looks useful and this Irish one is excellent. During the medieval period; and the distinguishing badge of pilgrims to this shrine was a scallop shell worn on the cloak or hat.

Cross of the Order of Santiago (St. James)

Well, be all that as it may, I am delighted to celebrate another James today, who named himself after the saint.

The Pathway of St. James

After forty days of cheap wine and pilgrims' dinners
of nights rent by generous farts in frugal dormitories
we ascend on blistered feet the stairs of stone
to the Romanesque repository of the saint's bones
and pause at the great doorway of pardons
to place our palms on its marble portal
in the touching furrow worn by faith of centuries
before we enter the shrine
to indulge first moments of expiation
roaming the nave, apse and chapels of atonement
watching the stained lights of Christendom
concede to soft Galician darkness before repairing
to the bars of Santiago to commune
in broken tongues with penitents of many nations
until dawn compels us to trains and planes
to streak over mountains, deserts and oceans,
a diaspora of purged peripatetics with holey socks
returning to the places from whence they set forth
where other bones lie buried.

--B.N. Oakman, Eureka Street, 20 Mar 07

It's obvious that Labor is making itself vulnerable, when Health Minister Abbott can say something like this (SMH, 25 Jul 07)

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott says that while the Howard Government "isn't perfect" there is something "slightly phoney" about Kevin Rudd who is "completely unqualified" to be elected 'Australia's CEO'. Mr Abbott said Mr Rudd has been attacking the government's credibility while adopting a 'me-too' approach on major government policies. "Labor is saying me-too on security, me-too on the economy, me-too on forestry. Kevin Rudd can't have it both ways. He can't support all the government's significant policies while at the same time claim that there is something fundamentally dishonest about the way the government governs. I think what people are waking up to, or what people will eventually wake up to, is the fact that there is something slightly phoney about Kevin Rudd. . . . He has come to the conclusion that if he puts his hand up and says 'me-too' on all the important issues, somehow he might just coast into office. Well, I don't think that Australian elections are decided like that."

Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown says that yesterday's Tasmanian forestry announcement by the ALP shows Peter Garrett, the party's environment spokesman (and former President of the Australian Conservation Foundation) , has sold out. "I can't comprehend how Peter Garrett can have gone through the pantomime of coming down here the day before, flying home again saying Kevin Rudd was going to make an announcement, knowing that announced the death knell for some of the most magnificent forest in Australia," Senator Brown said today. "He should have stood up to it, but he has sold out on the forests. . . . I warned Peter that when he went into the ALP they would eat him up and spit him out and that's just what's happening."

Senator Brown say that former Labor leader Mark Latham did not lose Tasmanian seats at the last federal election because of a conservationist forest policy. Rather, Brown argues that Labor's losses in Tasmania were less than they would have been without the conservationist policy. "Kevin Rudd yesterday sold out on the Australian national heritage forest and world heritage value forest in Tasmania. . . It was a sickening announcement from Kevin Rudd [I agree.]; he hasn't been into those forests, he hasn't consulted with the people who are concerned about those forests and he hasn't read the polls which show 80 per cent of Australians want those forests protected."

Consequently Brown says that the Greens are set to preference neither Labor nor Liberal, but leave the choice to voters in the key Tasmanian marginal seats of Bass and Braddon.

The final decision will be made closer to the election, but Kevin Rudd's sellout of Tasmania's native forests and wildlife yesterday, and endorsement of the polluting Gunns pulp mill, will see many Labor votes go to the Greens and removed a key opportunity for Labor to win Greens preferences. Rudd's $20 million to the loggers, on top of John Howard's multi-million dollar fostering of the chainsaws over recent years, compares with zero for protecting forests and zero commitment to a forest protection policy. The $8 million to protect the forest industry from climate change, fostered by an industry which logs and burns forests and puts massive tonnages of greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere each year, is illogical and perverse.

Rudd has not allocated a cent to protecting the organic farmers, the grape growers, the wine makers, tourism operators or the fishing industries from the impacts of climate change caused by the burning of forests - or the impact of pollution from the proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. The Greens will go to the election offering the clean green alternative to the forest destroying and polluting policies of both John Howard and Kevin Rudd."

Once again Labor is going for the dreaded and dreadful 'small target', rather than making firm declarations of what it believes and wants. Thus Phillip Adams (The Australian 24 Jul 07) accuses the "Rudd ALP just another flopposition". If he's right, God help Australia. Trouble is, so far, he is right.

From security laws to indigenous issues, Labor is a pale imitation of John Howard's platform

Remember Kim Beazley's small target strategy? . . . Small target? What target? No sooner did the Tampa appear on the horizon than the entire federal party sank without trace. No matter how appalling the prime ministerial response to the plight of the refugees--and the revelations contained in the new Howard biography remind us of Howard's tricky and nasty response to that stand-off in 2001--Beazley backed it. The same PM now expressing deep concern over black kids in remote Northern Territory communities put kids into prison [immigration detention] camps. Howard created remote communities, first on our mainland, then dotted around the Pacific [the 'Pacific solution']. And Her Majesty's Opposition did not oppose him. Well and truly wedged, it became the worst flopposition in our political history.

As Labor yet again faces a federal election with, yet again, Howard as PM, yet again the Beazley boys . . . occupy key roles. And they're giving Kev the same advice they gave Kim. Be careful, not courageous. Propose, by all means, but don't oppose. Instead of fearing the wedge, want it, embrace it. Clasp it to your manly bosom.

Rudd keeps saying it loud and clear--and makes it sound sweetly reasonable. "I'm not here", says Kev, "to oppose for the sake of opposing." When it comes to the small target, the Rudd campaign resembles a Target telly commercial. Ten, 15, 20 per cent off! Before the PM can up the ante, Kev's at the checkout. And he cops the wedge without the hedge! He doesn't say "I'll go along with the PM on this, but". He doesn't say "while we'll give broad support to the Government in their response to the ... crisis" (readers can fill in the blank) "we want to see the details and reserve the right to demand changes or modifications". No, Kev signs up without qualification. And he stays signed. Despite this newspaper's revelations about the major cock-up in our terrorist investigation, and despite mounting outrage from the legal community about Mohamed Haneef's treatment, Julia Gillard was still giving the PM, Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews support, embarrassed but unqualified, at the weekend.

Ditto for indigenous issues. Rudd joined Howard's coalition of the willing in seconds flat, enthusiastically agreeing to invade those remote communities in the Northern Territory. As with previous quick-fix policies by Howard - the Murray-Darling takeover comes to mind--problems were quick to emerge in this takeover. The devilish detail in the small print soon made headlines but Rudd had left himself no room to manoeuvre.

I've been saying for years that Rudd is the only hope for a Labor victory against Howard, and still believe that. His discipline remains impressive. He doesn't shirk the work. But am I not alone in feeling a little anxious about the strategy? What seems like unseemly haste to neutralise Howard rather than challenge him? This sure as hell didn't work for Beazley. Voters seeking a conservative leader chose the real thing, not the substitute. Why bother changing when the contender didn't give you much of a choice?

. . . Western democracies are getting used to the choice-less choice. Variations on a theme. Tweedledum and Tweedledumber competing for office. To policy differences that require a magnifying glass. . . . I hope this won't be the case with Kev, but for many voters that's exactly what they're after. More of the same but in a slightly different style.

Not me. I hope, pray, yearn, for real and substantial change. So I'll stick with the Greens.

In a long bleat in The Australian "Pulping our poetry" (07 Jul 07) Rosemary Neil laments big publisher's lack of interest in Australian poetry. She cites a study by University of Queensland Press poetry editor, Bronwyn Lea, who notes a fall of more than 40 per cent in the number of poetry books being published. Lea's study finds that "in the years between 1993 and 1996, more than 250 books of poems were published in Australia each year. By 2006, this figure had been reduced by about 100 titles." Today, Lea says, the vast majority of local poetry titles come from small, independent presses. Some "punch above their weight", winning prestigious literary prizes or attracting big names. According to Lea, however, many independent poetry presses "do not have sufficient access to resources, distribution and marketing to have their books noticed by readers. Under these conditions, the thus far unchallenged maxim that 'poetry doesn't sell' becomes self-fulfilling."

Lea, a poet and academic, believes UQP is the only large, mainstream publisher that still maintains a formal poetry list. UQP publishes five or six poetry titles a year and has on its list eminent poets such as John Tranter and David Malouf. Malouf's first poetry collection in 26 years, Typewriter Music, was released in hardback at the Sydney Writers' Festival last month. Within three days, its print run of 3000 had all but sold out. Lea says this shows that -- contrary to popular belief -- if poetry is properly marketed, it will connect with readers. Her study, published in the new UQP title, Making Books, retraces how "the 1990s heralded a new ethos in Australian book publishing: poetry was no longer presumed to be a prestigious staple on the list of a serious publishing house.

Neil asks, "While we like to profess reverence for dead poets from Shakespeare to Paterson, could it be that readers have little time for living poets?"

For many months now, I have been reading a lot of Australian contemporary poetry, trying to acquaint myself with it and trying to get up to date. Some times, rarely, I find a poem that speaks brilliantly. I am well educated and well read, yet more often than not, I find myself irritated by contemporary poetry as it is literally meaningless -- that is, the words fail to convey any meaning or image to to me as reader; they are simply . . . words.

If poets cannot write poetry that has meaning to the reader (or listener) they will remain unpublished or their publications will be pulped, and deservedly so. If it's good enough, it will sell.

Even apparently good poetry can be obscure. Newcastle Region Art Gallery has had an exhibition/webpages of poems by Australian poets responding to paintings in its collection. Some of these make sense to me, some don't. In this example, distinguished poet Les Murray responds with his poem Definitions to Dale Hickey's Painting 1968. It's a fine poem. Yet it is only because I happen to know a small amount about the Household Division that I could catch a relationship between the painting and the poem. It's all very well for poetry to mean something to the writer, but it must have meaning to the the reader. Here Murray, at least, succeeds. Too many poems tragically have no meaning for anyone.

Definitions Effete: a pose of Palace cavalry officers in plum Crimean fig, spurs and pointed boots, not at all the stamp of tight-buttoned Guards executing arm-geometry in the shouting yards, but sitting his vehicle listening to tanks change gears amid oncoming fusiliers one murmurs the style that has carried his cohort to this day, and now will test them: You have to kill them, Giles, you can't arrest them. --Les Murray The distinctive red tunic is worn by all regiments of the footguards. They are distinguished by the buttons on the tunic, and the plumes in the bearskins -- Grenadier Guards: single buttons, white plume; Coldstream Guards: buttons in pairs, red plume; Scots Guards: buttons in threes, no plume; Welsh Guards: buttons in fours, white and green plume; Irish Guards: buttons in fives, blue plume.

In AFR Boss Jul 07, Fiona Carruthers asks "Messy or neat? Which state signifies a more intelligent and/or creative mind? Which is more conducive to producing top-quality work? Does the state of your desk even affect productivity?" She makes much use of work by Eric Abrahamson, professor of management at Columbia University's School of Business in New York, and David H. Freedman, business and science journalist, who attempt to come up with answer in A Perfect mess: the hidden benefits of disorder--how crammed closets, cluttered offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place. (Little, Brown, 2007). They argue that moderate or controlled messiness is more productive and creative than overt organisation.

I'm not so sure, but I like the picture.

The book features some entertaining types, including the "mess phony" -- an individual who pretends to be messy while hiding order. There's also "the mess pervert", someone who actively creates mess because they derive pleasure from the process. However, Abrahamson and Freeman argue that constant order is ultimately costly. . . . "If you're messy you can let 20 things pile up on your desk. When it all gets too much, you'll spend one morning or an hour or whatever filing them all away. That expends a lot less energy than stopping what you are doing to deal every time you get a new piece of mess." A more interesting point he makes is that allowing mess to accumulate increases your chances of creating interesting connections, patterns or cross references you may not have thought of. "Mess tends to juxtapose things that would otherwise have been separated by order," says Abrahamson.

Abrahamson points to three types of empirical research that helped the authors qualify their assertion that mess reigns supreme. The first was conducted by computer simulation, using desk scenarios ranging from very messy to very neat. The exercise showed that of all the parameter settings, moderate mess helped employees finish their tasks the fastest. Abrahamson and Freedman also interviewed 100 people, and another 160 via a web-based survey. "It's a topic people love to talk about, but I'd say two thirds of messy people feel guilty about their mess says Abrahamson.

Corporate adviser Mark Struk does not know of any research that proves a link between intelligence and either messiness or neatness. "It's fair to say that more creative, more right-brained people tend be messy, but being messy or or neat has no implications for intelligence," he says. Struk says most comp, are following the American corporate model of trying to clean up their employess and limit the amount of paper piling up on desks: There's a definite trend towards decluttering."

. . . So celebrate your mess, allow it to pile up, and , what grows out of it. Just remember to keep it private.

The July issue of Vanity Fair (p.96) includes this exchange between Brad Pitt and former Archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu:

Brad Pitt: So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity. There's a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and equality.

Desmond Tutu: For me, I couldn't ever keep quiet. I came from a situation where for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for something about which they could do nothing--their ethnicity. We were made to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our church, we didn't ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of humanity for something about which they could do nothing--their gender. And I'm glad that now the church has changed all that. I'm glad that apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human, because of something they could do nothing to change--their sexual orientation. For me, I can't imagine the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching.

Tutu's successor as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane, would agree. He mentioned Mr Pitt in a sermon at Westminster Abbey on 17 June 2007.

"Had King David lived today, there is no doubt that the popular press would have had a field day with his eventful life!" We are told, says Ndungane that David was handsome (1 Sam 16:13). "The Brad Pitt of the Old Testament, perhaps! Or if not Brad Pitt, then David was certainly the sort of action hero we are used to seeing Brad Pitt play--as he despatches Goliath and any number of Philistines and other enemies."

David behaved badly, Ndungane observes, yet "Whatever David's behaviour, his heart had remained true to the Lord. This is of course the same Lord who had told his people repeatedly that he was a jealous God. So even though, as our Old Testament lesson told us, 'the thing that David had done [adultery with Bathsheba] displeased the Lord'; and even though David will have to deal with the consequences of his sins; nonetheless, what seems to have mattered most of all to this jealous God was that through it all, David loved him."

"It is absolutely vital that we do not lose sight of the central importance of this lesson, in all the differences within the Anglican Communion. The life of faith is first and foremost about our relationship with our God. It is not about how good our behaviour is. Nor does it hinge on how correct our theology is. Nor does it hinge on our stance on human sexuality."

"What God really cares about is whether we love him . . . God loves us with an outrageous exuberance. . . . And the desire of this God, who is love, is that we should share in this overflowing, excessive and abundant love -- with him, and with others."

"The consequences of this are, Ndugane says, are that by being united with Christ "we are automatically united to everyone else who is 'in Christ' . . . and he is the one who, by the Spirit, will continue to lead us into all Truth. Being led by him is what enables us to dare to tackle the difficult question of how to enunciate the eternal gospel truths in the changing circumstances of our world. In other words, being in Christ is what allows us to change our interpretation of Scripture."

". . . I am not saying that 'anything goes' and we can make of Scripture whatever we like--or just ignore it where it suits us. But we have to be honest about this. There are areas of life where we have made great changes -- not to Scripture itself, but to how we understand it. . . . [W]e have not changed our position on Jesus, and I do not see that we could, and still call ourselves Christians. If anyone wants to pick a fight with me about my faith, let it be on the grounds of my relationship with Jesus, and my belief in who he is: the belief to which Scripture attests and the creeds affirm."

". . . So, even though some of the church is in turmoil over issues of human sexuality, that should never become the touchstone of orthodox belief. Rather, let the heart of your faith be your love for God, responding to God's love in Christ for you."

An inaugural report on Australia's performance at the UN has given the Federal Government a fail mark. Australia's efforts on the international stage were particularly poor on human rights and climate change, the 2007 Report Card by the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA) says. The document, written by academics, non-government organisations and UNAA officials gives the Government a D for climate change and the global movement of people and a C for human rights and foreign aid. Australia fares better in the peacekeeping category with a B, but did not receive an A in any of the 10 areas examined. The UNAA said Australia's participation in the "illegal" invasion of Iraq, treatment of asylum seekers and Aborigines and failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol had damaged its reputation abroad. "I hope the Government will see it as a constructive contribution to the need to improve Australia's role and standing in the UN," former UN ambassador Richard Woolcott said at a launch of the report in Canberra. Mr Woolcott, who was ambassador from 1982-88, said in recent visits to New York he had heard opinions that Australia's style had changed since the Howard Government took office in 1996. "It's said that we tend to lecture more and listen less," he said. "We're also seen as much more closely aligned with the United States Bush administration and a much less independent voice than we were, say in the early 90s." The United Nations Association of Australia's goals are: to promote among Australians greater awareness of the purposes of the United Nations, and to ensure that the Australian Government fulfils its obligations as a member-state of the UN. Australia's representatives were amongst the most committed participants in negotiation of the UN Charter at San Francisco in 1945 and Australia was one of the founding members of the Organisation. The preamble to the UN Charter says that "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . . to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, . . . have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims." In his preface to the Report, UNAA's President, John Langmore says that, Tragically, this Report Card has to conclude that Australia has failed to act in accordance with each of those aspirations during recent years. The Australian Government decided to ignore the opinions of most UN member states and the conditions set in the Charter for use of force and supported the US and UK in the illegal invasion of Iraq, undermining both the first and third commitments. Through ignorance or ineptitude the Commonwealth Government allowed the AWB to corruptly channel funds to the Saddam Hussein regime to secure wheat sales to Iraq, circumventing procedures set by the UN Security Council. The Australian Government has condemned criticisms of its human rights record in relation to asylum seekers and Indigenous people and resisted UN committee proposals for implementation of human rights treaty obligations. Australia repeatedly disappoints developing countries by hostility or neglect of the UN's work on economic and social development, by refusing to seriously adopt the Millennium Development Goals and by the low level of Australian aid. For the last decade Australia has been the only developed country not to send ministers to several major UN conferences on economic and social development. . . . Australia has frequently impeded the UN's work. The Government antagonised continental European governments by joining in the invasion of Iraq and by refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A major revitalisation of foreign policy is required to repair the damage to Australia's international relations and renew our contributions to international peace and justice through committed, professional engagement with multilateral forums and activities. The opening phrase of the UN Charter, 'We the peoples', evokes a sense of engagement through the international organisation with the peoples of the world in our shared hopes for realisation of the four freedoms: of expression and worship and from want and fear. While it is government representatives who attend meetings, participate in debates and vote on resolutions, they are ultimately accountable to us. Yet another reason to get rid of this appalling government.

2007 Report Card on the Australian Government's performance in the United Nations Subject Grade Comment UN General Assembly B Lacks the idealism of many members of the Australian public. Human Rights C Failed to show any desire for improvement. Millennium Development Goals C Has done the minimum and used the term MDG when it suits Climate Change D Fallen far short of the expectations of the people of Australia the business community, and the international community. Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding B A strong supporter of UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding but tainted by its relationship with the US-led intervention in Iraq in defiance of the United Nations. Disarmament C+ Could make a stronger contribution to disarmament by ceasing to rely on the protection of a nuclear weapons umbrella. Global movement of people D Continued to violate fundamental human rights in the detention and treatment of asylum seekers/unauthorised arrivals. Status of Women B- Has taken a number of steps to address gender inequity, but further effort is needed. Sexual and Reproductive Health B Could be performing much better in its global engagement towards population health initiatives. Youth B+ Has done well in the areas of youth employment and education, but more effort needed to improve education, employment prospects and housing situation for Indigenous youth. -- Australia and the United Nations: a report card. United Nations Association of Australia, 2007, p. 3.

Blogger Peter Ould jokingly boasts of "being one of only 7 people in Britain able to sing Bronski Beat's 'Smalltown Boy' at the correct pitch." He reminds me how special Somerville's songs have been over the years. Many of the videos are now on YouTube:

• Smalltown boy
• Why?
• Don't leave me this way
• Never can say goodbye
• There's more to love
• Ain't necessarily so
• You make me feel
• For a friend
• So cold the night

In agreeing that the blessing of same-sex unions is a 'matter indifferent,' the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada would appear to have approved blessing, despite efforts by some bishops to stop it. "Put simply", says the Revd. Canon Eric Beresford, President of the Atlantic School of Theology, in the Globe and Mail (9 Jul 07), "the vote leaves the church in a state of confusion."

I'm not convinced that such so-called 'confusion' is a bad thing.

Beresford writes:

The doctrinal grounds for allowing such blessings were passed, but the motion that would have allowed for an orderly approach to the change was defeated. While it is likely that the negative vote cast by the bishops (refusing to approve the rite) was motivated by a desire for the unity of the church, it is unclear whether this will now be the result.

To grasp the depth of the problem created, we need to understand what it means to say that something is a "matter indifferent." Anglicanism has since its very beginnings sought to hold together a diversity of ways of being an Anglican. The Elizabethan settlement sought to hold together all but the most radical Protestants and all but the most committed Catholics into a single church. In order to do this, the range of commitments that were required of Anglicans was kept to a minimum.

Anglicans were to hold to the historic creeds shared by all Christians, the two sacraments believed to be established by Jesus (baptism and holy communion), the tradition of leadership by bishops, and those things that could be "plainly proved by scripture." This does not cover everything that individual Anglicans might believe is important, but the point is that no Anglican can have their view compelled on anything outside this core. Things outside this core came to be known as "matters indifferent." This means they are not essential to Anglican identity and Anglicans can and, as a matter of fact, do disagree about them. I am no better or worse an Anglican for any position that I take on a matter indifferent, and my view cannot be compelled one way or another.

So then, to say that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter indifferent is to say that it is a matter about which Anglicans might reasonably disagree both in theory and in practice. It is to say that it is a matter which cannot be the basis of discipline . . .

Which, I submit, is precisely the point. If there is disagreement, which course of action should be permitted? Beresford again:

[P]riests are bound by oaths of obedience in "all things lawful and honest." The question is going to be whether or not it is lawful to require obedience from a priest on something the general synod of the church has declared to be a matter indifferent. Further, if it is a matter indifferent, the question is going to be whether a priest can lawfully be prevented from blessing, or entering into, a relationship that the 2004 general synod declared to have "integrity and sanctity."

. . . On the one hand, [the General Synod] has been unwilling [at the behest of the bishops] to affirm the right of dioceses to make pastoral provision for the blessing of same-sex unions where they might need or wish to do so. Although, technically, this does not take away the right of a diocese to proceed on the grounds that the defeat of a motion is not the affirmation of its contrary--it seems unlikely that many dioceses will not proceed as dioceses.

On the other hand, the synod has also ruled that the blessing of same-sex unions in not contrary to "core doctrine." Further, in its response to the St. Michael report, it has affirmed the conclusions of that report, which stated that blessings were not core doctrine but rather had the status of "adiaphora," meaning a matter that is not essential to salvation, or not essential to our identity as Anglican.

If this is true, it becomes unclear what could be the basis of a decision to discipline any priest who in blessing a same-sex union acts on the basis of a matter indifferent even if he or she does so, on a matter of significant controversy, and without the authorization of the church.

All to the good, it seems to me. If a matter is 'indifferent', then there should be freedom.

"Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend". (Mao Zedong, 1957).

Would it were so in Australia.

Of course the Hundred flowers campaign may well have been an entrapment, to identify and eliminate dissidents!

The "Hapless case of Mohamed Haneef" as today's Sydney Morning Herald editorial (20 Jul 07) calls it, demonstrated, yet again (if any demonstration were still needed) the unfairness, incompetence and political opportunism of the Howard government's managment of immigration- and terrorism- related matters.

The case of Mohamed Haneef, alleged associate of terrorists, is a shambles. While the Government doggedly defends cancelling Haneef's visa on character grounds, evidence is leaking from both sides, a senior judge has ridiculed the case against the doctor, Australian business is worried about an Indian trade backlash, and Scotland Yard is angry at an investigator being named in leaked evidence.

Beyond the public circus, the Haneef case raises important issues about public attitudes and how they are shaped. Haneef's barrister, Stephen Keim, says he released a police interview with his client to counter "selective and misleading" leaks by police. Does this help Haneef get a fair hearing, or further jeopardise due process? The Government asks the public to trust that allegations against Haneef are serious, though secret. Yet the Government does not seem to trust the judiciary; if the information against Haneef is so damning, why did the Government not put it before the Brisbane magistrate and the Federal Court judge, both of whom were so unimpressed by the case against him? The issue is one of public confidence. As the Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, said: "For God's sake, explain to Australians why you have taken this course of action."

When the draconian anti-terrorism laws were before Parliament, the public was assured by the Prime Minister, John Howard, that they would be closely supervised by the courts. Yet this week has seen two ministers doing the judicial sidestep. The Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, decided within an hour of Haneef's successful bail application to cancel his visa on character grounds, while the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, on hearing of Haneef's bail, said he might have to tighten the laws.

When the Federal Court judge Jeffrey Spender said he, too, would fail the character test under Mr Andrew's interpretation of the immigration laws, the judge was voicing scepticism in the legal fraternity and the wider community about the strength of the case against Haneef. The Government must demonstrate it has the right balance between protecting national security and the rights of individuals; Haneef deserves his day in court. In an election year, the Government must be careful not to appear to cry wolf on national security. Mr Andrews did not require proof beyond reasonable doubt to cancel Haneef's visa--reasonable suspicion was good enough. However, suspicion breeds suspicion, and increasingly, the general public smells a rat.

Australian newspapers have picked up Ian Robert's appearance on the cover of The Advocate (Issue 990, 14 Aug 07) as a sign of success. Says The Advocate:

In a city dedicated to male beauty, former rugby star– turned–actor Ian Roberts still manages, at 41, to turn heads as he stands barefoot on the sidewalk outside his West Hollywood digs, waiting to greet me. Dressed in loose jeans and T-shirt, he cuts an imposing figure, his body still that of a pro rugby player—hard and built for speed, power, and collision.

Inside his sparsely furnished apartment decorated with photographs of his boyfriend, Daniel, who lives in Sydney, he offers me a Gatorade. It's literally all he has in the fridge after being away in New Zealand shooting Kiss Me Deadly: A Jacob Keane Assignment, a thriller for Here TV starring Robert Gant and Shannen Doherty. Roberts plays Frederick, "an intense thug," according to the film's director, Ron Oliver.

"Roles for someone of my size are rather limited," Roberts says, referring to his 6-foot-5 frame. "I've always been 'the thug,' " he says in regard to a career that has included Australian TV and roles in Superman Returns (as Riley, one of Lex Luthor's henchmen) and Little Fish, alongside Cate Blanchett. "I don't mind doing that sort of role either, as long as I work."

Oliver suggests that Roberts may be underestimating his talent: "Basically, we cast Ian as a heavy, figuring that his rugby fame and sheer physical size would be enough for the role. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that he had created a full living, breathing human being out of what was essentially an underwritten, clichéd 'bad guy' part. He's an extremely thoughtful actor, very engaged in his work." Oliver liked Roberts's performance so much, he spiked a fairly gruesome death scene to keep Frederick alive for a possible sequel.

"People refer to me as 'the gay rugby player,' " Roberts says of the way casting directors at home in Australia have perceived him since he came out officially in 1995, becoming the only major international male athlete in team sports to come out while still playing at the elite level. "But that's one of the things I have no control over. I've been lucky to have worked professionally off and on—mostly on—since I graduated from NIDA [Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art] in 2004."

Still, he admits to the insecurities plaguing any out actor: "I'm never sure if I didn't get the job because I'm the gay rugby player or because I wasn't good at the audition. I wish I didn't think that way, but I do."

On Sunday 6 May 07, St. Philip's Church celebrated the 50th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone it buildings, the Rt Revd EH Burgmann, then Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn. Now I have a picture to post of the 1950s party, the night before. If you are old enough to remember tuna mornay, cocktail onions and pineapple with just about everything, you'd have been at home at our celebration of fifty years of participation in the local community.



The event was created by our party planning team of Leighton Mann and Ann and John Munro with food, lighting and decorations from the '50s. Denise Manley and the sopranos' group In the Mood sang 50s hits. A feature was a life-sized cut-out photograph of our drum playing Rector, Rob Lamerton, as Elvis!

Black gingham table settings were complemented by the parish's own pastel yellow 1950s china, a reminder of the time when the parish catering group used to cater for functions in the Canberra area as a fund raiser for the new church. Parishioners and friends, including Bishop George Browning and his wife Margaret, dressed in '50s outfits that they had begged, borrowed or purloined from the back of wardrobes or found in our pre-loved fashion boutique, Pandoras at O'Connor.

A large gleaming juke box provided dance music to end the evening. There was also leg twisting Pride of Erin (I sat this one out).

For the Sunday celebration Eucharist, there were displays of old parish photographs and other information. Past parishioners attended from afar. Revd Robert Willson, a former rector of the parish, spoke of its early formation. Keeping up our tradition of good eating, there was brunch after the service, served under the canopy of the plane tree in the courtyard.

Thursday night signals the approach of the end of the week and the weekly ritual of Inspector Rex on SBS TV, now with Alexander Pschill as Rex's co-star. His character, Hoffmann, is too light hearted to be a serious detective. And every show ends with Rex to the rescue! But that's the fun.

The cure of some aspects of the Church's present malaise must be discovered in Winston Churchill's words: in "blood, toil, tears and sweat" They must cultivate sophistication in what pertains to their religious faith by reconciling themselves with the simple declaration, "I do not know." The revolution through which the Church is now passing has been variously described as a crisis in relevance, a crisis in authority, and a crisis in identity. Are these not really different expressions of what constitutes the heart of the matter, namely, a crisis in faith? To say, therefore, in answer to many of the tormenting questions of the present hour, "I do not know," is not to contribute to the pervading agnosticism and atheism of our time. It is rather to take the first step toward a firm renewal of faith after the model of the distraught father who sought Jesus' cure for his son bedeviled by an evil spirit. "Lord, I do believe," he said, "help my unbelief."
---John Tracy Ellis (1905-1992)

I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. 2 Timothy 1.12

---

The burden of false certainty about the Bible, by Savi Hensman. Ekklesisa, 14 July 2007.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 England & Wales License.

In tennis, as the recent Wimbledon tournament has reminded us, it is not unusual for a player to be convinced that the ball touched the ground inside a line when an opponent or official is equally confident that it was out. It is all too easy to see what one wants or expects to see.

In today's world of rapid change and widespread insecurity, many people look to the Bible to provide them with certainty. Even in some denominations which used to be marked by diversity and local freedom, there has been a drive for greater centralisation, and control by 'Bible-believing' Christians.

A decade ago, a gathering brought together a number of senior clergy from the USA and nations of the global South who were seeking to transform the Anglican Communion, and this produced the Dallas Statement. It took forward some of the themes discussed earlier in 1997 in Kuala Lumpur.

When I re-read the Dallas Statement recently, I was struck by how much support its ideas had gained. 'The sources from which we have received our Anglican distinctives are Scripture, prayer, experience, tradition and worship', but 'The centrality of the authority of the scriptures' was emphasised. 'From the days of William Tyndale, Anglicans have believed that the Bible is sufficiently clear for God's people to understand those things necessary for salvation in matters of faith and morality. The Church itself is called to expound the Bible's complex harmony and to obey its plain teaching', though 'some matters are clearer than others in Scripture, and the question of how to harmonize one passage with another may require careful study and reflection.'

The most senior bishops worldwide should enforce this, and discipline any provinces which strayed: 'We are convinced that God has called us to effective mutual accountability. . . we are glad to note that our Primates want to exercise enhanced responsibility and make their meeting a more effective instrument of unity. . . We call upon the Lambeth Conference to empower the Primates' Meeting to become a place of appeal for those Anglican bodies who are oppressed, marginalized, or denied faithful episcopal oversight by their own bishops.'

According to the Dallas Statement, 'Accountability also calls us to provide a clear understanding of the bounds of eucharistic fellowship within the Anglican Communion. Those who choose beliefs and practices outside the boundaries of the historic biblical faith must understand they are separating themselves from communion.'

A draft Anglican Covenant is now being discussed in which, though there should be study and debate on controversial matters, ultimately 'biblically derived moral values' would be enforced by international Anglican structures, in particular the Primates' Meeting.

I found it fascinating to consider what the gathering on Dallas regarded as clear Biblical truth. The 1997 Kuala Lumpur Statement on human sexuality was endorsed: this had claimed that the 'clear and unambiguous teaching of the Holy Scriptures about human sexuality' is that it should be 'expressed only within the life long union of a man and a woman in (holy) matrimony', and 'homosexual practices between men or women, as well as heterosexual relationships outside marriage' are sinful.

The Dallas Statement tried to put this in a wider context. Apparently 'In both Old and New Testaments the generational family of father, mother and children is understood as the matrix in which healthy human relationships are formed (Genesis 2:24). Full humanity has consisted of two genders from the very beginning-male and female. The created order comprises sexual differentiation as God-given and good. Together, both man and woman were given the commission to pass on new life in fruitfulness and to rule over and care for the earth (Genesis 1:28, 2:15). This is why only both genders together can mould the world in a humane way. The good society, according to Scripture, is ordered to help families flourish economically, socially, and spiritually (Leviticus 25; Isaiah 61:1-3). Although the family may be distorted by the brokenness of sin or become a false priority in the life of discipleship, it derives its graceful potential from the Father, from whom all families in heaven and on earth are named (Ephesians 3: 14-15). The Church as the new family of God must be the place that supports families and those who lead the single life so that each believer may be fully equipped to serve God in his or her particular calling, so that families in turn contribute to the strengthening and healing of society at large.'

I do not regard myself as 'anti-family', and indeed family relationships are important in my own life. But I was baffled. How could the church leaders who came up with the Statement think that?

Of course, there are some positive scriptural references to families, and to fertility, especially in the Old Testament. It is important that humankind includes males and females--indeed some might say that this reflects something of the diversity of creation. And the Bible is largely about responding to and reflecting God's generous and creative love, in families and communities and beyond.

But where in Genesis are the generational families which set an example of how healthy human relationships are formed? Presumably Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel do not fit the bill? Indeed, how many such family units are there? Is not care of the widow, orphan and stranger--those outside the protection of the usual family structures--repeatedly emphasised?

While men and women both contribute to society, does this imply that everyone should be in a heterosexual relationship, and if so why? Does this apply to Jesus? What of those who are 'eunuchs' for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19.10-12)?

Indeed, I would have thought the Gospels would be shocking to anyone who puts too much value on advancing the interests of their family (nuclear or extended). Might it not seem irresponsible to abandon home, family and fields (Mark 10.28-31)? Does not following Christ involve 'hating' one's family and taking up the cross (Luke 14.25-27)? Presumably Jesus' own crucifixion did not exactly advance his nieces' and nephews' prospects of socially and economically advantageous marriage!

What may seem obvious to some Christians may seem far from obvious to others. Difficult though I may sometimes find it to be in a church with people whose views are very different from mine on a number of matters, I can benefit from having to think more deeply; likewise they may gain something too.

There are grave risks in imposing a framework for discipline based on the 'clear' teaching of the Bible which may not be so clear to many people! Uncertainty may be hard for some to bear, but a false certainty may be worse.

A National Day of Thanksgiving on 26 May 2007 thanked God for our heritage and offered honour, respect and gratitude toward others. Acknowledged by the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, this year's celebration particularly honoured Indigenous people, seniors, volunteers and our community service organisations who have served us. In Victoria, a special event acknowledged some of Melbourne's longest serving Christian leaders. I am delighted that among them was my friend of forty-five years, the Revd Richard J. Holland. Young people at the special celebration honoured the senior pastors by washing their feet. Richard is seated on the right in this picture; next to him is Revd Kevin Conner, who suceeded Richard as Senior Minister at Waverley Christian Fellowship. Pastor Richard Holland closed the gathering in prayer and and said "In my eighty-eight years, I have not experienced a meeting such as this." Though Richard is officially retired, he is still active in preaching, and in counselling and guidance for other church leaders.

In this snapshot, taken years ago, Richard is with his late wife, Gary. Richard was senior minister of the then Waverley Christian Fellowship during my more than twenty years as a member there. He was an uncle to me and cared for me when I most needed help. When I joined, the fellowship had about forty members. When I left to move to Canberra in 1986, there were 600-700. Much of my time there, I served as a deacon. Now named CityLife Church and led by Mark Conner, the non-denominational fellowship Richard established in 1967 is Melbourne's largest church, with an average weekly attendance of nearly 5,000.

Doing something I should have done years ago, I've been reading Australian literary magazine, Overland. It is offering a prize for new poets -- the Overland Magazine Judith Wright Prize for New and Emerging Poets, sponsored by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation. Overland presents this good advice by Judith Wright, in apparently her last published poem.

To younger poets

A light comes off the Object, called Relation.
It connects the maker with what is to be made,
and illuminates both. That is all you have to do,
    to see it.
But remember, the poem, to be a poem,
isn't in the end a product of you.
You are the prism the beam strikes,
but it isn't you.

Poets who keep on saying 'I' and 'me'
are drunk
     on Ego.
Simply stay attentive
to the source of the light, and always
keep the prism clean.

--Judith Wright, Overland, autumn 1999, p.4.

2001

We will decide
Who comes into this country--
And the circumstances
In which they come.^[*]

Like a piece of poetry it was,
the toughening iambics,
those sharpened 'c's, like angled pikes,

the two-beat lines that got us going --
except line 3 which had its extra
fist banged on the table.

Note the subtle half-rhyme, too,
'country' matched with 'come'
and how the preposition 'in

assumes its proper place.
Like most great poetry, of course,
it's mainly made from echoes:

the glorious Three Hundred Greeks
who held Thermopylae
and Winston Churchill roaring still

"We shall fight them on the beaches . . ."
Like all such deathless works of art
it's shivering with myth:

the golden hordes who spoil our sleep
across two centuries,
the bard far back with lyre and smoke

declaiming his alliterations,
the ancient battles of his race
with dragons, gods and men.

No wonder, then, that those who might
have shown us something else,
defeated now by poetry.

had nowhere left to turn.

-- Geoff Page. Overland 181:92, Summer 2005

(*) Prime Minister John Howard, Liberal Party election campaign launch, 28 Oct 2001.

I am honoured to call the bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, the Rt Revd George Browning, a friend. At the recent graduation ceremony of the Charles Sturt University School of Theology, Bishop George was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in recognition of his "contribution to Charles Sturt University's academic programs and community engagement, the Anglican Church and Australian society." George is also convenor of the Anglican international network on the environment. In the picture, the Chancellor of CSU, Mr Lawrence Willett AO, confers the degree on the Right Reverend Doctor George Browning.

"I was obviously touched to have been honoured with a D.Litt from Charles Sturt University," said Bishop George, "but especially because of the way in which the honour further strengthens the relationship of the university to the School of Theology, the Centre for Public and Contextual Theology and the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture."

Bishop George has given close and continuing commitment to the School of Theology and to theological education and training throughout Australia. Dr Tom Frame, Director of St Mark's National Theological Centre, the leading teaching institution in the School, said that George's "foresight and vision were crucial to the establishment of the CSU School of Theology in 1995, and it is most fitting that he be honoured by the University for his outstanding contributions over the past decade." He said that Bishop George's legacy to the training of clergy and the equipping of Christian leaders would be substantial and long-lasting.

It was equally delightful to see my friend the Rev'd Rebecca Newland graduate as Master of Ministry with distinction, receiving the Greg Eather Memorial Prize for meritorious work in Christianity and Australian society. Rebecca was minister in charge at St Philip's for about a year recently and we were fellow students briefly. Her Master's project studied the wonderful development work of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines in the interior of northern Luzon.

Hmm. Do we need centuries of moral philosophy to understand this?!

Australia's ABC screened British Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle today. The ABC has a duty to be even-handed in airing controversial issues. Nevertheless, it's broadcasting of such a program can be questioned. The essential argument of the The Great Global Warming Swindle is that

New evidence shows that that as the radiation coming from the sun varies (and sun-spot activity is one way of monitoring this) the earth seems to heat up or cool down. Solar activity very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years. It correlates well with the anomalous post-war temperature dip, when global carbon dioxide levels were rising. In fact, what is known of solar activity over the last several hundred years correlates very well with temperature. This is what some scientists are beginning to believe causes climate change.

Meanwhile, while we hesitate, the problem worsens.

Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, "found the narrative of Swindle to be compelling and half its conclusion acceptable, for it agreed the Earth is indeed warming. But I disagree with its denial of any human responsibility or need to change direction. That was the false and dangerous message from Swindle. Brown criticised the show's producer, Martin Durkin, as a "charlatan". Nevertheless congratulated the ABC for showing it: "The ABC should be congratulated for screening this contentious documentary. If nothing else, it helps explain how a clever politician such as John Howard rationalised climate change for so long and got it so wrong: the sun can be used to excuse inaction rather than hasten a cure for the self-inflicted disease of climate change now menacing society." "I back the ABC's decision to screen The Great Global Warming Swindle. We are a free and open democracy, and climate change calls for such a big change in human policy and direction that it must be tested in the best fire the naysayers can hurl at it. Besides, one of the ABC's most important roles is to provide an outlet for programs that come from minority advocates or that are of interest to a minority of viewers. And there is little doubt only a diminishing minority of Australians will subscribe to the conclusions drawn in Swindle."

By all accounts (well, one anyway) the on-air debate after the broadcast was ludicrous.

Following the screening of the 50-minute film about climate change, a strangely one-sided interview was aired between regular Lateline host Tony Jones and the film's director, Martin Durkin. The fierce interrogation appeared to leave the filmmaker bemused. A discussion between a panel of eight experts then dissected the documentary, which claimed the chief cause of climate change was not human activity but changes in solar radiation. But it was not long before the 100-strong studio audience became impatient and started calling out questions.

Jones eventually opened the discussion up to the floor, but by the look on his face he quickly realised he should have stuck with the panel. The first question was more a rant about "coal 14", and its dangers - a topic none of the panel seemed to know anything about. Another audience member then asked about Prince Philip's role in founding the green movement, and how he had once remarked how he wished he could be reincarnated as the ebola virus in order to reduce the population. What did the panel think about that?

Some in the audience began giggling as questions were being asked, which was perhaps a shame because some words of widsom did emerge. The last question came from a man who said he cared less about fighting within the science community than about the government policies needed to address climate change. "Rome is burning, and we are fiddling around here." And with that, the studio lights were turned off.

David Adam, Guardian environment correspondent, says (11 Jul 07) that there is more than enough evidence to dismiss any suggestion that global warning results from changes in the sun's activity.

Find another culprit

So it's official, the sun has nothing to do with recent global warming. Scientists have shown that changes in solar activity have nothing to do with the surge in global temperatures measured since the 1970s. Which is a problem for the climate change sceptics, who need something other than human emissions of greenhouse gases to blame it on. The study has been called the final nail in their coffin.

But what's really new here? The solar link to recent climate change has already been thoroughly examined and dismissed. Researchers already knew that changes in the amount of energy arriving from the sun couldn't be responsible. And the trend in cosmic rays--the darling "new" theory of the sceptics--is known to go in the wrong direction. Scientifically, this new paper does nothing new except correct some technical errors in a satellite record of solar irradiance--hardly headline stuff. And while recycling old claims as new may be routine for politicians and the media, it is much less common for scientific journals. The top journal Nature decided not to accept this new study for this reason. And the decision by the Royal Society to publish it appears to be as much about politics as science.

Britain's scientific elite were shaken by the public reaction to Channel 4's Great Global Warming Swindle. They thought they had won the argument on the causes of climate change. Several who give public lectures on the subject had even started to leave out that section. Mike Lockwood, the physicist behind the new study, admits he wrote the paper as a direct challenge to the programme's claims. The Royal Society appears to have published it for the same reason.

. . . The new study may yet have a positive effect. It leaves little doubt (again) that human emissions are the culprit, and stamps on another of the snakes released by Channel 4's swindle. But does science really need the right presentation for it to be authoritative? And how many final nails does a coffin need before it can be buried?

The study published by the Royal Society concludes

There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection-attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.
-- Mike Lockwood & Claus Fröhlich. Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 10 July 2007.

On 6 June 2007, Australian Jewish news reported that the Union for Progressive Judaism's rabbinical council (Moetzah) for Australia and New Zealand has decided to allow rabbis to officiate at same-sex commitment ceremonies. The Moetzah said it "resolves to permit but not require its rabbis to officiate at same-gender commitment ceremonies between two Jews. We commit ourselves to ongoing discussion of the nature of such ceremonies."

The decision is to permit but not require member rabbis to officiate at gay-union ceremonies. It gives gay couples access to other rabbis in the movement if a particular rabbi for whatever reason decides against holding a commitment ceremony for them and is based on a seven-year-old Central Conference of American Rabbis resolution, which stated: "The relationship of a Jewish same-gender couple is worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual." The local vote came after a series of forums at UPJ congregations last month to discuss the issue of same-gender commitment ceremonies. Rabbi's status as members of the rabbinical council is not at stake whether or not they carry out unions of Jewish same-sex couples. Such ceremonies are not permitted between Jews and non-Jews, whether of same-sex or opposite sex.

AJN also published a response of thanks by Dawn Cohen, co-founder of Dayenu, the Jewish lesbian and gay organisation.

Now the Sydney Morning Herald (9 Jul 07) has a piece on the first couple likely to celebrate their union following this decision.

In 2002 Scott Whitmont and Christopher Whitmont-Stephenson had a full-scale "marriage" ceremony with a Jewish celebrant and lay cantor, 148 guests, reception, speeches -- "everything a wedding is", Mr Whitmont said. Before the end of the year they will have another ceremony, smaller but more important to them because it will be recognised by Jewish religious authorities. It will be the first such ceremony in Australia. Mr Whitmont said yesterday: "We will be kosher. We are committed to each other, we love each other, we want to live a Jewish life together."

Orthodox Judaism, like mainstream Christianity and Islam, forbids ceremonies for same-sex unions, though they may welcome homosexuals into their congregations. But the Union for Progressive Judaism has approved "same-gender commitment ceremonies between two Jews". The Council of Progressive Rabbis will decide at its next meeting in October what form such ceremonies can take. By December Mr Whitmont and Mr Whitmont-Stephenson will be formally united at the Temple Emanuel in Woollahra.

Fred Morgan, the chief rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne, said: "We always welcome gays and lesbians into our community but, if we don't acknowledge their long-term relationships, we are welcoming them with one hand and pushing them away with the other." The main progressive Jewish bodies in the US, Britain and South Africa allowed same-sex ceremonies years ago.

Mordechai Gutnick, president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australia, said the Orthodox rabbinate challenged the decision. "While we may and should be tolerant towards individuals, we certainly cannot sanctify something that our Bible clearly prohibits." Nevertheless, there has been little reaction from the Jewish community.

Ashley Browne, editor of the Australian Jewish News, says he expected a backlash after putting the story on the cover of its 28 June 07 Sydney edition, but it did not happen. "There's a sort of acceptance that, if two Jews want to commit together in some sort of ceremony, they can."

Scott Whitmont, a bookseller, and his partner, nurse Christopher Whitmont-Stephenson, are likely to become the first Australian couple to have a rabbinically-consecrated same-sex commitment ceremony. The Sydney couple, who are members of Temple Emanuel Woollahra (TEW), were buoyed by last month's decision of the Council of Progressive Rabbis (Moetzah) to allow gay union ceremonies.

Whitmont and Whitmont-Stephenson met eight years ago at a bookselling industry event. Whitmont-Stephenson, 37, converted to Judaism in 2001, and he and 46-year-old Whitmont, who grew up in the Orthodox North Shore Synagogue, held a civil commitment ceremony in 2002. The ceremony, attended by numerous family members of both men, included a Jewish celebrant, a lay chazan and Jewish traditions of a ketubah (marriage certificate) and breaking a glass. Whitmont was called to the Torah and read a haftarah at TEW ahead of the ceremony. At the time, they approached TEW's Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins, who told them he could not conduct a ceremony for them then but would perhaps be able to do so in the future.

Last month's news of the Moetzah's decision to permit rabbis to conduct same-gender ceremonies renewed their short-term hope for a Jewish ceremony, Whitmont told the AJN. The couple are hoping for a ceremony either later this year or early next year, after rabbis decide on a format for the simchas. Whitmont said he and his partner do not want to "be any poster boys for a political statement, but simply, like any couple, demonstrate our commitment and love for each other". He said he was not concerned at the Orthodox reaction. "Given the strictures of halacha, I'm not so naive as to expect that it would be accepted and condoned."

. . . The Moetzah would look closely at material from Reform congregations in the United States and England in coming up with a format for a ceremony at its next meeting, scheduled for October in Hobart. "Considering it isn't strictly halachic, they [the couple] would have some input into it, but the first input will be from the rabbis, who want to establish some foundations, parameters and structures.

(The upper picture is from AJN and the lower picture from SMH)

According to a widely reported essay by researcher Danah Boyd social class decides whether American teenagers choose either MySpace or Facebook. Her observation is that Facebook is the choice of the educated and relatively affluent. Well, I'm neither a teenager nor an American, but if that means my preference for Facebook is elitist, I plead guilty. I've found MySpace neither useful nor useable. But that not necssarily a criticism, as MySpace was, after all, designed as place for creative people, especially musicians and video artists to show their wares. I'm more a wordsmith. So I've ditched my MySpace (oh my!). On Facebook I have as a few friends who are actually my friends, not just a collection of names. Dave Walker is wise as usual with this cartoon at his We Blog Cartoons.

I've been reading a lot of modern poetry recently, mostly Australian and American, and trying to work out why I find it difficult to be poetic myself. Reading poetry and writing about it are not writing it. Perhaps I've found the reason in a poem about poetry, written by Terry Gilmore.

VII
Basho says
that poets must have madness in them;
it is not the affected madness of a gymnast.
It is the madness of grief for all humanity
broken loose from its heavenly connections.
It is the madness of loss, of separateness,
no structure, nothing-to-be-desired,
an unwelcome visitor lived with and endured,
always lurking, constantly mocking.

[...]

I took to that emptiness that is within me
to once more know its nothingness
but this is nothing to me, it is of no use.
How can we learn not to attach ourselves
to the objects of our love?
--Terry Gilmore. The art of dense conversation. Surviving the shadow. (Paper Bark Press, 1990)

I'm not too keen on madness myself. Which is, perhaps, why I'm not a poet.

Matsuo Basho also comes to mind in a piece from my very favourite book of poetry, Judith Wright's Phantom dwelling (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1985).

Dust

In my sixty eighth year drought stopped the song of the river,
sent ghosts of wheatfields blowing over the sky.

In the swimming-hole the water's dropped so low
I bruise my knees on rocks which are new acquaintances.

The daybreak moon is blurred in a gauze of dust.
Long ago my mother's face looked through a grey motor veil.

Fallen leaves on the current scarcely move.
But the azure kingfisher flashes upriver still.

Poems written in age confuse the years.
We all live, said Basho, in a phantom dwelling.

Wright reference is to a letter, The hut of the Phantom Dwelling (1690), by Basho, which he ended also with a thought on the difficulties of poetry and a haiku that seems to say that substance is more reassuring than thought.

Again and again I think of the mistakes I've made in my clumsiness over the course of the years. There was a time when I envied those who had government offices or impressive domains, and on another occasion I considered entering the precincts of the Buddha and the teaching rooms of the patriarchs. Instead, I've wom out my body in journeys that are as aimless as the winds and clouds, and expended my feelings on flowers and birds. But somehow I've been able to make a living this way, and so in the end, unskilled and talentless as I am, I give myself wholly to this one concern, poetry. Bo Juyi worked so hard at it that he almost ruined his five vital organs, and Du Fu grew lean and emaciated because of it. As far as intelligence or the quality of our writings go, I can never compare to such men. And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling? But enough of that--I'm off to bed.

Among these summer trees,
a pasania--
something to count on.
--From The Country of Eight Islands. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960)

Robert Haas (Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress 1995-97) talked of Basho and the poet's madness in interview with Grace Cavalieri The American Poetry Review, March 1997.

Grace Cavalieri: I guess this [reading of Haiku] moves us into the inevitable and that is your own attention to the thing itself which is the image. And I guess a couple of your themes. Critics talk of your 'unswerving faith' in the imagination and your belief in the image, in a thing. ... I wonder if you would comment on that quality you have as a poet. I see the combination of the image and the imagination and I don't quite know how to make that relationship.

Robert Haas: Yes, you know in contemporary thinking about poetry, of course, it's the big issue because if there is anything that defines post modernism I suppose it's radical skepticism, skepticism about whether there's a world we can know, with conceptual and ideological apparatus of the social worlds we're born into. I think if there's anything that characterizes contemporary art it's skepticism about those things. Lots of writers, especially minority writers have been unpacking the extent to which the languages we acquire already marginalize them. Gays and lesbians have been -- and thinkers sympathetic to the problems that come from this, whatever their own sexual orientation -- have been thinking about the ways in which the very nature of language already marginalizes any sexual relationship that doesn't look exactly like the ones that were approved by the churches in 1200. So there are millions of reasons to distrust the clear representation of the image and good reasons for distrusting them, and I think that one of the things that I love about haiku is that they work very hard to create the kind of aesthetic ideal.

I guess you'd say, in which one could use language as a clear mirror of the seeing of the world which of course only happens through work. You don't get to see that way if your head is full of brainless chatter.Yes, so that's the connection.At some level the common world has to be earned over and over and over again. It doesn't exist. Basho who would be -- in the whole history of writing, the great example of this -- when asked how you got to it he said through aesthetic madness. Which meant through imagination. There's no way there without that but, the idea whether there is one or not, our language can model a kind of attention that seems to both call the world into being, and call us into being by being there... That's an act of imagination. It's not necessarily the way things are. In fact it's not usually the way things are.

Though I didn't bother to see An inconvenient truth, because I've already studied the matter fully, I respect Al Gore and his campaign on climate change. Now it seems Mr Gore may have a strong fellow campaigner here in Australia.

With his new Foxtel doco Fish out of water Ian Thorpe has found inspiration in environmental causes and a passion for communicating them. "I've always been passionate about the environment and how we treat it, how we can do better, and the more I read and talk to experts, the more I realise we can really make a difference."

Thorpe may be a 'fish out of water', but he's far from out of his depth. The film shows tonight on pay TV. Sadly I won't be able to see it as I don't subscribe to Fox 8.

Thorpe says he will pursue climate change awareness "for a lifetime". "This will be an ongoing issue for decades and I want those decades to start sooner rather than later." The documentary ambitiously tackles sustainable energy options, solar power and domestic water solutions, uranium mining, logging and irrigation. "Over the past few years I have become concerned with the need to change to more environmentally friendly practices. I now realize we all need to get on the frontline if we want to leave the world in a fit state for future generations."

Rather than just lending his 'celebrity', Thorpe is fully involved in writing, editing and travel -- to Kakadu, to coal mines, the Murray-Darling, coral reefs, old-growth forests in Tasmania and landscapes where the effects of climate change are visible. "With this documentary", Thorpe says, "I can travel to all of these beautiful and not so beautiful places, and hopefully help other people understand what is happening to the environment."

He quizzes leaders from all sides -- the federal government,the Minerals Council and the Australian Coal Association, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Greens and the Healthy Rivers Campaigner. "I'd like to think I'm asking the same question everyone at home would ask." "Shooting Fish out of water has been an amazing experience. I have been privileged to travel to so many beautiful parts of Australia. It has, however, been incredibly alarming to witness the destruction of our natural environment and resources and learn of the forecasts for future devastation. That said, it is encouraging to see the dedication and determination of people at the forefront of the fight against our climate crisis. I hope that with Fish out of water I can be a part of the process to increase awareness and inspire more people to take positive action."

"Before I started this, like most people in the country, I presumed that we did a good job and was shocked to learn that we don't. Which is fine, as long as we go, 'This is where we are at now. Let's do something about that' but unfortunately from what I have seen we are doing very little. We are not doing enough. Not nearly enough of what needs to go on to make a big impact in this area. Also, in the lead up to this I had months and months of research and writing for the show and you see it in facts and figures and until you see a lot of these places it is rather difficult to grasp how important each of these areas are individually to our country."

"We all have a responsibility, not only to ourselves but to our future, and I had this amazing opportunity to do something that I'm passionate about. And to be able to do it in a way that will hopefully draw more attention to that area and do a very delicate area the justice it deserves. That's how I was driven. This area is a very exciting area to work in. I have met some of the most amazing people. They are so driven and passionate about their work and you really want to give them a forum that they can be heard in because, after listening to these people, they are such geniuses that have the solutions for us all now that we can all embrace to be able to make a serious, lasting change."

Thorpe says that the Federal Government isn't doing enough to reduce carbon emissions. "No, the government isn't, and what Labor proposes isn't enough either," he said. "There's no plan for 2020." But Thorpe denied he would be assisting a particular party in the election expected later this year.

Greetings to my American friends!

As I was driving to work this morning, ABC Classic FM reminded me that it is July 4th, by playing Sousa's Presidential Polonaise (Cincinnati Pops Orch / Erich Kunzel, Regis RRC 1018).

In exercising its great power and influence, may America never forget the words of its Declaration of Independence, that all people are "created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."



And if Americans are beginning to have second thoughts about presidential monarchy under King George W., here's a thought: join Canada!

The United States of America came into being through an act of rebellion against an English monarch, but Australia came into being in part by the signature of a monarch of the United Kingdom, on this document on 9th July 1900: Queen Victoria's Commission of Royal Assent to the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900.

Sadly, no nation is innocent of breaching the liberties of its people, certainly not Australia. On 2 Jul 07 the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Prof. John McMillan, released final reports relating to the wrongful immigration detention of 247 people during the years 1993 to 2007. The reports highlight appalling deficiencies in Australia's immigration administration leading to the wrongful detention of people who were Australian citizens or lawful visa holders. There have been data problems, failure correctly to notify applicants when visa applications were refused, unlawful processes relating to detention, and other legal problems where people were wrongly detained and or wrongly released from detention.

As the Ombudsman said,

The loss of freedom through detention can have grave consequences for the individuals and their families. There should be nothing short of a careful and lawful exercise of the power to detain a person, characterised by thorough attention to detail and ongoing review of any decision to detain a person. Unfortunately, this was not the case in the majority of these matters. It is inexcusable that there were such frequent errors leading to the detention of people who had a lawful right to live unrestrained in the community.

The Ombudsman acknowledges some change to remedy systemic incompetence by immigration authorities, but problems remain. Greens Senator Kerry Nettle backed the Ombudsman's concerns about Section 189 of the Migration Act, saying it "sets too low a standard of proof for detaining a person and it must be amended to avoid a repeat of these tragic cases. The recent release of a woman who was detained for over six years indicates there is still the need for substantive change."

" An inclusive church reaps ever greater rewards for all" by Kathy Galloway of the Iona Community, in a Credo column, The Times, 30 Jun 07.

The current furore about religion and homosexuality has caused something of a dilemma for my children and their friends, who are all in their twenties. So much of what the Church has said about homosexuality is, for them, not so much right or wrong, as simply "nonsense". They operate within a different worldview. Like many, and perhaps the majority of their peers, they do not believe that either homosexual orientation or practice is sinful or "evil" per se, any more than they believe that about heterosexuals. They do not think it unnatural or disordered that there is a minority of the human population which is attracted to its own gender. They simply accept that as a fact of life. They are shocked that gays and lesbians have continually to make a case for themselves as sexually expressive and relational human beings. For them, this is essentially a justice issue.

Nor do they start from a laissez-faire or ethically disinterested perspective. They have clear positive values about the wrong of cruelty, violence, faithlessness, abuse of power, mercilessness, pride. They have considerable respect for marriage, and a realistic understanding of its challenges, which means that it is something they will never enter into lightly.

But living as they do in a pluralist society they are exposed to a far greater degree of diversity of culture, lifestyle, beliefs, attitudes, than ever before. They know their (and my) gay and lesbian friends, they know their kindness, their abilities, the quality of their parenting, and they find it enriching, not evil. For them, discrimination against people on the ground of their sexual orientation has the same character as racial discrimination -- that is, it is not only immoral but criminal.

How then shall they relate to a Church that considers homosexual practice, regardless of its moral and relational quality, as a sin? To become a member of that Church, will they have to name as a sin that which they have hitherto seen as an expression of justice? To name homosexuality as evil (and for all the slipping around between orientation and practice, they don't see the Church even practising what it preaches here) is, for them, corrupt, and trivialises the real nature of evil. One of the great joys for us this year in the family of the Iona Community has been the opportunity to share in the celebrations of those of our members who have entered into civil partnerships. About 10 per cent of our membership and staff are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. They are fully and openly part of our common life, part of our body. When one member of the body suffers, all the others suffer, too. When one member is honoured, all the others rejoice together. They are part of our common prayer, and we pray equally for their chosen partners and respect their choices.

I could not begin to describe how much these members have enriched the life of our community; in our worship, our action for justice and peace, in pastoral support and theological reflection. They have deepened our spirituality, enhanced and supported our families and modelled forgiveness and reconciliation. Their sexuality is not the only, or even the most, interesting thing about them.

Jesus said: "By their fruits you shall know them." And because we have known them, we have reaped a rich harvest. Many of them, whether single or with partners, have experienced ignorance, misunderstanding and unremitting hostility in their Churches.

As Christians, the world judges us not by our discussions and doctrinal statements, but by our greatest claim; that we love God and love one another. By that standard, our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members and staff have been a witness to us, and I am glad that they find a safe home within the Iona Community.