Over the past half century, civil society in many parts of the world, including ours, has broken free from the long tradition of hostility and discrimination against gay people--and both society and individual lives are immeasurably the better for it. Now, inevitably and rightly, the same process is taking place in the churches, with pressure for the election of openly gay clergy and bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. In the past, the church has managed such issues by covering them up. But on this issue in these times, that is no longer possible.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has battled to hold both his church and the wider communion together in the face of these pressures. That is one of his jobs--and it has not been a dishonourable effort. Yet it seems clear that it has only delayed an inevitable--and ultimately necessary--confrontation over this issue. Dr Williams has not, contrary to the views of Archishop Akinola, led the church into this. But, now that it is coming, he has a profound responsibility to lead the church out of it, happily and without fear. The question facing Anglicans - and facing other religious groups too - is whether theirs is a faith that is loving enough to treat gay people as equals. If the communion cannot hold together in the face of this question, then so be it. Unity matters as long as the cause is a good one. If the cause is not good, then maybe nor is the unity.
-- The Guardian, Editorial 24 Jun 08

Was the Holy Spirit absent from the blessing at St. Bart's?

Under the heading "Let no man put asunder" Church Times editorialised on 20 Jun 08 that the English Archbishops are,

clearly worried about how Anglicans in different provinces might interpret the recent service at St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, at which the partnership of two gay priests was celebrated. This can be the only reason they produced their brief but erroneous statement on Tuesday that clerics in the Church of England are "not at liberty simply to ignore" the Church's teaching on sexuality, which they define, interestingly [and again wrongly], as: the 1987 Synod motion, the 1991 Bishops' statement Issues in Human Sexuality, the 1998 Lambeth Conference motion 1.10, and the House of Bishops' 2005 statement on civil partnerships.

Most English clergy have very strong security of 'freehold' tenure and "a cleric who holds the freehold (still in the majority among stipendiary priests) is at liberty to make up his or her mind about the relative merits of various pronouncements on theology or ethics . . . something that the Rector of St Bartholomew's will know."

The Church Times wisely concludes that,

The service is Smithfield is a little thing, not deserving of pronouncements by archbishops. Its only political purpose is to show the impossibility of carving up the Anglican Church into conservative and liberal provinces or dioceses. Or even parishes: some of those interviewed at St Bartholomew's at the weekend approved of the Rector's actions, others did not. The challenge for the Lambeth Conference, and for GAFCON before it, is to demonstrate how Christians can disagree profoundly and yet recognise the working of the Holy Spirit in those with whom they disagree.

And that we must all do.

The Tablet (28 Jun 08) asks, "What is it about Africa that makes democracy there so difficult?" That is a question I ask myself.

Mugabe's post-colonial generation of nationalist leaders has more often than not used political power in an arbitrary and tyrannical fashion, accompanied by the corrupt plundering of national coffers for personal gain. They have generally subverted for their own advantage the institutions they inherited. Opinion in the West has been slow to blame them for this, perhaps from post-colonial guilt and a fear of sounding racist.

Westerners and, more recently, China, have not been slow to exploit the situation, allowing corrupt African regimes to accumulate staggering debts, but "Excusing Africa's problems by wholly blaming outside interests is also part of the problem, however, as it absolves Africans of responsibility for their own destiny. There are elements in African culture itself that contribute to its troubles."

It is difficult to advance such an idea as the common good, The Tablet suggests, as "It does not seem to resonate easily with indigenous values because it stretches solidarity beyond the immediate family and neighbourhood into the community. Human rights have similarly been regarded as a Western value system rather than as a statement of the fundamental worth of every person. A sense of common citizenship is often undeveloped."

That does seem to me to be the nub of the problem.

Correspondent Jonathan Steele says there is a solution for Zimbabwe in the Serbian model.

The only route that will avoid yet more bloodshed is a negotiated transition of power in which legal immunity and guarantees of safety are given to the very men who have been responsible for the violence of the past few months. I am not referring primarily to Mugabe. It is the security and police chiefs around him who hold the key. . . .

Zanu-PF, the ruling party, remains an efficient hierarchy. Its top men can call off the so-called liberation war veterans and other jobless youth who have been terrorising the opposition Movement for Democratic Change since the first round of elections in March - and may be unleashed again when the runoff is over. The trick is to get them to want to.

The MDC's wiser heads have long recognised this. They have held intermittent talks with Zanu-PF's leaders with the aim of forming a government of national unity that will maintain jobs for some Zanu-PF figures while allowing others to retire with dignity. The key issues concern the role of outside mediators, what pressures should be applied to get Zanu-PF to accept that power must be shared, and who should lead the new government. . . .

The best model for Zimbabwe happens to be European. October 2000 in Belgrade is the pattern that Zimbabwe, with luck, will follow. The scenario is uncannily similar. A ruthless strongman loses the first round but gets his election commission to say the opposition did not reach 50% and therefore a runoff is needed. The opposition refuses to take part for fear the ruling party will organise its cheating better the second time; and street protests are held. . . . [The fact that the police did not intevene] mainly flowed from orders after behind-the-scenes negotiations that Vojislav Kostunica, the opposition candidate, led with Slobodan Milosevic's security chiefs. They were assured of safety if they changed sides. Milosevic met Kostunica next day and threw in the towel. . . . Milosevic's downfall came . . . when the hard men realised it was better to sacrifice their boss than themselves. Their Zimbabwean counterparts are probably making similar calculations.

. . . It will be painful to let killers go free, but this is a case where justice should give way to pragmatism. The liberty of a few dozen thugs is the necessary price for millions of Zimbabweans to have a chance of life.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe suffers and Mugabe gloats. It all becomes much worse when a despotic leader is neurotic or worse (take Idi Amin for example). Maybe Mugabe is sane, but his personality is troubled.

In her book Dining with Mugabe (Viking / Penguin, 2008, ISBN 9780670072866) Johannesburg-based author Heidi Holland says that the emotionally fragile tyrant can't cope with rejection and is willing to destroy Zimbabwe to maintain his station.

Holland he was recently granted a long interview with Mugabe. She asked him whether he was willing to sacrifice the welfare of Zimbabwe to prove a political point. "He said yes," she says. "He didn't argue it. It didn't strike him as an unacceptable position."

Holland believes that Mugabe, though sane, is divorced from reality. "He is going to destroy Zimbabwe and do whatever it takes," she says. "He's completely out of touch with reality." "Mugabe has a very fragile personality and he's positioned himself in such a way that he can't possibly be wrong, he can only be right."

Mugabe had a difficult childhood, and no friends, and as a younger man he turned to books and study for solace. He is no fool, having earned seven university degrees, six of them during his 11 years as a political prisoner. "He's very self-involved," Holland says. "Now he's exhibiting his response to rejection. This emotional stuntedness of Mugabe's means he can't take criticism and humiliation. He is a man who really is out of touch with reality, but not mad."
Unlike some despots and some of his followers, Mugabe craves power more than wealth. Holland does not think Mugabe is personally avaricious. But Mugabe remains angry and resentful against Britain the former colonial power -- in part with good reason. "I think he's in the process of going back to war," Holland says.

In her preface, Ms Holland writes,

Everyone wanted to believe in Robert Mugabe. White Rhodesians longed to retain the agreeable lifestyle to which black Zimbabweans aspired. Britain saw democratic Zimbabwe as a Foreign Office trophy. Conflicting hopes survived for 15 years after independence despite the slaughter by Mugabe's personal militia of thousands of people loyal to the opposition leader Joshua Nkomo in the early 80s. Virtually everyone who should have cried foul looked the other way; whites because they were grateful to be out of the range of fire; the British government because it had to stand by its man up north while trying to bring majority rule to apartheid South Africa; and the international media because it had backed Mugabe to the hilt and could not contemplate its flawed judgement.

. . . Looking back ever since, I realise that I and many other well intentioned individuals may have helped Robert Mugabe to become the man he is today. If we had reacted differently to the early signs of his paranoia, could Zimbabwe have been saved from its current abyss? If whites in the country had been more realistic and acknowledged the impossibility of shifting smoothly from a police state of their creation to the democracy of their self-serving dreams, would they have been more respectful, less provocative? Or is Robert Mugabe simply an example of how power corrupts?

The questions are endless. What, if anything, could the former colonial power and the international community have done to curtail Mugabe's economic mismanagement before its effects spiralled into disaster? Can we legitimately heap all the blame for Zimbabwe's demise on Mugabe, or did he have some respectable accomplices? Were we who supported Robert Mugabe wrong about him all along?

. . . What happened to the gifted scholar who used his time in Rhodesian jails to acquire a long list of degrees; whose only frivolity was a passion for Elvis Presley? Is the story of Robert Mugabe a tragedy - greatness brought low - or is the tragedy entirely Zimbabwe's?

How can Robert Mugabe be framed in terms of other despots? He is certainly no buffoon like Uganda's Idi Amin. And he is far too detached to have blood on his own hands like Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti or Mobutu Sese Seko of the then Zaire. Accumulating personal wealth, like Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, is not Mugabe's motive for tyranny either.

The story of Robert Mugabe is a microcosm of what bedevils African democracy and economic recovery at the beginning of the 21st century.

Graeme Innes AM, Australian Human Rights Commissioner, says the Liberal and National opposition is "extremely misguided." in delaying in the removal of discrimination against same sex couples with respect to superannuation for Australian Government employees so as to examine whether benefits for same-sex couples should also apply to interdependent relationships. (Canberra Times, 20 Jun 08).

To cover interdependent relationships (such as two sisters or a parent and child who live together) in legislation about same-sex couples, Mr Innes says is " bluntly, bad policy."

Let me be very clear -- in doing this, they [the Opposition] are extending the discrimination experienced by same-sex couples. The issue of interdependency was addressed thoroughly in the Same-Sex: Same Entitlements report.

Applying an interdependency test to same-sex couples instead of the de-facto test applied to opposite-sex couples automatically means that a loving same-sex couple have to prove their relationship under a different set of criteria to a loving opposite-sex couple. These criteria, as they seek to prove interdependency between two people, rather than a de-facto relationship, are much harder to satisfy. Our report also found that the repercussions of this form of discrimination present a great level of uncertainty for the same-sex couples. After being together and caring for and relying upon one another for a significant period of time, they, unlike an equivalent opposite-sex couple, are not assured that they can provide financial security for their partner or their children if they were injured, taken ill or died. This is (a very painful form of) discrimination. Finally, applying the test of interdependency to same-sex couples instead of the de-facto test applied to opposite-sex couples is a symbolic gesture. It says that same-sex relationships are not as valid as opposite-sex relationships.

If the [opposition] Coalition really wanted to investigate payment of benefits to interdependent people, they could have passed the Bill for same-sex couples, and conducted this investigation separately.

I know that some members of the coalition support economic justice for same-sex couples, and that gay and lesbian Australians are numbered among their family and friends. But I question the real motivation of the other Coalition members.

This issue is about discrimination--painful, ongoing discrimination. The coalition should remember that this time last year 71% of Australians wanted to give same sex couples a fair go. Instead of prolonging the pain, they should remove the discrimination which we [the Human Rights Commission] found, and turn that 71% opinion into law.

Legal history scholar Alecia Simmonds tells the story of 18 year old Sarah Cox who, in 1825, successfully brought Australia's first breach-of-promise action against her ex-lover, Captain John Payne. Payne's affirmations of love for Miss Cox and promises of marriage ended when he was attracted to a certain wealthy widow.

(Sarah was born in the young colony in 1805, the daughter of two convicts, Francis Cox and Frances Morton. She met her future husband, lawyer William Charles Wentworth I, when he took on her case against Payne. Sarah was an immensely practical woman who managed the Wentworth estates leaving her husband free to pursue a public career. After bearing ten children, she outlived her husband and died in England, in 1880.)

It was, Simmonds says, "an age when women's entire future economic and social status depended upon men keeping their promises of marriage and when the law would step in to provide damages for a wounded heart."

These trials speak of a time when love and the legislature were intertwined, when desire fell within the jurisdiction of the courts and lawmakers mused about lust and love.

We like to think of the 19th century as an age of almost totalitarian sexual repression. Yet when we consider the current debate around same-sex superannuation entitlements, it is our own legislature that ends up looking embarrassingly Victorian. Brendan Nelson appears to be daintily choking on the term same-sex couple or, more specifically, on the sex part. This week saw the Coalition use its Senate majority to delay Labor's bill extending superannuation and death benefit rights to gay couples. . . .

Why? Because Dr Nelson prefers the term interdependent to gay and lesbian or same-sex. . . . In effect, Dr Nelson wants to take the sex out of same-sex relationships and to quarantine law from Eros. In placing same-sex relationships on the same footing as good friends or cohabiting siblings, the Coalition is reducing gay and lesbian couples to fictive or invisible legal positions. Dr Nelson's proposed amendments would give gays and lesbians the same rights as under Labor's bill but on the condition that their sexuality remain legally closeted. The amendments amount to a linguistic repression of same-sex desire and a legislative closeting of gay love. If Dr Nelson is serious about dealing with gay and lesbian injustices then he must realise that visibility and recognition in the public sphere and in law is crucial to overcoming discriminatory attitudes. He must allow desire a legitimate place within parliamentary debate and love a place within law.

What is interesting about the C19th cases, Simmonds concludes,

is that they saw love as a matter of concern within the public sphere."They did not recoil like Nelson at the mention of desire. The struggle for gay and lesbian rights has largely been a struggle for privacy, or the right to freedom from unwarranted state intrusion into one's private and sexual life. While this is still clearly necessary, we also need to think about privacy as including the freedom to express our emotional and sexual desire. Amorous interactions, emotions and desire occupy too vast a territory of public space to be banished from parliament or relegated to the fictive and benign categories of friendship or family. Ultimately, justice should be as libidinous and emotive as the subjects it governs.

A question for scientists is whether there are differences in the brains of gay men that relate to things other than sexual preference. A recent Swedish study is receiving much attention because it is the first to identify regions of the brain not directly involved in sexuality that seem to be feminized in gay males. [Ivanka Savic and Per Lindström. PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0801566105, published online, 16 June 2008.]

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute studied brain scans of 90 gay and straight men and women, and found that the size of the two symmetrical halves of the brains of gay men more closely resembled those of straight women than they did straight men. A denser network of nerve connections was found, for example, in the amygdala, the emotional centre of the brain. Yet not all regions of the brain are affected in such a way.

Earlier studies found that cerebral responses to putative pheromones and objects of sexual attraction differed between homosexuals and heterosexual subjects. Although this observation may have merely mirrored perceptional differences, it raised for the authors "the intriguing question as to whether certain sexually dimorphic features in the brain may differ between individuals of the same sex but different sexual orientation."

They addressed this question "by studying hemispheric asymmetry and functional connectivity, two parameters that in previous publications have shown specific sex differences."

The authors say that "The results cannot be primarily ascribed to learned effects, and they suggest a linkage to neurobiological entities." However,

The present study does not allow narrowing of potential explanations, which are probably multifactorial, including interplay between pre- and postnatal testosterone and estrogen, the androgen and estrogen receptors, and the testosterone-degrading enzyme aromatase. It nevertheless contributes to the ongoing discussion about sexual orientation by showing that homosexual men and women differed from the same-sex controls and showed features of the opposite sex in two mutually independent cerebral variables, which, in contrast to those studied previously, were not related to sexual attraction. The observations cannot be easily attributed to perception or behavior. Whether they may relate to processes laid down during the fetal or postnatal development is an open question. These observations motivate more extensive investigations of larger study groups and prompt for a better understanding of the neurobiology of homosexuality.

All this is part of the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate concerning the origins of sexual preference. Some would argue that if sexual preference is physically inherent from the womb onward, it is unreasonable to describe expression of that preference as immoral. Yet, it is unclear (at least to me in my ignorance) just how much, and in what ways, even the organisation and structure of the human brain can be influenced by experience and training.

These questions are scientifically interesting, no doubt. However, I am not convinced of the usefulness and validity of moral and ethical reasoning based on a mind-body duality--although I acknowledge it to be a large and complex question.

Why I blessed gay clergymen's relationship By Martin Dudley (New Statesman 17 Jun 08) The rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London, in the eye of storm over gay 'marriage', explains why he decided he must bless a gay relationship Robustly heterosexual since early adolescence, unable to see that any love surpasses the love of women, and once branded by the odious Daily Mail as 'Dud the Stud', I may seem miscast in the role into which I have now been thrust, that of the turbulent rebellious priest who defies bishop and archbishop to bless two gay men, also priests, in their civil partnership. Yet there is a sense in which I have been moving towards this point for more than thirty years. The 1970s shaped my thinking. Many factors were combined, among them existential philosophy, the campus war against American involvement in Vietnam, the challenge to apartheid and to discrimination based on race, colour and gender, and the sexual liberation provided by the contraceptive pill. The Sunday Times in its golden age under Harry Evans was a major influence, creating a critical mindset that no longer accepted authority without question and the blue-back Penguin books provided a theoretical underpinning for future action. On the bottom shelf of my bookshelf is one such fundamental text, The Death of the Family by existentialist psychiatrist David Cooper. The study of theology at King's College, London, was rigorous, critical, comprehensive, and above all engaged with a rapidly changing world. As Dean Sydney Evans posed the existential "Who am I?" he taught us not to accept the "I" as a fixed point but a point in motion, always becoming. For today's Church of England it is as if the 1970s never existed; the lessons have been forgotten. There has been a retreat from exploring the depths, pushing the boundaries to the point where words strain, crack and sometimes break as we struggle to express in a suffering world the foolishness of God and the all-embracing love found in Jesus Christ. There has been a return to uncritical fundamentalist use of biblical "proof texts", ripping verses from their theological and literary contexts. There has been a flight to the safety of rigid law and inflexible dogma and a consequent desire to unchurch those who will not conform. So on a day late in 2007 when my friend and colleague Peter Cowell asked me to bless the civil partnership that he was to contract with David Lord in May this year I was ready to answer "yes". I did so not to provoke the so-called traditionalists and to deliberately disregard the guidelines published by the English House of Bishops, not to defy the Bishop of London, whose sagacity I respect, or Archbishop Rowan, who I have known and admired for 25 years, but because to respond in any other way would have been a negation of everything I believe, of everything that makes me who I am, as a man and as a priest. We were in uncharted territory, seeking to find the words that would express the love of Peter and David and their commitment to each other. New words could not carry the burden and we turned to the old, to words shaped by centuries of use, redolent with meaning. This bringing together of two men would be like a marriage but not a marriage, for I am clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, and the words I will say must be said with integrity. The words, vow and covenant, binding and union, were put under tension, slipping, sliding, perishing. They were imprecise, transferred from one relationship to another. We could not speak of procreation but we could speak of "the mutual, society, help, and comfort" that the one could have of the other, of loving, comforting, honouring and keeping, for these are good words and not limited to or by marriage. On 31 May, my birthday and the feast of the Visitation, when Mary said "My soul doth magnify the Lord", 300 people gathered in St Bartholomew the Great to celebrate the Eucharist, to witness Peter and David commit themselves to each other in an exclusive loving relationship. Amazing flowers, fabulous music, a ceremony both solemn and oddly homely, familiar words reordered and reconfigured, carrying new meanings. Nothing jarred, nothing felt even vaguely inappropriate. New and untried but not wrong. Not a gay rally or demonstration, but a truly joyful celebration. It is not we who have whipped up the whirlwind, replacing words of love and inclusion with those of hatred and exclusion. We set out to express, experimentally, pushing at boundaries, a love of a type which is not unusual or perverse but which is perfectly ordinary and accepted outside the Church. Why, then, can it not be accepted inside the community that is based, not on law, but on the loving presence of God in Jesus Christ? Those who cannot ever accept same-sex unions and would rather divide from those who do, branding them as blasphemous and unchristian, have inevitably turned on us, and especially on me. I am clearly not naïve, so I must have been malicious, politically-motivated, intent on pushing forward my ungodly agenda. Every aspect of my life and ministry is being raked over, the Daily Mail's old allegations of sexual impropriety, my failure to be elected as an alderman, my writing a book on clergy discipline, even the complaint from neighbouring flats that I will not silence the church clock which chimes at midnight and again at seven as it has for centuries. First discredit your opponent, then defrock him, and, as he is Rector of Smithfield, why not the stake? I did not seek the role, the interviews, the publicity, but more than thirty years ago I began a journey, a process of becoming, that focuses on Jesus the Christ, not as lawgiver and judge but as the one who loves us and holds us and will not let us go until we know ourselves as loved by him despite our foolishness and imperfections, and because of that, when Peter Cowell asked me, I did not hesitate, not even for a moment to answer "Yes, I will."

Why the church should bless gay marriage By Giles Fraser Anglicans have no reason to deny weddings to same-sex couples. We must endorse real love wherever we find it. (Guardian 18 Jun08). A few weeks ago, two Anglican clergymen celebrated their civil partnership at a service in a famous London church. Newspapers last weekend called it a gay wedding. A number of friends of mine were at the service and told of a happy and wonderful occasion. But there are those who have been deeply upset; people who would quote scripture to argue that it threatens the very fabric of marriage itself. So what, then, is the Church of England's theology of marriage? Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, as the Book of Common Prayer was being put together, marriage was said to be for three purposes: First, it was ordained for the procreation of children. Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication. Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. How do these three concerns relate to the prospect of gay marriage? The third priority insists that marriage is designed to bring human beings into loving and supportive relationships. Surely no one can deny that homosexual men and women are in as much need of loving and supportive relationships as anybody else. And equally deserving of them too. This one seems pretty clear. The second priority relates to the encouragement of monogamy. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rightly recognised that celibacy is a vocation to which many gay people are simply not called. Which is why, it strikes me, the church ought to be offering gay people a basis for monogamous relationships that are permanent, faithful and stable. So that leaves the whole question of procreation. And clearly a gay couple cannot make babies biologically. But then neither can those who marry much later in life. Many couples, for a whole range of reasons, find they cannot conceive children -- or, simply, don't choose to. Is marriage to be denied them? Of course not. For these reasons -- and also after contraception became fully accepted in the Church of England -- the modern marriage service shifted the emphasis away from procreation. The weight in today's wedding liturgy is on the creation of loving and stable relationships. For me, this is something in which gay Christians have a perfect right to participate. I know many people of goodwill are bound to disagree with me on this. But gay marriage isn't about culture wars or church politics; it's fundamentally about one person loving another. The fact that two gay men have proclaimed this love in the presence of God, before friends and family and in the context of prayerful reflection, is something I believe the church should welcome. It's not as if there's so much real love in the world that we can afford to be dismissive of what little we do find. Which is why my view is we ought to celebrate real love however and wherever we find it. The gay priests row is a holy smokescreen By Tim Footman 16 Jun 08 Objections to the church marriage of two priests are a reaction against honesty and openness, not sexuality (Guardian 16 Jun 08) . . . Swift condemnation arrived from some of the usual suspects: the Archbishop of Uganda (is that entire country still reeling from Private Eye's equation of its name with carnal misdemeanour?); the Bishop of Winchester; and Sir Patrick Cormack MP, a man for whom, it seems, it is permanently 1955. But what exactly disturbs these defenders of "traditional values"? Gay priests have been a fixture of the Church of England for as long as anyone can recall, from Trevor Huddleston (scourge of apartheid) to Mervyn Stockwood (scourge of Monty Python). And despite the Church's hair-splitting distinction that it's not homosexuals they have a problem with, it's "homosexual acts", I don't think my reverend Haircut 100 fan was virgo intacta; neither, I suspect, are large swathes of the LGBT clergy and laity. Moreover, everyone in the higher echelons of the church has known about this forever, but done little. Let's be clear: removing all the gay priests from the Anglican communion would provoke a serious staffing shortage; although they're better off than the Roman Catholic church, which would probably cease to exist if all the Hail Marys had to find alternative employment. The thing that has Archbishop of Uganda and his co-outraged spiralling into rentaquote mode is not that these people are gay; or even that they choose to express that gayness via the removal of each other's vestments. Come on, if you don't like gay people, why join an organisation where the senior managers all wear mauve frocks? No, their problem is that gay Anglicans like Peter Cowell and David Lord are honest and open about their sexuality, not just in the cliquish circles of the church hierarchy, but to their parishioners and to the wider world. And a good thing too. To do otherwise would be a lie. As I recall, Jesus didn't have much time for liars, dissemblers and hypocrites: "whited sepulchres", he called them. As distinct from homosexuality, about which he said bugger all, if you'll pardon the expression. It's not the bluster and execration on the part of the conservatives that's so depressing: it's their collective self-delusion; their la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you denial of reality. As Nick Heyward so cogently argued, "it hurts to fight with lies that bend my mind".

As expected, the Opposition has used its numbers in the Senate to send Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws--Superannuation) Bill 2008 to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, where it mauy languish indefinitely. The lengthy instructions given to the Committee require it to look at the definition of 'couple relationship', evidence on interdependent relationships other than marriages and de facto heterosexual and same-sex relationships, whether the definition of 'couple relationship' should include other interdependent relationships, and various aspects relating to children.

Most extraordinary in the instructions are that the Committee may not "conclude its consideration" of the Bill until it has also examined "any related bill or bills that may be introduced to give effect to the recommendations of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report Same Sex: Same Entitlements, dated May 2007". Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, soon-to-retire Senator Andrew Bartlett found this particularly outrageous and let fly with a fine line of criticism of the Opposition.

[E]ven after 18 years of seeing everything that gets thrown up in this chamber, one can still be surprised by the level of absolute, bare-faced, extraordinary hypocrisy being put forward by the coalition [i.e. the Opposition] here. After seeing all the things that get put forward for political reasons with the most ludicrous propositions being used to justify decisions and actions that are clearly politically driven, this is something that still leaves me breathless. I guess in some ways it is nice to not be so drenched in cynicism that I can still be surprised, or maybe the coalition is so creative that they can still find new ways to absolutely dredge the depths of debauchment of democratic process, weasel words and two-faced positions. The sorts of justifications that are being put forward by the coalition . . . are nonetheless a disgrace and an insult to the intelligence.

... Some of the suggestions that are being put forward to justify what is being done are completely offensive.

... A whole range of bills are being sent off for August reporting dates ... containing the wording not that the committee report by a set date, but that the committee not report before that date. Quite what that means, I am not sure. It is quite an interesting innovation whereby, even if the committee examines the matter, decides it has all it needs to look at and finishes its deliberations, according to this motion it is still not allowed to report before the date that the coalition is insisting on.

... [T]he bill relating to superannuation entitlements for people in same-sex relationships who have public sector superannuation, they are sending off, potentially, forever. It is quite an amazing reference: they are sending off the bill for the committee to inquire into and report on, but the committee is not actually allowed to conclude its inquiry into that bill and report back on it until they have looked at any other related bills that might be introduced down the track to give effect to the recommendations of a human rights commission report. Who is going to determine whether or not every single bill that is ever going to appear in regard to a recommendation from that report has appeared? Is it going to be the committee? Is it going to be the Senate? It is not stated.

What we have is an open-ended inquiry--one, potentially, going on into the never-never--that is not able, according to this form of words, to report back until every related bill that may ever be introduced has also been examined. How farcical! How disgraceful, particularly when it is on a basic matter of justice, and particularly on a matter which, the coalition would have us believe--Senator Ellison's own words would have us believe--they support in principle. Do not be so ludicrous. If you support that matter in principle, you would not send it off to a Senate committee to inquire into but never report on. It is simply a disgrace.

Adding to the disgrace is the history of this legislation and the issue involved. The Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws-- Superannuation) Bill 2008 deals with a matter that has been examined time and time again by Senate committee inquiries. It was examined as part of a general, wide-ranging inquiry that was reported on to this chamber back in 1997. It was examined in part of a Senate Select Superannuation Committee inquiry into work patterns in the mid-1990s. It was examined again by the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation, specifically in regard to another private senator's bill, in 2000. The legislation of the Democrats that specifically aimed to address this matter has been debated in this chamber on at least one occasion, if not more, as have many individual amendments specifically relating to superannuation. The issue was examined specifically in relation to superannuation by a Senate committee as part of inquiries into the government's superannuation laws and the superannuation choice laws in early 2000. The government, with the support of the Democrats, passed legislation containing similar measures to what is in this bill, in regard to personal superannuation, through this chamber. Yet we have Senator Ellison saying: 'We cannot deal with this single bill in isolation from all these other measures, even though we support it in principle, because it would be irresponsible, because it requires careful scrutiny.' How much more careful scrutiny do you need?

... [L]ast year this chamber considered a proposal by me to review a piece of legislation that would implement the recommendations of the human rights commission inquiry--the very report that you now say has to be examined in extensive detail, potentially forever. And that proposal, to examine a piece of legislation that would give effect to the recommendations of that report, you blocked. You [the Opposition] stopped it being looked at, at all--not even in a one-week inquiry. Why? What was the pathetic, dishonest, dishonourable excuse you gave at the time? It was: 'It has already been inquired into. We do not even need to look at it because it has already been looked at.'

You make me sick. But what makes me even more sick is that people have been waiting for this injustice concerning superannuation and same-sex couples to be rectified for a long time and, year after year, they have had to listen to weasel words like 'We support it in principle.'

... The current government proposes to act on one part of the issue which, according to the majority view, the coalition actually support but now want to send off to a committee with no reporting date. It is disgusting.

... It makes me angry to be treated like an idiot. Part and parcel of being in this chamber is that you have to listen to people give laughable excuses and then they expect you to take them seriously ... but this is an issue of injustice and it is a very serious injustice. ... To use such facile excuses to delay justice once again, potentially indefinitely, is not only unjust--obviously--but extremely hurtful to a lot of people. Many people have been waiting for that injustice to be rectified for a long time. One of the reasons that it is time-critical, apart from the fact the bill has a 1 July start-up date--although that can be changed--is that injustices come into effect in this area particularly when a person's partner dies. That time is often very distressing to people. To have that distress compounded by this ongoing injustice is, I think, unconscionable.

People recognise that occasionally things take a while, but excuses are being used to indefinitely delay the implementation of measures that have a big impact on people. Those people whose partner dies between 1 July and however long this legislation is delayed for will bear the brunt of this political gutlessness. That is what is at play here. If anyone can make a good argument for what is being done here, I would like to hear it. You can say that this is to allow proper consideration and prevent anomalies--I have heard those sorts of excuses many times when I have moved amendments in this place--but what you are really doing is pandering to bigots.

So why has Opposition Leader Dr Nelson allowed his party to "pander to bigots"? Glenn Milne wrote (in The Australian 16 Jun 08):

The wedge confronting Nelson on this issue is both internal and external. Internally it refers to his relentless and endless need to shore up support within the Right of the party in order to preserve his leadership against the juggernaut that is Malcolm Turnbull.

And externally it is grist to Labor's mill, cranking up the image of an Opposition Leader constantly forced to walk both sides of the street on social policy in order to remain electorally relevant, while struggling to survive factionally within his own caucus.

... This reform is well overdue. How do we know this? Because immediately after his ascension to the Liberal leadership, Nelson told me so. In an interview conducted for News Limited's Sunday mastheads, Nelson was passionate in his advocacy of such a move.

... The trouble is, though, many in the Liberal Party don't want to embrace such progressive stands. And the further trouble for Nelson is that most of those MPs belong to the Right of the party, the block of votes that delivered him the leadership by the narrowest of post-election margins.

... The Government says [the reference of the bill to a Committee] will delay the benefits flowing from the same-sex benefits entitlements from July 1 at least until September. If you're gay and die in the meantime with a dependent partner, stiff cheddar.

Which is the political point. Nelson initially adopted a socially courageous stand on long-term gay relationships and the equivalent heterosexual economic benefits that should flow. But in then doffing his leadership hat to the Right in the party when the legislation is introduced, he risks losing any political benefits from the gay community. . . . For Nelson, this is a familiar territory. Remember the Stolen Generations apology? Nelson backed the idea but he then salted his parliamentary response to Kevin Rudd so heavily in deference to the Liberal Right that he received credit for neither backing the apology nor opposing it.

... The Right of the Liberal Party will be watching closely. As will the MP with the highest concentration of gays in the country in his electorate: Turnbull.

Research publicised today has found that useage of Canberra's buses is limited by perceptions of limited reliability, availability and lengthy travel times. Only 10 per cent of Canberra commuters use public transport--buses, as we have no rail. Public transport use generally is a very low 3 per cent. About half of commuters believed public transport in Canberra was unreliable, 34 per cent that it took too long and 35 per cent said it was not available where they needed it. Eleven per cent of commuters were worried about safety on public transport (or, more likely, at the bus exchanges and waiting places) and 26 per cent simply preferred to use their cars.

Why don't I take the bus? It would be cheaper than the car.

Besides being uncomfortable (often having to stand) the big hassle for me is that, including the walk to the bus stop, it takes over twice as long as driving.

For time-poor people with good incomes, bus transport will never be attractive. Even if the roads were choked with cars, to use the bus would take longer. If Canberra's roads ever do become heavily congested, the only way for public transport to compete will be with fast light rail services—unless, of course, petrol prices rise to utterly impossible-to-afford levels, which they will one day, no doubt.

In its 20 Jun 08 editorial, Commonweal argues that decisions on a "deeply divisive social and moral issue" such as "the meaning of marriage" should not be made by judges but "left to the give-and-take of legislative decision making."

Commonweal describes the rationale for the Californian Supreme Court's 4-3 decision as

unconvincing even to many who otherwise support same-sex marriage, because in finding such a fundamental right the court judged the state's expansive law establishing same-sex civil unions to be unconstitutional. That law, as the dissenting judges pointed out, granted civil unions all the substantive rights and benefits of marriage. What remained in dispute was whether by reserving the term "marriage" to heterosexual couples the state was treating same-sex couples in an unlawfully discriminatory manner. Dissenting from the majority opinion, Justice Carol Corrigan argued for the constitutionality of the distinction the legislature had made between marriage and civil unions. "The people are entitled to preserve this traditional understanding in the terminology of the law, recognizing that same-sex and opposite-sex unions are different. What they are not entitled to do is treat them differently under the law," she wrote. "Plaintiffs, however, seek to change the definition of the marital relationship, as it has consistently been understood, into something quite new. They could certainly accomplish such a redefinition through the initiative process. As a voter, I might agree. But that change is for the people to adopt, not for judges to dictate."

Noting the differing views held by Roman Catholics, Commonweal says that

As the church has long recognized, not everything that is immoral should be illegal. In many cases, prohibiting or criminalizing activities whose morality is deeply disputed is a mistake. In a democracy, people govern themselves. In that light, it is also a mistake for the courts to foreclose the relatively new public debate about same-sex marriage. Democratic cohesion is difficult to sustain when one side or the other feels its concerns have not been fairly heard. When it comes to how a society defines civil marriage, the voices of citizens, not judges, should be decisive.

On the face of it, that seems reasonable enough. It is for the legislatures to make the laws. Yet, the courts must restrain a legislature if it acts unconstitutionally. Even laws made by a parliament can be illegal. If the prohibition of same-sex marriage is illegal under California's fundamental law, its Constitution, it was not only proper, but essential that California's courts act accordingly. An initiative to change that Constitution may or may not succeed, but the Californian court cannot be faulted for interpreting the law as it stands.

Australia's Constitution gives the federal parliament power to make law relating to marriage and, by implication, leaves lawmaking relating to other types of relationships, such as same-sex civil unions, to the states. In 2004, the Parliament amended the Marriage Act 1961 to state that "marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life", adding that a "union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia."

There might be some reason to argue in the High Court that the Parliament has misconstrued the meaning of "marriage" as listed among its lawmaking powers in 51(xxi) of the Constitution. I have no idea whether such an argument would succeed. But that would quite legitimately be for the Court to decide.

---

While the High Court of Australia has frequently considered the scope of 51 (xxi), it has not formally determined the meaning of the term 'marriage'.

In Attorney-General for N.S.W. v. Brewery Employees' Union of N.S.W. (1908) 6 CLR. 469 at p. 610, Justice Higgins said that "Under the power to make laws with respect to 'marriage' I should say that the Parliament could prescribe what unions are to be regarded as marriages." In Attorney-General (Vic) v. Cth, (1962) 107 CLR 529 at pp. 576-577, justice Windeyer said that "It has been suggested that the Constitution speaks of marriage only in the form recognised by English Law in 1900 . . . and that therefore the legislative power does not extend to marriages that differ essentially from the monogamous marriage of Christianity. That seems to me an unwarranted limitation. Marriage can have a wider meaning for law." On the other hand Justice Brennan said in Cormick and Cormick v. Salmon (1984) 156 CLR 170 at p. 182 that "The scope of the marriage power conferred by sec. 51 (xxi) of the Constitution is to be determined by reference to what falls within the conception of marriage in the Constitution, not by reference to what the Parliament deems to be, or to be within, that conception."

There is much more, of more recent vintage, but it remains unclear whether High Court's consideration of s. 51(xxi) allows Parliament to determine the meaning of marriage or whether the term has an intrinsic meaning.

The Full Court of the Familiy Law Court of Australia commented in 2003 that

we think it plain that the social and legal institution of marriage as it pertains to Australia has undergone transformations that are referable to the environment and period in which the particular changes occurred. The concept of marriage therefore cannot, in our view, be correctly said to be one that is or ever was frozen in time. The relevance of this conclusion for the purposes of these reasons for judgment, is that on the sources we have had to identify for ourselves, there is no historical justification to support Mr Burmester’s contention [as leading counsel for the Attorney-General] that the meaning of marriage should be understood by reference to a particular point in time in the past . . .
--- Kevin and Jennifer (2003) 30 Fam LR 1, 22 (Nicholson CJ, Ellis and Brown JJ)

When the Australian Greens introduced a bill for same-sex marriage into Tasmainai's Parliament, some arguied that as the 2004 federal amendments define marriage as "the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life" there is inconsistency between federal law and the Tasmanian Bill as they regulate different, non-overlapping areas: the Commonwealth law regulates marriage between a man and a woman and the Tasmanian bill would regulate marriage between same sex couples.

One could go on and on.

Bringing to an end a much-too-long-running storm in a teacup, Sydney radio station 2UE has agreed to apologise for vilifying homosexuals during an on-air conversation between high profile presenters John Laws and Steve Price.

Radio 2UE, Mr Laws and Mr Price had appealed a 2004 NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal finding that they vilified homosexuals during on-air exchanges as long ago as 16 June 2003 about Gavin Atkins and Warren Sonin ('Gav' and 'Waz') who appeared on first series of The Block, a 'reality' show about home restoration. The complaint was brought not by Atkins and Sonin (who have more intersting things to do, I daresay), but by activist Gary Burns. Burns failed with the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the acting president of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board rejected his complaint because it "lacked substance". But he eventually succeeded in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal.

2UE and Mr Burns, agreed to settle out of court, two days before the tribunal was due to hear 2UE's appeal. As well as Mr Price making an on-air apology, and a written apology to be printed in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2UE has agreed to make a $10,000 donation to the HIV-AIDS charity the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation and promote the foundation with community service advertisements. Mr Burns said today's result was a win for the gay community. "All I wanted was an apology and now I've got it." Graham Mott, group general manager of Fairfax Radio, the parent company of 2UE, said it was time the matter was settled.

The Tribunal found Price and Laws in breach of ss.49ZT(1) of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 and ordered an apology on the air and in the newspapers.

Anti discrimination Act 1977

49ZT Homosexual vilification unlawful
(1) It is unlawful for a person, by a public act, to incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or group of persons on the ground of the homosexuality of the person or members of the group.
(2) Nothing in this section renders unlawful: (a) a fair report of a public act referred to in subsection (1), or (b) a communication or the distribution or dissemination of any matter on an occasion that would be subject to a defence of absolute privilege (whether under the Defamation Act 2005 or otherwise) in proceedings for defamation, or (c) a public act, done reasonably and in good faith, for academic, artistic, religious instruction, scientific or research purposes or for other purposes in the public interest, including discussion or debate about and expositions of any act or matter.

But, as David Marr asked in the SMH (19 Feb 05), "Maybe Gary Burns and the tribunal expect gay men and women to applaud the result. But how could poofters welcome such 'limits on what can be said' while still claiming the right to their own free, vigorous and at times insulting speech - not least in the big [Mardi Gras] parade in a fortnight's time?"

Marr had a point.

"Under attack here is the right of all citizens to hear Steve Price and John Laws make idiots of themselves on air. Sure, a few homophobes as silly as Price were coaxed out of the woodwork, but all his rant--and Laws's lame jokes--really did that morning in June 2003 was incite severe ridicule of Price and Laws. Gav and Waz took it on the chin. So did Channel Nine and The Block, happy to surf on the little controversy it caused. The gay press was angry. Broadsheets commented gravely on the issues raised. There was debate on the airwaves. Nothing more might have been heard of it except that when gay activist Gary Burns heard the broadcast he was, he says, 'physically ill'".

Meanwhile, the whole affair has done Gavin Atkins and Warren Sonin no harm. They launched new careers in home decoration, complete with their own flourishing business Designer Boys.

I'm not a great rock fan; trouble is, I have to listen to too much I don't like before I find something I do like. But "Straight Lines" from Silverchair's album Young Modern grabbed me last year. Last night, at the APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) awards, Straight Lines, written by Daniel Johns, was named Song of the Year. Straight Lines also was also named the Most Played Australian Work, and Johns was named Songwriter of the Year, making him the first artist to win the award three times. As well as reaching No. 1, the song also won an ARIA for single of the year, and was recognised as the highest selling single at last year's ARIA awards. The APRA Awards annually celebrate the achievements of Australian composers and songwriters.

Breathing from a hole in my lung I had no one But faces in front of me Racing through the void in my head To find traces of a good luck academy Sparks ignite and trade them for thought About no one And nothing in particular Washed the sickened socket and drove Resent nothing There's good will inside of me Wake me up lower the fever Walking in a straight line Set me on fire in the evening Everything will be fine Waking up strong in the morning Walking in a straight line Lately I'm a desperate believer But walking in a straight line Something I will never forget I felt desperate And stuck to the marrow Invisible to everyone else I'm a sex change And a damsel with no heroine

Wake me up lower the fever Walking in a straight line Set me on fire in the evening Everything will be fine Waking up strong in the morning Walking in a straight line Lately I'm a desperate believer But walking in a straight line I don't need no time to say There's no changing yesterday If we keep talking and I keep walking in straight lines Wake me up lower the fever Walking in a straight line Set me on fire in the evening Everything will be fine Waking up strong in the morning Walking in a straight line Lately I'm a desperate believer But walking in a straight line © Daniel Johns 2007

I hope you will forgive me, gentle reader, if I yet again quote the International Herald Tribune, which is becoming my favourite international newspaper. On the recent Supreme Court ruling on the habeas corpus rights of Guantánamo prisoners, its 13 June headline is "Justice 5, Brutality 4."

For years, with the help of compliant Republicans and frightened Democrats in Congress, President George W. Bush has denied the protections of justice, democracy and plain human decency to the hundreds of men [among them citizens of allied countries like Australian and the UK] that he decided to label "unlawful enemy combatants" and throw into endless detention.

The right of habeas corpus is enshrined in the US Constitution and cannot be suspended except "when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court has affirmed the detainees' habeas corpus rights, ruling that the Military Commissions Act 2006 violates the Constitution by eliminating habeas corpus when the requirements of the Constitution -- invasion or rebellion -- do not exist. The court ruled that the military tribunals hearing the detainees' cases are not an adequate substitute for habeas proceedings in a federal court. The hearings restrain protections like the right to counsel and the right to present evidence of innocence.

Twice the Supreme Court swatted back his imperial overreaching, and twice Congress helped Bush try to open a gaping loophole in the Constitution. On Thursday, the court turned back the most recent effort to subvert justice with a stirring defense of habeas corpus, the right of anyone being held by the government to challenge his confinement before a judge. . . . It was a very good day for people who value freedom and abhor Bush's attempts to turn Guantánamo Bay into a constitutional-rights-free zone. . . . It was disturbing that four justices dissented from this eminently reasonable decision. . . . There is an enormous gulf between the substance and tone of the majority opinion, with its rich appreciation of the liberties that the founders wrote into the Constitution, and the what-is-all-the-fuss-about dissent. It is sobering to think that habeas hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court of the United States. The ruling is a major victory for civil liberties--but a timely reminder of how fragile they are.

Australia's liberties are even more fragile, and largely unprotected by our constitution. We are endangered when, as did John Howard, our government decides to follow in the footsteps of a United States commanded by a imperialist fool. Australia's Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 places limits our habeas corpus rights, for example.

Habeas corpus (Latin: [We command] that you have the body) is the name of a legal process through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action. It has its origins in C14th England but was formalised with the Habeas Corpus Act 1679.

That Barack Obama supported the Supreme Court decision, while John McCain expressed "concerns", shows just exactly why American should vote for Obama in November.

Obama issued a statement calling the decision "a rejection of the Bush administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo" that he said was "yet another failed policy supported by John McCain." "This is an important step," he said, "toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy." Obama voted against the Military Commissions Act "because its sloppiness would inevitably lead to the court, once again, rejecting the administration's extreme legal position."

McCain was one of among the chief architects of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees a right to challenge their status in civilian courts. Although he pressed the administration to ensure legal protection against torture, he also argued that the status-review tribunals gave detainees adequate rights to challenge their detention, an argument that the court has rejected.

American politicians do oratory better than Australians. Whatever one thinks of Hillary Clinton's views, her concession speech exiting the primary contest was a finely crafted piece of wordsmithing. Senator Obama 's speechmaking is rarely other than eloquent.

Sadly, Australian politicians rarely aspire to fine words and Australians don't often care to listen. (Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations was a notable exception.)

In the 8 June edition of HT, I counted one, two, three, four, five, six substantial articles based on Senator Clinton's withdrawal from the Democratic presidential nomination contest.

John M. Broder and Robin Toner

[T]hrough a series of blunders and the appearance of a once-in-a-lifetime opponent, she saw the prize slip through her grasp despite a valiant personal effort that lasted through the final contests in South Dakota and Montana. Both Clintons often seemed out of touch with the political times--cautious when they should have been bold, negative when they should have been inspirational. Exquisitely attuned to the political winds in 1992, they watched Obama almost effortlessly ride the wave in 2008.

Albert R. Hunt

Hillary Clinton didn't lose the Democratic presidential nomination because she is a woman, and gender no longer is a big deal in American elections. There are two basic reasons the most formidable front-runner in contemporary presidential politics failed: Barack Obama is a sensational candidate who assembled a crack campaign team, whose campaign out-thought and out-strategized Clinton at every turn; and Hillary Clinton, in the most important venture of her life, picked the wrong people and adopted the wrong strategy.

Maureen Dowd

Hillary has brought back that old feminist religion, at least for now. She should not have pitted the women against the men. She did it to her detriment within her own campaign . . . And Hillary did it to Obama's detriment with her female fan base, stirring up such fury that some women are still vowing to jump to John McCain, even if it means voting against their self-interest. She should not have repeated the mistake she made after her health-care plan failed. Instead of simply admitting her own mistakes in judgment, she played the victim and blamed sexism. . . . She didn't lose because she was a woman. She didn't lose because America isn't ready for a woman as president. She lost because of her own--and her husband's and Mark Penn's--fatal missteps.

It's reported that Canberrans have the distinction of the Australians most wasteful of food.

The Territory Government is trying to implement a No Waste Strategy. But a November 2007 kerbside rubbish audit showed the proportion of food and compostables in each household's weekly garbage to be almost half--49% by weight, up from 42% in 2004. (This relates to the garbage. Recyclables--paper, glass, metal--are counted separately.)

Homes were found to discard an average 4.2kg of food waste every week, up from 3.7kg in 2004. The territory generates more than two tonnes of waste per person a year, the highest rate in Australia. We throw away at least 20 per cent of the food that we buy, of which bread is the most common item discarded.

James and waste nothing or very little, I'm glad to say.

It seems to me that a big cause of waste is that over-busy two-income families shop in a hurry, buying things 'just in case'. They then cook in haste and too-often eat in haste.

The federal Government's pressure for even longer '24/7' working hours by Canberran public servants doesn't help. When work hours are too long, there is more than one kind of rubbish produced.

It seems that excessive haste, driven by a political need to be seen to be 'doing something' is causing the Rudd Government to make too many simple mistakes. The latest is the Prime Minister's announcement of $35 million funding deal yesterday with Japanese car-maker Toyota to build hybrid cars in Australia, ignoring world-leading Australian CSIRO research in green car technologies.

Australia had a green car design almost a decade ago. The hybrid Camrys are less fuel-efficient than the CSIRO and Holden designed Ecommodore, which used 50 per cent less fuel than a full-sized family car and reduced exhaust fumes by 90 per cent.

If there had been greater support for the Holden Ecommodore hybrid from both the Howard government and Labor during its decade in Opposition, Australia may have had a locally designed green car with the power and endurance essential for Australian conditions. The Toyota Prius is fine for city driving, but under powered for longer distances. The Ecommodore was the first hybrid car in the world to feature a cost-effective combination of supercapacitors and lead-acid batteries, enabling it to store large amounts of energy and deliver rapid power for acceleration.

A Howard government funding squeeze in 2006 forced CSIRO to focus energy research on so-called 'clean-coal' technologies. Hybrid vehicle research was among the casualties.

Cartoon: The Weekend Australian

The spinning dancer has been touted by some as a test of whether one is right-brained and creative or left-brained and logical. I was fooled, but puzzled, as the ‘test' said I am right brained, whereas I am more likely left-brained.

Goes to show something, I suppose. I prefer music to dance.

The truth is that Nobuyuki Kayahara's design isn't a brain or personality test. It's simply an optical illusion called a reversible, ambiguous or bistable illusion. The illusion derives from an inherent ambiguity from the lack of visual cues for depth. There are other optical illusions that originate from the same or similar kind of visual ambiguity.

The silhouette doesn't have any depth cues; most people, if they stare at the image long enough, will eventually see her turn both ways. All this happens entirely within the visual system. For those who don't see the dancer reverse direction, the reason is neurological, not to do with personality. There are alternate versions of the image in which additional visual cues facilitate the perception of the dancer as spinning clockwise and anti-clockwise.

IHT (9 Jun 08)

. . . at at last week's UN food summit, the world's more-developed nations proved, once again, that domestic politics trumps both humanitarian concerns and strategic calculations.

Over the past year, the prices of grains and vegetable oils have nearly doubled. Rice has jumped by about half. The causes include soaring energy costs, drought in big agricultural producers, like Australia, and rising demand by a burgeoning middle class in China and India. But misguided mandates and subsidies in the United States and Europe to produce energy from crops are also playing an important role.

The International Monetary Fund estimated that biofuels--mainly American corn ethanol--accounted for almost half the growth in worldwide demand for major food crops last year. Yet at the summit meeting in Rome, the Bush administration insisted that ethanol is playing a very small role in rising food prices. Brazil, which has an enormous sugar-based ethanol industry, also rejected demands to curb biofuel production. Argentina objected to calls to end export taxes that it and other countries have erected to slow food exports.

The U.S. and Europe also rejected suggestions that their farm subsidies should be blamed for depressing agricultural investment in poor countries.

Today, Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had 50 years ago. Productivity has slowed to a crawl in India, Indonesia and China. Several countries have pledged more aid in response to the crisis, but not nearly enough. The Bush administration wants to increase food assistance to $5 billion over two years.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, there are 37 countries in critical need of food assistance. Many need not only food, but also seed and fertilizer to plant this season. According to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, world food production must rise 50 percent by 2030. This will require investments exceeding $15 billion to $20 billion a year in the farm economies of poor countries, including research into robust, high-yielding crops suited to poor regions like sub-Saharan Africa.

After Sept. 11, the world's richest nations saw the link between hunger, alienation and terrorism. They offered a trade deal to eliminate the agricultural subsidies and tariffs that were pushing farmers in developing countries out of the market and further into poverty. Seven years later the tariffs and subsidies are still there. One of the most useful things industrialized countries could do would be to deliver on their promise and end the fat subsidies they provide their farmers no matter how high prices go. These subsidies depressed food prices for years and discouraged investment in agriculture across much of the developing world.

In a world of growing demand and far too much hunger, they have no justification at all.

Is the Singularity one step closer?

The Roadrunner, an American military supercomputer made by IBM and the Los Alamos National Laboratory at a cost of US$133 million has become the first machine to calculate faster than a petaflop per second. A petaflop is a measure of a computer's processing speed and is 10¹⁵ floating point operations per second. Floating-point allow encoding of long real numbers within the finite limits of precision available on computers; a floating-point number is expressed as a basic number, an exponent, and a number base (usually ten).

Roadrunner will solve problems to ensure that the US stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age. It will also work on scientific problems like climate change.

The machine is an unusual blend of chips used in consumer products and advanced parallel computing technologies. Thus there is an interaction between high-tech military/scientific computing and the consumer market, each helping the other to develop--although some are skeptical of this.

Very fast computers have potential to alter science and engineering methods by allowing interactive modeling that approximates complex physical reality.

Roadrunner consumes a massive three megawatts of power and is complex to program. Solving that complexity may allow personal computers to include microprocessor chips with multiple parallel processors. IBM is now looking toward yet faster computers as processing power increases about a thousandfold each 11 years.

Predicted by Ray Kurzweil, the Singularity is "an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity."

Speaking to Doug Pollard on the Rainbow Report on Joy Melbourne 94.9 (6 June 08), Opposition Shadow Attorney-General Senator George Brandis confirmed that the Senate enquiry that the Opposition will require into equalising superannuation for same-sex couples in Australian government employment would not be over in a couple of days. The bill will not pass in time to come into effect at the start of the new financial year.

Notwithstanding a proposal by Opposition Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull MP, Senator Brandis also refused to give any guarantees that the Liberal party would support the backdating of any changes to the start of the financial year.

He said the Coalition would wait for the omnibus bill that amend other legislation that discriminates against gays and lesbians, and then consider superannuation in conjunction with it. This means reform will likely be delayed at least until September. He denied this was a delaying tactic, saying the profound changes proposed meant the bills could not be allowed to proceed without thorough scrutiny.

I'm not so much disappointed as downright angry

On 27 May 2008, German politicians dedicated a memorial in Berlin to the tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted during the Nazi regime. Seventy-five years ago Nazis launched a series of raids and public book burnings aimed at homosexuals. It was the start of Adolf Hitler’s crusade against homosexuality which saw an unknown number of gays arrested, tortured and murdered by the Nazis. Nazi persecution of homosexuals had long been swept under the carpet. Between 5,000 and 10,000 homosexuals were deported to concentration camps. During its crackdown on homosexuals the Nazi regime began 100,000 legal proceedings, followed by 45,000 sentences under a criminal law that endured until 1969. The new memorial will bring the past persecution and ongoing struggles of homosexuals to the heart of the German capital. Germany's lower house of parliament in 2000 formally apologized to gays persecuted under the Nazi regime. In 2002 the German parliament issued a formal pardon for gays convicted under the Nazis. On 12 December 2003 the Parliament funded the homosexual memorial.

The memorial consists of a grey rectangular block some four meters tall. One side has a small opening through which viewers will see a black and white art film scene of two men kissing. The kissing scene will be changed every two years. "A simple kiss could land you in trouble," says the text which accompanies the memorial. After the war, surviving Jews and others were released from the concentration camps, but homosexuals were not. The laws used to prosecute homosexuals continued long after the Nazis had been defeated; 44,231 sentences were imposed on gays in the occupied zones of the West and in West Germany. Legal discrimination against homosexual men ended in 1994, four years after German unification. East Germany had abolished its anti-gay legislation in 1968.

Designed by Scandanavian couple Ingar Dragset and Michael Elmgreen, who live in Berlin, the memorial will be opposite the Holocaust memorial on the margins of the Tiergarten, Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. The concrete sculpture complements Peter Eisenman's design of the Holocaust monument, using its gray cement slab theme. At first it was debated whether homosexuals should be included in the larger memorial before the decision was made to give homosexuals their own monument. But the design corresponds to the Holocaust Memorial's field of steles, a series of concrete blocks of varying sizes.

Powerless Structures, Fig. 55 (1998), Aarhus, Denmark

Dragset and Elmgreen's work is interesting and some is subversively queer. Elmgreen and Dragset explore how spatial conditions, everyday design, architecture and urban planning shape cultural identities and influence our social behavioural patterns. They challenge the conventional perception of architecture and its mechanisms of control and its complicity in defining our enactment of psychological states. The work challenges conventional perceptions of space. Elmgreen and Dragset reorganise architectural and social structures to investigate the underlying desires and mechanisms of control in even the simplest arrangements of walls, ceilings, entrances and exits. Below are a few links in English.

Queering the cube: architecture and identity in the work of Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, by Alison Gingeras.
Interview with Elmgreen and Dragset, by Brian Shollis.
White on White: The Art of Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, ArtForum, April, 2002, by Daniel Birnbaum.
Article by Arken Museum, Denmark.

Many will be watching superb diver Matthew Mitcham who was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald (24 May 08) after he competed in recent championships at Fort Lauderdale.

Mitcham stood 10 metres high with the fierce wind whistling in his ears and battling trying conditions. "When I was whizzing around, the sky is the same colour as the water. I was freaking out. It was the first time I had dived outside since I left the sport."

His performance was astonishing. Mitcham beat two top Chinese divers who will challenge him for gold. When he saw his four perfect 10s he whooped and leaped on the pool deck. Finally, the man who had battled anxiety and depression as a teenager, taking medication and seeing psychologists, had arrived on the world stage. And it proved the time he spent away from the sport last year had been worth it. Mitcham's premature retirement had been a chaotic and unusual time when he "partied" and lived without regimen.

"I was a free spirit," he said. "It was a break for me to explore myself and get familiar with who I really was and to be happy with who I really was. Just being a happier person really radiates into other areas of your life."

To make money, among other things, he plunged from a tower 14 metres high into a pool of water for crowds at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney last year. It was a blessing in disguise. "At the same time I was applying for the NSW Institute of Sport to try and get into the diving squad. It was a good warm-up. I was doing similar dives and getting my head around all of the movements again. It was a pretty smooth lead into intense training again."

Mitcham thinks he would not be going to the Olympics if not for the hardship he endured. "I probably wouldn't have as much of a fighting spirit. The more you have experienced, the more you have to draw off. I look at the last 20 years as a long, winding path of lessons and some hardship. I hope the rest of my life isn't straight because that could be boring. I hope it continues to wind, but maybe not so tumultuous. I hope I do have a long and winding path and more lessons to learn. I look forward to that."

"The gold medal hopeful's journey has not been easy. Those close to him have seen Mitcham, 20, battle depression, retire in his teenage years after physical and emotional burn-out, then nine months later resume his sport and build himself into the champion he is today.", the SMH reports.

A courageous man.

Yet Mitcham has also been "courageous enough to do what no Australian athlete has done. He the first Australian to go to the Olympics declaring his homosexuality." This shouldn't be a big deal. Yet it seems that it is and it has to be. All power to Mr Mitcham.

When Mitcham balances on the Beijing diving tower this August, like all Australian Olympians, he will be hoping the ones he loves will be there to watch him. . . . One person who has been by his side for the entire tumultuous journey is his partner, Lachlan. . . . He has also applied for a grant from the Johnson & Johnson Athlete Family Support Program to have Lachlan near him in Beijing.

"We can't afford for Lachlan to go at the moment," Mitcham said. "But Johnson & Johnson offer grants to go to Beijing and I've nominated Lachlan as the support person I want to go."

It's not only Lachlan who has helped Mitcham to Beijing. His coach, Chava Sobrino, had faith in him when no one else did and resurrected his career. Former athlete Sarina Bratton cares for him like a son and fellow diver Alex Croak is a constant sounding board and his best friend. "That little support network has made my dream possible," Mitcham said. "It would have been impossible and I probably wouldn't have made it without their help."

There have been massive crowds as the National Galley of Australia's show From Turner to Monet comes to its close, with more than 10,000 expected this weekend and on average 2,000 to 3,000 visitors a day since 14 March. The exhibition has show the work of artists instrumental in the development of landscape art. Apart from Turner and Monet there have been works by Constable, Friedrich, Corot, Courbet, Glover, von Guerard, Church, Streeton, Roberts, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin.

Meanwhile the gallery is being hit hard by rising costs costs, and a federal Government efficiency dividend of $850,000, $2million in all. Despite huge crowds, the Turner to Monet exhibition made only a tiny profit. The parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Audit is to inquire into the impact of the dividend on the public service and national institutions.

I was attracted by two pictures that were not of the massively popular French tradition, but a little different from what we usually see in Australia.

Caspar David Friedrich Easter morning 1833 oil on canvas 43.7 x 34.4 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid.

'Three women walk stiffly towards the cemetery very early in the morning.' Caspar David Friedrich might almost have been painting to instruction. Unlike English Romanticism -- the painter J M W Turner and the poet Wordsworth -- Friedrich's perception was directed to specific symbolism, a sensuous iconography of the soul, by which the northern tradition had long distinguished itself from the rest of Europe. Without figures this would be a moonlit landscape, symmetrically organised and expressive of natural order. With three women the scene is imbued with new human and religious meanings.

Even without the aid of the title, the composition enforces a theme of prelude, death, and anticipation. The forces so quietly suggested are of death and regeneration. Their journey repeats that of the three Marys who visited Christ's grave early on the first Easter morning. Nature ushers them forward, and also moves on with the cycle of life: rebirth after death and light after darkness.

The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza says of this painting,

German Romantic painting is represented in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in a canvas by the most outstanding representative of this movement: Caspar David Friedrich. Easter Morning has been dated to the artist's mature period before the attack of apoplexy which he suffered on 26 June 1835, after which he abandoned oil painting and worked in watercolour and wash drawings. The canvas belonged to Wilhelm Wegener, who in 1859 described it in the following manner: "Three women walk stiffly towards the cemetery very early in the morning. The sun has not yet risen and high in the sky there is still the moon although it no longer lights the landscape or casts shadows. The old trees on either side of the path are in bud and in the fields one sees the green shoots which have survived the winter. Nature is celebrating its awakening." As well as accurately describing the painting, this passage by Wegener sets out its symbolic content which is on the lines of the symbolism to be found in all of Friedrich's oeuvre.

The painting was part of a pair in the collection of Wilhelm Wegener together with another entitled Early Snows, which is now in the Hamburg Kunsthalle and whose dimensions are identical to Easter Morning. The Thyssen-Bornemisza canvas has been compared to another painting by Friedrich, An Evening Walk, dated around 1830-1835, and there is a sheet in the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden which has studies for figures in both paintings. In the lower part of this drawing Friedrich has drawn in detail the group of three women on the road leading to the cemetery, on the same scale as the painting but isolated and without the landscape setting. However the artist reversed the direction of the group in translating it from paper to canvas.

Friedrich's landscapes, silent and profoundly tranquil, are imbued with a symbolism referring to life and hope conveyed through a personal iconography. In this painting, as in others, he uses particular elements to communicate to the viewer a religious message without employing traditional religious images. The artist uses the landscape to convey his message and to express his own feelings. In this painting a few silent figures, with their backs almost to the viewer, are posed on the edge of a pathway which begins in the foreground of the painting. The bends of this path among the fields are used to accommodate two more groups of women also in silent attitudes. The glow of the moon, still visible high up in the sky, counterbalances the cold light of dawn which begins to flood the horizon. The moon and the dawn together with the time of year chosen by Friedrich, that season when the still present winter begins to give way to the beginning of spring, has been interpreted as symbolic of death and life after death. The message of hope conveyed by the painter has a specific reference to the Resurrection in this painting.

Mar Borobia

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Martin Johnson Heade. Sunlight and Shadow: the Newbury Marshes c.1871-75, oil on canvas 30.5 x 67.3 cm John Wilmerding Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

Three bands make up the painting: blue sky, pink and grey clouds, green meadow. The Marshlands of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut attracted Martin Johnson Heade greatly and inspired him to produce more than a hundred paintings of this subject. Heade began painting salt marshes in about 1858 and continued to paint them over the next forty years, in pairs, thematic groups or long series. The canvases have various descriptive titles: passing or approaching storms, sudden shower, after the rain, sunrise and sun breaking through, after the rain. Clearly it was the changing atmospheric conditions and variations in light which fascinated the artist. Despite all these variants, the best of Heade's paintings are characterised by mysterious emptiness.

Heade's American Luminist paintings sit slightly apart from those of his contemporaries of the Hudson River School. Sunlight and Shadow: the Newbury Marshes encapsulates both European aesthetic traditions of idyllic, light-filled scenes as well as intense, Northern specificity. Heade makes an ordinary landscape exotic: lurid colours give the painting a hallucinatory quality, the solitary haystack takes on mystical powers, and the deceptive simplicity of the scene makes it seem hyperreal. Here the sublime verges on the transcendental.

Zimbabwe's Anglican churches are being padlocked on orders from the police and Anglicans who go near them are being arrested and severely beaten. The Reverend Canon George Conger has been reporting on this for the Church of England Newspaper and was interviewed on the ABC’s Religion Report by Stephen Crittenden. It's an enlightening perspective. This is the part of the interview that talks about Zimbabwe.

George Conger: Essentially the Anglican church around Harare has been padlocked; worshippers are being attacked by agents of the security police if they come to trespass on church properties, and the government is doing its best to drive them out of existence.

. . . Nolbert Kunonga is a fascinating fellow. He was elected Bishop of Harare in 2001, and he ran against a white Zimbabwean priest, named Tim Neill, who was the Vicar of Harare. And at the time, the accusation was made that the secret police unduly influenced the election to have Dr Kunonga come to power. He was elected, and he immediately began to conform the church to the ZANU government's line on almost everything. And basically turned the church into an arm of the ruling party of President Mugabe.

Dr Mugabe has since been banned by the US State Department from visiting the US, the EU has forbidden him to travel to Europe for his complicity in the crimes of the regime. In 2003, a case was brought in Ecclesiastical Court against Dr Kunonga, charging him with a range of crimes from heresy to fraud, to inciting members of the secret police to murder ten of his clergy who were not towing the line. A church trial was held in 2005 but the trial collapsed because the witnesses were afraid to return to Zimbabwe for fear of their lives.

Now when the Mugabe regime started to have its troubles over the past year, Dr Kunonga's hold on power also began to wane. And at a meeting of the Synod, or the gathering of the dioceses of Central Africa last summer, Bishop Kunonga declared that his diocese was quitting the Central African Anglican church, he charged because the Central African church was full of homosexuals and he charged the Bishop of Botswana for example was a secret homosexual, which is nonsense. But he declared his independence, he and a second bishop, the Bishop of Manicaland, and in October of last year, they were formally removed as bishops and litigation began and this past May, on May 16th, the Dean of the Province of Central Africa, Albert Chama, the Bishop of Northern Zambia, pronounced a sentence of greater excommunication upon the two bishops. And last Fall (Autumn) they were moved as bishops from their office of bishops while this past month they were actually expelled from the bosom of the church, if you will.

Stephen Crittenden: They've replaced him with a new bishop, Dr Sebastian Bukara; what can you tell us about him?

George Conger: Dr Bukara is a very well educated Zimbabwean national; he was educated in Europe, and he stepped into the shoes left by the former Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, as the principal spokesman for the civil opposition. The Roman Catholic church had been the principal voice, humanitarian voice and protest to the regime. The former Archbishop of Bulawayo was brought down in a sex scandal last year.

Stephen Crittenden: And spirited away to the Vatican very quickly.

George Conger: Yes, and has since admitted the veracity of the charges, and Bishop Bakare, who had been the bishop of the Manicaland which is the region along the border of Mozambique, was brought out of retirement and sent to Harare to stand in for Dr Kunonga.

Stephen Crittenden: And was he able to physically take office?

George Conger: Yes, he was able to take office because 99-9/10ths of the people backed him as to the majority of the clergy, and there was a service of consecration in the municipal cricket stadium there in Harare, and he took office, but he's not been able to actually take physical possession of the churches. The properties have been controlled by Dr Kunonga even though a court order has given joint custody to the two sides, the police have refused to enforce it, and whenever a worshipper attempts to set foot on church property, they're savaged by the police.

Stephen Crittenden: And as I understand it, this week basically all the churches in the diocese of Harare are padlocked on orders of the police.

George Conger: Yes, that's true. The cathedral [pictured] will be opened up for a few minutes so the half-dozen members of the Kunonga congregation who essentially are members of the families of his few loyalist clergy, to have a service, but then they're locked up again.

Stephen Crittenden: You mentioned that he said the church in that part of Africa is pro-homosexual, he's also claimed that it supports the opposition MDC and that it's an appendage of the Church of England wanting to recolonise Zimbabwe. How difficult is it at this time to be an Anglican in Zimbabwe, given Robert Mugabe's constant anti-British rhetoric?

George Conger: It's difficult in the sense that all life is difficult for all Zimbabweans. Now according to either Mugabe's paranoia or however you would wish to describe it, active Anglicans are now being lumped in with the political opposition, and they are being accounted as traitors to the regime, and frankly it's a deadly combination. People are being killed. When Mugabe falls, Dr Kunonga falls, and I don't see anything happening until that takes place. What is difficult for people in the West to understand is that churchmen play a significantly more prominent political and social role in the life of their countries than their counterparts in the West, so that Dr Kunonga is a person of real consequence, and the social and political life of the country, as is Dr Bakare. And so in the Zimbabwean situation they look upon the Church of England as having a degree of political clout with the British government, which we know in the West is not necessarily true. But in their circumstances, it is extremely influential. Imagine the Catholic church in Poland in the Soviet era, that sort of parallel government, parallel apparatus.

Based on the life of a North Korean defector and his family, director Kim Tae Gyun's Crossing is an account of the hardships of North Korean refugees as they flee famine and persecution. Reviewer Heejin Koo says that

Kim's film doesn't sugarcoat the life of the people living under Kim Jong Il's regime, nor does he hype the drama of defection. Instead, it gives a face to the suffering through the story of a father trying to help his family survive.

Yong Soo, played by South Korean actor Cha In Pyo, is a coal miner in North Korea's northern province of Hamkyong Namdo. He decides to cross illegally into China to get medicine and food for his wife and son Joon, played by Shin Myeong Cheol. While running from Chinese agents, Yong Soo loses the money he earned as a lumberjack in China. He joins a group of North Koreans who storm the German embassy in Shenyang, fighting their way through the Chinese guards.

Yong Soo defects to South Korea and works as a mechanic at a small factory, saving his wages and government relocation money for his family. Yet his frail wife dies and his son Joon embarks on his own perilous quest to join his father.

The character Yong Soo is based on numerous accounts of North Korean defectors, but key elements of the film follow the case of Yoo Sang Joon, well known to South Koreans. Yoo, 44, fled to China with his older son in 1998, after losing his wife and younger son during the so-called "arduous march" in the mid '90s, when floods, droughts and isolation caused a famine that killed as many as 1 million people. During a crackdown on North Korean refugees by Chinese authorities, Yoo left his remaining son with a Korean-Chinese family and crossed into South Korea. He scrimped and saved to bring his son to join him. Yoo's son died of exhaustion and dehydration in the Gobi desert as he tried to escape to Mongolia to evade North Korean agents and Chinese border guards.

. . . There are an estimated 300,000 North Korean defectors in China, according to human rights groups. The Chinese government does not recognize them as refugees and, under an agreement with Kim Jong Il's regime, sends them back to North Korea to face political ``re-education'' at prison camps or the firing squad, refugees say.

Assistant director Kim Chul Young and some other members of the production staff are North Korean defectors, adding to the authenticity of the film . . . Kim said half of any profit from the film will go to help North Korean defectors. He hopes to take the movie to international film festivals and perhaps distribute it overseas.

Crossing will be released in South Korean cinemas on June 26. I hope it can be seen overseas, including in Australia.

Thursday 5 June is World Environment Day.

Sadly, Canberra is a very difficult place in which to kick the CO2 habit. It is Australia's only large city designed and built entirely in the automobile age, very spread out and utterly dependent on the motor vehicle.

The Rudd government MUST stop its populist focus on petrol (gasoline) prices and spend serious money on alternative energy sources and public transport.

Debate continues on whether Rudd PM is using the Australian Public Service wisely. Even in my quite humble role, there have been some very long days spent trying to guess what our masters really want from us. As Janet Albrechtsen says in The Australian (01 Jun 08),

The hard working Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has a thing or two to learn about being the boss. . . . Rudd is copping flack for his reaction to news that public servants were finding their workloads "a bit much". Cameras rolling, he said last week "I've simply got news for the public service – there'll be more. The work ethic of this Government will not decrease, it will increase." Take that.

His clumsy overreaction suggests that Rudd sees everything through the prism of the next election. Ill conceived spin, not substance, appears to be the name of the Rudd game. It may have been clever politics to take a very public whack at public servants in front of the Australian punters. But his short term politicking has created two problems for Rudd. In the short-term, it exposed his hypocrisy. Rudd was the fresh new face who promised voters that "if elected prime minister I want to take a central role in helping Australians get the balance right between time at work and time at home with the children." Six months in the job, he is doing a great job of portraying himself as the nasty boss in an ACTU election campaign advertisement.

[T]here is nothing wrong with expecting senior public servants to work hard. Those at the pinnacle of their careers, whatever their profession - be it law, business, or advising the government of the day - expect to work long hours. These people understand that the big jobs do not fit a 9-5 pattern.

. . . Rudd's other, and perhaps bigger problem seems to be he is on a power kick. His command and control tendencies are coming to the fore. While expecting senior advisors to the government of the day to work hard is not unreasonable, treating them with respect is critical.

. . . We have a Prime Minister who is on 24/7 duty promising to do things. As The Sunday Telegraph reported, bureaucrats are called in for urgent pre-dawn briefings with Rudd ministers, only to hear nothing back from ministers for weeks and months. Bureaucrats are reporting that ministers such as Nicola Roxon are fearful of doing anything without the approval of the micro-manager Rudd and "the result is: nothing gets done."

When Rudd publicly told his senior advisers last week they were a bunch of slackers, it was a lesson in how to get your workers off side. Short term clever politics may end up creating a much longer term problem for Rudd and his government. Rather than garnering loyalty, his threat to public servants and his disdain for departmental advice may have encouraged further disgruntlement in the public service.

Tony Kevin has it right in Eureka Street (5 Jun 08)

All is not well between the Prime Minister and the men and women of the Commonwealth Public Service. There are considerable settling-in difficulties. . . . Is the Prime Minister driving the public service too hard? . . . The Labor Government is certainly making public servants work harder. Many public service policy areas became comatose under Howard. There wasn't much interesting policy work going on, and it mostly got done in ministers' offices or in trusted highly politicised outposts.

Howard staffed key policy areas such as national security and counter-terrorism with his most trusted people, rotating them in and out of ministerial offices. The sidelining of Treasury on water policy was a typical example of the style.

Rudd says he wants the public service to get back to the traditions of efficiency and relevance that it had under Fraser, Hawke and Keating. He says he wants it to learn again how to work harder and smarter.

My impression, however, is that he and some of his ministers do not yet trust public servants to deliver--perhaps with good reason, in some cases. A lot of public service work is being done in a great hurry, then shelved without follow-up. The ministerial office minder system remains dominant.

This style risks becoming a self-fulfilling expectation. It can only demoralise public servants keen to make a new start under Labor, if they come to feel that their departments are suspected of not giving first-rate advice.

Are departments being given tight-deadline work to keep them busy and perhaps 'road-test' their performance, while the most important policy thinking is still being done, as under Howard, in ministerial offices? I think so.

And so do I. Either that, or send critical advisory tasks off to one of a myriad of 'independent' commissions, boards, committees or panels outside the public service, to do work that a properly resourced service could do well.

At the behest of its more conservative members, the federal opposition decided yesterday to use its numbers in the Senate to delay the Government's legislation to give same-sex partners the right to inherit a public service pensions or death benefits.

This a Budget measure and it is unusual for the Senate to delay or interfere with a government's budget. Nonetheless, the Opposition intend to send the legislation to a Senate inquiry and to seek to broaden the issue beyond same-sex couples to include other interdependent relationships.

Labor wants to pass the laws by 30 June. A Senate inquiry might not report before the Parliament adjourns for the Winter, delaying action until September. Attorney-General Robert McClelland said moves to recognise interdependent relationships were already being investigated by another committee.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson told a private meeting of coalition members he was predisposed to support the legislation. But several conservative MPs moved to stop the plan. The Coalition finally resolved not to oppose the bill, but to affirm the role of marriage, call for recognition of "interdependent" rather than "same-sex" relationships, and to send the Bill to a Senate inquiry.

In a carefully worded speech in the House of Representatives, Opposition leader Dr Nelson said that

The opposition . . . supports in principle the stated purpose of eliminating discrimination against same-sex couples in superannuation and superannuation and related matters for Commonwealth employees permanent, bona fide domestic relationships with partners of the same sex.

But, removal of discrimination

must not be allowed under any circumstances whatsoever to devalue the traditional status of marriage as being between a man and a woman. The opposition does not accept that there is either a legal or a moral equivalency between such relationships and that of marriage.

. . . [This] is not to treat the relationship of same-sex partners with disrespect, just as to abolish unfair discrimination against same-sex partners is not in itself to devalue the institution of marriage. It is to accord the proper and appropriate treatment to different relationships which are of a fundamentally different character.

The opposition expressed concern about:

• language in the bill, replacing 'marital relationship' with 'couple relationship'
• the definition of children who may live in same-sex households so that they are treated equally with children who grow up in de facto heterosexual households; and
• legitimizing gay adoption, gay IVF or gay surrogacy.

Further, Dr Nelson said,

in pursuing law reform in this area we must be very careful to avoid the trap of creating new inequalities by according economic recognition to the status of some types of relationships but leaving others unrecognised.

This bill opens the door on the whole question of the proper treatment of all kinds of interdependent relationships outside marriage. There is an infinite variety of circumstances in which two people who are not married to one another might nevertheless decide to live their lives together. Not all of those relationships are sexual, nor is it any of society's business whether or not they are. The key characteristics are that they are co-dependent, exclusive and are intended or at least are expected to be permanent. Most importantly of all, they are founded on a deep, mutual commitment to one another and love of a platonic kind.

. . . There is, in the opposition's view, a strong argument for giving those relationships as much recognition and respect as we give to same-sex relationships. In our view, just as same-sex couples should not be discriminated against, nor should they be accorded a recognition and status denied to other permanent, domestic, non-marital relationships. . . . We should not deal with one set of injustices by creating others.

. . . No Australian should pay a dollar more in tax or receive a dollar less in support by virtue of his or her sexuality. That is the principle for which we stand which needs to be addressed. It is time to address economic injustice but, in doing so, we must not--indeed, we will not--through indifference, neglect or undue haste allow legislation to pass that undermines the institution of marriage in any way or that possibly has unintended consequences for the treatment of children in same-sex relationships.

This bill alone will not end injustice on the basis of sexuality. But if we get it wrong, we may create other injustices and do great damage to the institutions and values that define who we are and which built a resilient society.

I agree with Australian Coalition for Equality spokesman Mr Rodney Croome AM who said it is unacceptable to reclassify same-sex de facto couples as "interdependents" as if they were merely "long-time companions" or "good friends".

The nub of the conservatives' approach is, first, to define all relationships, including same-sex relationships, as being of a lesser value than marriage and, secondly, to define a committed same-sex relationship as similar to all other 'interdependencies'. There is no recognition of the concept of a same-sex couple in the sense that opposite-sex couples are recognised.

Tony Windsor, independent federal MP for New England has called the baby bonus "abominable", saying the Government is paying people to have sex, adding that the its move to have the bonus (which be $5,000 from July 1) paid periodically, and the Coalition's objection to means-testing the grant, both miss the point.

"The policy was dreadful from the moment former treasurer Peter Costello introduced it to Parliament and called on Australians to have "one for mum, one for dad and one for the nation." "I was hopeful that this Government . . . would have thrown this abominable piece of legislation out," Mr Windsor said. "I don't support the whole concept of paying people to conceive and giving them a few dollars."

"Many of those less fortunate are going to be conceived of this ill-conceived $5,000 payment for sex, payment to conceive a child for the nation." "There's no substantive evidence that suggests that it's doing anything to the fertility rate anyway. We've spent over $4 billion on this thing, on a crazy piece of policy."

He's right.

THE JERUSALEM PRAYER The heads of the churches in Jerusalem invite the world to pray with them: O God, we give thanks to you for every community around the world that is praying with us this day for peace. In your unfathomable mystery and love for all, let the power of your redemption and your peace transcend all barriers of cultures and religion and fill the hearts of all who serve you here of both peoples--Israeli and Palestinian --and of all religions.

Action week message
International Church Action for Peace in Palestine and Israel
4-10 June 2008
A joint advocacy initiative convened by the World Council of Churches.

It's time for Palestine.

It's time for Palestinians and Israelis to share a just peace.

It's time to respect human lives in the land called holy.

It's time for healing to begin in wounded souls.

It's time to end 60 years of conflict, oppression and fear.

It's time for freedom from occupation.

It's time for equal rights.

It's time to stop discrimination, segregation and restrictions on movement.

It's time for those who put up walls and fences to build them on their own property.

It's time to stop bulldozing one community's homes and building homes for the other community on land that is not theirs.

It's time to do away with double standards.

It's time for Israeli citizens to have security and secure borders agreed with their neighbours.

It's time for the international community to implement 60 years of United Nations resolutions.

It's time for Israel's government to complete the bargain offered in the Arab Peace Initiative.

It's time for those who represent the Palestinian people to all be involved in making peace.

It's time for people who have been refugees for 60 years to regain their rights and a permanent home.

It's time to assist settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to make their home in Israel.

It's time for self-determination.

It's time for foreigners to visit Bethlehem and other towns imprisoned by the wall.

It's time to see settlements in their comfort and refugee camps in their despair.

It's time for people living 41 years under occupation to feel new solidarity from a watching world.

It's time to name the shame of collective punishment and to end it in all its forms.

It's time to be revolted by violence against civilians and for civilians on both sides to be safe.

It's time for both sides to release their prisoners and give those justly accused a fair trial.

It's time to reunite the people of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It's time for all parties to obey international humanitarian and human rights law.

It's time to share Jerusalem as the capital of two nations and a city holy to three religions.

It's time for Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities to be free to visit their holy sites.

It's time in Palestine as in Israel for olive trees to flourish and grow old.

It's time to honour all who have suffered, Palestinians and Israelis.

It's time to learn from past wrongs.

It's time to understand pent-up anger and begin to set things right.

It's time for those with blood on their hands to acknowledge what they have done.

It's time to seek forgiveness between communities and to repair a broken land together.

It's time to move forward as human beingswho are all made in the image of God.

All who are able to speak truth to power must speak it.

All who would break the silence surrounding injustice must break it.

All who have something to give for peace must give it.

For Palestine, for Israel and for a troubled world, it's time for peace.

The heads of Australia's Christian churches have released a statement urging the Australian Government to take a leadership role in bringing about peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The statement follows a visit to the Middle East by a group of Australian church leaders last year and marks the start of a week of International Church Action for Peace in Palestine and Israel (4-10 June 2008) convened by the World Council of Churches.

The statement acknowledges that thousands of violent deaths have been suffered by both sides in the conflict, but there has been an angry response from Jewish leaders. Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Robert Goot supports greater Australian involvement in the peace process, but criticises the statement for suggesting that either a one or two-state solution would be acceptable.

The statement was prepared by Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, who incurred the wrath of the Jewish community last year when he slammed Israel’s separation barrier, saying it had "inhumane effects" on Palestinians.

The 56 signatories of the Australian statement included leaders of the Uniting, Anglican and Catholic and other Christian groups. It is the first time such a large group of Christian leaders has come together to highlight suffering in the region. It was time the Government gave more attention to the quest for peace after 60 years of dispossession, military occupation, armed hostilities and violent deaths, the leaders said. they called for a freely and peacefully negotiated solution acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians, whether it be in the form of two states or one; greater recognition of the plight of Palestinians after 41 years of military occupation; and a quadrupling of Australia's aid contribution to the social and economic development of Palestine.

This is the statement (from the ICAPPI 2008 in Australia site).

Heads of Churches Statement on Palestine and Israel

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

It's time for the Australian Government to shift gear on Palestine and Israel. It's time for Australia to become much more active in the cause of peace in the Holy Land.

In this week of International Church Action for Peace in Palestine and Israel, we Australian church leaders call on our Government to give much higher priority to working for peace in the Holy Land.

The people of Israel and Palestine desperately need and want peace. The world desperately needs peace in the Holy Land.

Palestinians have suffered 60 years of dispossession, 41 years of military occupation, land
confiscation and illegal settlements, and thousands of violent deaths.

Israelis have suffered 60 years of armed hostilities and constant threats, scores of suicide bombings and rocket attacks, and thousands of violent deaths.

Insecurity and polarisation are the chief features of life in Palestine and Israel. For Palestinians, disputes over land, roads, farms, water and military checkpoints go on and on; poverty, unemployment and restrictions on economic development hold sway. For Israelis the ever-present fear of suicide bombers and the threats from other nations in the region create daily anxiety.

After decades of conflict and tension, there is little reason for optimism or even hope. Resentment and hatred continue to grow. The cycle of violence continues.

In a major speech delivered to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on 9 April, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon Stephen Smith MP, gave an overview of Australian foreign policy. Eighteen countries received specific mention, but neither Israel nor Palestine. Yet the conflict between Israel and Palestine has for 60 years created worldwide tensions and generated hundreds of terrorist acts across the world.

We implore the Australian Government to increase its support for peacemaking between Israel and Palestine. We respectfully recommend that increased support include:

• persistent advocacy for a freely and peacefully negotiated solution acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians, whether in the form of two states or one;
• greater recognition of the plight of Palestinians after 41 years of military occupation;
• advocacy for the implementation of international law in reaching a negotiated solution;
• a quadrupling of Australia's aid contribution to the social and economic development of Palestine; and
• the facilitation of a multi-faith delegation from Australia to visit Israel and Palestine.

It's more than time for a concerted effort by the international community to work with Israel and Palestine to bring about a just peace. Australia, with its vibrant Jewish and Palestinian communities, is well placed to give a lead.

We ask all Australians to join with us in praying for justice and peace for the people of Israel and Palestine, and in urging greater commitment from the Australian Government to working for a just peace between Israel and Palestine.

Canberra, 4 June 2008

(The statement then lists the 56 signatories: National Heads of Churches, other Australian Church Leaders and Heads of Church-related International Aid Agencies)

In most of Australia, 9 June will be a public holiday in honour of the Queen's official birthday. John Warhurst, Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University and Deputy Chair of the Australian Republican Movement argues today that, "The Queen's Birthday public holiday perpetuates the confusion the British monarchy brings to Australia's national identity. It is one of two days on which Australian Honours are announced. In an evolutionary step, these honours replaced the award of imperial honours to Australians. Yet not only are they still officially awarded by the Queen, Australians awarded such honours cannot escape their identification with the British monarchy."

Perhaps, but it is also the Australian monarchy, and our sovereign's style and title are Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.

I'm of two minds about a republic. Sentimentally, I favour the monarchy, for its rich pageantry and historical associations. From a more rationalist perspective, a republic may be better.

Replacement of the constitutional monarchy by a republic with an Australian head of state is supported by the Labor Party, now in Government, which is wisely committed to an initial plebiscite as the best step towards another republic referendum. The practical difficulties of a change are considerable. There must first be agreement on the form of republic to be adopted. The a referendum must a achieve majority support of the electorare as a whole andthe support of a majority of the voters in a majority of the states (i.e., 4 of the 6 states. Long experience shows this to be very difficult. As Warhurst observes, the 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' argument was used so effectively against republicans at the 1999 republican referendum. The nature of the 'No' campaign, he says, was to urge republicans to wait for a better model. "Authoritative research has shown that many republicans did exactly that. Indeed a majority of 'No' voters claimed to be republicans. The lesson was not that Australians were not republicans but that republicans were outwitted." I don't sense a huge groundswell of support for change. The question is simply not important enough. I hope that its desire for a republic does not divert the Government's attention from more important and more urgent reforms in a host of other areas.

1999 republic referendum Yes No Votes % Votes % NSW 1 817 380 46.43 2 096 562 53.57 Vic 1 489 536 49.84 1 499 138 50.16 Qld 784 060 37.44 1 309 992 62.56 SA 425 869 43.57 551 575 56.43 WA 458 306 41.48 646 520 58.52 Tas 126 271 40.37 186 513 59.63 NT 44 391 48.77 46 637 51.23 ACT 127 211 63.27 73 850 36.73 Aust 5 273 024 45.13 6 410 787 54.87

Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith rightly says it is "obscene" for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to be attending a food crisis summit in Rome. Mr Mugabe has flown to Rome for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food security summit starting this week. He is banned from all travel to the European Union, except for UN fora. "This is the person who has presided over the starvation of his people. This is the person who has used food aid in a politically motivated way", Mr Smith said"So Robert Mugabe turning up to a conference dealing with food security or food issues is in my view, frankly obscene."

Professor AC Grayling of Birkbeck College, University of London, has the right idea. He argues (3 Jun 08) that

there are two excellent reasons why Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ex-president, should not be at the UN world food conference in Rome, and one excellent reason why he should be arrested while there for arraignment before the international criminal court. The fact that he is nevertheless there, and the fact that he has not so far been arrested on criminal charges, speaks the worst shame to that pusillanimous and feeble creature, "the international community".

The two reasons why he should not be in Rome are these. First, he has several times over been voted out of office by the people he has bullied, starved and impoverished, but continues to rule through the gun and truncheon as, in effect, a coup leader. He has no legitimate standing to attend the Rome conference therefore; the fig leaf of waiting for a rerun of a presidential election he has already lost, in the hope that his thugs can arrange another "win" next time, cannot possibly persuade anyone else at the Rome conference that he has a right to be there.

Secondly, as someone who has turned a flourishing net exporter of foodstuffs into a starvation zone, he is one of the last people on earth who should be allowed into a five-star Roman hotel with his wife and an entourage. What an irony it is that someone who is so unimpeachably and starkly an example of a food-crisis engendering problem should dare to show his face at a conference seeking solutions.

And yet his presence there offers one possibility of a small contribution to one part of a solution: arrest him, arraign him for human rights crimes, lock him up in the Netherlands while trial pends, and while he defends his glowing record of humane administration of justice, internal peace, and economic progress, poor struggling Zimbabwe might be able to find its feet again.

Quite so.

One day, it might be possible to take a train from Seoul to London. Russia and North Korea are planning a joint railroad venture. This from Russia profile:

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il traveled from Pyongyang to Moscow and St. Petersburg by train in 2001, the Russian press was at a loss to explain why the country's foreign guest chose such a long and costly method of travel. Many Russian trains had to have their schedules changed and some people even sued the Russian government for getting to their offices late after being forced to give way to Kim Jong Il's armored train. Possible explanations varied from the leader's fear of flying to the absence of high-class planes in North Korea. Now that Russia and North Korea have finally signed an agreement to connect the Trans-Siberian Railway to the trans-Korean one, Kim Jong Il's intentions have been revealed in all of their greatness and simplicity. By taking a ride from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea, he personally tested the new railway corridor between Europe and Southeast Asia. Russia, North Korea and South Korea now tout this corridor as a new, easy and cheap way to transport products made in China, South Korea, and Japan to their European markets.

I prefer the fear-of-flying theory.

Nonetheless, shipment from East Asia to Europe, if done efficiently, could be much faster via the Trans-Siberian than a sea voyage. South Korea's Busan Port Authority plans to invest heavily in the port of Rajin as a logistic base for South Korean companies, as Rajin is close to the Chinese and Russian borders, but to reconnect the railways of North and South Korea will be expensive as the connecting railways have not been used for nearly 60 years.

Beside the financial and technical challenges, however, the biggest challenge is the Dear Leader's régime, which may allow the project to go ahead today, but cancel it in the future without warning.

Kim Jong Il arrived in Mocow on 3 August 2001 for a summit meeting after nine days and more than 9,000 kilometers on his personal train. He is no ordinary traveller, riding in a specially built carriage loaded with the latest electronic gadgets, including karaoke stereo and video sets and a big screen for movies. The train is also equipped with communications gadgets for access to the Internet and to show the current position of the train. He had a personal cook and food from North Korea. The carriage was specially designed to control rolling, which was been minimized by the low speeds at which it travelled the vast distances of Russia. Stepping out of the train only twice, Kim travelled by rail for the entire journey to Moscow and home, including a side trip to St. Petersburg, rejecting an offer to fly on the Russian presidential plane.