Painting Fakes

I'm loving Bruce Cockburn's new CD, Small Source of Comfort .   I don't think I've ever heard a Cockburn album that I didn't like.  For those unfortunate enough not to have heard of Cockburn, he is a Canadian singer-songwriter who first became famous in the 1970s with a brand of folk-tinged music and beautiful poetic lyrics dealing with spiritual and political themes.  Over the years he has branched out musically, taking on elements of electric rock-n-roll, jazz, soul and world music.  He is a passionate world citizen, travelling not in a superstar musician cocoon but with his eyes and heart open, and lots of his songs are inspired by visits to the world's trouble spots. It's five years since his last effort, Life Short, Call Now .   He comments in the sleeve notes to Small Source of Comfort , presumably with tongue firmly in cheek, that after that largely acoustic effort he had planned to do something "electric and noisy, with gongs and jackhammer...

News Limited has been in the news itself, and some, over the past couple of weeks as a result of The News of the World's large-scale hacking of mobile phones.  As if there was previously any doubt that the ethics of News's tabloid empire were hopelessly flawed.  A set of newspapers that earns its revenue by hounding and exploiting celebrities is only just marginally less sad than a society that buys these newspapers in huge numbers. However, there is more to News's ethical problems than just invasions of privacy, and they extend beyond the realms of tabloid journalism.  The front page headline of today's Weekend Australian   is a good (or should I say awful?) example. Business turns up the heat on ALP And in smaller type above the bold heading: "Thought bubble" policies criticised. The body of the article reports comments by Ziggy Switkowski  (former Telstra CEO and soon to be Suncorp chairperson), Lindsay Maxsted (Transurban a...

I'm in the middle of reading Iain M Banks' latest Culture novel, Surface Detail.   As usual its a wonderful piece of space opera, with action that sprawls across planetary systems, species and real and virtual worlds.  There are wheels within wheels, nothing is necessarily as it seems, and the technology is incredible. Much of the action takes place in what is called the Tsungarial Disk, a ring of supposedly abandoned ancient machines surrounding a gas giant planet.  Two of the main characters approach the disk, intent on skullduggery. Veppers smiled thinly at the alien.... "Why did they build all these? Why so many? What was the point?" "Insurance, possibly," Bettlescroy said. "Defence. You build the means to build the fleets rather than build the fleets themselves, the means of production being inherently less threatening to one's neighbours than the means of destruction. It still makes people think twice about tangling with you." The l...

In previous posts I've talked about Jesus' inaugural sermon in Nazareth , where he reinterprets the Kingdom of God to include Israel's enemies; and the story of the cleansing of the Temple , in which Jesus symbolically clears the Court of the Gentiles for their expected influx.  In Luke 10:25-37 we find a story that reinforces these themes in a different way. 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to J...

I used to think that Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett all had a bit of a grudge against religion.  Then I read Michel Onfray's The Atheist Manifesto and changed my mind.  Dawkins and Harris are mere pussycats compared to Onfray. Michel Onfray is a French philosopher, and I have to admit he's a random pick on my journeys in atheism.  His book has been staring at me from my library shelf since it reopened in May, so finally I brought it home and read it.  I'm not sure how our better known Anglo-American atheists view him.  He shares with them a negative, jaundiced view of religion, especially the major monotheistic religions which are the focus of this book.  On the other hand, whereas the core of their critique is scientific, grounded in the works of Charles Darwin, his is almost wholly philosophical, grounded particularly in the works of Neitzsche and Freud. Onfray claims to have made a close study of Judaism, Chri...

At last the Gillard Government has released the details of the carbon tax and we can get on with it.  Of course it's complicated.  The country's 500 largest polluters will pay $23 per tonne of carbon emitted and this cost will flow through to the wider economy in all sorts of puzzling ways, for which some people will be compensated in ways sometimes just as puzzling.  Leaving aside the technical details of the tax and the compensation package, about which some industries are still bleating while others are relatively relaxed, it is interesting to read the comments of former Adelaide Steamship Group Managing Director John Spalvins.  Spalvins was giving an interview to mark the 20th anniversary of Adsteam's sinking under $7b of debt.  After some gratuitous pot-shots at the Gillard Government, here's what he has to say about the carbon tax. He said several former senior US executives were bemused about Australia's introduction of the tax. "When I am in the U...

All over the world, songwriters are beavering away every day producing new songs.  I guess most of them never see the light of day, or get heard by a small circle of people before drifting off into the sea of forgetfulness.  Occasionally, one will break the shackles of time and place and become immortal, like Amazing Grace or Knockin' on Heaven's Door. I've been thinking about the ones in between - the ones that reach the public sphere, experience a moment of adulation, then sink beneath the waves.  What happens to these songs, and to their authors? I somehow managed to miss Pavlov's Dog on their first time around in the mid-1970's, although I remember seeing their records in the shops - who could forget that classic cover?  It's surprising, because it's just the sort of music I would have loved at 15, with its metal-lite sounds, over-emotive lyrics and David Surkamp's ridiculously powerful falsetto.  I recently caught up with their first two al...

Two rather sickening stories caught my attention in yesterday's edition of The Australian . The first concerns serial violent offender Robert John Fardon.  Fardon has a history of violent sexual assaults dating back to 1966, some against children and one against a woman with an intellectual disability.  Since 1978 he has set up a bit of a pattern - being sentenced for a crime, serving a long sentence, then committing a similar crime soon after his release.  His case was one of the triggers for Queensland to introduce indefinite detention as an option for repeat violent offenders, and this law has now been applied to him. The second is the case of Dr Graeme Reeves, who was convicted of a serious assault after he surgically removed a woman's clitoris without her consent and without any medical need to do so.  Dr Reeves also has form, having been previous convicted of indecent assault against patients and being the subject of over 100 complaints to health aut...