Painting Fakes

Why would Yahweh, the God of Gods, choose to reveal himself to the Israelites, a tiny oppressed people group on the fringes of Middle Eastern society?  Why not to the Egyptians, the cultural and political leaders of the Bronze Age?  Why not the Babylonians, that magnificent, lordly civilisation at the heart of the fertile Mesopotamian plain?  There were so many options which had a better chance of success. And then, in the midst of the Roman Empire, when he chose to send his greatest Message by the hand of his only son, not only did he bypass the Romans for his previously favoured Jews, but he steered clear of the temple complex in Jerusalem, of the priests and civic leaders, and instead arrived in Galilee among the poor peasants and craftsmen.  How much harder could he make it for himself? Marshall McLuhan famously said 'the medium is the message'.  That is to say, the form and method of delivery shapes and determines the content.  A message delivered ...

In her brief stint as the Independent Member for Wentworth, Dr Kerryn Phelps bequeathed the nation a gift, which has become known as the Medevac legislation.  A short explanation of this legislation is that when asylum seekers imprisoned on Manus Island and Nauru are sick in ways that cannot be treated there, the decision to evacuate them to Australia for treatment is made by a panel of doctors, not by Border Force officers with no medical training. Doesn't seem that controversial, does it?  They are not granted Australian residency.  They are not even released from detention.  They are simply moved from detention on a distant island to detention in Australia, close to the medical resources needed to treat their illness.  It's humane in a strictly limited, basically inhumane kind of way.  I think Phelps would have liked to do more, but this is the best she could get through with the help of Labor and her friends on the cross-benches.  Even then the L...