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Letters to the editor
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March 2010
I am unable to infer from Keane’s review of my book, Liberty in the Age of Terror (‘Liberal Fundamentalist’, February) his own views about liberty of the individual and its central place in civil liberties generally, of the kind that permit people to seek and make lives worth living according to their own talents for doing so. I detect a worrying suggestion that collective rights might trump them sometimes. If so, this draws a sharp line between us, not least because it reflects an old confusion on Keane’s part between collective interests to which free...
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March 2010
I was utterly shocked by Sebastian Smee’s irresponsible article ‘The Outsiders’ (February). Anthony Waterlow is yet to appear before a court, so the article is injudicious in the extreme. Smee’s piece is full of unattributed opinions and tendentious connections. At the very outset, he recalls “someone who worked” in Ward A at Sydney’s Long Bay Correctional Complex, telling him ten years ago, that the most common crime committed by its inmates was patricide. The picture is immediately one of dozens of dead dads. Yet a moment later he confesses that, on the same occasion...
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February 2010
Unlike Louis Nowra, I love sitting in a movie theatre with no one around me. However, I agreed with much of his analysis of Australian cinema (‘Nowhere Near Hollywood’, December 2009–January 2010). There are some interesting bigger picture questions that should be considered alongside his essay. It’s not only in Australia that many films are failures. There are a lot of films made in Hollywood (and around the world) that are not successful. Does Nowra’s clear summary of the characteristics of our films suggest we should be looking at the funding bodies and those that...
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February 2010
In general I’m inclined to agree with Louis Nowra (‘Nowhere Near Hollywood’), but I think there may be larger causes behind such comprehensive failure! Most Australian film is English language; our main markets should also be English language. But the trade imbalance between us and the two largest English-speaking markets couldn’t be more extreme. Our film and TV industry services a relatively tiny population of around 20 million – compared with the UK industry’s nearly 70 million and the US industry’s 300 million. We need only to look at the proportion of...
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February 2010
While there were plenty of errors in David Marr’s piece on the Anglican Diocese of Sydney’s financial losses (‘Anglican Business’, December 2009–January 2010), the most glaring mistake – which underpinned the whole article – was his misunderstanding of the evangelical theology which predominates in that diocese. When I read the line “Sydney evangelicals see prosperity as a sign of God’s favour”, I had to check that it wasn’t a comedy piece. The truth is Sydney Anglicans have spent the past 30 years railing against the doctrine that “prosperity is a sign of God’s favour...
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February 2010
In advocating the right to download software, movies or television programs without paying for any of them, Charles Firth (‘Pirate Politics’, November 2009) articulates a shifting morality that could have disturbing consequences he does not appreciate – or worse, doesn’t care about. Mainlining the internet has cultivated a culture of instant gratification on a very broad scale, with all sorts of information, products, games, movies and pornography available with just a few clicks. The consequence is that cyber theft is justified on the grounds that denying someone’s...
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Dec 2009 - Jan 2010
In his piece on Afghanistan (‘Comment: Afghanistan’, October), Hugh White argues that America’s strategic dominance in Asia “faces a fundamental challenge from China”. This claim is problematic, because, so far, Chinese and American interests barely clash – with the possible exception of Taiwan. Even the threats allegedly posed by China’s developing navy are vastly exaggerated; it will take many years to build and train a navy comparable to that of the US. Also restricting China’s rise to primacy is the presence of an excellent Japanese naval force and, more importantly...
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Dec 2009 - Jan 2010
It was a touch unfair of Alan Saunders to compare Underbelly and all its shortcomings with the heights of The Wire (‘School for Gangsters’, November). The Wire was produced for HBO, which isn’t actually a television network or cable station in the traditional sense. This is because, despite some recent management ups and downs, they still take a very hands-off approach to making television programs. For example, in the case of The Wire, David Simon was left to create, write and produce the program without interference from the network...
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Dec 2009 - Jan 2010
In the last year (11 issues) the Monthly has published a total of 198 pieces, of which 147 (74%) were written by men and 51 (26%) by women. Of the 44 essays, only 9 (20%) were by female authors. Female writers and thinkers deserve more coverage. NE Hanratty
Toorak, VIC
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Dec 2009 - Jan 2010
In November, Waleed Aly paid earnest tribute to the English rock pioneers Pink Floyd (‘Obscured by Clouds’). While I listen to Pink Floyd’s debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, almost daily, and find their story interesting, I question its relevance in the context of the Monthly. Surely a magazine that offers such informative and stimulating accounts of developments in Australian literature, art and politics could have devoted those pages – spent covering the history of an English band – to a story that is relevant to the experiences of...
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