... to vote for the Liberal Party at the next election.
Why would I, as someone who aspires to be socially progressive, who has little time for the radical conservatism of neoliberals and who sees well-funded public education as ideal, be starting to consider the Liberal Party?
Well, simply put, incompetence.
So there was the Education Revolution that isn't. Laptops in schools are a waste of money, especially if the schools don't even have the infrastructure to maintain and use them (mostly for the very productive purpose of watching videos and otherwise wasting time).
Not to mention the whole abolition of Domestic Undergraduate Full Fees which has taken $27 million straight out of the University of Melbourne.
And at a State level, we have a transport minister who isn't interested in transport. As someone who nearly got doored while riding my bike today I say, "Thanks for nothing Labor."
There was Rudd's rather silly response to the whole Henson affair.
And now there is this (via Hoyden About Town) rather sorry affair on how same-sex couples will get short-changed by Labor's attempts to end discrimination against them.
So, I'd rather have a competent government that I can occasionally win concessions from rather than an incompetent government that undermines progressive social causes through clumsiness.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Please Stop Enouraging Me...
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Balanced Comparison
One of the University's 'Back for Seconds' bloggers, Suzanne, has an excellent post up comparing New Generation and Heritage/Continuing degrees. Her analysis is balanced and fair, pointing out both the advantages and disadvantages faced by students under both models.
The only point that causes me some confusion is her reference to scholarship money. The National Scholarship has, for a long time, funded both HECS and provided an allowance ($5000 for Victorians and $10,000 for interstate students). The maintenance of such an excellent scholarship program in the face of economic downturn and fickle governance and regulation is to be applauded.
Her last point was also quite amusing:
"Student centres! Whose brilliant idea was it to make Music share a student centre with Arts, and to put the whole thing ages away in Old Arts, replacing the perfectly functional administrative centre at the front office inside the Music building?"The merger between Music and Arts Faculty Offices/Student Centres looks to be both a cost-cutting measure and a bureaucratic cleaning job. Considering how underresourced the Student Centre is, imagine if the same resources were split over two faculties?
Sometimes I wish I was a few years older or younger, so I could have done my degree(s) and gotten out before all of this or come in after the dust has settled.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
From VSU to SSF
So there is talk about the government permitting universities to charge a compulsory non-academic fee of up to $250 for the purpose of funding student services and amenities.
Student unions might or might not get any of the money. It seems likely that the intention is that they will, but at unimelb, most of the services are run by the university, rather than a student association. However, a student association itself is a kind of service or amenity. Student unions, sports associations and student clubs lend themselves very much to the university in its marketing and educational goals. The university would be behind its competition if all it could say in its marketing was, "We provide classes... and if you get upset we have counsellors. There is nothing else to do on campus except study." Students would look at another university who was saying, "We provide classes and when you're not in class we have clubs and societies where you can meet other interesting students and do things that are fun and exciting. Many of our graduates keep in contact with the networks they establish at university as friends or business partners."
This is the campus culture argument. For VSU, there are things like the self-interest argument (why should I pay for things I don't use), the responsible management argument (student unions waste money), the anti-political argument (student unions spend money on political campaigns) and the freedom of association argument. The self-interest argument is knocked down by the taxation argument (let's stop paying for hospitals because we don't get sick) and the anti-political argument is challenged by the fact that student representatives are elected.
The responsible management argument crops up from time to time because student reps waste money or are corrupt, as if that never happens in big business, government or universities.
The freedom of association argument is also flawed because VSU legislation did not cover all institutions in higher education and requiring students to be members of a student organisation is not the same thing as charging a compulsory non-academic fee. For example, a services and amenities fee could be used to provide services and amenities completely independent of any student association.
For me it boils down to a matter of whether the university is expected to be a mere degree shop or if there is supposed to be life outside the classroom. If it is the former, then we should give up our student unions, sports associations, counselling, health, disability and volunteering services and spend all of the money on books and online lecture slides.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Commerce Student Subject Choice Drops 18.6%
A comparison of the subjects offered to Commerce students in 2007 and 2009 reveals that Commerce students have lost 40 of the 140 subjects offered in 2007. This accompanies the creation of just 14 new subjects leaving a net loss of 26 subjects. The worst hit areas are Economics, which had a net loss of 8 subjects and Management and Marketing which had a net loss of 9 subjects. Business Law is no longer offered to Commerce students, resulting in a loss of 4 subjects.
To suffer a net loss of 26 subjects, represents a reduction in student subject choice of 18.6%, which means that students in 2009 have had their subject choice reduced by nearly one fifth. It is rather sad that the Commerce, which has the highest proportion of full fee international students, has made such drastic cuts to its offerings. The education of the University of Melbourne's Commerce students has clearly been compromised.
---
Update:
See comments, a commerce student points out the flaws in the comparison which bring the net loss of subjects much lower.
Update 2: Of 117 subjects in 2007, 9 were lost, a decrease of 7.7%.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Faculty of Arts Handbook Analysis
In The Age today there is a discussion of the financial cost of the government's cuts to domestic undergraduate full fees.
Let's take a moment to look at the difference between the 2007 and 2009 subject offerings in the Faculty of Arts and take.
Arts Majors in the 2007 Handbook that have not be listed as available to B. Arts students in the 2009 Handbook:
American Studies,
Ancient Greek,
Archaeology,
Architectural History,
Astronomy,
Biology and Botany,
Business Law,
Catalan, Chemistry,
Classical Studies and Archaeology,
Computer applications in the Social Sciences and Humanities,
Computer Science,
Development Studies,
Earth Sciences,
English as a Second Language,
English Language Studies,
Communication Skills,
Environmental Studies,
European Studies,
Gender Studies,
Global Issues,
Management,
Mathematics and Statistics,
Modern Greek,
Music History,
Physics,
Planning and Design,
Portuguese,
Social Work subjects, Social Work,
Socio-Legal Studies,
Theology,
Media and Communications,
Creative Arts,
Public Policy and Management (Honours).
Monday, October 27, 2008
Culture?
So it has been a month since I last posted anything here. A lot has happened.
There was this interesting piece in The Cambridge Student where a member of the drinking society goes to a 'fresher swap' and explains how selection for the swap works: "During the lull in proceedings just before the curry arrived, they began to press me for answers as to their selection, and encouraged by their responses to some of my anecdotes, along with the effects of several pints, I leant forwards and confided (with a knowing smile and a wink) that they had in fact been picked straight from the fresher's facebook group, by virtue of their aesthetic qualities and whether or not they looked "fun" (translate: easy).
This is an interesting comment on student culture in higher education institutions. What do we really mean when we talk about student culture? Is this the kind of thing we are referring to? Is student culture for the most part just free sausages, beer, chlamydia share-parties with the occasional theatre production (complete with almost nude actresses) to give it that icing of dignity?
...
Cambridge gets away with a lot under the pretence of tradition, and perhaps we could all do without this bizarre and laughable need of some people to set themselves apart as the social elite within an already elite university."
In other news, the York University Student Union is to lobby for a 24-hour library. This is the kind of thing that would probably only work at a residential university. Can you imagine a student taking the 1030 train on to campus to hang out in the library until at least 6 am before they can return home?
Marc Bousquet also writes some excellent commentary about the higher education quality cult and the problem of what seems to be the US-equivalent of a hyper-casualised academic workforce.
The second article is particularly relevant to the University of Melbourne. The university is happy to cut permanent staff and rehire them as casuals, essentially forcing people off real contracts and on to dodgy ones. It undermines their rights as workers and tells them how much the university really cares about the teaching and research they do (not a lot). The student unions and associations are more or less powerless to stop the trend since the university will just claim that it is an HR issue and refuse to talk any further. Bousquet argues that it is only when the untenurable reach positions of leadership that the situation will change. It is only through autonomous action that the casual staff of UniMelb can win decent conditions. They soon will be, if they aren't already, in the majority. All they need to do is realise it.
It is a little depressing really. How on earth do these people expect students to get a reasonable education and to engage with the campus if the only staff we encounter are casuals or sessionals? Casual staff means casual engagement and it is rather hypocritical of the educationalists and executives to casualise their academic workforce on the one hand and then whinge about the casualisation of student engagement.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Results
I've been so busy and away that I've missed multiple editions of Honi Soit and haven't done all that much. Amy was wondering about how the UMSU elections went so here is the rundown:
A win for StandUp! and the broader left with StandUp! taking all of its Office-Bearer positions, winning contests against both right-wing opponents and against fellow left-wing ticket Activate (who were contesting President). Independent Media retains control of the Media Office, following a strong contest from Activate. The Liberals have made a strong showing, picking up three seats on Students' Council.
However, the broad left retains control of Students' Council with:
3 Activate , 2 Socialist Alternative and one Green Thumbs (Paul Coats is former SA), 1 each for Independent Media and More Activities and a strong showing from StandUp! taking 3 positions and an additional position with Make it Cheap!.
Now for the fun story. The Young Liberals nominated former International House Students' Club President Joe Zhang for International Representative on Students' Council, who received the most votes but was found to not actually be an international student and was disqualified. Lovely.
Also, Honi Soit covers the issue of independent student media, including coverage regarding the left faction Activate and Farrago.
Friday, September 12, 2008
"We Hate Elections Too"
"We Hate Elections Too" was displayed on an Independent Media placard as their campaigners danced around campus yesterday on the last day of elections.
I'm glad it's over.
The Young Liberals (Liberals, Yes and Energize) worked hard all week to disrupt the election in favour of their 'Yes' ticket and its promises, most of which related to organisations or businesses which are not owned or controlled by the student union.
The Labor Right (Voice) seemed to die off as the week went on.
The incumbent Stand Up! faction seems poised to win the elections.
Activate made some waves on the left, contesting Stand Up! for president and Independent Media for Farrago. Do you really want a bunch of hippies and squatters editing your student paper? Didn't think so.
Socialist Alternative (Left Student Unionists) seemed to get into fights with Young Liberals a lot.
What has the Returning Officer been up to?
Ruling 1. The Returning Officer, after receiving complaints from Activate, forces Independent Media to not use 'IndyMedia' and the Independent Media campaigners went around for the rest of the week with 'ie' badges covering the 'y' on their t-shirts.
Ruling 2. Activate take another stab at Independent Media, trying to neutralise their test edition. This is dismissed.
Ruling 3. Tickets should share poster space.
Ruling 4. Activate attacks Independent Media for not using recycled paper in their test edition. Independent Media are forced to surrender 200 copies of their test edition for recycling.
Ruling 5. Independent Media retaliates against Activate for using a non-student and professional graphic designer in the production of their test edition. Activate confirm that this was the case and the RO gives them the benefit of the doubt with respect to the electoral regulations.
Ruling 6. Young Liberal, Alex Cambria, is suspended from campaigning for harassment.
Ruling 7. Samuel Flewett, SA(LSU), is suspended from campaigning for fighting with a Young Liberal (Yes) campaigner.
Ruling 8. The RO decides that there is no difference between a volunteer and an intern and the "clearly selective" presention of the facts is not necessarily misleading or deceiving.
This summarises the tension in the elections.
But everyone is glad to be done with it.
Monday, September 1, 2008
SUPRA takes on the Melbourne Model
SUPRA has published a critique of the Melbourne Mode in the latest edition of Honi Soit. It raises standard points, such as income support, public transport concession cards and the exploitation of students for fee-income.
But most interestingly, it discusses USyd's SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, coincidentally its acronym is a homophone of the acronym for Special Weapons and Tactics). USyd apparently thinks that it is already pretty good at offering graduate entry programmes and even has some initiatives in place to offset some of the problems of postgraduate study, such as access to income support.
The Melbourne Model seems to be receiving a somewhat icy reception in Australian Higher Ed. It is generally a feared thing in popular press and opinion thanks to its association with subject cuts, staff cuts and blatant money-grabbing. The only university that seems to be considering copying it is UWA and it is my estimation that they will be going for something subtly but significantly different.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Candidate Statements!
Candidate policy statements for the upcoming UMSU elections (Sept. 8-12) are out. There's the wacky, the jovial and the more moderately sane. It's hard to stand out in such a pile of 'vibrant and inclusive' or 'radical and progressive' or 'FREE MARKETS!' But here are some of the greater gems coming out of this round of student political-hopefuls. "NATALIE TAVASSOLI (STOP 2AM LOCKOUT, STOP ALCOPOPS TAX)
Can you say feeder ticket?
Hey I’m Nat, and this year I’ve decided to run for president to stop the 2am lockout which is ruining Melbourne’s nightlife. In my role as president of the student union, I will lobby the government non-stop until this disgraceful law is repealed, and students are free to go out without being locked out of their favourite venue.""CHRIS LEWIS (YES!)
This is not true. If it were, the union would barely have noticed VSU since pre-VSU budgets were not much bigger than $10mil.
Each year the student union receives over $10 million from the uni itself.""ADAM MCKEE & ANDREW KEMP (LIBERAL)...
With an attitude like that, they're sure to win the Environment office.
1. Reduce carbon emissions by riding a whale to work instead. On the way, harpoon an environmentalist.""ROSALIE DELANEY, MARK A. PEART, MAX KAISER & LORENA SOLIN (ACTIVATE)...
None of these candidates were Arts Officers. To say that they want to make Farrago both a radical magazine but not to turn it into cover-to-cover partisan propaganda that is never allowed to be detrimental to student unionism is a contradiction. Rosalie Delaney, however, has been doing well recently and won an appeal to overturn the conviction for her role in the G20 protests.
We’re a welcoming and inclusive bunch as seen in the vibrant Arts Department we’ve run this year. Farrago has been a radical magazine in the past, and we want to reinstate its role as an engaged and enlightening publication...
...no one wants to see Farrago turn into a cover-to-cover partisan propaganda arm. But we do want a magazine that engages with the student community holistically rather than patronising it with inaccessible in-jokes and arrogant, divisive tirades that besides offending people are irrelevant, and even detrimental, to student culture and unionism.""GILLIAN KILBY, BHAKTHI PUVANENTHIRAN, ZOE-ZORA SANDERS & YOSHUA WAKEHAM (INDEPENDENT MEDIA) ...
That is to say, independence from ideologies other than that of media independence. It only forms paradoxes if you're a postmodernist.
Of the parties vying to run Farrago, only Independent Media has an unwavering commitment to genuine political and ideological independence."
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Centrelink Weddings
So the NDA happened and wasn't as bad as it could have been; in fact, it was actually quite good.
I Olivia, take thee, Rupert, to be my legally-wedded husband, to have and to hold you whenever a government official is nearby, for better or more likely for worse, for richer or more likely for poorer, in sickness and in health, to support, witness and co-sign all Centrelink applications, until graduation do us part, and be thankful we figured out how to work the system.
Friday, August 15, 2008
A Shopping List
So, there is a National Day of Action next week. It is, as usual, demanding a shopping list, which I will proceed to critique in order.
1. NO FULL FEES: Over 60 undergraduate degrees now cost over $100, 000. Universities can now offer unlimited full-fee places. We demand that the government abolish this inequitable, user-pays system in favor of more accessible education.Full fees are an important part of the income of Australian universities. To take it away without replacing it with adequate commonwealth funding is ridiculous. Besides, the government is already phasing these out and universities are already moving into a more defensive stance. Has anyone seen the size of lectures lately?
2. SCRAP VSU: Hundreds of vital student services have been destroyed or at risk because of anti-student organization legislation. Make sure that you have a voice, and that your campus is more than a degree factory – demand the Government scrap Voluntary Student Unionism.While I'm not a big fan of VSU, I don't think that the anti-VSU campaign has been built well. The average student isn't seeing their troubles tying into VSU - they probably don't use any of these services anyway. Student services are designed to help the disadvantaged which makes them, more or less by definition, 'unpopular'. (By this I mean they appeal to a small 'market' of students)
3. DECREASE HECS: Australian students now pay the second highest fees in the OECD after the 2007 25% increase. Students graduate with crippling levels of debt, up by 1100% since the 1990s. We demand that the government reduce HECS to more equitable levels.Good luck.
4. END STUDENT POVERTY: 1 in 8 students miss a meal regularly because of lack of money. 1 in 2 students report that their studies are adversely affected by financial stress, and over a third of students work more than twenty hours a week. We demand that the government make Youth Allowance, AusStudy and Abstudy fair and accessible.This is a good point. Unfortunately, NUS leaves the best till last where it can be ignored easily. It is also unlikely to be successful, given that the government isn't exactly showering education and youth with money right now. Still, I suppose it is good to raise the point.
The shopping list protest model of student activism continues to disappoint. The only issue here that really deserves a protest might be student poverty, but the rest deserve more careful and considered lobby work. Perhaps it is because by the time a student ends up in a position of power in NUS they're so old and disconnected from the average student that they really have no idea who it is they're supposed to be representing.
Friday, August 8, 2008
USyd News
So, semester 2 has started and I'm behind on my reading already. Apart from my course-related reading, I've failed to notice not one, but two editions of Honi Soit being launched. 814 has a few very amusing articles and I'm yet to get to 815... So USyd has a new VC, which 814 satirises as being obsessed with Oxford. I know the feeling, everyone is obsessed with Oxford, it's a prerequisite for heading up an Australian college or university. US Ivy League obsessions are merely supplementary compared to the Oxford obsession.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Yale Defamation Case
Yale Daily News reports:
"With the help of a subpoena issued six months ago, attorneys for two Yale Law School students have succeeded in unmasking several anonymous users of the Web forum AutoAdmit whom the women are suing for defamation."For some background on the AutoAdmit case see Feministe. The gist of it is that a bunch of law students decided to post pictures of and make degrading comments about female students. They got sued. From YDN:
"One of those authors was “AK-47,” who, in 2007, posted that women with one of the Yale Law students’ names “should be raped” and said they were “gay lovers.”"I think that if someone were publishing comments like that about me I'd be pretty displeased to say the least. It's a good thing for their student paper to be covering this story.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Argument from Citation
Peter Coghlan, a senior lecturer in the school of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University has felt the need to argue that 'Religion should not be glibly dismissed as mumbo-jumbo'. I hope he surprises me and uses some arguments that I haven't seen before, but I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed.
He starts with a fair and accurate representation of Catherine Deveny's argument, which I will boil down to one sentence - "Religion is nonsense and you shouldn't constrain your life and thoughts with it." In response to this Coghlan argues: "Deveny's stance represents one possible response to human experience. It is the kind of response that Wordsworth expressed in A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal when he spoke of the absolute finality of the death of loved one."
At this point my simple-relativism-ometer is flashing and my inner Ratzinger is drafting excommunication speeches. One possible response? A 'glib dismissal' is a possible response? Coghlan doesn't recover himself either. He doesn't retrieve himself from the edge of simple relativism, which even I with my postmodern Arts student education dislike.
Instead, he presents the Argument from Citation, which doesn't so much prove that there is a god or that religion should be taken seriously, but that people in the past have written stuff that took it seriously and that the author has read their work. Coghlan describes Wordsworth's position and then says, "But Wordsworth's vision needs to be placed alongside other deeply felt responses that find meaning and value in human experience that may extend beyond the grave."
Simple relativism anyone? Coghlan employs T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets' and while wikipedia notes that he converted to Anglicanism, this doesn't prove anything. So it's a good thing then that Coghlan asks the question: "Which vision is right - Wordsworth's or Eliot's? "Reason", "evidence" and "common sense" may not be able to answer that question conclusively." But here again, he resorts to simple relativism, arguing that some people might go for Wordsworth, others for Eliot and others for a combination. "But ultimately, our adoption of one position rather than another is deeply personal.
Sure, reason has limits, but why should faith, religion or spirituality be the necessary choice for transcending these limits? Why can't the simple "I don't know" be good enough? Why can't the conjecture, hints and guesses regarding the unknowable (or noumenal, in a Kantian sense) be treated as conjecture, hints and guesses?
[...]
They do not provide us with conclusive proof of any reality that transcends the natural world of space and time. This is what I miss most from Deveny's article: a humble awareness of the limits of "reason" in this context."
Ultimately, I don't know what Coghlan was trying to argue apart from, "You can't prove there is no god." It's like saying that I can't prove there are no positively charged electrons. Electrons are more or less by definition negatively charged, but this position is based on inductive reasoning employed by physicists (every electron they have thus far encountered is negatively charged). There is nothing stopping them from finding the counterexample of a positively charged electron, except for its nonexistence, which cannot be proven. Great. See Celestial Teapot, see Invisible Pink Unicorn, see Flying Spaghetti Monster.
If, for all his philosophy and fancy poetical references, Coghlan's argument boils down to this then perhaps religion really is just mumbo-jumbo.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Sunday Age is Boring
So I dragged in my copy of The Sunday Age today, even though it was a little wet and had a skim. However, I'm afraid that I continue to be uninspired by the paper. While Chris Berg entertained me for a while, his arguments all seem to come from the same place. It's hard to express exactly what that place is, but it has stopped interesting me. But there wasn't even that today, there weren't even letters devoted to shredding his neoconservative arguments. The first few letters were about an article on John Brumby, but the letters page quickly descended into a farce of Christians arguing amongst themselves over who is the fairest Christian of them all. Apparently there is a 'Progressive Christian Network of Victoria' - this is the first I've heard of them, maybe they were founded to write dull letters to Sunday papers.
There was a reasonable article on the etymology of the word 'lesbian', but that's about as far as the interesting went. Perhaps all the interesting writing is to be found through my RSS feeds rather than a sunday paper?
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Dealing with Diversity
An article in The Age today must be ruffling the feathers of someone, somewhere. It covered a supposed divide between international and domestic students, suggesting that there might be a 'backlash'.
That's about the scariest thing I've heard since that little fly trying to eat food from my bin. Simply put, I don't buy it. Sure, there are divides between cultures, but it's not that big a deal. Some people move between cultures easily and others need more time and encouragement. No one is going to go to war over this stuff because it just isn't worth it. Besides, surely having someone whose english skills aren't great in a group assignment isn't that much worse than having someone who is a lazy slob in a group assignment.
And this issue made the front page. A slow news day? Maybe since the Pope has left the country all the News Ltd. journos must be left praying for scandal.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Word-Switching
John Paul II used the umbrella-term 'culture of life' to describe his anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research, homophobic theology. Ratzinger looks set to be using 'non-violence' to try and make these religious doctrines even more insidious. The embryonic stem cell? Does it, him or her, warrant concerned discussion? Some say it, he/she has a place in the world not "per se" but depending on what use it, he/she can be put to - scientific or medical research, for example, to build a better world for some of us." Apparently it isn't just the embryo that counts, but all of its stem cells too and this is in the same class as executing heads of state and murdered women.
Larvatus Prodeo provides links to what the Pope actually said at World Youth Day. From the Catholic Herald: "But what of our social environment? Are we equally alert to the signs of turning our back on the moral structure with which God has endowed humanity (cf. 2007 World Day of Peace Message, 8)? Do we recognize that the innate dignity of every individual rests on his or her deepest identity - as image of the Creator - and therefore that human rights are universal, based on the natural law, and not something dependent upon negotiation or patronage, let alone compromise? And so we are led to reflect on what place the poor and the elderly, immigrants and the voiceless, have in our societies. How can it be that domestic violence torments so many mothers and children? How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space - the womb - has become a place of unutterable violence?
So when he talks about violence in the social environment, he is really talking about enforcing pregnancy and restricting anything that involves the manipulation of embryos. To be fair, he mentioned domestic violence in that paragraph, but that was just a buildup to what really mattered - the sanctity of "the most wondrous and sacred human space" which requires the clerical policing and enforcement of its sanctity.
...
The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. "
[Emphasis mine]
This looks like part of the strategy. Instead of separating these issues out into 'life issues', the church succeeds in confounding the ordinary person and cloaking the theological basis of these positions. For example, Father Bob Maguire who is so often revered as a nice, accessible cleric does this very well. He says, "And they [church bosses] must alert the general membership to the clear and present public danger generated by the moral viruses of affluence, abortion, lousy prison and illegal migrant detention systems, just to name a few." Abortion is neatly juxtaposed against affluence, tapping into the anti-corporate or anti-capitalist sentiments of many left-leaning or otherwise not-rich people. Prison and detention are also within the general domain of leftiness - after all it is 'the hippies' and 'bleeding hearts' who care about the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
Another example of how Fr. Bob does this is in his post 'Things that never change" where he begins by discussing the execution of Saddam Hussein and then: "The body of a woman believed to be in her 80's has been found, as we go to press, inside a wheelie bin. Her neighbours were shocked to find her outside a Sydney apartment.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Condensing Catholicism
Over at Hoyden About Town:
"Shorter Cardinal Pell: If you agree to a candlelight dinner then you’re just asking for it, aren’t you? How could sex later be rape?"
And in today's 'Age', the usually pro-religious Barney Zwartz has reported,
"THE Pope's expected apology to victims of sexual abuse by priests has been sabotaged by a senior Australian bishop, who criticised people for "dwelling crankily on old wounds"."
