Mahler's Prodigal Son

Tomorrow will witness a variety of scenes around the world as Mother's Day is "celebrated". There will be the inevitable kids taking Mum her breakfast in bed [with all the 'accidents' to boot!], flower-sellers everywhere, cemetries full as people visit graves the once a year, gift-giving on an unprecedented scale, eating-places full as some Mums are wined and dined - and then those who have been forgotten by kids too "busy" to even call their mother or somehow mark the Day. Mother's Day is also a day to reflect on where Mothers are at in 2006. In many respects not so well placed as this article in The Nation would suggest: "Despite all the media chatter about the so-called Opt-Out Revolution--and all the hand-wringing about whether working moms are good for kids--women, and mothers, are in the workplace to stay. Yet public policy and workplace structures have yet to catch up." The Nation article is an adapation of Joe Blade's an...

There have been calls for ages to have at least the International Red Cross be afforded access to all those facilities, including Guanatanamo Bay, wherever the Americans have been detaining people. Overnight Reuters [as reported on truthout ]reports: "The United States has again refused the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to terrorism suspects held in secret detention centers, the humanitarian agency said on Friday. The overnight statement was issued after talks in Washington between ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger and senior officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley." Does this not condemn the US "out of it's own mouth" in continuing to deny access to its facilites? What is there to hide? Read the complete Reuter's report here .

Alan Ramsey in his weekly op-ed piece in the SMH pays tribute to Richard Carleton. Whether one liked Carleton or not he certainly wasn't someone to ignore over the years, first on the ABC and then GTV 9. He certainly attracted a "following" pro, and some agin! Read Ramsey's column here. It therefore reflects more than poorly [I would deem it disgraceful and certainly, at the very least, in the poorest of taste] on both the Australian Jewish News and the Editor of AIR [a publication of the Australia / Isreal & Jewish Affairs Council] - in the very week that Carleton died so tragically - that the Editor of AIR has written, and that the AJN has been prepared to publish, a more than a veiled "attack" on Carleton's "journalism". The article - if one can call it that! - is not available on line.

The BRW this week has a cover story "Short Fuse - How Long Can the Mining Boom Last? Unfortunately you will have to buy a copy of the publication for the article is only available, on subscription, on line. Bottom line the article explores, in effect, whither Oz post the present mining boom? It doesn't make for happy reading when this is said: "Clothing, textiles and footwear. There are very few manufacturers still operating in this sector; expect the rest to disappear soon. Automotive components. The local car makers are struggling with rising costs and will increase their reliance on parts from companies in low-cost countries. Rubber products. Too much competition from low-cost countries, particularly India. Electronic products. This relatively small manufacturing subsector will continue to shrink in the face of pressure from China. Basic metal products. There is no room in Australia for companies that make basic items that can be easily copied and made somewhere ch...

"We need to warn against any attempt to bring about the collapse of the Hamas government," says former Israeli minister Shlomo Ben-Ami. Ben-Ami, who served as minister for public security and later for foreign affairs, played a key negotiating role during the Middle East peace summit at Camp David in July 2000. Those talks were conducted between former U.S president Bill Clinton, former chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak." Surprising words, perhaps, especially who is saying them. And this: "If you bring down Hamas, you would push it to a more radical position," he said. "You may also effect a fragmentation within it. So far, Hamas is a unified movement, which is good for everybody. With Hamas in power you have one single counterpart you can talk to. If they reach an agreement, everybody will listen to them." Moreover, he said, "the military wing of Hamas is still listening to the pol...

The Village Voice reports: May is the month that the United States has been summoned to Geneva by the United Nations Committee Against Torture to, as Reuters reported on April 18, "provide information about secret detention facilities and specifically whether the United States assumed responsibility for alleged acts of torture in them." And further: The committee also wants a list of all these secret prisons. So do I—along with every major human rights organization and some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. However, Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, rigidly keeps refusing to authorize an investigation into these "black sites," as they are called in CIA internal communications. (The United States is a faithless signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and is now being called to account.) On the very day that Lord Goldsmith, Attorney-General f...

Although the Quartet and the EU have announced measures to see that aid goes to Palestinians whilst at the same time by-passing the Hamas-dominated PA - by the way what is happening about those tax revenues collected by the Israelis, belonging to the Palestinians, but not paid over? - this article in The Independent would suggest that it may all be too little too late. Four British citizens released from the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay have won the right to sue their captors for violation of their religious rights - reports The Independent here . Early this year, the New York Time's Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years". And who won? Find out here .