The Saturday SMH

Back in the States many years ago I was a paperboy. Delivered papers on my bicycle. The Saturday papers were both the easiest but often the most problematic; they were so thin that you could take all of them in one trip, but so light that they often blew up onto the roofs or onto the yard next door, and you'd have to stop and scramble to get them back where they belonged. But the Sunday papers were always a pain; heavy to carry, took numerous forays out when only a few would fit in my bags, and almost impossible to chuck up onto the yard. Then, older, I hated the Saturday paper because there was absolutely nothing in it, but the Sunday paper - ah you could luxuriate over that all morning. But Down Here in Sydney, the Australian tradition is to have the full glory of the weekend rag in the Saturday paper, and the Sunday paper is basically stuff that didn't make it into the weekday paper for whatever reason. It completely messes with your weekend if you're used to doing all your chores on Saturday to have your day of rest and a good read on Sunday.

All that said, I do enjoy my Saturday Sydney Morning Herald. It's always got something with which I wholeheartedly agree or which gets right up my nose. In other words, good stuff to flog in a blog. Today's picks include:

"It was an arranged marriage between two deeply religious young people, unusual enough for Australia in 2005. But there was more. At the wedding the men and women were segregated into separate rooms to eat and dance. The groom could not even shake the hands of the women guests. It was against his religion.
This is not a scene from a mosque but from a synagogue. The couple are ultra-orthodox Jews. They are law-abiding, respectful, yet not assimilated in the way many Australians now demand of Muslims.
There is a moral panic about the Muslims in our midst. It is born of a fear they will never assimilate and that their separateness will foster terrorism. Even among liberals, an uneasiness about multiculturalism has emerged, as if these policies are responsible for the bombs in London, and the utterings of the fanatics.
Yet few migrants from the postwar years have ever completely assimilated. They have never totally abandoned their culture, their mindset, their original ways. They have been good-enough Australians, even so. And that is all we can ask..... http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/were-australians-in-all-our-variations/2005/09/02/1125302739189.html

"We need to talk about Brendan Nelson. These are troubled times. Young Muslims have to be encouraged to respect Western traditions, such as the reliance on evidence in public debate and the separation of politics and religion. So what has the federal Education Minister done? Called for the concept of intelligent design (also known as "creationism lite") to be taught in schools, which would bring the education system into disrepute. The man is a security risk.... " http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/empty-lesson-in-flawed-thinking/2005/09/02/1125302739192.html See also http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/08/another-reason-to-love-sunburnt.html

"It's the most seductive, treacled siren call: "Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination." Rivers of chocolate, nut-cracking squirrels, and cocoa-addicted Oompa Loompas. Satisfying vengeance on brats, gluttons, and know-alls. Sweet.
On Thursday night at the Randwick Ritz, an excitable crowd cheered and whooped through a screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, screaming when a camp Johnny Depp snubbed a snobbish kid, and applauding when the tightly choreographed Oompa Loompas played air guitar in shiny disco suits. The cinema was packed with people in their 20s and 30s, who grew up with the original film. For most of us, its legacy has been kitsch fantasy.
It's funny how we so happily water the imaginations of the young, but so often dismiss those of the old as whimsy or madness. Particularly when imagination leaks into empathy.
In a politicial, or public context for example, empathy in adults is frequently labelled as evidence of being soft, or ideological, or a bleeding heart. A sign of weakness. Cynicism is a comfortable pose. As is judgement.
We sit around, flawed but righteous, spitting on the demise of the powerful, the clever, the sinful, casting the first, the second and the 50th stone from the large piles the guilty so easily amass. Pretending we couldn't possibly imagine that could be us...

Judgement should cause us to expose hypocrisy and condemn behaviour - to seek accountability, apologies, resignations. We must have exacting standards for public figures. But empathy should tell us when to stop...." http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/cherry-ripe-and-no-holds-barred/2005/09/02/1125302739196.html