Anzac Day this coming Wednesday.
That gives you time to nip down to the local library and grab a copy of a book written 40 years ago about one Anzac Day in the life of one fictional boy.
Five pages from the end of the book it says:
“Did Margaret know that he had fought for her? Did she care? Was this the way it was with wars? The people you fought for not caring. Did you fight for nothing? After it was all over did they all go home, not looking back, shrugging it off, forgetting that you weren’t the same any more?”
* * *
Why did he say that?
You have to read the book to find out.
It is a book about a particular boy.
It is a book about all of us.
It is a very odd book.
It is a very good book.
It is called “Bread and Honey”
Author: Ivan Southall.

Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, rejects decriminalising drugs: “Drugs kill people, rip families apart, destroy lives . . . I’m not in favour of decriminalisation of any . . . .”

Senator Carr, however, claims that the war on drugs has “failed” and that “new approaches” are needed.

He calls marijuana and ecstasy “lesser drugs”. He wants them decriminalised.

Has he ever tried to have an intelligent conversation with anybody who has used marijuana within the last month?

Or dealt with young people, once promising, studious, enthusiastic, now capable of nothing but hearing psychotic hallucinatory voices and stealing to support their habit?

Senator Carr, newly made Foreign Minister, is interfering in others’ portfolios and contradicting party policy.

The PM should sack him now — first offence.

Yet another teenage boy killed in a surf carnival at Kurrawa.

The third in recent years.

But organisers plan not to cancel the rest of the championship — body found today, business almost as usual tomorrow.

One barrister wants surf carnival officials to face criminal charges for not enforceing the use of high-visibilty flotation vests as recommended by the Coroner after a previous similar death.

But organisers give the excuse that the measure is “years away” because first “all options had to be tested”.

With vests in use, injured or unconscious competitors will float  —visible and able to be rescued.

With no vest, an injured competitor goes under the water, is invisible, and dies.

To allow participation in such events without vests is like sending workers onto building sites without safety helmets and boots.

We Australians need to re-evaluate the place of competitive sport in our lives.

It is currently a form of idolatry — too often spiritually and/or bodily fatal.

The Pope’s visit to Mexico has aroused the usual media hostility.

There is an election coming up in Mexico in three months and the Pope has referred to Mexico’s struggle against violence, blaming the “idolatry of money” for drawing young people into crime.

Mexico suffers the misfortune of being situated across a border from the USA — a bottomless pit as a market for illicit drug sales.

The Pope wants to influence Mexico’s practising Catholics to support political candidates who will genuinely fight drugs — and also favour religion teaching in schools.

Which, from his point of view, are both part of the one campaign for souls.

* * *

Today’s Mexicans live in an atmosphere of belief in the notion of “separation of Church and state”  — that if the Church gets too close to politics, it “loses credibility and trust”.

One could argue that the opposite is true . . . .

That if the Church fails to get involved in politics it fails in its duty.

Virtually all contentious political issues are basically religious, in that they raise the question of what is good and what is evil.

Monash University bioethicists, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, in an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics (February 23), argued that if there is nothing wrong with abortion, there can be nothing wrong with infanticide.

Their article sparked debate world-wide — including in the US Congress.

Yet the basic argument is not new. We’ve all heard it before.

It goes:

because a foetus (or newborn infant) doesn’t have self-awareness, it isn’t fully human – and so may be killed if its existence is inconvenient.

It’s a favourite argument of ex-Australian philosopher Peter Singer, a friend of Senator Bob Brown.

When Professor Singer has his afternoon nap, he has no self-awareness.

A good time, perhaps, to cut his throat?

Maybe not.  Even though asleep, his potential to have self-awareness (if allowed to wake up un-murdered) remains.

* * *

Everybody knows that, from the moment the sperm enters the ovum and their DNAs contact, a new, unique fully-genetically-equipped-to-develop-self-awareness human life has started.

This is reality, i.e. the way God sees it.

Destroy one of God’s innocent children in cold blood and you’ve signed your spiritual death-warrant.

And ceased being a civilised human being.

Last Sunday, US soldier, Sergeant Robert Bales, allegedly left his base and killed 16 civilians in a nearby Afghan village.

What made him do it?

* he is on his fourth Middle Eastern tour of duty, has seen too much bloodshed and perhaps just “cracked up”.

* the rampage followed soon after his seeing a colleague blown more or less to pieces.

* he may also have been consuming alcohol.

* * *

The politicians are making politician responses.

President Karzai wants American troops kept away from villages: “This has been going on for too long. This behaviour cannot be tolerated.”

Mr Obama says justice will be done. (He was smart getting Bales out of Afghanistan where he would have been tortured, maybe crucified).

But will he get justice in America?

Mr Obama needs to please all kinds of interests on whom his political survival depends.

He may need a scapegoat.

* * *

This kind of horrible event always happens in every war.

War is so awful, so subhuman.

There is no easy answer.

The US and friends should never have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s a bit late to talk about that.

We had all better pray hard for peace.

And live for peace.

“O God, Creator of the universe, you are Father of every living creature.

You guide the events of history.

We beg you, break down the hatreds and discords of mankind.

Make us ready for reconciliation.

Send forth your Spirit to work in the intimacy of hearts.

Help us to commit ourselves to search for true peace and to have the charity which overcomes hatred and disarms revenge.”