David Knows

How do we solve a problem like Beit Shemesh?

2011-12-28T08:34:00.000+11:00

The term ‘sectarian violence’ has been used extensively todescribe the conflicts that have been occurring within various Arab countries, inIraq and Afghanistan during the wars there, and more recently with theinstability that has come as a result of the ‘Arab Spring’ movement.Unfortunately, this is the term that can now be used to describe what is goingon in pockets within Israel.

Most recently, things have flared up in the town of Beit Shemesh, between people who have been called "ultra-Orthodox", and others who are "not quite as ultra-Orthodox". A 7-year-old Orthodox girl was spat upon by people who objected to her "immodest" attire. This friction has been strongly condemned equally by the Right andthe Left. As an Orthodox Jew, I am disgusted that other Jews can do this in the name of our religion. This sentiment is echoed by the vast majority of the Orthodox Jewish world - indeed the representations made by the protagonists on a local Channel 2 story in Israel don't appear to be coming from their leadership (sadly and typically absent).

The Left are equally strident in their condemnation of the incidents, but more than this seem worried at the growing trend of friction - be it segregated seating on buses, or women singing at ceremonies - and see the whole country slipping into the control of these awful "ultra-Orthodox" (despite an official statement from an Orthodox Rabbi on the issue of segregation, for example). As an aside, there does seem to be a common theme here with the Left constantly being more concerned about what might happen (the end of democracy in Israel because of subtle changes in disclosure laws for not-for-profits or the appointment of high court judges, the "demographic time bomb" that will transform Israel into a bi-national state, the "occupation" that is ripping the soul out of the country, the impending hostile takeover by the ultra-Orthodox) than what is happening.

This a sectarian conflict, because it's going on between groups - between different religious denominations. But how are these groups defined and labelled? I think the labelling is part of the problem. What exactly is an ultra-Orthodox Jew? Well, that depends on who you ask, and is actually a relative term. Some of my (Jewish) friends consider me ultra-Orthodox, but someone from Neturei Karta is likely to abuse me for walking the street wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

It's far better to think in terms of a spectrum of Jewish observance, and I liken this to the ATP tennis rankings, which is a scale that appears logarithmic. This means that to someone who is ranked 500 in the world, any player in the top 10 would seem equally better than them. But the further you go up the scale, the gap between the players becomes wider. Number 5 is a lot better than number 10, and number 2 far better than 5.

It's much the same with Jewish observance. A modern-Orthodox Jew or secular Jew (and certainly the non-Jewish world) is likely to bundle all the ultra-Orthodox groups together and stereotype their behaviour. But the fact is that there are many hundreds of different ultra-Orthodox groups - mostly Chassidic dynasties that over generations have split and fractured into a very diverse world of its own. The behaviour we have seen in Beit Shemesh is far from representative of even mainstream ultra-Orthodoxy (to the extent that there is such a thing). It is an insult to Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox alike, and it is incumbent on the leadership of all Jewish groups to publicly condemn and disassociate themselves from them. Because of the way the non-Jewish world perceives ultra-Orthodoxy, it is particularly important to clarify this diversity to the wider community.

In describing the holiday of Shemini Atzeret, which follows immediately after Succot, the phrase used is "Kosheh Olai Pridaschem" - God figuratively says it's difficult for Him to say goodbye, so He wants the pilgrims to stay on for an additional holiday. The famous alternative explanation of the term is "Kosheh Olai Pridaschem" - God says that it's difficult for Him to see how His beloved children are separated by classes and levels of frumkeit. How much sadder God must be to see this awful frummer than thou attitude that continues to fracture our nation.

Who is a Palestinian?

2011-12-18T03:27:00.000+11:00

"I think there is an Arab nation. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation. I think it’s a colonialist invention ... When were there any Palestinians? ... until the 19th century Palestine was the south of greater Syria." - Azmi Bishara, 1994

"The appearance of the Palestinian national personality comes as an answer to Israel’s claim that Palestine is Jewish." - King Hussein of Jordan, 1987

"Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new expedient to continue the fight against Zionism and for Arab unity." - Zuheir Mohsein, 1977

"I think we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community." - Newt Gingrich, 2011

So what's the big fuss over the comment from Gingrich? He's just repeating the same party line of the Arab world themselves. They understand the situation of their Palestinian brothers, but the West refuses to accept it!

From Nouns to Verbs

2011-11-20T11:19:00.001+11:00

Back in the days when boys were boys and girls were girls, nouns were nouns and verbs were verbs (aside from the few exceptions that were both), and they would be brought together in time-honoured fashion through well constructed sentences. But in these days of Internet-speak, contractions and weird re-appropriation of numbers and symbols abound, and a word can mean just about anything.

One of the early examples of a proper noun becoming a verb was Hoover, which was the name of a large vacuum cleaner manufacturer. Their marketing people thought they'd be clever, and coined the term 'to hoover' as an alternative to 'to vacuum'. Smart move, you might say, to get people to associated the action exclusively with their brand. But in the end, it meant that they lost control of their own brand, as it was adopted as a common-use word. This is what is known as a genericized trademark.

More recently Google has become a verb. But in becoming the all-powerful owner of the Internet, Google no longer owns its brand, and indeed because of its use as a verb meaning 'to search the Internet for information', it actually now serves to limit the perception of Google's service offering and pigeon-holes it into just the search engine business, when in fact they do much more.

It's interesting to note that Microsoft's new search engine - bing - is a word that is screaming out to be turned into a verb. This is something of a departure from their usual naming style for their products.

This phenomenon extends to regular nouns as well. I always thought that a messenger was someone who delivered a message. But back in the 80s, I recall stockbrokers saying they would 'messenger' a document to a client. This was quite simply a lazy contraction, but with time, the word messenger was acknowledged as being both noun and verb.

The latest one of these is 'inbox'. Anyone who has an e-mail account has an inbox - it's the virtual place where your e-mail messages first land. For many years, it was a perfectly happy noun, until some lazy person decided it should be the latest grammar victim of Internet-generation communication. Yes, in modern parlance, if you want someone to send you a message, you tell them to 'inbox me'! Surely the only appropriate and correct response to this is WTF! Urban Dictionary has the right idea about people who use the term, the discussion about it here is quite amusing, and of course there are the mandatory Facebook groups in favour and against.

So what do you think? By all means, post on my blog about it, or even send me a message. But don't ever inbox me!

Natural Resources

2011-11-05T23:29:00.001+11:00

Q. Why do the Irish have the potatoes and the Arabs have the oil?
A. Because the Irish had first choice.

Natural resources are both a blessing and a curse. While they can be a source of wealth and prosperity for a country, they are something that is obtained with relatively little effort. As such, they can invariably lead to laziness and complacency. Just have a look at rates of literacy and innovation in so-called "rich" Arab nations - they are among the worst in the world. While there are many reasons for this, their economic dependence on oil was certainly a contributing factor.

In Australia, we are running a two-speed economy in the current mining boom. Demand from China and India for the stuff we have in the ground is one of the reasons our economy has stayed out of the deep recession affecting other countries. But what of the non-mining industry? Retail is weak, business confidence and investment is down, and people don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

I was thinking about all of this as I pondered this week's Torah portion, Lech Lecha, in which God promises the land of Israel to Abraham. There are two angles to this:

Israel is variously described in the Torah as a land flowing with milk and honey; a land of brooks, waters, and fountains; a land whose stones are iron and from whose mountains you will hew brass; and so on. This doesn't seem to correlate with the Israel we know today. Agriculture has not come easy, water is scarce, and there is little in the way of natural resources. So what's the big blessing? I'm not about to launch into an exposition and explanation of how we might understand these attributes and what they mean (because I don't know). However, I think the lack of natural resources in Israel is itself a form of blessing, because it has led modern Israel to be one of the leading knowledge economies in the world. Israeli companies are world leaders in technology and innovation. Israel's economic success has been built not on the stuff in the ground, but on its people, and that is a resource that won't run dry in 2005 like an oil well might.

The other thing that came to me today was about another natural resource found in abundance in the Middle East, but one whose economic potential has not yet been fully realized. What is the world's biggest industry? Tourism. Imagine the huge untapped market for biblical tourism that could be unlocked if countries like Iraq were more open to the western world. Christians and Jews would flock to visit ancient cities and to follow the historical trail of the Patriarchs.

Historical sites are a far better natural resource than oil. They don't deplete, and a strong tourism industry leads to cultural exchange and tolerance for others. And a bit of tolerance for others wouldn't go astray in the Arab world.

Yes, I know it's a bit of a pipe dream for a group of Jews to celebrate the weekly Torah portion of Lech Lecha by visiting Ur (the birthplace of Abraham), but as they say, "if you will it, it is no dream!"

I'm Jewish; this is what we do

2011-10-18T15:41:00.006+11:00

I've returned from an inspiring AJF lunch lecture in the succah with Helen Lieberman, founder of Ikamva Labantu, a South African not-for-profit that helps develop self-reliant and sustainable community-based organizations in townships.

Frankly, extreme poverty in the third world is not high on the pecking order in my personal list of causes, and it isn't that much higher as a result of meeting and hearing Helen. Nevertheless, I find her story so compelling and there is so much to learn from her approach. It left me with far more questions than answers, which is always a good thing.

Helen's Jewish identity was clearly a huge influence in her life choices. Some 45 years ago, after being confronted with the stark difference in levels of care between whites and coloureds in South African hospitals, Helen decided to work herself directly in the townships. This was far from the done thing at the time, and she did so despite fierce opposition from the Apartheid regime of the day (along the way, she was arrested three times). When people from the townships where she was working would ask her why she is doing this, she replied quite simply: "I'm Jewish; this is what we do". Can you begin to imagine this? A young white woman helping blacks in a township where most whites would fear for their safety to even enter, who is working with people who have probably never met a Jew or even know what one is, and this is her answer? "I'm Jewish; this is what we do". Wow! I just want to take those words and replay them every morning after I get up.

Helen well understood the adage "teach a man to fish", and applied it in every thing she did. It was not about giving, it was about empowering. To communities that for generations had been repressed and underprivileged, she was a breath of fresh air. She speaks with such high regard for the "mamas" - the women of the communities where she introduced trade, and helped raise standards of living, health and literacy. In her mind, they were the true heroes.

As her work and fame spread, international personalities like Bono, Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates took an interest in her work. I reckon she leaves them all in the dust. She didn't go searching the world for a sexy cause; she helped people in her own backyard when no-one else cared to. She stood shoulder to shoulder with the people she helped, working long hours at the coal face. What she has achieved with black communities in South Africa is truly outstanding.

And all through this, my mind was ticking over. There are degrees of poverty, and Helen worked in cases that would be termed extreme. But what about here, in our own backyard? There is severe poverty in the Melbourne Jewish community. There are people who can't find employment; who can't pay their rent; who can't feed and clothe their children. Millions of welfare dollars, from government and private organizations, go to help people in these situations each year. But they are often described as chronic cases that will be dependent on welfare for the rest of their lives. The sad situation is that many of them are locked into a cycle of dependence.

Can we apply some of the principles that worked so well for Helen in these situations as well? Or do they only work in third world communities? What was it about Helen's approach or the culture of the communities she worked in that work? Can we "bottle" that and achieve similar gains here? I don't know the answer. Much has been tried without success. Hopefully, her visit will inspire the local Jewish community to be more effective in helping the underprivileged people nearest to us. After all, we are Jewish; this is what we do.

9/11: The day the words changed

2011-09-11T07:45:00.004+10:00

They say that on 9/11, the world changed. It certainly did change much about our world, and has reshaped the relationship (or lack of) between the west and the Muslim world. It continues to impact our daily lives - just ask anyone who has travelled by air, or look at the way the collective memory of American citizens leads them to react to events like earthquakes or large-scale accidents. New Yorkers seem to be living on a knife edge waiting for the next terrorist attack - as if their lives weren't stressed enough already.

While reading some of the many reflections on the September 11 attacks, and what has changed since then, I was struck by a significant change to a very important part of our lives: language. As the great linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf said: "Language shapes what we think, and determines what we can think about". The newspeak in Orwell's classic 1984 is a prototypical example of governments using language to control a population, and research into how language changes the way we look at the world supports this.

One word in one article hit me like a ton of bricks. It's a word we see way too often these days, and one that I don't think was in common use ten years ago: radicalised. Back before the 9/11 attacks, we might have described terrorists or enemies as 'radicals'. Now, they are people who have been 'radicalised'. The difference is subtle, yet so important. One word is active; the other passive. The word 'radical' describes what you are. The word 'radicalised' speaks to how you got there.

If you call someone a 'radical', then it's a (typically negative) reflection on their beliefs and actions as extreme, or favouring drastic reform, and implies that they are personally responsible for these beliefs. On the other hand, someone who has been 'radicalised' says that something (we are not sure what) has happened to them (not of their own doing) to cause them (again, not of their own doing) to carry certain beliefs. It's as if they were walking along the street one day, and suddenly a beam from an alien spacecraft picked them up and took them on board, where they were poked, prodded and modified in some evil experiment, and then returned back to earth having been 'radicalised'. What an awful thing to have happened to them! It's not their fault that they are like this, is it?

This new word has changed the way we look at terrorism and extremism (and even, dare I say it, at radicals - although there don't seem to be any of them in the world any more). It becomes an imperative to understand radicalisation, to address the terrible radicalisation of youth, and for some to deny that radicalisation is actually the fault of victims responding to attacks.

If you are unfortunate enough to have been radicalised, then you are magically absolved of any responsibility for your actions, as terrible as they are. In fact, you now have the right to fight for the coveted label of victimhood, and if you are really good at it, you can displace the initial victims whose response caused you to be radicalised in the first place.

This is the inversion that has taken place in the ten years following the September 11 attacks - an event where thousands of innocent people were murdered, and where pure evil was clearly projected onto the television screens of millions to see. This cataclysmic event seems to have shocked the world (in particular the Left) into a new paradigm, and a new understanding of the nature of good and evil, to the point where new words were invented to express this world view. This is the moral relativism epitomised by the word 'radicalisation'. There is no longer any absolute evil in the world, only a search for 'root causes' that always seem to end up with 'us', and not 'them'.

Pretty radical, eh?

Yankel Rosenbaum - 20 Years On

2011-09-09T07:21:00.004+10:00

It’s quite appropriate that I find myself visiting New York, and particularly staying in Crown Heights, as I pen this tribute to my dear friend Yankel Rosenbaum HY”D to mark the twentieth anniversary of his murder in the Crown Heights riots of 1991. This very morning I was walking to shul with my son, who was born just the day after Yankel’s shloshim, and I pointed out the place near the corner of President St and Brooklyn Ave, where he was attacked.

The whole thing still seems so surreal. Others who knew Yankel probably remember where they were when they heard the awful news, in the same way people remember where they were when they heard the news of JFK’s assassination. We were struck with utter disbelief. Despite living in the area at the time, Yankel was surely the last person in the world we expected to be killed like this. Was G-d playing a cruel joke on us when he transformed a fair-dinkum Aussie Jew from Mont Albert North into the posthumous international poster-boy for race riots and Jewish-Black relations in the Big Apple?

Yankel was different. His family lived over thirty minutes drive from the “bagel belt” – the Jewish suburbs in Melbourne – and therefore he reflected a far less sheltered upbringing than many of his friends. While his family was frum and staunch in their Jewish values, because of where they lived, their two sons attended a non-Jewish day school. As a result, they had a brashness and street toughness that one just can’t pick up going to a school like Yeshivah College (the local Chabad day school). We were certain that Yankel would have taken it to his attackers, and not shied away from a confrontation.

He was described in the media as a Talmudic scholar, as if he was just a typical Lubavitcher bochur who lived in Crown Heights. We all laughed when we read this. Yankel was very well educated, to be sure. Like so many of the Jewish parents of that generation in Melbourne, his parents valued education as the key to having a successful life. Yankel’s older brother Norman YBLC”T was a serial university student, completing two or three degrees (well, maybe he didn’t complete all of them) over some ten years before finally settling into a successful career as a lawyer. Yankel finished post high-school studies at the local Yeshivah Gedola, then went on to completed advance university-level studies, and was undertaking research for his PhD into the pre-war shtetl. The bitter irony that he was essentially the victim of a pogrom in a modern recreation or transplantation of the very shtetl he studied was not lost on us.

The photo his parents offered to the media was from his university graduation. Yankel typically wore jeans and a t-shirt, with a hat and jacket always handy for davening. On our wedding day, he came past my house in the morning to check in, and was wearing jeans and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. My mother, knowing that he was going to be best man under the chupa, asked if that was what he was planning to wear. With a totally straight face, he replied in the affirmative, sending my mother into conniptions at the thought that he might really do this.

Yankel rejected the social norms of dress associated with the community in which he lived. If you didn’t like that he didn’t wear a white shirt and dark pants like all the others; if you thought his Ray Ban wayfarer sunglasses (inspired by the movie The Blues Brothers) were inappropriate, then too bad for you. He was not out to prove anything to anyone, or to put on a facade simply to make others happy. What you saw was what you got. He was a pnimi.

Yankel didn’t hold back, and spoke his mind. If he didn’t like you, you would know it. And as a friend, there was nothing – absolutely nothing – he would not do to help you. All his friends valued his judgement – always delivered in a non-judgemental way – and his worldly perspective on life. I look back sometimes at pivotal moments in my life and the lives of others in Yankel’s circle of friends, and wonder how things might have been different if he were around. If only he had been around to help us deal with the many crises and challenges that life throws up.

I’ve never lived in Crown Heights for any extended period, although have visited there many times. It’s hard for a Melbourne person like me to understand the dynamic of the Jewish and Black communities that coexist in Crown Heights, and far less to imagine what it was like twenty years ago. Unfortunately, it didn’t take much to ignite the riot, and tragic that Yankel was immortalized in such a way. In marking twenty years since his murder, others have written about what it means to the local community, and its relationship with its neighbours. Time does seem to have healed some of those macro wounds. But the micro wounds still run deep.

I don’t recall what anyone said at his levaya – we were all very overcome with grief and emotion. However, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner OBM would often say at funerals “v’hachai yitain el liboi” – the living must take to heart. What can we learn from Yankel?

Both in Melbourne and in Crown Heights, he was a person who was embedded in a frum community, yet retained the tinge of an outsider. But he was not self-conscious, nor was he going to apologize for not fitting in. He was who he was, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. What an outstanding example of Jewish pride and identity for anyone, particularly those whose lives intersect with the broader community – Jewish and non-Jewish. If he could remain so strong to his values, if he could strike a wonderful balance between individuality and community, surely we all can find him an inspiration in that regard.

His honesty, both to himself and to others, is something we all admired. This is a midda we can all emulate, and one that starts from within.

Yankel is gone. A small piece of Yankel remains etched in my heart forever, and in the hearts of his many friends. As he has been transformed in death to a public figure, there is now enough of him that anyone can too retain a small part deep inside them – to inspire and give strength.

This article was printed in Hamodia on 7 September, 2011. Yankel's yahrzeit is 10 Elul, this year corresponding to 9 September, 2011.

Democracy at Work

2011-07-13T12:02:00.000+10:00

A new law against boycotts in Israel has sparked a storm of protest. Civil rights advocates have slammed it as a jeopardising free speech, and pro-Palestinian human rights groups have condemned it, some suggesting that it endangers the country's democratic character. After being passed in the Knesset by a vote of 47-38, it will almost certainly be challenged in the courts as to its constitutionality.

Some people read this and think: what a terrible country Israel must be, or what an awful public relations exercise this is turning out to be. I see things a little differently. This is exactly what we call democracy. A group of publicly elected representatives, who were elected by a true and correct process, have voted on a new law. There has been debate, both in the Knesset and in the media, about the law. People opposed to the law have spoken out vigorously against it. The independent judicial will review the law, and if they find it unconstitutional, they may disallow it. Isn't this just wonderful!

Did you read about the public protests from human rights groups about the Saudi law forbidding women to drive? The Saudi Public Committee for the Rights of Women said that the law limits the freedom of half the population. The Saudi Legal Centre for Women is planning a high court challenge. Of course that is all nonsense. Any human rights groups struggle to exist let alone speak openly in Saudi Arabia. There is no free press, and no chance for citizens to challenge repressive laws in the courts.

In Syria, when citizens rise up to protest, the government has a clear process for dealing with them. They bring in the army and gun down their own citizens. In Egypt and Iran, they switch off the internet to stop the word spreading and make it harder for people to communicate and gather together. What human rights? What free speech?

No matter what you think of these new laws, know that if they pass, it will be as a result of a robust democracy at work.

The Stigma

2011-06-26T20:15:00.001+10:00

There has been lots of talk recently in the local blogosphere (here, here, and here) as well as in the mainstream media about the alleged (I use terms like this throughout because they are appropriate until a court makes a determination) sexual abuse that took place at Yeshivah College some twenty years ago. This has elicited a range of vigorous responses from many people.

Some have used this to take a stab at the administration of the school, which may have been derelict in their duty of care towards students, and further so by allowing the abusers to flee and escape prosecution and therefore reoffend in other countries. Indeed, the person in question is currently doing time in the USA and there are moves to have him extradited and brought back to Melbourne to face charges for his crimes here. However, focusing on what the school or the Rabbonim did or didn’t do twenty years ago is a waste of time and energy. Hama’aseh hu ha’ikar – action is what counts. The most important thing is to (a) deal with the victims of these awful crimes, and get them the long overdue help they need, and (b) consider how we might better deal with present and future threats of this nature.

What is really at the core of this?

Certainly the shidduch system seems to be a factor here. There is clearly a sense that anyone who was a victim of abuse is somehow “damaged” and therefore a less desirable marriage partner. This bizarre taint then somehow spreads to the siblings and the entire family. Indeed, the shidduch market is rife with loshon horah, and with both grossly inflated expectations on the part of parents for their children, and a myopic sense of the ingredients for a good marriage. All this leads to a (misguided) imperative on the part of parents to cover things up.

What a terrible situation this is! Victims of sexual abuse are exactly that: victims. Their suffering took place at the hands of people who often use their position of power to prey on others. By keeping things under wraps, we are actually committing a further crime against these victims, in often not allowing them to get the acknowledgement and the treatment they need, and, if they want, the chance to confront and overcome their attackers. The courts provide for the privacy that victims need, but in a small and close-knit community, the rumour-mill would more likely jump all over this and the news would spread like wildfire, again to the further detriment of the victims.

It’s much the same with mental illness. We treat physical illnesses of all kinds by visiting a suitable medical professional. But there seems to be such a stigma associated with mental illness that many people would rather cover it up, and thus not give the person the treatment they need. Some might even go to the extent of creating a façade of wellness so as not to damage the person’s perceived shidduch potential. Is any of this helpful to the person? Does this help treat their underlying condition? Or are some parents so obsessed by and bound to a broken shidduch system that they compromise the wellbeing of their own children?

But this goes far deeper than the issue of shidduchim.

Connected is the recent local activity and discussion regarding the Rubashkin case. From the heated discussion in the blogosphere, it seems that many people bring a lot of prejudice (and even less knowledge of the facts) to the extreme views they express. The truth (for those who care) probably lies somewhere in the middle.

This is again an example of the culture of cover-up and stigma. Rather than acknowledge some guilt and seek a reasonable resolution, people dig in their heels and assume a public stance of complete innocence, which often backfires. This seems to relate to some kind of antiquated “us vs them” mentality in the community, such that whenever anyone frum is charged with a crime and incarcerated, the instant and only logical conclusion must be an act of antisemitism, and every effort should be made to free them at all costs. I bring this in not to make a comment or judgement on the specifics of this case, rather as a contemporary example of how the Orthodox community generally deals with cases like this.

What is the common thread here? These are all examples of an endemic culture amongst the Orthodox community of covering up negative attributes. Yet it would be naïve and foolish to think that our community does not share the ills of the rest of the world: sexual predators, spouse abuse, alcoholism, depression, drug use, mental illness, and white collar crime.

Here are two possible ways to understand this:

Firstly, there is a perception among both Orthodox Jews and the wider community that they should operate at a higher standard of ethics and behaviour because of their beliefs. Jews who look pious in the way they dress and engage with God carry an expectation of similar piety in their general behaviour (this may be an extension of the higher standard expected of Israel in dealing with its enemies).

Sadly, this is no longer the case. The Orthodox community suffers all the problems of modern society, albeit perhaps at slightly lower levels. Indeed, too many people in the Orthodox community run a dual standard when it comes to bein adam l’Makom (between person and God) and bein adam l’chavero (between person and fellow person).

Secondly, it may be an extension of the ‘zero tolerance’ versus ‘harm minimization’ approaches to dealing with undesirable behaviours. Orthodox communities, particularly those who prefer isolationist policies, have always taken a zero tolerance approach to the ‘evils’ of the world such as drugs and television. But what happens when the barriers between the higher standard behaviour they set for themselves and those of wider society are broken? In that case, zero tolerance becomes group denial.

All the President's Speeches

2011-05-23T08:53:00.000+10:00

President Barack Osama has made another pivotal speech directed to the Muslim world. Again, for those who don't want to read or watch the whole thing, here is an abridged version that will give you the gist of what all the fuss was about:

Thank you. Thank you (applause). Thank you. Please have a seat. I want to begin by thanking Hillary Clinton. I count on Hillary every single day, and I firmly hope and believe that she will go down as one of the finest politicians never to have achieved the position of President.

In over two years as President of what used to be the most powerful nation in the world, I have learnt one most important lesson: the power of speeches. In the absence of any meaningful or effective policies, nothing - I repeat, nothing - stirs the hearts of people around the world more than one of my speeches. And today will be no exception.

For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow. And all of this has nothing - I repeat, nothing - to do with our foreign policy, and everything to do with the steps taken by my predecessor George W Bush, and the powerful effect of the internet and social media as the great equalizer of the 21st century.

After years of war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, we have dealt al Qaeda a huge blow by killing its leader, Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was no more a Muslim than I am. If I suggest he did anything in the name of Islam, some people will get very upset, so instead, I will talk to you about the terrible things he did only in the context of generic terms like violent extremism, which almost everyone is happy to condemn.

The story of the Arab Spring revolution should not come as a surprise, although our best analysts sure didn't see it coming. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not. Our country was happy to support these despots, because we figured it was a case of "better the devil you know", and besides, our own citizens were mostly free and safe. But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore. Which is why we too have mostly abandoned these strategies.

The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region that results in huge increases in the price of oil. (Thunderous applause.)

I'm going to encourage Tunisian and Egypt with huge amounts of aid, and condemn the Syrian regime for chosing the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens. I'm not going to mention another place where violence and suppression rules - Gaza - because that might offend the Palestinians, nor will I have mention Saudi Arabia, who support continued suppression in Bahrain and other places, because we are really scared of those Wahabis. However, this I promise: once the power of the people truly tips those places or any others in the region, we will proudly stand up for them and try to take credit for their democratization.

Let me conclude by talking about another cornerstone of our approach to the region, and that relates to the pursuit of peace.

For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own. The fact that the Palestinian refugees are being discriminated against by all their Arab neighbours in an effort to position them as only Israel's problem is completely lost on me. As is the relative importance of this particular conflict to the region, despite the clear evidence of the last six months.

The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Palestinian state cannot be fulfilled with the continued presence of Jews in the region.

Now, let me say this: The recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? I recognize how hard this will be. But we will do our level best to make them talk anyway, and to continue to prop up the expectations of the Palestinians regarding issues that Israel has clearly stated are non-negotiable.

For the American people, the scenes of upheaval in the region may be unsettling, but the forces driving it are not unfamiliar. Our own nation was founded through a rebellion against an empire. We're not giving any territory back, but that doesn't mean we won't expect the same of Israel.

The words that declared our nation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” must guide our response to the change that is transforming the Middle East and North Africa. It will not be easy. They will hate us no matter what we do or don't do.

But the United States of America was founded on the belief that white people should govern themselves. We now finally accept that this belief may just apply to other races too. And now we cautiously stand by and observe those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that we haven't yet worked out how to measure the success or failure of their efforts, and and hoping that the EU will get off their lazy asses, realize what a problem Muslim immigration has caused in their part of the world, and stop depending on us to put out the fires caused by their post-Ottoman empire screw ups.

Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you.

The e-word

2011-03-22T17:47:00.000+11:00

I was quite shocked to receive the letter from the CoM advising of the formation of a new Shul Committee for the Yeshivah Shul. I was aware of some of the things that were happening in the background in recent months, and was even one of the people who took part in what might be very loosely called a "focus group", referred to in the letter. Considering how long the CoM have had to consider this, and how many aborted attempts there have been, the whole things looks quite lame to me. You call this governance?

Based on the ownership structures currently in place, neither people who daven in the shul on a regular basis nor seatholders have any rights whatsoever. However, any moral (or halachic) rights we may have, or any moral (or halachic) obligation the CoM might have for transparency and accountability is clearly held with scant regard by those in power.

They claim to "encourage greater community participation" but it always has been and has to be on their terms. Members (and I use the term loosely - the term has no legal sense and is only tolui in hergesh) have been screaming for more participation for many years, yet time and again have given up after banging their heads against the wall that is the CoM. Now, they expect everyone to come running? Has anything really changed?

And what of "succession planning"? What is the average tenure of a CoM member? What process was used in the past to appoint new members? If they ever did accept fresh blood into the committee, they would be more like fresh meat to sharks in terms of their position on the committee relative to all the others. I have had the experience of being on the board of a large Jewish not-for-profit where several members had been there for over twenty years. Fortunately in that case, those people were kindly asked to move on, and a managed process of succession was put in place - a regular flow of new people and ideas in. Are they suggesting a staged retirement for existing members to make room for new ones? I doubt it.

The CoM expect us to believe that volunteering in their new committees will "create and foster a new generation of lay leadership". Newsflash: two generations of talented lay leadership have already been sufficiently disenfranchised to either give up or just find other organizations who value them and where they can make a contribution.

They claim that service on these committees "is a pathway for people with appropriate skills ... to be appointed to the CoM". What skills do the existing members have? Are they prepared to even articulate the sort of skills they are seeking and an open process of selection? No - all power to the existing CoM, now and forever.

What irks me most is the self-righteous tone of the communication. Bandying around buzz words like "succession planning", "reform" & "spirit of goodwill" just ring hollow to most members. They even chose not to use the "e-word" (election) anywhere in the entire document. And all of this hides behind the official party line of doing this for the betterment of our Moisdos. What have they done to make our Moised better in the last twenty years? Would anyone say it is better?

To summarize, it almost sounds like the Khartoum Resolution that followed the Six Day War:

No membership
No collaboration
No respect

Revolutions against autocracies are happening as we speak in the Middle East. Even the leftist, apologist Obama acknowledged that "the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed … are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support this everywhere". No-one is asking for a no-fly zone over the Yeshivah; just a standard of governance that reflects contemporary values and indeed Jewish values.

Unlike than this bottom-up tinkering, any genuine reform has to be built using principles at the top, and let everything flow down from that. As the old proverb says, a fish rots from the head. There is no sign of any change as far as that goes.

if only Israel ended "the occupation" ...

2011-03-14T12:29:00.001+11:00

The Jewish world is in shock after the brutal murder of five members of the Fogel family, from the town of Itamar in northern Samaria. On Friday night (the Jewish Sabbath), as they were sleeping, a Palestinian broke through the fence around the town, and brutally cut the throats of the family as they slept.

I say the Jewish world, because the uproar at this massacre can hardly be heard from the rest of the world. The event barely cracked a headline, and we are fed the usual even-handed condemnations of all forms of violence from those who bother to comment.

Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu blamed the PA for the attack, and used the occasion to call upon the Palestinians to condemn violence against "setttlers" unequivocally. For his trouble, he received criticism from the Left suggesting that he talk more about peace, and end the occupation. Others have called upon the Left to finally give up preaching moral relativism in the face an attack like this.

The question is this: if only Israel ended "the occupation" ...

Would Palestinians stop breaking into towns and killing innocents?
Would Hamas stop firing rockets randomly into residential areas?
Would the Arab world acknowledge the existence of Israel, the Jewish state?
Would clerics cease preaching hatred and antisemitism in the name of Islam?

I could go on and on; the answer to these and similar questions is a resounding "NO".

Even more poignant and disturbing than the awful and bloody photos of a murdered child in the arms of his murdered mother are the pictures of Palestinians handing out sweets in celebration of the "successful operation". This says more than anything about the nature of the threat that Israel faces, and gives in insight into what can and can't be done to stop the terror.

When I wrote a parody of Obama's Cairo speech in 2009, several people were critical and asked me what my alternative was to his Middle East engagement model. After all, it's easy to criticize someone else, but what's the point if you don't suggest something better.

So now, I will unveil the Werdiger Peace Plan. It's very simple, and is based on the principles of pragmatism and realism, rather than an inversionist belief that if Israel caves in to Arab demands (which are never ending - given a finger and they will take a hand), they will all stop hating us Jews.

Step 1: reach an agreement with the Palestinians to stop teaching hatred to their children, stop preaching antisemitism in the name of Islam, and acknowledge the existence of Israel as part of the narrative that is taught in schools.
Step 2: wait about 30 years until the hatred is slowly "bred out" of the Palestinians.
Step 3: start talking peace.

The Left are quick to jump on the root cause of the Arab-Israel conflict as "the occupation". But time and time again they have been proved wrong. They said give them Gaza, and we got thousands of rockets in return. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are in upheaval not because of anything Israel has or hasn't done (except be a local model of what a democracy can be for its citizens), but because they (and most of the Arab world) are basket-case repressive autocracies.

Ending "the occupation" won't end the hatred. Ending the hatred will lead to a new paradigm of engagement and a model for Israeli-Palestinian co-existence. And that will take at least a generation, if they start now. If that isn't addressed, then everything else is a waste of time.

Shul Conduct Review Panel

2011-02-10T12:19:00.000+11:00

A bizarre new sign went up in Yeshivah Shul this week

The letter welcomes families to participate in the shul's programs and services, and introduces a new children's program. It then warns quite ominously: "Unfortunately, some children continue to remain unsupervised on Yeshivah grounds on Shabbos ... we remind parents that their child must either be attending a program or under your supervision ... The behaviour of some children .. is sakonas nefoshos ... Reports from staff and video footage will be reviewed after Shabbos ... parents whose children are observed to be unsupervised ... and engaging in unsafe behaviours will be requested not to bring their children ..."

This is quite astounding. It looks like that Government stimulus money that has been used to build new fences, and install a remote-controlled boom gate complete with bollocks, has also gone to put in a sophisticated surveillance system to help stamp out "unsafe behaviours".

Quite aside from the fact that this directive aims to stamp out kids playing (unsupervised) in any of the many playgrounds and play spaces around the Yeshivah campus, the fact that "video footage will be reviewed after Shabbos" is quite intriguing.

This is surely inspired by the AFL Match Review Panel, an important part of the AFL Tribunal, which reviews video footage after each weekend, looking for infringements. It's great to see how the Yeshivah has learnt from other disciplines in dealing with and preventing "unsafe behaviours":

As in the AFL, Yeshivah will introduce a points system: 100 points means you are suspended from attening shul for one week, a 25% discount is given for an early plea of guilty. Charges can apply to both parents and children as appropriate. For example:

Leaving a child unsupervised: 30 points
If under the age of 3: extra 20 points
Breaking into a classroom: 150 points
Making noise outside the boys' minyan: 3000 points
Kicking a football: 10 points
Going up for a big mark: 30 points
Falling down and tearing your pants: 75 points

This is only the tip of the iceberg. As we know, cameras are also installed inside the main shul. We will soon see the introduction of the Shul Conduct Review Panel, which will view all footage every motzei Shabbos. They will consider whether a mispallel is to be charged with a reportable offence, taking into account three factors:

Conduct (whether the conduct was maizid, shoigeg or oines)
Impact (whether the impact was severe, high, medium or low)
Contact (whether the contact was high or to the groin or the body)

This gives rise to a whole host of other "unsafe behaviours":

Basic talis flick: 20 points
Surcharge for high contact (e.g. eyes): 30 points
Surcharge for "off the play" (i.e. not while putting on the talis): 80 points
"Hip and shoulders" (excessive shokeling): 125 points
Surcharge for "off the play" (i.e. not during shmone esrei or walking past): 50 points
Surcharge if directed against the Rabbi, Gabbai, or Ba'al Koreh: 250 points
Tripping while someone are going up for an aliya: 150 points

There are rumours of the introduction of a "bringing the Shul into disrepute" offence, that carries a 500 point charge, but these have been dismissed, as many members and officers of the organization could find themlseves subjected to this charge.

Superbowl XLV Preview

2011-01-30T16:07:00.000+11:00

Besides the obvious question (is VL a valid Roman numeral for 45?), this year's NFL Superbowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers throws up many more subtle questions when we consider each team's prospects at becoming "World" Champions.

Unlike the last couple of years, there are no emotional upstarts like the Saints or the Cardinals challenging for the crown. These are two long-time NFL juggernauts; well-managed teams with long histories of success.

There's a lot to like about the Packers this year, who have enjoyed a couple of surprise bonuses. They did an outstanding job in nurturing QB Aaron Rodgers from day one, giving him a three year apprenticeship under the great Brett Favre before making him their starter, and their patience has been rewarded. Like Farve, Rodgers has a gun arm, but adds a mobility and athleticism that his predecessor never had. He's a genuine threat to tuck and run, and with a deep threat like Greg Jennings, has put up outstanding numbers again this year. The bonus on offence has been the sudden emergence of sixth round pick Starks as a running back, which has meant the offence is somewhat less dependent on Rodgers arm.

Where the Packers have really lifted this year is in defence. "Goldilocks" Clay Matthews leads an aggressive defensive line, and the bonus quick development of Tramon Williams at cornerback completes this into very effective group with few weaknesses.

After a mid-season slump, and despite injuries, the Packers did just enough to get into the playoffs (with their win over Chicago in the final week), and did so in excellent form. Being in form at the right time is the key to post-season success, rather than a high playoff seeding (just ask the Eagles, who many people feel peaked too early in the season).

Pittsburgh have done a superb job under coach Mike Tomlin in extending their winning ways under long-time coach Bill Cowher, which is so often a challenge. They have managed their list well, slowly bringing in younger players rather than having to do a "rebuild". The season started poorly, with the suspension of Roethlisberger, but he has shown his that his toughness and maturity on the field is a reflection of a character able to deal with personal issues and move forward.

Between the improved running of Mendenhall, and Roethlisberger's use of his size and strength to evade sacks and complete passes from outside the pocket, the Steelers have a balanced offence as well as defence. Deep threat Mike Wallace, one of the fastest receivers in the game today, provides the ability to score quickly and keep defences honest.

The success of the Steelers in recent years has actually been built on a super-aggressive offence. Fast, swarming, and with the regular threat of interceptions from the likes of Polamalou. They are also great against the run and have the ability to make opponents one-dimensional, thus building even more pressure.

American football often seems like such a complex game, but it often comes down to the simple things - the offensive and defensive lines, and all flows from there. What I said about Tom Brady and the Patriots three years ago was repeated this season, when the Jets did what few other defences were able to get to him and apply pressure. Brady is a great QB - he reads defences very well and takes whatever he can - but any QB is only as good as the line that protects him.

In this year's Superbowl, we have two outstanding QBs; the game will come down to which offensive line is able to offer the best protection and keep their offense on the field. Run the ball; setup play action; control the clock. Whoever wins the clock control game will win the Superbowl.

Just look at what the Steelers did to the Jets last week in the Championship game. Their opening drive went for nine minutes for a touchdown. The out-Jetted the Jets straight from the gun. It was downhill from there, and by half time, the game was all but over. Look at what Atlanta did all season: long drives with plenty of hard running and a good mix of run and pass, sapping the opposing defences and the clock.

This is what both teams will try to do: grind out a win by wearing down their opponents. In order to do this, offensive lines will need to be effective so they can establish the run, and third down conversions are essential to extend drives.

Prediction: Packers to cover the line, and the over on the points spread. Bursts of scoring interspersed with periods of tight defence by both sides. At least one defensive touchdown.

So many Muslim apologists, so little time

2010-10-10T12:08:00.000+11:00

An interesting contrast between two cases of Muslim apologism appears in my favourite newspaper The Age this weekend (hey, if I gave up my subscription, what would I write about?).

The first is from Julie Szego, who writes a disturbing essay on the bikini bans at public pools. In Australia, I hear you ask? Yes, VCAT recently approved an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act to compel "participants aged 10 and over ... to ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee ..." during a community event to be held next year during the month of Ramadan. And this is in Dandenong, not Dubai!

The City of Darebin's acting mayor, Gaetano Greco, said that ' ... women attending should be respectful of Islamic beliefs.'' Are any local council mayors calling on Moslems to be respectful of Australian values and beliefs? In particular, the separation of Church and State which is such a fundamental principle in modern Western society?

Szego argues that a line has been crossed, and she's right.

On the other hand, Jason Koutsoukis writes a piece about bootleg winemakers in Gaza, ruled by the repressive Islamist Hamas, and where "alcohol is considered worse than hashish". Rather than spending big to buy wine on the black market, these folks do it themselves. However, it's very cloak and dagger - just buying 20 Kg of grapes could easily result in a visit from the secret police. Fortunately, there aren't issues with brewers' yeast, as it is also used for cheese.

But instead of an investigative report showing how Hamas is doing their best to take life back to the middle ages for the residents of Gaza, Koutsoukis presents this as a puff piece under the heading of "Postcard from Gaza". He touches on the idealogical struggle within Hamas between the "moderate" Erdoganis and the "more extreme" Talibanis, who set fire to a social club because there was too much fraternisation between men and women (and we all know that can lead to dancing). But overall, the article reeks of a naive fascination with people who are risking their lives just to enjoy some wine, rather than a bitter indictment of a totalitarian regime.

I guess Koutsoukis knows full well that if he is overly critical of Hamas, the secret police may deal with him in the same way they deal with all those recalcitrant winemakers, social club operators, and other "rebels".

Federal Election - who is the Biggest Loser?

2010-09-07T19:29:00.000+10:00

Well, after seventeen excruciating days, we finally have a result to our federal election. Or do we? What will really result from this national experience? Most elections have winners and losers, although it's hard to spot a winner anywhere this time. So who are the losers?

Firstly, Julia Gillard. She called an election following her coup to take over from Kevin Rudd, to seek a mandate from the Australian people for her leadership. She didn't get one, so now remains in the job with even less of a mandate than before the election. Given the turmoil and instability within the Labor Party itself, who knows how long she can survive. This will be a huge test of her leadership.

Some people might say the Greens were a winner. After all, they won a Lower House seat for the first time, have the balance of power in the Senate, and a much higher primary vote. But were they just the beneficiaries of the backlash against Labor? Many seats showed large swings away from Labor and to the Greens, although Labor effectively got those votes via preferences. Time will tell as to how they use their position in the Senate.

The Labor Party were definitely losers, in several ways. The voters rejected them, and now they sit in minority government. How long can this last? I think we may see another election within twelve months. But far worse than that, Labor may be losing their positioning as a political movement. With both major parties shifting toward the centre, it is often difficult to tell them apart on a policy level. The swing from Labor to the Greens may reflect the wishes of voters from the Left who don't like where Labor is these days.

The fracturing of support away from the majors may see the formation of a new party that is positioned to the Left of Labor. Rather than having impactical policies like the Greens, it would represent more traditional socialist values, and may be a better alternative for disenfranchised Labor voters, in a reverse situation of the DLP some years ago.

The Liberal Party might also be judged as losers. They fought a lack-lustre campaign, showed little leadership, yet nearly got over the line if not for a botched, short-sighted, Broadband policy. Maybe they will learn something and do better if there's another election soon. In the words of Get Smart, "missed it by that much".

Finally, to the Independents. Usually elected on local issues, they have spooked the nation with their protracted haggling, and disenfranchised anyone who isn't in a seat that has bargaining power. There are at least three people who will not be able to go to the next election campaign and claim they are decisive leaders! Voters in their seats will struggle in future balancing the local versus national needs.

So who is the biggest loser? The Australian people. We have spoken, and all we could muster is a mumbled "ummm ... I don't know". If people get the leaders they deserve, then we are a sorry, undeserving lot. Let's hope as a nation, we can learn from this experience.

Who wants to be a billionaire?

2010-08-12T11:02:00.000+10:00

Travis McCoy's song Billionaire is really annoying me on two levels. First of all, it's so catchy and banal, once stuck in my head it's very difficult to get out. Because of this, the lyrics sit there begging to be analyzed, and thus the underlying premise troubles me.

He aspires to be a billionaire, not to become one or to achieve that level of wealth - to already be there without any of the accompanying effort and time. This is quite distinct from someone who wants to win the lottery because (a) he's after an amount far greater than the biggest of lottery prizes, and (b) in addition to having more money than he could ever need, he seeks the fame associated with great wealth (on the cover of Forbes magazine etc).

I wonder how many people who have gone through the journey to actually make a billion dollars do it for the fame, or enjoy the fame and attention that goes with it. And is fame associated with wealth more desirable than that associated with being a hugely popular entertainer? I wouldn't think so.

Perhaps I'm giving him too much credit for the amount of thought that went into the lyrics. This could be no more than the ramblings of a second-rate performer eager to write a catchy song that will ultimately be purchased for a huge windfall by a large corporation for an ad campaign. Then we'll really struggle to get it out of our heads! One thing I know is that neither that, nor just selling cheap mobile plans will lead to billionare-level wealth.

Coleman Impact Players

2010-08-01T19:59:00.001+10:00

Two AFL full-forwards this season have made a huge impact for their respective teams, and as at the end of Round 18, are locked together on 65 goals each (3.6 per game) in their race for the Coleman Medal. One is 33 years of age, and enjoying a new lease of life at his new team; the other is just 21, and against all expectations, has had a breakout year as a forward.

Barry Hall's move to the Western Bulldogs has been the perfect tonic for both parties. The 'Dogs have been a fast running team seemingly on the track for finals success, but have lacked a marking target up forward. Hall has delivered them exactly this, and in the process has rejuvenated a career that could easily have ended after regular tribunal trouble. The Bulldogs are now capable of kicking large totals, and are well placed for a top-four spot and a serious crack in September.

At the other end of the ladder, age bracket, and cycle of success is Jack Riewoldt. For several years he was viewed by his own team as undersized and incapable of filling the role of primary goalkicker. But something magical has happened this year, and he has emerged as a genuine full-forward with all the necessary skills: a great contested mark, superb use of the body and eye for the ball in flight, excellent accuracy, and a strong tackler within the forward 50.

He has been the catalyst for Richmond's transformation this year. His high leaps for the ball are an inspiration to his team-mates, and give them the confidence to deliver the ball into the forward line knowing the chance of scoring is far greater. Even now that he is often double-teamed, this means there is often an additional loose goal-sneak in the vicinity to convert the crumbs. He, together with several other younger players, has given the fans something to watch, and something to hope for. For the first time in a long time, the future is looking bright at Richmond, almost as bright as the screen on my new mobile plan.

The fast-running game that footy has become, with less kicking to a contest, may have diminished the need for "traditional" marking and leading full-forwards like Hall and Riewoldt. However, these two players have shown that the art is not completely dead, nor its ability to be one of the great spectacles of AFL footy.

What price for Gilad Shalit?

2010-07-03T20:36:00.000+10:00

There are so many angles The Age could have taken for a story to mark Gilad Shalit's four years in captivity. As a counterpoint to their regular stories of the suffering of Palestinian families, they could have told us of the anguish suffered by his family, not having any idea where their son is being held, or any idea of the prospects for his release. They could have highlighted this blatant breach by Hamas of international law relating to the treatment of prisoners of war (although you could easily argue that Gilad is actually a kidnapped hostage, in which case Hamas's treatment of him is even worse), and the fact that no international aid organization (surely there are plenty of them operating in Gaza) have been allowed to visit him even to verify the conditions under which he is being held. They could have talked about how his captivity has challenged Israeli society who are struggling to reconcile the needs of one against the needs of the many. They could even have highlighted the absurdity that Israel is prepared to free thousands of Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are being held for murderous terrorist activity, in exchange for a single soldier who was not even engaged in a direct combat role at the time of his capture - now there is a case of disproportionate!

But no. In another Jason Koutsoukis special, what we do read about is an attack on the Israeli PM for saying that they will not pay "any price" for the return of Gilad Shalit. He quotes an Israeli human rights advocacy group who claim that 750 Palestinian prisoners from Gaza (aren't they prisoners of war by any standard?) have been denied family visits (is there a box on the visa application form for Gazans wanting to visit Israel that says "prisoner family visit"?), and makes a bizarre contrast between them and Israeli prisoner Yigal Amir, who is accorded the rights of any other convict in Israel.

But the kick in the teeth in yet another biased report is the quote from a prominent Palestinian politician who claims that "everyone knows that Gilad Shalit is safe, that he is being looked after very well" ... and "... that Shalit's family has the right to visit him ...", finally giving the lame excuse that "it's complicated".

Where is the peace convoy headed to Gaza to visit Gilad Shalit and check on his well-being?

The Language of Losing

2010-06-20T11:02:00.001+10:00

The Soccer World Cup is all over the news, and I can't bear it. Besides the fact that I don't enjoy soccer as a sport (but that's a whole other story), what I really can't stand is the way the Australian media talk about our team's fortunes (particularly, the lack of them). Naturally, expectations were at their peak at 4:29am last Monday morning, that is, before the first ball was kicked in anger. At that time, our Socceroos were a huge chance to make it through to the next round and really take it to the best. All we needed was to be competitive against Germany, and beat one or two of the other countries in our group.

Of course the first match was a complete debacle, with a 4-0 drubbing against a top team. Most of us weren't surprised, and the media put on a rare show of honesty about the situation. We were mauled, delusions were shattered, and this result was a complete disaster. Fans of course, were unperturbed by this minor setback. In a poll after the game, some 25% still believed we could make it through to the next round. Of course it didn't take long for the media to recover from this rare burst of realism. The news that Germany were able to practice with the balls used for the World Cup for an extra few months was dragged out as evidence of their unfair advantage against us.

Then, in last night's game against Ghana, which was a must-win for us to have any chance of proceeding, we salvaged a draw after again getting a red card and being reduced to 10 players. The media were back to their best: The result kept our slim hopes alive, because all we need now is for Germany to lose again, and for us to win. And then, the piece de resistance, the "language of losing" words we all recognize splattered across the headlines: the brave Socceroos hold on, our pride has been restored, and the inevitable go at the referees for their decision on the red card.

Is this what Australians want to read about their team? Delusionary nonsense and false hope? We should just be happy to be competing on the world stage in a sport where we are hopelessly out of our depth, instead of maintaing expectations that will inevitably be shattered.

And for those of us who are biding our time until Australia's part in the World Cup is over, don't worry. Wimbledon is just around the corner, and we will have the opportunity to stay up late listening to more one-eyed commentators talking up the Aussies' chances to make history.

Riewoldt's Perfect Ten

2010-06-15T13:25:00.001+10:00

I was fortunate to be there on Sunday and witness an AFL full forward kick ten goals in a game for the first time in several years. As the game has changed, becoming faster and possession focussed, with far fewer big kicks to a contest, it is refreshing to see the emergence of a young power full forward who can do all the traditional stuff so well. Even more refreshing that he's a Tiger!

Jack Riewoldt has been a revelation this season. He already showed glimpses of being a strong overhead mark of the ball in previous years, but in comments earlier in the year from Damien Hardwick, the coach seemed to indicate that Riewoldt wasn't big enough, and the likes of Griffiths or other developing young players were needed to assist him in building a strong forward line. It looks like he has been proven wrong.

In addition to overhead contested marking, Riewoldt has a fantastic eye for the flight of the ball. He knows where it's going to end up, and now has the body strength to hold his ground and be there, often taking contested marks on his chest after out-muscling defenders. Together with his excellent mobility, his talents have the potential to put him in the class of Hall, Brown, and Dunstall.

Probably the last time that the competition leading goal kicker came from the team on the bottom of the ladder was Fevola at Carlton a few years ago. In any event, this development does show there are good signs for the future at Richmond.

Hamas ‘disciplines’ army officers over Gaza

2010-02-03T15:33:00.000+11:00

A Hamas army report on its conduct in Gaza last year has revealed that two officers were ‘disciplined’ for insufficiently endangering human life when they authorized three hundred civilians to be moved to a UN school that was being used to fire rockets.

Hamas division commander Mohammed el-Hafiz, known as Abu Gosh, and brigade commander Bilal Diya-al-Din, known as Abu Falih, were summarily executed for exceeding their authority in approving the use of human shields in a dense residential area that had already been seconded by resistance fighters.

The details of the disciplinary action were in a Hamas report handed to the UN at the weekend in response to last year’s report by Justice Richard Goldstone, on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council, alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, during Operation Cast Lead.

The incident in question occurred on January 15 last year in Tel al-Hawa, a heavily built-up residential neighbourhood of Gaza City.

During the battle, there were fears that the Hamas rocket launch facility built underneath a popular school would be harmed and, as a result, three hundred civilians, including fifty UN aid workers, were moved there and ordered to stand outside on both the ground floor and first floor, in clear view of Israeli forces who were attempting to storm the launch facility. Hamas forces then started a fire in the adjoining food warehouse of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the organisation responsible for distributing food to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, and fanned the smoke from the blaze toward the school, so as to make it more difficult for Israeli forces to see the civilians.

A UN employee and two Palestinian civilians were injured during the subsequent attack by Israeli forces.

Gaza military officials explained at the time that the fire was intended to create a smokescreen so as to trigger a huge civilian massacre when Israel struck the rocket launching facility. But a subsequent Gaza inquiry showed that Abu Gosh and Abu Falih acted against the rules of engagement, which forbid the forcible movement of civilians into the line of Israeli fire unless their martyrdom was considered “near certain”. They were executed by public hanging for their unsuccessful attempt to contrive a massacre.

International human rights organisations led by the US-based Human Rights Watch accused Hamas at the time of ineffectively using human shields, which it said had caused burn injuries to hundreds of Palestinian civilians, rather than their intended death and martyrdom.

Hamas has steadfastly denied that its human shield policy, used in heavily populated areas, was ineffective.

There are now 28 criminal investigations open in Hamas. Its judge advocate general is yet to decide whether to exile suspects to Egypt, make do with summary lynching, or close the cases.

Meanwhile, Hamas media reported last night that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had told ministers at a regular cabinet meeting on Sunday that he had decided to establish an independent investigation into the war crimes allegations.

"I don't want officers and soldiers to get into a situation where they have to retain an attorney," Mr Haniyeh reportedly said. “Our system of justice is very effective and there is no need for it to be bogged down by due process”.

With thanks to The Age.

Superbowl XLIV Preview

2010-02-02T15:53:00.000+11:00

The last time the top two seeds from the NFC and AFC played off in a SuperBowl was in 1993, when the Cowboys blew away the Bills. This season, as the Colts and the Saints both remained unbeaten well into the season, the likelihood of their meeting in the final game was discussed by many, and rejected by some. After each team stuttered at the end of the regular season with losses that were spun as meaningless as they had already clinched the number 1 seeds, they are now playing off in what should be a far closer final than in 1993.

Despite the fact that these are two high powered passing offenses, this won't be a wild shootout. With hard-hitting offences, there will be plenty of pressure on each QB, and no shortage of stoppages and turnovers.

Both teams have had strong offenses for the last few years. What has lifted the Saints into Superbowl contention was the arrival of veteran Darren Sharper from the Eagles, who together with co-ordinator Greg Williams, have transformed this into a top defence that has given the offense plenty of game time to rack up high scores, and led takeaways. The job they did on one of the toughest QBs in Brett Favre in the NFC championship game was something to behold. Without a single sack, they pushed and battered him to the point where he was visibly shaken and needed treatment. Under that sort of pressure, even the best QB will make mistakes and hurry their throws. In addition to pressure on the line, their additional training in stripping the ball paid off with a number of turnovers. That will be the key to victory for the Saints.

These days, Peyton Manning has been dubbed the smartest QB ever, and is no stranger to big games and plenty of pressure from a defensive front. It took him nearly the entire first half to work out the Jets' number one ranked defense, and once he did, he rallied his team from a 6-17 deficit to a 30-17 win. He will be able adjust his game as needed, and he has the patience to play the short, underneath game (and I'm not Drew Brees does). This will chew up time on the clock and keep the Saints off the field. He also has the poise to come from behind, as the Colts have done several times this season.

The keys to victory in this game will be yards achieved after the catch (because big plays may be limited, so look out for lots of screens and short passes), holding on to the ball (the tackling will be ferocious), and time of possession. Also look out for some kick/punt returns.

For the punters, the market has the Colts a 4.5 point favourite at $1.52, with the Saints at $2.88. Given the speed at which these teams can score, the line is meaningless, so stay away. Because I think this will be a see-saw struggle, it should be perfect for in-play betting. The Colts have the ability to come back from a big deficit. The points scored line is 55.5 points, which is 8 touchdowns. My instinct says to back the "under", although for in-play fans, this could also be a good one. Scoring will probably happen in fits and bursts as the teams make adjustments.

With no geographic loyalties, I just want to see another great game. There have only been two or three good ones so far this postseason, so let's hope this one lives up to expectations.

Sabra is dead. Long live Daneli’s.

2009-10-25T23:20:00.000+11:00

I preferred Sabra before they switched from their previous kosher authority to their most recent one – their chips were just delicious. My friend who works in the kosher industry told me they were fried in oil that contained tallow, which is animal fat, and therefore not kosher. As a kosher consumer, I place a degree of trust in the supervising authority, so that if the food consumed turns out not to be kosher, it is on their heads, not mine. That said, some authorities are more trustworthy than others. Let’s leave that issue for another article …

Alas, Sabra has recently closed its doors, and the owner has moved (back) to Israel. But even as one star fades, another is born. Dan and Eli Grosberg have opened Daneli’s to rave reviews. Sam Lipski ought to try their pastrami on rye, which is a truly authentic kosher antipodean interpretation of the deli classic.
We all complain about the kosher eating options here in Melbourne. Restaurants come and go like the wind; there aren’t enough of them; they are too expensive; they aren’t kept clean. Why is this? And more importantly, what can be done about it?

On the other side of the counter, many restaurateurs are serial complainers too! Kosher meat is so expensive; I have to bear the cost of a supervisor; my hours are restricted by Shabbat; the Kosher authority won’t let me do this or that. Some even have the audacity to keep telling you how good their restaurant is!
The meat issue is certainly a valid one: kosher meat is three to four times more expensive than non-kosher. There are also lots of other ingredients that may have a slightly higher cost.

Restaurants typically run gross margins of 70-80%. This means that, for example, the ingredients in a $10 meal actually cost the restaurant just $2-3. The major operating cost is staff: the people in the kitchen who prepare and cook the food, and the waiting staff who directly look after the patrons.

For a kosher meat restaurant, if your ingredient costs (taking an average across all the ingredients – not just the meat) are double or triple, this makes a huge dent in margins. Either you put up your prices, or struggle to make a profit.

Kosher restaurants can’t open on Shabbat, so take at least another 15% off revenues, but rent still has to be paid. This is allegedly the reason the proposed Glicks at Chadstone was knocked back.

But on the other hand …

How much price elasticity of demand really is there in the kosher food market? To what extent will people simply consider alternatives because of the cost of kosher restaurants? I don’t know. Perhaps they should have included some questions about this in the recent community survey?

I recall that the prices at Park Grill were quite high, yet their serving sizes were very generous, and they were packed night after night. My Flame is also on the expensive side, and the place is rocking every time I go there. A Daneli’s burger will set you back $12.95 but close your eyes and you could be at Pico Kosher Deli or at the New York icon where fast food is good food.

Non-Jewish friends and associates are always surprised to hear of the paucity of kosher eating options in Melbourne and Sydney. There are over 2 million Jews in New York – if 10% of them only eat kosher, that translates to a market size of at least 200,000. The Shamash kosher restaurant database found over 600 restaurants in the state. In Melbourne there are about 50,000 Jews, and maybe 5,000 who keep kosher. On a pro-rata basis, we are probably doing quite well for kosher restaurants.

To me, the real problem is that the people who choose to open a restaurant here do it with little or no expertise or experience. How many of them have had some formal training at a school like William Angliss? Or done an apprenticeship at a good restaurant in Israel, New York, Los Angeles, or Paris? There seems to be an attitude of “if you build it, he will come” amongst some proprietors. Customers should never be taken for granted, and should not feel obliged to “support” a commercial venture.

It comes down to a very simple principle: The definition of a good kosher restaurant is a good restaurant … that just happens to be kosher.

This article is also posted on the Galus Australis online magazine.

AFL and the Law of Relative Misery

2009-09-06T19:05:00.000+10:00

For those of you who have never heard of it (and for those who have) the "Law of Relative Misery" is best illustrated with the following story:

One day at work, you are called in by your boss, who tells you that you are doing a fantastic job, and have just been granted a raise, and will now be earning $200k per annum. You return back to your desk, and tell your friend next to you of your good news. You are on top of the world. A few minutes later, she is called into the boss, and comes back a short time later with the good news that she too has been granted a raise, and will now be earning $250k per annum. And now, you are miserable.

Last night, after the Blues gave up a huge lead in the final quarter and were overrun by a surging Brisbane, the trash talk on Facebook between Carlton and Collingwood was running hot, as the Pies' supporters (and everyone else) gloated over Carlton's loss.

But less than twenty four hours later, Collingwood too had succumbed, and it was the turn of the previously miserable Carlton supporters to forget their loss very quickly, and to dish it out to the losers. In the wake of the results, the debate now intensified between the two groups of supporters as to which team is better (or worse), and which is closer to a premiership.

The record will show that this weekend, Carlton and Collingwood didn't play each other. They both played and lost. For a Richmond supporter who knows very well where his team stands, it was mildly gratifying to see two arch rivals both get beaten. But from the post-match chatter between the Carlton and Collingwood supporters, you'd think they played a blinder, and you'd be hard pressed to know who won. At least not in the battle between the two in the war of Relative Misery.

Ashen-faced Aussies

2009-08-24T20:51:00.005+10:00

Surprise, surprise. We lost the Ashes again. And within hours, the blame game begins. Was it the terrible umpiring? Poor selection? (perhaps some poor shot selection on the part of our batsmen) Should Ponting fall on his sword? (no, we're not English)

It's strange how we point to events toward the end of a test match as the key turning points. Like the run outs of Ponting and Clarke. Or the awful shot of Haddin who thought he was seeing watermelons instead of cricket balls like his partner Hussey (who batted superbly, and finally returned to his best - watch out for him during the one-day series). The turning point of the fifth test was on the second day when we were bowled out for 160; the rest was just a natural consequence. And even then, the talk wasn't that we had batted poorly, but that it was all in the pitch. All this talk is both a lack of and misplaced accountability.

Without a doubt, we underperformed. You can't win tests when you collapse and score way too little in the first innings, and have to play catch up for the rest of the match. We did on three occassions. You also can't win tests with an attack that is raw (how many , unbalanced, not in form, and not experienced in the conditions. At no point in the series did enough of our bowlers fire.

It should be pointed out that the the last four Ashes series have all gone to the home team. This is a fascinating statistic. It highlights that during this period, all that has separated Australia and England have been the local conditions. For we Aussies, it's a sobering thought.

We've only now been relegated to fourth in the test rankings, but this was only a matter of time after previous series losses, which in turn were a flow-on from the end of the 'golden years' of Warne, McGrath, and Gilchrist. The most important lesson from this Ashes performance is for the selectors. Blaming them to the touring squad or the lack of spinner in the final test is just as short-sighted as the aforementioned blame-game. While the players themselves need a narrow focus on the next ball or over or session of play, selectors need to take a very long-term view on team composition and preparation for major tours. I hope they look back at the last few years and learn a few things.

Galus Australis - a new frontier

2009-08-09T07:45:00.003+10:00

From a journey that began with writing some comments on a blog called The Sensible Jew, I had the opportunity to meet several fellow bloggers/writers who became associated with that blog. As quickly as that one fizzled, it was "replaced" by the cleverly named Galus Australis, a forum for discussion and debate about Jewish life in Australia. The editors kindly asked me to become a regular contributor on the blog, and I was pleased to accept.

My initial contribution was a direct response to Almoni's argument for the abandonment of the private school system.

My second one was also part of a side-by-side piece called Who's Got Moshiach, where Simon Holloway and myself discussed recent developments in the Chabad Lubavitch relating to its standing on Moshiach and the Rebbe. The ensuing vigourous discussion in comments was one of the most respectful debates I have ever seen on the issue, and I thank all the contributors for their comments.

There will be plenty to follow - some will be cross-posted here, or presented in a different form, as appropriate. Some other writing will only be appropriate for this blog. I will sort it all out eventually.

Much a-tank about nothing

2009-08-04T19:26:00.005+10:00

The annual news cycle for the The Age AFL news probably looks something like this:

Period	Story
Pre-season	big player moves, who will and won't do well this year
Round 2-4	who might actually do well this year
Round 5-9	coach sacking speculation
Round 10-14	coach replacement & re-signing speculation
Round 15-16	Caroline Wilson concocts a story about nothing
Round 17-18	annual tanking controversy
Round 19-22	focus on finals

And so, again, we find ourselves in the annual tank-talk time of the year. It started with West Coast looking like they were playing to lose, it gained momentum with comments by Terry Wallace on his conflict of interest when coaching at the end of the season before Richmond picked up Cotchin as the number one draft pick, and reached a crescendo after last weekend's bizarre game between Melbourne and Richmond.

I was at that game, and it was certainly one of the worst games of footy I have seen. It must have set a record for kicking and handball inefficiency. I can understand why Melbourne, who are clear $1.37 favourites for the wooden spoon, might want to stay there. Richmond are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Either the fans are bagging them for not winning, or for not tanking. Yet given their recent success with new coach Rawlings, their motivation for losing was not as apparent.

But back to the issue of tanking itself. There are two main tools used in team sports as equalizers: salary caps, and a draft system. If we have a look around other sports, they have been quite effective in ensuring that success is shared around slightly more than before they were introduced.

Everyone complains that the draft system leads to tanking toward the end of each season. There is tough talk by current and previous coaches (usually of successful teams) of banning coaches for life if they are "caught" tanking. Of course, how on earth can anyone prove it? Then there are the suggestions of changing the draft system to eliminate tanking. Well, that's just as unlikely. In any system that seeks to equalize by offering something to underperforming teams, there will always be a point where the balance is tipped in favour of losing a game. Whether it's to finish bottom, or in the bottom four, or bottom six, there is always such a turning point. Current draft systems are not perfect, they are better than having it come down to a lottery, or no draft at all.

Obama's Cairo Speech

2009-06-09T07:46:00.004+10:00

You've probably heard a lot about Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last week. Plenty was said before and after, and it may come to be a watershed moment in US-Muslim relations. Now some of you might've read the speech, or watched it (it's quite long), but for those who haven't (and those who have), here is an abridged version that will give you the gist of what all the fuss was about:

Good afternoon. My name is Barack Hussein Obama, leader of what used to be the free world. I don't look like previous presidents, my name makes you wonder what I am, and I've gone to a lot of trouble to pronounce Arabic words the same way you do, even stressing the second syllable in Islam just like you do. Thanks in advance for the thundering applause every time I quote the Koran. I do that to establish some kind of connection between our peoples. It's called empathy. A lot of this speech is about empathy, which is a uniquely western concept that I'd like you to understand. I will wait until the day I die for some reciprocity; with more speeches like this, it is sure to come soon.

Americans aren't all rednecks and colonialists, just like Muslims aren't all fundamentalists and terrorists. I'm really sorry for all the bad stuff we did to you. I'm even sorry for the mess the British and French made divvying up the Middle East after the World War I (although they were just making deals with regional Caliphs to entrench them in power). I'm sorry for everything anyone has done to the Muslim world, or anything you think we might've done, or anything you think we might do. I will use the term 'mistrust' to refer to all of that, and use it as many times as possible as a proxy for apologising. To show I'm balanced, I will mention one or two of the really bad stuff the Muslim world (ooops, I mean a few lone terrorists in the name of Islam) have done to the West.

Make no mistake: Islam is a part of America. We've seen what 'home grown' terrorists have done in the UK, and we are sh*t-scared of what they might do to us. Because we can't close our borders and because our Dept of Homeland Security are a bunch of inept fools, we've decided that if we appease the Muslim world, they might not want to blow up our citizens.

There are a few specific issues I want to raise today.

Everyone thinks that violent extremism is something associated with Islam. We prefer to think that by pumping money into third-world dictatorships and hoping that they spend it on education and infrastructure, everyone will just put down their weapons and smile, just like the scene in Airplane! (aka Flying High) where the stewardess plays the guitar for the sick girl. Given the way much of the Muslim world educate their young in a culture of hatred and death, such a plan would probably take at least three generations, but we prefer to think it can happen within a single presidential term.

Again, I'm really sorry about Iraq. It wouldn't have happened under my watch. We're glad be rid of Saddam Hussein, and despite it going really badly for a few years, it does seem that Iraq will emerge as a genuine democracy. But we think there's a far better way to transform the Middle East, and that's by letting you do it yourselves, when you're good and ready.

Now, onto Israel and the Palestinians. I want to acknowledge the claim of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, but so as not to offend anyone, I won't say that it is biblical and goes back thousands of years, but rather is based on the fact Jews have been mistreated for a really long time, and deserve better. Also, I will balance that by acknowledging the Palestinian claim on the same land, and that they have been displaced for over 60 years. This has only really bothered them for 40-odd years since their Arab brethren lost a war in just six days, but 60 years does sound like a lot. Indeed, it's at least three generations of people who have just stayed put, refused to get on with their lives, played victim and been used as a pawn to demonize Israel.

We are committed to a two-state solution. The fact that there is currently one state and two de-facto basket case self-governing authorities who hate each other even more than they hate Israel occupying the space now will not stop us. We are committed to a two-state solution. We will demand that Israel maintain trade with a people who swear to destroy them and fire rockets at daily, hoping they will land on schools. We will demand that Israel clear out of some disputed areas because any Palestinian state must be Jew-free, even though there are millions of Arabs and Palestinians livings as Israeli citizens and doing really well. We believe very strongly in reciprocity and balance, but we also accept that some people just can't stomach the thought of having Jews live in their country.

We've learnt a lot from our experience with nuclear weapons. We've learnt that the doctrine of 'mutually assured destruction' worked quite well when it was us and the Russians. We don't think it will work quite as well with Iran, so we'd like them to stop. We'd like to think they could be a responsible user of nuclear power, although with all that oil, you have to wonder why they didn't just invest in some refineries if this was all about energy. Anyway, if they don't start complying with our demands, we will make sure the UN gets really, really angry with them, and writes them a letter telling them how angry they are.

I want to talk to you about democracy. We like to call ourselves the 'free' world because we've done a reasonable job with the democracy. We know you don't understand it, and never will. We know that it goes against a lot of cultural principles that you hold dear. In fact, talking about democracy in a country like Egypt is actually a bit of a joke. But we genuinely think that if we come to you with open arms, you might embrace some of these principles of liberty and free speech that we discovered hundreds of years ago and which is why our society kept advancing and yours remains stalled in the middle ages.

Some more of those principles we discovered were things like tolerance, and women's rights. We are so damn tolerant, we let anyone say anything they like, and do almost anything they like in our country. Hell, Israel is so tolerant, they have people in their elected parliament that want to destroy the very country they live in. If you'd be a little more tolerant, you might be surprised at what would happen. There would be a revolution in your country, your leaders would lose power, there would be a fair bit of sectarian violence as a result, and eventually, you would emerge as a strong democracy. Considering what happened in Iraq (and again, sorry for that), maybe you wouldn't be quite so surprised. Anyway, democracy is good. And women are about half your population, and a lot smarter than you think. I only managed to beat Hilary Clinton for the job of president because colour trumps gender. And even then, I still had to give her an important job because otherwise I'd have to watch my back for at least four long years.

Finally, I want to talk about economic development. Is it any surprise you're a breeding ground for terrorists when you have that many people sitting around doing nothing all day? You think we're scared? How about all those unemployed Muslims in France and the Netherlands? The problem is that so many of you have relied on natural resources like oil to build wealth and prosperity. And then those in power have kept all that wealth for themselves and their cronies. It's not a recipe for long-term success. If you copy us, and invest in industry and jobs, then you'll have a strong and robust economy like ours (hey - when did you guys write this?).

To wrap up then, I'm going to very gently allude to your culture of blame, but oh so gently that you won't notice or take offence. Then I'm going to refer to the biblical principle of 'do unto others as we would have them do unto you', but not actually refer to its source in the Jewish Torah or Old Testament. A few fluffy quotes from the Koran, the Talmud, and the Bible should be enough to finish with a fabulous ovation.

The people of the world can live together in peace. I seriously believe that speeches like this and our leftist policy of appeasement will get us there. Even though none of you do, the policymakers I've surrounded myself with do. Besides, there are enough people in my own country who want to kill me, and I don't need you guys taking a number.

Normally, I would finish with 'God bless America', but you might be offended by that, so 'God's peace be upon you'. Thank you. Thank you. And again, sorry.

Voice of Inequity

2009-05-16T20:43:00.006+10:00

Jason Koutsoukis's profile of Palestinian MP Haneen Zoubi's fight for "equality" is so riddled with irony, I could barely contain myself. It starts from the subheading, "a female Palestinian MP in Israel's Knesset". Are there any female Palestinian MPs in either of the Palestinian governments in the West Bank or Gaza? In the former, perhaps. In the latter, the repressive Islamist regime of Hamas, most definitely not! The world claims that Israel should talk to Hamas, as it is the "democratically elected" representative of the Palestinian people, but do they run a democracy? Do they act for their constituents? Do they care for the rights of women?

Where else might I find a female Palestinian MP? Perhaps in Jordan, which is over 60% Palestinian? Wrong again! On a population basis, Jordan is probably the closest thing to a genuine Palestinian homeland, but as a monarchy of the Hashemite kingdom (who are themselves a minority in that country), it is anything but a democracy.

So where is there a female Palestinian MP? In Israel, of all places.

Zoubi rejects the notion of a Jewish state, but she throws stones into the well she drinks from, as her very opportunity to represent the interests of her people arise only because the Jewish state she rejects is a genuine democracy. How many other countries would permit the election of someone who rejects the country's very raison d'etre? How many Arab countries would even give her a vote?

She complains of the population density and infrastructure in the Arab town of Nazareth, compared with the nearby Jewish town of Nazareth Illit. "Count the parks, the sporting facilities, ... cinemas ... schools ...", she says. Why doesn't she count the parks, sporting facilities, cinemas and schools that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have built using the billions of dollars the world has sent their way?

She claims to stand for the universal principle of equality, and to do this she directs world attention toward the plight of Arabs living in Israel. Relatively speaking, she just doesn't know how good things are! She has the protection of a free press so say what she thinks. However, just a stone's throw (or rocket launch) away, her Arab brethren (in Gaza, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and many many more places) suffer under such societies so awful that the world doesn't even get to know how bad they are!

She says that Israel, her native country, treats her as an outsider. How have Arab countries treated the Jews native to their countries? Most have been forced to leave, and have made better lives for themselves elsewhere. It's fine for Arabs to live in Israel, but not the reverse. Is that equality?

Coming from a priviledged background as she has, she should better use her influence to draw world attention to places that could really benefit from reform. Brought up with such a strong belief in the power of education, she should better preach that the Palestinians cease teaching malicious anti-semitism, hatred, and death culture to their children.

Haneen Zoubi, fighter for equality, doesn't need to look far to see the inequality in the way the world treats Israel, compared to what it expects from its Arab neighbours.

Jewish communal appeal?

2009-03-01T12:05:00.004+11:00

The topic of a Melbourne Jewish community appeal has been debated for several years now, and discussed at many levels and amongst different stakeholders. Fundraising poses huge challenges to not-for-profit organizations of all sizes, and while we often think of ways to make the system more efficient, more equitable, and with greater foresight, the proposed solutions aren't always the panacea they are made out to be.

The situation reminds me of a classic Chassidic story about Reb Levi of Berditchev, one of the great Chassidic leaders of the eighteenth century, and known especially for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Jew. This is my own translation of a story from Sippurei Chassidim (Zevin, 1956).

When Reb Levi took the role of Rabbi of the town of Berditchev, he did so only after agreeing with the town council that he not be bothered for any town meetings, except if any new laws needed to be introduced.

So it came to pass that he was called to a town meeting, to discuss the introduction of an important new law: instead of poor people going from house to house and begging for their needs, a central fund would be established. This fund would provide a fixed monthly allowance for the poor. The benefits were obvious - the fundraising cost would be lower, administration would be centralized, and the poor were saved from having to go from house to house. Surely this innovation would provide a better solution to the existing system!

With Reb Levi making a rare attendance at a town meeting, the proposers were eager to hear his response to their idea. He replied: "My brothers! When I took on the position as Rabbi, I asked that you not invite me to meetings where you would simply be discussing old laws".

They were surprised at his comment. "Our dear Rabbi", they said, "This is a new law we wish to introduce".

Reb Levi responded: "I'm afraid you are mistaken, my brothers. This is not a new law, rather one that dates all the way back to the times of Sodom and Gemorah, who instituted that poor people be disallowed from soliciting from people's homes!"

The council members took heed of Reb Levi's sharp response, and immediately withdrew the proposal.

On face value, a communal appeal seems like a good idea. At present, donors are bombarded by requests from institutions and individuals in need. Duplication in services and infrastructure is rife, and there are inefficiences everywhere. The proposers think in terms of fundraising efficiency, and of community-wide planning, both of which are things that our community as a whole certainly needs.

But when fundraising is done in this manner, the important element of emotion is removed from the process. The direct connection between a charity and the funder is an important bond that is weakened with the introduction of aggregators.

These days, while sophisticated philanthropists often take a very systematic approach to giving, they actually need, even more than before, a connection to the particular cause. Rather than just writing a cheque, funders want to be confident their money is used effectively, and aligned with the social change they wish to achieve. This often leads to closer interaction with not-for-profits, from governance down to operational levels. While some organizations consider this invasive, what is shows is the passion and energy that the funder has for the cause.

One of the risks in moving to a communal appeal model is that support for the community can be reduced to blind cheque-writing. The ability of not-for-profits to reach out directly and engage the sentiments of prospective donors is compromised, and as a result, the "heart" behind the giving is diminished. Such a loss is far more than mere dollars.

To refer, or not to refer

2009-02-26T14:19:00.003+11:00

The test series about to begin between South Africa and Australia looms as being significant not just because the winner will end up as the world number one ranked cricket team. The introduction of the new referral system (also here) promises to add further intrigue to an already absorbing contest.

Over the recent home series, the Australians struggled to come to terms with tactics for the batting power play that was used in the one-day internationals (well, they actually struggled to come to terms with the whole notion of constructing an innings, but that's a whole other story). It will be interesting to see how both teams respond to this new tactical challenge.

Referral systems are gaining popularity in sport as a way of mitigating the errors that happen as a result of having human umpires in control of a game. The challenge is always to minimize glaring errors but not to sacrifice the flow of the game. The systems in place for NFL and tennis seem to work very well, where the a fixed number of incorrect challenges are allowed. This rewards wise use of the challenge.

In NFL, specialist members of the coaching staff watch every play and quickly review video footage, then advise the head coach whether or not to challenge. In tennis, being a one-on-one game, it's very easy for a player to judge when to use their challenges.

Cricket, on the other hand, raises some interesting issues. For the fielding team, referrals are in the hands of the captain, so this would operate in the same way NFL challenges work - a bowler or catcher may suggest that the decision be referred, but at the end of the day, it's up to the captain to consider the particulars, including the current situation within the innings, and determine whether or not to risk it.

The fun starts when it comes to referrals called by the batsmen. Unlike the other team sports, the captain is not in control of whether or not to refer. Only the batsmen themselves may decide, and signals from the dressing room are not allowed. This makes the decision far more interesting. The double whammy would surely be getting out to a poor shot, and then using poor judgement again to incorrectly challenge!

So how should a batsman decide whether or not to refer a decision? I suspect that batting challenges will be restricted to the more objective aspects of a dismissal, particularly relating to whether the ball hit the bat, in a caught at the wicket ('keeper, slips, close fielder), or in an LBW decision. These are aspects of a decision where the batsman would feel far more confident about a challenge, and also would often be in a better position to judge than the umpire himself.

It will be interesting to gauge the involvement of the non-striker in deciding to refer, particularly for LBW decisions that hang on where the ball pitched. This is something very difficult for the batsman on strike to judge. Will the non-striker now feel obliged to keep a much closer eye on every ball bowled to his partner, so they can provide assistance in case a dismissal looks dodgy?

We may also see the captain give specific instructions regarding the referral policy to each batsman when they go in, or even during drinks breaks, based on the state of the game. A referral has the greatest 'value' early in a the team's innings - once used incorrectly, it is gone for perhaps a day or more. So batsmen may be given more discretion later in the innings. Similar tactics are seen with regard to tennis challenges.

All of this is yet another burden on the team captain, in a sport where they are already the person with the single greatest responsibility for managing the game, particularly when the team is fielding. Is this too much for one person? There have been plenty of situations where the burden of cricket captaincy has had an adverse effect on a player's indivual performance. In other sports such as Australian Rules football, soccer, rugby, and American football, the captain's role is more about leadership than real-time tactical decision making. Perhaps it's time cricket's governing body started thinking about this issue.

A fiery blame game

2009-02-13T16:05:00.003+11:00

The bushfires that have ravaged the state of Victoria are all the news here. Everyone is struck by the sheer magnitude of the loss: the loss of perhaps hundreds of innocent lives, the loss of some 1800 homes and families literally left with nothing, and the loss of huge parts of our beautiful countryside. It is hard to believe that entire towns have been wiped out. This is surely the greatest single loss we have suffered in decades.

While the danger is still not over, in the aftermath the community has rallied to help. The cost to rebuild would surely run to hundreds of millions of dollars, and everyone from corporates to organizations to individuals have gladly put up their hands to help in any way they can. There is huge resolve from government and others to rebuild, and to do so with a greater emphasis on learning from this experience. Let's hope people will remember and learn for years to come!

And amongst all of that, the ugly blame game has started. There are many facets to this side of things, with strong feelings on each side as claims and counter-claims are made.

The leader of the totally inappropriately named Catch the Fire ministry blames our sins for this catastrophe. Where he has the gall to second-guess G-d, and the stupidity to insult the victims in this way defies logic. The only fire stoked with silliness like this is from the atheists, who use it to prove there is no G-d, because their only understanding of a deity is one who doesn't let bad things happen.

Of course there is blame and intense anger directed at an arsonists who deliberately lit some of these fires. While most people would like them charged with mass murder, someone from the bleeding left feels obliged to talk about how these people are themselves victims, and need our pity and help more than anything. Don't we have enough victims already?

But the loudest blame game has been towards that terrible modern affliction, climate change. It is this scourge that is at the heart of the fires. Climate change is why it was so hot (in what is usually the hottest time of the year). Climate change is why there were such strong winds that made the fires even more severe. Climate change is why we didn't back burn and tend to our forests so as to reduce load and minimize the damage from fires that inevitably occur. Oops. Might be pushing things on that last one.

The counter-blame to this one comes from people who probably care as much about the environment as the climate change advocates and Greenies, but have a slightly more pragmatic and real-world approach to dealing with the issue. Like the smart fellow who was fined for illegally clearing trees on his property, and now still actually has a house. Or the bushfire experts who blame poor forest management. And how about the indigenous community who have lived here for far longer than us white folk, and who have developed expertise in managing the large forests and weather conditions that have both been with us for centuries? They don't throw their arms up and blame something that they can't understand, can't prove, and can't do anything about anyway.

There is certainly polarisation on the issue of how to respond to the bushfires, whether through building fire-proof houses, controlled burning, and evacuation policies. Anyone who has a memory that goes back more than a few years, or has the desire to look at history and learn from it will know that bushfires happen. They happen everywhere in the world where there is hot weather and forests, and in Australia, we have plenty of hot weather and plenty of forests. They happen in cycles, just like weather patterns happen in cycles. Bushfires are just as much a part of nature as the bush itself. Civilisation, in its various forms over time, have learnt to deal with them.

So instead of playing the blame and counter-blame game, the better option is to work within our circle of influence on this problem. There is sufficient experience and expertise around who have successfully dealt with bushfires in the past that there is no need to invent new ways to 'save the trees' and new monsters like climate change to blame for everything that ever goes wrong.

Jetstar scrapes the barrel

2009-02-05T17:37:00.004+11:00

I am totally blown away by Jetstar's madness. This weekend, their online booking system will be down for an upgrade (see also here). For the whole weekend - from Friday afternoon to Monday morning!

Anyone in IT will tell you that airline reservation systems are one of the classic "highly available" computer systems. This particularly applies to a customer-facing online booking system. These systems are the kind that have many servers, lots of redundant components, and an architecture that ensures that no matter what happens, the thing just keeps running. Has anyone ever heard of a heavily used web site that goes down for an entire weekend just to upgrade? Would Amazon do it? Has anyone ever done it?

I'm just trying to picture the meeting where the head of IT tries to explain to the management how the upgrade process will work. They say they have had the new system in development for 12 months, and this is what they come up with for an upgrade plan? How long do you think a web site upgrade should take? If they were developing it for this long, they would have a development version, a staging (pre-live) version. If they followed industry best practice when it comes to deploying new web sites, the changeover from one site to the other to go live should be a very quick process indeed.

And when do you think people most often book flights on budget airlines? Might it be over the weekend? That's just my educated guess. The IT staff who operate the current web site would be able to tell you exactly when the site is most in use. Do you think this was taken into consideration when planning the upgrade?

You have to wonder if this comes down to cost. The IT person says: "well, if you want a staging version and an instant upgrade, that will be an extra million dollars" (not unreasonable for a project this size). And the manager (who knows nothing about IT and not too much about marketing) thinks about his profit-share bonus and says: "Naaahh, we can be offline for a weekend, no-one will really care". Or maybe he's an airline industry veteran, and he's thinking ... well, it takes more than a weekend to upgrade an Airbus A320, so why not let those geeks work through and get it done?!

Of course, did they consider the true cost of this upgrade. I know it's damn hard to get Tiger on the phone (they are so cheap they don't even pay for a 1300 number), but their web site is pretty fast and reliable. I'm sure Virgin are chomping at the bit offering some huge specials this weekend to woo prospective customers who are inconvenienced. So the question is: did the marketing people at Jetstar have a say in the implementation plan for the new booking system?

I reckon this might just go down as the stupidest planned web site upgrade in IT history.

Superbowl XLIII Preview

2009-02-01T12:23:00.005+11:00

For the last few years, there has been a two week break between the Championship games and the Superbowl. There might be a few reasons for this: to give players time to recover from injury, to allow for more preparation, or for still more interviews and media hype. I actually preferred the previous schedule, where Superbowl weekend and Australia Day weekend coincided, because here, the Superbowl is played on Monday at 10:30am.

This year, I've really struggled to write anything meaningful about the post-season, because every week I've been stunned by the results. Like many others, I thought we were headed towards a Superbowl with the number one or two seed from each conference. Instead, there has been a record number of upsets, and it has been particularly difficult to put a finger on what the key to success has been or will be. So despite having an extra week, it's taken me until the eleventh hour to write something (hopefully) meaningful about the Superbowl.

The old cliches are largely true: (1) Run the ball and control the clock. Both teams have strong offensive lines, and reasonably fresh running backs who are able to do this. This is actually more important for the Steelers, because to win, they will need to keep the Cardinals offence off the field. Even though the Steelers are 6.5 points favourites, the Cards offence is so fast scoring and scary that they could break out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, and turn the whole game upside down into a blazing shoot-out. Arizona were able to put together a long drive to hold on to the Championship game against Philly, but frankly, this is not their style. Because Warner has a quick release, and because his receivers are big and strong, he may elect for very short drops and quick throws, and then rely on the strength of Fitzgerald and Boldin to gain most of the yards after the catch. This strategy will reduce the effectiveness of the Steelers front seven. So look for the Steelers to establish the run early, and try to control the tempo of the game.

(2) Turnover margin. This statistic comes up time and again - the winner of playoff games invariably does so by creating turnovers. Here, Polamalu is the most dangerous player on the field, and may be instrumental in putting more points on the board than the Steelers offence, if this is a tight defensive game. I think the Steelers secondary is the better (and one of the best this season), but that said, the Cardinals have freaky receivers who create mismatches with their size, and will be a challenge foe any secondary.

There has been much talk about the coaches, with Wizenhunt and Grimm being overlooked for the job at Pittsburgh after Bill Cowher left. Bear in mind that Mike Tomlin inherited a franchise with recent post-season success, a good list, and has simply kept the well-oiled machine running. Wizenhunt, on the other hand, has built success from almost nowhere by creating an explosive offence that has a mix of experience at QB and RB, youth in the receivers, and a great offensive line, and has coached the defence to be good enough to stop other teams from scoring as quickly. He definitely deserves more credit for his achievements than his counterpart, and has the greater potential to break this game open.

Down under, all the talk has been about "secret weapon" punter Ben Graham and how he will pin back Holmes with his super left foot. He might come in to the game if this is a tight defensive struggle and a field position battle. I actually think it will break open offensively, and the 46.5 points spread will be broken. Graham won't punt the ball much more than five times, which should work out to just under $10,000 each. Nice work if you can get it!

Bottom line: Cardinals will not be blown away, will beat the spread, and if they can get an early lead, will dictate the flow of the game and actually win this. Look out for clever coaching moves, and trick plays from both teams.

Backman's Vitriol

2009-01-18T20:10:00.003+11:00

I am disgusted at the anti-Israel vitriol spewed forth by Michael Backman, and strangely hidden away in the business section of The Age (note: the article was subsequently removed by The Age from their web site, but can still be found here). According to his inverted world view, it seems the onus is upon Israel to "transform" the Palestinians from enemies to friends, and their fault if they are unable to. He thinks the entire reason for the Islam's hatred against Israel and Jews boils down to the treatment of Palestinians.

Between 1948 and 1967, when the Palestinians were governed by Egypt and Jordan, did Malaysia recognize Israel? No! Did Israel's neighbours accept the formation of the state any more in 1948 when it was formed than after the 1967 war when Israel won the West Bank and Gaza? No!

The fact is that the very existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East is a permanent blight on the Arab world, and they will not rest until it is destroyed. This is why school children in Gaza and the West Bank are taught to hate, and to celebrate death and martyrdom, from a young age. This is why Iran openly proclaims its desire to destroy entirely the state of Israel.

Not content with this already twisted picture of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Backman concludes with the absurd notion that Israelis bring this upon themselves because they are rude and arrogant tourists. These same rude and arrogant Israelis have used the finances provided by the US and others to build a robust democracy, to create industry, and significant contributions to the world of technology, medicine and much more. In contrast, the billions of dollars of aid sent to the Palestinians have been either embezzled by corrupt officials, or used to smuggle arms and continue the fight, rather than to help their own people have a better quality of life. So who is really using their funding better?

Tiger Ben

2008-12-16T10:38:00.004+11:00

The Ben Cousins story has done for sports columns what Princess Diana's death did for trashy women's magazines. The only difference is that the Cousins saga doesn't have the same degree of finality to it. Let's hope they have plenty of positive things to write about him, as he begins his career as a Richmond Tiger.

It's been great to see the energy that this has brought to the Tiger fans. As usual, the e-mails and texts have been bouncing around, with many Richmond supporters suggesting to the board, the football department, and anyone else who will listen, what they should do with Ben Cousins. The good news is that within the club itself, we do have plenty of talented board members, managers, and sports administrators, and as fans, we must now let them do the job they have been appointed to do.

Cousins comes with baggage; everyone acknowledges that. Several clubs have put him in the "too hard" basket. Equally, he has done the crime, and done the time (plus some). Most everyone deserves a second (but who's counting?) chance, and all would agree that the path to Cousins' redemption as an individual and a professional sportsman is a return to on-field success.

This will definitely pose some challenges for the club, particularly with respect to leadership and organizational culture. Few has considered how the players feel about this. What message does it send to them? Cousins will need to earn his place in the team on his merits, not his reputation. There will be far more public scrutiny of the club over the next few years, and expectations have now gone through the roof. This is yet another thing to be managed.

I for one, trust that the club is aware of these things, and walk into this with eyes wide open. It seems that Kevin Sheedy has been the internal champion of the Cousins cause, and he is experienced enough to know what must (and must not) be done, and influential enough to make that happen.

There are just 100 sleeps until Round 1, 2009. I can't wait to see, feel and be part of the exitement of a full MCG, Cousins vs Judd in the midfield, as the most exciting and talked about midfield in the game (Foley, Cotchin, hopefully a healthy Coughlan, and plenty more) steamroll Carlton and make it very clear which of the power Victorian clubs is next to rise. GO TIGERS!!

Michael Vick and PETA

2008-11-18T10:26:00.002+11:00

Michael Vick is back in the news, as he declares, from prison, his intent to play NFL football again. It was certainly one of the biggest stories in the NFL in 2007, as the former quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons went from a $100 million contract to a prison cell, on charges of dogfighting. And now, as he considers his future, do we hear details of how his millions was squandered. At this time, his only lasting legacy is the nearly one million dollars he spent to finance the care of his dogs.

But this isn't really a classic rise-and-fall story, nor even a story about Vick himself.

Consider: as a highly-paid professional athlete, there is a lot on offer, and a lot you can get away with. On a regular basis, player take drugs, sell drugs, drive drunk & kill or injure using their vehicles, and beat & abuse women. These are awful and destructive crimes.

How have we (society and/or the league itself) dealt with these crimes? A large fine, or a few weeks suspension here and there, if that. A few months in prison at the very most. After the time is done, all is forgiven, and the player is promptly back on the field, directing his aggression where it works best (just ask Ray Lewis).

But indulge in the ugly practice of dogfighting, and you raise far more than the ire of the league or the criminal justice system. You find yourself squarely in the sights of PETA - the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - and like a well-trained pit bull, they don't let go after they've brought you down to the ground.

This story is really about the power of PETA, one of the most powerful and influential lobby groups in the USA today, and Vick would have to qualify as one of their biggest and highest profile scalps yet.

Now, the vast majority of people would agree that watching animals fight for sport is an awful and disgusting practice and should be eradicated. The question is more about how to rank it on the scale of "bad things".

But in the PETA world, animals rank equal to or higher than humans. In the PETA world, we would all be vegetarians. No turkey on thanksgiving, no slaughter of animals for food, perhaps even no leather shoes, belts or jackets? Some animal liberationists would like us to drink coffee with breast milk (because that's the only milk that can be obtained with consent).

Yes, the PETA world is quite a bizarre world, when you think about it. Yet that is their true agenda. So while I'm all against dogfighting, I do enjoy a fine steak, and I think it's reasonable to put down animals, but not humans. While usually, it's better to consider the message more than the messenger, the people from PETA are genuinely scary. And loud. And powerful.

Deconstructing the Left

2008-11-16T22:44:00.000+11:00

I might have finally understood the Left. These days, the stance of the Left is best explained by one of my favourite jokes - the social worker joke:

Two social workers are walking down the street late at night. As they turn a corner, they see a man lying in the gutter. He is bruised and bleeding, his clothes torn, and moaning with pain; clearly he has been attacked. He sees the two people and calls to them "Please, someone help me!

And one social worker turns to the other and says: "Who ever did this to him needs help!"

This joke epitomizes the seemingly inverted attitude of the left to so many things today.

For the left, there is no such thing as a terrorist. They are "militants" or "freedom fighters" - heroes fighting for the most noble cause of freedom. Can there be a greater calling? And of course, they are fighting against those people who are depriving them of freedom. The deprivation of their freedom causes "despair", which forces them to do terrible things, like murder innocent civilians by blowing themselves up.

If David Hicks is a terrorist (and that is a big "if"), it must be that he's really just misguided and fell into the company of some other misguided people. He bears little or no blame for how he has ended up. By extension, if someone commits a crime, it is society's obligation to help rehabilitate them because they are a product of society. They needs our help, more than anything.

Those Bali bombers that were just executed as punishment for mass murder didn't deserve such a barbaric punishment. The threat of death is no deterrent to other would-be murderers; rather it's more important to address the root cause of their desire to kill many people.

If someone hates me and openly declares their intent to kill me, it could not be because they have some twisted ideology, or are just plain bad folks. Rather, it must be because of something I did. Therefore, the onus is on me to change, and/or to appease them.

Where does this bizarre inversion come from?

It really comes down to a view on the nature of people. If you believe that all people are essentially good, then you are stuck with a question: why do essentially good people do really bad things? The only possible answer is that it's because they have been provoked; because some root cause has led them down this path.

This ties in well with our social worker. The victim here has done nothing wrong, and is remedied with some medical assistance and perhaps some counselling for trauma. But what of the perpetrator? How can we "fix" him? He's the one who needs our help even more! He's the one who is the real victim, who for reasons far beyond his control, has fallen upon hard times and been forced into a life of crime.

By maintaining this view of people, the Left believe they can fix the whole world.

And so, President-elect Barack Obama, with his eloquent message of hope, and his plan of "conciliation" as the path to fix everything, has been fawned upon by the press, and been all but declared the messiah and saviour of all mankind. It's very convenient and comforting to declare the eight years of the Bush government a total failure and the cause of everything that is wrong, and therefore look forward the the dawn of a new age. Once the Democrats take power, they can undo the damage of the past, and make the world like America again.

But what if the Left's view of the world is flawed? What if there are people who are genuinely evil? People who view appeasement as weakness, and either pounce on it, or shift the goalposts so that consensus is never reached, or until their true motives are revealed? What if wars must be fought and won to defeat those who wish our destruction?

Let's just hope that the new view from inside the Oval Office has a little more balance, and a little more realism than fanciful dreams of the Left.

How far to Sydney?

2008-10-28T15:02:00.003+11:00

The strangest thing happened the other day. I was booking a Qantas flight (from Melbourne) to Sydney, and I noticed that the arrival times had all changed. The flights leave every half hour, and the last time I booked one, the duration was 1:20. So the 5pm flight would arrive at 6:20pm. However, now, that same flight is scheduled to arrive at 6:25pm.

I quickly went to Google Maps and checked: had Sydney moved 5 minutes further north? Or perhaps they had just opened a new airport or a fourth runway? Or maybe there was a seismic shift or a crack opened up in the fabric of space-time?

Sadly, none of these things had happened. So why the change? I'm guessing it's actually the marketing people who are behind it. One of the ways airlines are judged is by their punctuality - the percentage of flights that arrive "on time". So what do you do if your flights keep arriving late? There are basically two options: either work faster, or change the definition of "on time".

Qantas have taken the soft option, and reset their customers' expectations. They are not performing any better or more efficiently. They have just shifted the performance bar, in the wrong direction. Now customers will be happier, because their flights will arrive on time more often, and they can point to their arrival time statistics and benchmark them against other airlines. These marketing people are pretty clever, eh?

Those of us who have flown for a long time, or who listen to the stuff the captain says, or who follow the flight path (yes, I know, we're geeks), may see a pattern emerging. The flight time from Melbourne to Sydney is around 55 minutes on average. Back in the day, the official flight time was 1:10, which allowed for taxi time. So it's now taking longer to board planes, longer to taxi, and the other trend is changes to flight paths.

One would think that if going from Melbourne to Sydney, you would take off to the north, and land to the south. Like the old adage - "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" (or perhaps a great circle route). But that's not what we did. We took off, then executed a couple of turns, and then on the approach to Sydney, turned left over Paramatta, and then around and back to come in from the northern runway. The squiggly line on the screen connecting origin and destination looked like something a child would bring back from kinder.

Now, if airlines keep adding fuel surcharges because the oil price is so high (another clever piece of marketing), surely it would make sense to optimize flight paths so as to minimize the amount of fuel they use? Again, that is just one option. The other, easier option, is to pad official flight times, and let the customer pay for the extra fuel, and time.

Thank you Qantas. You are a shining light among airlines. Not the first with too-clever marketing people, and definitely not the last.

Daniel Pollak chose life

2008-09-27T22:31:00.007+10:00

I've buried relatives and friends - some old, and some not old enough. For the first time, I have buried a student. The grief of his sudden passing comes over me in waves, and is like nothing I have experienced before. They carry a pain that rises to the surface in tears that feel like an outpouring from the depths of my soul. Perhaps this is a result of the special bond between teacher and student.

Danny Pollak was a regular at my weekly city Talmud shiur (study group) for several years, and that is how we met. I did not even know he had been seriously ill with cancer for the last ten years; he was not the type to wear it on his sleeve. Indeed, if I had known, I would have probably treated him differently, and he would not have wanted that from anyone.

He was a keen student, and an active participant. The tractate we learnt dealt in the laws of damages and liability, and with Danny being one of several lawyers in the class, we regularly gained insights into the nature of Jewish law compared with the western legal system.

When I think about Danny, a famous quote from the Talmud (Taanit 7a) comes to mind: "I have learnt much from my teachers, more from my peers, and the most from my students". The basic meaning of this is that one gains a greater understanding about a topic only having taught it to others. But on a deeper level, it gives us an insight into the relationship between teacher and student: as much as the student seeks to gain knowledge from a teacher, the teacher has a need to impart knowledge to a student.

Taking this concept further, there is so much we can learn from Danny as a person, and perhaps a tragedy that the lessons only come after he is no longer with us physically. Rabbi Yossi Fromer said at the funeral that he did not understand the exhortation to "choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19) until now. What else would anyone choose when life and death are placed before you? Danny faced exactly such a choice in the way he would approach his life, with a terminal illness hanging over him. He did not choose to be a victim, to wallow in self-pity, or to put everything on hold while he dealt with his illness. Nor did he choose to live every day as if it were his last.

Rather, he chose that whatever days he were granted, they were filled to the maximum with whatever life could avail him. He studied at every opportunity. He advanced his career. He married and started a family. If Danny could do all that, with such uncertainty hanging over his tenure on earth, how much more can the rest of us do with our lives?

At a time of the year when G-d decides "how many will pass on, and how many will be born; who will live, and who will die ..." (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy), the fragility of our lives is made very clear to us (indeed, when people die in the weeks approaching Rosh Hashanah, I often reflect that their fate had actually been determined nearly a year earlier).

However, no matter what G-d decides for us, we all have a choice as to as to how we live the life we are granted. May Danny's legacy be that we all actively and consciously "choose life".

Aren't all Jews Messianic?

2008-07-27T21:17:00.005+10:00

The recent media and fuss surrounding so-called Messianic Jews really has me troubled. The concept of Messiah has been central to Judaism for thousands of years. The daily prayers are full of references to the current exile and subsequent redemption through the Messiah (in particular as the restoration of the Davidic kingdom). The State of Israel is described as "the beginning of the sprouting of our redemption". The last of the thirteen principles of faith, articulated by Maimonides, states "I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah", and this is recited daily by many Jews.

So naturally I am bothered when one group of Jews decide to label themselves as "Messianic", as if to suggest that the rest of us aren't. But it gets worse. Not only do they proudly proclaim by their name that they have it right when it comes to Messiah, who do they say the Jewish Messiah is? None other than Jesus, of all people!

Last time I checked, Jesus was the figurehead of another major religion, Christianity. And guess what? he still is! And while all would agree that Christianity had its origins in Judaism, and that Jesus himself was Jewish, the two religions are very different in their theology, their view of the nature of G-d, and indeed the nature of the Messiah. Jewish theology is very firm on the Messiah being human, and not the son of, or a manifestation of G-d. Indeed, the Christian concept of the trinity renders it non-monotheistic, according to Jewish law. So suggesting that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah is a bit like saying that employees at Coca Cola should all start drinking Pepsi!

Should Messianic Jews be considered Jewish? Well, anyone born Jewish or converted according to Jewish law remains so for life, so the answer is yes. However, since their beliefs are fundamentally incompatible with Jewish theology, they might just struggle to be accepted as a member organisation of the JCCV.

At least Jews for Jesus, who actively attempt to convert Jews to Christianity, don't make claims that they are a Jewish group. Messianic Jews, on the other hand, seem to want to have a bet each way: "We're Jewish, but we believe in the Christian Messiah". Further, if that is what they believe, then they shouldn't hide behind a name that suggests otherwise. This smacks of misrepresentation to me - is there an action under the Trade Practices Act here?

Free Richo

2008-07-17T08:14:00.003+10:00

It should go down as 'AFL coaching move of the year'. Richmond coach Terry Wallace's decision to shift Matthew Richardson away from his traditional role at full forward earlier this season was a stroke of brilliance, on so many fronts.

During his time at full forward, Richo kicked goals at a rate of nearly 3 per game, and with an accuracy ratio over his career of nearly 60%, statistics which put him at the top of the game. And yet, his play was regularly a source of frustration to both himself and his fans. He would kick truly from the 50m line on a sharp angle, and yet the simplest of shots from close to goal would invariably be sprayed off the side of the boot. He would openly express frustration that teammates were not kicking to his leads. Watching him play was like the proverbial box of chocolates.

He could have continued to play out his career in this position, but with a young team developing, Wallace had a challenge in succession planning: how do you try out new key forwards such as Reiwoldt, Hughes or Schulz, let alone install them in their new positions, when you have a star incumbent? Indeed, any team with a dominant key forward is faced with the same dilemma. It's somewhat easier to recruit an already developed full forward as an instant replacement, but what if you want to develop/promote a youngster from within the club?

Wallace's decision to shift Richo to the wing was a solution to two problems at one time, with added benefits. Firstly, it allowed him to test out his new forward structure. Secondly, it enabled him to continue to get value out of Richo as a roaming, running, marking midfielder.

This shift has resulted in a transformation of the structure and match ups in the team. Who do you play on a running Richo? A traditional full back can barely keep up with him but at least can add to a marking contest. But what run-with player can match him with both athletic and marking ability?

But the biggest transformation has been psychological one. Freed from the physical confines of the forward line, and freed from the emotional burden of being the central focus of the attack, Richo has relished in his new role. His goal kicking accuracy has gone from 60% to 70%, while his marks per game has gone from 8 to 12. This, and the 'regular' forwards are producing goals as well.

By stepping away from what is a focal point of the team and a leadership position, Richo has enabled and empowered others to step up. Indeed, Reiwoldt acknowledged this after his nomination for Rising Star, in the wake of a five goal performance against West Coast. Creating dependencies on yourself within a team is not leadership. True leadership is about enabling others to perform and grow and ultimately replace you, even when you are still part of the team.

Got Jewish Education?

2008-06-14T20:45:00.004+10:00

Recently, I attended a philanthropic forum to discuss the issue of funding for Jewish education. In a most informative and stimulating day, we heard several different views on the topic from diverse perspectives, which included the day school system, UJEB, tertiary options under development (see here), and the Jewish education provided to students by AUJS.

Our city of Melbourne is blessed with a day school system that rivals any in the world in terms of diversity of options, proportion of Jewish children attending, and infrastructure. Yet, the day left me thinking that as a funder, if I wanted to get the maximum "value" for the philanthropic dollar, the most in terms of educational outcomes, I would not spend it on our day schools.

A dollar spent would have a far greater impact reaching out to people who are not part of the day school system - students in other schools, tertiary students, and indeed, informal education for adults. Jewish education is so much more than the twelve or so years of formal schooling.

We are a nation that has placed education as one of our highest priorities for thousands of years. Shortly before the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai smuggled himself out of the besieged city of Jerusalem and gained an audience with Vespasian. After impressing him with his wisdom (see a more detailed account here), he was granted a request. He acted to secure the future of the Jewish nation by asking that the scholars be granted refuge in the city of Yavneh.

Imagine the situation: Jerusalem the capital was about to fall, the Jewish kingdom of many hundreds of years was on the verge of collapse. Rabbi Yochanan had a unique opportunity to ask for the one thing that can save the nation. Was this elitism? No, it was about survival. This strategic move led to the development of the Talmud, and the continuity of Jewish education and scholarship was key in our survival as a people.

The value of scholarship and education has been central to Jewish life for generations. Our contribution to the world has been hugely disproportionate to our numbers (see here). In the first quarter of 2008, the Jewish state attracted the fourth highest amount of venture capital. The large US corporates are falling over themselves trying to open R&D centres in Israel.

However, with regard to Jewish education, we seem to have lost our way recently. Parents do not see the value in Jewish education, and a growing number of parents are chosing public schools (for a variety of reasons). Jewish education after formal schooling has all but disappeared.

When I went to summer camp as a child, the end of the daily Torah study group was signalled by the tongue-in-cheek announcement over the PA system: "Learning never ends; Learning never ends". In the modern workplace, there is an emphasis on ongoing professional and personal development. Why should this be any different with respect to ongoing study relating to our heritage?

So how to respond to this? It seems to me that as one of the major "brands" associated with the Jewish people, Jewish education, has lost some of its gloss. While just one hundred years ago, scholars were held in the highest echelons of society, today our materialistic world has shifted the perception of value towards people who have achieved financial success. This seems like a marketing problem, and therefore I would like to propose a marketing solution.

Some years ago in the US, the milk industry was faced with a serious problem. For years, milk was acknowledged as the healthy beverage of choice. However, this image was being seriously undermined by the fruit juice industry, whose sugar-laden drinks were fast overtaking milk. In 1993, several Californian milk producers came together and decided to allocate a percentage of sales to a marketing campaign to promote the consumption of milk. Thus was born the got milk? brand, which was subsequently licenced to national dairy boards for their own use. This was a broad-based campaign from a united front of milk producers (who were in fact competitors) to revive the milk brand. Images of media personalities on TV and billboards sporting a "milk-moustache" helped restore the brand, and the campaign is considered a great success.

What I propose is a campaign along the same lines - let's call it "Got Jewish Education?" The aim is simple: to restore the brand of Jewish education. To be most effective, it should have the consensus of our diverse Jewish society. Even though the various subgroups within the Jewish community often find themselves in conflict - Left vs Right, Orthodox vs Reform, and so on - surely we can all agree that any Jewish education is better than no Jewish education.

The underlying messages of the campaign are simple:

Jewish education is good for you - get some, any way you can
You don't have to be school age to benefit from Jewish education
Just 15 minutes a week is all you need to make a difference
There is something in Jewish education for everyone

Programs like Limmuz Oz are a great example of bringing people together to celebrate the richness of Jewish learning and culture. With current distribution channels like the web, podcasts, and satellite radio, we should be able to do so much more. So an important part of the campaign is making Jewish content readily available through modern media. Combining technology and innovation with the body of Jewish learning that we have built over the last few thousand years is an exciting proposition.

When was the last time you had some Jewish education?

Fraser loses his balance

2008-05-10T20:54:00.006+10:00

It's an interesting life, being the former leader of your country. If you are blessed with a natural charisma, like Bill Clinton, you can quickly switch to the lecture circuit, and earn six figures for each appearance. Then, you can just as quickly spend this money helping your unelectable wife fight for the Democratic party nomination against the only other unelectable candidate. In the meantime, John McCain sits back and watches, gleefully picking furniture for the next White House renovation.

It's a tough life, coming down from the high of having so much power, and being in the spotlight for almost every waking minute. While your country provides you with a generous pension for the remainder of your life, after a few short years you often slip back into the obscurity from which you emerged.

So in a way, it was not surprising to see the Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser, former prime minister of Australia, afflicted by a severe dose of Jimmy Carter-itis. My taxes provide him with income until the day he dies, a fine office in Collins St (I was just in the foyer the other day and noticed him on the list of tenants), a driver, and all the other mod-cons that any former leader enjoys. I don't seek for a second to deny him of this; I just wish he would happily fade away like the rest of them.

I can understand if he's a busy politician relying on underlings for information and policy, that he might end up misinformed with regard to the Middle East. But now, in his golden years, that he has plenty of time on his hands, surely he could use this time to properly study a topic he wants to address so he can write about it in a balanced way. Balanced is what he asks for, but he is anything but that.

He suggests, like Jimmy Carter, that dialogue with Hamas is the only path to peace. That since Hamas were the legitimately elected representatives of the Palestinians, they have earned the right to be partners to a negotiation. That they should be offered the opportunity to discard their policies that call for the destruction of Israel, and reform themselves, much in the same way that the IRA did in Northern Ireland. Of course, the IRA never had as their charter to destroy Britain and send the population into the English Channel.

He acknowledges the widespread view that Hamas cannot be believed, and that a cease-fire is only a "hudna" - a temporary period for them to rearm before the next wave of attack. But, he says, people who hold that view commit themselves to continued warfare. Therefore, he asks that we ignore these minor details and with open arms, engage in dialogue with Hamas.

Mr Fraser calls for a cease-fire, ending the blockade of Gaza, and cessation of settlement construction in the West Bank as the prerequisite steps towards peace. Did anyone tell him that every single day, rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel, terrorizing the town of Sderot? Surely stopping those would be a useful prerequisite step? Did anyone tell him that Gaza shares a border with Egypt, who conduct their own "blockade" of Gaza, and keep their border totally sealed (except when Hamas manage to blow a hole in it)? Besides, is any nation obliged to maintain open borders with a neighbouring region, especially one that continues to declare open war in both word and action?

Hamas are, quite simply, a vicious enemy who will do whatever it takes to reach their goal of the destruction of Israel. They have been happy to let their own people live in squalid conditions for decades just to be used as pawns in this game. They rejoice every time Israel kills one of their own civilians (from whose house a missile may have been fired) because it gives them the ability to paint Israel as the oppressor before a world media that laps it up like a hungry dog.

An even-handed approach may work when both parties equally seek a viable goal, a goal that is compatible with their mutual ongoing existence, and where there is some degree of goodwill on both sides of the fence. But this is not the situation. Carter, Fraser, and indeed Shimon Peres can talk to Hamas all they like, but no talk will make them change their spots.

muzzling the real story

2008-04-09T11:27:00.004+10:00

Does Ed O'Loughlin have way too much time on his hands or what? Wasn't he supposed to have left his post in the Middle East and gone somewhere else where he could report on genuine issues of global importance? Maybe he should spend some quality time in Darfur, where people keep getting murdered while the world looks on (and journalists have no opportunity to speak out)?

His latest piece scrapes the barrel of journalistic integrity, with the provocative headline "Israel muzzles voice of peace". From the headline, and indeed from the article itself, you would get the impression that the Israeli government was running a program of repressing organisations that promoted peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians.

In fact, this is far from the case. The pacifist organisation Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. Strangely, Ed chose not to report on that. He does regularly report on the activities of other "human rights advocate" organisations like B'Tselem, who, like Ed, seem to spend all of their time searching for alleged human rights abuses committed by Israel.

However, just a few kilometers away in the West Bank and Gaza, repression of the population occurs regularly as a matter of government policy, and remains unreported. Corrupt "governments" in both regions have embezzled the millions of dollars poured in by countries all over the world supporting Palestinian "self-determination" and directed them to their own personal interests instead of building infrastructure and basic services for their citizens.

Israel is not the one muzzling peace. The real muzzling going on is the repression of demonstrations against corruption with the muzzle of a gun. The real muzzling is the continued selective reporting by Ed O'Loughlin that paints whatever picture he wants. Any free thinking individual who relies on more than just The Age to find out what is going on in the Middle East can get a much better and more balanced idea of what is really going on.

So many deadly sins, so little time

2008-03-12T06:12:00.005+11:00

Just when you thought that the Catholic Church was mired in the past and unable to keep up with modern times, here they come with an update to the famous Seven Deadly Sins.

It's hard to know why they suddenly decided to do this now; the initial sins were defined back in the sixth century. Perhaps they were inspired by the software industry? The initial release of the Seven Deadly Sins - let's call them SDS 1.0 for short - were already well accepted across their followers (customer base). The obvious thing to do in order to continue to engage the existing (and attract a new generation of followers) is to issue a product upgrade. Like the latest version of anti-virus, the all new SDS 2.0 is essential for protection against the fires of hell. Although it would have made more sense to have a series of releases - SDS 1.1, SDS 1.3 Gold, etc - in order to maximize the number of times an upgrade is required.

Of maybe it was Hollywood inspired? The fabulously successful movie Seven has been screaming out for a sequel. The obvious choice would be Eight, but that's really just an incremental change, and besides, what do you choose as the eighth deadly sin? Clearly, this needed a collaboration from the Church so the plot was true to life. And after The Da Vinci Code, the movie industry really needed to improve their standing with religion again. Is it any wonder that "making a mockery of organized religion through cinema" didn't make it on to the list? And so, we have Seven II: Fourteen, coming to your cinemas very soon. Or at the mathematicians prefer to call it, 7 x 2 = 14, with a planned release date of 07/02/2014. It doesn't have the simple ring of 666, but at least it adds up.

These sins are actually quite a disappointment. The original ones, expressed so succintly with just a single word each, had a magical, timeless feel about them. You can really lie back and imagine a booming heavenly voice saying "We find you guilty of the mortal sin of avarice and sentence your soul to an enternity of damnation", or at the very least, an equally booming-voiced Irish priest warning "let not gluttony drag you down in to the fires of hell" .

But the latest batch just don't have the consise quality that sins need to really be welcomed and understood by the masses. "The excessive accumulation of wealth by a few" and "allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos"? How on earth are they going to write a hymn or a prayer and get awkward phrases like those to rhyme or scan? What were they thinking?

It must've been difficult process to pick what to include and what not to include in this latest batch. You have to wonder how many "minor" sins were left on the cutting room floor, never to be raised to the prominence (or notoriety) they deserve. With apologies to John West, this is best summed up as follows: It's the sins that the Vatican rejects, that makes Catholicism the best.

Education is the Difference

2008-03-08T20:39:00.006+11:00

I am a student again. Recently, I decided to embark on a post-graduate degree. When considering my options, I attended an information evening at the university to hear about the course I was considering. When asked questions about the difference between this course and similar ones at other universities, the speaker responded with a message that still remains with me: "Whether you choose to do the course with us or elsewhere is your choice, but whatever you decide, do keep studying!" This reflects the ethos of any good academic institution - that learning is essential for human growth, and you are never too old to learn. For me, it reinforced my decision to return to formal study at a relatively advanced age.

Last Thursday in Jerusalem, eight students, aged 15 to 26, were gunned down by a terrorist as they were sitting down for dinner. They studied at Mercaz Harav, a religious seminary founded in 1924. It is a highly regarded institution, where students dedicate themselves to advanced study of classical Jewish texts such as the Talmud.

Just a week earlier, a man from the town of Sderot was killed as a result of a rocket that was launched from Gaza. The rocket landed in the parking lot of college campus, and he was struck in the chest by shrapnel. Sderot, a town of some 20,000 residents, has been terrorized by the continued fire of thousands of rockets that has continued unabated since the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

These two fatal attacks that deliberately targetted civilians brought home to me the fundamental difference between the two sides in this war: It all comes down to the issue of education.

Israeli and Jewish society rewards and prides itself on academic excellence. No matter what end of the political spectrum students come from, whether they are attending universities or religious seminaries (or a combination of the two), the principle is the same: they are there in search of knowledge. Perhaps to open up career opportunities, to make a better life for themselves, or perhaps just for its own sake as academics.

In addition to whatever subject matter you choose to pursue, some fundamental values are taught either explicitly or implictly at any college or university: respect for fellow students and the diversity of their opinions, the ability to debate and reach consensus, and the value of knowledge.

These values are what help create the vibrant democracy that exists in Israel today. A place where diversity is accepted, and where open debate takes place. A Jewish state where Arabs are citizens and have representation in parliament. A place where advocates for Palestinian rights have a voice. A place where an independent judiciary openly deals with the failings of government or military.

Contrast this with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Their children are brought up on a steady diet of pure hatred for Jews. Western motifs like Mickey Mouse are used to teach children the wonders of jihad. When terrorist are "successful" in killing civilians, people rush to the streets to celebrate and hand out sweets to children.

The only open debate that is carried out between political rivals Hamas and Fatah on the most effective way to destroy the Jewish state and replace it with a Palestinian state, or how to misappropriate the billions of dollars that have been sent to them by the UN, the EU, and anyone else who thinks they can help. And the preferred medium for this debate is with gunfire.

The Jews are known as the People of the Book, a badge worn with pride. Palestinians should be known as the People of the Gun, and many would unfortunately be equally proud of such a title.

What this means is that peace will not come from cease-fire agreements (promises are never kept), redrawn boundaries (no boundaries are good enough), relocation of refugees (almost anyone qualifies as a refugee), or monetary compensation (billions have already been embezzled, used for weapons, or simply squandered). These are a waste of time because the culture of hate is so embedded in the Palestinians, that they do not have the tools to create a state, only the skills to (try to) destroy someone else's.

To transform them from a basket case welfare state who revel in victimhood, you must start by ending the teaching of hate and reforming the culture that celebrates death. After two or three generations, this might have a chance of being "bred out", and then maybe, just maybe, you are left with a group of people who could be deemed "partners for peace".

If you are a student, take just a minute before your next class to think about your fellow students, murdered at their campus. Think about the liberties you enjoy in your own campus, the freedom of speech, the diversity of cultures. The Book or the Gun? You choose.

There's something about Adam

2008-02-29T08:08:00.000+11:00

After a stellar career as Australia's premier all-rounder for some ten years, Adam Gilchrist has retired from all forms of international cricket (except the ones that pay far more than he has ever been paid to play cricket before).

Yes, he was an great wicket-keeper, with over 400 Test dismissals. That said, standing behind the stumps with a pair of bright coloured gloves while Glen McGrath and Shane Warne were bowling meant that racking up great numbers of dismissals was only a matter of time.

What really made Gilly special was that he was a genuine all-rounder. These creatures are truly rare in the game of cricket - in any generation there are barely a handful of them. I define a true all-rounder as a player with the skill to be selected for either of their disciplines independently, and Gilchrist met this criteria for both batting and wicket-keeping. He could (even now) walk into any Test side in the world purely as a batsman (although at his age, he could well be a liability in the outfield). Andrew Flintoff (when fit) also meets this criteria, and would be selected both for his batting and bowling. Contrast this with Andrew Symonds - would he play for Australia purely on his bowling?

For several years as Australia remained at the zenith of world cricket, the team was blessed with a core of players at the top of world rankings: McGrath & Warne, Hayden & Langer. Having a disproportionate number of such players in a team is certainly a good thing.

However, having a true all-rounder in the team means you are effectively playing with twelve men, and that is an advantage that magnifies, and indeed far exceeds being overloaded with champion players.

How many times have a bowling team enjoyed some success in breaking through the top or middle order to get Australia to five wickets down for not quite enough? It's a precarious position for any team, as only one recognized batsman is left and the tail can quickly collapse. And how many times has Gilchrist rescued the innings almost single-handedly with his fast scoring and aggressive stroke-play? In a matter of a session or less, a further hundred runs or more are on the board, and just like that, the match has turned. That is the impact of having an all-rounder in the team.

The all-rounder gives any team significantly more depth in both batting or bowling. Instead of playing four bowlers, you can play five. Or instead of six batsmen, you have seven. This extra depth means pressure can be maintained on the batting team because you have more front-line bowlers. Seen off the opening bowlers? Bad luck, you still have Flintoff to face. Got them five wickets down? The job isn't nearly finished; Gilly has just come in.

You can always replace a batsman with a batsman, and a bowler with another bowler. Replacing one player who functioned as two is a lot harder. Of all the retirements in the last two years, that of Adam Gilchrist will have the greatest impact on team balance, and therefore its competitiveness.

Thank you for a great career Adam - you will be sorely missed.

Wicked one, why do you strike your fellow man?

2008-02-18T07:53:00.007+11:00

It seems that open letters are all the rage in our community in recent weeks, so I have to put my hat in the ring. The debate regarding "Yechi" that has simmered in our shul for many years has recently risen to a fever pitch in recent months.

Fortunately, Australia has been largely insulated from much of the ugly community fights that have emerged since Gimmel Tammuz. This is probably due to a combination of things - a lack of extremists on either side of the fence, and a lack of leadership to take a firm and public stand either way.

The sign in our Shul does not bother me in the slightest - I spend most of my time facing the front anyway (shouldn't we all?), and I do genuinely want Moshiach to come.

There are a few things that do bother me, however.

People are entitled to their own beliefs, and there exists a broad spectrum of beliefs in our community regarding Lubavitch, the Rebbe, and Moshiach. In amongst all of these beliefs, people seem to have forgotten some basic principles: Ahavas Yisroel, and Derech Eretz.

If someone takes a different position to me, I respect their right to do that, and I expect no less from them regarding my own position. But when calling out Yechi or dancing after davening changes from the expression of a belief to a deliberately provocative, almost militant declaration, its original intent (to hasten the coming of Moshiach) rapidly fades. And that is what the declarations of some of the more extreme elements of our shul have changed to. This sort of behaviour will not bring Moshiach, because it is divisive and disrespectful of others, and these are behaviours that go against everything the Rebbe stood for.

The only thing I can think of that is worse than this, is the act of raising one's hand against another Jew. That people have come to physical blows in our Shul and surrounds over this issue truly sickens and disgusts me. What right does anyone have to escalate a verbal dispute into a physical one, and to strike another person? Anyone who does this (from either side of the political fence) should be censured in the strongest terms. Is a fist fight in Shul going to bring Moshiach closer?

My final gripe is not regarding a specific action, but rather the total absence of action. Our Shul and our community has a Rabbi, a Head Shliach, a Dayan, but they have been all but silent on this issue. Should we have a Yechi sign in the shul or not? What is our official policy on the Rebbe and Moshiach? The leadership do have views on these issues, but have been sadly unwilling or unable to articulate them in a clear way to their constituents. What is the job of leaders if not to lead?

It seems that the most basic principles of Ahavas Yisroel, and respect for leadership have been left behind, and in their place we now have the awful, insatiable, desire to be right, expressed by protagonists on both sides. There is a simple test to determine if a specific behaviour or action is the correct one. Ask yourself: will this bring Moshiach closer? Will this give nachas to the Rebbe? Let's all get back to basics - these are the immutable and timeless principles that have kept us together for generations.

Patriots "missed it by that much"

2008-02-04T19:10:00.000+11:00

Meatloaf sang that "two out of three ain't bad", so by extension, eighteen out of nineteen should also be not too bad, perhaps even good. But try telling that to a New England Patriots fan, and you may well get the s**t kicked out of you. Because on the edge of the famous perfect season, they were outplayed, indeed humiliated, by the underdog New York Giants, 17-14.

The Giants' defence reigned supreme, and all day were able to penetrate the previously impervious Patriots' offensive line. Tom Brady was sacked more than in any other game, and was pressured and harassed to the point where he seemed mortal again.

There was a key moment in the final quarter, when he did get free, and had Randy Moss free in the end zone, but missed the throw. This showed me clearly that the Giants' pass rush had succeeded in shaking him up physically to the point that the mental pressure affected what would normally be a sure thing for him.

And so the Giants did what no other team was capable of doing this year. They brought the greatest offense in the NFL back down to earth. Once this objective was achieved, and the game was no longer a shootout, it was then a question of controlling the clock with a good running game, and the superb, mature play of Eli Manning. In just a few weeks, he has shown his pedigree and can genuinely be classed as an elite quarterback.

His third down and long conversions through the year have been an indicator of his skill and poise under pressure. In recent weeks, he has added a consistency many people thought just wasn't there. And his escape from a near-sack to complete a 32 yard pass to an equally stunning catch by David Tyree showed he is the full package as a quarterback.

Do I feel sorry for the Patriots? No. You could argue that they suffered from being too good. On several occasions in recent weeks, their kicker missed relatively easy field goal attempts due to lack to match practice, they too did not have enough experience winning pressure games. So when the pressure finally did come through, they fell short. Over the last few years, the Australian cricket team has also had similar issues.

My annual "down under" Superbowl party was a huge success. With a kick-off time of 10:30am on Monday morning, the crowd steadily built and most of them remained glued to their seats until the game's dramatic climax at around 2pm. Work day? What work day? Beer at 11am? Why the hell not? After all, a Superbowl like this does not come often!

NFL Championship Games Review

2008-01-21T14:38:00.000+11:00

Wow! That would have to be the most exhilirating "Super Sunday" in years (even if it is Monday afternoon over here). I decided to watch the games live, and it was worth every minute!

Good to see that the Chargers took my advice, and went after Brady. They penetrated the previously impervious Patriots offensive line on several occasions, and this pressure together with their excellent secondary led to three interceptions. This is the first time Tom Brady has ever been intercepted in a post-season game.

On the offensive side of the ball, Philip Rivers has shown that he has come of age as a quarterback through this post-season. He was able to stand firm in the pocket, and find the gaping holes in the Patriots secondary. Not having Tomlinson for most of the game didn't help, and the rushing game was somewhat limited.

The key to the game was the Patriots excellent red zone defence. The Chargers had more scoring drives (4-3), fewer interceptions (2-3), but came up short because they could not get the full 7 points out of their drives. They should be very proud of their performance - they have the talent and depth to go deep into the playoffs for the next few years.

In the NFC, the Giants have shown that they truly deserve to represent their conference in the Superbowl. They have won well on the road in hostile conditions, and Eli Manning has also finally delivered on the promise of his pedigree with consistent performance under pressure. But the most credit should go to the defence. They are fast, tough, and unforgiving.

The Giants outplayed Green Bay for most of the game. The Packers were only ahead because of one huge 90 yard play for a touchdown. Otherwise, their running game was totally stifled, and the Giants' coverage limited the passing game. If not for two missed field goals, this game would have been over much sooner. It was good old fashioned Giants football, with control of the lines of scrimmage and the clock.

Now to the Superbowl. The Giants are a genuine chance to go all the way. They have the defence to bring pressure on Tom Brady and shut down the run. Their offensive line is dominant, and Manning's stability and consistency have improved out of sight in the last few weeks. Finally, they have shown throughout the season a mental toughness and self-belief that means they can come from behind if necessary.

This has been the most exciting post-season in years. Only 13 more sleeps to Superbowl XLII.

NFL playoffs - Jacksonville get it all wrong

2008-01-15T14:04:00.000+11:00

I'm no expert in NFL records, but this must be the first time in a long time that half the games in the first two rounds (wildcard and divisional) have resulted in wins to the away team. It certainly makes for an exciting post season, despite the fact that the New England Patriots are still hanging over us all as the favourites.

The big question is: can anyone beat them? and if so, how?

Before the playoffs started, everyone though the Jacksonville Jaguars, with their physical style of play, were the biggest threat. Unfortunately, they got it wrong tactically against the Patriots. What everyone finds most scary about them is their deep threat: a well protected Tom Brady throwing long passes to Randy Moss and friends all year has meant the Patriots score the most on some of the shortest drives.

The Jaguars attempted to nullify this threat by covering the deep receivers, and they did a fabulous job of it. Trouble is that having all these players deep left the defensive line itself undermanned. Other than the very first play, they brought little or no pressure on the quarterback. So Brady was able to sit back and play an underneath game all day. He took what he was given, with low-risk, short passes. Little wonder he was so accurate.

The positive result was that Moss only had one catch, and the usually prolific Pats scored at a much lower rate than usual. Indeed, if not for Jacksonville's drives stalling and resulting in field goals instead of touchdowns, they may have been able to keep up and it might have been much closer. So if you want to beat the Pats by cutting out their deep game, you need to be able to score quickly yourself. The Jacksonville ground game is not built for this, and David Garrard did a superb job throwing on the day.

But all of this did not, and will not lead to a Patriots loss. Their deep game comes from two things: an abundance of speedy talent, and the best offensive line in the game, and therefore the best protection for Brady. The Jags took out the secondary cause (the deep talent), but not the root cause (the protection). If you want to beat the Patriots, you have to go back to the trenches - physically attack their offensive line and put pressure on Brady. If you can do that (and that's a huge "if"), then everything flows from there: he makes mistakes, you get sacks, fumbles and interceptions, and he is not left with a low-risk option to beat you with. Can the Chargers do this? I can't wait to see.

Having it both ways

2008-01-10T16:00:00.000+11:00

Talk about a slow news week! The cricket "scandal" involving Harbajan Singh's alleged racial comment to Andrew Symonds have captured the imagination of the Australian public, and the media. And it's fair to say that said "imagination" has run wild! The story jumped from the sports page to the front page, and to the opinion page. For two days running, 4 of the 5 most read stories in The Age online were about this topic.

The first thing about it I don't understand is how Indians calling a black person "monkey" is a racial insult. Ummm ... what colour are Indian people?

But that aside, it seems Peter Roebuck's call for Ponting to be sacked received a huge amount of feedback, most of it negative. I have a lot of respect for Peter Roebuck's opinion, and while in this case I don't consider this incident grounds for sacking, he raises some valid points. We all know that the captain of the Australian cricket team is the second most important job in the country. It's fair to say probably more people aspire to that role than that of Prime Minister, and certainly more people look up to Ricky Ponting as a role model than Kevin Rudd (or Howard).

Previous captains have been able to deal both the basic on-field tactical management essential to any good captain, as well as the diplomatic and statesman side that is essential for such an important role. Ponting has been found severely lacking in the latter.

He seemed quite comfortable with the huge let-off at not being given for a catch down the leg side, but when he gets a shocking LBW call despite getting some bat on the ball, he storms off and is seen throwing his bat in anger in the dressing room. This is something I might expect to see from a young, hot-blooded, player with only a handful of tests to his name. Not from a veteran of over 100 test matches. Not from someone with over 9,000 test runs to his name. And certainly not from the Australian captain. If you are happy to take the mistakes that go in your favour, then you need to accept the ones that go against you too.

The Aussies play a tough, uncompromising game. They push boundaries with their on-field aggression (with bat and ball as well as verbally). However, it seems when the tables are turned and another team finally pushes back, they run to the referee and cry foul. You can't have it both ways.

The blame for this sort of behaviour and team culture rests squarely with the captain. He must not only ensure that his troops behave appropriately, but he must lead by example. In recent months, he has been found lacking in both.

Ponting should not be sacked as captain. But what he does need is a good talking to by the selectors about the responsibility that goes with leadership. This could be well augmented by some "coaching" from his predecessors - Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh. They both understood that as a cricket captain, in addition to batting, bowling and fielding, you must also master diplomacy.

Zev and Rochel Symons OBM

2007-12-21T07:26:00.000+11:00

Today, David knows nothing. Deep inside me, there is a numbness, and emptiness that I cannot escape. A fog of melancholy seems to surround me, as I struggle to deal with the sudden and tragic passing of Zev and Rochel Symons OBM, of Sydney.

I knew Zev only as an acquaintance. I would see him at during his regular visits to Melbourne for the summer Yarchei Kallah program, or at Simchas in Sydney or in Melbourne. He always had a smile and a warm greeting for me. I recall him years ago as a bochur in Melbourne, studying at Yeshivah Gedolah, where he was an avid student and chosid of my late grandfather, Reb Zalman Serebryanski. When asked complex questions seeking guidance in study and life direction by his students, Reb Zalman might sometime respond "you should be a good man"; Zev really personified the tmimus and menshlechkeit reflected in this simple adage.

As the events unfolded last night at the Krinsky-Gopin wedding some time after 10pm, we were struck by the suddenness of it, and in particular, its juxtaposition to a simcha. The police had arrived and were talking to family members and others. Bits of detail filtered out to the bystanders: they were on their way to the wedding, they were not contactable all afternoon, the crash had occurred in Glenrowan ("where is that?").

Women stood and cried openly; men struggled to find expression for their shock. Members of the wedding party in particular were shattered by the news. How could this happen?

There are a multitude of emotional responses to this: an "anger" at G-d for allowing such a thing to happen; awful feelings of "if only ..." especially in the context of their trip down to Melbourne for the wedding (although they had done this drive many times before without incident); perhaps a passive acceptance that G-d had decreed this was their time, and that we cannot hope to understand His reason for taking them. "Boruch Dayan HaEmes" is how we respond. It is an acknowledgement that only One has the true and complete perspective on this world, and we are left to meander along in this Olam HaSheker.

While I know deep down that we must accept this tragedy with pure emunah, the hollow feeling refuses to lift. We are reminded too often of the fragility of our lives in this world, but it does little more than put other events into context. In an instant, two beautiful people have been reduced to a statistic and a few lines in the local newspaper. For those who were priviledged to know them, their memory will live on, and their legacy continue through their family. May they act as good advocates before G-d for their children, grandchildren, and our community at large, and may G-d comfort their family and friends - HaMakom Yenacham ...

playing with words

2007-11-13T09:30:00.000+11:00

I awoke this morning to see a stunning headline on Yahoo - Hamas fires on Arafat rally. In the story, taken from Associated Press, a rally of some 250,000 Fatah supporters held in Gaza commemorating their leader Yasser Arafat, Hamas "security forces" opened fire on civilians. Wow, I thought. This is big news - almost an Tiananmen Square-like situation, and a perfect illustration of the brutal regime Hamas has installed in Gaza since taking over. The story offered an alternative view of Hamas, who said that Fatah gunmen were on the rooftops, although none were found.

Wondering how this would be covered in the Australian press, I first checked The Age. It did make it to the secondary headline section, and then shifted down into World news. But the headline portrayed a very different story: Eight killed in Gaza clashes. Oh, so it was just some clashes between those people always fighting each other in Gaza? The piece, taken from DPA, was probably the most even-handed article on the Middle East that I have ever seen in The Age: "each movement blamed the other" as "clashes left 8 dead".

So what of the other Australian press? The Australian, using their own correspondent, reported Five killed during Arafat rally, leading with the accusation that Hamas gunfire scattered the crowd and killed demonstrators. This article made no mention of Hamas's counter-claim about the incident.

So what really happened? Hard to tell. We do know a few people were killed, and we know there was a Fatah rally in support of Arafat held in the Hamas heartland of Gaza City, with a very large crowd attending. If I had to rely on just one of these three news sources, I would come out very ill-informed.

This is a great example of the ability of the press (even when reporting what is officially "news") to choose their sources and paint whatever picture they like using creative headlines. One person's brutal abuse of human rights is for another, just another of those violent clashes.

Alert, not Alarmed

2007-10-22T10:56:00.000+10:00

In the space of 24 hours, three distinct incidents helped serve as a reminder of the current threat to the Australian Jewish community.

A business associate and I were having lunch at a kosher restaurant in Bondi. As we sat enjoying a fine burger, he pointed out to me a car that was in a no-standing zone opposite the restaurant, the driver of which was taking pictures of the restaurant. Clearly, these people were "casing" the location as part of a plan to attack the venue in some way. As soon as they saw that we had spotted them, they quickly sped off. I called the Melbourne CSG (Community Security Group), and within a few minutes received a call from their counterpart organization in Sydney. We supplied details such as the number plate, description of the car and the men in it. My understanding is that the CSG liaises with police on several levels to share information about potential threats.

That very evening, a police officer arrived at my door with a summons. I was actually on the way home from the airport at the time, and needless to say, the family were somewhat surprised! It was a summons to appear and testify for the prosecution in the case against a bunch of football hoons who racially abused and then beat a man on his way to synagogue.

The next morning, I was walking to synagogue before 6am (don't ask), when a car drove past me and several young men inside shouted "Hey, Jew"at me from open windows, then threw some small objects at me. While in the past, I would ignore this sort of stupidity and cowardly behaviour, this time I noted down the number plate, and a description of the event while it was fresh in my mind, and then sent the details to my friend at CSG.

The task of those people at CSG is a difficult one. For any preventative activity like the "war on terror" or the new laws and other steps taken by the Australian government against potential terrorist attacks, a key measure of its success is that nothing happens, which itself cannot be measured. While we hear every now and then about "foiled plots" in various parts of the world, we can never know what might have been if ...

We hear the stories of attacks at Glicks or against teenagers at a tram stop, and in many cases we know this second hand (i.e. know someone who was actually directly affected). In just a short space of time, I was confronted first hand by several examples of people who wish bad upon me and my people. Was I physically hurt? Did I feel scared? Fortunately not. What I do feel now is an increased vigilance and awareness. I am alert, but I am not alarmed.

"preliminary" final?

2007-09-16T20:57:00.000+10:00

Well, with the AFL finals well underway, the one thing I can't write about is my own team (but just you wait until 2011). My tipping in the finals has been awful, so while I still think it will be Geelong over Port, I'm not putting any money on that.

What I want to comment about is the naming used in our finals system. The term "preliminary" final dates back to the days when we had a top 4. In the first week of finals, it was 1v2 in a qualifying final that had a double chance, with the winner going straight into the GF with a week's rest. Then it was 3v4 in an elimination final. Then in week two of finals, winner played loser (2v3) to decide the other team in the GF. This system achieved two goals: firstly to reward the top 2 teams with the "double chance", and secondly to have an extra week of finals.

(Note that I've used a shortcut to describe subsequent games, e.g. 2v3, rather than "loser of qualifying final vs winner of elimination final" for brevity. I've used this throughout this article in the interests of brevity. I'm sure you understand what I mean).

We've come quite a long way since then: to a top 5, then 6, and now a top 8. While the current system works quite well, we have retained an anachronism in the way the finals are named. If we want the AFL to be a game that new supporters will find easy to learn, it helps to make the finals system easy to understand and consistent with other sports.

Our finals system has a situation where the last 4 teams play off for the right to play in the grand final, i.e. 1v4 and 2v3. Any other sport would call these semi finals. For historical reasons, we still call them preliminary finals. The first thing we need to do is rename them as semi finals.

Then, we are left with the problem of what we currently call our "semi finals", which are 3v6 and 4v5 (while 1 & 2 get a week off). What I suggest is we call these either the 3rd & 4th quarter-finals or elimination finals.

To make this easier to understand, here is a summary of the finals system with my new suggested names:

Week 1:
1v4: 1st Qualifying Final
2v3: 2nd Qualifying Final
5v8: 1st Elimination or Quarter Final
6v7: 2nd Elimination or Quarter Final

Week 2:
1 & 2 get a week break
3v6: 3rd Elimination or Quarter Final
4v5: 4th Elimination or Quarter Final

Week 3:
1v4: 1st Semi Final
2v3: 2nd Semi Final

Week 4:
1v2: Grand Final

As you can see, the naming of finals is now consistent, and similar to other sports. The two games that feature the double chance are called qualifying finals to distinguish them. Any other final is a knock-out game.

Lebanon vs the Palestinians

2007-06-06T04:56:00.000+10:00

Call me old-fashioned, but I have this crazy notion about the universal value of human life. The media don't seem to share this, and if they do, it's not reflected in coverage. Some lives are more important than others. Sometimes the death of one is more important than that of hundreds or thousands. This might be because I associate "important" with "newsworthy", and on reflection, they are very different things. The commercial media serves two purposes: to inform the public, and to provide a return for their shareholders. So their definition of newsworthy therefore must include: "what sells". Perhaps that explains why they do what they do. It's always important to consider the perspective and motivation of the writer when reading anything in the media (and yes, that even includes me).

So let's say some deaths are more newsworthy than others. So the thousands of people that continue to be killed in Darfur are overshadowed by almost anything else anywhere in the world.

But what really puzzles me is how the profile of a series of deaths can also be a function of who is doing the killing. Take the current carnage going on in Lebanon. Lebanese troops have attacked terrorists in a Palestinian refugee camp. This is hardly the first time a group of armed forces from a sovereign state have attacked a terrorist group that embeds itself in an impoverished residential district. So it's worth considering how the coverage differs from one such incident to another.

I recall a couple of years ago, the Israeli army launched an initiative in the town of Jenin. In the washup, some 50-odd terrorists were killed, and a number of civilians as well. Contrast this with Lebanons action in Nahr el-Bared, where so far the count is at 60 "militants" and 20 civilians (and that is not yet over).

But the media coverage is so different. In the case of Jenin, there were immediately calls of a "massacre", where allegedly hundreds of civilians were brutally murdered by Israeli forces (later confirmed to be false after an investigation). Jenin was quickly transformed into a "humanitarian crisis" and condemnation was heard from the world over, especially those upright folks at the UN.

By contrast, while the Lebanon story continues to stay on the headlines of Yahoo, regular readers of my local newspaper The Age would be oblivious to what is going on.

So what is going on here? Why is one story more newsworthy than another? Why was one story inflated far beyond the truth, and another barely worthy of coverage?

The difference here is who is doing the killing. It seems quite OK with the world when Lebanon attempts to root out terrorists, but not when Israel does so. It also seems that the Palestinians have an interest in blowing any story involving Israel out of proportion, but not so when their fellow Arab brothers are doing the same or worse to them! So not only does the press value the death of a Palestinian terrorist differently depending on who killed them, but so do the Palestinians themlseves!

Any independent observer (and I don't claim to be one) would find this totally bizarre. And any truly independent journalist would smell a rat, and realize that they are being manipulated to print what one side wants them to print.

Leave the game early? NEVER!

2007-05-08T21:01:00.000+10:00

I have not yet fully recovered from Richmond's Sunday devastation at the hands of Geelong. Among the many e-mails and SMSs I received from friends emphasizing what was already known to me, there was the bizarre question "how long did you stay"?

My answer to that question was, is, and always will be: I proudly support my team, and I stay until the final siren, no matter what the result, and no matter when the ultimate result has been determined.

Isn't that what supporting a footy team is about? In any year, only one team will come away with the ultimate prize, and most fans of most teams will end up disappointed with their final result. There will be wins (eventually) and losses, exultation and disgust, pride and shame. That roller coaster is what comes with the territory when you follow almost any sporting team. What is constant for me as a fan is loyalty - I support the Tigers through all of their troubles, and look forward to the good times, which will eventually come as they will for all clubs.

If you go to a movie, and pay your money for entertainment, and then are bitterly disappointed by what you see, then maybe, you might walk out. And perhaps if you were a footy fan who didn't support either of the teams playing, or perhaps a visitor from another country who wanted to see the great spectacle of AFL, you might have act differently. After all, 10 goals to 1 after quarter time, and 20 to 2 at half time is not what most people would call "entertainment". But if you support a team, the experience is far more than a detached spectacle.

Sunday was the worst I have ever seen. Will I see another performance like that? I hope not. Will I go to any fewer games because of it? No. Will I look forward to a better performance in the coming weeks? Absolutely!

Because when you hit rock bottom, the only way is up.

World Cup Final - what went wrong

2007-04-29T11:31:00.000+10:00

Today, I am a zombie. After three hours of chatting and highlights, we were about to give up and go to bed, and then saw that the covers had come off (again), and the umpires had reduced the game to 38 overs. While this was not as bad as a potential Twenty20-style slogfest to decide the World Cup champion, already some gloss had come off, and the slightly shortened game seemed to advantage Australia before a ball was bowled.

It appeared that the bad weather had cleared, and the game proceeded well, but toward the end, when the game was all but decided, it quickly descended into a bad joke (which is even less funny when you have been fueled by Red Bull and pizza for eight hours). The umpires were not consistent in their application of rules for rain delays, and did not communicate the changed conditions to the captains once the game was reduced. In the end, this was not material. The real problem arose when it became too dark to play safely, and the players were "offered" the light yet again and decided to accept it.

Was the game over? Most people thought so, especially the players from both teams. But when Aleem Dar interrupted Australia's celebrations (and the setup of the presentation) to discuss the disposition of the final three overs of play, things quickly went pear-shaped. Incredibly, the decision to play these overs was actually correct according to the rules.

In the end, it was actually a very appropriate finale to a World Cup that was too long, had too many meaningless matches, too much controversy, and not enough people actually attending. Hopefully, the ICC will act to ensure the format is improved in future. There are plenty of good suggestions about how to do this.

The big issue is: why did things get so crazy at the end?

The Duckworth-Lewis rule was created to deal with weather-shortened games in the fairest way possible. It is designed to ensure that a match can be completed with a result even if the full complement of overs is not available. However, it is predicated on the assumption that only one day is available for the match. Given that constraint, the system works well to salvage whatever is possible from one day's play.

However, in major tournaments like the Champions Trophy and the World Cup, and even in the finals of triangular series, reserve/rain days are specifically placed into the schedule to ensure that a more complete contest occurs. In the extreme case, if the primary day is rained out, they can play the whole match again on the reserve day.

Essentially, the problem is that the interaction and overlap between these two bad weather rules has not been fully considered or tested. While you would apply D/L in a certain way with only one day scheduled for the match, you may not apply it at all if you had a reserve day (e.g. not reduce overs at all, but rather continue the full first innings, and resume the match on the second day).

While a one-day game that spans two days is hardly desirable, it is the lesser of two evils compared with the farce that occurred in the 2007 World Cup. Teams that make it to the finals deserve a contest in which the weather does not taint the result. Systems like D/L arise and are refined from years of actual experience dealing with inequities and anomalies that occur from time to time. This is an opportunity to make the systems just a little better.

A better World Cup competition structure

2007-03-26T22:54:00.000+10:00

Well, having received some interesting comments on my previous post, and having watched Ireland & Bangladesh proceed, and India & Pakistan bomb out (all fully deserved), here is my proposal for a better system:

Just for the record, the majority of previous upset wins in World Cups have either been fixed, or been genuine "one-offs", rather than an indication of a team moving up the world ranks. I hope this will be proved wrong this year, with Bangladesh finally showing signs of maturing as a cricketing nation.

My goal with this alternate structure is to minimize the number of inconsequential matches, shorten the tournament (it's way too long), and give the minnows a genuine opportunity to use the World Cup to grow and mature as cricketing nations.

What we start with is splitting the pool into two groups, based on world ICC rankings at a given date prior to the tournament. The top six countries automatically go straight into the second stage of the competition. In this case, it would be SA, Aus, NZ, Pak, SL, and Ind - call it Group A.

The remaining full members, plus the minnows, go into the group matches. So they would be Eng, WI, Bang, Zim, Ken, and then Neth, Ire, Scot, Ber, Can. These are evenly split into two groups of 5 (call them Groups B1 & B2), and they each play each other. So each team plays 4 matches for a total of 8 matches in this round. When this is complete, the top two teams from each group advance to the next stage, and join Group A for the "Super 10s".

The Super 10s works just like the Super 8s: every team plays every other team once. Teams that were in Group B take points against teams that have also advanced with them into Group A. After that stage, the top 4 ranked teams go into semis and then a final, as currently.

The second stage will have a total of 43 matches. However, 15 of these (between the top 6 teams) can already be played in parallel with the Group B round.

The advantages are as follows:

There are fewer "david vs goliath" games.
Countries are rewarded for their pre-comp rankings, which makes the lead-up to the World Cup more interesting, and a greater focus on the points system.
Minnows get to play one extra game.
The games they do play are against lower ranked countries, therefore might be more competitive, and allow them to advance incrementally.
There is room in the second round for one or two minnows who are rewarded with the opportunity to play games against all the other countries.
There are 3 more games than in the current system, but because of the structure, they can be scheduled over a shorter period. The current structure has way too many breaks and that makes it very difficult for teams to maintain momentum through the tournament.

This all results in a fairer system for all teams, more competitive games, and a shorter tournament. Which can only be good for cricket!

Cricket World Cup Group Matches

2007-03-16T12:07:00.000+11:00

Well, the cricket world cup has begun in the West Indies, and the first stage consists of 24 "group matches" over a couple of weeks. The pool of 16 teams is divided into 4 groups of 4, with each group containing two "contender" teams, and two "minnows" who are either in the lower rungs of the ICC one-day rankings, or are associate ICC nations. After the group matches, the top two of each group proceed to the next stage.

This means that of the 24 matches, only 4 of them feature two contender teams, 4 of them are between two minnows, and the remaining 16 will pitch a minnow against a contender, like a lamb to the slaughter. Margins of 200+ runs have already featured in a couple of these games. Clearly the strategy for a minnow when winning the toss is to bowl first, if only to ensure they get the chance to bowl a full 50 overs against a top team.

In a long, 6-week tournament such a this, one must question the wisdom of such scheduling. Who do these games benefit? Do they assist the top teams in reaching and maintaing form? The key to winning in a format like this is to do enough to get into position for the semis, and to peak at the right time. I doubt if Sri Lanka gained anything in the context of their campain, by crushing Bermuda to the tune of 243 runs.

Can the minnows develop and gain from the experience of playing the established ICC teams? Or are they simply demoralized when these matches highlight the huge gap in competitiveness?

Many questions, yes. My suggestion for a better way is coming soon.

independent australian jewish voices

2007-03-06T19:47:00.000+11:00

When I read about this new organization, the Independent Australian Jewish Voices, it makes me think of a simple thought experiment I like to use whenever dealing with coverage or comment about the Middle East. What you do is reverse the positions of Israel and the Palestinians, and then just consider how the story reads.

For example, when Israel investigates soldiers who have allegedly used excessive force in apprehending suspected terrorists. Would you ever read a story of the Palestinians doing such a thing? You barely even read about the summary (ex-judicial) executions of alleged collaborators in Gaza! Or how about when Palestinians rejoice at the "martyrdom" of their children in a suicide attack? Can you imagine an Israeli ever beaming with pride for a fallen soldier?

Now, here are a group of eminent Australians who have followed the lead of the UK in forming a group that is fighting "equally" for the rights of Israelis and Palestinians. But that is not enough for them. The mission within the mission, according to them, is ensuring there is free debate about the Middle East in this country, and that dissenting views that are critical of Israel are not intimidated or labelled as "self-hating".

Back to our thought experiment. Imagine if you will, a group of eminent Arab scholars in Syria forming an organization whose goal is for equal rights for Jews and Arabs? For a right to speak in support of Israel and not be villified? Now, pick yourself up off the floor and stop laughing.

I'm not sure what the real motivation of this group is. If you look at the press, the story is not about advocacy (or equivalence, heaven-forbid) in the Middle East, it's actually about a group challenging "the Jewish lobby". With friend like these, who needs enemies?

violence in gaza

2007-01-29T11:48:00.000+11:00

Yet another example of Ed O'Loughlin's twisted sense of cause and effect appeared in his latest piece of the violence in Gaza. What is going on there is surely bordering on civil war between the Fatah and Hamas factions for control of the region. Palestinians are murdering Palestinians - women, children - but this doesn't receive the top billing as a news story that it might otherwise deserve. No worldwide condemnation, no UN statements. And why? It's simple. This is not Israel killing Palestinians.

Ah, but rest assured, Ed will fix that. In a story about Palestinian violence, he goes to pains to point out that ordinary life has been "devastated by Israeli bombardment". Yes, the reason that they are all murdering each other is actually because of Israel. The reason the Hamas government has been unable to effectively rule is not because the world has boycotted them in the face of their commitment to destroy Israel. No, it must be because Israel has put all its lawmakers in prison. Based on the few reports we have seen of the anarchy in Gaza, surely "Palestinian lawmaker" is an oxymoron.

Yes, Ed, it's the economic blockade that has prevented Hamas from implementing all of those economic reforms it had on the cards. They are just chomping at the bit to create jobs and infrastructure so their citizens have a future. It's all they ever talk about, isn't it?

serena williams

2007-01-28T10:57:00.000+11:00

What is it with Serena Williams? Yes, she's a damn fine tennis player. But please, dear, do stick to what you're good at. Looking at the article and photo shoot in The Age this past weekend made me cringe in an "oh my god, becky" moment. The bikini is a wonderful thing, but like on alcoholic beverages, it ought to be accompanied with a label that says "we support the responsible use of this garment".

Many things in life come from natural talent, which must be nurtured and developed to its full potential. Like the ability to hit a blistering forehand, and the ability to know what to where and when. Serena clearly was blessed with the former, but not the latter. So do the right thing, and use the financial resources available to you to hire a personal dresser. And listen to her, just like you listen to your coach! Perhaps then, you can hit some winners in the gossip mags as well.

shane warne retirement

2006-12-24T11:51:00.000+11:00

So much has been written about Shane Warne in the context of his upcoming retirement, and I've probably read too much of it. As someone who has been bowling leg-spin for a long time (not particularly well, but with great intent), there is another angle to Warne that no-one has picked up.

Warne has made leg-spin sexy. Back in the days of Jim Higgs, did you see little kids practicing leggies? I think not! But Warne bowled with such accuracy and effectiveness, he turned spin bowling back into the attacking art that it is.

In the one-day game, captains might have used an off spinner bowling fast darts to try and hold up an end in the middle overs. But they were most reluctant to throw the ball to a leg spinner for fear of them being blasted to the fence and beyond. Not any more.

His departure will leave the biggest gap in the Australian team. You always have several batsmen, and several fast bowlers, so the pipeline is usually full of up-and-comers who have already been exposed to international cricket. However, you only play one or two spinners. This means that other than McGill (who would be picked in most any other international team), you only have blokes with plenty of potential.

There is no "replacement" (like Clarke for McGrath, or Clark for Martyn). Eventually, a new premier spinner will emerge, but it may take a couple of seasons for that to happen. The big winner may well be Andrew Symonds, with the versatility to be a bit of everything (including an off spinner). His inclusion may give the team additional depth and balance to withstand the recent losses.

Besides the wickets, and the mobile phone, Warne's legacy will be that he changed the game, and that is the greatest thing any sportsperson can achieve.

ashes victory

2006-12-19T08:54:00.000+11:00

Call me un-Australian if you like, John McDonald, but this is not the result I wanted. Not yet, anyway. Having booked my tickets for the Boxing Day test months ago, I was hoping that it would still be a live rubber.

The fourth day of the 3rd test in Perth would have to rank as a classic as far as test cricket goes. Yes, England were staring down the barrel of defeat. They had to bat for two days against one of the best attacks in the world to save the game. And they managed to defy the bowlers for the good part of a day.

But this was not dour, boring, Geoffrey Boycott-style batting. The tension was there in every ball. For the entire day, they were on a knifes-edge. Ball after ball going that close to turning the game back in Australia's favour. Do you get excitement like that in the middle overs of yet another one-dayer? I think not!

You see, "hating" England is a bit like hating Collingwood. As the old joke goes:

Q. What's better than beating Collingwood by 10 goals?
A. Beating them by a point!

So what I wanted was a classical, close contest in the spirit of 2005 in England. But then, for a 2-1 scoreline coming into Sydney, a defiant 9th wicket stand by the pommies that were this close to victory, and only then to be defeated.

Such victories are ever so sweeter!

damien martyn retirement

2006-12-13T08:54:00.000+11:00

Well done Damien Martyn! You have done a great service to Australian cricket. Your pre-emptive strike at the selectors reminds them that as a player, you can choose your own destiny as well, and that if they don't take succession planning seriously, Aussie cricket will be in crisis in 2-3 years (if not sooner).

Your timing through the off-side has always been exquisite and effortless, but sometimes your shot selection has let you down. In this case, you recognized that life is not all cricket, and that your time has come. I hope history will judge you well for all of the above

A Memorable Lunch Experience

2003-10-28T16:56:00.000+11:00

(note: I wrote this back in 2003, as indicated by the post date, and am placing it now (2007) on the blog for posterity. Many of the numbers have changed since that time)

Some people have dubbed me a “gastronomic Zionist” – having traveled 8,000 miles for a decent meal. I am currently in the middle of a 10-week sojourn in Israel, principally for my family to have a living experience here, to support the Israeli economy and spirit in this time of need, and of course to enjoy some fine kosher cuisine.

Food professionals, and discerning connoisseurs will not speak simply of food, but rather of a “dining experience”, which consists of so much more than the actual meal consumed. The ambiance of the eating establishment, the menu, the presentation of the food, the accompanying wine, all contribute toward the sum total of the meal.

Today’s “lunch experience” was different. It began in the offices of Hazon Yeshaya in the Mekor Baruch neighbourhood of Jerusalem. We met the founder of the soup kitchen, a truly driven man, Avraham Israel. Avraham was born in Egypt and grew up there, as well as in France. He lived through difficult times, and at various stages in his childhood, his meals were supplied by a soup kitchen. He later moved to the US and established a successful shoe import business. The business grew to a point where he decided that he had made enough money to live, so he sold out, moved to Israel, and established Hazon Yeshaya, named after his father, around 6 years ago. He now had kitchens in Jerusalem and Rishon LeTzion (near Tel Aviv), and produces a staggering 4,000 hot meals per day., 365 days a year. He explains to us that this has been his dream and due to the terrible times that Israel is going through, he can’t process the applications fast enough.

The numbers are stunning; I press Avraham for some financials. The annual budget for the organization is $US 3 million, but their total overhead runs at just 8% of this (this includes staff, rent, utilities, and fundraising costs). They have over 100 volunteers, but just 6 paid staff, but Avraham, the founder and full-time director is not one of them. The paid staff are two head chefs for each of the kitchens, a manager, and a couple of admininistration people, and a recently appointed marketing assistant. I do some quick calculations – they produce a meal for around 8 shekels – less than $2 US. Avraham’s key role is fundraising – he spends six months of the year traveling the world raising money.

He introduces us to a key staff member, who validates every person who wishes to obtain meals from the soup kitchen. She comes in and shows us an example of her work: she interviews each applicant, visits them in their home, and checks all the necessary documents that prove they are genuinely in need. It is a rigorous process, and somewhat unpleasant for both parties, but necessary to ensure that the system is not undermined by fraud. Avraham tells me that she works late many nights, has 11 children of her own, and does her work entirely as a volunteer.

We move on and check out one of the kitchens, which is five minutes walk from the office. There is lots of very large commercial equipment – a full height hot box with about 20 shelves of shnitzels, a massive stainless steel “thing” with more cooked rice than I have ever seen in one place at one time. In an adjacent room, a handful of people are peeling vegetables – preparing for tomorrow.

Next stop is the day care centre. Day care? I thought this was a soup kitchen. But to Avraham, day care is an obvious extension. In Israel, education is free to all children from age 6, but day care for ages 3-5 is not. So he starts a centre to cater for the children of families receiving food. Not only does this give the children two meals per day, and free day care of a high standard, but it gives the parents the chance to get out of the house and try to find work. He also houses a warehouse of clothing and shoes for children in need.

The organization runs out of eleven rented locations in Jerusalem, including the actual food distribution centres. There are a handful more in Rishon LeTzion. They also do deliveries for those who are unable to get out themselves. We now walk to the newest extension – Avraham has just bought a building. It is a massive place, and he plans to pull it down, and build a multi-level centre that includes a much larger kitchen, a consolidated day care (with plenty of space both inside and out for the children), and also a hostel for “Chayalim Bodedim” – soldiers from abroad who need a home away from home while they are completing their army service. The total project cost: around $US 6 million.

Finally, we get in our car and drive to one of the food distribution centres in the poor neighborhood of Katamonim, for “lunch”. We get there and the meal service is nearly complete. I look around at the “guests” – there are quite a few elderly folk, but also plenty of middle aged and young people. The demographic is a mix – some orthodox, some secular. More recently, they have received many applications from families who were able to make ends meet, but have recently lost their jobs due to the difficult economic situation, and now cannot afford to feed their families.

Avraham invites us to go behind the counter and serve, which we do. There are lines of people for chicken soup, and for the main course, which consists of chicken, rice, and beans. Before long my wife and I are dishing it out like professionals, and our kids are handing out bread and fruit. It was so dignified. Everyone says thank you, but we thank them back for the privilege of serving them – my wife has tears in her eyes.

The food look and smells tasty – but I dare not even try it: this food is “hekdesh” – consecrated. It has been donated by others to feed people in need, and certainly not to feed me.

After everyone has received their meal, there is still food remaining, but a new line forms and we are now filling containers with whatever food is left over for the recipients to take home, either for their families, or to eat later that day. A few minutes later the pots are empty. An elderly man gets up to help wash up so he feels he is doing something to reciprocate.

This is truly a lunch experience like no other. The ambiance is warm and inviting, the menu is pragmatic, and the wine list is non-existent. But the food and service has a magical ingredient you will not find in restaurants: love of a fellow Jew, and the desire to reach out and help those less fortunate than ourselves. I leave the venue physically hungry, but emotionally and spiritually truly satiated.