2016

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Jun42016

BOOK REVIEW Tragic betrayal

MUSIC CINEMA & BOOKS, UncategorizedJune 4, 2016

THE LOST MANDATE OF HEAVEN: The American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam by Geoffrey D.T. Shaw Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2015 Hardback: 314 pagesPrice: AUD$38.75 Reviewed by Anthony Staunton Geoffrey Shaw, a Canadian Associate Professor of History for the American Military University, presents the story of the rise and betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first President of South Vietnam. Diem was born into one of Vietnam’s “great families” and was a well-educated Catholic who was immersed in Confucian thought and was prepared to guide Vietnam from the colonial and post-war eras into modern…

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Jun42016

BOOK REVIEW Great reformer or great dictator?

MUSIC CINEMA & BOOKS, UncategorizedJune 4, 2016

DENG XIAOPING: A revolutionary life by Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine Oxford University Press, New York, 2015 Hardcover: 640 pagesPrice: AUD$41.95 Reviewed by Jeffry Babb A long time ago, before I studied history at university, I was having a discussion with a friend over what constituted a great man. By what standards should he be judged? Take Deng Xiaoping, the subject of this excellent biography, for example. As an economic reformer, Deng is unmatched in world history by any objective criteria. His policies lifted hundreds of millions of people – almost the entire population of…

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Jun42016

MUSIC Digital sonics by no means free of glitches

MUSIC CINEMA & BOOKSJune 4, 2016

The problem with technology, at least when used in creating music, is that it gives with one hand and takes away with the other. The technological advances in recording and sound production have profoundly changed the way most kinds of music are made. But it has not always been for the better; indeed it has been mostly for the worse. One device common in recordings of popular music (far less classical or jazz) is the use of isolated recordings for each instrument. In popular music recordings until the 1960s and into the 1970s, the bands would play together. Producing a…

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LETTERS

POETRY LETTERS & HUMOURMay 21, 2016

Safe Schools and freedom of information Sir, Wendy Francis, Queensland director for the Australian Christian Lobby, asked the Queensland Government to provide a list of the schools participating in the Safe Schools program. She was told that the list was secret, so she had to make an application under Freedom of Information laws. It is understandable that the Queensland Government is jittery about letting out too much information about its plans to educate school children. The “Safe Schools” program is useless as an anti-bullying campaign, with practically nothing organised to combat the real causes of bullying, such as race, religion,…

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