Patrick Allington (May 2008) astutely discerned an essential characteristic – I consider it a flaw – of The Best Australian Political Writing 2008, which was edited by Tony Jones of the ABC. He did not quite nail it down, however: I think that the book would have been better described as the ‘best’ political journalism because that, overwhelmingly, is what it really is (furthermore, it is exclusively print journalism). It completely lacks academic, or what one might term ‘reflective’, writing. That is part of the reason why, as Allington correctly insisted, some of the pieces are dated and, indeed, remain rather flat on the page.

Tamas Pataki opens his review of Antony Loewenstein’s My Israel Question (October 2006) with a lengthy denunciation of the recent war in Lebanon. He decries Israel’s counterattack against Hezbollah as an ‘atrocity’, citing the ‘awful statistics’ of Lebanon’s larger casualty toll as evidence of the Jewish state’s nefariousness. But this is a curious calculus that ignores questions of who breached the peace by attacking whom, and the ethics of using civilians to shield military operations. The fatuousness of Pataki’s moral yardstick becomes apparent when it is applied to World War II. Germany suffered far greater casualties than the Western Allies. Surely this did not confer upon Nazism the status of righteous victim in that conflict. Pataki uncritically parrots Loewenstein’s contention that Israel’s ‘illegal occupation’ is the ‘cause of legitimate Palestinian resistance’. If by ‘occupation’ he means the territories captured by Israel in 1967, the timeline of conflict tells a different story. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation was founded in 1964 with the goal of Israel’s destruction. Arab violence against Jewish communities in the Holy Land even preceded the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. So it seems that the ‘cause’ of terrorism is, after all, not Israel’s presence in the West Bank but, rather, Israel’s presence in any form.

Behind the ‘myth’

Dear Editor,

As an unexpected child of the Depression years, I know how one working-class family coped with the economic difficulties that Geoffrey Bolton refers to in his review of David Potts’s The Myth of the Great Depression (October 2006). My father was an unskilled labourer, often out of work. His wages were supplemented by a small war-service disability pension. Some proportion of this income was handed over to my mother, who was expected to pay the mortgage, manage the household and feed five mouths (for I had two older siblings). Even with the income from occasional embroidery and dressmaking that she undertook, this was impossible. Her solution, when we sat down for dinner, was to put out five plates, leaving her own place empty. If my father asked why she was not eating, she would say she was not hungry, and would retire to the kitchen to weep or to find a piece of bread or fruit. So it was not half the population of the household that went hungry, only twenty per cent.

Dear Editor,

The Australian Society of Authors has written to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to oppose any moves to ban books. The ASA is very concerned by any move to ‘ban books’ under the guise of ‘counselling, urging, providing instruction or praising terrorism’ and hence determined as seditious. Under current law, it is a crime to publish ‘seditious words’, and the provisions within that law enable federal and state jurisdictions to take action if warranted. It is the view of the ASA that our members currently operate responsibly within this restriction and will continue to do so, even when critical of any government in power at the time.

Owen Richardson’s review of D.B.C. Pierre’s novel Ludmila’s Broken English (ABR, May 2006) was a bit harsh – not to mention mean-spirited and way off the mark. As a Texan, I can tell you that Pierre nailed the big-haired women who surrounded Vernon. I, for one, was immediately transported back to small-town Texas. Pierre has the most unique voice I’ve read in a long, long time. ‘Sophomoric and tritely executed satire’? No. It is very funny, it is original and it rings true.

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ADB replies to Paul Brunton

Dear Editor,

Paul Brunton has written of the quotas used in the selection of subjects for inclusion in the Australian Dictionary of Biography in a review (ABR, February 2006) headed ‘Mysterious quotas’, and in a follow-up letter (ABR, April 2006).

Beverley Kingston’s riposte (ABR, March 2006) to my review of the ADB Supplement 1580–1980 (ABR, February 2006) accuses me of ‘reflecting the traditional bias of those early volumes in considering the work of the stock and station agent more worthy than that of the cookery teacher’. I do not. I pointed out that the same space allocated to a writer of a cookery book of only regional significance had also been given to three generations of proprietors of an Australia-wide family company. This was in the context of my comment that the space given to those of national significance had perforce been reduced because many entries were for those of only regional importance. Worthiness has nothing to do with it. There are thousands of worthy Australians who will never grace the pages of the ADB.

Walk the path

Dear Editor,

I was stimulated by Tamas Pataki’s essay ‘Against Religion’ (ABR, February 2006). That monotheistic God is a product of infantile separation anxiety is a familiar and plausible view. Pataki’s observation that ‘religious identity easily becomes an instrument of narcissistic assertion and aggression’ also rang true for me. Likewise his remark that ‘bullying is an inseparable feature of monotheism’. Yet the essay was entitled ‘Against Religion’. I’d be interested to hear what Pataki has to say about faiths that don’t fit the monotheistic mould. Are they just as delusional and dangerous to liberality and the rule of law? I’m thinking of religions that stem from the Vedic root (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism).