THE PEOPLE SMUGGLER, ROBIN DE CRESPIGNY, PENGUIN VIKING, 2012
By Jenny Haines
This is an important book in the debate about refugees, asylum seekers and people smugglers. It should be read by all members of federal parliament, some of whom stood weeping in parliament during the debate on asylum seekers in 2012, and then allowed the reopening of the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres to add to the misery they claimed to be so concerned about.
The Iron Lady
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent
Reviewed by Jenny Haines
The curse of our lives is that as we get older all we are left with, as children leave home and the next generation moves in to our workplaces, is our memories. The Iron Lady, a movie written by Abi Morgan, portrays an aged Margaret Thatcher living with her memories in the confusion of old age, not sure any more what is real and what is not.
By Jenny Haines
In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald’s National Times section on December 22, Robert Manne, stated his opinion that the left got it wrong on boat people.
Manne notes the current stalemate between the political parties in parliament and does not resile from his opposition to John Howard’s Pacific Solution cruelties, but he criticises the left for not recognising the efficiency of the Pacific Solution in reducing the numbers of refugees arriving by boat.
BOB’S FUNERAL – 26.5.11
Thank you all for coming today. Bob would have been really pleased to see friends and foes, Labor, Green and Far Left supporters all in the same room and he would have been trying to figure in his head how it could all be turned in to a political force and not just a gathering at his funeral. One thing he wanted to see in his lifetime was a resurgence of the Left and he could only see it ever happening through supporters of all the parties and groups putting aside their differences and working on the commonalities.
A review
Killer Company. James Hardie Exposed, by Matt Peacock, ABC Books, 2009.
James Hardie lied. The company executives knew for decades the dangers of asbestos.
A film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, distributed by Warner Bros. In cinemas now
Gran Torino is produced and directed by Clint Eastwood and he is also the star of the film, but this may be the last Clint Eastwood film.
Jenny Haines
A Ron Howard Film for Universal Studios starring Frank Langella as Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as David Frost. Now showing, all cinemas
In this film Ron Howard brings to the screen a Broadway play about a series of interviews David Frost did with Richard Nixon after his resignation from the US presidency.
Shane Weaver, Bantam Press, 2003
Reviewed by Jenny Haines
When trendy liberals and avowed socialists talk about the working class, it is often without having any personal experience of working class life. Shane Weaver’s book about growing up in Blacktown in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s is a personal and painful recounting of his working class childhood, in a family that lived with the terror of a drunken stepfather and random domestic violence. The cover of the book recounts just some of the terror the family lived with: “the screen door bangs shut. The silence that follows is like the collective intake of breath between the split second a guillotine falls and when it thuds home…unable to get a clear shot, he rips the bed away from the wall. I scream as the first lick of the electric cord stings my back…”
Jenny Haines
The Secret River, by Kate Grenvill, Text Publishing, Melbourne 2005
Recently Kevin Rudd on behalf of the Australian Parliament and the people said sorry to the aboriginal people of Australia for the past appalling mistreatment, abuse and massacres. But after reading The Secret River I wonder if saying sorry once is enough or if we should keep saying it again every year for the next 220 years.
Jenny Haines
Something unusual and historic in the NSW Labor Party happened today. About 200 active rank and file members of the party filled the Sydney Trades Hall auditorium for a forum, in revolt against the plans by the parliamentary party in power to privatise the electricity industry in NSW.
Jenny Haines
The Breaking Point, Hemingway, Dos Passos and the Murder of Jose Robles, by Stephen Koch, Robson Books, 2006
When I was given The Breaking Point, as a birthday present, I approached the book with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The title alone spark my interest, but I am not a fan of murder mysteries. But this is no ordinary murder mystery.
Jenny Haines
Sugar Slaves, made by Film Australia and the ABC, executive producer Sharon Connolly, director/co-producer Trevor Graham, producer, Penny Robins. Available on DVD
As the Rudd Government prepares to say sorry to indigenous Australians on February 12, it is to be hoped that the apology will include the Pacific Islanders, or Kanakas as they were once widely called, who are descendants of what the traders called “blackbirding”, but the islanders call the Pacific slave trade.
Jenny Haines
Suite Francais is an unfinished novel by Irene Nemirovsky, written at the time of the fall of France and its occupation by the Nazis. It was meant to be a suite of stories, similar to a symphony, but only two parts of the suite were completed before the author was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1942.
Jenny Haines
War on Democracy, a film by John Pilger
As a country whose own revolution was inspired by the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, the US might be expected have more insight and understanding of the demands and needs of the peoples of Latin America and the Carribean.
Jenny Haines
Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures. A True Story from Hell on Earth, by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson, Ebury Press, 2004
If you picked up a book at a book fair titled Emergency Sex, you might expect something different from this book’s actual content. There are only a few accounts of desperate sexual encouters while passing through holiday destinations.
