City 'vibrant' with crime
ACT POLITICIANS have long wanted the city to have greater ''vibrancy''.
Judging by the crime statistics (Sunday Canberra Times, February 19, p4), they have succeeded.
J. S. Dowden, Deakin
SIMON Corbell is quoted as saying that the 2011 crime data reflects a downturn in crime (''Is your area a hot spot?'', Sunday Canberra Times, February 19, p4).
This does not necessarily follow.
Our car has been broken into or vandalised five times in the past three years. We only reported it the first time.
There were two reasons for this: the police lack of interest, and because we did not need a report number for insurance purposes.
The only way to gauge the actual level of crime would be through doing a house to house survey.
C. Williams, Forrest
Not very graceful
ARCHBISHOP Mark Coleridge (Letters, February 19), recently appointed to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, refuses to talk to long-standing Canberra Times religious reporter, Graham Downie, because Downie is ''encumbered''?
I suspect the offending encumbrance consists of Downie's propensity to sniff out humbug.
If Coleridge continues to push antiquated Vatican views on the general community, while enjoying a tax-free existence from a privileged vista over Lake Burley Griffin, he should expect continued ''encumbered'' reporting.
The archbishop may fantasise about a world that kowtows to his ''narrative'', but I can assure him the real world includes a growing cohort disinclined to kiss his ring.
Peter Robinson, Ainslie
IT WAS with great disappointment that I read Archbishop Mark Coleridge's response to Graham Downie's article of February 12 ''The way I see it'', p24).
Using emotive language such as ''peeved'' and ''resented'', his assumptions of Downie's motives and the vitriol contained within the piece meant any message the archbishop wanted to convey was lost.
Addressing Downie's comments in a mature way would have meant the last three paragraphs of the response were redundant.
Christine Lancaster, Lyneham
Bell curve method flaws
EMMA Macdonald's prolific compilation of articles on My School and school funding in yesterday's Canberra Times (''My School results produce surprises'', pp1, 2) provides much to explain why school funding and the My School systems have proven so challenging for politicians and the public at large, and so unfair on public schools and some non-government schools like Blue Gum Community School and ACT Catholic schools (see Forum, pp 6, 7).
The article ''An opportunity for all'' shows that Canberra Girls' Grammar and Canberra (Boys') Grammar have SES scores of 125 - indicating just 25 per cent above the Australia-wide average.
But children at these schools have parents with university qualifications at about five times the rate of schools Australia-wide on average, and income levels about twice average levels. SES scores for these schools should therefore be at least 200 or so, and they only come down to a ridiculously low 125 because of the totally unjustified practice of transforming data which is not bell curved (normally distributed, that is) on to a bell curve.
The ICSEA scores listed on page 21 in the My School spread - showing Girls' Grammar and Canberra Grammar with implausibly low scores of 1189 and 1187 respectively - confirm that ICSEA and SES scores share the same huge technical flaws, and these flaws mean that the ICSEA adjusted tables shown in the Sunday Canberra Times are extremely unfair on public schools, whose ICSEA scores should generally be much further below those of the Grammar schools than the listed figures indicate.
Mark Drummond, Kaleen
Toxic political boil
TO SAY the least, the internecine struggle between Prime Minister Gillard and Mr Rudd is a very disheartening affair.
In some ways, I'm reminded of the penchant for super powers to back particular leaders (aka dictators) to suit their short-term interests; only for it to turn sour, disastrous.
In this instance, it suited Labor to promote a ''deeply flawed'' man as the one to bring them out from the wilderness.
Thus, after a short-lived honeymoon, reality: the leader's flaws could no longer be contained by spin, or drowned-out by the elation of being in power.
From the Promised Land of government, a new wilderness emerged: one of 24-hour ''chaos and dysfunction'' that infected all and sundry: cabinet, caucus, the public service, the factions - the lot.
The one who had liberated his party from the pews of opposition had become, according to his ''beneficiaries'', the oppressor: ''demeaning, arrogant, disloyal''. What a mess.
What a shame: generally good, capable, community-centred men and women, undermined by that atavistic urge to power, to success, to being number one.
And while a ''wooden spoon'' looms large over this Labor team, perhaps the lancing of this toxic political boil might allow for some much needed healing, and for the real Julia et al to emerge?
Peter Day, Queanbeyan, NSW
Don't foot folk fest bill
AS REPORTED in the Sunday Canberra Times of February 19 (''Folk fest calls for support'', p3), the National Folk Festival organisers will be seeking increased government support in this year's budget.
Such requests have little merit, as what is being sought is funding from the general community to underpin what is essentially a feel-good discretionary activity for a vested interest group.
The short answer is if the organisers of the festival cannot make ends meet they should put their prices up. This is called pay-as-you-go.
Unfortunately, the ACT government is reported to be in the same boat as the folk festival, with a substantial budget shortfall predicted for this year.
Brian Brocklebank, Bruce
Language lesson
''THE JOY of lex and the satisfaction of precision'' (February 19, p24) takes licence and challenges one's humour.
As Jack Waterford notes, a penchant for lexicographical precision can be assisted by a passing acquaintance with ''grammar or Latin (or Greek)''. Therein lies the rub, for the word lex is from the third declension Latin, lex legis, meaning law.
As a lawyer, Mr Waterford would know the precise limitations of this arcane discipline.
Lexicon, however, has a completely different etymology. It is taken directly from the Greek where it means ''of or for words'' and further derives from the noun lexis, meaning speech or word and the verb lego, meaning to say or speak.
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor
Welcome back Warden
GENTLE reproof is warranted for your inexplicable failure to recognise and place on Saturday's page 1 the real news of the day, namely the return of Ian Warden, sole remaining practitioner of irony in the ACT, to write the Gang-gang column (The Canberra Times, February 25, p3).
Long after the current political hoo-hah is forgotten, Warden will be shining through, a scourge to all Maxworthy-ites and champion of such essential exotica as the songs of Kinky Friedman.
Old guys out here are rejoicing: you have struck an essential blow against age-ism.
John Robbins, Farrer
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