Good grief- I am so behind in blogging this listening! However, I mainly do it for my own purposes, in keeping track of what I listened to and when, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
The Rest is History Episode 434 Luther: The Revolution Begins (Part 2) According to legend, one of the reasons that Luther became a monk was because of a thunderstorm. It must have been quite a storm, but perhaps another reason was to get away from his father’s ambitions that he become a lawyer. His father was not pleased, standing up to question during Luther’s induction as a monk “Was it the Devil that sent the thunderstorm?” In becoming an Augustinian monk, Luther was buying into the spiritual economy of the time i.e. getting a fast track to God. He studied theology at Wittenburg University, a university under the patronage of Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, one of the electors of the Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick wanted celebrity academics at his university, and Luther became a professor of the Bible. He ordered that a bible be printed for him without the glosses and footnotes, and began writing up theses rejecting Aristotelian philosophy and medieval theology that had dominated thinking, arguing that we should rely on The Bible Alone. Then a friar called Johann Tetzel rolled into Saxony, claiming to sell indulgences, which would allow sinful locals to shorten their stay in purgatory. This spurred Luther to have his 95 theses document printed (not nailed up onto the door) and the fight was on.
Rear Vision (ABC) Rear Vision recently had a 2 part series about the two-state solution which our Government, along with other Western governments, has been calling for more loudly since the invasion of Gaza in response to October 7. The first part The Middle East Conflict and the Two-state solution is a replay of a 2009 episode. Modern calls for a two-state solution began in 1917 where Balfour made a promise of ‘from the river to the sea’ to both Zionists and the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration was put directly into the British Mandate which gave civil and religious rights to “the others” – who just happened to be 90% of the population. There was an Arab uprising in 1936-9, leading to the Peel Commission, which recommended a two-state solution which was rejected by the Arabs – and then WW2 intervened. In 1947 Palestine was handed over to the UN, which gave more than 50% of the land to the Jews. The Declaration of Israel in 1948 led immediately to war, which eventuated with Jewish occupation of 78% of the land. The PLO was formed in 1964, and further wars in 1967 and 1973 saw the Israeli capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Another uprising in the 1980s led to the realization that uprising did not mean sovereignty, and the Palestinians moved towards a two-state solution The 1993 Oslo Accord did not mention two states, and further uprisings between 2000 and 2005 marked the continuing distrust between the Palestinians and Israelis.
The second part The Two-State Solution: A Way Forward or More of the Same takes us up to 2024. Illegal settlements began in Palestinian territory in the early 1970s, as Israeli politics oscillated between Labor and Likud. Camp David came closest to a two-state solution, but all the politicians involved were lame-duck incumbents. A split opened up between the PLO and Hamas. Originally the presence of 100,000 illegal settlers was seen as the point of no return for a 2-state solution. There are now 750,000 settlers in the occupied territories and none of the big players are pushing for two states anymore: not the Republicans in US, not Hamas and not Likud. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza, but it never gave up control of border crossings or property rights.
Things Fell Apart (BBC) Season 2 Episode 8: Mikki’s Hero’s Journey focuses on Mikki Willis, an independent filmmaker who has been involved, to a lesser or major extent, in all the preceding episodes of this series. His brother had died of AIDS, and Mikki blamed AZT which was, at the time, a harsh but ultimately effective treatment. He was strongly influenced by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journal, not as a piece of analysis, but as a prescription for action. He set up his documentary company after 9/11 and at first became famous through a YouTube video praising his son for choosing a Little Mermaid doll with a credit note at the toy shop (he has since taken this video down). He interviewed Judy Mikovits as part of his Plandemic documentary, he was at the Capitol during the riots, and he particularly blames Dr Anthony Fauci (who had also been involved in AZT all those years ago.
In the finale How Things Fell Apart Bonus Episode, Jon Ronson chats with fellow podcaster Adam Buxton about the making of the podcast, and how to sensitively interview people whose views of reality clash completely with your own.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 