Rhian they knew what they all were doing in the first place, otherwise do not start something criminal, money being the object to gain by selling to fools, but it failed perhaps you can advise us all on OLO where the money has come from for all the expenses, the funeral of one was an extravaganza which would have cost plenty, crime does pay which is completely wrong.
Many feel for them as you obviously do, but the majority of people do not, out of about 100 replies to a newspaper article 99.9% were not for them and most I know say they deserve what they got, thank goodness this whole saga is hopefully over, now we have someone with ice caught on them in China, didn't know it was there, what bull, a pair of sandshoes do not weigh the weight of the ice in his case, I didn't know it was there, crap, crap and crap! you deserve your fate, you know the laws of the country before you begin, so accept those laws.

Roscop
o sung wu described the author’s decision to take a year off to open a restaurant as “extravagance and prodigality”. Seems a bit harsh to me.

Where is your evidence that Dr Tewari has less concern for battered wives than the Bali 2? Empathy is not a hoard of scarce coins, which if given to one person cannot be given to another. Quite the reverse: people who have empathy for one person or group seem to me more likely to express empathy for others. This is one of the points the article makes. And in my experience the reverse is also true – for example, a large proportion of people on these forums who have no sympathy for the Bali 2 also express no sympathy for asylum seekers, for example.

My point about media attention and public debate was not to show the level of sympathy for the Bali 2, but to show the level of public interest in the case, which Onjab denied.

Dr Di Natale may well be advocating public policy affecting heath, but he is not practicing medicine. Given the Greens’ marginal political influence it is unlikely he’ll have much success.

Onjab
Yes I know they knew what they were doing, and I am not pretending they were saints. As I have said, they committed a serious crime and deserved to be punished. But 10 years on death row followed by a bullet in the chest seems cruel and excessive.

It’s hard to tell where be balance of opinion is on this. In my daily newspaper the balance of letters is about 50-50 in sympathy with the Bali 2, but that could be an attempt at editorial “balance”.

Rhian,

"Where is your evidence that Dr Tewari has less concern for battered wives than the Bali 2?" Herein!

Dr Tewari is writing about the treatment given to criminals...he is not writing about "battered wives" who are everywhere, even on the north shore suburbs of Sydney according to survey done by Salvos some time ago(the "battered women" in the north shore suburbs don't go to refuges because refuges don't have swimming pools and tennis courts). Isn't that a ranking of the doctor's concerns?

Thanks for the responses.

In response to me prioritising the two men recently executed over battered wives, that's absolutely untrue. In fact, the point of the article is to highlight how such an accusation is inconsistent.

Roscop, I could use your comments as an example of how poor such reasoning is. You've written about battered wives (and I agree domestic violence is an enormous cultural cancer we need to address), but did you write about the 3.1 million children who die of poor nutrition every year? Does that mean you don't care about them? Should I accuse you of hypocrisy?

On the contrary, empathy is something we should all practice more. It is not of finite quantity that you should use sparingly. And I very much agree with Rhian who infers that those who tend to practice empathy less, empathise less in general. I was actually at Myuran's funeral, and almost every speaker made a note to encourage the attendees to continue fighting the death penalty. It was obvious the funeral wasn't just about Myuran, but about the cause as a whole

In regards to the comment about my career choices, I've explained earlier that I consider our treatment of animals (along with climate change and death from preventable disease) as one of the most urgent social justice issues of our time. I advise you to research factory farming, watch the countless expose on farming practices and consider the food you eat every day. If I can be part of that solution, then I consider it enormously useful. In fact, I am positive that we will have to explain to our grandchildren how we were complicit in such barbaric treatment of our fellow animals.

However, I also love medicine and I will practicing that as well. I'll reiterate though that medical degrees are used for numerous careers such as business, politics, health advisory, law etc. I wonder if you are as critical towards doctors who choose to take a gap year and travel? I know many doctors who've taken years off to pursue sporting interest, artistic interests etc. And for the main part, they are generally encouraged. Ultimately you are criticising me for how I use my time, and I think that's very, very strange. Can you actually justify how you use your time? Are you saying we are all morally obligated to try to do as much as possible every day to be of greatest benefit to humanity?

Lastly, I'll note that, contrary to what you're saying, medical graduates are in abundant supply - it is actually the training positions that are rare. There is a common term "medical student tsunami" that refers to this coming trend of an explosion of graduates without training positions.

Either way, I'd probably rather stick to a discussion about the article as opposed to whether I should defend university graduates who choose to pursue other interests (serious or recreational) in their own time.

Amit it seems strange you went to the funeral and what did you go for? was it idle curiosity like so many media funerals these days, daresay you never knew him personally so why bother going, it proves nothing, you could have prayed for him in your own backyard, which would of had the same meaning as being present there.
Having previously asked where has the money come from to afford an extravaganza funeral, with no answers, also who has been paying expensive lawyers, did it come from previous junkie trips to Indonesia? they were drug mules and knew the consequences of their actions and could make them very rich.
We only hope the taxpayer has not had to fork out for two misfits who can only blame themseves for being executed, perhaps you can enlighten us all?, perhaps all those at the funeral opened their wallets and paid for the extravaganza, but I think not, idle curiosity only.