Good look at what spurs sabre rattling

Certainly, religion has backed wars. War-mongering leaders have enlisted religion in support of their military campaigns. The Christian god was invoked by both sides during WW1, when unprecedented industrial-scale killing and destruction was conducted. Many soldiers have fought and died, believing that their cause was just. If they died, they would be rewarded in heaven. Many even believed that their god would reward them for killing innocent civilians.

In his atheistic anthem Imagine John Lennon, pictured, identifies religion as a cause of conflict. But he also identifies countries, possessions and greed. He asks us to share and harmonise, so that we can end hunger and that there will be nothing to die for.

Maybe Lennon was 'a dreamer'.

Wars are fought and people are killed for all sorts of reasons besides religion: political ideology, nationalism, control of resources, climate, living space, authoritarian leaders' narcissism, etc.

However, to paraphrase Steven Weinberg, "but for (otherwise) good men to do evil things, it takes religion".

A RECENT correspondence praising the university choir has prompted me to mention its founder, Ulric Berstein. I was recently visiting the town of Katikati in the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand, Ulric's home town. The regional historian at the museum and library was very excited to show me the high profile the Berstein family had in the region.

Ulric's musical talents led him to roles including conductor with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and his father, Dr Joseph Berstein, has legendary status amongst the Maori population for his services.

Ulric's hard work in founding the Hunter orchestra and the still performing university choir is hopefully remembered by Novocastrians.

Recently a correspondent complained about traffic in King Street extended in Newcastle West. He used what I consider to be an offensive term, "rat run".

If a person does something that is lawful, and in a lawful manner, then it has to be accepted. Besides, a solution to what some see as a nuisance is easily at hand.

If you look behind the row of fig trees along Stewart Avenue, you will see another row of smaller, younger figs. These were planted a few decades ago so that the front row could then be removed to facilitate a left-turn lane into King Street. Such a move would mean less delay for south-bound traffic.

But this great, long-range plan has been scuttled by objections to removing the trees. Why, when old trees produce far less oxygen than virile young trees.

And the little ones would get far more sunlight. So even more oxygen would be produced. Authorities should stick to their guns and deliver on this brilliant, decades old plan.

I want to vent my frustration about Westpac. I was trying to get money out of a Westpac ATM this week. It kept showing a message that I had overdrawn my limit for the day. I went into the bank to see a teller, as I knew I had not made any withdrawals that day. The teller said the bank's systems were down and that was probably the problem at the ATM.

I asked if I could get the money out over the counter and she said yes. I could put my PIN in, but I would need photo identification, such as my licence as identification. Not a problem, I had it on the Services NSW app.

She told me that she couldn't accept it, that I would need a hard copy of my licence or some other photo ID as they were a national company and they don't accept the digital copy. I was dumbfounded, as the plastic copy of my licence is easier to forge than the digital one on Services NSW site as I have to log in either with a fingerprint or a password then they send a message to check it's me.

What an absolute stupid situation, as my hard copy driver's licence and Services NSW is operated by the same section of the NSW Government and Westpac won't acknowledge the latter. Wake up Westpac.

We are all being pushed to go digital and cashless. When a world power decides to hack our systems and we have no way of retrieving cash or Identifying ourselves, what happens next?

Does Anthony Albanese and his mob seriously think that putting a tax on empty houses owned by overseas investors will help the housing and rental crisis? Wealthy owners could easily afford to pay the tax anyway, and how many people could afford to pay the asking rent on these types of luxury homes? Very few, I believe. Would it not make more sense to encourage renters to consider moving to regional areas where there are cheaper and more plentiful homes available, especially as working from home is popular and there's plenty of work for tradies? This wouldn't fix the problem, but it would be a start.

As a suggestion, has Donna Page followed up with Bob Carr about the three letters he received, apparently from Scott Neylon, quite a few years ago? This piece of information was in the paper some months ago. Perhaps the present Labor party members would be interested. I am following the "sorry saga" in the paper.

No doubt China will attempt to buy the votes of the impoverished people of the Soloman Islands to keep their aligned supporter, Sogavare, in power. Let's hope the people are alert to Chinese tactics in Hong Kong and Taiwan and their style of iron-fisted rule and aspirations of sovereignty in the south Pacific and dispose of their current leader.

WELL written Tony Morley (Big thanks to Hunter Water NH 16/12). I too, would like to compliment Hunter Water in recent dealings regarding water problems. It is refreshing these days to deal with professional and courteous people and like Mr Morley, I found the woman on the other end of the phone extremely helpful and obliging. People are quick to criticise when things go wrong, but I have nothing but praise and rate my experience as 10 out of 10.