Is ageism why the ANU music school is dumping experience?

This was allegedly to make room for "a new generation".

Presumably these will be people at even lower salaries than the paltry ones being paid to these elders of Australian music teaching and practice.

A dreadful story indeed. Do the budget managers at the ANU School of Music not know that these teacher musicians are a store of immeasurable gold?

David Pereira and Tor Fromyhr should be honoured and celebrated for their commitment and longevity, and the value they thereby bring to our young students, not disposed of as "too old".

How stupid is the ANU? Do they not know value, only price?

Have these two venerable performers and teachers upset some young budget monkey?

What civilised society throws away teachers of their calibre?

The word Semite refers to people who speak Semitic languages.

Both Jews and Arabs are Semitic.

Originally, anti-Semitism meant persecution of either group but more recently, the term anti-Semitic (in several dictionaries) refers solely to persecution, hatred or criticism against the Jewish people.

As Netanyahu raves about anti-Semitism, is he conscious of the irony.

Former planning chiefs Malcolm Snow and Sally Barnes have left us with a damaged lake.

West Basin is now reduced to half the size of East Basin. It has had its valued public parkland replaced by a pocket park on lake infill, with a dense apartment estate to follow.

Now an ugly concrete promenade that causes wave action when it is windy is where once a reedy shoreline absorbed waves and provided wildlife habitat. The former popular West Basin concessions for paddle boats and bike hire were booted out all for the "great" development and future payola to the ACT.

Lately lake activation has been a chief planning goal. While restaurants and cafes are welcome, other ideas with paying concessioners come and go as one-day wonders.

Let's value the lake for what it is; a significant tranquil city space, central in our national capital and designed for the Australian public. It needs to be well managed, cherished, protected and not damaged with incremental chipping away.

Bridging the lake for the light rail on Commonwealth Avenue, as desired by the ACT government, will continue to be a structural difficulty, a financial burden and a traffic nightmare.

Run the light rail along Parkes Way or Constitution Avenue and use the shorter lake crossing at Kings Avenue, thus providing transport to major work hubs, a superb view of our Parliament from across the lake and an available to link to the airport.

There is time now for Ms Doran to revisit that option.

Relax Doug Hurst (Letters, February 22), the kiwi navy is there to fill the gap until our new fleet is ready.

Seriously though, it is obvious surface vessels are nothing more than floating targets (as the Ukrainians have demonstrated by sinking no less than three Russian warships with drones alone).

In any case, this latest proposal by our government is nothing more than an unachievable political stunt. It is just as farcical and financially irresponsible as the Barr Government's tram to Woden.

The Alexander Maconochie Centre is reportedly failing to deter people from reoffending, failing to rehabilitate, and failing to make the community safer.

At the same time it's the most expensive prison in Australia. It's now costing ACT taxpayers $543.19 a day to incarcerate a prisoner at the AMC, while in NSW the cost per inmate per day in 2021/22 was $286.89. That was lower than the national average of $294.90.

Perhaps it's time to close the AMC as a failed social experiment, and return to using the much less expensive NSW prison system.

The National Immunisation Guidelines specify that those who are immunocompromised should get the shingles vaccine.

However it is only available to four sub categories of the immunocompromised.

Who in the federal health system came up with this division of the immunocompromised?

The federal government should just allow all of us to receive the vaccine under the national program.

I am trying to sort out my attitude to big cars. Families are mostly smaller now but cars are getting bigger. Is it an insecurity and a status thing?

Long ago, in our modest station wagon, we trekked north for every Christmas. Together we played "eye spy", sang songs and listened to story tapes. (The Snow Goose every year and sometimes a new Cadfael story from the Narnia Bookshop in Tamworth).

Can you do this in bigger cars with fewer children? Do journeys become isolating with separate entertainments? I'm just wondering.

Closer to the truth. I am wary, even afraid of SUVs and powerful utilities on roads and in carparks. Surely they are expensive to run and what for? Accidents still happen.

The most energising song from Oklahoma is Oh What a beautiful Morning. Its most memorable line is "the corn is as high as an elephant's eye, and it looks like its climbing clear up to the sky".

Oh Mr Barr, we can say the same for the grass in Nicholls. It is clear up to the sky but we do not describe our mornings as beautiful as we cannot see cars and pedestrians at roundabouts. It is "danger close" on the roads. Where are the mowers Mr Barr? Consumed in the budget of some other task? We have not seen them for weeks and our beautiful suburb looks like a trash can.

Some residents mow the roundabouts themselves as a safety measure. Cars disappear from view. One wonders if you would see the elephant for the grass.

By launching an ACCC enquiry into supermarket prices and straightaway rejecting suggestions divestiture powers could be introduced to break up Coles and Woolworths, Anthony Albanese has once again shown himself to be a paper tiger.

"We're not the Soviet Union" as he put it.

The fact is the last few decades of neoliberalism in Australia have not served the majority of us well. Perhaps it is time to consider socialism.

Mr Albanese rejection of a limited intervention to rope in "Coleworths" ("ALP won't break-up grocery chains", February 23) is a symptom of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Lib/Lab consensus on neoliberalism that dominates our thinking.

The reason we tolerate oligopolistic control of all major sectors of our economy is not because we can't do something about the gouging out of consumers, suppliers and the environment, but because we won't.

The impediment to action is the political power and influence exercised by big business and the idiocy of the elites who promote the canard that the hidden hand of the market is the arbiter of all things for the good. Planning works. Witness the explosive growth of China's "dirigiste" capitalism or the central control all governments exercise in existential crises like major wars.

Back in October, 1992, in my very first The Canberra Times letter, I wrote: "Why all the fuss over Canberra-bashing?" The topic was Richard Carleton's 60 Minutes swipe at everything "Canberra".

Do we expect a panegyric from those with other agendas, I asked? Richard knew full well he'd get a reaction from us and help boost 60 Minutes' and his ratings.

The same goes for Premier Miles' and last week's "I hate Canberra" comment.

State leaders know full well that anti-Canberra comments always go down well with their constituents (who forget that their version of Canberra consists mainly of their own elected representatives).

My advice then and now, is not to take the bait, however tempting, but invite interstaters we know to visit and see for themselves there's a lot more to our national capital than their own denizens in Parliament House.

I am appalled that musicians of the calibre of David Pereira and Tor Fromyhr have not had their contracts renewed at the School of Music ANU after years of exemplary service ("When the music stops", February 26). This is ageism at its worst. Shame.

The Russian people must take responsibility for their criminal president. When Putin demands a mandate, let him suffer. Don't vote at all.

The pundits had it wrong all along. Europe, not Afghanistan, is the graveyard of empires President Putin.

"Down with the imperialists" was once the call to arms of the communists and fascists. Perhaps we could apply it to America now? And what about China?

Australia's most progressive city still has a healthy population of wowsers quick to condemn Mr Joyce following his fall in Braddon. An uncle of mine used to say: "Perfection. How quickly we are to expect it in others; but I wonder how little of that admirable quality we have ourselves."

Woolworths outlined a net loss of $781 million for the six months Coles reported a one billion dollar profit. I'm no finance or business expert but to me it looks like questions need to be asked how this could happen.

Can Innes Willox, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, explain why wage rises are inflationary but rising profits and executive remuneration aren't?

So Angus Brayshaw has retired. Who cares when Collingwood eyes are smiling?

John Dobinson (Letters, February 23) suggests the use of a swear jar. If the TV series Total Control is half true, then the language of parliamentarians is absolutely disgusting: hardly a sentence goes by without the "F" word. It is sad that the ABC and TV producers normalise such language.

Each new premier, chief minister or even a new face in a state or territory government starts by bashing Canberra to get a photo opportunity. If they then get a position in the federal parliament they change their tune. We need constructive suggestions from our well-paid politicians, not cheap shots.

Apparently Scott Morrison is unhappy with being remembered only as the ex-PM of Australia. I've heard it rumoured he wishes to appoint himself as the ex-PM of New Zealand, Canada, England and New Guinea also.