Satire of NZ Parliament

Link to story

Has the comedy genre lost some of its best material?

Simpson's Cybersquatting Decision

Two things dear to my heart came together today - the world's best tv show and a legal question of online IP rights - a fairly straightforward case by all accounts.  Interesting timing for me, a week given my previous post referring to an article I had published in The Age last week on this general area.

Link to the Simpsons story

As an aside, I still havn't seen the Simpsons Movie yet - but I have the Gold Class Cinema tickets standing by.

My piece in The Age Business Section

It's been my experience that there is much confusion amongst business people, in particular small business people, as to the rights that arise from business name and domain name registrations.  I had a very brief overview of this area published in The Age last Friday.

Link to the article

LARGE Lectures

One of my colleagues, a very gifted educator, had 484 students, literally standing room only, in his lecture last week.  Thankfully I don't have those numbers to deal with - but there are certainly challenges in dealing with the 300+ that I have each week.  I've been seeking out some practical wisdom in an attempt to make these lectures more engaging, links to some useful tips are below.

Prepare for the ear, not the eye

Tools for Teaching - Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course

Student finances

Link to an article on The Age website based on a large study conducted by Associate Professor Marcia Devlin at Melbourne University - painting a picture of student finances and working hours.

The findings remind me of a cartoon a colleague had in their office
when I was at Swinburne University - showing a classroom with one
student, who is telling the tutor 'the other students can't come to
to classes as they are all too busy working so can they afford to
attend university'.

still learning...

Monash University's logo motto is the latin "Ancora imparo", or "I am still learning", attributed to Michelangelo.

Since commencing part-time study in 1989, study that remains ongoing, this statement fairly well sums up my state over the last nearly two decades.

In addition to the formal, structured learning I'm currently undertaking, I have commenced my own informal study of mandarin chinese - primarily based on the ChineseLearnOnline.com

 material.  Lots of resources on the web - of varying quality and usefulness - much of it free of charge.

It's proving to be a very challenging exercise - and has provided some insight into and empathy for the experience of the many Chinese students attempting to learn to a foreign legal system in a tongue that it is not their own.

Zaijian dajia.

Just what the world needs...

another blog.

This new blog, maintained by Mark Bender, will be primarily concerned with professional aspects of my life - the law, the teaching of law (in particular the teaching of law to non-law students studying Business or Commerce), legal research and academia generally.

There are many views expressed about the role (or even necessity) of blogs by academics - see for example - but it is undeniable that blogs and other forms of (more accessible) self-publishing are going to continue to increase in terms of both the content they provide and the number of readers they attract. This is poignantly illustrated by Time magazine's Person of the Year award for 2006 -

So Mark Bender's views, experiences and reflection, for what they're worth, will follow on this blog.