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Vol 28 No 7

09 April 2018


 

  • INTERNATIONAL

    China, aid and the gift of interdependence

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 April 2018
    2 Comments

    In recent months comment on international politics has been about taking sides and falling into line. Against such strident calls, two apparently unrelated pieces of speculation passed with little response: the prediction of a further cut to aid, and the assertion that China wanted to establish a military base in Vanuatu.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Loveless in Russia

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 April 2018
    1 Comment

    A grim and gripping tragedy on this personal level, as a whole Loveless functions also as a metaphor for political life in contemporary Russia. The fatal fracturing of its relationship with its neighbour Ukraine provides a backdrop and, for the degeneration of Zhengya and Boris' marriage and the resultant alienation of their son, a touchstone.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Our flailing aid created a Pacific problem

    • Eliza Berlage
    • 19 April 2018

    China and India are rising global powers, thanks to a burgeoning middle class, huge export markets and military might. So why wouldn't they take the western retreat from the Pacific as an invitation to dance? But their support comes with a crippling debt levels and the potential for a favour to be called in down the line.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rising above redhead myths

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 18 April 2018
    8 Comments

    In perspective, my hair colour really isn't that big of a deal. I don't face institutional discrimination because I'm a redhead. But because of the cultural fascination with red hair, people will always try to project their own ideas about redheadedness onto me. So as I've grown older, I decided to claim this part of my identity for myself.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The chilling oppression of Camp Freedom

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 18 April 2018
    8 Comments

    If the powers that be are not keen on protests while Australia is on the international stage, the answer is simple: stop demonising Indigenous people and using our children as cannon fodder. You're not listening if you continue showcasing us on your terms while dismissing our political voice, denying our presence and erasing our history.

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  • CARTOON

    Dutton strikes again

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 17 April 2018
    1 Comment

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  • AUSTRALIA

    From sexism to ageism, older women say Us Too

    • Jennifer Pont
    • 17 April 2018
    5 Comments

    The #MeToo movement, exposing harassment and abuse through personal stories, was no surprise to me. I couldn't be less surprised at the scale and depth of subjugation women still experience. But we must also recognise that women's disadvantage is a continuum where sexism meets ageism.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    What comes next for surveillance capitalism?

    • Lizzie O'Shea
    • 16 April 2018
    3 Comments

    Whether Facebook fails or succeeds beyond the Cambridge Analytica scandal is somewhat beside the point - we are finally starting to have discussions about the desirability of their business model. Because of course, Facebook is not the only company that strip mines data with almost sociopathic disinterest.

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  • RELIGION

    No liberation without Palestinian liberation

    • Na'ama Carlin
    • 16 April 2018
    7 Comments

    While Jews around the world celebrated Passover, other people protested their right to return home, as the Palestinian 'Great March of Return' was launched on the Gaza Strip. The night that Jews globally celebrated freedom, 19 Palestinians were killed and over 1000 injured because they rightfully demanded theirs.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Trump's Syria pantomime

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 16 April 2018
    4 Comments

    If anything, there seemed to be something hollow about a gesture that all but acknowledges the success of the Russian-backed regime which has taken a stranglehold over the civil war. One conclusion is that brutality is fine as long as it avoids the use of certain types of force, namely chemical weapons.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Clay feet

    • Barry Gittins
    • 16 April 2018
    2 Comments

    Mohandas was a lawyer and a saviour, who took his beatin's and refused to eat; Mahatma won, the Union Jack was flaggin’, then one of his own dropped Gandhi at his feet. Jesus was a rabbi and a dreamer, who talked and stirred and gave up carpentry; Mary cried as spearpoint slid past femur, godson egressed into mystery.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Running with the wolves of charity street

    • Luke Timp
    • 13 April 2018
    9 Comments

    The spectacle would be funny if so many people didn't partake in and enjoy it. It feels cartoonish, like a Wolf of Wall Street where 30 Jordan Belforts compete to be the top salesperson. Instead of Wall Street glitz, the fortune we compete for is made by selling raffle tickets for charities.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Abbott spruiking coal is a win for renewables

    • Greg Foyster
    • 13 April 2018
    16 Comments

    Every time the self-appointed Ambassador for the Little Black Rock fronts up to the cameras he reinforces the message that coal power is the technology of a bygone era. The Coalition old guard's thinking hasn't changed since Abbott's 'carbon tax' sloganeering of 2012 and 2013. But the landscape has changed considerably.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Conversations about China need more nuance

    • Tseen Khoo
    • 12 April 2018
    3 Comments

    While no-one expects nuanced discussions on Twitter, the name-calling does none of the participants any favours. What does become apparent in the conversations around Clive Hamilton's The Silent Invasion is how entrenched 'yellow peril' rhetoric is in the way people talk about 'the Chinese'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The radical state of being content

    • Fatima Measham
    • 12 April 2018
    10 Comments

    How comfortable does anyone really need to be? The amounts of money that get quoted in remuneration packages or property portfolios is incomprehensible to many Australians who manage to survive, even thrive, on so much less. Inequality seems to be driven by an incapacity to recognise what is enough and to stop.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Another dog day for cultural appropriation

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 11 April 2018
    1 Comment

    The commentary around the film's appropriation of Japanese culture has been sustained and substantial. At least these allusions are for the most part detailed and respectful; that the hero is named after a defunct American video game company is less palatable. Trickier still are the creative decisions related to language.

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  • RELIGION

    Clerical culture produces poor fruit

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 April 2018
    59 Comments

    In a recent article I remarked that in the Catholic Church clericalism is a pejorative term. Some readers criticised me for focusing on individuals and not the more insidious culture of clericalism. The criticism was justified, and in this article I shall reflect on the culture and its byproducts.

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  • CARTOON

    Getting a head in politics

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 10 April 2018

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Families dazed by the running of the bills

    • Barry Gittins
    • 10 April 2018
    3 Comments

    Parenting is expensive, financially and emotionally. I would be fibbing if I didn't acknowledge the love and pride we receive from laughing with our progeny. Seeing them grow. But I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that being a mum or dad can be hazardous to your financial, social, sexual and physical health.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Our economy is failing families

    • Erin Riley
    • 10 April 2018
    11 Comments

    As I drop my daughter at daycare at 6:30am, to be looked after by someone else who I then have to pay, to go to work to earn enough money to pay our rent and daycare, I am struck by how much our system is failing families. It was a failure of my own empathy that I only came to understand this after I experienced it personally.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rethinking work to embrace diversity

    • Kate Galloway
    • 09 April 2018
    7 Comments

    Employable Me follows a group of neuro-diverse young people as they search for meaningful work. The insights the program offers are a call to think about the world of work and the role of employment as a social good rather than a purely economic one, and how we make employment more inclusive.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Danger in low-lying areas

    • Anne Casey
    • 09 April 2018
    1 Comment

    For days I passed the black screen, berating and blaming the mass-entertaining hooked on a loop, counting down to more incoming footage ... What if we are not seeking ruin but searching the ruins for a hand, battered and bruised, broad-backed, mud-slicked, bent but unbroken, reaching out of the mire to catch a pale light ...

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Policy solutions to bonkers housing costs

    • Gabriela D'Souza
    • 06 April 2018
    5 Comments

    I was in Sydney recently, and within less than an hour of my arrival of the airport, I was thrust into a conversation about how completely unaffordable the city was becoming. 'Bonkers' was the general consensus. But how did it get this bad and what can be done to repair the current state of affairs?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Can white South African farmers be refugees?

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 05 April 2018
    3 Comments

    Recently the Minister for Home Affairs has confirmed he still wants to provide humanitarian visas to 'persecuted' white South African farmers. Regardless of any political issues, there are a number of legal hurdles these farmers could face in order to meet the strict definition of refugee in Australian law.

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