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BOOKS

Israeli history's 'definitive' rewrite  
September 12, 2008
Philip Mendes
Benny Morris, Israel's best-known revisionist historian, led more and more Israelis and Diaspora Jews in the 1980s to accept the legitimacy of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Morris has changed his spots.

PARENTING

Modern parents' toy story  
September 12, 2008
Daniel Donahoo and Tania Andrusiak
Our children are not our children. They live in a world saturated in brands, commercialism and all manner of hyped-up toys. So when, over a pre-dawn hot chocolate, our son told us he wanted to buy a Ninja Turtle, we just smiled.

FILMS

Film implicates audience in acts of cruelty  
September 11, 2008
Tim Kroenert
The previous films of director Michael Haneke depict a media-saturated society disconnected from reality. His latest release is a critique of 'violence as entertainment', and every audience member is implicated.

INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

The new Indigenous affairs orthodoxy  
September 11, 2008
Myrna Tonkinson
An emerging school of thought claims that substance abuse is the cause, not the symptom, of the present-day Indigenous crisis. Such myths give an inadequate account for the situation, and fail to provide prescriptions for change.

MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

Learning to teach Aboriginal kids  
September 10, 2008
Jonathan Hill
Teachers arriving in remote Aboriginal schools represent merely the latest in a long, transient line. What will separate them from their predecessors is their ability to listen and learn from the people whose land they now live on.

PARENTING

Mem Fox and the parable of the green sheep  
September 10, 2008
Sarah Kanowski

Working mums were 'offended' and 'disgusted' by Mem Fox's childcare slam. Other critics berated 'selfish mothers' and a society sick with affluenza. There was one word missing word from all the brouhaha: 'fathers'.

POETRY

Existence warms my skin  
September 09, 2008
Peter Coghill
blood and mood .. jigger the radio of my mind, turning .. it in and out of the band ... of unaccountable happiness .. What have I forgotten that I can stand .. to smile?

ENVIRONMENT

Paying the climate change piper  
September 09, 2008
Tony Kevin
In The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a town tries to buy a cheap solution to a terrible problem, and their children pay the price. In light of Garnaut's latest, coservative climate change recommendations, it seems we may need a Class 5 tropical cyclone slamming into Brisbane to jolt us into decisive action.

THE AGENDA

The real money's on humanities  
September 08, 2008
Michael Mullins

Following Friday's announcement of Nathan Rees as the premier of NSW, media reports highlighted his background as a garbage collector. They neglected to mention he was doing this to fund his honours degree in English Literature at Sydney University.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

The right not to kill  
September 08, 2008
Frank Brennan
Victoria's 'groundbreaking' Abortion Law Reform Bill dispenses with informed consent provisions that protect vulnerable women, and neglects the right of health professionals to conscientious objection. Surely the right to freedom of thought, conscience and belief should count for something.

BOOKS

England writ grotesque  
September 05, 2008
Paddy O'Reilly
The stories rub class against class, age against youth, the past against the present. The collection is imbued with old-fashioned charm and a postcolonial awareness of what damage old-fashioned England once wrought.

COMMUNITY

Kids or criminals  
September 05, 2008
Liz Curran
A 14-year-old boy in a country town has his first gulp of beer in a street. A passing police officer charges him. How is it that the first resort in many cases in Australia is to immerse the child in the criminal justice system?

INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Abbott's complex Aboriginal odyssey  
September 04, 2008
Brian McCoy
The news Tony Abbott would spend three weeks in a remote Aboriginal community came as a pleasant surprise to many. He gave himself a chance to learn, and his reflections reveal a genuine interest in the lives of the people.

FILMS

'Freaks' on film  
September 04, 2008
Tim Kroenert
In 1932, Todd Browning's Freaks sought to unsettle with the 'otherness' of its circus sideshow performer characters. A modern-day festival of films by and about people with disability emhasises not otherness, but humanity.

COMMUNITY

Zimbabwe youth survive jungle of doubt  
September 03, 2008
Peter Hodge
Zimbabwean names often reflect the mood of a family to the arrival of the new member. At a rural mission school I taught Blessing, Charity and Unique Faith. Penniless Ngwenya was the best and brightest of my students.

POLITICS

'Stalinist' Mugabe won't go without a fight  
September 03, 2008
Peter Roebuck
Sensing humiliation and still uttering vapid rhetoric about 'insidious foreign hands', Mugabe has lowered himself to talking to his opponents. The old rogue is not going anywhere except in a box or at the end of a gun.

COMMUNITY

Unequal pay favours 'white-collar chums'  
September 02, 2008
Robert Salter
Many low-paid workers experience stress and illness due to jobs that are dangerous, arduous or powerless. Perhaps it is they who should be compensated with higher pay, rather than those who perform interesting, high-status work.

POETRY

A taste for sainted meat  
September 02, 2008
Grant Fraser
'Have you tried fruit?' said Francis .. 'Nothing to it that crackles and tears in the jaw!' said the head wolf. 'I will bake you bread' said the Saint .. 'It is nothing but air warmed and crusted, Entirely wrong for wolves.' And the thronged wolves .. Began to close

MEDIA

Economic logic will protect Fairfax quality  
September 01, 2008
Chris McGillion
Market realities demand corporate managers do not trash the 'brand'. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Financial Review are respected brands because they contain quality reporters and commentators.

REFLECTION

Pieces of Terry  
September 01, 2008
David Bunn
Terry told us he had advanced cancer of the prostate and was hoping to reach October. He was interested in joining the book group, which had three volumes of Proust to go. It seemed like it would be a close run thing.