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Vol 18 No 19

15 September 2008


 

  • AUSTRALIA

    Stuck in the immigration sieve

    • Susan Biggar
    • 26 September 2008
    12 Comments

    Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised when the rejection letter arrived in the mail. After all, the Immigration Department is entrusted with separating the sheep from the goats, and our family, apparently, has some black sheep.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Love bytes and pillow fights

    • Andrena Jamieson
    • 26 September 2008
    2 Comments

    Elias' belief in freedom sees him join Che Guevara in an African campaign, and insurgent movements in Angola and Somalia. He learns that ideological commitments mask simpler human desires for riches, revenge, status and sex.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Hook turns on weighty subtext

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 25 September 2008

    The characters provide a microcosm of Australia as a fledgling federation. Most poignant is the place of the film's sole Aboriginal character, a gifted pugilist who is ultimately subservient to the purposes of the white characters.

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  • RELIGION

    The wage of sin is the death of the market

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 September 2008
    14 Comments

    It is interesting that the Churches have had little to say about the financial crisis and the behaviour that caused it. After all it has put at risk the lives of people throughout the world no less than abortion, euthanasia or gambling.

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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    PEN's three-pronged pursuit of justice

    • Arnold Zable
    • 24 September 2008
    3 Comments

    There was good reason for keeping the message simple. We wanted our cards to get past the censors. There is a time for advocacy, and a time for simple words of support. Together they make up the 'human' and the 'rights' in human rights.

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  • RELIGION

    Totalitarian abortion law requires conscientious disobedience

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 September 2008
    25 Comments

    The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne has said Catholic Hospitals will not abide by Victorian legislation that compels health professionals to participate in abortions. Civil libertarians are well advised to support this stand, regardless of their moral views.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In praise of Cricketmas

    • Tom Clark
    • 23 September 2008
    1 Comment

    Peter Taylor, selected straight from .. Petersham firsts to bowl his offies .. for the baggy green, taught us how .. the 'Strayan dream can fizz and spit .. through Sydney's fond atmosphere.

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  • ECONOMICS

    It's time to ditch GDP

    • John Wicks
    • 23 September 2008
    9 Comments

    The 'trickle down' of wealth proclaimed by neo-liberalism is debatable, and hardships flowing from sub-prime activities descend on the disadvantaged with the finesse of a freight train. Some economists have demanded the GDP measure be replaced by goods and services data that promote the common good.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Euthanasia drug bill's dignified demise

    • John Chesterman
    • 22 September 2008
    6 Comments

    As Victoria's Legislative Council made its wise choice to reject the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill, we witnessed the indomitability of the human spirit in the Paralympics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Turnbull's opportunity to back battlers

    • Michael Mullins
    • 22 September 2008
    2 Comments

    Malcolm Turnbull laughed off the Government's half-baked attack on his wealth last week. With Australians more interested in who a politician represents, he has the opportunity to protect the poor by imposing increased regulation on the finance sector.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Unlikely (big) brothers in arms

    • Alexandra Coghlan
    • 19 September 2008
    1 Comment

    George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh occupied opposing aesthetic, philosophical and political poles. This conceptually agile book suggests they attained moral — if not spiritual — agreement from fundamentally opposing directions.

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  • ECONOMICS

    When sharemarkets and the real world collide

    • Robin Bowerman
    • 19 September 2008

    The problems besetting Wall Street investment banks seem a long way from life in downtown Australia. The need to know the context of the economic crisis, and to keep a clear head, has never been more important.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Lipstick on America's politcal (dog) collar

    • Moira Rayner
    • 18 September 2008
    9 Comments

    There are lessons to be learned from Sarah Palin's quip that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull terrier is 'lipstick'. In Western politics, women are acceptable if they look 'youthful' and are attached to powerful men to whose authority they defer.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Vote 1 Michael Palin

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 September 2008
    3 Comments

    When I heard John McCain had chosen 'Palin' as his running mate, I thought, wow, Michael Palin! Palin understands women (he's worn his share of dresses), animal rights (especially dead parrots), and commerce (particularly the cheese industry).

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Woomf! Plunggg! Protons collide with doomsday fanaticism

    • Brian Matthews
    • 17 September 2008
    1 Comment

    The rumoured potential of the Large Hadron Collider to bring about the disintegration of the universe captured the public imagination. 'Hadron' is a word susceptible to misprinting of a kind that destroys the seriousness of any discussion.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    US military strikes blunt Pakistan honour

    • Mustafa Qadri
    • 17 September 2008
    3 Comments

    The tribal peoples of northern Pakistan distrust foreigners due to centuries of interference that have left them marginalised. The casual nature with which US forces excuse civilian casualties suggests an abject ignorance of this history.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Auctioning Jane Austen's hair

    • P. S. Cottier
    • 16 September 2008

    Do they stroke it with avid fingers, this palm tree lock that once grew from the full head of quietest genius? .. Scalping would be too much, headhunting too tropical .. but buying the hair of a dead woman you can't know .. is quite the thing

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When life begins in an ICU

    • Jen Vuk
    • 15 September 2008
    12 Comments

    Photos of my son taken just after birth show an unconscious newborn fighting for his life. Last week, as the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Bill was passed in the lower house, I caught myself siding with Peter Costello.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Voters value Independents

    • John Warhurst
    • 15 September 2008
    6 Comments

    Independents were once seen as utterly unsuited to parliaments dominated by big parties. The apparent weakness of Independents in being outside the mainstream is their strength: they represent an alternative way of thinking about politics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    SIEV-X questions sink leadership credentials

    • Michael Mullins
    • 15 September 2008
    10 Comments

    Discussion prompted by the publication of Peter Costello's memoirs defines leadership narrowly as the ability to win elections. If the criteria were expanded to include moral fortitude, judgments about leadership would be very different.

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