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Keywords: Out Of The Box

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Ode to my mechanic

    • Sasha Shtargot
    • 04 August 2010
    4 Comments

    You don't get many words out of him, and when he does speak they always end in a question. 'It's gonna cost a lot to get new tyres, knowata mean? You're better off getting re-treads, knowata mean?' In our society there are hundreds of jobs that barely rate a mention, and armies of unsung workers who keep it functioning and well-oiled.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Nothing underhanded about Labor-Greens deal

    • John Warhurst
    • 27 July 2010
    18 Comments

    Appearing last week on ABC1's Q+A, Julie Bishop claimed that following a preference deal with the Labor Party, the Greens were now effectively a Labor faction. Preference deals are as old as the preferential system itself. The impact of these deals should not be exaggerated.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A poetic word on gay spirituality

    • Will Day
    • 05 March 2010
    5 Comments

    What a pity gay Christians, who might so greatly enrich and evolve our religious institutions if permitted to flourish, are still obliged to eke their way along the shadowy paths of discretion if they want to be part of God's gang.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Moral test of a strained marriage

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 04 November 2009
    6 Comments

    A married couple is presented with a choice. If they press the button, it will cause someone they do not and will never know to die. In exchange, they will receive $1 million. Initially, The Box seems to live up to the promise of this morally charged premise.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Prick and it'll bleed

    • Chris Andrews
    • 28 July 2009
    1 Comment

    When I was a kid the right knee of my pants usually tore first, but I can only sneer on the left .. My body goes this way up for 16 hours, then should be laid flat in the dark.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Patients lost at the health care checkout

    • Frank Bowden
    • 28 May 2009
    16 Comments

    To be a patient is to place yourself in the hands of another, to give them your trust and expect it to be honoured. If you call sick people 'clients' or 'customers' you risk turning healing into a commodity to be purchased — or rationed.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    New York's God of rot

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 14 May 2009
    2 Comments

    What is a synecdoche? Work that out and you're part of the way to understanding this brilliant if convoluted opus. Suffice it to say that Caden Cotard, the bloated, self-loathing man who presides over the corrupted world at the film's heart, may in fact be God.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    How to survive committee meetings

    • Brian Matthews
    • 11 March 2009
    2 Comments

    Some rules of thumb: always say 'prior to' instead of 'before', 'in excess of' instead of 'more than' and 'in the approximate vicinity of' instead of 'about'. It's good to say things like, 'We'll have to real-time this to impact on the offshore numbers'.

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  • INFORMATION

    St Mary's 'beyond compromise'

    • Greg Windle
    • 23 February 2009
    7 Comments

    While it is tragic that the Church has refused to countenance ongoing discussion about homosexuality, women priests, and a host of other issues, neither can I see how the stance taken by St Mary's on these and other matters can advance the causes of religion or reason.

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  • RELIGION

    Stolen Generations apology 'about right'

    • Frank Brennan
    • 06 January 2009
    5 Comments

    Most indigenous Australians appreciated Labor's wide consultation. Some were angered by elements of Brendan Nelson's speech. But he did well do bring the Liberal and National Parties with him, ensuring they did not rain on the national parade as they had in 1988 and 1997. (February 2008)

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The nun and the burqa

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 02 December 2008
    20 Comments

    When Germaine Greer savaged Michelle Obama's dress, I sighed. The 'beauty' market is a challenge to feminism. In France, two extremes of fashion ideology — burqas and plastic-surgery 'mannequins' — line up to buy bread.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Minorities stomped as India flirts with fascism

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 01 October 2008
    15 Comments

    Conventional wisdom tells us democracies are inherently stable, yet an extremist spirit has emerged in mainstream Indian politics. The silence among Australian Christians about the suffering of Indian Christians is as deafening as that of Australian Muslims towards Muslims in Darfur.

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