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Keywords: Out Of The Box

  • AUSTRALIA

    Lesson from South Africa for US gun owners

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 17 December 2012
    13 Comments

    Our gun was not some inanimate piece of metal; it was an object designed with malignant intent, one swiftly transformed into an instrument of violence. The day we handed it in was one of the happiest of my life. It takes a mature society to handle weapons responsibly, and a truly liberated one to relinquish them altogether.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why the old woman couldn't cross the road

    • Mary Manning
    • 21 November 2012

    What was she to do? Mr J. J. Bullfinch would surely rescue her if he knew of her plight. He would stride out into the traffic and it would stop when he raised his hand. But why should she imagine he'd come? He hardly knew her. She was alone, sitting on the grass shaking from the shock of being nearly hit by a bus. 

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  • RELIGION

    Who is the loudest and ugliest religious donkey?

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 18 September 2012
    34 Comments

    Donkeys are gorgeous but make an ugly sound. Sadly, religious discussion in Australia too often sounds like donkeys competing to see whose braying is the loudest and ugliest. Recently Christian lobbyists spread misinformed messages about sexual orientation. Loud braying was heard on Saturday too when a group of louts hijacked what should have been a peaceful Muslim protest.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How not to have a revolution

    • Justin Whelan
    • 23 August 2012
    6 Comments

    Syria was touted as an example of the limits of nonviolent struggle against a ruthless dictator. Now it is fast becoming a case study on the even greater strategic weaknesses of violence. As the nonviolent movement came under sustained repression, some people decided to take up arms, and opened a Pandora's Box.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A temporary halt to Grexit and Drachmageddon

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 20 June 2012
    6 Comments

    Greeks expect the positive outcome of last weekend's election to be weak and short-lived. Austerity has brought predictable unemployment, homelessness, and a rising suicide rate. The elderly are reminded of the fear and the helplessness that accompanied the hideous years of the Civil War and the dictatorship of the Colonels.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The footballers who booted out Australian racism

    • Brian Doyle
    • 11 April 2012
    6 Comments

    At this juncture in the life of the Mighty Currawongs the usual bigotry poured forth. One columnist raged and sputtered about invasions by 'evil, small statured people'. The ensuing burst of street protests against racism in every corner of Australian life would permanently alter the course of Australian history.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Plagued by mice and climate change deniers

    • Brian Matthews
    • 10 June 2011
    7 Comments

    Considering the severity of South Australia's mice infestation and earlier plagues of locusts, you can be forgiven for feeling positively biblical. Many Australians, some in 'high places', need climate change to demonstrate its presence with such murderous, repeated efficiency.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor's poor political antennae

    • John Warhurst
    • 30 May 2011
    10 Comments

    The Government's free set-top box scheme is facing community and Opposition claims that it is wasteful and will tempt rorters and shysters. What should be a feel-good scheme has become a cavalcade of the disgruntled. This tells us a lot about politics and policy-making.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Muslims who venerate St George

    • William Gourlay
    • 12 April 2011
    6 Comments

    Crowding onto ferries in Istanbul, Turks arrive on the island they call Büyükada early in the morning, Muslim pilgrims en route to a Greek Orthodox church to ask favours of St George. No one is sure when the Muslim practice of venerating St George began, but it is well documented.

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  • MEDIA

    Andrew Bolt and free speech

    • Ellena Savage
    • 01 April 2011
    36 Comments

    Some perceive the racial vilification case against Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt as a challenge to free speech. But this case is about more than silencing critiques of the construction of race, and indeed Bolt himself. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2010: Don't wimp out at the ballot box

    • Edwina Byrne
    • 07 January 2011
    5 Comments

    It would be easy to cast a donkey vote or a vote for a minor party and to thus wash your hands of the responsibility for our governance for the next three or so years. In a representative democracy, a vacuous election represents a lazy polity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Don't wimp out at the ballot box

    • Edwina Byrne
    • 20 August 2010
    22 Comments

    It would be easy to cast a donkey vote or a vote for a minor party and to thus wash your hands of the responsibility for our governance for the next three or so years. In a representative democracy, a vacuous election represents a lazy polity.

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