Election year hope and hijinks
The Darling's dead fish of late capitalism
Scenes from the Mexican border
"This land was not settled peacefully, nor does the legacy of the missionaries and invaders reflect the message or actions of the Christ depicted within the Bible."
"Anger at the wealthy white straight male status quo is something I'm hearing a lot of in music right now."
"And now we humans of late capitalism are reaping what our political masters have sown: a world without water."
"These fear tactics are not really debates. They are traumas endured, even when we get the 'win'."
Entering an election year is like coming home for the holiday season. It's full of hope and hijinks but also promises and pain. And like every family, each party has its quirks. Hopefully a post-election Parliament will green light some meaningful reform to improve people's lives rather than always culture warring. But don't hold your breath.
One of the issues raised at the royal commission into banks was the size of salaries and bonuses paid to senior staff. Subsequent discussion has tripped lightly around the issue. The larger question is whether it is in the best interests of financial institutions to offer to its senior officers huge salaries and bonuses.
One of the most basic distinctions in finance, with which any stockbroker or fund manager is familiar, is that between equity and debt. As the global economy teeters on the edge of a debt and banking crisis, with global debt more than 300 per cent of global GDP, the merits of equity is something that needs to be better understood.
There are others here on the beach, standing and staring at the border wall as the ocean tides crash and spray. I've met so many now who have been separated from their partners, parents, and children, those physical bonds forcibly torn with little possibility of reconnection.
Schumer accused Trump of governing via temper tantrum. He's right. The wall is an ineffective and immoral solution to a deeply complicated problem. It should be rejected at every turn. And yet there's a peculiar quality to temper tantrums: in the absence of good parenting, and if you keep them up long enough, you get your way.
The world sat gripped as Rahaf al-Qunun live-tweeted her mad dash to freedom, then cheered when photos of her being escorted from Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport by UN workers emerged. Hakeem al-Araibi has not been so lucky. His current nightmare is emblematic of the bureaucratic mess forced on refugees worldwide.
The pantomime serves a purpose. Politicians denouncing Anning for his explicit support of fascism distracts from years of slightly more democratic, somewhat less in-your-face ethnonationalism. Sieg heils in St Kilda are bad, offshore internment camps are necessary.
Let's hope all members of parliament can agree to the insertion of such a clause in the legislation providing assurance to religious educators that they can continue to teach their doctrine in good faith while assuring all students and their families that they will not suffer any detriment while sitting at the feet of religious educators.
Simon Birmingham's recent vetoing of 11 humanities research projects is a good example of cultural cringe's transmutation into populist philistinism. Scientific research projects are often more opaque to the uninitiated than humanities projects but are usually safe from ignorant criticism because their importance is assumed.
One reason for the importance of Epiphany in Eastern Orthodoxy is the belief that Christmas is a period during which the world is threatened by various wicked spirits, most particularly the kallikantzaroi, the spirits of the dead: at this time they emerge from Hades (via a cave not too far from where I live) and roam the Earth.
When Parliament resumes, one outstanding item of business will be Penny Wong's bill dealing with religious schools' capacity to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. I support the bill subject to the proviso that religious schools should remain free to teach their doctrine respectfully and reasonably.
The point of the involvement of God in the minute details of human life is to assert the value of the human world in all its relationships. This means that the customs and practices of our Australian Christmas should not be dismissed as a corrupted and so inferior version of the Christian celebration. They should be appreciated in their own right.
A key benefit asserted to justify treating water as an economic good is that the market will encourage 'high-value' water use to be prioritised. But, as the fish of the Darling River and the people of Walgett are experiencing, the problem with commodifying water is its social and environment values are not naturally reflected in the market.
Airborne pollution is an issue of environmental justice, because it disproportionately affects those with the least capacity to move — the poor, the marginalised, and those, such as Indigenous peoples, with a significant relationship to place.
The movement is not secretive: it declares itself publicly, and openly. It announced in advance to police and emergency services: 'We are bold. We will not hide. We are all in open rebellion.'
If, when called upon at eighty years of age, I cannot prepare a sandwich, make a mess of my words, I fear that the thought may occur: I have my Seniors Card but I have no legacy, and I have no Torah, I have no Bible, and I have no Koran.
In this season, I usually re-read A Christmas Carol, that timeless tour de force of the Dickensian imagination. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to the shops, where the former restores good humour to squabbling delivery boys. For, they said, it was a shame to quarrel on Christmas Day.
At twelve, halfway through too many stifling hours crammed in the Holden station wagon, three girls munch Mum's ham sandwiches in a Rotary park ... At thirty, waifs-and-strays Christmases with friends in our adopted southern city.
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