Vol 28 No 18

03 September 2018

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AUSTRALIA

A parent's guide to reward and punishment
- Barry Gittins
- 20 September 2018
6 Comments
How best to extract them from their cozy dens? Whispering endearments and professions of love does not produce the desired results. Nor does opening curtains, turning on the lights, singing annoying songs, turning on a television or radio, or serenading them on a tuba. These strategies have all been unsuccessfully trialled.
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AUSTRALIA

The trials of finding a good nursing home
- Rachel Woodlock
- 20 September 2018
7 Comments
While we worked to find him a permanent place, he was put in a temporary one, far away from us. The decision-makers gave no thought to Mum's battling public transport and traffic, but it seemed like a nice place. We thought Dad was just being difficult when he begged us to take him home.
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MEDIA

In defence of 'court jester' Mark Knight
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 September 2018
14 Comments
The tradition of court jesters licensed to criticise the king exists in many cultures. It is part of a broader tolerance of satire in which the foibles and sins of the great can be safely criticised. The Shakespearian fools are typical in representing the view of the common man as he speaks truth to power. Printed cartoons stand in this tradition.
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MEDIA

A free-for-all in the virtual town hall
- Sheila Ngoc Pham
- 19 September 2018
Humans are inherently social creatures with a need to converse, yet we live in isolation and mental distress in greater numbers than ever before. Does the ready desire for argumentation online that some thrive on come from wanting to feel, well, something — anger, certainly — rather than passively watching the world whir by?
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INTERNATIONAL

Bad habits die hard in Australia and Syria
- Justin Glyn
- 18 September 2018
4 Comments
What do the Liberal leadership spill and the Syrian War have in common? Both demonstrate how force of habit, like any other force built up over a long period of time, is very difficult to stop, even when the results are plainly self destructive.
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CARTOON

Bully boys
- Fiona Katauskas
- 18 September 2018
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Three musicians and a dog
- Kevin Gillam
- 17 September 2018
1 Comment
Bach Chaconnes, Chopin Preludes and high pitched whines joining cello duets ... has me thinking though, about the repositories of silence, because it's been here and waiting, in the 45 degrees of stairwell, the angle providing harbour, a balloon of silence, the colour of healing.
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AUSTRALIA

Finding myself through First Peoples' stories
- François Kunc
- 14 September 2018
11 Comments
Place and identity are fundamental for each of us. They are what our First Peoples had taken from them. In thinking about who I am, I have come to the conclusion that without understanding our First Peoples and their story as told by them I really can't understand myself as an Australian.
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AUSTRALIA

How we decide if asylum seekers lie
- Douglas McDonald-Norman
- 14 September 2018
6 Comments
In the five years I worked in refugee law, some of the most complicated challenges I encountered were questions regarding the 'truthfulness' or 'credibility' of an asylum seeker's claims. These subjective findings of credibility can make the difference between a person being granted asylum or being turned away.
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RELIGION

My faith is a remnant of empire
- Fatima Measham
- 13 September 2018
8 Comments
In 1521 Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu, put up a cross and claimed the Philippine islands for Spain. The cross and crown interlock. I grew up conditioned to think religion was a gift. When I moved to Australia, I found a timid Church seemingly more preoccupied with conserving power than speaking truth to it.
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MEDIA

The complex origin of a black woman's anger
- Catherine Marshall
- 13 September 2018
18 Comments
If there's one thing we can learn from the Serena Williams debacle it is this: never dismiss marginalised people when they insist your interpretation of their experience is wrong.
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ECONOMICS

Lehman Brothers and the next GFC
- Binoy Kampmark
- 13 September 2018
2 Comments
It has been a decade since the banking aristocracy Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in what would be the chant of doom that became the Global Financial Crisis. Today, the legacy of Lehman Brothers and the crisis it helped precipitate supply warnings of the next shock.
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AUSTRALIA

RUOK? won't fill mental health care gaps
- James O'Brien
- 12 September 2018
1 Comment
When we commit to asking friends, family, and coworkers about their wellbeing, we affirm that their safety matters, and their life is of value. This same ethic of care calls on the governments provide community supports which send a signal: every single life can get better.
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RELIGION

Disturbing the sound of the Pope's silence
- Andrew Hamilton
- 12 September 2018
23 Comments
Many commentators have claimed Pope Francis' sustained silence in response to accusations made by Vatican official Archbishop Viganò has been catastrophic for his reputation and popularity. In a recent article, Francis' biographer claims his response is not intended to be politically strategic but is made at a deeper religious level.
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AUSTRALIA

Keep fighting for the children on Nauru
- Jana Favero
- 12 September 2018
7 Comments
It's hard to reconcile the reality for children on Nauru with our comfortable lives, especially when politicians repeatedly tell us that there aren't kids on Nauru or that medical professionals are exaggerating the problem or asserting it's just behavioural issues with the children. Would our leaders really deceive us?
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RELIGION

A help to the world: the 1937 Plenary Council
- Nick Brodie
- 11 September 2018
4 Comments
Catholics gathered in the wake of a time of great hardship, and in Christ's name sought the common good. Aware of continuity with the Apostles, the bishops recognised that the church changed through history. It was both progressive and conservative in parts, but not regressive.
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INTERNATIONAL

The present history of Greek religious tension
- Gillian Bouras
- 11 September 2018
1 Comment
The Venetians came to power in this part of the world after the fourth crusade, during which Constantinople was sacked: this episode is still spoken bitterly of in Greece. The Venetians made many attempts to suppress Orthodoxy, so that prejudice lingers.
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CARTOON

Welcome to the boys' club
- Fiona Katauskas
- 11 September 2018
3 Comments
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AUSTRALIA

Question Time's bunch of spuds
- Ailsa Piper
- 11 September 2018
4 Comments
The Liberals manage to work the CFMEU into every ministerial response. Morrison and his men (and they are all men who speak) insist, over and over, that they are 'getting on with business' because that is what 'the Australian people want'. Which people? Not up here in the gallery. We want to understand ... something.
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AUSTRALIA

The moral life is more than carrots and sticks
- Matt Beard
- 10 September 2018
9 Comments
I worry that the way we talk about ethics today makes the formation of a good will, or some variation on it, impossible. For regulatory and trust-based approaches to ethics, there's always something outside morality that serves as motivation. It's Santa Claus for grown-ups: we behave so we get presents instead of coal.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Against the dark
- Jenny Blackford
- 10 September 2018
These days, the military tattoo is just too sad for words, the soldier-children twirling, dancing, fluting, prancing, singing, some with rightful Maori marks, or cheekbones high as Indian hills, thin teenage girls in kilts and fancy Argyle socks ... What have they to do with war or death? Yet men strap bombs on ten-year-olds.
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ENVIRONMENT

Drivers, not phones, are pedestrians' main threat
- Amelia Paxman
- 07 September 2018
5 Comments
Older people are among the most vulnerable pedestrian groups, and people over 85 are eight times more likely to be hit by a car in a car park, on a footpath or in a driveway than people aged 13-64. This is likely because they are less agile in terms of moving out of the path of a car — not because they're addicted to Pokemon Go.
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PODCAST

Conversations Catholics need to have
- Podcast
- 06 September 2018
5 Comments
What does it take to grow in conversation, even and perhaps especially in difficult conversation? Can contemporary Christianity get past the moralism and step into areas of pain? In this final episode for the second season, theologian Fr Timothy Radcliffe discusses questions about Catholic identity, education and democracy.
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Vol 28 No 18