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Vol 28 No 13

02 July 2018


 

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Lessons in compassion from Thai cave rescue

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 July 2018
    19 Comments

    Their resilience speaks of a strong Buddhist culture in which the boys were used to struggle, found meaning in attending to the welfare of others rather than their own, and drew strength from meditative practices that set their perilous predicament within a broader human horizon.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Tales of the modern migrant

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 11 July 2018

    'In the Beginning Was the Word' opens with Angelina D'Costa, 'five years to the day after she stopped being a Catholic', entering a church, determined to confront a popular priest who is known to have covered up for another priest who abused children; only to be moved to submission by the familiar beauty of the Mass.

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  • MEDIA

    What to do when you get called out

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 11 July 2018
    8 Comments

    There has been a recent spate of men making inappropriate remarks. Barry Hall made a sexist joke on air. David Leyonhjelm told Greens senator Sarah to 'stop shagging men'. Bert Newton made a rape joke at the Logies. They were all called out. The way each responded left a lot to be desired.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Whatever happened to 'kindness to strangers'?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 July 2018
    14 Comments

    It has become clear that the brutal Australian treatment of people who seek protection is part of an international punitive policy. This is sometimes attributed to a failure of political leadership. But it may reflect a deeper cultural change in the Western attitude to strangers, seen in migrant and refugee policy, penal policy, international relations and the scope of the rule of law.

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  • CARTOON

    In need of rescue too

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 10 July 2018
    1 Comment

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Oz

    • Brian Matthews
    • 10 July 2018
    3 Comments

    The same sense of grievance and outrage that drove Jack and his rebels 500 years ago has sent Trump to the White House, propelled the United Kingdom out of the European Union, resurrected the poisonous 'Irish question' and legitimised Senator Pauline Hanson. She, with Cade-like empty bravado, claims to be for the 'battlers'.

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  • MEDIA

    Miquela Sousa and the rise of fake influencers

    • Claire Hubble
    • 10 July 2018
    4 Comments

    On the face of it, Miquela is the same as any other ‘influencer’. But behind her normcore sunglasses, Miquela is dead. Orchestrating her content is Brud, an LA-based tech startup masterminded by Sara DeCou and Trevor McDefries. The more interesting question is not who Miquela is, but why she matters. Because Miquela holds up a mirror to how we construct our own online personas.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal participation before recognition

    • Dani Larkin
    • 09 July 2018
    5 Comments

    We already know most Australians will support a referendum that would recognise Indigenous Australians within the constitution. What we now need is to examine how the constitutional reform procedures can themselves be reformed to support Indigenous political advancement. This includes reforming electoral laws and processes that limit Indigenous political participation.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A snatch of memory

    • Elaine Barker
    • 09 July 2018

    She was in her eighties then. And I was thirteen. Now eighty, I've retrieved that memory of hers and hold it as I would my own.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    How I learned not to drive

    • Isabella Fels
    • 06 July 2018
    6 Comments

    My instructor didn't understand my mental illness. I began to dread all the many never ending driving lessons, spoiled by his quick temper and my clashing negativity. I kept sliding backwards instead of forwards. Either too slow or too fast, according to my volatile moods. I could never get out of the woods.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why powerful people behave badly

    • Conor Wynn
    • 06 July 2018
    12 Comments

    Pinning all the blame for poor behaviour on deliberate individual choice is a fundamental attribution error. We need to rise above the salacious gossip and the spectacle of corporate beheadings to understand what drives behaviour in powerful people, take a more reasoned approach and achieve sustainable change.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Don't bag plastic bans

    • Fatima Measham
    • 05 July 2018
    13 Comments

    We can speculate on the reasons for the recent rage against plastic bag bans. We don't like change. We don't like being told what to do. We don't like having to think about alternatives and solutions. But at the heart of it, being mad about this particular inconvenience is about refusing to accept one's part in improving the collective lot. This is the one planet we have. There is no Plan B.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Us and them: reconceiving trees

    • Cristy Clark
    • 04 July 2018
    8 Comments

    Grieving the death of a tree seems a common experience, but I had rarely heard about it. We share stories of the loss of loved ones or pets, but not of specific trees. Are we less comfortable acknowledging the depth of this relationship? Does it challenge our cultural understanding of the natural world and our place within it?

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  • RELIGION

    The sentencing of Archbishop Wilson

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 July 2018
    77 Comments

    Philip Wilson has been sentenced to 12 months' detention for concealing child sexual abuse. It's very likely that he will appeal his conviction and sentence. An appeal may well succeed, but that's not the end of the matter. This has been a six-year saga relating to events which occurred more than 40 years ago. Emotions are running high.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Witness K and foreign interference hypocrisy

    • Lizzie O'Shea
    • 03 July 2018
    10 Comments

    Over this last week, two remarkably contradictory things happened in Canberra. The Attorney-General shepherded through some of the most significant changes to foreign interference laws in recent times. It was also reported that he signed off on charges laid against Witness K, a former officer of ASIS, and his lawyer.

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  • CARTOON

    The dishonourable member

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 03 July 2018

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The woman who got me into Ned Kelly’s funeral

    • Martin Flanagan
    • 02 July 2018
    6 Comments

    We share a love of poetry, having come to Gerard Manley Hopkins from opposite directions, her from religious ecstasy, me from the dark sonnets. In the 1980s we met, in a shelter for Aboriginal women in Collingwood. My next memory? Ursula introducing me to the granddaughter of Kelly's sweetheart, an old woman dying in a Melbourne hospital.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    All hail Queen Jacinda

    • Morgan Godfery
    • 02 July 2018
    3 Comments

    New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern is a global celebrity: a prime minister on parental leave and a social democrat who can actually win elections. But is New Zealand really the left-wing paradise the global left wants it to be?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The unsung hero of great Australian films

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 29 June 2018

    Film buffs might regret there's not a more detailed technical breakdown of Bilcock's craft. Still it it is a warm-hearted tribute to the art of editing, the process by which a film takes its final form, often as different from what was shot as the footage isfrom the original script; and to one editor whose sense of character and audience is hailed by these directors as defining their films.

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  • MEDIA

    Eureka Street is not 'lefty' but reformist

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 June 2018
    43 Comments

    Those of us who write regular columns have little time for introspection. We are too busy getting up the next article. But we are frequently prompted, sometimes by our disappointed readers, to ask what we are up to. Every now and then our readers deserve a personal response.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Nowhere to hide thanks to wi-fi in the sky

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 29 June 2018
    2 Comments

    Who wants wi-fi up in the air anyway? Until the recent arrival of in-flight internet connectivity, flights presented one with a rare opportunity to escape real life and forget it ever existed. This, after all, is the reward for a long, uncomfortable flight: precious time. At least, it used to be.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    New responses to global humanitarian crises

    • Denis Dragovic
    • 29 June 2018
    3 Comments

    A few years ago, I travelled back to the war zones where I had worked providing humanitarian assistance to see what happened to the people and projects. I realised then that some things need to change. One of them is that we need to give communities who have borne the brunt of wars more time to recover.

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