Vol 29 No 4

24 February 2019

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AUSTRALIA

Mixed news for feminist issues on IWD
- Neve Mahoney
- 08 March 2019
2 Comments
International Women's Day is as good a day as any to take stock of where we actually are in terms of current feminist issues and how much we still need to accomplish. As much as there is to celebrate, a glance at the news is a confirmation of our own worst fears about ourselves.
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RELIGION

Australian Catholics take stock as Pell falls
- John Warhurst
- 06 March 2019
61 Comments
A conservative within a conservative church he was a divisive figure, not just because of his orthodox views but because of the unbending and assertive style with which he promulgated them. Something died in Australian Catholicism with this verdict and Australian Catholics will have to live with that whatever the future turns out to be.
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RELIGION

Can the Church survive its terminal self harm?
- Stephanie Dowrick
- 06 March 2019
85 Comments
My relationship to Catholicism can be summed up as: I am on the outskirts, yet close and invested enough to care how the Church evolves. Because, it seems to me, how it evolves and the speed at which those urgent and essential changes take place will significantly determine whether it will survive — and whether it deserves to survive.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

My blanket cocoon
- Rachel Kurzyp
- 06 March 2019
1 Comment
I pull the blanket over my head and will sleep to return. If it won't, I'll seek comfort in my blanket-cocoon. The world can't find me here. But I hear the bedroom door handle release and the smell of coffee slips through. 'Wakey, Wakey,' he announces to the twisted blankets as he comes to a standstill by the bed.
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RELIGION

Prayers of connection and disconnection
- Gillian Bouras
- 06 March 2019
12 Comments
I've recently been reading about people who disconnect in radical ways, or else manage a balancing act between connection with society and disconnection. The recently deceased Sister Wendy Beckett was one such. So too is Brother Harold Palmer who, like Sister Wendy, began his seclusion in a caravan.
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AUSTRALIA

People with disabilities need royal commission
- Justin Glyn
- 06 March 2019
3 Comments
Last month, Parliament mandated a royal commission into the treatment of people with disabilities. Now we hear it will not proceed before hearing from all states and territories. People with disabilities are most in need of strong centralised protections. The federal government, while giving with one hand, has been taking with the other.
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CARTOON

Their hole truth
- Fiona Katauskas
- 05 March 2019
2 Comments
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RELIGION

A survivor's take on the Pell verdict
- Victim #6, abuse survivor
- 05 March 2019
23 Comments
Apparently there are committees deep within Church institutions that secretly work on tightening up, amending and making standards for their schools and churches to follow. I can guarantee there wouldn't be one abuse survivor on any of these committees.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Enjoying myself alone, if only for once
- Lu Piao
- 04 March 2019
1 Comment
Racing along the Shenyang-Hainan Island Freeway alone. Going across the Hangzhou Bay alone. Playing amidst the Zhoushan Archipelago alone. Staying in a mountain village alone. Occupying a presidential suite alone. Using eight dinner sets alone. Drinking three hundred glasses alone.
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FAITH DOING JUSTICE

Care for common home in mining disasters
- Julie Edwards
- 03 March 2019
5 Comments
In January, the tailings dam of a deactivated iron ore mine in Brumadinho, Brazil failed, releasing toxic mud that caused devastation, 117 deaths and intergenerational ecological and economic consequences. It should, and could, have been prevente by the company, Vale, who was also responsible for past tailings dam destruction.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Millennials work for free? Muffin doing
- Brenna Dempsey
- 01 March 2019
5 Comments
Natalie Brennan, general manager of Muffin Break, accused 'millennials' of no longer seeing the value in 'experience', and of having an 'inflated view of their self-importance'. Ironically, she has an inflated view of her company's importance if she believes 'millennials' should jump at the opportunity to work for her in an unpaid internship.
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ENVIRONMENT

The great Murray-Darling swindle
- Greg Foyster
- 01 March 2019
11 Comments
A million dead fish, floating on putrid green water. Images of this ecological catastrophe on the Darling River over summer shocked the nation. Was it the result of drought? Blue-green algae poisoning? After at least four published reports, we know the answers. It's time to state plainly what has been going on, and who is to blame.
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AUSTRALIA

'Family first' rhetoric neglects single mothers
- Kate Galloway
- 01 March 2019
7 Comments
There is one type of family that consistently is omitted from pro-family government rhetoric: that of the single mother. Instead of making life easier for single-mother families, the government has imposed additional requirements as a pre-condition to their receiving the payments they need to support themselves and their children.
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AUSTRALIA

Election year fear and loathing
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 February 2019
6 Comments
It looks certain that over the next three months before the federal election fear will dominate Australian public conversation. Even if we deplore the appeal to fear, it is worth reflecting on why politicians indulge in it, under what conditions it is successful, and how it is best responded to.
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CARTOON

Same pig, new lipstick
- Fiona Katauskas
- 26 February 2019
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INTERNATIONAL

Australia's Chilean extradition test
- Ramona Wadi
- 26 February 2019
3 Comments
The news last week of former Pinochet era intelligence agent Adriana Rivas' arrest in Sydney spread like wildfire. Australia should embrace its moral and political responsibility to collaborate, through the appropriate legal channels, towards the Chilean quest for justice and memory.
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AUSTRALIA

Truth and justice after the Pell verdict
- Frank Brennan
- 26 February 2019
253 Comments
Should the appeal fail, I hope and pray that Cardinal Pell, heading for prison, is not the unwitting victim of a wounded nation in search of a scapegoat. Should the appeal succeed, the Victoria Police should review the adequacy of the police investigation of these serious charges.
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AUSTRALIA

Julie Bishop is one hell of a survivor
- Moira Rayner
- 25 February 2019
12 Comments
After five or so years as a better-than-most foreign minister, and a serial turner-up at branch fundraisers and social events, she has been mourned as 'the prime minister we never had,' and someone who was never fully or adequately appreciated. I think this was inevitable.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Not in a war zone
- David Adès
- 25 February 2019
2 Comments
You say you are not in a war zone, but look at all these deaths mounting up around you, this friend and that one suddenly gone, the news coming unexpectedly and from unexpected sources, and with each passing, other deaths: the death of friendships, of anticipation, of familiar voices ...
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AUSTRALIA

Stateless refugee facing indefinite detention
- Shira Sebban
- 22 February 2019
5 Comments
A Faili Kurd, who fled Iran by boat aged 16 with his mother, Shalikhan has been detained since arriving on Christmas Island in August 2013. Suffering from a developmental disorder and mental health issues exacerbated by his father's death in Iran, he has in the past attempted suicide and displayed volatile behaviour.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Meet the robots who would be human
- Tim Kroenert
- 22 February 2019
1 Comment
More Human Than Human's exploration of the history and present reality of artificial intelligence is not a tale of terror. It is a thoughtful and nuanced engagement with the people who are making, using, or thinking about AI; those who have been touched by its life-changing potential, or come a-cropper of its more sinister aspects.
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INTERNATIONAL

Indonesian perspective on Medevac
- Carolina Gottardo, Nishadh Rego, Lars Stenger
- 21 February 2019
8 Comments
On 7 February in Manado, Sulawesi, Sajjad, a 24 year old man who had just finished a degree in IT, doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire. He died six days later. On the day of his death, Australians woke to the government's claim the passage of the Medevac Bill would restart boats from Indonesia and weaken Australia's borders.
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Vol 29 No 4