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Author: Ben

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The roots of American arrogance

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 01 October 2010
    9 Comments

    America has grown so used to triumphing in the conflicts of the 1990s that mere stasis is now easily viewed as retreat. But from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama, each time America has become blind to the limitations of its power, it has been wrenched back to reality by failure.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Communities confront flood fallout

    • Ben Fraser
    • 28 September 2010
    4 Comments

    Amid the horror and gloom there have been moments of inspiration in the flood crisis that have largely gone unreported. While they warmly accept the staples of relief, they know through a history of crippling food insecurity and mass displacement that they are masters of their own destiny.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Tales from the kingdom of force

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 16 August 2010
    2 Comments

    Flicking the frisbee with a well practised arm, Jimmy told me about his former home in Sri Lanka. 'Last time I was there, I was carrying bodies to their graves in my arms, even the bodies of friends.' Homer's Iliad is a poem of force in which, at all times, the human spirit is shown modified by its relations with force.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Election year blogs stifle democracy

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 19 July 2010
    6 Comments

    The fact that we are 'discussing' more than ever before due to the internet and the blogosphere, does not prove that our democracy is in better shape. The environment precludes reasoning because reasoning requires a willingness to listen to the other and to approach questions through mutual respect.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Anti poverty protesters miss the language of justice

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 29 June 2010
    16 Comments

    The latest G8 meeting sparked new protests at the failure of rich countries to honour their promises to increase aid. The protest pointed not only to the failures of the G8 governments, but also to the limitations of the mantras 'make poverty history' and 'an end to poverty'.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Possibility springs in Russian winter

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 22 April 2010
    5 Comments

    Winter in the Russian industrial city of Yaroslavl has been hard since the Global Financial Crisis. The 'contract' between Russia's elite and ordinary Russians, whereby the latter sacrifice their civil and political rights for economic wellbeing, is not delivering.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    High-tech health in the bush

    • Ben O'Mara
    • 14 April 2010
    3 Comments

    New technology can improve health care for geographically remote and ethnically diverse Australians. But it won't make much difference unless these people know how to use the technology and are involved in its design and implementation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Taliban friend's letters to the enemy

    • Benjamin Gilmour
    • 12 February 2010
    21 Comments

    In the tribal areas of Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, Abdullah Khan, a friend and unashamed supporter of the Pakistani Taliban, gives me a present. Slowly I open it. Lying on a bed of white fabric is a US military service medal on a ribbon. 'Just 200 rupees a piece', he tells me.

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  • EDUCATION

    Best of 2009: Stairway to international student security

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 05 January 2010
    5 Comments

    After midnight, a group of international students, on a break from their night jobs as waiters, gather in a concrete stairwell and share their stories. Victorian premier John Brumby could learn a thing or two in that shabby stairwell. September 2009

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  • EDUCATION

    Stairway to international student security

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 30 September 2009
    7 Comments

    After midnight, a group of international students, on a break from their night jobs as waiters, gather in a concrete stairwell and share their stories. Victorian premier John Brumby could learn a thing or two in that shabby stairwell.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    'Silly impulses' of religion

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 14 August 2009

    The lecturer's joke about religion is met with laughter. Here, 'faith' is the jester. In dismissing faith, we dismiss people for whom faith is central to the search for truth. We exclude them from that task of imagination and creation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Young Somalis are Australians too

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 12 August 2009
    18 Comments

    If there's a problem with Somali youth integrating into the community, let's all own it. That means taking an interest and being open to friendship. It's not just the responsibility of bureaucrats who devise 'policy solutions'.

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