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Keywords: Lincoln

  • AUSTRALIA

    Good race relations is not just an American thing, it's democracy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 March 2015
    17 Comments

    Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the voting right marches across the bridge in Selma, Alabama. The movie Selma is a great though imperfect study in race relations, which is still a hot issue in the US following the spate of police killings of young African American men. Good race relations still has a long way to go, as it does in Australia.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    JFK and the myth of American innocence

    • Ray Cassin
    • 22 November 2013
    10 Comments

    The assassination of John F. Kennedy 50 years ago elicited a particular quality of grief. It was not only a matter of mourning the violent death of a world leader who, at the time, was much admired. The notion also stuck that something called innocence had been lost because of what had happened in Dallas. That sense has withered under reassessments of Kennedy's character and record in office but it has never been extinguished entirely.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    War fires should be left to smoulder

    • David Stephens
    • 11 November 2013
    12 Comments

    Remembrance Day has always been for Australians a quieter affair than Anzac Day, particularly as Anzac Day in recent years has taken on a brassy, bragging style. The historian Ken Inglis described Anzac as Australia's civil religion. Although we were the first country anywhere to come together under a national constitution after a mass popular vote, we downplay Federation and venerate instead a failed military campaign in Turkey in 1915.

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  • ECONOMICS

    How financial devils came to rule the universe

    • David James
    • 05 June 2013
    7 Comments

    Religious authorities may not spend a lot of time pondering the nature of global financial systems, but the Pope's recent comment that 'money has to serve, not rule' suggests it can be useful when they do. Given scope to become rule makers, rather than just people who know how to exploit the rules, financiers have moved themselves to a position of mastery.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Post-Saddam Iraq defined by division

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 20 March 2013
    1 Comment

    One Christian engineer remembers celebrating religious festivals with his Muslim neighbours. They in turn would celebrate Christmas with him. Such interfaith experiences are almost unknown now. Iraqis tell me that at least under Saddam you knew where the boundaries were. Now there is uncertainty and indiscriminate violence.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Oscar-winning racism in Hollywood's mixed bag

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 28 February 2013

    After cataloguing the ways in which the film belittles and marginalises the experiences of black slaves, Williams laments the fact that such marginalisation continues to exist seemingly unnoticed in mainstream popular culture. The Oscar awarded to Django Unchained is the epitome of popular culture 'not noticing'.

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  • RELIGION

    Church helps set gay captives free

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 25 February 2013
    71 Comments

    David hated that he could not be himself at church. He considered suicide. But he couldn't give up on the God he believed loved him for who he was. One day he read a line in a local church's values statement: 'We regard each person as a valuable member regardless of sexual orientation'. 'Let's see if they're serious,' he thought. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Time runs out for idiot slavers

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 07 February 2013
    1 Comment

    Lincoln's quest to end slavery is a centrally moral endeavor requiring political maneuvering and even underhandedness to achieve. Whereas Spielberg's Lincoln hums with quiet patriotic fervour, Django Unchained is pure irreverence and a vicious 'up yours' to the idiocy of white supremacy. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard's guts and glory

    • Moira Rayner
    • 28 February 2012
    49 Comments

    This rough, tough former workplace lawyer came, as we knew she does, into her own when she was on her feet, fighting for her political life. Now for the first time since she put on the prime ministerial stilettos in 2010 we can sense the steel core within those blue suede size 36 heels.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Beyond Australia's adolescent identity crisis

    • Fatima Measham
    • 26 January 2012
    9 Comments

    While Australia's early history is marked by violence, the Fraser Government's decision to accept nearly 60,000 Vietnamese refugees, the Mabo decision, and Paul Keating's Redfern speech provide positive narrative touchstones that can help lead Australia to maturity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Parenting habits of Mormons and Catholics

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 January 2012
    9 Comments

    In Mormon families, the first kid has to be a bishop or scout leader, and the second through fifth are trained fpr football. In the Catholic system, a family produces a priest or nun, a cop, a teacher, and a solider, after which the rest of the kids can be whatever they want, even Lutherans in some cases.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Skating over Bali bombing remembrance

    • Vince Chadwick
    • 12 October 2011
    1 Comment

    Six years ago an inner city fountain was transformed into a memorial for the victims of the Bali bombings. Today, skateboarders leap onto the ledge and glide on their back wheels. Skateboarding is a rebellious culture, yet it seems fitting that a monument to peoples' lives be filled with life.

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