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Keywords: Paradox

  • AUSTRALIA

    Russians voting against democracy

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 12 December 2007
    1 Comment

    Russia's apathetic young people assert that even if they vote, nothing will change. They don't actually want things to change. They compare Russia with the troubled Yeltsin years. The economy and lifestyle have boomed, so why worry about free speech?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Silence has the last word

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 November 2007

    The energy of Alex Miller's novel Landscape of Farewell comes from the paradox that is often manifest when people of very different cultures come together and words fail them. Out of their silence can come words more profound than the individuals could have spoken alone.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Buying and selling creativity

    • Malcolm King
    • 14 November 2007

    It's time we called big businesses' bluff about their appropriation of the term 'creativity'. For a truly creative nation to evolve, we need to study the wild mutability of the creative process.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Voting with instinct

    • Tony Smith
    • 31 October 2007
    1 Comment

    Some political professionals would like to see the state behave just like the market, operating as a heartless machine for maximising outcomes. However, truly rational electors realise that if the system is to be imbued with compassion and humanity, the heart must play a role no less important than the head.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Don't shoot science messengers, they're an endangered species

    • Robyn Williams
    • 03 October 2007
    7 Comments

    Few want to dedicate their professional lives to communicating the often bad news that comes from science researchers. Williams, Swan, Dr Karl, Flannery and Winston represent a fading generation. The real future should belong to fresh voices. Where are they?

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  • RELIGION

    Reasonable security a better bet than total security

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 September 2007
    3 Comments

    The internal logic of total security regards the dignity of people who stand in the way, as dispensable. Once respect for some human beings is treated as optional, the human dignity of those offered security becomes equally dispensable.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Anti-corruption measures eclipse human rights in Cambodia

    • Allister Hayman
    • 27 June 2007
    1 Comment

    Despite mounting criticism of the human rights record of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, foreign donors, including Australia, continue to back him financially. It seems that the economic growth and stability he has fostered is more valuable than transparency, the rule of law, and human rights.

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  • RELIGION

    Happiness and the Inner Self

    • Clive Hamilton
    • 13 June 2007
    10 Comments

    We all want to live a happy life. But what do we think of when we ponder our own happiness? In today’s society, dominated by the techniques of marketing and the culture of consumption, we are being persuaded to think of our happiness in a quite different way — as the gratification of our desires.

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  • RELIGION

    Playful irreverence in the Town Common

    • Richard Treloar
    • 18 May 2007
    2 Comments

    Was Triple J's Jesus impersonation contest in Melbourne's Federation Square on the day before Good Friday merely a revival of the 'carnivalesque' tradition of playful irreverence that is linked with a destruction and uncrowning related to birth and renewal.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Knowledge that eludes the search engine

    • Philip Harvey
    • 08 March 2007
    2 Comments

    The poetry of Peter Steele is well-tempered, even when the subject is not. His themes are often modesty, doubt and brokenness, but his uses his grand style to produce measured tones and educated observations.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Shelters protect childhood of Ugandan children

    • Matthew Smeal
    • 16 October 2006
    3 Comments

    Government-run shelters have become much more than a safe refuge for the children, but somewhere where they can actually be children. Nobody knows whether the recent ceasefire between the Government and the LRA rebels will hold.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    As other people see us...

    • Morag Fraser
    • 16 October 2006
    1 Comment

    In the Providence Journal, chief political columnist M. Charles Bakst notes that in the Democratic state of Rhode Island, "Bush" is just short of a swear word. The New York Times condemns the Detainee legislation in an editorial headed “Rushing Off a Cliff”. It doesn’t spare the Democrats either.

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