Keywords: Social Distancing
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Smith
- 30 January 2024
1 Comment
This rush to the missile age is part of a broader escalation of the arms race in previously peaceful regions, distancing countries like Australia and New Zealand from their roles as honest brokers in a nuclear-free Pacific.
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INTERNATIONAL
- David Halliday, Beth Doherty, Tim Dunlop, Matthew Howard
- 26 August 2022
When former Facebook employee Frances Haugen released a trove of documents revealing internal research on the negative effects its social media products were having on mental health, the darker side of social media became hard to ignore. So how might the harmful effects of social media be mitigated into a social benefit for a saner, more coherent society?
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RELIGION
- John Warhurst
- 19 July 2022
18 Comments
When those, like myself, seeking reform speak of systemic change to church structures those opposed to change see disrespect towards those holding positions like bishop and priest within the established order. When reformers seek the equality of women in governance and ministry those opposed to change see disrespect towards lay men and male religious as well as to other women.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 17 March 2022
12 Comments
Taken together the events of recent years suggest that we face a crisis, a time in which the working assumptions that have guided our personal and collective lives no longer hold. If we do not change we face increasing threats to the world that we shall hand on to our children.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 18 November 2021
7 Comments
The abrupt change in public attitudes to the threat of COVID calls to mind an earthy Cambodian proverb. It describes someone who has begged a boat ride across a river and then goes on his way without thanking or paying the boatman. Roughly translated the proverb says, ‘Flash your bum and say good-bye’.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 06 May 2021
17 Comments
The laying on of hands has been associated with controverted change in Western religious societies. Central in religious societies, it became neuralgic in cultures seeking to mark out clear boundaries between religion and such domains as politics, science and medicine and demography. To appreciate the significance of the action, it is worth reflecting on its history.
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AUSTRALIA
- Nicola Heath
- 23 February 2021
3 Comments
For those of us who already regularly shopped, banked, studied and worked via the Internet, it was easy to adapt to telehealth appointments with doctors and video calls with friends and family. Of course, these activities require access to the Internet — something 2.5 million Australians are without. A further 4 million access the Internet solely using a mobile connection. For these citizens, the pandemic exacerbated the existing digital divide.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 24 November 2020
5 Comments
In measures now sadly familiar in 2020, theatres were closed once the number of weekly deaths exceeded 30, later 40, but because actors and the theatre world itself were so economically vulnerable, actors, understandably intent on earning a living, soon legally or otherwise cut themselves some slack by taking liberties with the rules governing performances and quarantine — again, a phenomenon that is now, against all previous odds, familiar to people of 2020.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Michael McVeigh
- 22 October 2020
5 Comments
Magic, we’ve discovered in our first years of parenting, is an important part of raising children. It’s a lesson we’ve learned, at least in part, thanks to Bluey on the ABC. For those of you who haven’t yet encountered this little blue dog and her family, Bluey is the star of one of the ABC’s most popular Australian kids series.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Leya Reid
- 13 October 2020
49 Comments
A common argument is that publicly-funded artists take unnecessarily from the ‘average Australian’. In the current international crisis, this argument fails to recognise that artists and arts workers are just as deeply impacted financially by COVID-19 as the ‘average Australian’ in other industries.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Seetha Nambiar Dodd
- 24 September 2020
5 Comments
My mother informs me, over the telephone, that she has just returned from a trial run of her inaugural ‘live-cam’ tour at the local Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur. My niece, who lives in England, is learning about Hinduism in her Religious Education class and would love to show her classmates a live, on-site presentation of her grandmother’s temple.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 08 September 2020
11 Comments
The Buhler arrest stirred a range of responses from across the political divide, many troubled. Legal representatives and human rights advocates were similarly disturbed by what they regarded as a lack of proportion and restraint in police action.
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