Vol 20 No 3

15 February 2010

EDUCATION

Gillard student numbers don't add up
- Fatima Measham
- 26 February 2010
5 Comments
Many teachers argue that NAPLAN test results should be used to improve the standard of education, and not a lever for market-based competition. These critics are called secretive and defensive. Perhaps this is how Rudd and Gillard want them to be seen.
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EUREKA STREET TV

Making more room for women in the Church
- Peter Kirkwood
- 26 February 2010
19 Comments
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Getting high on war
- Tim Kroenert
- 25 February 2010
1 Comment
Staff Sergeant William James is responsible for disarming bombs laid by insurgents in the sandy streets of Baghdad. For him, the stress of the job is a veritable amphetamine, and he's well and truly hooked.
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RELIGION

Liturgical payback
- Neil Ormerod
- 25 February 2010
33 Comments
It's unlikely people will flock back to mass simply because a new translation is in place. Far more likely is that, as with the change at Vatican II, there will be a disaffected minority who cease to practice because their experience of the sacred has been violated.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Stark raven Barnaby Joyce
- Brian Matthews
- 24 February 2010
4 Comments
In Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, pet raven Grip is given to tantalising but incomprehensible pronouncements, fluttering annoyingly around the edges of conversational gatherings, and launching sudden, inexplicable attacks.
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AUSTRALIA

Kevin Rudd's Iran problem
- Shahram Akbarzadeh
- 24 February 2010
8 Comments
Australia is committed to nuclear non-proliferation, and the 'Iran problem' offers a chance for the Government to demonstrate its commitment to its ally, the US. This is tricky as Rudd came to office on a wave of anti-war backlash against Australia's commitment to the Iraq war.
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AUSTRALIA

Boys with knives
- Moira Rayner
- 23 February 2010
12 Comments
Adolescence is a time of violent, primitive emotions, of play-acting and the most intensely lived reality. Boys' passionate assertion of relative worth is developmentally necessary. That child's place in the society of his peers is, for that moment, a matter of life and death.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Dream of me
- Graeme Kinross-Smith
- 23 February 2010
4 Comments
when I get there driving through the night rain's sheen .. I come on myself already asleep in the bed .. mouth ajar head resting on one elbow .. drawing off gloves I bend down .. to look more closely. I see my face ...
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AUSTRALIA

Misdiagnosing Benjamin
- Barry Gittins
- 22 February 2010
17 Comments
The next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders may merge Asperger's into the broader 'autism spectrum disorder'. The father of a misdiagnosed two-year-old boy reveals the emotional and social implications of mental illness pigeonholing.
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AUSTRALIA

Media's poor need a leg up too
- Michael Mullins
- 22 February 2010
2 Comments
As the $250 million 'gift' to free to air TV networks was announced, we heard that the Communications Minister had been fraternising in exclusive locations with Australia's richest media moguls. Perhaps Minister Conroy should now play pool at the local pub with a community radio station manager.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Indigenous voices examine the Intervention
- Sarah Burnside
- 19 February 2010
3 Comments
In 2009, the Federal Government embarked on consultations with Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory about the Northern Territory Emergency Response, commonly referred to as the Intervention. This is what they said.
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RELIGION

Tony Abbott, the poor and Jesus
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 February 2010
30 Comments
Expressing scepticism about the value of politicians committing to healing social problems, Abbott quoted Jesus: 'The poor you have with you always'. This phrase, used here to diffuse the claim the poor make on us, is much richer in meaning when read in context.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Mr Darcy's suicide notes
- Tim Kroenert
- 18 February 2010
2 Comments
That scene in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice where Mr Darcy emerges from a cathartic swim in his pond still makes many women swoon. Colin Firth's enduring sex appeal is channeled into his latest character, a gay university professor who has decided to commit suicide.
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AUSTRALIA

Real stories betray Abbott's homelessness untruth
- John Falzon
- 18 February 2010
22 Comments
Everyone has a story, and they don't happen in limbo. Tony Abbott's comments about homelessness mimic the paternalistic attitude pushed by Margaret Thatcher, where the focus is on supposed individual deficits rather than structural deficits.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Immersed in India's light and shade
- Anne Doyle
- 17 February 2010
3 Comments
Before long we come upon an open stone building — the meeting room. We enter to find 60 weathered women seated on mats on the dirt floor. Their saris fill the enclosure with colour. Their faces tell the poignant stories of their lives.
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AUSTRALIA

Legacy of a whingeing bogan
- Irfan Yusuf
- 17 February 2010
14 Comments
It's official: Pauline Hanson the whingeing bogan will soon become a whingeing Pom. She may not remain in Australia in body, but her spirit will stay with us for decades. Our politics, media and public discourse have been infected by Hansonite thinking.
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AUSTRALIA

Foodies savour the smell of rich people
- Georgina Laidlaw
- 16 February 2010
1 Comment
Despite damnation, bombs and climate change, the truffle continues to prove that peasants can eat like kings — just not in Australia where, priced at up to $3500 a kilo, it has been typecast as an indulgence of the wealthy.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Today I desire less debris
- Marlene Marburg
- 16 February 2010
It is harder to write poetry .. when you are rich ... People in Haiti are dead .. dying, grieving, .. starving and hunting for loved ones, .. and if they have the energy .. looting the few things left. .. Do I really believe .. that mine is yours, my friend?
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AUSTRALIA

Winter Games cool Aussies' long hot summer
- Michael Visontay
- 15 February 2010
1 Comment
The Winter Olympics make for beautiful television — skiers hurtling down the slopes, snowboarders doing somersaults in the air, skaters dancing on the ice. Yet they occupy an unusual place in our imagination. They feel more like recreation than competitive sport.
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AUSTRALIA

Rudd's apology was also our apology
- Michael Mullins
- 15 February 2010
6 Comments
On the second anniversary of the apology to Indigenous Australians, we look instinctively to the Prime Minister to tell us what he's done. He presented his report card to Parliament on Thursday. But he's not the only one who needs to account.
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Vol 20 No 3