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Vol 21 No 7

10 April 2011


 

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Gospel bit players

    • Philip Harvey
    • 21 April 2011
    7 Comments

    The conventional homily on the miracle of the lame man focuses on his faith and hope. But Irish poet Seamus Heaney draws attention to the faith, hope and charity of the man's friends, who will go to any trouble to help their mate in his hour of need.

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  • RELIGION

    Atheist's Easter guilt

    • Debi Hamilton
    • 21 April 2011
    7 Comments

    My exposure to the Bible gave me a store of rich language and evocative imagery, a sense of history, and illustrations of moral principles. Does it matter that I know something of the story of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, come Easter, and my children only think of holiday? Well, yes.

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  • MEDIA

    Sex scandals and SNAG soldiers

    • Lyn Bender
    • 21 April 2011
    5 Comments

    Listening to the Defence Force top brass talk about the 'female' cadet scandal is like taking a trip back to the 1940s. The stoic military 'warrior culture' can be tempered by encouraging men to develop appropriate self-disclosure and empathy against the dehumanising effects of training.

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  • MEDIA

    Defending defence

    • Jim Molan
    • 21 April 2011
    8 Comments

    Defence has the same problem as society in relation to young people's attitudes to sex, alcohol and social media. I wonder if we handle it better than most. The firestorm of ignorant criticism of the ADF and its 'culture' and leadership was mostly undeserved and could be counterproductive. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Christian and Muslim bullets and blood

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 April 2011
    3 Comments

    Nawal, disgraced and exiled from her Christian village for an affair with a Muslim man, conceals her crucifix and hitches a ride on a bus laden with Muslims. Shortly, the bus is halted by a squadron of bloodthirsty Christian militants.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Stations of the Cross reinterpreted

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 21 April 2011
    6 Comments

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  • RELIGION

    Uncomfortable Easter and Anzac Day

    • Andrew Hamilon
    • 21 April 2011
    10 Comments

    Good intentions are not sufficient to give life meaning. Easter's significance comes not from Jesus' choice to die, but in God's gift of raising him from the dead. In the Anzac story, it may be comforting to say young soldiers died that others may live, but the comfort is too easy.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Stations of the Cross reinterpreted

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 21 April 2011

    Recent debate in the Australian Catholic Church over the new English translation of the Mass shows the difficulty of expressing age-old spiritual truths in contemporary language and symbols. One Sydney Uniting Church has risen to the challenge.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Deportation dilemma

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 20 April 2011
    19 Comments

    A 46-year-old UK citizen who has lived in Australia for 40 years was removed to Britain this week due to a history of violence and other offences. It is problematic that someone who has already 'done the time' for their crimes can be punished a second time by migration law.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Anzac revelations

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 20 April 2011
    9 Comments

    My father was just 23 when he saw action. He is now nearly 90, and his recent description of the Borneo beach landing, which he had never mentioned to his offspring before, made my brother's blood run cold.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Forgotten Aboriginal war heroes

    • Paul W. Newbury
    • 19 April 2011
    21 Comments

    In 1790, resistance hero Pemulwuy killed Governor Phillip's convict gamekeeper for his abuse of Aboriginal women. The subsequent Frontier Wars raged for 140 years. Anzac celebrations tend to neglect the many Indigenous Australians who died in defence of their land.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Tommy's twin brother Jesus

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 April 2011
    2 Comments

    Not one soul on that Easter morning long ago cared a whit about theological matters. They did not even care if the thin man once died and rose again. They were there for each other, out of respect and affection, and habit and custom, and because they wanted to give their children a thing they couldn't explain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sex and humility in the church and the military

    • Michael Mullins
    • 18 April 2011
    16 Comments

    In the wake of the defence force Skype sex scandal, former diplomat Bruce Haigh pointed out that things start to go wrong when commanding officers forget that they are there to serve, and instead act to protect their reputations. His point holds true for unions and churches.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Thinking positively about getting a job

    • Lin Hatfield Dodds
    • 18 April 2011
    6 Comments

    Prime Minister Gillard's speech to the Sydney Institute last week, and Tony Abbot’s policy announcements two weeks ago, drew unanimous response from the community sector — that getting people into work is a sound objective, but it's harder than it looks.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Shop floor priest

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 April 2011
    6 Comments

    Fr Ian Dillon portrayed teaching as a power struggle, with students and teachers pitted against one another. He enjoyed criticising those in power at any level of state and church. His stories would end with a laugh, and his exclamation of delight, 'They really haven't got a bloody clue!'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Publishing George Orwell

    • Brian Matthews
    • 14 April 2011
    2 Comments

    In 1981, a few months before actor Peter Davison became the fifth Doctor Who, Professor Peter Davison, the literary scholar, accepted a commission to produce the corrected editions of Orwell's nine books. The project was to be fraught by false dawns and recurring frustrations.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Humiliating Gbagbo

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 14 April 2011

    Journalistic accounts of the defeat of Ivory Coast's Laurent Koudou Gbagbo seem to contain an unhealthy note of gloating. The Ghana Business News shows a more modest creature who posted his impressions on Twitter even as the crisis was unfolding. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Gen Y, iPods and isolation

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 April 2011
    1 Comment

    Pavel's meanderings are soundtracked by rock music blaring through his earphones. Increasingly the iPod seems to symbolise some nonchalant skein that isolates self-centred youths from the world around them.

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  • RELIGION

    Liturgy translation 'suprisingly good'

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 April 2011
    48 Comments

    Liturgy has always aroused strong passions. In the 19th century, some London churches served by Anglican priests who wore lace were stoned. So it is not surprising that the introduction of a new translation of the Catholic Mass should be turbulent. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gandhi's echo

    • Kimberley Layton
    • 12 April 2011
    2 Comments

    After being recruited by a motley group of NGO activists under the banner ‘India Against Corruption’, 72 year old social activist Anna Hazare has just completed a hunger strike, and is being spruiked as the face of a new, corruption-free India. But just because Gandhi did it, doesn’t make it right.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Muslims who venerate St George

    • William Gourlay
    • 12 April 2011
    6 Comments

    Crowding onto ferries in Istanbul, Turks arrive on the island they call Büyükada early in the morning, Muslim pilgrims en route to a Greek Orthodox church to ask favours of St George. No one is sure when the Muslim practice of venerating St George began, but it is well documented.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Joe Bageant's option for the hillbillies

    • Michael Loughnane
    • 12 April 2011
    6 Comments

    ‘I don’t like middle class people very much,’ said Joe Bageant in an interview for the documentary Deer Hunting with Jesus. Bageant championed the cause of  the ‘white redneck’, a social group he saw as being one of the most marginalised and disenfranchised in America.

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  • CARTOON

    Girls in the military

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 12 April 2011

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The coarse brass voice of the Vespa

    • Various
    • 11 April 2011
    2 Comments

    Hushed joggers puff their discretion, German ladies impose their Kaiser bulk onto the graceful belligerence that is Tai Chi, a Vespa falters for an instant. An early promenade.

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  • MEDIA

    Cyber traps for young players

    • Chris Middleton
    • 11 April 2011
    6 Comments

    The use of Skype to demean a young female trainee at the Australian Defence Force Academy once again demonstrates that the internet can damage young people’s sense of self. It also points to the need for an educational program that builds an awareness of our culture and an ability to question information and critique forms of communication.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Moral challenge for Catholic clubs

    • Michael Mullins
    • 10 April 2011
    12 Comments

    Clubs Australia has launched a campaign against proposed pre-commitment technology designed to protect problem gamblers. Because Catholic teaching also seeks to protect these people, clubs sanctioned by the Church need to distance themselves from the campaign. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Educating bigots

    • Moira Rayner
    • 10 April 2011
    20 Comments

    The litigation against Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt shows the limitation of a court-focused, plaintiff-led approach to racial vilification. There are alternative ways of responding to racial and religious vilification that do not involve litigation.

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