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Vol 18 No 21

13 October 2008


 

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Hamlet's complex adolescence

    • Ellena Savage
    • 24 October 2008
    2 Comments

    Marsden shows us Hamlet, Horatio and Ophelia as children playing in the forest. They discover a dying badger and agree it needs to be euthanised. Hamlet stalls.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A fair go for Gurkhas

    • Dan Read
    • 24 October 2008
    2 Comments

    The decision to allow Nepalese Gurkha war veterans to settle in Britain is to be commended. The problems that have caused Nepal's young men to leave their homeland to seek employment elsewhere remain to be solved.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Coens' cynical spy spoof

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 23 October 2008
    5 Comments

    It can be hard to spot the villain in a Coen Brothers movie. The ill-fated scheme at the heart of their latest comedy is instigated by Linda, an endearingly goofy gym employee who longs to be able to afford cosmetic surgery.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Overworked Aussies' imperfect match

    • Tony Smith
    • 23 October 2008

    The creed of Roy Slaven and H. G. Nelson is that too much sport is barely enough. While Ricky Ponting has denied talk of a falling out with his chief 'quick' Brett Lee, the plight of the Australian team in India proves there is such a thing as too much cricket. 

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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    Something rotten in Islam

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 22 October 2008
    12 Comments

    When a Muslim woman was kidnapped by the Byzantine empire, the Caliph in Baghdad threatened to send a vast army to rescue her. Today, Muslim leaders do nothing to help women being mistreated and held in captivity in their own countries.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Bankers conspire to cover their assets

    • Les Coleman
    • 22 October 2008
    3 Comments

    Circumstantial evidence suggests that during the past few weeks we have seen a massive manipulation of monetary policy to support US bank stocks. The manipulation has been played out in plain view, which, of course, is the best place to hide a secret.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bipartisan games

    • John Warhurst
    • 21 October 2008
    1 Comment

    Kevin Rudd has a patchy record of bipartisanship. Although Rudd and Turnbull together offer the best chance yet for the republican movement, they have traded blows over bipartisan approaches to this and to the the economic crisis.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bad day pose

    • Isabella Fels
    • 21 October 2008
    2 Comments

    I've let you down by not looking after you ... By pretending to be your closest intimate buddy ... But leaving you for dead ... Every time my other friend ... The fridge entices me with her sensuous delights...

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  • ECONOMICS

    Wall Street Blues

    • Jim McDermott
    • 20 October 2008
    6 Comments

    As I walk the streets of Manhattan, things seem much the same as always. Yet newspapers are peppered with references to the market 'cratering', a term that conjures the desolate landscape of the moon. A friend suggested another interpretation: 'A crater is what's left after a massive explosion.'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    ABC Radio National's bland vision

    • Michael Mullins
    • 20 October 2008
    18 Comments

    The ABC is abandoning the Religion Report and other specialist programs as part of changes intended to make the most of new technology. Management must explain how dumbing down content will ensure Radio National's relevance in the future.

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  • RELIGION

    Neither Scott nor Amrozi deserves death

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 October 2008
    31 Comments

    We should feel deep regret when the bullets pierce the hearts of the Bali Bombers. Neither just nor useful, the death penalty is immoral. Prime Minister Rudd is well positioned to contribute to its abolition.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Inside the Brethren lobby horse

    • John Gunson
    • 17 October 2008
    9 Comments

    The Brethren cultivated a relationship with Howard that secured them generous access to him while he was prime minister. Rudd has made it clear he has no time for them, but they will no doubt re-emerge when the climate is more congenial.

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  • RELIGION

    Moral relativism's extreme close-up

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 October 2008
    2 Comments

    Two people embrace on a verandah. The camera pulls back to disclose a housing estate, with couples embracing on each verandah. Relativism works like the move from close-up to broad perspective in film, by seeming to deflate the significance of what we have just seen.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Wired, profound

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 16 October 2008

    In 1974 French acrobat Philippe Petit balanced mortality and destiny on a wire between New York City's Twin Towers. This documentary imbues Petit's dizzying, existential quest with the dramatic tension of a bank heist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    State wards: parental guidance recommended

    • Philip Mendes
    • 15 October 2008
    4 Comments

    While most families continue to support their children when they turn 18, young people leaving state care are expected to transition to instant independence with scant ongoing support. Little wonder many face the transition with trepidation.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The battle for the economy class armrest

    • Brian Matthews
    • 15 October 2008
    10 Comments

    Recent events both aeronautical and financial have been enough to scare anyone off banks and aeroplanes forever. Global economic chaos is nothing compared with the trauma of being stuck next to a large person on a plane.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Eight months on, still sorry

    • Deborah Ruiz Wall
    • 14 October 2008
    3 Comments

    and so it was, in Canberra .. alongside screens from across the globe .. where many eyes focused on this fateful day to witness .. a new national leader seize the first opportunity .. to begin his regime with one word

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Uganda's aggressive peace

    • Ben Fraser
    • 14 October 2008
    1 Comment

    'Supernatural' rebel leader Alice Lakwena told her fighters that bullets would bounce off them and stones would become grenades when pitched at the enemy. For many Ugandans, religion was ballast against violence. For others it was an instrument of war.

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  • ECONOMICS

    The chuckling economist

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 13 October 2008
    16 Comments

    On the day the markets bled we rushed to hear Stiglitz's diagnosis. The Nobel Laureate used to be Chief Economist of the World Bank, ending his term in fisty cuffs with the IMF and the US over their financial bullying of developing nations. Stiglitz had schadenfreude written all over his face.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Monastic gaze through money myopia

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 October 2008
    11 Comments

    News last week of the death of Dom Placid Spearritt, Abbot of New Norcia Abbey, was set among the daily chronicles of financial collapse around the world. That seemed paradoxical.

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