Vol 18 No 25

08 December 2008

AUSTRALIA

Seasons greetings to our readers
- Michael Mullins
- 23 December 2008
11 Comments
Our decision to make Eureka Street content free of charge has been a resounding success. Traffic to our website has more than doubled. We have received only a few expressions of misgiving from readers who would prefer to pay for the content.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Feminist Christmas story
- Dorothy A. Lee
- 23 December 2008
6 Comments
Feminist biblical scholars ask two fundamental questions of the biblical nativity story. First they ask how female characters are portrayed. Second, they ask how these biblical myths can be reinterpreted in a woman-friendly (rather than misogynist) way.
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AUSTRALIA

Police shootings have many victims
- Michael Mullins
- 22 December 2008
7 Comments
Just ten days after the killing of Melbourne 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy, a Sydney woman was wounded at the weekend, in yet another police shooting. It's time to question the extent to which we should be proud of the anti-authoritarianism in our culture.
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RELIGION

Zen Christmas
- Sarah Kanowski
- 22 December 2008
3 Comments
Silent breakfast in a still-dark zendo, mist rising on the mountains, has been replaced by a scramble against the clock, one eye on the newspaper, one hand reaching for the Weet Bix, our toddler clambering, garbage trucks screeching outside. How to find silence here?
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ARTS AND CULTURE

New Zealand's best export
- Michael McVeigh
- 19 December 2008
2 Comments
Life here leaves characters little time for introspection or philosophy. When politics finds its way into the strips, it's done in typically irreverent country style. Footrot Flats is one thing Australians could never steal from our nearby neighbours.
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MEDIA

Newspaper's golden age
- Moira Rayner
- 19 December 2008
7 Comments
It is apparently old-fashioned to expect to be primarily informed and engaged by a newspaper, yet that is what Melburnians loved about The Age. As a one-time Age columnist, I came in — and went out — at the turning point for that once venerable organ.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Life as a game show
- Tim Kroenert
- 18 December 2008
1 Comment
Having grown up an orphan in a Mumbai slum, Jamal is an unlikely candidate for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. A sense of the divine pervades the film, but while Jamal seems destined for good fortune, his brother Salim diverges towards corruption.
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AUSTRALIA

Turnbull's problematic leadership
- John Warhurst
- 18 December 2008
2 Comments
Last Christmas, rookie Prime Minister Rudd could not afford to take a holiday. This year, following dismal December opinion polls, it's Turnbull who may need to forgo a break as he gets the Coalition house in order.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Scenes from a taxi
- Brian Matthews
- 17 December 2008
1 Comment
I don't support the view that cab drivers are sources of homespun wisdom and arcane knowledge. Australian cabbies are an amiable, diverse lot, not given to philosophy, though I encountered one spectacular exception.
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AUSTRALIA

Zimbabwe's disappeared
- Oskar Wermter
- 17 December 2008
6 Comments
Jestina Mukoko was a television presenter, but left to become director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, which has documented many atrocities and crimes of Mugabe's regime. Last week she was abducted by a group of armed agents.
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ECONOMICS

A frugal Christmas story
- Margaret Rice
- 16 December 2008
3 Comments
This time of year is marked by a fraught pre-Christmas anxiety, exacerbated this year by the economic crisis. My daughter Rachel lost her part-time job last week. Her loss is slight compared to her employer's, a young mother who works in the finance industry.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

What the people don't know
- Jeff Klooger
- 16 December 2008
1 Comment
The minister .. surveys his kingdom with an eagle's eye .. and an artichoke's heart .. those desperadoes in their plywood boats .. the public with their mortgages
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ENVIRONMENT

Confessions of a videogame junkie
- Ben O'Mara
- 15 December 2008
2 Comments
I spent untold hours playing on my Commodore 64. I upgraded to a PC, to fight the beasties of Duke Nukem 3D as I chugged too many coffees and Mars bars. Interactivity is videogames' strength, and can be applied in socially constructive ways for marginalised communities.
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AUSTRALIA

Rudd's random acts of political kindness
- Michael Mullins
- 15 December 2008
3 Comments
As Kevin Rudd ends 2008 and his first year on a high, it seems he's every bit the trickster John Howard was. We're heading into one of the worst recessions in living memory, yet the government leapt to a six month high in last week's Newspoll.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Marketing the Manchester myth
- James Massola
- 12 December 2008
Of particular interest are the chapters on the mythologising of the 'Busby Babes', the young team that perished in the Munich air disaster in 1958. White examines the impact of the disaster on the club's brand, and the manner in which it has been exploited.
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EDUCATION

Why the Melbourne Model is failing students
- Ben Coleridge
- 12 December 2008
5 Comments
Widespread subject cuts and reductions in staff numbers have eaten away at students' plans and rendered the new breadth component impotent. Horizons seem to be shrinking, which makes it increasingly difficult to 'dream large'.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Crabs, cars and Peter Carey
- Tim Kroenert
- 11 December 2008
1 Comment
Of the notorious Australian low-budget genre films of the 1970s and 1980s, few would feature 'social commentary' as a selling point. But then, few have the distinction of being based on a Peter Carey short story.
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RELIGION

How to talk to students
- Andrew Hamilton
- 11 December 2008
9 Comments
Church political pressure works against engaging young people in meaningful conversation. The value of conversation is often seen to lie less in the search for truth than in articulating positions.
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RELIGION

Maintaining the UN's moral gold standard
- Frank Brennan
- 10 December 2008
5 Comments
Sixty years on, it is fashionable to describe the Declaration of Human Rights as a peculiarly western, individualistic conception. It was not. Now is the time for Australia to discuss how best to make the State attentive to the still, small voice of conscience.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Talking turkey for a cliché-free year
- Tom Clark
- 10 December 2008
15 Comments
Sick of singing from the same song sheet during a perfect storm? Try our innovative 12-step cliche evasion program and see if, at the end of the day, it impacts your speech and enhances your conversation, going forwards into 2009.
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INTERNATIONAL

Terrorism trial's legacy of fairness
- James Montgomery
- 09 December 2008
5 Comments
A landmark ruling in Victoria's 'terrorism trial' found the accused were subjected to oppressive conditions beyond what prisoners on remand should endure. It's as if they were to be punished prior to the outcome of the trial, irrespective of the jury verdict.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Dementia's wings
- Kathryn Hamann
- 09 December 2008
1 Comment
You are the city that recognised .. no temple but yourself ... those precious sparkling walls of intellect ... Shall I go down and trouble .. you with my touch? You as yet able .. to bar the gates
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AUSTRALIA

Freeview shackles digital TV
- Michael Mullins
- 08 December 2008
2 Comments
Freeview purports to be consumers' friend, helping them make the switch to digital TV. But it is actually set up to protect the advertising revenue of the commercial networks by limiting the potential of the technology.
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AUSTRALIA

Australian republicans' Ireland envy
- Frank O'Shea
- 08 December 2008
16 Comments
Most Irish would be content with the suggestion that the push for an Australian Republic was an Irish plot. When Ireland declared itself a republic 60 years ago, it did so without the awkwardness of a referendum or political grandstanding.
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Vol 18 No 25