Vol 20 No 20

11 October 2010

EUREKA STREET TV

Troublesome nun's faith and feminism
- Peter Kirkwood
- 22 October 2010
6 Comments
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INTERNATIONAL

Understanding Afghanistan's complexities
- Jan Forrester
- 22 October 2010
11 Comments
The situation in Afghanistan is far more complex than the Australian parliamentary debate seems to credit. The international community and the Afghan government should be starting a bigger conversation about how a more transparent and accountable political culture can be encouraged.
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EUREKA STREET TV

Troublesome nun's faith and feminism
- Peter Kirkwood
- 22 October 2010
Like Mary MacKillop before her, Sandra Schneiders is fearless in calling the male Church hierarchy to account. She warns of the dangers for the Church in seeing itself above and separate from the world.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Career criminal's uneasy redemption
- Tim Kroenert
- 21 October 2010
Doug experiences for the first time guilt and empathy for one of his victims, as Claire confides in him the trauma of her kidnapping. It awakens in him a desire to be redeemed from his previous life. But redemption must be earned.
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RELIGION

Queensland's abortion law shortfall
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 October 2010
19 Comments
Those who believe a good society must be built on respect for human life at its beginning and end must work to change public attitudes. Such an approach needs to be based on respect for the freedom of women whom child bearing and rearing touch most intimately.
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CARTOON

Remembering the unwinnable war
- Fiona Katauskas
- 20 October 2010
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INTERNATIONAL

Refugees jammed in ASIO bottleneck
- Kerry Murphy
- 20 October 2010
7 Comments
'Karim' is calling every second day now. His protection visa application was lodged six months ago and he was interviewed four months later. He was brutally tortured in his home country and has lived with debilitating trauma ever since. He now thinks his case will be refused because of the long delays in processing.
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AUSTRALIA

Labor, unleash your rock star
- Paul Mitchell
- 20 October 2010
5 Comments
Labor has used its rock star politician to push paper around. Peter Garrett was a hero to a lot of us. Get him out of that godawful suit and let him speak — sing, if he has to! — his mind on every issue that made him the most outspoken rock singer this country has seen.
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ENVIRONMENT

Tony Windsor's Murray-Darling prescience
- Tony Kevin
- 19 October 2010
7 Comments
Irrigated agriculture systems, like electric grids and city roads, trigger a government's duty of care to the human communities that they sustain. Particularly when they were built with the blood, sweat and tears that went into building our Murray-Darling Basin irrigation communities.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Insect empathy
- Chris Wallace-Crabbe and Margaret Cameron
- 19 October 2010
Industrious servant of excellent fame .. You sting to protect the hive, then you die ... Instinct is such an unworthy name .. Which calls a selfless attitude, a lie.
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AUSTRALIA

Mary MacKillop's lesson for Murray-Darling irrigators
- Michael Mullins
- 18 October 2010
7 Comments
Tony Windsor is proving himself to be a politician of integrity and tact, but has his work cut out for him in the case of the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators. Mary MacKillop was a champion of rural and regional Australians. It is worth considering her strategy in the context of the irrigators' struggle for survival.
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INTERNATIONAL

The problem with prosperous Australia
- John Falzon
- 18 October 2010
5 Comments
There's something disquieting about quietness imposed from above in the heart of a democracy. Anti-Poverty Week is a good time to reflect on how, as a nation, can hear the revolutionary stories of the oppressed and abandoned in our midst.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Serious business for children
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 October 2010
4 Comments
The suffering of children opens a door into the hardness of society. Think about the experience of the Stolen Generations, the detention of asylum seeker children, the sexual abuse of children. Societies try to close doors that open on to vulnerability.
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AUSTRALIA

Kristina Keneally's rational Catholic conscience
- Tony Smith
- 15 October 2010
39 Comments
Traditionally, Catholic-Labor links have been so strong that wits described the Church as 'the Labor Party at prayer'. NSW Labor Premier Kristina Keneally represents a growingly assertive Catholicism which might be described as progressive, rational and independent.
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INTERNATIONAL

Defending Rudd's aid agenda
- Jack de Groot
- 14 October 2010
12 Comments
Associate Professor of Public Policy at Australian Catholic University, Gary Johns, has challenged the Government's growing support of African nations. In so doing, Johns blatantly dismisses the fundamental principles of solidarity, human dignity, common good and option for the poor.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

What to do when trapped underground
- Tim Kroenert
- 14 October 2010
The other people in Paul's life exist only as disembodied voices from a mobile phone, set adrift in the box in which he is trapped. This may be taken as an allegory for modern communication, where handheld electronic devices are the primary conduit to networks of interaction and intimacy.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Subterranean interrogation
- Vin Maskell
- 13 October 2010
7 Comments
'Excuse me,' the young man says. I meet his brown eyes. Pondering how many coins I have in my pocket I note his tidy hair, olive T-shirt, well-fitting jeans, coloured sneakers. Maybe he just wants to ask about the next train. He is perspiring a little. 'Can I talk to you?' he asks.
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CARTOON

Aussie Mary
- Fiona Katauskas
- 13 October 2010
1 Comment
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INTERNATIONAL

Empathy for the buried as Chilean miners emerge
- Catherine Marshall
- 13 October 2010
3 Comments
Raw earth passed by, centimetres from my eyes. Light seeped away, and all that was left was the sound of my breathing. Then a beam of light from a miner's hat reached towards me. A voice greeted me and a hand helped me to climb out. I did an interview, there in the dark, with the faceless person before me.
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AUSTRALIA

Police email scandal can't dampen Indian hospitality
- Vinay Verma
- 12 October 2010
11 Comments
The Victoria Police 'electrocution email' scandal has again displayed Australian inhospitality to the world. Despite this, Indian hospitality remains steadfast. The guest is God in an Indian household. Australia's athletes would know this hospitality well.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Anti-valentine
- Aidan Coleman
- 12 October 2010
2 Comments
You say to leave roses .. for the overcrowded arms of bikies .. You pop inflatable hearts and cut the strings .. of pink and stodgy cherubs .. You shoot down my skywriting plane mid-cliché .. This is not our day.
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AUSTRALIA

Australia's feminist saint
- Michael Mullins
- 11 October 2010
5 Comments
Sexual abuse was part of the mix of challenges facing Mary MacKillop and her sisters, but it was only one of many elements of disfunction within the Church and society of the time. Historian Father Ed Campion has described MacKillop as 'a heroine to modern Australian feminists'.
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RELIGION

Geoffrey Robertson's Catholicism for dummies
- Paul Collins
- 11 October 2010
26 Comments
Robertson may be a celebrity QC, but historian he is certainly not. He touts the notion that the Vatican is not a real state and that as a consequence Benedict XVI should not be granted immunity from prosecution for his alleged responsibility in covering up clerical sexual abuse.
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Vol 20 No 20