Vol 20 No 22

08 November 2010

EUREKA STREET TV

Life after suicide
- Peter Kirkwood
- 19 November 2010
1 Comment
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EUREKA STREET TV

Life after suicide
- Peter Kirkwood
- 19 November 2010
Around 2000 Australians die every year from suicide. Dr Diana Sands guides members of her support groups as they metaphorically try on the shoes of a loved one who has suicided, walk in their shoes, and finally take off the shoes and say goodbye.
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RELIGION

'Sheila' MacKillop boosts Catholic brand
- Paul Collins
- 19 November 2010
9 Comments
This week it was reported that the canonisation of Mary MacKillop boosted enquiries at Australia's Catholic Enquiry Centre by 63 per cent in the past year. The saturation media coverage of the event suggests the Church may not be as much 'on the nose' as is popularly thought.
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RELIGION

Anglicans and Catholics
- Andrew Hamilton
- 18 November 2010
20 Comments
Predictions that massive numbers of Anglicans will become Catholic seem far-fetched. Certainly, the Anglican communion is sharply divided by proposals to ordain women Bishops and to ordain as Bishops men in openly homosexual relationships. But only some of those opposed would feel any attraction to Rome.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Harry Potter's dark days
- Tim Kroenert
- 18 November 2010
1 Comment
The youths take fearful strides into adulthood, embracing responsibility through necessity, unprotected by parents, teachers or mentors. Like many fictional 'chosen ones', Harry Potter is an allegorical Christ figure.
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CARTOON

Aung San Suu Kyi and the limits of hope
- Fiona Katauskas
- 17 November 2010
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INTERNATIONAL

My refugeeness
- Kim Huynh
- 17 November 2010
7 Comments
My father would harbour a modern sense of can-do-ism and irreverence for tradition throughout his life. It was his vision of a new and better world along with the conviction that his sons had no future in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, that drove us on to that horribly overcrowded boat in 1979.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Swimming in ink
- Vin Maskell
- 17 November 2010
7 Comments
He is out there, a fellow water man, in the real dark, in the blue-black ink. I am just here in the shallows, for I am not a swimmer. I can neither see him nor hear him but know he is there because his bike and his clothes are in their usual spot by the footpath.
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AUSTRALIA

One day at Villawood
- Ben Coleridge
- 16 November 2010
8 Comments
Soon enough there was a group of children in the yard and a soccer game was about to begin. First we had to decide the teams. I asked one small boy, whose family was from Sri Lanka, which country he wanted his team to be. 'Australia,' he yelled back.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Refugee poems
- Various
- 16 November 2010
1 Comment
Go and open the door .. stare at the bright blue sea .. for boats .. struggling southwards from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. .. Feel the rippling fear of refugees .. wondering if supplies will last .. or a hand reach out .. or turn and lock the door.
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AUSTRALIA

Aung San Suu Kyi, refugees and bikies
- Michael Mullins
- 15 November 2010
7 Comments
The release on Saturday of Burma's democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi, and last week's Australian high court decisions regarding refugees and bikies, each contain salutary lessons for governments that attempt to rule by popular fear.
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AUSTRALIA

Shopping as communion
- Sarah Kanowski
- 15 November 2010
6 Comments
Buying and selling has shaped history. Alongside goods, new ideas and practices get exchanged, leading to the creation of remarkable civilisations. My young daughter and I recently caught a bus into the city to do some shopping. A mundane errand was transformed into something magical.
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INTERNATIONAL

Asylum seeker decision tests Government sportsmanship
- Kerry Murphy
- 12 November 2010
6 Comments
A litmus test for the health of a democracy is what a Government does when it loses cases in the highest court in the land. The first consequence of yesterday's High Court decision regarding the cases of two Tamil asylum seekers is that many cases will need to be reconsidered.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Meaning amid wedding chaos
- Brian Matthews
- 12 November 2010
1 Comment
At the edge of each knot of resplendent women stood the groom. Uncomfortable in a constricting collar or a slightly askew bow tie or colours they'd never worn before and would never wear again. Many looked curiously grumpy. Wasn't this their day of days? What was going wrong here?
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AUSTRALIA

A plan to overcome poverty
- Frank Quinlan
- 11 November 2010
9 Comments
Currently, we have national plans for such things as defence, conservation and management of sharks, national broadband, combating pollution of the sea, and recovery of the south-eastern red-tailed black cockatoo. It's time we had a national plan to overcome poverty.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Teen depression nightmare
- Tim Kroenert
- 11 November 2010
1 Comment
Brent's father was recently killed in a car accident. Brent, on his L-plates, was driving the car at the time. He has declined into a drugged and depressed daze. The ordeal he soon undergoes awakens a renewed will to live.
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CARTOON

Aborigines and the Constitution
- Fiona Katauskas
- 10 November 2010
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Football hero's homeless grace
- Brian Doyle
- 10 November 2010
6 Comments
Former local sports hero The Hawk took up residence on the town football field. A reporter came looking for a tale of woe but didn't find it. People leave him sandwiches, the kids who play lacrosse set up a screen so his tent won't get peppered by stray shots, and cops drift by to make sure no one's giving him grief.
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INTERNATIONAL

Getting to know Indonesia
- Stephen Minas
- 10 November 2010
10 Comments
How many foreign heads of state could be depicted in a cartoon in an Australian newspaper, as Indonesian President Yudhoyono was, in an act of sodomy? Despite widespread negative perceptions, Australia's neighbour is achieving many positive changes, quickly.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Supermarket and cemetery conversation
- Brendan Ryan
- 09 November 2010
At the IGA, the woman at the check-out peppers her speech with Darl. Her friendliness, the way she packs my plastic bags, greets me two days later – a connection Facebook can’t provide.
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AUSTRALIA

What Catholics expect from politicians
- Andrew Hamilton
- 09 November 2010
12 Comments
Recently Victoria's Catholic Bishops distributed their advice to voters in the November 27 state election. Entitled Your Vote, Your Values, it was quickly portrayed as an attack on the Greens, given its focus on euthanasia. The statement, however, was more complex and interesting than that description suggested.
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AUSTRALIA

Islamic values could control bank greed
- Michael Mullins
- 08 November 2010
10 Comments
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi dismissed Islamic banking as 'incompatible with Australia's Western values'. But Western values that uphold a banking system that treats its customers with disdain – as the Commonwealth Bank did last week – need to be questioned.
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AUSTRALIA

Tony Abbott's missing moral core
- Neil Ormerod
- 08 November 2010
61 Comments
Tony Abbott has been in public life for a long time. Most recently there has been his meteoric rise to leadership of the Liberal party and to a hair’s breadth from the prime ministership itself. Charming and disarming as he can be, there is something deeply disturbing in the way he carries out his public role.
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Vol 20 No 22