Vol 21 No 1

17 January 2011

EUREKA STREET TV

Eureka Street's founding vision
- Peter Kirkwood
- 28 January 2011
4 Comments
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AUSTRALIA

Making flood reconstruction fair and sustainable
- Lin Hatfield Dodds
- 28 January 2011
18 Comments
The levy announced yesterday is progressive, precisely the type of approach that social justice principles and practicality dictate. But it is a one off response and another example of why we need to fix Australia’s taxation system for the long term.
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EUREKA STREET TV

Eureka Street's founding vision
- Peter Kirkwood
- 28 January 2011
1 Comment
Eureka Street’s founding publisher Michael Kelly is one of the Australian Jesuits who had long discussed a journal of intelligent comment on topical issues in church and society. The models included long-running Jesuit publications overseas including America in the USA, established in 1909, and the The Month in Britain (1864-2001).
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Inside and outside the Facebook fishtank
- Tim Kroenert
- 27 January 2011
3 Comments
A lot of people say they committed Facebook suicide – deleting their profile – after seeing the new American documentary Catfish. 'Even I've scaled back,' says co-director Ariel Schulman. 'If a "virtual relationship" affects you emotionally, then it's not virtual at all.'
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INTERNATIONAL

China's 'incremental' democracy
- Mark Chou
- 27 January 2011
8 Comments
Last week's media coverage of Chinese President Hu Jintao's Washington visit focused on Senator Harry Reid's offhand remarks. Reid called Hu is a 'dictator', describing his government as 'different' to that of the US. But China is on a path towards a form of democracy that may be no less democratic than many western nations.
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CARTOON

Australia Day
- Fiona Katauskas
- 26 January 2011
1 Comment
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AUSTRALIA

Lessons about Australian identity from 'The King's Speech'
- John Warhurst
- 25 January 2011
18 Comments
Some advocates of monarchy have jumped on the film The King's Speech as evidence that Australia needs a monarch. Monarchists often argue like this when they want to personalise the constitutional debate by concentrating on a member of the Royal family with attractive features.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

On the waterfront in Genoa
- Helen Koukoutsis and Jennifer Compton
- 25 January 2011
A young man, made of ebony, from Senegal or Somalia or the Côte d'Ivoire, sat down beside me gracefully… I gave him the twenty euro that I had to hand. Stammering, ill at ease, he asked me what I had in mind.
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AUSTRALIA

Oprah's self-serving Australian adventure
- Michael Mullins
- 24 January 2011
15 Comments
Australia Day is supposed to make us feel good about ourselves as a nation. This year, the scheduling of the four-part TV event Oprah's Ultimate Australian Adventure ensures there's every chance we will feel good about ourselves, but as individuals.
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AUSTRALIA

Why Wattle Day should be our national day
- Paul W. Newbury
- 23 January 2011
37 Comments
Indigenous antipathy to Australia Day is deeply entrenched. Wattle as a symbol offers an alternative because it is native to this place, and it is not a memorial of our ties with Great Britain.
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AUSTRALIA

Australian politics could use a dash of vitriol
- Edwina Byrne
- 20 January 2011
16 Comments
The speeches of the Tea Party movement, for all their faults, are notable for their vivid symbolism and appeal to values. When was the last time you heard an Australian politician invent their own intelligible metaphor?
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RELIGION

Stories of rebuilding after the floods
- 20 January 2011
9 Comments
When the media focus on expressions of anger and try to identify people to blame, they encourage people to remain paralysed by grief and to break connections precisely at the time when they need to be strengthened.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The back to school blues
- Brian Matthews
- 20 January 2011
3 Comments
BACK TO SCHOOL shout the billboards and shop window displays and it's still only mid January. I suppose this infuriates present day kids as much as it used to stir my juvenile ire. For former teachers, 'Back to School' arouses other, less youthful associations.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Unmarried misery
- Tim Kroenert
- 19 January 2011
1 Comment
Although Mary is an infuriating ninny, we get to know her well enough to appreciate that gasping for breath beneath her wine-swilling garrulousness are deeply felt insecurities and a desperate desire to be loved.
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MEDIA

Coke selling sexism
- Ronnie Scott
- 19 January 2011
6 Comments
It scratches a weird, deep itch when we're made to want to buy something in a way that feels intelligent and fresh. Coke manages to scratch that itch frequently. But the new Diet Coke ads feel lazy, cheap, sexist, and patronising.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Australia through American eyes
- Brian Doyle
- 18 January 2011
15 Comments
Do Australians hate Americans? No, because Americans invented basketball. What do Australians eat? Yeast paste. It tastes like someone ground up a penguin and then left it in the rain for a month before adding rubber and dirt to it.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

God understands more
- Chris Wallace-Crabbe
- 18 January 2011
1 Comment
It all takes place because of some geological fault. I think God understands more things than he is given credit for.
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CARTOON

Unforeseen side-effects of the floods
- Fiona Katauskas
- 18 January 2011
2 Comments
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AUSTRALIA

Gillard, Bligh and leadership in a crisis
- Moira Rayner
- 18 January 2011
22 Comments
I am bloody tired of journalists comparing one woman against another, as if there were a competition to find the 'real' woman leader, a winner and losers. That isn't how women tend to use power: it can be shared, and used for the common good. We saw Bligh and Gillard doing it, and didn't get it.
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AUSTRALIA

Addicted to disaster porn
- Michael Mullins
- 17 January 2011
10 Comments
Durng the past week, we've been treated to wall to wall television coverage of the Brisbane and Queensland floods. Some would argue that television, and indeed the media in general, is all about fulfilling the human need for gratification, prurient or otherwise.
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AUSTRALIA

Diary from the eye of the flood
- Susan Prior
- 17 January 2011
12 Comments
According to predictions based on earlier floods the ground floor of my house was was going to be inundated, so all our worldies were brought upstairs. We waited. It rained. Then on Tuesday morning something interesting started to happen.
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Vol 21 No 1