Vol 21 No 20

10 October 2011

EUREKA STREET TV

Moira Rayner's 'spiritual' fight for justice
- Peter Kirkwood
- 28 October 2011
7 Comments
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AUSTRALIA

One lifetime, two Depressions
- Robert Corcoran
- 21 October 2011
16 Comments
When America sneezes the world catches cold. No wonder crowds are demonstrating against Wall Street. Successive economic crises reveal that we have forgotten the economic lessons learned after the Great Depression. I am one of the dwindling number of Australians who was alive at that time.
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EUREKA STREET TV

Moira Rayner's 'spiritual' fight for justice
- Peter Kirkwood
- 21 October 2011
'We can not achieve justice by acting unjustly.' Throughout her long and colourful legal career, Moira Rayner has been an unwavering advocate for human rights. A series of personal and professional crises in 2005 led to a reappraisal of her life, which included the discovery of a totally new spiritual direction.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Race against grief
- Tim Kroenert
- 20 October 2011
In 2002, jockey Damien Oliver rode to Melbourne Cup glory, one week after his brother, Jason, was killed in a racing incident. The Cup, a paean to the Golden Age of Australian cinema, recreates the tragic and inspirational events in style.
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RELIGION

Atheism vs religion: half time update
- Andrew Hamilton
- 20 October 2011
35 Comments
Public interest in the aggressive form of atheism represented by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and the religious response to it, seems to have waned. This half time break gives commentators a chance to grab a pie and sauce and assess who is likely to win.
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AUSTRALIA

Unemployment angels and demons
- John Falzon
- 19 October 2011
8 Comments
Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it.
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CARTOON

Wall Street high and mighty
- Fiona Katauskas
- 19 October 2011
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Jesus' desert odyssey
- Jane Jervis-Read
- 19 October 2011
6 Comments
Every night the devil gave birth to roast chickens and jacket potatoes and gallons of wine which it swilled and gobbled, sucking the oil from its fingers. It shrugged when the man and dog refused the steaming food. They always refused it, for they knew where it came from.
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AUSTRALIA

Modernising Islam
- William Gourlay
- 18 October 2011
16 Comments
First appearing in 1906, the islamic periodical Molla Nasreddin displayed a sardonic and satirical take on women's rights, the role of religion in society and government, press freedom and education. The Arab Spring is the latest expression of this forestalled progressive sentiment.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

You are not alone
- Shane McCauley
- 18 October 2011
2 Comments
Mist moves here, cloaking statues, mild giants that haunt and wait... the slave breathes towardhis freedom.
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AUSTRALIA

Religious retreat on Wall Street
- Michael Mullins
- 17 October 2011
8 Comments
One American theology professor compares Occupy Wall Street to religious ritual. The practical outcome is arguably less important than the process of renewing the humanity of the participants. If they appear to have achieved nothing, it's likely they have achieved a great deal.
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ENVIRONMENT

Abbott faces fallout from Gillard's Big Week
- Tony Kevin
- 17 October 2011
29 Comments
Abbott will face a worsening dilemma. If he continues to rage about revoking the carbon tax, he will alienate industry groups that want stability above all. If he goes quiet, he will validate Labor's portrayal of him as a cynical opportunist who stands for nothing but gaining power.
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MEDIA

'Perverted' Sharia slaps artistic freedom
- Ellena Savage
- 14 October 2011
3 Comments
Marzieh Vafamehr, the Iranian actor awaiting corporal punishment in Iran for acting in a subversive Australian film, is the victim of a legal system that has abandoned any pretence to public interest. I'm drawn to this case as I, too, am a young woman forging my own way in the arts.
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MEDIA

Syria's hopeless democracy dream
- Ruby Hamad
- 14 October 2011
8 Comments
My family belongs to the same Alawite religious minority as beleagured Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. There are great and legitimate fears that Assad's downfall will result, not in democracy, but in civil war and large-scale massacres of minorities, including the Alawites.
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MEDIA

Bolt case a win for free speech
- Dilan Thampapillai
- 14 October 2011
6 Comments
Paradoxically, the Andrew Bolt case has advanced each of the three rationales that typically support free speech. A democracy cannot flourish when some members of the community are free to say what they want while others are forced to speak from the margins of society.
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RELIGION

Kids key to Malaysia solution shambles
- Frank Brennan
- 13 October 2011
13 Comments
No matter how the Government paints the canvas, it can never be in the best interests of an unaccompanied minor who is a refugee to be removed from Australia to Malaysia. And if such kids are irremovable, they will continue to arrive in Australia by boat.
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RELIGION

Revitalising a 'hollowed-out' Church
- Andrew Hamilton
- 13 October 2011
25 Comments
Most churches are ageing and limited in their ability to engage with governments. As well as controvesies such as the Bill Morris dismissal and the handling of sexual abuse, the Australian Bishops visiting Rome this week will discuss ways to build on the strenghts of the Church in Australia.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Alzheimer's erosion
- Vin Maskell
- 12 October 2011
9 Comments
'I've been looking after Vera since 1996. I wasn't going to stop because of glandular fever.' Clyde and I talk sport and the weather but Vera's always on his mind. 'Her memory's gone. I only ask her one question each day. I say, Who's your best mate? And she looks at me as if I'm stupid!'
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AUSTRALIA

Skating over Bali bombing remembrance
- Vince Chadwick
- 12 October 2011
1 Comment
Six years ago an inner city fountain was transformed into a memorial for the victims of the Bali bombings. Today, skateboarders leap onto the ledge and glide on their back wheels. Skateboarding is a rebellious culture, yet it seems fitting that a monument to peoples' lives be filled with life.
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CARTOON

Sinking the carbon tax
- Fiona Katauskas
- 12 October 2011
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ARTS AND CULTURE

A mother should not know her offspring too well
- Various
- 11 October 2011
She would be aghast, at the weeping litany of my sins... From the moment the apron string is cut, we are free to be. And to bring, make or undo, whatever the hell we want to.
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AUSTRALIA

Love, the Northern Territory Intervention's missing ingredient
- Andrew Chalk
- 11 October 2011
5 Comments
Many Australians have reached a point of believing that the difficulties afflicting Aboriginal communities demand the heavy handed, and often humiliating, approach. But the Philppine grassroots Gawad Kalinga model, based on 'the giving of care', offers a realistic alternative.
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AUSTRALIA

Not quite Saint Steve
- Michael Mullins
- 10 October 2011
5 Comments
Steve Jobs did not fear death. He had the inner freedom we see in mystics and saints. But he should be judged by his actions, which include ruthlessly calculated decisions to tolerate poor conditions for workers manufacturing Apple products in China.
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AUSTRALIA

Abbott and Costello meet Catholic Social Teaching
- Brian Lawrence
- 10 October 2011
12 Comments
Former federal treasurer Peter Costello has revealed his fears that Tony Abbott's education in the collectivist principles of Catholic Social Teaching will frustrate the Coalition's ambitions for free market reform of workplace laws.
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Vol 21 No 20