Vol 21 No 5

13 March 2011

EUREKA STREET TV

Meddling priest's milestone
- Peter Kirkwood
- 25 March 2011
2 Comments
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EUREKA STREET TV

Meddling priest's milestone
- Peter Kirkwood
- 25 March 2011
1 Comment
Earlier this year Frank Brennan celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination as a Jesuit priest. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating once dubbed him a 'meddling priest', a label he accepts with mixed feelings.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Education system is for kids, not teachers
- Tim Kroenert
- 24 March 2011
5 Comments
Teachers unions are painted as self-interested clubs whose safeguards for hard-working, quality teachers also extend to the lazy and incompetent, at students' expense.
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AUSTRALIA

Multiculturalism just works
- John Stuyfbergen
- 24 March 2011
10 Comments
In a park for a Sunday barbecue, suddenly a few men from our group separated from the rest of us. I asked the woman next to me what they were doing. They were Muslims, and they were praying. Suddenly the men were back. They switched on the radio, and we all listened to and argued about the cricket scores.
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CARTOON

The lessons of Christmas Island
- Fiona Katauskas
- 24 March 2011
1 Comment
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INTERNATIONAL

Rebuilding Japan
- Jack de Groot
- 23 March 2011
2 Comments
As airstrikes are launched against Libya, controversy grows around Australia's detention centres, and NSW prepares for its election, Japan will inevitably slip off our news radar. The rebuilding work of grassroots agencies will continue for years to come.
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MEDIA

Testing new peace plan on Libya
- Tony Kevin
- 23 March 2011
7 Comments
Following the success of the UN Security Council approved action in Libya, Gaddafi ought to be allowed into some safe international haven. To push hm into a last-ditch Hitlerian bunker stand would cause much unnecessary civilian death and destruction.
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RELIGION

Twelve Steps to healing an abusive Church
- Neil Ormerod
- 23 March 2011
32 Comments
I received a letter from a former student. Ten years ago, he had suddenly vanished without warning or further communication. Now he was about to reveal the reasons for his disappearance. It was the sort of story I had heard often before.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Gospel truths in children's stories
- Various
- 22 March 2011
What's more unfeasible? The dim prospect of churches selling off real estate to house and feed and clothe the homeless, or elephants, webskidding with zeal?
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AUSTRALIA

Earthquakes, poets and God
- Michael Mullins
- 21 March 2011
13 Comments
Most of us vehemently reject claims such as that made by FoxNews' Glen Beck, that the Japan earthquake was the work of a vengeful God. In his Quarterly Essay last week, David Malouf gives a nuanced reading of the position that Beck has bastardised.
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INTERNATIONAL

Blame detention centres, not detainees
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 March 2011
37 Comments
Those who defend the humanity of asylum seekers are often dismissed as bleeding hearts. It is tempting to respond by referring to those who defend the existing regime of detention as bleeding minds. The recent events in remote detention centres are deplorable, but predictable.
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RELIGION

Japan's gods of nature
- Catherine Marshall
- 21 March 2011
5 Comments
In Japan's relief centres and obliterated streets, there is no news of looting or violence, no shouts of blame, no demands for immediate evacuation and coronial inquests. 'Shinto is a nature religion,' says my guide Yoshiko. 'We give thanks to everything we have.'
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AUSTRALIA

Embracing Good Friday football
- Luke Walladge
- 17 March 2011
20 Comments
The NRL and national soccer competition already play matches on Good Friday, a move which they made without input from church groups. Now is the time for churches to collaborate with the AFL on a Good Friday match, or else it will be left behind again.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Kids circle the holy parts
- Brian Doyle
- 17 March 2011
2 Comments
They learn to lie, are just not into dental hygiene, skin their knees nine times a day, and do things like smear peanut butter on their abraded knees and shake flour on the dog. Still, best of all, better than every other joy and thrill, are kids.
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RELIGION

Christian reverence for science
- Andrew Hamilton
- 17 March 2011
7 Comments
When Christianity and science come together, the meeting place is often like a battlefield. That is a pity because the central Christian belief – that in Jesus Christ God’s reason entered the world – demands that science be given an independent and honoured place.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Teen sexuality at the apocalypse
- Tim Kroenert
- 17 March 2011
New Queer Cinema is a genre marked by its robust portrayal of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender protagonists, usually as outsiders or renegades from conventional society. Alienation and otherness drive the characters into each other's orbits with the force of a familial bond.
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CARTOON

Shaken up
- Fiona Katauskas
- 16 March 2011
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AUSTRALIA

Julia Gillard learns to lead
- Lachlan Harris
- 15 March 2011
10 Comments
Risk reduction sat at the heart of the first Gillard campaign and, until recently, it seemed it would also sit at the heart of the second. By announcing a carbon tax Gillard proved that her thinking about her role as prime minister has come a long way.
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AUSTRALIA

Invisible Indonesia
- Ruby J. Murray
- 15 March 2011
34 Comments
You'd never know it, but just above Darwin and sort of to the left, there are 17,000 islands with roughly 240 million people living on them. There's more to this 'Indonesia' place than Bali, Balibo, Bintangs, and bombings. We forget Indonesia at our peril.
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AUSTRALIA

Japan's nuclear distortion
- Brian Vale
- 15 March 2011
7 Comments
Many Japanese don't trust officials connected to the nuclear power industry because previous radiation leaks were denied or downplayed. It is difficult for those caught in the current disaster to know how to interpret statements from officials using phrases such as 'acceptable levels of radiation' and 'no immediate threat'.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Laura's French fry odyssey
- George Estreich
- 15 March 2011
2 Comments
Sleep was not in two-year-old Laura's holiday plans: she inhabited several time zones, none of them ours. One night, at 11, when she was getting revved up for another two hours of play, I decided to take her to the shops. I should mention that Laura has Down syndrome.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Cool hip tear-shaped suburb
- Pauline Reeve
- 15 March 2011
1 Comment
Someone now cast in forgetfulness, out cold – dumped down in a sleeping bag moulded like a burial mound. And by their side neatly aligned, threads of an abandoned bedside.
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AUSTRALIA

Cheap milk, no guilt
- Michael Mullins
- 14 March 2011
31 Comments
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has said the 'unsustainable' $1 per litre milk price will force farmers off the land and ruin Australia's dairy industry. Economists ridicule this sentiment. Low milk prices are the market god's gift to consumers.
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AUSTRALIA

History continues in Egypt and Libya
- Ben Coleridge
- 13 March 2011
6 Comments
Political and social ideas are a means of conceptualising people's inner urgings and desires. Does the movement towards political change in the Middle East constitute an 'absolute moment' which forecasts the realisation of democratic governments across the Arab world?
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Vol 21 No 5