Vol 23 No 10

20 May 2013

ARTS AND CULTURE

Life beyond IVF purgatory
- Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
- 31 May 2013
It wasn't so much a phone call as a lifeline — the day the fertility clinic called me with news of my pregnancy. After six years of hoping, the life my husband and I had all but given up on was to be ours. At that same time, radio host Sheridan Voysey and his wife Merryn were facing a more heartbreaking outcome.
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AUSTRALIA

McGuire ape gaffe exposes Australian tolerance as myth
- Ruby Hamad
- 31 May 2013
29 Comments
Those who object to Indigenous people being called 'apes' and to white men painting themselves black are dismissed as being politically correct and denying free speech. But how can Adam Goodes choose not to be offended by comments conceived for the very purpose of justifying crimes against the racial group to which he belongs?
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AUSTRALIA

Reconciliation balances guilt and hope
- Andrew Hamilton
- 30 May 2013
6 Comments
To lead to reconciliation, each group must make space in their imagination for a realistic view of the terrible events that divided them and of who was responsible. They must also make space for a realistic view of the enduring consequences of these actions, and share a hopeful vision of what reconciliation might mean for their society.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Boys using violence to impress girls
- Tim Kroenert
- 30 May 2013
Some lessons need to be learned more than once. A young boy punches an older peer in defence of the honour of a girl he admires. The girl is so impressed that she invites the boy on a date. Is violence, then, an approved medium for the defence of romantic ideals? The boy tests this premise twice more, with less gratifying results.
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AUSTRALIA

Bumpy road trip to a remote community
- John Adams
- 29 May 2013
7 Comments
Patrick tells me where the road is bad and where the water holes and outstations are. If I miss one of his subtle finger movements and we hit a hole in the road too hard he grumbles. I feel Patrick and I have the start of a relationship. Sixteen hours in a Hilux will do that to two grumpy old buggers.
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CARTOON

Abbott's driving ambition
- Fiona Katauskas
- 29 May 2013
2 Comments
View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist Fiona Katauskas.
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AUSTRALIA

Abuse cover-ups perpetuated priestly mystique
- Ray Cassin
- 29 May 2013
66 Comments
One consequence of mandatory celibacy has been the creation of a priestly mystique: a notion that the priest is a man set apart. When bishops say that cover-ups were attempts to avoid 'scandal', they are really talking about their fear of what might happen if priests were no longer thought to be special.
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AUSTRALIA

Wage inequality leaving workers in poverty
- Brian Lawrence
- 28 May 2013
6 Comments
The rivers of gold into Treasury have dried up and programs that have provided some relief to struggling families are being wound back. Whether or not large cohorts of workers and their families continue to live in poverty depends on the decisions of the Fair Work Commission in the current Annual Wage Review.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Asylum seeker sonnet
- Brendan Doyle, Ben Walter and Rob Wallis
- 28 May 2013
5 Comments
With every boat that sinks our grief's untold; the smugglers just don't care they're overfull; So join the queue, no need to bribe with gold; and get a proper visa in Kabul.
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AUSTRALIA

When it comes to work and welfare, market rules Labor's roost
- Luke Williams
- 27 May 2013
10 Comments
If I was a long-term unemployed person, how would I answer the question, 'What has the ALP done for me?' 'Lots, and not much.' The Gillard Government's commitment to developing workforce skills suggests it values decent work, not just jobs, but in positing productivity as the path to prosperity it seems more Reagan than Keynes.
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AUSTRALIA

Paul Keating and Sorry Day's indulgence with a purpose
- Michael Mullins
- 27 May 2013
3 Comments
The most memorable lines of Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern Speech are not about Indigenous Australians at all, but Europeans who stole their land, their children and their dignity. A number of commemorative days focus on the needs and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but Sorry Day is not one of them.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

My theatrical encounter with Don Dunstan
- Brian Matthews
- 24 May 2013
2 Comments
One of the great monuments to the 'Dunstan Decade', the Adelaide Festival Centre marks its 40th birthday next weekend. It was the first capital city complex devoted to the performing arts, before even the Sydney Opera House. For me the anniversary triggers a flood of memories, including a theatrical encounter with Dunstan himself.
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AUSTRALIA

Odds stacked against young online gamblers
- Lin Hatfield Dodds
- 24 May 2013
3 Comments
Research indicates online sports gambling is an escalating problem that particularly impacts young men. The South Australian Premier has already made a good start, but there are still practical steps we can take at state and federal level to reduce the risk.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Lives broken by false abuse claims
- Tim Kroenert
- 23 May 2013
Whereas The Hunt portrayed a small town gripped by paranoia after a sensitive and imaginative child's confused comments are taken out of context, in Broken the accusations are more sinister, used by a young girl to deflect consequences from herself, in full knowledge of the damage that her claims will cause to the accused.
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RELIGION

Unlocking Australia's incarceration culture
- Andrew Hamilton
- 23 May 2013
6 Comments
The Commonwealth and the Victorian state budgets this year were marked by a contradiction. Both committed more money to incarceration — detention centres and prisons; and both limited programs to help the people confined there. Such contradictions are usually signs of a bad policy that flows from shallow cultural values.
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AUSTRALIA

Rudd's gay marriage backflip fires church-state debate
- Ray Cassin
- 22 May 2013
62 Comments
Most responses to Rudd's conversion on gay marriage have focused on the implications for Australia's political dynamic. Those who bother to read the lengthy blog entry in which he announced his change of heart will be drawn into a broader debate about the relationship between church and state that takes place too rarely in Australian politics.
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CARTOON

Tiny Tom's little league live odds
- Fiona Katauskas
- 22 May 2013
2 Comments
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RELIGION

Clobbering religious gay prejudice
- Michael Kirby
- 22 May 2013
32 Comments
The 2011 book Five Uneasy Pieces offered an alternative reading of the so-called 'clobber passages' that are at the core of religious unease about homosexuality. A follow-up volume pushes the envelope further by examining the biblical recognition of the variety of human love beyond traditional marriage.
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AUSTRALIA

Labor lost in democracy's gaps
- Fatima Measham
- 21 May 2013
10 Comments
How do we make sense of the perception that the economy is being mishandled when Australia is performing far better than other western countries? Or the fact that Labor faces a grim fate despite massive support for its major policies? The incongruence between public and political interest reveals democracy as an unfinished project.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

My father's memorial service gets edgy
- Ian C. Smith
- 21 May 2013
1 Comment
Smoke pours from a meter box outside. Firemen scurry like comic extras, unable to locate the smoke's source. Spaced apart in orderly rows we swivel, casting sideways glances through tall windows. Organist and minister struggle with focus.
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AUSTRALIA

Angelina Jolie's pain is a gain for all of us
- Michael Mullins
- 20 May 2013
12 Comments
Angelina Jolie's rational choice to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy has shown that science can improve human wellbeing with the use of highly specialised surgical techniques. But other rational choices we might make, in favour of techniques that involve therapeutic cloning, would do more to undermine human civilisation.
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AUSTRALIA

New maritime rescue failure leaves unanswered questions
- Tony Kevin
- 20 May 2013
19 Comments
On Friday, Fairfax reported on another ordeal at sea, over ten days between 27 April and 7 May. Only two people died, but the toll could easily have been far worse. The story as we know it so far raises disturbing questions about Australia’s adherence to its rescue-at-sea obligations.
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Vol 23 No 10