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Vol 25 No 12

22 June 2015


 

  • AUSTRALIA

    Feminism colluding with religion to manage men's sexual desire

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 03 July 2015
    25 Comments

    British student Hanna Yusuf declared her hijab to be not an instrument of oppression but rather a feminist statement: 'In a world where a woman’s value is often reduced to her sexual allure, what could be more empowering than rejecting that notion?' But reducing a woman to her sexual allure is precisely what the hijab does.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The US Supreme Court's gay marriage overreach

    • Frank Brennan
    • 03 July 2015
    75 Comments

    In its determination that same sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, the US Supreme Court took it upon itself to discover a definitive answer in the silent Constitution on this contested social question. This is regrettable, because there can be no doubt that the democratic process was taking US society in only one direction, and the Court's unilateral intervention has reduced the prospects of community acceptance and community compromise regarding the freedom of religious practice of those who cannot embrace same-sex marriage for religious reasons.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Who killed Amy Winehouse?

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 02 July 2015
    2 Comments

    There are early signs of the substance abuse that would later see her become a target of gleeful media scorn, and ultimately cause her death at the age of 27. But during one interview from the dawn of her career she reflects that if she was famous, she would go mad. She was painfully aware of the gap between the persona painted by a spiteful media and fickle public, and the preternaturally talented working-class girl from London who just wanted to sing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The pace of Muslim integration into Australian society

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 July 2015
    18 Comments

    Against the background of Australia's migration history, we can see the importance of Muslim groups maintaining their own praying community and culture including the use of their native language of worship. This will inevitably change with successive generations, but the pace of this is a matter for the communities themselves. The most harmful thing native born Australians can do is to pressure migrants to abandon their cultural roots in order to fit our expectations and to placate our fears.

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  • CARTOON

    Pulling out all the stops

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 01 July 2015
    2 Comments

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • ECONOMICS

    The IMF has failed Greece

    • David James
    • 01 July 2015
    6 Comments

    International Monetary Fund prescriptions have a long history of failing, and countries that ignore them are often the ones that do surprisingly well. Few have been asked to be more servile than the Greeks. When the IMF came in with what is amusingly referred to as its austerity 'plan', the Greek economy was expected to grow at over 2 per cent. After the 'plan' had taken effect, the country’s economy had shrunk by a quarter.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Constitutional change that will improve indigenous quality of life

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 July 2015
    6 Comments

    Those Aborigines who are most at home in modern Australia tend to be those with a secure foothold in both the Dreaming and the Market. Those who are most alienated and despairing are those with a foothold in neither. Constitutional change alone won't make things better. But a good Constitution is a better complement to other measures – such as a statutory charter – than a bad one.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Two goats, a sheep and Grexit

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 01 July 2015
    4 Comments

    In the early hours of Saturday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had announced a referendum for July 5. Whether the average Spiro and Soula has much idea of the macroeconomic issues seems doubtful. I certainly haven’t. And there is not much time for them or me to learn. Spiro and Soula and I are naturally concerned about the supply of ready cash.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Government's retrogressive Indigenous Advancement Strategy

    • Michele Madigan
    • 30 June 2015
    8 Comments

    This week sees the new budget allocations for Aboriginal communities take effect, with deep soul-destroying cuts being spun as 'advancement'. They reflect a redefinition of reality faced by many Australians, with indigenous people unsure how they have benefited from the Tony Abbott declaring himself the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and putting the Indigenous Affairs Office within his own Department. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Artefacts of grace

    • Rory Harris
    • 30 June 2015
    5 Comments

    The fabric over your bed, a life of quilts made simple & held up ... of more than ninety years, taught generation to generation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    ABC apology was the error of judgment in Q&A affair

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 June 2015
    58 Comments

    It is particularly dangerous for a Prime Minister to demand that public institutions or private citizens take a stand on complex issues. To take a stand for something means that you take a stand against something else. In the Q&A case, to take a stand means to condemn Zakky Mallah. From there it is a short slide to standing for 'genuine' Australians against Muslim Australians. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Retrospectivity a blow to the rule of law

    • Justin Glyn
    • 29 June 2015
    8 Comments

    Steve Ciobo MP described Zaky Mallah’s terrorism acquittal as based on a 'technicality'. This was that the anti-terror laws enacted after his acquittal were 'not retrospective'. The truly frightening thing about retrospective laws is that they make conduct which is perfectly legal when it is done, criminal by fiat. Anyone can be convicted of anything retrospectively, and this is why it is forbidden in the constitutions of many countries.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Whistleblowing and other new crimes

    • Fatima Measham
    • 26 June 2015
    7 Comments

    Ministerial discretion over citizenship can't replace court processes. Such executive overreach, which contradicts democratic principle, has already found expression in law. From July 1st, workers involved in immigration detention, including doctors and teachers, are subject to two years imprisonment for speaking publicly about what they witness. In other words, whistleblowing has been penalised.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    All deaths great and small

    • Brian Matthews
    • 26 June 2015
    1 Comment

    Many deaths of course are not small deaths. They evoke distinction, achievement, leadership, innovation, creativity or, in some cases notoriety, quixoticism or eccentricity. Yet placing some names above many, some in a class of their own, others in a ruck of the scarcely memorable, one indispensable criterion unites all the characters and places them beyond our imaginative, intellectual or descriptive reach: they are dead.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Inside the trauma of childhood change

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 25 June 2015

    Pete Docter was inspired to tell this story after observing changes in his preteen daughter's personality. His research included consultation with psychologists specialising in emotion, including University of California professor Dacher Keltner, whose insights included the role of sadness in strengthening relationships. The story is an exploration on the effects on children of loss and change, and the role of pain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Understanding Pope Francis' hard line against population control

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 June 2015
    23 Comments

    In his recent encyclical, Pope Francis demands that, in addressing the needs of the environment, wealthy nations must reform an economic system that perpetuates poverty in the underdeveloped world. In seeking a conversion of heart on the part of those who are wealthy, he sees imposing artificial population control on the world's poor as a thoroughly unfair and unconverted attitude. The real problem is the greed of the rich, not the inability of the poor to control their fertility.

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  • RELIGION

    Who cares for lonely white Muslim converts?

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 24 June 2015
    10 Comments

    A poorly-organised ill-resourced minority community often feels it has better things to worried about than 'white' converts who, like converts to any faith or belief system are known for their zeal. If the government really imagines young Muslims and converts are ripe for 'radicalisation', an excellent investment they could make would be in support services for new Muslims. In our lucky country, there is much loneliness in this group and many reasons to feel marginalised.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The rhetorical question with an answer

    • Maureen O'Brien
    • 24 June 2015
    4 Comments

    What can you do? There's comfort arising from an internal acknowledgement of the fact that, however painful it might be, there are some things beyond our control. But certain role models in our community - including anti domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty - have demonstrated through their actions that it is possible to move beyond a seemingly all pervasive sense of resignation.

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  • CARTOON

    The Gospel of St Tony

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 24 June 2015
    5 Comments

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Greeks suffer as leaders quarrel

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 23 June 2015
    6 Comments

    My youngest son, who lives in central Athens, is on the phone. ‘What do you think I should do with my money?’ he asks. The New York Times likens Europe and Greece to two prize-fighters, but I suspect that this is a male take on the matter. The women on the scene, Chancellor Angela Merkel and IMF chief Christine Lagarde, are more or less playing the part of the firm mother to naughty, quarrelling boys.  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The enigma of the island

    • Ian C Smith
    • 23 June 2015
    3 Comments

    Our salt-blasted car rental veteran guzzled fuel, gearbox a disaster gasping past wallaby roadkill leaving the dramatic volcanic mountainscape for glimpses of carved bays, Crusoe beaches contrasting with weathered scrub, still farms.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why Pope Francis' new encyclical is so radical

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 22 June 2015
    10 Comments

    The interdependence of human beings on one another underlies the Catholic insistence that the dignity of all human beings must be respected, so that the test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. Laudato Si extends that solidarity to the natural world.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    An Orwellian reading of our anti-terror legislation

    • Justin Glyn
    • 22 June 2015
    13 Comments

    In George Orwell's most famous novel 1984, the white face of the Ministry of Truth bears the slogans: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Australia is not approaching dictatorship, but a quick look at Orwell's slogans in the light of the past week's news makes disturbing reading.

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