Vol 28 No 15

30 July 2018

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AUSTRALIA

Young men finding words and worth
- Andrew Hamilton
- 08 August 2018
23 Comments
The path to adulthood is a process of learning words, coming to use them discriminatingly and discovering their resonance in relationships and in work. Where young people grow up in a world without stable relationships or words to negotiate the world, their education is likely to be an experience of alienation and rejection.
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AUSTRALIA

Walking home alone
- Neve Mahoney
- 08 August 2018
5 Comments
It's 11.30 on a weeknight. I'm on the train, coming home from catching up with my friends. I'm on the phone with one of them as I move to the doors. 'Yeah, I'm right to walk home,' I tell my worried friend. 'The train's pulling up the station now.' I said that too loudly. I glance behind me and there are two men standing there.
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RELIGION

What canon law is for
- Justin Glyn
- 08 August 2018
21 Comments
Canon law, not usually a household term, has come into the public eye of late, especially in the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. Given this newfound prominence, it seems a good time to have a look at what canon law is — and what it isn't.
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INTERNATIONAL

Singapore punishes women for living longer
- Sangeetha Thanapal
- 07 August 2018
2 Comments
Singapore has one of the world's lowest mortality rates, with a general life expectancy of above 80. Singapore's women outlive men by about five years, making the country second in the world for how long its women live. It seems the Singapore state has decided to punish women for it.
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CARTOON

Power without glory
- Fiona Katauskas
- 07 August 2018
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EDUCATION

School funding after Batman and Longman
- Frank Brennan
- 06 August 2018
28 Comments
The school funding battle has featured in the last two rounds of federal by-elections. Economics writer Ross Gittins has suggested the Catholics are trying to extract special deals. There are three principles of public policy at play in this ongoing saga, and the consistent and fair application of all three principles is a big political challenge.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

A landscape called humanity
- Colleen Keating, Joshua Ryujin, Rory Harris
- 06 August 2018
2 Comments
Guided by divers and ropes, via a birth canal, from the womb of the cave in a dark mountain, through the tightness of crevasses. Hold your breath ... surrender fear ... heave in the labour from death to life. Why is it disasters create heroes?
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AUSTRALIA

Migration compact will benefit Australia
- Carolina Gottardo
- 06 August 2018
14 Comments
The adoption of the GCM should not be politicised as it is a non-binding framework that benefits our country, the international community and migrants. Migration is a global phenomenon, not a situation that single countries can deal with in isolation. Australia has nothing to lose and much to gain from adopting the Compact.
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INTERNATIONAL

Chile must not forget dictatorship era crimes
- Ramona Wadi
- 03 August 2018
8 Comments
Last week, Javier Rebolledo, an investigative journalist specialising in uncovering dictatorship era crimes, was taken to court by a convicted torturer and former member of Pinochet's secret police. It is an act of political violence against a committed journalist. Chile needs people like Rebolledo if memory is to survive.
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RELIGION

An atheist's take on the virtue of forgiveness
- Ben Pobjie
- 03 August 2018
46 Comments
I am not a fan of Christianity. For years I have been what some might call a 'militant atheist': the type who is far more likely to catalogue the pitfalls of faith than to highlight the benefits. But more and more I am enamoured of one element of Christianity that I consider its most striking, and most laudable, feature.
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RELIGION

Advice to new Bombers fan bishop
- Michael McVeigh
- 02 August 2018
22 Comments
Ignore the masters who think they control the game. If Essendon is a broken, wounded club it's because it tried too hard to play the game of the corporate masters. It took a corporate approach to manufacturing success, and when it broke the rules they followed the corporate playbook: lawyers and PR experts. Sound familiar?
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AUSTRALIA

Cry, the murderous country
- Fatima Measham
- 02 August 2018
16 Comments
Indifference to human life is what made Australia, and it still permeates its approach to crises. As with many things, Indigenous experience provides the lens with which to see things clearly. First Nations people know the fatal measure of our indifference. It manifests in many other areas too.
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ENVIRONMENT

Laying waste to waste
- Cristy Clark
- 02 August 2018
2 Comments
It is all too easy to make daily choices that negatively affect the environment, and there are many incentives for us to do so — cost, time, social norms. This is where policies like plastic bag bans come in — they change the incentives and not only help us to do the right thing but also to normalise it within our culture.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Comedy and trauma in Nanette and Funny Cow
- Tim Kroenert
- 01 August 2018
1 Comment
Hannah Gadsby's Nanette critiques comedy as an imperfect tool for processing and transcending trauma. Funny Cow, about a woman comedian in 1970s northern England, attempts something similar. Both say something about the intersection of comedy and trauma and what it reveals about how we relate to each other as human beings.
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AUSTRALIA

Don't fall for My Health Record data binge
- Kate Galloway
- 31 July 2018
10 Comments
Australians have been caught up in yet another data project whose design confounds even the most basic notions of privacy. My Health Record is the latest example of a system that lures us with proclaimed benefits and convenience, but enhances government power without balancing responsibilities to ensure citizens' civil liberties.
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CARTOON

Troubled waters
- Fiona Katauskas
- 31 July 2018
2 Comments
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Around the world in 18 ways
- Ian C. Smith
- 31 July 2018
In Tahiti I fall ill, bronchitis amid humid splendour. At a summer camp in Dutchess County I get the sack. Cops warn me for hitch-hiking after sundown in Maine. In the wintry Cotswolds I wheeze in a bedewed attic. A lost aunt is found in Liverpool post-Toxteth.
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INTERNATIONAL

Greeks pull together in the face of fire
- Gillian Bouras
- 30 July 2018
11 Comments
Greece is a fire-prone country, and climate change has meant an extremely hot summer. In addition, the austerity forced on Greece during recent years has meant a reduced fire service, with not enough firefighters and no money to buy the latest equipment. Even so, it is heartening to see the reaction of the Greek public to the fires.
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AUSTRALIA

When healthcare is a remedy for cruelty
- Sheila Ngoc Pham
- 30 July 2018
3 Comments
Australia's healthcare system reflects some of our best values, which surely demands we think about how we can make it work better. We need to ensure care is extended beyond our immediate communities, because we're all interconnected — including asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru.
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RELIGION

Soup van's history of holy risk-taking
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 July 2018
11 Comments
The Fitzroy Soup Van is in good hands because its people recognise the tension between the need for compliance with security and safety regulations and the call to draw close to people whose lives are lived beyond those boundaries.
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RELIGION

Breaking the seal for the common good
- Peter Johnstone
- 18 July 2018
46 Comments
The arguments for exemption ignore or deny the harm to children that can arise from failure to report. They claim the law would be ineffective because few paedophiles go to confession, and might not confess if the seal did not apply. Such conjectural arguments ignore the basic principle that all harm to a child must be forestalled.
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Vol 28 No 15