Vol 29 No 24

01 December 2019

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INTERNATIONAL

Impeached Trump is the symptom, not the cause
- Katelyn Jones
- 20 December 2019
12 Comments
In a turn of events predicted since he announced his candidacy for President, Donald Trump has been impeached. But this impeachment, and even Trump's removal from office, will do nothing to quell the reality that the world is actively electing aggressively oppressive candidates, not only despite their violence, but also because of it.
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MEDIA

Editors' Picks: Best of the Decade
- The Editors
- 20 December 2019
6 Comments
Our team of editors have dug through the past ten years' worth of Eureka Street articles to nominate their favourite pieces published between the start of 2010 and today. Check out our list and then jump into the comments to tell us what are your picks of the decade and why.
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ENVIRONMENT

Human rights for the climate 'apocalypse'
- Cristy Clark
- 19 December 2019
10 Comments
Toxic air, dwindling water supplies, extreme heat: it's bleak stuff. And yet, on Sunday, COP25 finished with very little progress. Our planet will warm to +3C or higher, unless we also do something about the vested interests that continue to profit from our demise. And they aren't going to give up their power (or profits) just because we ask nicely.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

A Himalayan miracle to carry into the New Year
- Catherine Marshall
- 17 December 2019
5 Comments
Stopping along a ridge, we beheld the Garhwal Himalaya range as it came into view: a tumble of mountains crowned on the horizon by an irregular, saw-toothed range ... In that brief moment between sunrise and daylight, when a once-secretive world would be illuminated, our wonder at the world was multiplied many times over.
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RELIGION

Christmas in a time of fire
- Andrew Hamilton
- 17 December 2019
15 Comments
This year the contrast between the original story of Christmas and its Australian circumstances has cut even deeper. Bushfires have taken lives, destroyed properties and spread smoke and ash over cities. If the theme of the first Christmas was one of hope and joy, behind the bushfires this year lurks anxiety about the future of the world.
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CARTOON

These aren't the Magi you're looking for
- Fiona Katauskas
- 17 December 2019
9 Comments
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Notre Dame de Paris
- Marlene Marburg, Grant Fraser
- 16 December 2019
3 Comments
It rose in its tall verticals from the grace and welcome of the earth, / That swooned far, far below, / As canny masons hefted the limestone / Into vast beatitudes of grace; / Shipwrights inverted their minds to groom the oak, / So that it would soar, / As if a celtic monk had charmed a serpent into a holy phrase.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

It's Christmas and I'll dance if I want to
- Barry Gittins
- 16 December 2019
5 Comments
Dance and music are as innate as breathing. Babies dance while in the womb, and the Yuletide can be prime time for 'playing music, singing and dancing [as a] healthy outlet for their emotions'. As William Stafford observed, kids dance 'before they learn there is anything that isn't music'.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Coming to terms with Christmas grief
- Katherine Richardson
- 16 December 2019
10 Comments
Now that I'm grown I've realised that while Christmas felt that way for me, it isn't magical for everyone. For many people Christmas is a hollow reminder that there is someone missing from the table, and no matter whether it's the first year or the 50th, that chair will always remain empty.
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INTERNATIONAL

The 'ugly boredom' of a very Brexit election
- Binoy Kampmark
- 13 December 2019
16 Comments
Tired and world weary, the British electorate went to the polls. Rarely in history can there have been such an assemblage of unelectable or disappointing types standing for office or trying to remain in it. It proved to be an ugly boredom, though it was uglier for some than others.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Dickens and Christmas as we grow older
- Gillian Bouras
- 13 December 2019
5 Comments
Dickens was a prolific writer, and one of patchy quality: the threat of sentimentality was never far away, so that this brief work is not one of his best. But in this consumer age it is salutary to have his definition of the Christmas spirit, which is one 'of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness and forbearance'.
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AUSTRALIA

Allies keeping faith despite Medevac blow
- Carolina Gottardo and Nishadh Rego
- 12 December 2019
6 Comments
Outside, a Martian-red haze kisses the windows. An ode to the future perhaps. Most of the people present are already aware of the Medevac repeal decision. The room is heavy with silence, the mood is sombre, but far from resigned. We want change, and are willing to have a crack at demanding it.
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AUSTRALIA

Disability RC must reckon with education
- Jane Britt
- 12 December 2019
4 Comments
From the minute we enter the education system, we experience barriers. We are segregated when we arrive at primary school, placed in 'special' units or classes. Here our needs are subsumed into the collective needs of the group. From the outset our educational outcomes are at the whim of the people who are in the position of power.
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RELIGION

Movement for Church renewal keeps growing
- John Warhurst
- 11 December 2019
52 Comments
What's going on within the Catholic Church always matters more widely given its size and power. Lay participation in leadership, especially of women, is a major social issue. Observers of social trends should watch this space for its wider public policy implications.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The arts as a human right
- Bree Alexander
- 11 December 2019
4 Comments
While we can only speculate on what it means for the future of funding beyond the current budget, alarm bells are ringing for many of us who recognise the symbolic power of rendering the arts invisible at a federal level. A strong, vibrant arts sector is essential to a thriving democracy.
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CARTOON

Naughty and nice?
- Fiona Katauskas
- 10 December 2019
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EDUCATION

Teachers earn and deserve their holidays
- Gillian Bouras
- 10 December 2019
9 Comments
It's that time again, when exhausted teachers are wondering whether they'll make the distance and finish the school year with their sanity more or less intact. It's also the time when they have to endure snide remarks about 'a really cushy job' and 'all those holidays'. But it's not a cushy job. I know: my brother and I were third-generation teachers.
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INTERNATIONAL

Greta Thunberg for person of the year
- Andrew Hamilton
- 10 December 2019
17 Comments
To nominate Greta Thunberg the most significant person of 2019 is not to canonise her, still less to say that her way of pressing for action to address climate change is the only way. But her intransigence and single-minded focus are needed to mobilise the support necessary to make politicians act responsibly.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

This delicious failure of common names
- Paul Hetherington
- 09 December 2019
2 Comments
You don't know the word for butter, so you spend seconds miming the way it froths in the pan. The owner of the shop says nothing. You want to buy their famous pesto, but it's nowhere on display. You speak to other customers, who nod and frown. Eventually you point at fragrant cheese and a melon that smells of ripest green.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Dancing in the dark of western culture
- Irfan Yusuf
- 09 December 2019
6 Comments
Politicians love to remind minorities to integrate. Minority kids by and large resent these calls, because they are desperate to integrate. South Asian kids like me and journalist Sarfraz Manzoor were among those wishing to be Australian or British. Our idols were Bruce Springsteen and Jim Kerr, not Abu Bakr Baghdadi or Osama bin Ladin.
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INTERNATIONAL

Climate crisis spawns clowns not statesmen
- Jeff Sparrow
- 09 December 2019
29 Comments
If the dark days of 1940 provided an opportunity for a chancer and publicity hound like Winston Churchill to emerge as an inspirational leader and reputed giant of the 20th century, why hasn't the catastrophic breakdown of the natural world done something similar for the likes of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Scott Morrison?
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AUSTRALIA

2019 Christmas Raffle winners
- Staff
- 09 December 2019
The Society of Jesus in Victoria, Jesuit Communications Christmas Raffle 2019 Drawn on Thursday 5 December 2019 (Permit No 10590/19). Congratulations to the winners: 1st prize: L. Daphne, VIC; 2nd prize: A. Curran, Qld; 3rd prize: D. Sasse, Vic. All winners have been notified directly.
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AUSTRALIA

Just do something about NT homelessness
- Mike Bowden
- 06 December 2019
8 Comments
The stats are chilling. The rate of homelessness in the Northern Territory is 12 times the national average. Six per cent of all Territorians are experiencing homelessness. More than 16 per cent of Territorians under 16 are homeless. Twenty per cent of Aboriginal people in the NT are homeless. It's time to do something.
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MEDIA

The killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia
- Binoy Kampmark
- 05 December 2019
5 Comments
In Malta, shudders are being felt through the media and political establishment. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has announced his intention to resign. Other officials are doing the same. Malta's equivalent of the accusing ghost of Banquo is that of the slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed by a car bomb in October 2017.
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AUSTRALIA

A Tuesday tsunami of whiteness
- Celeste Liddle
- 05 December 2019
7 Comments
Whiteness — some days it's like a light mist constantly hanging around yet going mainly unnoticed as it stealthily seeps into one's pores. Other days, it hits you like a cascade, or a tsunami of whiteness. Tuesday, observing the news, felt more like one of the latter.
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AUSTRALIA

Shaking faith: the Taylor and Westpac scandals
- Joe Zabar
- 04 December 2019
4 Comments
In light of the banking royal commission and the government's work in developing a plethora of transparency and integrity measures, it beggars belief how Brian Hartzer and Angus Taylor could bring upon themselves and their respective institutions so much unwanted publicity.
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CARTOON

Dutton doomsayer
- Fiona Katauskas
- 03 December 2019
2 Comments
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INTERNATIONAL

Common ground amid polarised China debate
- Andrew Hamilton
- 03 December 2019
5 Comments
If China spies upon Australia, Australia spied on East Timor. If China detains Uighurs in harsh conditions, so has Australia detained people in brutal and demeaning conditions on Manus Island. If China lays out money to nations on our region to secure its national interests, so does Australia, most notably to Nauru and PNG.
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RELIGION

Altyerre-Catholicism's sacred dancing ground
- Mike Bowden
- 03 December 2019
11 Comments
This would not be accepted by the extremist Catholics who threw an Amazonian indigenous icon of a pregnant indigenous woman into the Tiber River. But the Pope is right to honour the prior religious practises of the Amazonians, just as the Bishop of Darwin supports a process that has seen the development of Altyerre-Catholicism.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Two elegies for a vanished farm
- Jena Woodhouse
- 02 December 2019
After spirit-lamps were doused the house drew in upon itself; its clutch of dreamers moaned and tossed in stifling mosquito nets — each isolating sac of mesh a Magellanic cloud.
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AUSTRALIA

Government tries to turn 'Aboriginal' into 'alien'
- Kate Galloway
- 02 December 2019
17 Comments
Two Aboriginal men are currently being held in immigration detention under threat of deportation because they are not Australian citizens. The case raises far-reaching implications concerning the status of the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and the state.
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AUSTRALIA

Break the man box to halt gendered violence
- Matt Tyler
- 02 December 2019
9 Comments
Dominant ideals of masculinity do not materialise out of thin air. They are produced and reproduced by people, institutions, policies and other social forces, and there are places in Australia where efforts to promote or defend traditional ideals of masculinity seem particularly energetic.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Clive James' poetry of memento mori
- Philip Harvey
- 29 November 2019
12 Comments
Obituarists sharpened their quills in 2014 when word had it the death of Clive James was imminent. Since then we have witnessed a late flowering of poetry, reviews and articles tinged with mortality that revealed to the last his Twainian flair for journalistic self-promotion, albeit in the internet age. Now the quills are out in earnest.
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FAITH DOING JUSTICE

Wrestling Morrison's brand of Christianity
- Toni Hassan
- 29 November 2019
31 Comments
His government continues to support, with massive subsidies, extractive and exploitative industries that undeniably warm the planet and threaten the natural environment. How can this be a legitimate perspective as a publicly-confessing Christian? Why would this shepherd not want to move all of us to safer ground?
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Vol 29 No 24