Vol 29 No 7

07 April 2019

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CARTOON

There's always a silver lining
- Fiona Katauskas
- 16 April 2019
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Eleven Kyoto haiku
- Clotilde Lopez
- 15 April 2019
1 Comment
A wooden doll lies in a pretty white box, the spirit of the child, dead inside dreaming, residing and displayed on a mantelpiece.
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RELIGION

The disruptiveness of an election year Easter
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 April 2019
2 Comments
This year both the public and the Christian Easter are overshadowed by the forthcoming election. In the public world election means that assured people choose their rulers. In the Christian story election means that desperate people are chosen. Each kind of election has its place.
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FAITH DOING JUSTICE

Economy v environment is no zero-sum game
- Daniel Nour
- 15 April 2019
We've witnessed this confluence of economic opportunity with aid and development in Indonesia, where our support of local eco-tourism has revived communities with self-sustaining employment opportunities while preserving local rainforests from being felled for wood.
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AUSTRALIA

Palm Sunday Refugee Rally
- ES Staff
- 14 April 2019
2 Comments
'Let's march together for justice today, and then beyond today, until we've restored justice for refugees.' We spoke to some of the people at today’s Palm Sunday march for refugees in Melbourne. Tens of thousands turned out at events throughout Australia.
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MEDIA

Assange: Arresting the fourth estate
- Binoy Kampmark
- 12 April 2019
20 Comments
You do not have to be a member of the radical transparency credo to appreciate the dangers of this prosecution exercise. You do not even have to like the man. What we are facing is an attack on the fourth estate, one rebooted and refined by Assange's efforts to facilitate the disclosure of classified material to expose abuses of power.
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INTERNATIONAL

AOC speech not racist, just code switching
- Yen-Rong Wong
- 12 April 2019
6 Comments
US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was accused by some of 'verbal blackface' due to her manner in a speech last week. But she wasn't being racist — she was code switching, defined by linguists as the act of moving back and forth between two or more languages or dialects. It's something I know a lot about from experience.
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AUSTRALIA

Budget enshrines neglect of older women
- Rosie Williams
- 12 April 2019
2 Comments
Women's groups were initially cut out of this year's budget lockup with just two representatives admitted after fighting tooth-and-nail for the privilege. With such hostility to our cause it is hardly surprising to find the budget holds little hope for women in resolving the structural inequalities baked into our lives.
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ENVIRONMENT

Vegan protesters reject righteous domination
- Cristy Clark
- 11 April 2019
16 Comments
The concerns around white veganism and its blindness (and worse) to other systems of domination and oppression are completely legitimate and deserve serious attention. But they do not fundamentally undermine the central ethical arguments of veganism.
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AUSTRALIA

Beware the election campaign hobgoblins
- Gillian Bouras
- 11 April 2019
7 Comments
The American writer H. L. Mencken said the aim of politics is 'to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary'. Over the years there have been many hobgoblins of varying sizes and shapes, and this election campaign promsies to be no different.
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INTERNATIONAL

Where is Australia's Jacinda Ardern?
- Megan Graham
- 11 April 2019
10 Comments
Oh, what I would give to be able to vote for an Australian Ardern, or to see either major party boldly back a woman leader with the grit and humanity exhibited by AOC. Because the 'same-old' bungling status quo of Australian politics is failing us. The lack of support for women looking to become tomorrow's leaders is failing us.
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AUSTRALIA

More myths about migrants and work
- Devana Senanayake
- 11 April 2019
4 Comments
Former NSW opposition leader Michael Daley was much maligned for his remarks that 'Sydney's young children [are] being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs'. The statement is symptomatic of a larger issue, reflecting the extent to which the community is misinformed and misled about these issues.
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MEDIA

When quitting Twitter isn't an option
- Neve Mahoney
- 10 April 2019
2 Comments
Social media can cause poor mental health outcomes, and there is evidence that it is designed to be addictive. But given my line of work, deleting my accounts is not something I can realistically do. With many choosing to walk away, what can those of us who stay do to ensure a healthy relationship with these platforms?
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ECONOMICS

Work as gift rather than transaction
- Andrew Hamilton
- 10 April 2019
15 Comments
It is in the interests of companies and the people who compose them to see the relationships that constitute work more broadly than the image of transaction allows. In a good enterprise work is a form of self-transcendence through relationships with other workers, with the people whom they serve directly and with the broader society.
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CARTOON

The fear factor
- Fiona Katauskas
- 09 April 2019
1 Comment
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ARTS AND CULTURE

A trick of the soil
- Ellen Shelley and Francis Bede
- 08 April 2019
There are those who are living, aged a few minutes younger than the soil; there are those who are loving, aged a few hours younger than the soil ... The soil is to claim them for eternity, and they too will be older than the living, who are filling the seconds with their life story.
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RELIGION

Redress scheme's new class of have-nots
- Cathy Kezelman
- 08 April 2019
8 Comments
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, Australia must respond promptly and fairly to the needs of all survivors, not only of institutional child sexual abuse, but of all forms of childhood trauma. Every time we create a new class of survivor and more 'have nots' we replicate the inequities of abusive systems.
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AUSTRALIA

Budget 2019-20 and the way forward for welfare
- Joe Zabar
- 08 April 2019
6 Comments
A proposal to take decisions around welfare payments out of politicians' hands is the best way forward. If the major parties are going to put supporting the most vulnerable in the 'too hard' basket, let an independent commission determine the rates at which various welfare payments can allow people to live a dignified life.
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AUSTRALIA

Getting to the roots of health inequality
- Eliza Berlage
- 08 April 2019
3 Comments
Labor's $2.3 billion cancer care package and promise to roll out more mental health facilities away from the major cities are positive policies. However it could go further with its health platform of funding specialist care by finally sinking its teeth into putting dental for all on Medicare.
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AUSTRALIA

Kafka in Australia: the trial of Witness K
- Susan Connelly
- 06 April 2019
18 Comments
Our own version of Kafka's The Trial is being played out under our very noses. 'Witness K' and his lawyer Bernard Collaery have been charged with making known Australian state secrets in connection with ASIS spying on Timor-Leste. The similarities between the plights of Kafka's Josef K and Witness K do not end with their names.
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AUSTRALIA

Game on: pollies, follies and lollies
- John Warhurst
- 03 April 2019
5 Comments
The next month will be full of sugar-hits and sweeteners, whether they be personal tax cuts, grants or special deals for organised interests. Every candidate and party is guilty of this in their scramble to win. Citizens are complicit too if their main concern is 'what's in it for me'. Churches play the game as much as any pressure group.
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MEDIA

The Murdoch press and the end of critique
- Mark Jennings
- 03 April 2019
10 Comments
Two recent stories in the Australian attack Murdoch University academics who supposedly described Anzacs as 'killers' and detainees on Manus Island as 'prisoners'. The stories display a poor understanding of the academic role, and the nature of 'critique', which is not to merely to present all arguments as if they had equal merit.
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Vol 29 No 7