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Vol 29 No 8

21 April 2019


 

  • AUSTRALIA

    Sudanese Lost Boy's long walk comes to life

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 April 2019
    5 Comments

    When refugees write accounts of their lives they usually express gratitude to the nation that has received them. A Child Escapes, in which Francis Deng describes his life from Lost Boy of Sudan to refugee in Kenya to bank employee in Australia, is no exception. Left unsaid, but equally important, is the gift he and other immigrants are to Australia.

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  • CARTOON

    The good, the bad and the ugly

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 30 April 2019
    1 Comment

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tech obsession leaves elderly on the sidelines

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 30 April 2019
    12 Comments

    It's not just government departments that are making life difficult for those without internet access. Many elderly people have the time and inclination to volunteer for different organisations and causes, but come up against a number of rules that block their ability to give their time.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Assange and Ecuador's 'traitor' president

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 29 April 2019
    2 Comments

    Ecuadoreans have a popular expression, hacer la casita — roughly, 'they deceived us by promising something that was not going to be fulfilled'. This is what most Ecuadoreans are feeling now about president Lenín Moreno following his economic shift to the right, and the withdrawal of the asylum granted to Julian Assange by his predecessor.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    St Augustine's parable of the deer

    • Ted Witham and Eric D. Nelson
    • 29 April 2019
    3 Comments

    'Another thing you should note about the deer,' Augustine gestures to the crowd. 'They cross a stream in single file. One deer lays its head on the back of its forerunner, and the leader changes place often. In these ways they carry one another's load and show us how to bear burdens of our sisters and brothers.'

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A new narrative after Christchurch & Colombo

    • Justin Glyn
    • 26 April 2019
    10 Comments

    No security measures will ever be able to suppress inclinations to hatred or violence which grow in the depths of the human heart. And yet there is a difference between Colombo and Christchurch which might be worth exploring. Paradoxically, the most useful things that governments can do are those which are least often tried.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My Newstart conundrum

    • Andrew McAlister
    • 26 April 2019
    17 Comments

    My JAP informed me I was required to do 21 hours per week of Mutual Obligation activity, in addition to looking for work. They assured me the 21 hours would help me remain focused on the task of finding work. I replied I would now have to stop doing the things that were keeping me motivated to satisfy my Mutual Obligation requirements.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Zombie pigs and ethics

    • Kate Galloway
    • 24 April 2019
    8 Comments

    Scientists recently revealed they had 'brought to life' the brain cells of slaughtered pigs, research said to have potential application in resolving brain injuries, disorders and diseases. While there need be no doubt the experiment was carried out in accordance with the relevant ethical research protocols, this rather misses the point.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The indispensable joy of time spent alone

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 24 April 2019
    9 Comments

    It's liberating to buy a ticket for one. To not have to coordinate times with someone, but do things by my own schedule. To go see the niche movie none of my friends wants to see, or the art exhibition I forgot was in town until its last day. But alone time isn't just something I do because I like it. I need it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The iMirror

    • Damian Balassone
    • 24 April 2019

    To google yourself is the gravest of errors / Your screen is replaced by the mirror of terrors.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    How Abbott still haunts climate policy

    • Greg Foyster
    • 24 April 2019
    10 Comments

    By setting the boundaries of what is considered politically acceptable, Tony Abbott has influenced the level of ambition in every party's climate policy, and has even caused environment groups to shift their positions. How has he manage to wield so much influence for so long? There are three reasons he cut through when Labor didn't.

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  • CARTOON

    O ye of little faith

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 23 April 2019
    1 Comment

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    China's cultural memory can't be contained

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 18 April 2019
    2 Comments

    One hundred years on, the power of symbol lurks uncomfortably. To honour these students — these young protestors in Tiananmen — rallying for their nation in 1919 cannot but bring to mind other students marching through Beijing decades later. And yet, given the historical weight of 4 May, the government must commemorate it all the same.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Anzac discomfort after Christchurch

    • Daniel Kleinsman
    • 18 April 2019
    27 Comments

    As I wait to be reunited with my fiancée from Afghanistan, my discomfort is heightened by New Zealand's involvement in her country, and by an awareness of her sense of persecution, as a Muslim, after the Christchurch massacres. I do not feel able to partake in any traditional ANZAC service, as if nothing has changed.

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  • RELIGION

    Apocalyptic need not be the end of the world

    • Kevin Hargaden
    • 17 April 2019
    6 Comments

    One of the most vibrant theological movements in the world today declares itself 'apocalyptic'. This does not refer to the end of the world because of some political conflict, or the great derangement that flows from the climate disaster. These theologians are using apocalyptic in its original Greek sense — apo kalypsis — a revealing.

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  • RELIGION

    Journalist learns the power of accompanying

    • Julie Perrin
    • 17 April 2019
    14 Comments

      At Adelaide Writer's Week, George Megalogenis asked Leigh Sales who had surprised her most in the research for her book Any Ordinary Day. She replied: 'Steve Sinn, the priest. I'm not religious and I felt like we were going to have nothing in common and his way of looking at the world wouldn't make sense to me.' How wrong she was.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    This Anzac Day embrace NZ values

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 April 2019
    10 Comments

    The nationalist values purported to be Australian and to have flowed like blood from Anzac Cove will not do. Australians celebrating Anzac Day this year cannot assume that New Zealanders share all the values that are deemed Australian. Indeed, this Anzac Day New Zealanders might recall Australians to its more authentic meanings.

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  • EDUCATION

    Business thinking is death to the humanities

    • David James
    • 16 April 2019
    25 Comments

    Here's a suggestion. In order to halt the seemingly inexorable destruction of the humanities in our secondary schools, we should immediately sack any senior Education Department bureaucrat who has an MBA. Or perhaps they can be forced to reapply, unsuccessfully, for their old jobs. They like that kind of thing.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Evolution of the modern family meal

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 08 April 2019
    9 Comments

    Most recently, my younger daughter declared herself a vegan. She wanted to reduce her impact on the environment, to withdraw her implicit support for a brutal farming industry that had long disturbed her, and for a society that fritters fossil fuels and fills our oceans with plastic. And so our kitchen has undergone yet another revolution.

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