Vol 34 No 8

22 April 2024

ECONOMICS

The biggest untold story in the history of money
- David James
- 03 May 2024
1 Comment
It is a truism to say that the way money is constructed defines the power structure under which we live. But allowing private actors to manipulate and game the financial system has not just given them extraordinary power, it has undermined the way money itself is understood.
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AUSTRALIA

In constant repair
- Gillian Bouras
- 02 May 2024
2 Comments
Where would we be without our friends? Good friends sustain us for decades through good times and bad and steer us through periods of change and crisis. One of the many downsides of old age is the loss of friends: they become ill and die. What to do then? How to cope?
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EDUCATION

Degrees of separation: Closing gender gaps in higher ed
- Erica Cervini
- 02 May 2024
In 1883, Bella Guerin became the first woman to earn a degree in Australia, a milestone for women in higher education. Today, women make up a majority of university students and staff, yet disparities in pay and representation persist.
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AUSTRALIA

Is a child terrorist a victim or perpetrator?
- Andrew Hamilton
- 02 May 2024
7 Comments
To identify children as terrorists is a distraction from considering the broader social and psychological contexts that made this violent ideology seem reasonable. The larger task in investigating how they became exposed to that violent ideology, how they were attracted to it, and how they can be drawn away from it.
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INTERNATIONAL

An indelicate balance: Israel and Iran exchange blows
- Binoy Kampmark
- 01 May 2024
1 Comment
For decades, the major powers of Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia have kept a restraint on their hostile engagements, with preference given to battle waged via proxies. A recent Israeli air strike on Iranian offices in Syria and Iran's subsequent attack on Israel with 185 drones, 110 ballistic missiles and 36 cruise missiles suggested that calculated restraint had been finally abandoned.
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RELIGION

The Greens, the Church and freedom of religion
- John Warhurst
- 01 May 2024
33 Comments
The relationship between the Catholic church and the Greens has been one marked by near constant antagonism. Are there any consequences from this for either the church or the party?
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Here we are now, entertain us
- Barry Gittins
- 01 May 2024
2 Comments
The raw power of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ blasted Nirvana past the mainstream and into the realm of music immortality. So what was it about Cobain’s music that resonated with young people in the early 90s and continues to find vast audiences 30 years later?
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INTERNATIONAL

Famine looms in Sudan as conflict enters its second year
- Kirsty Robertson
- 30 April 2024
One year after civil war erupted, Sudan has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian tragedies with around 5 million people experiencing emergency levels of hunger. This puts Sudan on the brink of famine. Sudanese leaders claim this is the crisis the world has forgotten.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Vanity and grace in the return of Priscilla
- Andrew Hamilton
- 29 April 2024
2 Comments
What are we to make of the enthusiasm that led to the discovery of the bus once used in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and the plan to restore it for a remake, thirty years later?
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AUSTRALIA

Health: Where rights are gifts
- Andrew Hamilton
- 25 April 2024
1 Comment
Good health is not an achievement to take credit for. It is something to be grateful for, a sign of good fortune as well as of good living. We must press for health to be seen as a right shared equally by all people throughout the world. And addressing that need in Australia must begin by strengthening our public health system.
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AUSTRALIA

Normalising war is the road to hell
- Warwick McFadyen
- 25 April 2024
2 Comments
How about truth as an antidote to war? Who would have stomach for it, though we see war as part of existence? The trouble with its normalisation, such as in games, both in backyards and in cyberspace, is that becomes uncoupled from reality.
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INTERNATIONAL

The road not taken
- Stephen Yorke
- 24 April 2024
1 Comment
On a June day in 1914, a Bosnian nationalist in Sarajevo ignited a chain reaction that reshaped the world. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old student, did not aim to unleash a global conflict. From the halls of imperial power to the fields of battle, how did the shots fired in Sarajevo echo across continents, drawing empires into disarray and redrawing the map of the modern world? (From 2004)
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AUSTRALIA

Requiem in a dawn light
- Peter Craven
- 24 April 2024
1 Comment
For those born in the wake of World War II, war stories seemed the greatest fun on earth. But the pity of it is monumental and we come to take it – if not for granted – then at least as part of the fabric of minds that had met with all that was terrible in human experience and all that called out for reverence.
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RELIGION

Where does Infinite Dignity meet finite reality?
- Bill Uren
- 24 April 2024
14 Comments
The recent Vatican declaration 'Dignitas Infinita' aims to provide a response to pressing bioethical and social issues, from abortion and euthanasia to gender theory and the rights of migrants. But does it effectively bridge the gap between doctrine and the lived experiences of the marginalised?
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AUSTRALIA

Trying to make sense of Joel Cauchi
- Bill Farrelly
- 22 April 2024
6 Comments
It will never be possible to protect the community from a repetition of the horror of April 13. But we can reduce the risk. To begin, we can reassess some of our collective and individual priorities, be more compassionate, less judgemental, more aware of those around us.
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AUSTRALIA

The paradox of 'wokeness'
- Michael McVeigh
- 22 April 2024
1 Comment
'Wokeness' is often centred around our need to understand others, particularly marginalised groups, and paradoxially, our inability to do so. The only way to overcome this problem is to find a way to transcend it – to centre our efforts on something greater. What if instead of ‘understanding’, we centre on ‘love’?
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Vol 34 No 8