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Volume 17 No.18

20 September 2007


 

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Confessions of a repatriated editor

    • Robert Hefner
    • 19 September 2007
    4 Comments

    After returning to the US, a former Eureka Street editor had to remind himself "just which side of the language [he] was supposed to be on". All the years in Australia coming to terms with '-re' and '-our' suffixes made finding the 'center' of an American document more 'labor-intensive' than it used to be.

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  • RELIGION

    The impact of leaky asylum boats on the Federal Election

    • Frank Brennan
    • 19 September 2007
    4 Comments

    The Howard Government must be given credit for increasing the size of our migration program, including the refugee and humanitarian component. But the deliberations of civil society should provide a fair go for all refugees, including those who arrive by boat without a visa.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Games tell a different story about the Pacific

    • Luke James
    • 19 September 2007
    2 Comments

    Coverage of the South Pacific Games was dominated by an Australian reporter posing a loaded question about RAMSI to the Samoan prime minister. It's a reminder that much remains to be done to positively promote the diversity and spirit of the region.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Digital compact camera ensures no more unexamined life

    • Brian Matthews
    • 19 September 2007
    1 Comment

    Digital photography allows the easy recording of almost every moment of our lives. Putting to your dog the proposition 'The unexamined life is not worth living', he would look at you with an expression that respectfully suggested, 'Human beings are so dumb'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Community needs a say on fertility procedures law

    • Maurice Rickard
    • 19 September 2007

    A far reaching social reform such as uniform fertility laws requires sustained debate. It's not up to legislators and medical practitioners to decide what constitutes a proper use of medicine. Medicine is fundamentally a social practice, one whose goals and purposes in which the entire community has a legitimate stake.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's fickle leadership transition process

    • John Warhurst
    • 19 September 2007

    The Coalition leadership controversy shows how easy it is to change leaders in a Westminster parliamentary system. A number of senior Canadian journalists were in Canberra. They were staggered at the power vested in the hands of so few.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Local anti-hero

    • Ian C Smith
    • 19 September 2007

    Writing music and busking now, abstinence and rice have rendered him thin. / The film industry's movers and shakers must seem a long way behind now, his days of editing, a retrospective haze.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Addiction to borrowed money will hurt us

    • Michael Mullins
    • 19 September 2007

    Many accept the Federal Government's claim that we're living in an age of great economic prosperity. It they want a new car or a house, they can have it. The reality is that they've never had such unfettered access to borrowed money.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Passive aggressive Pilger hurls well-aimed stone at his Goliath

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 September 2007

    With his shag of grey hair and weather-worn face, Aussie journalist-cum-documentarian pits his astute investigative mind and radical's spirit against no lesser rival than the American political empire.

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  • RELIGION

    Delivering the mentally disabled from evil

    • Scott Stephens
    • 19 September 2007
    7 Comments

    Superiority and the benevolence of modern science and the health-care system, versus the cruel, more ancient practice of ostracising the sick from civic life.

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  • RELIGION

    Reasonable security a better bet than total security

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 September 2007
    3 Comments

    The internal logic of total security regards the dignity of people who stand in the way, as dispensable. Once respect for some human beings is treated as optional, the human dignity of those offered security becomes equally dispensable.

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  • EDUCATION

    Performance-based pay for teachers could kill collegiality

    • Chris Middleton
    • 19 September 2007

    Earlier this month, a federal parliamentary committee recommended that teachers should receive higher pay, as an incentive to attract quality recruits and to improve retention. But a new policy could undermine the collective quality of school education.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    It's time for Australia to reclaim sovereignty

    • Tony Kevin
    • 19 September 2007
    3 Comments

    Australia has ceased to believe in a rules-based international order. Our increasing cynicism about the UN, and participation in coalitions with powerful world players, effectively denies our sovereignty. Rudd Government foreign policy would would need to involve more than fine-tuning.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Oz politics through the eyes of Tolkien

    • Vivienne Kelly
    • 19 September 2007
    16 Comments

    Tim Costello was recently asked whether he thought his brother would ever be Prime Minister. He gave a wry and elegant answer that played with the notion of the difficulty of relinquishing power in the saga of the Lord of the Rings.

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