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Keywords: Christmas

  • AUSTRALIA

    When my kids believed in Santa and God

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 22 December 2011
    5 Comments

    My daughter, at seven, imagines a Barbie doll that does not exist, one that has 'a very cool gun and real lipstick'. My son, at five, asks for 'a Jeep, a hot air balloon and real false teeth'. These preserved Christmas lists record my children's growth more accurately than their physical measurements.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rights for kids at Christmas

    • John Falzon
    • 22 December 2011
    7 Comments

    Democracy has been described as 'the intrusion of the Excluded into the socio-political space'. Children and young people figure prominently among the excluded in our society. When you start to wonder why, you begin to re-evaluate the strength of your democracy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Don't stoop to stupid policy over boat tragedy

    • Aloysious Mowe
    • 20 December 2011
    10 Comments

    Of course we want people to stop making the hazardous boat journey to Christmas Island, but tow-backs and off-shore processing are immoral and stupid. Australia must engage with others in the region to find ways to ensure people are not driven to make desperate journeys.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bill Gates shows us how to give

    • Michael Mullins
    • 19 December 2011
    4 Comments

    The main characteristic of giving is that it is an act of free will that comes from the heart. Yet Christmas gift-giving is often the product of a perceived need to conform to expectations. Bill Gates' decision to give away more than a third of his wealth is the reverse of this.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Questions surround latest asylum seeker boat disaster

    • Tony Kevin
    • 19 December 2011
    20 Comments

    The latest tragedy comes ten years after SIEV X and a year after the Christmas Island shipwreck. It will be exploited by both Gillard and Abbott to further their border protection policies. Questions surround the disaster that the Australian Government would prefer not be asked.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Confronting the beggar dilemma

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 14 December 2011
    10 Comments

    My father was disgusted by beggars. 'You know what that's all about? A bottle of metho to go with the boot polish.' These days I divide beggars into categories. The aged are in my in-group, and so are children. I give to amputees, but one day an 'amputee' got up and revealed himself to have two legs.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The dark heart of a European Christmas

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 12 December 2011
    3 Comments

    The EU was a panacea for Europe's nationalist and imperial history. All hope was pinned on the euro as the saviour able to transcend internal differences. As Christmas approaches, the air feels fragile. Winter will be frugal. Death and disintegration are constantly on the European mind.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Christmas Island crabs

    • Various
    • 29 November 2011

    Christmas for crabs; their island blooms with a rare largesse of flesh mashed to pulp on rocks — such 'palatable human refuse'.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My brother ill and illuminated

    • Brian Doyle
    • 05 October 2011
    7 Comments

    One time my brother Kevin and our father had a fistfight. Our sister herded the kids into a back room, made us kneel and pray. We could hear crashing; sometimes I still hear crashing when I pray. In his 50s Kevin, who I loved but sometimes disliked, got sick. It looks like he will die before Christmas.

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  • RELIGION

    Churches and the Malaysian Solution

    • Frank Brennan
    • 19 July 2011
    12 Comments

    This is not a regional solution to a regional problem, but a bilateral attempt at solving an Australian problem. To stop the boats, one needs to engage in measures contrary to the Refugee Convention. Church groups can not endorse something they know to be either unworkable or immoral.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard the least of Labor's worries

    • John Warhurst
    • 29 June 2011
    14 Comments

    The media are not indulging in fantasies, but feeding off rumours around Parliament House and gossip from within Labor. The message is that Gillard has until Christmas to improve the party's standing. But the party has bigger problems than an unpopular leader.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Parable of the unwelcome strangers

    • Greg Foyster
    • 20 June 2011
    22 Comments

    One day a stranger knocks on the door. 'Help!' he shouts. 'The people in my house are trying to kill me!' Instinctively, you reach for the door handle. A wrinkled hand, old yet firm, grabs your wrist. You look up and see your landlord, a bald man with thick rectangular glasses and bushy eyebrows.

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