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Keywords: Fires

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • RELIGION

    The meddling priest and the Redfern prophet

    • Frank Brennan
    • 16 July 2009
    9 Comments

    Last week, Pope Benedict gave Kevin Rudd a copy of his new encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Rudd gave the Pope a copy of the National Apology. I wonder what the radical Redfern priest Ted Kennedy would have made of this exchange of literary gifts.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Predicting Black Saturday

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 28 May 2009
    1 Comment

    It's frightening how precisely experts predicted the weather and its impact on the seemingly inevitable Black Saturday fires. A new documentary questions the adequacy of the response, given the veracity of these warning signs.

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  • RELIGION

    On blaming God for swine flu

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 May 2009
    15 Comments

    An American priest reportedly claimed that swine flu was God's punishment for sin. The idea that God might use natural disasters to punish people is repugnant. But at first glance the Scriptures do seem to represent God as doing just that.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Asylum seekers are not criminals

    • Sacha Bermudez-Goldman
    • 21 April 2009
    9 Comments

    If we regard asylum seekers as illegals who burn boats to force themselves on us, we might choose to close our doors to them. Rather than criminals, we should regard them as human beings in great need, deserving our respect and compassion.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Outsourcing care

    • Michael Mullins
    • 23 March 2009
    5 Comments

    The Victorian bushfires forced people to think about the costs and values associated with living in the bush. The financial meltdown will in turn make us consider our care for the needy, and how, and indeed whether, we must pay for it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Identity theft: a cautionary tale

    • Roger Trowbridge
    • 18 March 2009
    1 Comment

    Our personal documents had been swept up with assorted hardware and carried away. Only after a sleepless night did the potential for mischief at our expense became clear. The burglars had assumed control of our identities.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gain from pain

    • Michael Mullins
    • 09 March 2009

    The Victorian bushfires occurred during a time of financial uncertainty, but Australians gave their money generously. It was as if they were consciously and calculatingly investing their funds in the solidarity of the community.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Loving Australia's hard and soft faces

    • Toby Davidson
    • 27 February 2009
    1 Comment

    Sixteen Indigenous authors contribute stories of creation, love and yearning for place. Their country is one whose ancient landscape and traditions of custodianship were violently disrupted well before the 2009 fires.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Against the waning of bushfire grief

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 25 February 2009
    3 Comments

    My brother, who has been working with the SES, tells me of the eerie silence in the burnt-out bush: there are no birds. He also tells me of quirks of fate: some chooks had a miraculous escape, as did their owners, who later collected 40 eggs.

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  • MEDIA

    The language of fire

    • Philip Harvey
    • 24 February 2009
    10 Comments

    Melbourne had the strange experience of reading and listening to bushfire reports for five days while neither seeing nor smelling smoke. When the mind has no sensory leads to interpret, words become critical.

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  • RELIGION

    People of hope, not hate

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 February 2009

    In East Timor, I was able to see close up the work of Caritas in war torn conditions. There could be no reconciliation without justice. Caritas worked tirelessly to proclaim the message.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Living with Australia's beauty and terror

    • Tony Smith
    • 20 February 2009

    In contrast to tabloid television coverage of fires, Lohrey's writing explains much of our relationship to the bush. Like plaques in town halls honouring fallen soldiers, the task of rebuilding devastated communities is embedded in the national psyche.

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