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Keywords: First Year

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    An Indian tale of parallel worlds

    • Tony Herbert
    • 15 August 2017
    5 Comments

    It’s Monday, 24 September. The equinox passed a few days ago; the last of the monsoon showers seems to have gone. After Mass on my pre-breakfast walk, I notice the difference: the air fresh without the monsoon humidity, the lush green paddy crops, the dappled green and yellow of the early morning sun on the Sal trees. Out beyond the back of the parish is an unsurfaced road, good for stretching out. I first pass the houses of some of our Catholics, pukka, brick and cement, the fruit of their hard work and years of government employment.  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Our addiction to connection is centuries old

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 15 June 2017
    4 Comments

    On a recent tour of Vaucluse House in Sydney's east, I couldn't help but notice, in every bedroom, a writing desk. I imagined Sarah Wentworth scribbling away with inkpot and pen 180 years ago. I wonder if the Wentworths went straight to their writing desks first thing in the morning, the way some people check their phones? The desire to receive news from someone somewhere else is century's old. In 1850 Tasmania had 11 newspapers, for a population of 70,000.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Nearly knowing John Clarke

    • Brian Matthews
    • 13 June 2017
    2 Comments

    One of the 30 comedians, satirists, cartoonists and writers they interviewed was John Clarke. 'I first met John Clarke five years ago,' Murray recalls in his 1992 introduction to the interview, 'even though we grew up in the same town in New Zealand and for a while went to the same school. My claim to fame is that I nearly knew John Clarke. Recently when we looked though his school photos we realised that we knew every kid in Palmerston North in 1960 except each other.'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cashless Cards and other salvos in the war on the poor

    • Michele Madigan
    • 06 June 2017
    11 Comments

    In 1978 Kaurna/Narungga woman, Georgina Williams, said to me that Aboriginal people tend to be first on the receiving end of governmental oppressive practices and, when that works, the practices are extended to other poor Australians. Thirty-nine years later, almost every day brings new evidence of a relentless campaign against the poor, of which Cashless Cards are but one particularly vindictive example.

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  • RELIGION

    Sister Barbara and the books that changed everything

    • Julie Davies
    • 07 February 2017
    20 Comments

    Sister Barbara taught me in my fifth and sixth years. She had a large multi-grade class, yet she found time to realise I wasn't 'a bit slow' but was actually half-blind, partially deaf and bored witless. She ensured I was placed close to the front where I could hear, and arranged my first eye examination. Sister Barbara also sent away for high school English books just for me and that year this supposedly 'slow' child came first in class. These acts changed the course of my life.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Five reasons to welcome US Manus deal

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 November 2016
    12 Comments

    The government has struck a deal with the USA which provides hope at last for the 1600 proven refugees on Manus and Nauru. There's still a lot of work to be done before these refugees can get on with their lives after three years of hopeless agony. Gone are the days of presuming that those who arrive without visas are in direct flight from persecution. Gone are the days when they get first option on the available humanitarian places. I welcome the government's decision, and await the detail.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Young women confronted by the horror of exploitation

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 October 2016

    Our first glimpse of Jesse, a 16-year-old model recently arrived in LA, is of her sprawled on a sofa, scantily clad and smeared with fake blood. Later, during her first professional shoot, she is ordered to strip naked, and to endure being smeared with gold paint by the photographer's own hand. Another model boasts about the routine cosmetic surgery she undergoes to maintain the object that is her body. In the eyes of the industry, Jesse as an 'object' is already perfect.

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  • MEDIA

    Rise of Indigenous media is good for the nation's soul

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 27 September 2016
    8 Comments

    When I started my blog Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist four years ago, the major motivation was that I wanted to claim some space in the worldwide web for Aboriginal feminist left-wing discourse. I strongly felt that the mainstream media continued to ignore these types of opinions and, thanks to the internet providing public and freely available space, for the first time ever there was the ability to circumnavigate these traditional channels of communication. I believed no one would read it.

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  • CARTOON

    A brief recess

    • Staff
    • 10 July 2016

    After an eventful first half of the year and a seemingly interminable federal election campaign, we here at Eureka Street are going to take a breather for a couple of weeks. It's an opportunity to refresh and reset for the second half of the year. We will have new articles coming your way on 25 July 2016. Stay tuned!

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  • AUSTRALIA

    I'm not falling for Turnbull's diabetes bribe

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 24 June 2016
    5 Comments

    Facing his first election as leader of the Coalition, Turnbull announced that, if reelected, his party would spend $54 million on continuous glucose monitors for up to 4000 Type 1 diabetics under the age of 21. This impressive promise was a lightning rod to the children and small number of adults diagnosed each year with Type 1 diabetes. But it comes too late for Donna Meads-Barlow, who has campaigned tirelessly for government funding for CGMs, and upon whose efforts the government has finally taken action.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Death and the (young) maiden

    • Barry Gittins
    • 02 March 2016
    3 Comments

    This year we faced the prospect of having Wolfgang, our 16-year-old apricot Spoodle, euthanised. This was sad for me, my wife, and our son. But for our daughter, entering her first year of high school, it presented a looming disaster. Mark Twain is purported to have said that 'the fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.' Timidity equals preoccupation with mortality? No disrespect to Samuel, but it's unlikely he shared that gem with his daughters.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Marriage interrupted by a life-lie disrupted

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 25 February 2016

    As Kate plans a party for their 45th wedding anniversary, news arrives that the body of Katya, Geoff's long-dead first love, has been discovered in a Swiss glacier. The 'life-lie' that emerges turns out to be not so much a concealment but rather a minimisation of truth. The disruption it causes to an ostensibly happy marriage comes not in the form of shocking revelation, but slow-dawning realisation; not that Geoff isn't the man he purported to be, but that Kate may not be what she believed herself to be, to him.

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