Eureka Street Podcasts
By Eureka Street
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Podcast Description
Eureka Street. Look for our Podcast in the iTunes Store
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1 |
CleanSandal-wearing pinkos of the modern era | George Orwell lamented that socialism attracted 'fruit-juice drinkers' and 'sandal-wearers'. Former prime minister Paul Keating accused Sydney mayor Clover Moore of being a sandal-wearer and 'muesli-chewer'. 'Sandal wearing' survives nearly a century to be the star insult for each of them. | 24 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
CleanAccidental white heroes of Aboriginal culture | A Yankunytjajara elder has damned a current 'songlines' anthropological study, declaring that 'white do-gooders need their boundaries defined'. Anthropologists, like missionaries, have a mixed record, but are credited by many Aboriginal people for doing more good than they intended or anticipated. | 24 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
CleanTeaching students to fend for themselves | The lawsuit launched by a student against her former high school for failing to get her into her preferred university reveals how far we have drifted from notions of student responsibility. Teachers do need to be supportive, but they are not the single most important determinant in student outcomes. | 23 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
CleanTraipsing Turkey's deep, dark soul | A group of men wander the fields and knolls of a Turkish steppe in search of a corpse. Among them, a doctor's willingness to share a smoke with a confessed murderer contrasts starkly with the police chief's latent brutality. In this place empathy seems ever at odds with a world-weariness bordering on apathy. | 23 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
CleanThought under threat at Australia's universities | The Australian National University vice-chancellor's proposal to asset-strip Canberra's School of Music prompted the biggest university demonstration in 30 years. ANU isn't the only uni in financial stress, thanks to successive governments' under-funding of tertiary education and user-pays attitude. | 22 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
CleanThe grand champion of mothers | When I became a mother for the first time, my mother was there for her baby, not for mine. It had been a difficult birth. 'Heavens,' said Mum, 'You look just as you did after a hard day at school.' 'Oh, Mum,' I said, 'I'm so worried about him.' Mum laughed her head off. 'You're stuck with that feeling now.' How right she was. | 22 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
CleanCommunities cooperating to kick coal | Mick spent years working for the State Electricity Commission until privatisation saw him made reduntant, prompting years of forced idleness, low self-esteem, financial troubles and family stress. The experience has made him sceptical of politicians coming down to talk about opportunities from the transition to a low carbon economy. | 21 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
CleanGive circumcision inequality the snip | Everyone is entitled to bodily integrity, but they also have a right to the best possible health outcomes. When it comes to circumcision, the experts can't agree and infants can't decide, so it's up to parents to make a responsible choice on behalf of their infant sons. But only if they can afford it. | 20 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
CleanIf Clive Palmer was a High Court judge | Imagine Attorney-General Nicola Roxon appoints Palmer as the newest High Court judge. Justice Palmer sets about rewriting the law in radical ways, freeing mining companies from regulation and approving disbanding the Australian Greens. Surely such an appointment could be challenged? Actually, no. | 20 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
CleanEast Timor's independence is from Australia | With East Timor marking ten years of independence on Sunday, it is relevant to ask which nation in particular it is celebrating independence from. In one sense East Timorese value independence because it is a reminder that they do not hold ties and obligations to Australia, which might have become their neo-colonial master. | 17 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
CleanRe-balancing authority in the abusive Church | Church structures are riddled with patriarchy, clericalism and deference, and these were at the centre of the abuse problem. Repentance, then, means changing these. Lay people in particular, who are less subject to Vatican strictures, need to bring to the table their skills and knowledge to drive this change. | 17 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
CleanSuicide is the new leprosy | A common public response to suicide is very similar to earlier attitudes to leprosy. The latter makes invisible people who need to be seen. The former makes silent people who need to speak. A recently published collection of writing by relatives and friends of people who had taken their own lives breaks that silence. | 16 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
CleanRape ambiguity in India | It remains unclear whether the encounter was consensual, although the power imbalance in the relationship makes such an encounter ethically dubious even if it was not strictly rape. If it was rape, it is inconceivable that she later becomes her assailant's willing lover. | 16 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
CleanReconciliation in the homes of war criminals | As we drove through the village of Prek Sbeuv in Cambodia, the parish priest who accompanied me, Fr Jub Phoktavi, matter-of-factly pointed to Pol Pot's old house. I remain in awe of Cambodians who have been able to be reconciled, committing themselves to the common good of their nation. | 15 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
CleanThe many sins of Brian Doyle | I missed my cousin's funeral because I had weekend plans with a girlfriend that I was not man enough to break; and this beloved cousin was a nun. | 15 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
CleanTony Abbott's class war | One way of conducting class warfare is to accuse your opponent of conducting class warfare, as Abbott did in his Budget reply speech. It is no coincidence that over the period when talking about class became the political equivalent of breaking wind, the actions of governments of both stripes have accelerated social inequality. | 14 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
CleanPrayer is a walk in the park | When I feel the day is turning, I go - without a dog or child - to pray and walk the corridors of light and shade. | 14 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
CleanDiplomat priest built bridges to China | As the diplomatic crisis unfolded between the US and China over the fate of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, hard questions re-emerged regarding how the West should best relate to China. A Jesuit missionary who died 400 years ago offers a tantalising alternative to the cycle of comprehension and mystification. | 13 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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19 |
CleanHockey and Thatcher's 'no entitlement' is bad economics | Joe Hockey provoked outrage with his recent suggestion that we should rely on families rather than the state for social welfare. His premise that high social spending leads to debt and decline reflects the GDP fetish of fundamentalist economists that Joseph Stiglitz blames for Europe's current economic problems. | 13 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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20 |
CleanWarm bums and nuclear activism in Tokyo | I took the train into central Tokyo, my bum warmed by the heated seats. Each time we stopped, the train's engine shut down briefly, and the bum heater switch off for a few seconds. Over the loudspeaker I heard 'Setsuden chu', the catchphrase meaning 'We're currently using less electricity', which is posted all around the city. | 10 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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21 |
CleanTime to re-imagine the Australian flag | The readiness of Australians to design a flag that is agreed to and honoured ought to be on the agenda of any forward-looking party. Otherwise a day will come when a design will be foisted on us that no one likes and has no distinctive meaning. One only has to listen to the national anthem to know Australians are capable of embracing second best. | 10 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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22 |
CleanThe other side of suicide | When I was 15 I decided not to kill myself. I am still sometimes prone to baseless bouts of depression, but that ragged dark hole has never engulfed me. The main characters in two recent films are notable for deciding to live, rather than lie down and be overrun by dark emotions and events. | 9 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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23 |
CleanUS bishops' toxic tussle with Obamacare | The bishops intend a campaign of civil disobedience against aspects of the Obama Administration's health care plan. Many have been critical of this law on the ground that it might contribute to more abortions. The toxicity of the atmosphere should make us wary of adopting a similar campaign here. | 9 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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24 |
CleanBudget leaves baked beans for Struggle Street | The Budget confirms one thing that both sides of politics agree on, and that's their belief in the existence of an undeserving poor. There's nothing wrong with bringing home the bacon for middle Australia. But the people living at the rough end of Struggle Street are trying to get by on baked beans. | 9 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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25 |
CleanShaky surpluses and dirty nappies | You could you call it coincidence that the week I'm asked to write on budgets, ours blows out. I call it life. Such is the cyclic nature of our 1.5-incomes-and-two-kids lives that just when we think our savings are safe, a new enrolment fee is due, the kids' jeans are suddenly a size too small and I've run out of nappies. | 8 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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26 |
CleanSwan slights jobless | When budgets are tight, governments seek savings by moving people from an expensive payment to cheaper payment categories. By moving a larger number of single parents from parenting payment to the cheaper Newstart allowance the Government will effectively remove $686 million out of the hands of low income families. | 7 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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27 |
CleanWhen humanity came second to research | The experimenters' intent was to observe the capacity of first year students to inflict pain by electrically shocking others. Many of the subjects were traumatised as though they had in fact committed acts of torture. Paradoxically the latest revelations may mean the researchers themselves need counselling. | 7 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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28 |
CleanSpoor of a soul | At sleep's near edge I busily ask myself - redundantly, rather - where soul might have its home: Like the golden tumbling apricots right next door attending on Christmas, my body has attained what another age would have called a certain age. | 7 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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29 |
CleanNo easy cure for 'cost disease' in Australian schools | The Productivity Commission Schools Workforce report released on Friday does contain evidence of the dire state of productivity in Australian schools, but it is largely neutered. It's as if the Commission was anxious to avoid stating too plainly a disease for which it can suggest only palliatives. | 6 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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30 |
CleanBig media's NBN convergence challenge | The end of big media businesses such as Seven, Nine, Ten and the newspapers would be bad for media proprietors like Kerry Stokes and Rupert Murdoch, but not necessarily a great loss for the rest of us, given the NBN's empowerment of small media enterprises and the diversity that implies. | 6 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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31 |
CleanPope's equivocal view of social justice | In his reflections on society and aspects of human life, Pope Benedict privileges charity. If any planning or struggle for a just society is to be effective it will depend on people's good will and generosity in the implementation. The Pope also says 'yes' to social justice. But his 'yes' is normally a 'yes, but ...'. | 3 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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32 |
CleanErasure of an Aboriginal temple | For thousands of years there was a temple on the banks of the Macquarie. A long avenue of trees carved with serpents, lightning, meteors and hieroglyphs led to a walled space where a giant human figure made of earth reclined. It was as important as the Acropolis or the temple of Horus. But it no longer exists. | 2 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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33 |
CleanChristine Milne's chance to scupper an Abbott Senate | To prevent Tony Abbott from having total control of the Senate after the next election, the Greens need to attract votes from otherwise non-Labor voters rather than the easier task of picking up disappointed Labor defectors. The 15 per cent of Coalition-leaning Greens is generally forgotten altogether. | 1 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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34 |
CleanThe politics of suicide | Albert Camus said suicide was the one serious philosophical problem in that it poses the question as to whether life is worth living. Some suicides are a private solution to anger and despair, but others, such as suicide bombings and the recent suicide of retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, are both public and coercive. | 1 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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35 |
CleanTrain gaze | Her deep eyes glance up from the page without perceiving me, the hidden camera trained on her by my unbroken gaze. | 30 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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36 |
CleanA tale of two refugee movement speeches | Tony Abbott did not mention the term 'human rights' in his 3000 word speech to the Institute of Public Affairs on Friday. 'Illegal' appeared 11 times and 'asylum' once. In February, Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees gave a 3000 word speech to the Lowy Institute. A search of that speech finds 'human rights' five times, 'asylum' 21 times and no use of 'illegal'. | 30 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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37 |
CleanRupert Murdoch an example for older Australians | There is a lot not to admire about the business practices of Rupert Murdoch, but he stands tall as an elder who is able to maintain his stature in the face of great challenge. The Federal Government's new aged care blueprint has the potential to ensure that more Australians will retain their dignity in old age. | 29 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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38 |
CleanTo catch a despot | Former Liberian president Charles Taylor's conviction by an international criminal court for crimes against humanity is the first conviction of a head of state since World War II. It does little to change the fact that it remains notoriously difficult to bring heads of state to trial for grave crimes. | 29 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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39 |
CleanSchools confront the globalisation of superficiality | In 2010, Kevin Rudd asked Fr Adolfo Nicolas SJ, the international leader of the Jesuits, what he believed to be the major challenges facing western society. Nicolas replied 'the globalisation of superficiality'. Educating for depth and discernment is one of the biggest challenges facing teachers today. | 26 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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40 |
CleanLetter from a lost soldier | 'I wish this war was finished for I am fed up. My dear Ann, you and the children try to be as cheery as you can. I feel all buggered up but I shall just have to carry on the best way I can ... we are on another front now and it is actually hell ...' Whatever ambiguous solace Annie could derive from Alex's letter, it was soon lost. | 26 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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41 |
CleanSeparating art from war in Iran | Sabre rattling, both by the Iranian leadership and by Western politicians and pundits, dominates the headlines and steers public discourse about Iran. A recent film, and a current art exhibition, remind us of the country's 'rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics'. | 25 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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42 |
CleanDismembering the dead in Japan and Afghanistan | The publication of photographs of American soldiers posing with the body parts of dead Afghani insurgents has provoked a lively exchange of opinion in the media. Just as in Afghanistan, American and Australian soldiers fighting the Japanese saw themselves pitted against an opponent who acted by a different - inhuman - set of rules. | 25 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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43 |
CleanProfound silence of a conscientious objector | I remember the day my older brother came back from the navy. He was 20. I was 11. He slouched in his chair, weary and dismissive and friendly. I wanted to say something amusing to make him see me but no words came. So I asked him if he wanted a sandwich. Sandwiches were a way of talking in our family. | 24 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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44 |
CleanGetting personal with Anzac Day | Should I even be saying all this to people I have never met? What do I say? How far do I go? My paternal grandfather, Edgar, was not only an Anzac but among those who landed nearly 100 years ago at the Turkish cove. Even among my family his experiences are still largely passed over in silence. | 24 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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45 |
CleanNuns bucked by papal bulls | Tensions between enterprising women religious and church authorities go back a long way. Last week's Vatican action against women religious in the US raises the same questions about respect and process as did the dismissal of Bishop Morris in Toowoomba. But its potential consequences are much larger. | 23 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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46 |
CleanPoets in wartime | O for a day without comrades bloody fallen, lovers in guttural grief, shrieking, sobbing, and mothers in stoic dignity, mantillas drawn tight, our heroic flame, corralled colts brazenly waiting, cruelly snuffed. Have we learned nothing my friend? | 23 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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47 |
CleanImagining nationalism through Anzac suffering | Political theorist Isaiah Berlin argued that nationalism manifests most strongly in communities that have suffered some wound. In a period of unparalleled wealth, in which most Australians are far removed from war, Anzac Day is a way of instructing ourselves about the place of suffering in Australia's history. | 22 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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48 |
CleanUnlocking the culture of clergy sex abuse | Victoria's parliamentary committee has much it could learn from Ireland's Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse, which identified the 'don't ask, don't tell' culture under which bishops did not talk about it even among themselves and were unaware of how widespread the problem was. | 22 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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49 |
CleanAgnostic and religious ways of seeing the world | Richard Holloway's life took him from a poor Scottish village into an Anglican religious community, to priesthood, to consecration as Archbishop of Edinburgh and finally to resignation from his Church and faith. His honest and self-critical autobiography invites the reader to respond with the same honesty. | 19 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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50 |
CleanGreens moral vision safe in Milne's hands | Retiring Greens leader Bob Brown is not the avuncular teddy-bear politician some paint him as. He and new leader Christine Milne share the same steel and political acumen. The next promising generation of Greens leaders will be nurtured and grow under Milne's leadership. And there are many of them. | 18 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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51 |
CleanThe torture of adultery | When her infidelity is discovered, she is rejected by her husband and flees to her lover's side. Her desire for him is excruciating in its ferocity, especially once it becomes clear that the feeling is not mutual. Having rejected one partner and being now neglected by another, she lapses into a deep depression. | 18 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe call to celibacy | The man becomes priest upon taking his vows of celibacy. He is no longer a man who would work and care for family, enjoy his leisure and be father to his children. In his robes and vestments he is for the flock, but not of them. What can the church offer a man or a woman who chooses celibacy? | 17 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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53 |
CleanFund facts about living with disability | At the end of each day, one of our three adult sons will ask, 'What's on tomorrow?' They don't ask this lightly. They have Down syndrome. Whether they participate in the community, go to work or remain at home depends on what funding we can access. | 17 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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54 |
CleanThe best and worst of international aid | Rumour has it the Government's projected aid budget increases will be cut to ensure a surplus. Some aid doesn't work: I was horrified as a young aid worker in the '80s being told that an open sewer in an Addis Ababa slum was a World Bank project. But aid does work if it is underpinned by a few key principles. | 16 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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55 |
CleanProblems with atheism | The problem with being an atheist is the lack of possibilities, a world to come into being, a kingdom to be worked for, blood and sweated for, any hope of future travels curtailed with science. | 16 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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56 |
CleanPhilip Adams in schism with the Dawkinsonians | In the shadow of the blockbuster Q&A and Global Atheist Convention was a poignant encounter between atheist broadcaster Philip Adams and Jesuit theologian Gerald O'Collins. The instant bond between the two may have a flipside in an affinity between fanatical atheists and fundamentalist religious believers. | 15 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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57 |
CleanOakeshott's Malaysia Solution loophole | His proposed amendment to the Migration Act is designed to remove the peg on which the High Court hung the Malaysia solution out to dry. It is a convoluted means for allowing the executive government to declare an offshore processing country without meaningful scrutiny by Parliament or the High Court. | 15 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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58 |
CleanTitanic lessons in the age of swagger | The Titanic has become the symbol of the end of a swaggering era marked by great self-confidence and belief in inevitable progress. It suggests that whenever swagger begins to walk the streets it is time to head for the lifeboats. We find it hard to apply this lesson to the circumstances of our own times. | 12 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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59 |
CleanBewailing Wikipedia's white male bias | Nearly 90 per cent of Wikipedia's editors are men, the majority in their 20s. This is not Wikipedia's fault: it exists in a world that is already weighted towards the white male experience. The murder in Florida of African-American teen Trayvon Martin has catalysed criticism of the effects of white male privilege. | 12 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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60 |
CleanHSU corpse fouls Julia's nest | Most of the media bazookas are trained on her for refusing to condemn Craig Thomson, whose warm seat is toasting the shapely behind of the Gillard Government, which is one parliamentary vote ahead of oblivion. But Thomson's status as 'innocent until proven guilty' is a critical element of the rule of law. | 11 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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61 |
CleanGay Christians' church trauma | 'God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,' quips the pastor from the pulpit. The congregation finds this hilarious, but not young gay Christian Ben, who feels secretly shamed. Later, when a string of Christian counselling programs fail to 'heal' his homosexuality, Ben takes to his wrists with a razor blade. | 11 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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62 |
CleanThe footballers who booted out Australian racism | At this juncture in the life of the Mighty Currawongs the usual bigotry poured forth. One columnist raged and sputtered about invasions by 'evil, small statured people'. The ensuing burst of street protests against racism in every corner of Australian life would permanently alter the course of Australian history. | 10 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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63 |
CleanBruises all round in Pell-Dawkins street fight | Atheist Richard Dawkins' debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in February was a gentlemanly affair. By contrast Dawkins' debate with Cardinal George Pell on the ABC's Q&A this week was billed as a 'title fight of belief'. As one comment on Twitter noted the next day, 'they both lost'. | 10 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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64 |
CleanRaising boys who play with dolls | For every girl who feels she is being forced to choose between a thousand shades of pink, there's a boy hemmed in by society's expectations of what a boy should be. Female empowerment will lose its value unless women take men on the journey with them. | 9 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe virtues of hoarding | Let me have things about me not thrown out! Reminding things are made by hands, spent from the earth. You can't take any with you, that is sure, nor likely leave behind. But when they ask, 'Do you have a widget, a grommet, a poem by ...?' yes, I have. | 9 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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66 |
CleanEaster in detention | Over many years I have celebrated Christmas and Easter in places where people are locked up - in refugee camps, prisons and detention centres. To be in these places at such times is hard. It is also a privilege. | 5 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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67 |
CleanEaster manifesto | The Easter motif of suffering and resurrection comes alive in movements of social change, when people who have been treated as nothing proclaim by their collective dreaming we are everything. For those who hunger for justice it is a sin to be disorganised, when the misery we confront is well organised. | 5 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWhat Australia doesn't want East Timor to know | The famine of 1977-79 cut a swathe through East Timor's civilian population. Having failed to subdue the Timorese, the Indonesian military opted to starve them out. Details from that little-understood period are contained in cables that Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has blocked from public access. | 4 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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69 |
CleanTitanic sets human tragedy apart from Hollywood gloss | Legend has it that upon its original release, Titanic was listed as running for two hours and 74 minutes, to placate 'dumb' Americans averse to films over three hours. Titanic's strength is not its trite central 'lust story' but its accumulation of small human tragedies against the disaster of the ship's final hours. | 4 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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70 |
CleanRussia's liberal wind of change | Among Westerners and locals alike, Moscow seems to be afloat on scurrilous innuendo, focused on Putin's bully-boy tactics, fondness for young women and pathological greed. Still, since the eruption of street protests after last December's parliamentary elections, the narratives appear to be shifting. | 3 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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71 |
CleanA Mormon in the White House | So we may yet have a Mormon, Mitt Romney, as the Republican contender for the White House. Forty years ago this would have led to a perceived clash of loyalties: 'Who runs America?' - remember the fuss about John F. Kennedy's Catholicism? Nowadays this seems to the be least of Romney's troubles. | 3 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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72 |
CleanTargeting aid workers | Australian aid worker David Savage was severely injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. The Taliban tried to kill him in revenge for the shooting of 17 unarmed Afghan civilians by a deranged American soldier. In more innocent times aid workers were regarded as angels by all sides. | 2 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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73 |
CleanAustralia's mystic river | That river is almost embarrassed at the space it occupies - professionally shocked to be spotted despite the camouflage dust it wears. It scrawls on the grey-soil plains. This consecrated vellum is read by cockatoos. | 2 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe age pension was fairer than super | Paul Keating says he changed superannuation from an elite system to one which would include 'the bloke running behind the garbage truck'. But a new elite has left the garbo in the dust. Labor's core constituency and the economy would be much better off with the age pension rather than super. | 1 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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75 |
CleanBob Carr's 'overlap of cultures' and the Victorian bishops on gay marriage | Foreign minister Carr used the phrase 'overlap of cultures' to describe people of different cultures living together. The bishops are entitled to expect the Government not to legislate to 'smash' the sacrament and religious institution of marriage. But tolerance of other cultures and faiths must be reciprocal. | 1 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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76 |
CleanCanned pairs reveal Opposition's fruity strategy | The Opposition has unrelentingly resisted pairs, whereby an MP from one side doesn't vote in order to allow an MP from the other side to be away. Their strategy is to emphasise the closeness of the numbers in parliament. This hardline attitude has recently led to some crazy and downright silly situations. | 29 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanClose-ish encounters with two queens | I saw a gloved hand at the window and that was it. The experience turned out to be the one time when I saw the Queen 'in the flesh'. I had gone under duress, having even at that young age vestigial republican tendencies. A few weeks ago I went with more enthusiasm to see another Queen. | 29 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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78 |
CleanGeriatric sex and dignity | The characters' move to India is not merely about stepping outside of comfort zones, but also stepping beyond the familiar in order to examine life in, literally, a new light. Graham has unfinished business there that dates back to his youth. Ageing tomcat Norman simply wants to get laid. | 28 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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79 |
CleanUS bishops' contraception conundrum | To maintain moral influence, the US Catholic bishops' fastidiousness about indirect cooperation with government on contraception would need to be matched by an equal fastidiousness in cooperating indirectly with government in the abuses associated with military, penal and immigration policy. | 28 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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80 |
CleanRevelations shed new light on Bill Morris dismissal | Some think last year's dismissal of William Morris as Bishop of Toowoomba was just a storm in a teacup and that it is time to move on. This is a serious misreading of the signs of the times. More details have come to light showing how threadbare and confused the processes were that led to the dismissal. | 27 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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81 |
CleanGreek peasant's faithful fatalism | Maria was born into poverty and did not have much luck in escaping it. Yet she was an unchallenged believer, who would say regularly, Oti thelei o Theos: Whatever God wants. This, while I would huff and puff and mutter that God helps those who help themselves. But part of me envied Maria her certainties. | 27 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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82 |
CleanMan versus wind | The day has no front teeth, it raves in the street, it is grey as a tap, a murky x-ray of a multiple trauma. The front door keeps whistling old songs about going away ... these hinges hate me, not one screw will stay put. They are moving out. | 26 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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83 |
CleanElitism in online dictionaries | Free dictionaries on the internet are often bland and incomplete, while those that are complex and exhaustive require a credit card. Quality comes at a price, and this is an increasing educational issue. Rich institutions and individuals can pay for the words we all use, while others cannot, or just do not. | 26 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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84 |
CleanStynes a man of flesh and steel | Jim Stynes was such a determined character that he joined me in swimming the 1985 Pier to Pub at Lorne, even though he did not know how to swim - he completed the 1200m open water swim doing a kind of dog paddle. In 2001 I officiated at his wedding. Today I will officiate at his funeral. | 26 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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85 |
CleanAustralia playing catch-up with latest refugee reforms | Australia's refugee processing regime saw two major reforms take effect on Saturday. They bring Australia into line with the EU, Canada and New Zealand. The changes are welcome but do not go far enough. | 25 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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86 |
CleanThe slow torture of kids in detention | Julian Burnside taunted his audience at La Trobe University in 2010 with the suggestion that we take a couple of children out of detention and publicly execute them. His point was that we are not bothered by the mental torture of children in immigration detention because it is out of sight. | 25 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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87 |
CleanMemories of two kings of Tonga | There is a story that the king, having learned surfing at Bondi, introduced the sport to Tonga. I asked if he was ever fearful of sharks. 'There is nothing to fear,' he said. 'Look them straight in the eye like this!' At which he squared his shoulders in a demonstration of regal might which I shall never forget. | 22 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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88 |
CleanThe fall and fall of Queensland Labor | Tomorrow, Labor will be swept from office in Queensland. The resounding defeat is not easy to explain. While there have been many policy debacles and scandals under Labor, the Queensland government has not resembled the shame of its New South Wales counterpart prior to its defeat last year. | 22 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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89 |
CleanInvestment bankers and other monsters | The action takes place in 2008 on the eve of the GFC, at an investment bank loosely modelled on Lehman Bros. The CEO is monstrous; a kind of sinewy bishop to capitalism, gaunt and vicious. Yet even the most principled characters are shown to compromise to varying degrees in the name of self-interest. | 21 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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90 |
CleanConversations with Rowan Williams | When he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he brought with him the hopes of liberal Anglicans and the scrutiny of conservatives, as he appeared likely to lead the Anglican Church further towards acceptance of progressive views. His success or failure would have to be about conversation, not about decree. | 21 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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91 |
CleanStynes a living breach of the rules | He was a notorious transgressor on the football field, and the last years of his life were a sustained transgression. Terminal sickness has its own code. It is normally handled and propitiated by silence. Jim Stynes seemed to do it a different way. | 20 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanJose Ramos-Horta's Ian Thorpe moment | East Timor is living far too dangerously by dumping its incumbent president Jose Ramos-Horta in last weekend's election. It remains to be seen whether Ramos-Horta will continue in public life or retire, but there's no doubt the nation would do well to use his vast experience as an elder statesman. | 19 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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93 |
CleanProdigal son's shoeless stroll | A drink from the sole is more refreshing than any bottled river. I felt the cushion of grass. It did not exclude, but wrapped its spines around me, tickled my dying ankles to rattle, greasing the bearings of my toes. | 19 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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94 |
CleanBanning Dante's Divine Comedy is a human tragedy | The 17th century Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi's Book of Travels describes Christians as pigs for slaughter. Yet its beautifully imagined world is open to Christian readers who can forgive the comparison. In the same way Dante has much to offer beyond derogatory depictions of gays, Jews and Muslims. | 18 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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95 |
CleanBig media takes a leaf out of big tobacco | Media bosses believe self-regulation is compatible with protecting the interests of ordinary Australians. It's akin to allowing big tobacco to specify the size of health warnings on cigarette packs. | 18 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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96 |
CleanSocial justice arguments against dismissal regulation | A subtle effect of dismissal regulation is that it penalises workers who are risky for employers, such as those returning to work after a break to rear children, those with a disability, or from particular racial groups. The most vulnerable in the labour market miss out as employers lean towards 'safe' workers. | 18 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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97 |
CleanBetter results from a classless education system | Given that Catholic and independent schools tend to produce better results than government schools, one would expect to be able to demonstrate that the non-government sector adds more value to a student's education. The evidence does not bear this out. | 15 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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98 |
CleanIraq's sexual cleansing | In high school, I'd hack my hair into asymmetrical experiments, dye it impossible colours, and layer myself with kitsch op-shop garments. I was another precocious teenager who wore her individuality on the outside. Right now in Iraq, teenagers like I was are being murdered as 'homosexuals'. | 15 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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99 |
CleanEureka Street comes of age | This year Eureka Street celebrates its 21st birthday as a small fish in the ever turbulent lake of global media. Like other print and online media it has had to adjust to its environment. It has had to negotiate the particular challenge of the polarisation of attitudes within the Church. | 14 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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100 |
CleanShowing love to child offenders | One of the boys had been charged with murder. The details of his alleged deed revealed a process of systematic humiliation and cruelty towards the victim. It was extremely difficult to reconcile this when looking into the face of a 14-year-old boy. | 14 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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101 |
CleanHow Google is narrowing our minds | Google's personalised search aims to supply us with content that reflects our interests. The problem is that, exposed only to the views of those like us, our position is reinforced and may tend to the extreme as we become unsympathetic to alternative perspectives. | 13 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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102 |
CleanThe two St Patricks | The theory that the person we know as St Patrick is an amalgam of a number of holy men is now respectably mainstream. The idea that Patrick came to pagan Ireland and changed it to an island of saints and scholars is an attractive one, however shaky that conversion has often seemed. | 13 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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103 |
CleanMore asylum seeker blood on Australia's hands | Reports into the death of a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker inside an Indonesian detention centre reveal he was bound, burned with cigarettes and beaten to death with a blunt object. The Australian Government and the Coalition must accept some responsibility for the death. | 12 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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104 |
CleanLove with an open hand | When I'm with you, I take off my rings, unlatch my watch and untie my hair. And it's so quiet, so so quiet, like a film without a soundtrack. | 12 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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105 |
CleanKony collared by the sound of a million Tweets | No matter how many people in the West sign on to the viral campaign, bringing Joseph Kony to justice is a complicated prospect. Yet what's most fascinating and exciting about the campaign is the way it has united people behind a single moral purpose. | 11 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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106 |
CleanZero tolerance for ritual humiliation | The Church is recognised as having tolerated abuse of children and young adults, and sometimes regarded it as character building, in connection with corporal punlshment and activities such as drinking rituals at university residential colleges. But the Catholic college at Sydney University has broken with tradition by implementing its zero tolerance policy. | 11 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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107 |
CleanWayne Swan, Clive Palmer and the gospel of wealth | Mining in Australia has assumed the mantle of the untouchable, so much so that taxing its proceeds is deemed by some to be unpatriotic. What matters to Swan is maintaining the idea, however illusory, that Australia remains an equal country. | 8 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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108 |
CleanWomen chained to the human dairy farm | Women have fought the long, hard fight, marching into battle with a baby tugging on one heel and a man hanging off the other. And while the man has largely loosened his grip, the baby never will. Many women are still forced to submit, if not to patriarchy then certainly to maternal instinct. | 7 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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109 |
CleanWhen cancer is funny | We follow 27-year-old Adam from his diagnosis through the hazards of chemo to still more hazardous surgery. He is aided along the way by the world's worst doctor and a therapist too inexperienced to be of any help. Some cancer stories are as funny as they are tragic. | 6 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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110 |
CleanFeminism by the numbers | Various pontiffs and potentates block annulment and divorce. So Harry pushes himself to the head of the queue, rogering the wee chasm twixt church and state. When Anne, too, non-delivers the baby boy jackpot, he manfully sweeps Jane off her feet and Anne's head off her shoulders. Still counting sacrificial sheep? | 6 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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111 |
CleanBenefits of Australia's UN Security Council bid | Critics of Australia's bid to join the UN Security Council have either a narrow view of what constitutes Australia's national interest, or a view of Australian taxpayers as shareholders who should expect a financial return on every investment. | 6 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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112 |
CleanLast of the cat poems | With fresh blood in your mouth you are no longer cat, house-trained to please. Now you kill wantonly, revel in the fear you invoke in others. Man was created, just like you, to run free in the killing-fields ... Is this what God meant you to be? To revert to what you once were? | 5 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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113 |
CleanCold showers for unprincipled Labor | Labor must have anticipated the negative response to its axing of the solar hot water rebate scheme, yet it went ahead. Does this suggest determination, arrogance or desperation? One thing's for sure, the decision contributed to the impression this government has lost its way. | 5 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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114 |
CleanChurch transparency key to protecting children | The Protecting Victoria's Vulnerable Children Inquiry has set a new benchmark. A particular challenge to churches is the recommendation regarding mandatory reporting for clergy and church personnel. Any equivocation on this would be viewed with disdain by the community. | 5 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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115 |
CleanSex, lies and adoption | The Senate Inquiry into Forced Adoption has revealed heinous practices. The father of my children was adopted at birth, and as a psychologist I now counsel many who have been part of the adoption triangle. The role of fathers in cases of forced adoption is often overlooked. | 4 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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116 |
CleanInfanticide and the spectre of eugenics | It's alarming that two Melbourne academics are arguing for the legalisation of infanticide. It is worth recalling that in 1939 academic argument led to the Victorian Parliament legalising eugenics, of which infanticide is a form. Fortunately it was never practised due to embarrassment over the Holocaust. | 4 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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117 |
CleanGetting intimate with the da Vinci robot | Invisible hands parted my gown and stroked my spine with stuff that was exquisitely cold. 'Put your bum in there,' he said, 'wriggle round till you're comfortable then lie back.' I knew very well that when I lay back, securely anchored by my bum in the space provided, the adhesive would hold me in its grip. | 1 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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118 |
CleanPicking the scab of colonisation | The wound of colonisation is not yet healed. The so-called Stronger Futures legislation, which will extend and deepen some of the worst aspects of the NT Intervention, is built on the falsehood that the wound does not exist or is an Aboriginal problem. But it is an Australian problem. It is our problem. | 1 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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119 |
CleanWe need a pulpit perspective on Papua | No one has been held accountable for the human rights abuses that occurred in East Timor, and this has resulted in a further vacuum of human responsibility in West Papua. The Australian Government has neglected the situation, but so too have the churches. | 1 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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120 |
CleanPolite parents of violent children | As with Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap, an act of violence involving children acts as a catalyst to exacerbate the adult characters' prejudices, insecurities and resentments. Aided by alcohol, civility is gradually stripped away as a polite gathering degenerates into bullying and abuse. | 29 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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121 |
CleanEmpathy after Labor's knife fight | The battle between Rudd and Gillard supporters was a nasty affair and it is hard to see that good will come out of it for anyone. But its defects provoke reflection about the qualities that might enable public conversation to contribute to an enhanced sense of human possibility. | 29 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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122 |
CleanCatholic writers' agnostic appeal | The priests are ineluctably compromised: one has capitulated to state pressure to marry; the other has fathered a daughter and drugs himself with alcohol. But the author's achievement, and a mark of his faith, is his ability to 'distinguish ... between the man and the office'. | 28 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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123 |
CleanSydney and Melbourne archbishops of art | Culture in Australia is big business. The role of director of an art gallery involves all the flash of celebrity and the smoky mirrors of politics. Now that the Art Gallery of NSW has announced the appointment of its new director, the pressure is on for Melbourne's NGV. | 28 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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124 |
CleanGillard's guts and glory | This rough, tough former workplace lawyer came, as we knew she does, into her own when she was on her feet, fighting for her political life. Now for the first time since she put on the prime ministerial stilettos in 2010 we can sense the steel core within those blue suede size 36 heels. | 27 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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125 |
CleanJesus and his kids | they say what's with the whole guy on the cross thing, man, that's macabre, that's sick, you people look at a guy dying of torture every day, you hang him in your churches and houses and offices, you carry a dying guy in your pocket, that's just weird, and I try to say he's a dad ... | 27 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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126 |
CleanAll democracies great and small | From strata communities to federal politics, citizens of democracies exhibit similar characteristics. These include limited knowledge and interest, suspicion of office-holders, and assertions of self-interest. Those who stand for election deserve more credit than they often get because they are a small minority. | 26 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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127 |
CleanDysfunction in the Church and the ALP | As an institution stricken with dysfunction, the ALP shares a bleak outlook with unions, churches and other organisations that are similarly sustained by shared ideals and belief systems, but are struggling. They've lost their nerve and no longer know how to be authentic. | 26 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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128 |
CleanGonski's reductionist view of education | The report's argument that a base level of funding be established might lead to a lowest common denominator approach to determining what is an 'efficient' education, in both the state and private systems. Creativity, diversity and experimentation may be hindered in such a regime. | 23 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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129 |
CleanWhy Gillard should lead | Minority government has presented unique challenges to Gillard and her team, to which they have responded with dignity, clarity and efficiency. Politics in the Australian party system is a team sport, and it's clear Kevin Rudd has a thing or two to learn about loyalty and solidarity. | 23 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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130 |
CleanIslamic women's sex and power | The women begin withholding sex from their husbands in order to pressure them into bringing running water to their remote North African village. This act of self-empowerment brings hardships to both the men and the women of this patriarchal Islamic community. | 22 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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131 |
CleanWhat should Rudd do now? | If Rudd loses Monday's expected leadership ballot, he will either go to the back bench or resign from Parliament. If he stays, what will he do? Spend the next six months undermining Gillard as Keating did Hawke? Rudd might not think that is a morally appropriate course of action. | 22 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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132 |
CleanFeminism in Bougainville | 'Women in Bougainville have no choice but to be political,' I was told by a community leader. From housekeepers to businesswomen, they all seem to be pretty fierce feminists. Even random women I meet at cafes and pubs tell me about the work women do in their communities. | 21 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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133 |
CleanAlain de Botton's pastoral atheism | Where Richard Dawkins could be described as a missionary intent on saving souls from religion, fellow atheist de Botton is more concerned with the spiritual needs of the existing flock. His latest book Religion for Atheists is likely to annoy believers and non-believers alike. | 21 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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134 |
CleanOp-shop religion | If you try on any more religions, torn, weary and grey like many a tweed jacket from St Vinnie's ... they're never your size. | 20 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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135 |
CleanGonski process leaves schools in limbo | A two year process of research, consultation, public input and expert consideration and analysis is a reasonable route to follow for a government-appointed independent inquiry into a major policy issue. But when that process simply leads into a further protracted process, its value is questionable. | 20 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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136 |
CleanVirgin's sexism in the sky | For all the things Qantas stands accused of - selling out its Australian employees, uncompetitive pricing, bad management - it appears to be respectful of women. A ticket on a Virgin flight, on the other hand, brings with it the allure of sex, the commodity on which the company's brand has been built. | 19 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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137 |
CleanIn defence of 'adults only' video games | Opponents of the government's proposed R18+ video game classification argue that playing violent video games leads to violent behaviour. But researchers have found mental health to be a more reliable predictor of negative outcomes. | 19 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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138 |
CleanGillard the Brave | Just about every reporter and would-be opinionator wants Rudd to mount an open challenge to Gillard. Her spack-attack on the Chief Justice of the High Court after he scuttled the Malaysia solution was bitterly disappointing. But I have had to reconsider my feelings about her leadership. | 16 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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139 |
CleanInnocence lost in Greece and Australia | The dismissal of Gough Whitlam by then Governor-General Sir John Kerr in 1975 has been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australia's history. It seems pallid in comparison with what is now happening here in Greece. | 16 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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140 |
CleanMelbourne's Gen Y hollowman | The 'quarter life crisis' is perhaps a Gen Y phenomenon where, despite a dedication to 'experience' and 'connection', one feels life is hollow. The greatest weakness of Any Questions For Ben? is that it offers pat answers to existential questions, where perhaps it should offer none. | 15 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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141 |
CleanShane Warne and News Limited's hostility cycle | As a cyclist who shares the pavement with pedestrians and the road with cars, I am constantly struck by how common is the unkindness of strangers. The relations between cyclists, drivers and pedestrians mirror the qualities I see as characteristic of News Limited commentary. | 15 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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142 |
CleanArt after shock | Walk in one direction and you meet a photograph of a dog humping a naked man. Turn a corner and there is a long row of plaster-cast v****as. In one place a mummified cat's head. Shock is not new in art, but it loses its transgressive power when pursued for its own sake. | 14 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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143 |
CleanBaby steps in 'reformed' Burma | Burma has embarked on a series of reforms that have altered its pariah status. But Burma's icon of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, does not fully represent all Burmese, and there are vast problems that must be addressed before sanctions are fully lifted. | 14 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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144 |
CleanRussia's concern for besieged Syrian Christians | Russia's opposition to military intervention or orchestrated regime change in Syria runs deeper than mere contemporary strategic interest. Its interest in Syria and the broader Middle East stems also from its historical conception of itself as the protector of eastern Christians. | 13 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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145 |
CleanHow to wrestle an angel | Try a Cobra Clutch Bulldog; an Elevated Gutbuster; Wheelbarrow Driver; Gorilla Press Slam; a Frankensteiner. There's always the Alley Oop, where you hoist him, (the opponent) on your shoulders. But be aware of the possibility of take-off ... Who will be riding whom? | 13 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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146 |
CleanAustralia's story in Indigenous languages | I will never forget the look on her face. I had asked her a simple question. But I had used her language. She seemed shocked that a white person would even try. Indigenous languages offer rich ways to describe and name our world, and valuable insights and knowledge for all Australians. | 12 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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147 |
CleanMeans test won't fix health funding | The current private health insurance subsidy has the poor paying for the wealthy. The proposed means test will make health funding a little fairer, but it won't do much to change inequities in the health system as a whole. | 12 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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148 |
CleanRise of the urban refugee | In the last ten years the world of the refugee has rapidly shifted. The refugee camp is now the exception rather than the rule: 58 per cent of all refugees reside in urban areas, mostly in the rapidly growing slums of the cities in the global south. | 9 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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149 |
CleanAustralia follows US drone lead | Despite Obama's insistance that the use of drones in Pakistan 'is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists', civilian casualties are inevitable. Australia is also phasing in the use of drones. | 8 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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150 |
CleanSex addiction shame and sympathy | Brandon's addiction finds several expressions, from excessive pornography use (including on his work computer), to one-night stands, to more deviant behaviours. Shame explores the addict's humanity both frankly and artfully. | 8 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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151 |
CleanFeminism, Greer and Tankard Reist | Germaine Greer has said she did not want to be a high priestess of feminism. What may have been extracted from her views and the constant evolution of feminism has been diminished by being reduced to a formula such as that used to denounce Melinda Tankard Reist. | 7 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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152 |
CleanOur racist editors | The misreporting of the Australia Day 'riot' is but one example of a growing nexus of hysteria, racism and ignorance in Australian media. It is time to rein in the increasing distortion of our social and political conversations, and require responsibility as well as freedom of speech. | 6 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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153 |
CleanAbominable blood ties | My crumpled iris-rim lip is her lip; the fine spoked wheel beneath my grimacing eye has etched itself deep with years upon her face. The wet red meat of my viscera is made of her, a shy-hood I cannot take off ... Why are you doing this to me? | 6 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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154 |
CleanHarmonising the government bureaucracy symphony | The Federal Government is using the word coordination a lot. But coordination of health, education and employment services could come to nothing if the coordinating bodies are not given power. And power is the very thing bureaucracy treasures and wants to keep to itself. | 5 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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155 |
CleanKeeping Conroy out of bed with Rinehart | Communications Minister Stephen Conroy appears relaxed about Gina Rinehart's move towards control of Fairfax Media because governments are predisposed to placate media owners. A human rights charter could be the only way to maintain media diversity. | 5 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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156 |
CleanRage against ageism | Michael Gill, former editor in chief of the Australian Financial Review, is suing his former employer Fairfax for age discrimination. I will be praying that the provisions prohibiting age discrimination in equal opportunity laws around Australia are exposed for the pathetic non-protections that they truly are. | 2 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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157 |
CleanMoving on from Tent Embassy tussle | I don't think for one minute that Abbott, in saying it was time to 'move on' from the Tent Embassy, meant it should be ripped down. The ensuing riot occurred because 'moving on' is an imponderable phrase, a synonym for sticking one's head in the sand. | 2 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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158 |
CleanHumanising Hoover and Thatcher | The problems do not begin and end with badly applied fake jowls. J. Edgar introduces its subject in his later years, reflecting back on his life. This manipulative tactic errs on the side of sentimentality, when Hoover, like Margaret Thatcher, is not a figure to whom sentimentality can be easily attached. | 1 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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159 |
CleanThe problem of goodness | The problem of evil has always been with us. The ills that befall us and the monstrous evil that people do challenge the belief that life has a higher meaning, and are corrosive of belief in a loving God. The problem of goodness is rarely spoken of, yet it too presents challenges. | 1 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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160 |
CleanCatholic social solutions to workplace fairness | The worker-owned cooperatives based at Mondragon in Spain have demonstrated great resilience during harsh economic times. Their model based in Catholic social values provides a contrast to the bruising industrial confrontations we've seen in Qantas and Victorian hospitals. | 31 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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161 |
CleanThe crossing guard and the dawdler | He'd pick up sticks and stones, turn them over, put them in his pocket. He was often the last to cross, arriving as the school's public address system played 'hurry up' music at 8:55am. Some people laughed when I said I'd become a school crossing supervisor, but they don't see the things I see. | 31 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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162 |
CleanDreams of pulling Australia out of its slump | Although most are probably long dead, they seem happy, even excited. Perhaps they will toss triumphant hats. The wind might favour their team, even steal tossed hats, but not hope. | 30 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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163 |
CleanOpportunists could rule in 'nervous' America | The US today is a nervous nation. The old small town verities and values can no longer be taken for granted in this apprehensive, celebrity-drugged culture. Conceivably, if the economy tanks or there is some destabilising foreign policy crisis, Newt Gingrich could beat Obama. | 30 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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164 |
CleanBreaking the 'boat people' deadlock | In his book They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayor writes of 'the slow lobster boil of erosion of freedom' in Nazi Germany. As a daughter of Jewish refugees I know what this entails. The same process confronts asylum seekers today if we do not begin from a presumption of rights and humanity. | 29 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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165 |
CleanPope's advice for Gillard and Abbott | Last week Pope Benedict said silence and words are 'two aspects of communication which need to be kept in balance'. This insight could help political strategists charged with explaining why political leaders are failing to connect with voters. | 29 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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166 |
CleanLong road to the Indigenous referendum | The proposed referendum follows the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations and provides an opportunity for this Labor era to be remembered whenever the Indigenous story is told. Passing a referendum is exceptionally difficult and there is no fool-proof recipe for success. | 26 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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167 |
CleanBeyond Australia's adolescent identity crisis | While Australia's early history is marked by violence, the Fraser Government's decision to accept nearly 60,000 Vietnamese refugees, the Mabo decision, and Paul Keating's Redfern speech provide positive narrative touchstones that can help lead Australia to maturity. | 25 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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168 |
CleanMorris affair contains lessons for Church hierarchy | Just because there is no legal remedy to the denial of natural justice to former bishop Bill Morris, that is no reason for the senior hierarchy not to reflect acutely on their treatment of him. Respectful dialogue with Toowoomba's church leaders would be a good start. | 24 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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169 |
CleanSocial networking drives inclusion revolution | Due to the prevalence of online opinion and information sharing, access and participation - the pillars of social inclusion - are becoming central to citizens' values. Governments need to be alert, as citizens will increasingly desire a more active role in their system of government. | 24 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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170 |
CleanPraise for Wilkie's rage against the machines | Catholics in Australia have tended to be more tolerant of alcohol and gambling than 'wowser' Protestants. But too many Catholics turn a blind eye to how today's poker machine technology and operating environment is designed to nurture dangerous (but profitable) addiction. | 23 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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171 |
CleanReceiving a past | From the glistening trees the chorus of what was said became me, before I registered the sacrifice. Now from the yes, a small face looks up mute. My eyes are still selfish and my ears hunt a magpie's repertoire. She spills it on the blue page. | 23 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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172 |
CleanMyths and truths of Australian bigotry | Too often I've opened my front door and found myself tempted by some sales pitch. So today I'd answered warily, spoke through the screen door and tried to keep the encounter brief. 'I'm sorry, but we're not interested.' The salesman knew better: 'It's because of the colour of my skin,' he replied. | 22 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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173 |
CleanTime to change our racist constitution | Those who have been aware of racism in the Constitution and prepared to tolerate it, have effectively blessed the attitude that it's acceptable to regard Indigenous Australians as second class citizens in theory as long as we treat them as equals in practice. | 22 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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174 |
CleanBill Morris and natural justice | The reports by a retired judge and a canon lawyer into the dismissal of Bishop Morris make disturbing reading. Given that the obligation of natural justice carries moral as well as legal weight, Morris was entitled to expect his right to it would be respected by the Vatican. | 22 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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175 |
CleanThe hell of hoarding | Inside an old case of art supplies I'd lugged in and out of three houses but rarely opened, I found a plastic bag with something like a dead rat in it. It was not an animal however but a full head of my own hair from the time I shaved my head. There is internal logic to hoarding, but it has its perils. | 19 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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176 |
CleanOnce upon a time in multicultural Australia | Embracing an individualistic Australia that transcends ethnic heritage would leave us with a culture that is young, thin and commercialised. If we wish to promote unity and equality, the best thing we can do is learn our own forgotten stories of ethnic heritage. | 19 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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177 |
CleanBeyond Catholic corporate spin | The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Great Britain last year prompted an interesting experiment. The Church asked for lay volunteers to deal with media enquiries. At first glance this could be construed as an exercise in corporate spin with a focus on persuasion and not on truth. | 18 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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178 |
CleanReligious icons tweaked by Renaissance masters | The Renaissance embodied a revolution not only in form, but in content. Bellini's Madonna and Child is enlivened by a zesty piece of human theatre: the baby Jesus, anxious to be on his way, raises one leg in a gesture of defiance, a perfect half-scowl etched onto his tiny features. | 18 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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179 |
CleanAdelaide land crime shows why we need a treaty | In the mid-19th century my great-grandfather made a fortune as a quarryman and selling timber in South Australia. Of course with possession comes dispossession. Recent consideration of the state's founding documents suggest land acquired in establishing South Australia was acquired illegally. | 17 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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180 |
CleanParenting habits of Mormons and Catholics | In Mormon families, the first kid has to be a bishop or scout leader, and the second through fifth are trained fpr football. In the Catholic system, a family produces a priest or nun, a cop, a teacher, and a solider, after which the rest of the kids can be whatever they want, even Lutherans in some cases. | 17 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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181 |
CleanSqueamish over Scottish independence | The prospect of a referendum on Scottish independence from the UK evokes one of the more interesting tensions in modern international law, between the right to self-determination on the one hand and the territorial integrity of states on the other. | 16 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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182 |
CleanWeighing Wikipedia | Somedays it looks like the most extravagant love letter to the humanist project, other days like the biggest ragbag of unsorted intellectual capital. The sheer scale of information is truly amazing. But as a reference, the time has come for Wikipedia to up its game. | 15 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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183 |
CleanThatcher's blame game | It is arguable that, because she was one of the architects of the free market financial system that lacked protection for ordinary citizens, Margaret Thatcher shares responsibility for the widespread public harm caused by the GFC and the eurozone crisis. | 15 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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184 |
CleanBest of 2011: Bolt beyond the pale | The Federal Court found that fair-skinned Aboriginal people were likely to have been 'offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated' by Bolt's articles. Bolt lamented the passing of free speech in Australia. But free speech cuts both ways, and no freedom is absolute. Published 29 September 2011 | 12 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBest of 2011: Silence for Norway's dead | On a quiet Sunday night 25 years ago Julian Knight committed Australia's first urban massacre on the street outside my home. The next morning, strangers - made mute - stood and met the silence of the dead. It is powerful to watch the Norwegian people meet the silence of their dead. Published 27 July 2011 | 12 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBest of 2011: Consumers rule in Murdoch's evil empire | The public was quick to claim ignorance and condemn the theft of private information by News of the World. But ignorance is no longer an excuse, especially in these post-Princess Diana years where the role of the paparazzi, traitorous friends and dodgy journalists is well-known. Published 21 July 2011 | 10 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBest of 2011: To remember September 11 is to pray | To remember the roaring courage of the people who rushed to help, or the people who used their last minutes on earth to call their families and say I love you I love you I will you forever, is to pray for them and us and even the poor silly murderers, themselves just lanky frightened children. Published 8 September 2011 | 10 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBest of 2011: Greek crisis viewed from the corner store | Panayiotis runs the mini-market he inherited from his father. I have known father and son for 30 years. 'How do you see things at this stage of the krisi?' I ask him, for I'm always asking people what they think of Greece's financial crisis. 'What crisis?' he grins. 'Greece has got a crisis; Greeks haven't.' Published 14 June 2011 | 9 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBest of 2011: Revelations of a detention centre spy | Employed at the centre as a psychologist, I witnessed riots, hunger strikes, attempted suicides and severe depression. I realised I had a profound ethical dilemma: in being compliant to the administration, I was unable to ensure my duty of care towards these people. So I became a mole. Published 27 September 2011 | 9 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe beer jingle that saved Christmas | A hickory tree peed his pants. A striped bass assaulted an eggplant. A teacher cursed in Gaelic into her mic. Then my kid brother, Tommy, spontaneously stepped forward and sang that jingle. Some moments are unforgettable for reasons we can't articulate. My dad says he'll savour that one on his deathbed. | 21 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanRights for kids at Christmas | 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. | 21 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWhen my kids believed in Santa and God | 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. | 21 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanChristmas challenge for a nonviolent Australia | The nonviolent Jesus was born into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire. Two thousand years later, the world remains stuck in the same cycle. America's military presence in Australia could mark the beginning of the end for that hallowed land. | 21 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanGiving ice-cream to strangers | I spied a boy in school uniform. 'These ice-creams are about to melt, would you like one?' He looked up from his phone, shook his head and grunted. I tried a woman nearby: 'They'll only go to waste!' 'No thank you.' I was the weirdo on the platform offering sweets to strangers. It was not a good look. | 20 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanNorth Korea's new season of hope | He presided over a starving nation, created an unstable nuclear state, and terrified his neighbours. But the death of Kim Jong-il should cause neither terror nor concern as much as the experts would have it. | 20 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWar on terror is beyond the joke | The US Congress' proposals to allow indefinite military detention of its citizens without charge or trial, and America's ongoing use of unmanned attack drones to assassinate opponents, highlight anew the need for clear thinking when it comes to that much abused term, 'war'. | 20 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanDon't stoop to stupid policy over boat tragedy | 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. | 19 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanMissing Christopher Hitchens | We'll miss his intellectual rigour, self-deprecating humour, unpredictable political perspectives, unforgiving character evaluations, and iconoclastic appetite for scrutiny and transparency - even those of us appalled by his vicious and discriminatory anti-religious bigotry. | 19 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanFeast of the fantastic | This place is bigger than any kingdom. It opens out, boundary-less, to everyone everywhere. It doesn't matter how many come, and the skateboarders will always get a seat at the banquet, where they will taste the wine and food, learn to sing with the host and rejoice in his good. | 19 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWitnessing Washi's wrath and aftermath | As we drove downtown, we saw people huddling on street corners, covered in mud and looking for shelter. Water shortages and power cuts further disrupted this city of half a million. Mortuaries could not even wash the mud off dead children so they could be quickly identified by parents. | 18 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanQuestions surround latest asylum seeker boat disaster | 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. | 18 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBill Gates shows us how to give | 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. | 18 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanLife lessons on the Thai-Burma border | Jimmy was among the quietest of the refugee students we taught. He is now a leader with a 'backpack' medical organisation whose members take medicines into the areas where 'internally displaced persons' are found. He risks his life every day since the jungle is awash with Burmese soldiers. | 15 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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204 |
CleanShocking scenes from a teen pregnancy | When she had her first baby at 18, her neighbour asked if she was trying to make a buck from the baby bonus. Given the liberalisation of abortion laws, pregnant teens are accused of deliberately ruining their lives or ripping off the public purse if they choose to continue their pregnancies. | 15 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanSavaging sex and religion | Three teenagers are lured into the midst of a demented cult waging a brutal crusade against society's sexual profligacy; the Westboro Baptists re-imagined as violent extremists. This is not the first time questioning Catholic filmmaker Kevin Smith has had a go at religion. | 14 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanJulian Assange's clear and present danger | If Julian Assange is soon extradited from UK to Sweden, as now seems likely, he faces rendition to the US, and the prospect of a long prison sentence or even assassination. The Australian Government continues to do almost nothing to protect its besieged citizen. | 14 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe truth about China the climate scapegoat | Countries including the US, Russia and Japan refuse to sign any binding treaty to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions unless China does the same. Their simplistic argument that China is now the number one emitter in the world overlooks important data. | 13 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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208 |
CleanConfronting the beggar dilemma | 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. | 13 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanLearning to walk and to dance | When I last saw you, still horizontal, interrogating the floor, you'd begun reversing Kafka - a slow transformation from beetle to vertical human. Powered by a new locomotion, you steer yourself towards the stereo; music erupts into your world, is taken entirely for granted. | 12 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe dark heart of a European Christmas | 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. | 11 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe good journalist and the assassins | In Australia free speech is understood as freedom from legal constraint. In the Bolt case, it was defended for commercial reasons. A better understanding of the cost of free speech can be seen in Russian journalist Alexander Minkin's description of an attempt to kill him. | 11 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTeachers' uprising | 'Matthews!' the headmaster called. I kept walking. 'Matthews!' I walked on. 'Mister Matthews!' I turned and said, 'Yes?' 'Did you not hear me?' 'I answer to Brian or Mister Matthews, nothing in between.' We were enacting our miniscule part in a process that would grow through the decade. | 8 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWhy I don't preach on abortion | I am often asked if I preach on abortion and, if not, why not. The questioners sometimes kindly supply me with the answer. If I do not preach on abortion, it is surely because I am afraid of alienating my liberal friends. | 7 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanPope on the run | The Catholic Church has more than a billion members worldwide. To lead it is an immense responsibility. Irreverence notwithstanding, We Have A Pope stands as a gracious gesture, free of Church politics, to those who accept that responsibility. Surely, none would do so blithely. | 7 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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215 |
CleanGay marriage debate has a long way to go | Even if the Parliament does legislate to expand the definition of marriage beyond its traditional meaning, there will be a constitutional challenge in the High Court. It would be a pity if those of us trying to contribute the strength of the Catholic tradition to the debate were simply characterised as homophobic naysayers. | 6 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe best teacher I ever knew | Top classes or remedial ones, nerds or footballers, were all the same to Albert: he was first a teacher of boys and then a teacher of maths. One of Sydney's most prestigious schools offered him a position which he turned down due to a disability that would remain with him for the rest of his life. | 6 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanLesson for heretics | Waiting, something opens without our willing it, without force ... A vastness of silent notes accompanies us, a symphony we have longed to hear of belief far beyond our interpretations ... | 5 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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218 |
CleanReinventing the Aboriginal sports icon | By showing the wider community that an Aboriginal footballer could be smart as well as strong, Artie Beetson set an enduring example to all Indigenous people about what they could aspire to, on and off the sporting field. | 5 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanMaking friends with the landmine capital of the world | A few years ago, western leaders welcomed the about face of Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. Their enemy became their friend, but it ended badly. International opinion should not rescind Burma's pariah nation status until its leaders have taken definitive action that includes ending the use of landmines. | 4 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanAfghan terror past and present | In Afghanistan, the past isn't the past yet. The last 150 years bear directly on its present perilous state. Now that the US is leaving, some US lobbyists and Afghan women wonder what will happen if the Taliban return. | 4 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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221 |
CleanConscience matters in gay marriage vote | Any parliamentary debate on same-sex marriage will highlight the human experiences of MPs, who will reflect, often painfully, on questions of sexuality within their family and among friends. Should same-sex marriage ultimately win out, such stories will play a crucial role. | 1 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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222 |
CleanVoyeur God comes to sordid Sydney | Shay has escaped from her abusive stepfather into a life of prostitution. Holly has accumulated wealth as a high-class call girl. Their work is more dangerous than either had imagined. For them, if there is a God, he simply watches, rather than watching over. | 30 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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223 |
CleanMoral madness of Melbourne abortion horror | Last week's medical error at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital threw into sharp relief Australians' 'split personality' in celebrating conception but turning a blind eye to the rights of the unborn. I am not writing from lofty heights. I had an abortion at age 30. | 30 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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224 |
CleanTruth drowned in river system's fight for life | A Riverina farmer told ABC Radio that the environment will always survive, but once communities die, they're gone. The truth is that without protecting the ecological health of the rivers, dependent communities will not survive. | 29 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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225 |
CleanTribute to the non-defeatist graffitists | I harbour a quiet pleasure at seeing dull square buildings of grey concrete slabs scintillatingly covered with outlandish swirls of colour. We know why they do it: to resist boredom, to challenge conformity, to strike out at a world that is not listening, to leave a mark when all other avenues are closed. | 29 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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226 |
CleanThe Pope in Alice: 25 years on | Protocol dictated that he could not wear Aboriginal colours. But local custom won out when he donned a black, red and yellow stole given to him on the track. His speech put strong challenges to the Church, but offered too optimistic a reading of the prospects of Aboriginal Australians taking their rightful place in it. | 28 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanGermaine Greer and gay exploitation | It is commonly thought that men represent both the main producers and consumers of pornography. Germaine Greer points out that men are also its victims. In the case of gay porn, just because there is no woman involved doesn't mean that it is not exploitative. | 27 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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228 |
CleanGillard's Speaker dirty trick could backfire | New House Speaker Peter Slipper will have no authority if parliamentarians do not grant it to him. Opposition MPs do not respect him because of his history of disloyalty and questionable behaviour. If Slipper fails to command authority, it is arguable that Tony Abbott should be granted his wish of an early poll. | 27 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanFamily violence and The Slap | As anyone who has read or watched The Slap would know, violence is intimately connected with power, ego, frustration and sex. The most sympathetic characters are prepared to take on an adult world of subtlety and complication, on honest terms. So let it be with violence in our homes. | 24 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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230 |
CleanDeath by a thousand yuppies | Pubs with boutique beer are creeping their way north. Day-old bread at the café where the yummy mummies drink lattes is $4. Gentrification. The cycle of life. I want to save my heartland from this fate, but I should first register my own complicity. | 24 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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231 |
CleanTwo faces of the Catholic Church | Monsignor John Murphy, the recently deceased former Director of Catholic Immigration, always responded to problems as people in need. After the suspension of ordinary process following the retirement of Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby, Catholics there may feel themselves seen as problems rather than as people. | 23 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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232 |
CleanTime to fix leaky nuclear treaty | Given the leakiness of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, it is scarcely surprising that Australia is not concerned about the possibility of breaching it in selling uranium to India. If the world is serious about developing real safeguards against nuclear proliferation, the treaty needs to be replaced, not ignored. | 22 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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233 |
CleanSongs and stories of Sri Lanka's war | After a meal cooked in the distinctive Jaffna way, the multi-talented Professor treated us to a repertoire of his own songs about his mother, victims of the 2004 tsunami, and those who had suffered during the war. Songs and stories of lived experience, translated into all the languages of Sri Lanka, might achieve more than the government's Reconciliation Commission. | 22 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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234 |
CleanLabor's Intervention on steroids | The National Apology began a process of relationship-building with Aboriginal Australians. This process has come to an end, with ministerial calls for racially targeted docking of welfare payments for parents whose children are not attending school on remote communities. | 21 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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235 |
CleanSending a message to Gillard about the new cold war | If large numbers of Australians are worried about the threat to Australia's sovereignty posed by a few thousand asylum seekers arriving by boat each year, surely they would have wanted to be consulted on the use of Australia's territory in a potentially game changing US posturing exercise against China. | 20 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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236 |
CleanCeltic tiger down but not done | Anyone trying to describe the mess in Europe needs to be clear about where they stand in it. The mess in Greece has a different feel from the mess in Ireland, or the mess in France or Germany. The prevailing mood in Ireland could be described as hope, which is not to be confused with optimism. | 20 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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237 |
CleanGillard and Obama's mutual exploitation | Australia is now indelibly associated with Obama's strong messages to China in Canberra. We were used. But our government wanted this, because it will all be popular with the middle ground former Labor voters Gillard is trying to win back from Abbott and the Greens. | 17 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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238 |
CleanRescuing JFK | 'Kennedy was a cold warrior, but Johnson took it to the next level. He had the same my-balls-are-bigger-than-yours complex as Dubya.' The narrator journeys into the past in order to produce a kinder America. One that may not throw itself into Vietnam with such lust. | 16 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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239 |
CleanPanicky in the UK | Like the Northern Territory Intervention, the severe punitive responses to those involved in the UK riots bore the characteristics of what is commonly called 'moral panic'. A recent report provides an opportunity to ask how adequate these kinds of response are. | 16 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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240 |
CleanMuslim at a Catholic school | Last year, in year ten, we had a subject called 'Religion and Society'. During a lesson on Islam one of the girls said 'I hate Muslims, the world would be better without them.' I bit my lip, turned around and said 'I'm a Muslim.' Confused, she replied, 'But you're nice.' | 15 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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241 |
CleanEurozone trashed | Many Italian protesters have called 12 November a day of liberation. This is a misunderstanding of what has happened. One does not have to be a fan of Silvio Berlusconi's sordid regime to see the madness of austerity that is stripping away the sovereignty of states through the eurozone. | 15 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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242 |
CleanPeter Roebuck's ordered passion for cricket | As a cricket writer Roebuck appreciated that other things in life matter more than sport. But precisely because sport does not matter ultimately, he was freed to take it very seriously indeed. | 14 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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243 |
CleanIsrael's gay rights sleight of hand | Israel is using its positive treatment of gays as a means of 'selling' its campaign against Palestinians. Before automatically siding with Israel, the international gay community would do well to consider the ways in which all forms of discrimination are linked. | 13 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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244 |
CleanLone media voices keep government bastards honest | Matters of national importance are often unreported or glossed over by the major media outlets because they are considered insignificant or difficult. Without quality journalism, a democratic society would lose its greatest source of independent scrutiny. | 13 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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245 |
CleanExistentialism by the bay | Bush towns settle into their landscape. The galvanised-iron roofs and encircling verandahs squat with a certainty and a determination that only nature at its worst - fire or flood - might disrupt. Coastal towns, conversely, know all about the uncertain nature of existence. | 10 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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246 |
CleanMainstreaming evil | Journalist Hannah Arendt noted that Nazi 'desk-murderer' Adolf Eichmann did not lack a moral compass - his conscience simply spoke with the 'respectable voice' of society. The case raises questions about whether we might be 'silent witnesses to evil deeds' in our society today. | 10 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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247 |
Clean'Friendless' Iran loves a fight | Iran's Islamic regime has been showing signs of fatigue. But threats of sanctions and military action by the international community, prompted by reports that Iran has been designing nuclear weapons, could be its saviour. The regime thrives on this kind of tension. | 9 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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248 |
CleanBereaved father's cancer dreaming | There's nothing to say a father who had hoped for a miracle, but instead watched his child wilt and die. His sleep is filled either with dreams where she's alive, or nightmares where he watches her die all over again. I'm not sure which would be worse: to fear going to sleep, or to regret waking up. | 9 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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249 |
CleanWhy the Carbon Tax is good for business | Corporations treat social responsibility as a PR tool or a trade-off for financial success. The truth is that if consumers suffer, so too do the corporations that depend on them. Socially responsible initiatives such as the Carbon Tax will benefit society holistically. | 8 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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250 |
CleanAsylum seeker Scrabble | Last week there were three significant events affecting refugees including, tragically, more deaths. The use of language in the debate about asylum seekers is always striking, and has evolved and adapted over the years. It does not always reflect reality. | 7 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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251 |
CleanRichard Branson's advice to Alan Joyce | As a motivational speaker, Sir Richard Branson tells CEOs that they will maximise productivity and profit if they treat staff as if they were friends. Alan Joyce appears to regard his Qantas employees as the enemy. | 6 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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252 |
CleanBad week for Pell and climate change deniers | Around 97 per cent of climate scientists actively publishing in peer-reviewed literature support the thesis that human activities are causing climate change. Cardinal George Pell's position is not an informed scientific view, but is driven by politics. | 6 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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253 |
CleanPrinciples for a coherent refugee policy | It is only because we are an island nation continent that we can entertain the absurd notion of sealing our borders from refugee flows. We must remain committed to resettling bona fide refugees who reach our shores regardless of any regional solutions we put in place to deter them. | 3 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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254 |
CleanGillard's grotesque people smuggler sledge | So-called people smugglers are often penniless teenagers who are simply a link in the chain for those who are seeking legitimate asylum. The Government's new retrospective law will punish such individuals for an act that was legal at the time it was committed. | 3 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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255 |
CleanAttack of the killer Jews | Nino and Bernie are nasty pieces of work. They preside over criminal activities with arrogance and amorality, and substantiate sinister personas with easy violence. In a post-politically correct world, it's okay for Jews to be bad guys, too. | 2 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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256 |
CleanSharing the journey with agnostics and Qantas | The Pope believes agnostics and Christians are on a shared journey, committed to peace and human dignity. The concept of the shared journey has consequences for the life of the Church, as in the Bishop Bill Morris saga, but also for events such as the Qantas controversy. | 2 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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257 |
CleanGhosts of children passed | 'Did I have a brother once?' asks a little boy, no longer sure. His mother's eyes fill with tears. 'Yes, darling. A long time ago, you had a baby brother of your own.' He shouts triumphantly, 'I did have a brother!' and runs off. We mothers glance at each other, then look away. There are no words. | 1 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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258 |
CleanWreckers at work in leaky Labor | The Gillard cabinet leaks are a sure sign of government instability. The worst aspect of the leaks is the likelihood that they are the product not just of understandable policy differences, but of leadership destabilisation. | 1 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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259 |
CleanWhat matters in Qantas confrontation | The Qantas industrial dispute is likely to make a major contribution to the history of Australian industrial relations. The important issue is whether Qantas should have been required to threaten substantial damage to itself and to the national economy before it could gain access to arbitration. | 31 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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260 |
CleanBringing civility back to the parliamentary cockfight | Many Australian politicians who should know better give the people and the media exactly what they want: rancorous confrontations and barbed insults. The 'tough' way in which Australian politics is played corrodes civility and potentially erodes our democracy. | 30 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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261 |
CleanGillard's gambling problem | Care for problem gamblers needs to be balanced against care for workers whose jobs are threatened by proposed reforms. Otherwise, the Gillard Government is open to the accusation that it is putting its own political survival ahead of the wellbeing of these workers. | 30 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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262 |
CleanCHOGM and the Common Good | If every economic decision has a moral consequence then the voice of the most marginalised should be amplified in economic discussions. CHOGM provides an opportunity to devise new solutions based on justice and compassion. | 27 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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263 |
CleanAustralian larrikinism is a royal myth | The fact the Queen is a very nice lady doesn't negate her inherited privilege, her arbitrary powers, and the fact her reign isolates many Australians. There is a myth that Australia is a larrikin nation. But we are a nation not of provocateurs, but of conformists. | 27 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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264 |
CleanPutting the faith back into development | The development theory of 'modernisation' taught that old traditions, including religion, had to disappear for people to be 'developed'. This purely Western model is now seen wanting. All faiths put the human person, not economic theories, at the centre of development. | 26 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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265 |
CleanAustralia's child abuse parable | At its heart is an act of violence against a child. But on the whole The Slap stands as an epic parable of middle class Australia. The tagline 'Whose side are you on?' is a furphy: it is impossible to wholly sympathise with any character. | 26 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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266 |
CleanDepression treatment beyond Jeff Kennett | The problem with the prevailing notion of depression as a disease to be eradicated is that it sidelines the 'human factor'. After ten years of good groundwork, we need something new from key mental health institutions such as Beyond Blue. | 26 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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267 |
CleanRoasts and race in segregated South Africa | Anthony cleans gutters. Some people give him money. When he has enough he buys himself a piece of chicken. 'Where is your mother,' I wonder, 'who roasted fat chickens in our oven, and cooked giant pots of meaty bones for our dogs, her brown arms pitted with burns from our kettles?' | 25 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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268 |
CleanLove the monarch, spurn the monarchy | In a simpler time a visit from our head of state seemed to make us feel better about ourselves. Like many Australians, I hold dear the old lady, but have no fear that democracy will shatter when her life and the monarchy slowly come to their natural end. | 25 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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269 |
CleanFarmed out | He drew fear from flood and seedless sun. She traded contradiction for curves and valley hips, verdant sod of earth, reckless drift of goats. When the bailiff came, the end of lamb and beef, she clung to rock and let the salt erupt ... | 24 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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270 |
CleanClosing the case of Bishop Bill Morris | The issues raised by Bishop Bill Morris' dismissal were not about the Pope's right to act, but about the transparency of the process. The Australian Bishops' letter about the matter is an act of closure. But troubling questions remain. | 24 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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271 |
CleanReuniting church and state | The biblical injunction that Christians 'Give to God the things due to God and to Caesar the things due to Caesar' does not legitimise the separation of church and state. We live in a time when religious voices have returned with greater strength to the arenas of civil discourse. | 23 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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272 |
CleanEven Gaddafi deserves compassion | Gaddafi undoubtedly suffered from some form of mental illness that had unspeakably tragic consequences for the people of Libya. The jubilation of Libyans is understandable, but the country will not prosper while Gaddafi supporters remain antagonised and the country divided. | 23 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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273 |
CleanOne lifetime, two Depressions | When America sneezes the world catches cold. No wonder crowds are demonstrating against Wall Street. Successive economic crises reveal that we have forgotten the economic lessons learned after the Great Depression. I am one of the dwindling number of Australians who was alive at that time. | 20 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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274 |
CleanRace against grief | In 2002, jockey Damien Oliver rode to Melbourne Cup glory, one week after his brother, Jason, was killed in a racing incident. The Cup, a paean to the Golden Age of Australian cinema, recreates the tragic and inspirational events in style. | 19 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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275 |
CleanAtheism vs religion: half time update | Public interest in the aggressive form of atheism represented by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and the religious response to it, seems to have waned. This half time break gives commentators a chance to grab a pie and sauce and assess who is likely to win. | 19 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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276 |
CleanJesus' desert odyssey | Every night the devil gave birth to roast chickens and jacket potatoes and gallons of wine which it swilled and gobbled, sucking the oil from its fingers. It shrugged when the man and dog refused the steaming food. They always refused it, for they knew where it came from. | 18 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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277 |
CleanUnemployment angels and demons | Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it. | 18 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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278 |
CleanModernising Islam | First appearing in 1906, the islamic periodical Molla Nasreddin displayed a sardonic and satirical take on women's rights, the role of religion in society and government, press freedom and education. The Arab Spring is the latest expression of this forestalled progressive sentiment. | 17 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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279 |
CleanYou are not alone | Mist moves here, cloaking statues, mild giants that haunt and wait... the slave breathes towardhis freedom. | 17 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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280 |
CleanAbbott faces fallout from Gillard's Big Week | Abbott will face a worsening dilemma. If he continues to rage about revoking the carbon tax, he will alienate industry groups that want stability above all. If he goes quiet, he will validate Labor's portrayal of him as a cynical opportunist who stands for nothing but gaining power. | 16 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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281 |
CleanReligious retreat on Wall Street | One American theology professor compares Occupy Wall Street to religious ritual. The practical outcome is arguably less important than the process of renewing the humanity of the participants. If they appear to have achieved nothing, it's likely they have achieved a great deal. | 16 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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282 |
CleanBolt case a win for free speech | Paradoxically, the Andrew Bolt case has advanced each of the three rationales that typically support free speech. A democracy cannot flourish when some members of the community are free to say what they want while others are forced to speak from the margins of society. | 13 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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283 |
Clean'Perverted' Sharia slaps artistic freedom | Marzieh Vafamehr, the Iranian actor awaiting corporal punishment in Iran for acting in a subversive Australian film, is the victim of a legal system that has abandoned any pretence to public interest. I'm drawn to this case as I, too, am a young woman forging my own way in the arts. | 13 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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284 |
CleanSyria's hopeless democracy dream | My family belongs to the same Alawite religious minority as beleagured Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. There are great and legitimate fears that Assad's downfall will result, not in democracy, but in civil war and large-scale massacres of minorities, including the Alawites. | 13 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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285 |
CleanRevitalising a 'hollowed-out' Church | Most churches are ageing and limited in their ability to engage with governments. As well as controvesies such as the Bill Morris dismissal and the handling of sexual abuse, the Australian Bishops visiting Rome this week will discuss ways to build on the strenghts of the Church in Australia. | 12 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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286 |
CleanKids key to Malaysia solution shambles | No matter how the Government paints the canvas, it can never be in the best interests of an unaccompanied minor who is a refugee to be removed from Australia to Malaysia. And if such kids are irremovable, they will continue to arrive in Australia by boat. | 12 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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287 |
CleanSkating over Bali bombing remembrance | Six years ago an inner city fountain was transformed into a memorial for the victims of the Bali bombings. Today, skateboarders leap onto the ledge and glide on their back wheels. Skateboarding is a rebellious culture, yet it seems fitting that a monument to peoples' lives be filled with life. | 11 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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288 |
CleanAlzheimer's erosion | 'I've been looking after Vera since 1996. I wasn't going to stop because of glandular fever.' Clyde and I talk sport and the weather but Vera's always on his mind. 'Her memory's gone. I only ask her one question each day. I say, Who's your best mate? And she looks at me as if I'm stupid!' | 11 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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289 |
CleanLove, the Northern Territory Intervention's missing ingredient | Many Australians have reached a point of believing that the difficulties afflicting Aboriginal communities demand the heavy handed, and often humiliating, approach. But the Philppine grassroots Gawad Kalinga model, based on 'the giving of care', offers a realistic alternative. | 10 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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290 |
CleanA mother should not know her offspring too well | She would be aghast, at the weeping litany of my sins... From the moment the apron string is cut, we are free to be. And to bring, make or undo, whatever the hell we want to. | 10 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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291 |
CleanNot quite Saint Steve | Steve Jobs did not fear death. He had the inner freedom we see in mystics and saints. But he should be judged by his actions, which include ruthlessly calculated decisions to tolerate poor conditions for workers manufacturing Apple products in China. | 9 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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292 |
CleanAbbott and Costello meet Catholic Social Teaching | Former federal treasurer Peter Costello has revealed his fears that Tony Abbott's education in the collectivist principles of Catholic Social Teaching will frustrate the Coalition's ambitions for free market reform of workplace laws. | 9 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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293 |
CleanInsanity rules after ten years of war in Afghanistan | Today is the tenth anniversary of the war on Afghan jihadists. We civilised Westerners decided we'd had enough of barbarians flying planes into our skyscrapers, killing thousands of our civilians. And hence we sent our own planes to drop huge bombs on their villages and towns. | 6 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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294 |
CleanColour, culture and freedom of identity | I am deeply proud of my Aboriginal friend, who is now a doctor. I have not had the heart to tell her that once she was judged for not being dark enough to be awarded an Indigenous scholarship. While Andrew Bolt argues about freedom of speech, I argue about freedom of identity. | 5 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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295 |
CleanThe moral ambiguity of free speech | Andrew Bolt's article was simply an egregious example of morally bad communication. It was indefensible on ethical grounds. Indeed, those who defended his right to free speech generally implied that public discussion is an ethics free zone. | 5 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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296 |
CleanAustralia's suburban revolution | The redevelopment of Melbourne's St Kilda Triangle was pursued with little regard for community concerns. The Triangle Wars is a story of democracy undermined, then reasserted, as 'the people' rise to confront a government that has lost sight of the interests of those they are supposed to represent. | 5 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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297 |
CleanAtheist critic blind to current religious symbols | Controversial Fairfax art critic John McDonald is scathing in his assessment of the 60th Blake Prize for Religious Art. His frustrated search for traditional religious symbols in the works reveals a lack of understanding of the role of images within Australia's living religious imagination. | 4 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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298 |
CleanMy brother ill and illuminated | 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. | 4 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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299 |
CleanSuper concessions rob the poor to pay the rich | A third of taxpayer-funded superannuation concessions - around $10 billion a year - are directed to the top 5 per cent of income earners. People living on or below the poverty line get no such support. This week's Tax Forum must ask: Are we proud of how we redistribute our national wealth? | 3 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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300 |
CleanAmoral accountant | Talk of morality is bad for rationality ... it's a derailment-factor, a self-sabotager, a barbecue-stopper, plain un-Australian ... I can help you leverage your life-goals, so that you can experience real change with improved results. | 3 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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301 |
CleanA fair go for all means a higher GST | The GST appears unfair, as it hits the poor much harder than it does the wealthy. But that's due to the way it is implemented, and it doesn't need to be that way. The St Vincent de Paul Society would like to see it increased, but with a more sophisticated and fairer compensation mechanism. | 2 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 301 Episodes |
