Arena Magazine articles from April 2000

Arena Magazine archives from April 2000

THE REAL CHERYL.
April 1, 2000... BILL BAINBRIDGE COMMENTS ON A LESSON IN CELEBRITY POLITICS When JFK was working at bedding a significant number of American women he was unconcerned with the political ramifications; while he was alive the press couldn't touch him and once...

ACEH.
April 1, 2000... After several months' controversy and intimidation, around 400 women participated in the first ever Aceh women's congress in February this year. Their resolutions and initiatives outstripped many other attempts to resolve the complex conflict...

HOWARD'S GAME.
April 1, 2000... The past few weeks have once again seen John Howard immersed in controversy. This time it is his backflip on setting a target date for reconciliation and also his stance on mandatory sentencing that are provoking outrage. Dealing with...

MAKING IT EASIER FOR ... TELSTRA.
April 1, 2000... PRIVATISATION PLUS NEW TECHNOLOGY DOESN'T EQUAL PUBLIC GOOD. Telstra has just made a massive annual profit and its chairman plans to cut more costs in order to increase the share value even further. It looks like another victory for those...

SHOCK FETISH.
April 1, 2000... Sex sells -- or so the old advertising adage goes. And the use of sex to sell products and services has been prolific historically throughout the advertising media. As such it seems strange that the Windsor Smith shoe company's recent billboard...

CLICK HERE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
April 1, 2000... GEORGE W. MAKES THE LINKS TO GOD, DEATH AND VOTES Bob Jones University has a Creed; you can follow the links and read it at their website. It is a short profession of faith, not dissimilar to any that might be recited by literalist Bible...

DEPRESSION IS GOOD ECONOMICS.
April 1, 2000... Now let's get one point out of the way before I get down to what I really want to talk about. The painting was an oversight, a misunderstanding, and I'm scandalised at some of the suggestions that have been made about my motives. Absolutely...

UNIVERSITY DISSENT UNMUZZLED.
April 1, 2000... February saw the much-anticipated release of the book that was too hot for Melbourne University Press -- Why Universities Matter, edited by Tony Coady. After front-page newspaper coverage following its rejection by Melbourne University Press in...

BUT WILL IT GET ON THE NEWS?
April 1, 2000... QUESTIONING THE USE OF THE MEDIA IN SOCIAL JUSTICE CAMPAIGNING Last October, East Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao came to Melbourne for just one day before returning home. The timetable for the day was extremely hectic, culminating...

NORTHERN IRELAND: GUNS AND GOVERNMENT.
April 1, 2000... A CONSTITUTIONAL COUP The Irish `peace process' began with the 1994 IRA ceasefire and culminated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But the peace process is now in crisis. Northern Ireland Unionists, backed by the British Government, have...

SOCIETY'S THOUGHT POLICE.
April 1, 2000... I had a strange experience recently. One that left me with a sense of restlessness and unease. It all started at a rather boring meeting in the middle of December. I found myself in a small and stuffy room in Melbourne, sitting around a...

CAPITALIST, PLEASE DON'T GO.
April 1, 2000... We can't have anything remotely approximating intra-national justice in Australia; because if we impose high redistributive taxes on the financially better-off, there'll be a stampede by selfish wealthy and high-income people to emigrate to...

ENOUGH ROPE.
April 1, 2000... where important people hang themselves with their own words... L'etat, c'est moi I don't think anyone in the community will think for moment I am a thief. Jeffrey Kennett, former Premier of Victoria, trying explain how a publicly...

THE TROUBLE WITH NORTHERN TERRITORIES.
April 1, 2000... The trouble with northern territories is that they always want to be something else. A handful of recent settlers or long-time local grandees want to become founding heads of some new order, nation-builders, their homes made heritage sites, and...

HACKNEY NATION.
April 1, 2000... DIASPORA MAKES A HOME IN LONDON When a skeleton more than 9,000 years old was dug up in the Cheddar Gorge in South England recently, its DNA was tested against a randomly chosen local resident. It was found to have a match of sorts. Yet the...

MAPPING THE POLITICAL TERRAIN.
April 1, 2000... THE FIRST OF TWO ARTICLES ABOUT POST-REFERENDUM DEVELOPMENTS IN TIMOR LORO SA'E The history of post-revolution liberation movements has often been a history of the transition towards autocratic rule by former leaders of the liberation...

FROM PATIENTS TO CONSUMERS.
April 1, 2000... IS THE INTERNET MAKING US HEALTHIER? Most people who use the Internet, the surveys tell us, have searched at one time or another for the answers to their own health problems. If you have ever done this, you will know that there are...

The Other.(Poem)
April 1, 2000... He has been seen drinking in my father's coat slowly filling it with laughter and a simple joy to be alive. There are the histories he tells I am no longer sure I have lived or simply dreamt stretched in ...

The Missing Lyric.(Poem)
April 1, 2000... Somewhere in the corner of every life there lurks or lies a poem that was lost; it haunts the corners of your consciousness; you blame yourself (or else the Universe). The poem snuggles in its private corner. Its...

The Lesson.(Poem)
April 1, 2000... I speak and you listen. You speak and I listen. He speaks and we listen. They speak and we listen. I don't know that word. You don't know that word. We don't know that word. You don't know those words. A man...

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
April 1, 2000... LIVING SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVES This article is one in our series `Alternative futures'. We invite contributions from writers interested in critically exploring projects, large and small, marginalised and mainstream, that are intended to...

LOOKING SOUTH TO SEE NORTH.
April 1, 2000... THE ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE OF NORTHERN AUSTRALIA If you want to understand the environmental future of northern Australia, look to the south of the continent. Equally, if you want to understand what the landscapes of southern Australia were...

JUDITH WRIGHT: POETRY AND ACTIVISM.(Review)
April 1, 2000... Veronica Brady, South of My Days: A Biography of Judith Wright, Pymble, NSW, Angus & Robertson, 1998. Judith Wright, Half a Lifetime/Judith Wright, (ed.) Patricia Clarke, Melbourne, Text Publishing, 1999. South of My Days, the biography of...

THE SCHLOCK OF THE NEW.(Review)
April 1, 2000... Andrew Scott, Running On Empty: `Modernising' the British and Australian Labour Parties, Annandale, Pluto Press, 2000. Charles Leadbeater, Living on Thin Air: The New Economy, London, Viking, 1999. Glenn Patmore and Denis Glover (eds),...

THE SIMPLE LIFE AFTER GEORGE.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... The uncritical media celebration of Hannie Rayson's play Life After George has been very revealing. In the uniformly positive reception given to the play, the stereotyped and highly conventional representation of political radicalism at the...

DISNEY MADE ME.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... My youth was wasted in just the way I would have wanted it to be. Back when comics represented a boy's most precious cultural asset, in a state of antic joy I would pedal each month to the local store with the price of a fresh Marvel or Disney...