Arena Magazine articles from December 2007

Arena Magazine archives from December 2007

Why Howard was humiliated.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
December 1, 2007... Now that all the celebrations of John Howard's defeat have begun to settle it is worth reflecting on the reasons for the landslide. There are many views about this. In the media the tendency is to reflect either on his personal...

Heinrich hinze.(Cartoon)
December 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE DAY THE CLIMATE CHANGED....

Will the NT intervention now unravel?(AGAINST THE CURRENT)(Northern Territory )
December 1, 2007... On 25 November 2007, in an undisciplined and gloomy post-election moment on the ABC's Insiders, Alexander Downer revealed that the aim of the intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities was to generate 'electoral bounce'. Downer...

Talking Portuguese: China and East Timor.(AGAINST THE CURRENT)
December 1, 2007... The Portuguese in Asia. If this phrase connotes anything at all to Australians, it may bring to mind heroic and ludicrous images of navegados or Franciscan friars in tropical heat. Or perhaps a seaborn dragon on an archaic sixteenth-century...

Memo to Kevin Rudd: why are we in Afghanistan?(AGAINST THE CURRENT)
December 1, 2007... Defence policy did not receive much attention during the election campaign. Four commitments made by Kevin Rudd will determine the shape of Labor government defence policy under Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon. The first is the commitment to...

Ah Babushka, remember 1984?(AGAINST THE CURRENT)
December 1, 2007... The 'Tweedledee and Tweedledum' or 'Tweedledumber' thesis encapsulates the idea of major party convergence. This phenomenon is ascribed to changes in the Australian electorate, economic conditions and the symbiosis between politicians and...

A day out at G20.(PHOTO ESSAY)(Brief article)(Photograph)
December 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A protest is about community. A tMelbourne's G20 rally, politics joined hands with random acts of friendship and kindness and an air of celebration. These photos celebrate Melbourne and its community: Sudeep...

Greenhouse: refusing to grasp its significance.(COMMENT)
December 1, 2007... The recent surge of interest in greenhouse and energy problems provides a powerful illustration of the capacity humans have to ignore what they do not want to recognise. Anyone seriously interested in the issue will be clearly aware of the...

The emerging politics of climate change.(COMMENT)
December 1, 2007... One of the enduring puzzles of the political response to climate change is the polite behaviour of those who are most aware of the impending problems. For many years activists have undertaken well-behaved demonstrations and respectable lobbying...

Mean and tricky or fond & foolish?(COMMENT)
December 1, 2007... Well, the battle's lost and won, even if the hurly-burly's not entirely done. The 24 November national election fall-out rumbles on days later with political leaders falling on all sides. One item already demanding resolution is outgoing Prime...

Preventing the privatisation of WHO.(bites: BRIEF NOTES ON NEWS AND VIEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD)
December 1, 2007... The World Health Organisation's Alma Ata Declaration of 1978 argued that public health was as much a social-political enterprise as a clinical one. Through the WHO, the Declaration was also linked to the United Nations' basic mandate, the...

Apple pie at the county fair.(bites: BRIEF NOTES ON NEWS AND VIEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD)
December 1, 2007... American county fairs are not to be missed. They come complete with livestock, concessions, school displays, arts, carnival rides and fattening food, combining agricultural pasts with a nascent future to provide a snapshot of a county area. ...

Malta now.(bites: BRIEF NOTES ON NEWS AND VIEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD)
December 1, 2007... Last August, the Prime Minister of Malta, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, visited Australia and met thousands of Maltese who had settled in this country. Everywhere he went, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and then Sydney, he was welcomed with...

Here come the barbarians ...(Australians)
December 1, 2007... In 1973, when economic rationalism was just a glint in Margaret Thatcher's cast eye, it was still possible to traverse Tasmania by train. Even buying the ticket was quaint. In those days, as with every mainland suburban service, there was a...

Between the Rivers.(POETRY)(Poem)
December 1, 2007... Between the Rivers. So deep a man once dived into the sea to find that rare flower of eternity at the river's final drop. And there! Who would bring it so far up to the lee? What's left there was a withered branch...

Instruments of idolatry: Stephen Ames asks what responses to contemporary cultural contradictions are viable today and seeks answers in the Christian traditions.(Essay)
December 1, 2007... How are we to respond to the new kinds of contradictions at the core of contemporary life? The contradiction on everyone's mind today is the threat of climate change due to the rapid increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. A crucial...

Between fear and hope: invasion by Stealth 2007 to H.C. (Nugget) Coombs: Nonie Sharp reflects upon the now vanquished Howard government's northern invasion, its meaning for indigenous autonomy, and the legacy of H. C. Coombs.(ESSAY)(John Howard)(Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007)
December 1, 2007... I. An Ear to the Wind The intervention rolled in, its entry was in silence, documents pasted on the door, done in stealth. There was and still is no communication about why or how or what else is to happen. People sit and wait. One elderly...

Dragging the chain on disarmament: Tilman Ruff writes on Australia's disarmament record.
December 1, 2007... If humans do manage the mighty challenge of making the transition to some kind of sustainable future--by ridding ourselves of all weapons of mass destruction before they are used in war, and learning to live within the capacity of the ecosphere...

The end of the industrial gene? David Turnbull discusses the complex case of epigenetics.
December 1, 2007... The last century--the era of the gene--reached its apotheosis in the massively publicised mapping of the human genome. We are deluged with media reports of new genetic findings. On one day just recently, for example, we learned from Jonathan...

Detention and deportation: a continuing scandal: Glenn Nicholls argues for fundamental reforms in the treatment of detainees and deportation legislation.
December 1, 2007... The Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez scandals in 2005 brought intense pressure on the Immigration Department to be more careful in carrying out deportations and incarcerating potential deportees. The department is spending $550 million over five...

Interview with Tariq Ali.(Interview)
December 1, 2007... He's been described as 'the thinking woman's Omar Sharif'. You can imagine Tariq Ali not disapproving--after all, there are worse things to be called by the mainstream media. Dapper and urbane he is, with a voice better suited to the stage than...

The scandal of Elizabeth: Valerie Krips on history and meaning in Kapur's two Elizabeths.(ARTS AND CULTURE)(Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Years)(Critical essay)
December 1, 2007... In the decades since the Second World War, history has taken body blows from the deconstruction of its narratives, its contingent historical consciousness, discourses, empiricism and claims to objectivity. By the end of the twentieth century...

New Orleans, 2005.(POETRY)(Poem)
December 1, 2007... New Orleans, 2005 Written in witness of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Drained of voice, even need, it's secure as the sea it now makes peace with. Sure runs in the blue veins of those...

The City without Footpaths.(POETRY)(Poem)
December 1, 2007... The City without Footpaths The city without footpaths is one for skywalking in the coy glimmer of star routes. So many tracks under these lights here that one may not take at the same time, switching will take...

The Delicate Matter of the US 'Israel Lobby'.(Critical essay)
December 1, 2007... John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (Farrer, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2007) Walt and Mearsheimer have been castigated with all the peremptory contempt available to the well-placed lobbyists,...

The Poverty of Pessimism: Cultural Commentary on the New Affluence.(Inside the Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteful )(Critical essay)
December 1, 2007... Andrew West, Inside the Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteful (Pluto Press, NOW Australia series, 2006) In Inside the Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteful, journalist, blogger and University of Canberra journalism lecturer Andrew West...

'I am nobody': contemporary subjectivity and new surveillance technologies.(COOPER'S LAST)(The Bourne trilogy)(Critical essay)
December 1, 2007... In a well-known section from Homer's Odyssey, the hero Odysseus finds himself trapped in the cave of the Cyclops and about to be eaten. Using a clever trick he manages to escape. When the Cyclops asks for his name, Odysseus replies 'I am...