Arena Magazine articles from October 2005

Arena Magazine archives from October 2005

Freedom in our time.(new antiterrorism laws by Australia)(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... The performance of the Premiers at the recent Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting to hammer out new terror laws had more than a hint of the Neville Chamberlain School of Political Negotiation about it. Going in, the Premiers were...

The era of post-politics.(british politics)
October 1, 2005... In the fusty British town of Blackpool, the British Conservative Party's 2005 Conference is, as we go to press, settling down to select a new leader--its fourth since the British Labour victory of 1996. When Labour was in opposition in the...

Bruce Petty.(Cartoon)
October 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: WHY DOESN'T ANYONE FIGHT US BOMBER TO BOMBER ANY MORE!

Going, going ... Telstra no longer represents the ideal of accessible communications services for all. Gerard Goggin looks ahead to a different future.(Telstra Corporation Ltd.)
October 1, 2005... After the many pitched battles fought over the national telecommunications provider, the final act of August-September 2005 was truly history repeating itself as farce. Blessed by the sturdy rural denizens of Queensland, Senator Barnaby Joyce...

There goes the neighbourhood: Paul James finds an insidious underside to the culture of neighbourliness in the United States.(Against the Current)(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... Here in St Louis, Garrison Keilor's Prairie Home Companion radio show is on Sundays around lunch-time. I did not recognise his voice at first--he used to be syndicated on ABC radio in Australia until funding cuts meant that our national...

Silent spring, summer, autumn and winter: the government's Senate majority is being used to muffle sections of civil society.(Against the Current)
October 1, 2005... The 1 July shift in the balance of power in the Senate marked the 'full strength' stage of the long-awaited offensive by the Coalition against many progressive values and achievements. Certainly the environment movement is facing changes:...

Regrettably, there is an exception ... the old maxim that extreme cases make for bad laws has been forgotten by today's conservatives.(Against the Current)
October 1, 2005... Let me quote from the Prime Minister's 8 September Joint Press Conference with the Attorney General, announcing his case for a 'number of very significant changes which will further strengthen our counter-terrorism laws': We are...

Howard, hegemony and values: the left and the problem of mateship: Nick Dyrenfurth argues that the left needs to reclaim mateship from the right.(John Howard)
October 1, 2005... John Howard's appropriations of ideals such as 'mateship' and the 'fair go' are pertinent examples of the intersection of symbolic and material politics, one the Left must seriously (re)contemplate in the struggle against contemporary hegemony....

Eureka Street.(Mag Watch)(Brief Article)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2005... In the September-October 2005 edition of Eureka Street, Tim Thwaites addresses the debate about the merits--or lack thereof --in teaching intelligent design to school students. He suggests evolution and intelligent design should not be seen as...

Third Text.(Mag Watch)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... A special guest-edited edition of Third Text (September 2005) looks at the fields of art and culture in Ireland. It 'sets out to subvert the recreational role of the arts emphasised by the Irish government in an increasingly close alignment of...

Australian Book Review.(Mag Watch)(Brief Article)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2005... In Australian Book Review (September 2005), Lisa Gorton's cover story considers parents and children as 'Hostages to Fortune', while Cathy Sherry argues that Anne Manne's recent book Motherhood 'makes the greatest contribution to the...

Overland.(Mag Watch)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... The Spring edition of Overland seeks to draw parallels between the eras of Howard and Menzies in Australia. In doing so, it references Manning Clark's summary of the post-war Australia as the 'years of unleavened bread'. Elsewhere, Peter...

Social Alternatives.(Mag Watch)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... The most recent edition of Social Alternatives (24.2) is themed around the discussion of feminism in Australia and around the world; it tackles both where feminism has been and where it is going. Several articles look at the experiences of...

Chain Reaction.(Mag Watch)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Friends of the Earth's national magazine, Chain Reaction (July 2005), contains a special feature on Faith & Ecology, with articles about pentecostalism, Family First, as well as Judaism and Islam, and their differing relationships to...

Beating the war drums at Fairfax: Fairfax papers have been presented as more balanced in their war coverage. Anthony O'Donnell takes a closer look.(Against the Current)
October 1, 2005... On 25 March 2003, just as the allied invasion of Iraq got underway, the Age carried a story reporting that advancing allied soldiers had discovered 'a vast chemical weapons factory' in central Iraq. The claims were quickly shown to be...

Notable publications.
October 1, 2005... Bob Brown, Tasmania's Recherche Bay (Green Institute, September 2005) Bob Brown presents the story of two scientific research ships, Recherche and Esperance, which in 1792 reached the Tasmanian coast.There the sailors discovered a place of...

War pains: US troops returning from Iraq are paying a high price in the Bush Administration's war on terror.(Against the Current)
October 1, 2005... As the conflict in Iraq drags on deep into its third year, there is daily news of further US troop casualties. Since the start of the war in March 2003, over 1800 American troops have been killed and up to 38,000 injured, often seriously. Over...

The power of shame.(John Brogden was forced to resign amidst public humiliation)
October 1, 2005... When John Brogden was forced to resign amidst public humiliation, I and many around me smugly announced that he deserved it. But when the news emerged that he had made an apparent attempt to kill himself, it was like one of those clever moments...

Taking liberties.(arrest and deportation of American peace activist Scott Parkin in australia)
October 1, 2005... This is not a police state; we have the right to demonstrate... or do we? This is the question we must ask ourselves following the arrest and deportation of American peace activist Scott Parkin. What happened to Parkin may be only the first of...

Postmodernism-lite: reflections on the recent VCE English debate.(english education curriculum planning)
October 1, 2005... Designing school curriculum within a culture of information overload is an unenviable task. If education has always been a contested area, the growth of technology and information creates new dilemmas. The sciences have to balance the use of...

Is poverty a linguistic concept?(Comment)
October 1, 2005... Rob Watts, in 'The Poverty of Poverty' (Arena Magazine78), claims moral equivalence between right-wing think-tanks like the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and social service organisations like the Brotherhood of St Laurence, St Vincent de...

Response to Rob Watts.(Comment)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... Rob Watts shows a cavalier disdain for basic facts ('The Poverty of Poverty' Arena Magazine78). He says I was formerly 'professor of family studies' in the UK. I was actually a professor of sociology. He says I was 'brought to Australia by...

A tale of one suburb.(social capital building )(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... I'd like to issue Rebecca Marsh and Daniel Reidpath with a challenge, following their recent critique of social capital ('Social Capital and the Business of the Middle Class', Arena Magazine76). Before doing so, I want to tell a story. ...

Motherhood: the modern woman's dilemma: do the current writings on motherhood represent a third wave in feminism's attempts to transform structural barriers to women's freedom and happiness?(Essay)
October 1, 2005... The so-called 'motherwars' have dominated the feminist debate in recent years. We have come full circle, it seems, since the time when separating the definition of 'woman' from that of 'mother' was at the heart of the feminist cause. Speaking...

The stench of abandonment: the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrine cannot be passed over as an 'act of God' that sits outside human control.(Hurricane Katrina)
October 1, 2005... The dead were left adrift in the flood, snagged in debris, slumped outside the 'shelters'. More than 1200 people died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Reports from overwhelmed emergency workers repeat the story of having to disregard the dead...

Especially insurance fraud.(George W. Bush issued shoot to kill policy to reduce thefts during disaster)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... A series of huge explosions were reported along the riverfront in New Orleans today as hundreds of US troops with orders to shoot-to-kill looters and gunmen were sent into the flooded city. Kathleen Blanco, governor of Louisiana, said:'They...

Not everyone gets a bar, a giant plasma screen TV and the best view of the game in their living room.(rope)
October 1, 2005... 'Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston.What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.And so many of the people in the arena here, you know,...

Gore Vidal and the state of the union: Gore Vidal has long prophesied what has become commonplace in US politics.(Dissenting Voice)
October 1, 2005... Gore Vidal has been a presence in American literary, political and media life for over half a century. He first appeared in a newsreel in 1935 when he briefly piloted a plane as part of his father's promotion of the ease of flight; seventy...

Hubba Hubba.(New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... 'As a people Americans are easily spooked, but no enemy should ever bet against our boundless capacity for resourcefulness. We are a nation of MacGyvers.' Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map:War and Peace in the Twenty-First...

Australia: a vanishing country? Australia's laboriously built food standards are rapidly decaying under FTA pressure.(Free Trade)
October 1, 2005... What does Heinz Australia's consignment of beef from Brazil to its Wagga Wagga factory have in common with the little bags of Chinese garlic now on supermarket shelves? Or with the AUSVEG farmers' procession to Canberra? And why the weirdly...

Resistance and identity in Western Sahara: the majority of Saharawis have been in refugee camps since 1975. Karina Clarke writes that this has been no impediment to building national identity.(Nation Building)
October 1, 2005... The Western Sahara is the last African country with defined borders to go through a complete decolonisation process. Saharawis have been waiting since 1991 for a United Nations monitored referendum to be held, which will allow them to vote for...

Western Sahara update: Cate Lewis on the latest developments in the Western Sahara.(Comment)
October 1, 2005... New Start for the Western Sahara Peace Process On 26 July 2005, a new UN envoy for Western Sahara was appointed. A former Dutch ambassador to the UN, Peter van Walsum, replaces former US elder statesman James Baker in this job. He has three...

Mates, multiculturalism, values: a new oz? Beyond Howard's core beliefs.
October 1, 2005... Has any country, other than those with regimes newly overthrown, gone through such a convulsion of identity-making and re-making as Australia in recent months? The London bus and subway bombings in July have shaken loose all sorts of cobwebs...

Stumbling into dreamtime: Rod Moss gives glimpses of extraordinary everyday life in Alice Springs.(Art)(Column)
October 1, 2005... Experiences stemming from Whitegate continue to consume and confound me. I am a fourth-generation Australian, astray in my own country. There were many sources for my reverence: the sound of the Arrernte language, the barrage of requests made...

A Place Where Wolves Fuck.(Dead Europe)
October 1, 2005... Christos Tsiolkas, Dead Europe, Vintage, Random House, 2005 At the 16 June launch of Christos Tsiolkas's latest novel, Dead Europe, I listened to the author speaking about his struggle to come to terms with diasporic dilemmas, a globalising...