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(Untitled)
fwiw, my various scribbles in response to Elizabeth Moon's much-discussed posting can be found under the park51 tag over at kateorman. (A rationale for my approach appears here.) There are more thoughts to come later this week, once I've met my deadline. There's also relevant stuff under the islamophobia tag ( Read more... ) -
"...tolerance must be more than having a Chinese family on Neighbours."
An opinion piece from the SMH: Admitting our racism problem is first step to a solution. "... according to a 2009 VicHealth survey [...] nearly one in 10 of us do not believe that people of all races are equal or that inter-racial marriage should be supported. In the same survey, 37 per cent of respondents felt Australia was weakened by people of ( Read more... ) -
Pentatonic scale thingies
A New Statesman blogger (columnist? how the world has changed) puts her finger squarely on the problems with the second episode of Sherlock, The Blind Banker, ie, that it was "an exhilarating romp through nearly every hackneyed orientalist cliché going". Where Laurie Penny is earnest, Anna Chen mightily takes the piss: "you should see my Terror of ( Read more... ) -
Good Spirit Festival
I'm not sure how much longer this podcast will be available at the ABC Radio National site, so go listen now: the Good Spirit Festival was a remarkable meeting between Indigneous Australians and African immigrants held in Tasmania. As well as songs and dancing, the participants shared their experiences of dispossession. Shamefully, for some of the ( Read more... ) -
That "mosque" "at" Ground Zero
... isn't a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero, for a start. The New Yorker demolishes the claims that it's some sort of "Islamist" "trophy". Letters to the New York Times discuss the matter civilly. One includes a damning claim: "The same people who came to our community board meeting in May saying they didn’t oppose the project - just the location ( Read more... ) -
Fun with the Australian general election
You've probably heard that the Liberal Party has once again had to dump a candidate because of his Muslim-bashing. It's in the same seat, opposing the same candidate, as the last bungle ( Read more... ) -
Asylum Seekers and travel documents
Posted a thing about the Opposition's proposal to reject asylum seekers who lack ID over at dreamer_easy:
http://dreamer-easy.livejournal.com/41332.html -
Just popping my head round the door
Out of Africa but not yet embraced by Australia: "While they are enormously grateful for the chance to become Australians, African-Australians routinely experience discrimination in their daily lives. They find it hard to get jobs fitting their qualifications gained in Australia. They encounter petty racism on a regular basis... What part will ( Read more... ) -
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I remarked a while back about how the presence of COC is used to indicate that we're in the future (or at least not in the past!). In Frontier in Space (1973), Earth has a female leader, and the Info Text subtitles on the DVD explain: "The script emphasises that the President's gender should simply be taken for granted. 'Nothing "Women's Lib" about ( Read more... ) -
Etc, etc, etc
At the moment, as you may know, I'm taking a leetle break from things political and progressive. But I couldn't resist sharing with you the podcast I'm currently listening to, Anna and the King, about Anna Leonowens. I haven't seen "The King and I" since I was a kid, so my memories of the film are pretty vague; but obviously, Yul Brynner ain't Thai ( Read more... )