Reading

Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 04:57
The late historian Paul Schroeder offered insights into how to bring Russia into a collective security arrangement. With the death of scholar Paul Schroeder, international historians lost one of their most innovative and distinguished practitioners. Schroeder’s approach to the study of international relations was ideational: it is not power or interests alone that shapes the Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 04:57
When Labour Governments moved to protect native forest in the past – Hawke, Wran, Gallop, Kirner, Beattie, Carr – they knew that they were protecting irreplaceable natural values and resources. Even as late as the early 2000s however, the role of forests in climate change mitigation was little known. It was certainly not a matter Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 04:53
Aged care and disability services bureaucratic elites seem increasingly to work in ways that are divorced from morality and common sense and removed from the everyday reality experienced by older people and their families. The modern Age of Reason was characterised by three pivotal events and the influential figures behind them. The Inquisition of the Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 04:51
It is curious that though the Russia-Ukraine conflict is now in its third year, Australian audiences have been only given one side of the picture: that of Ukraine and its Western backers. The commercial outlets, no doubt, have their reasons for acting like Pravda would in Russia and toeing the line of the Australian government Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 04:50
How did the Vietnamese prevail at that world-historical moment? The answers shed light on the world we see outside our windows now. I had the most salutary email the other day, a reviving lift amid these, humanity’s darkest days, surely, in the memory of anyone living. It was from George Burchett, an Australian painter who Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 02:30
Q: Viktor Orbán seized control of universities and put them in foundations that were run by his allies. He rewrote the Constitution, he neutered the courts, and he has tried to control the media. Is that what you’re advocating for in the US? Trump VP contender Vance: I think he’s made smart decisions that we could learn from in the United States There you have it. As Michael Tomasky writes in the intro to The New Republic’s issue on American fascism: [A]nyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard. After all, he spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews—being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face. Today, we at The New Republic think we can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism.
Created
Mon, 20/05/2024 - 00:30
Does the Israeli government know or care what it’s doing? And what if it does? (via The Guardian): Virtually all we know we get from reports like these. U.S. medics trapped in Gaza share emotional testimonies Perhaps one of the American doctors from the group tells NPR: Dr. Adam Hamawy, a U.S. doctor and former U.S. Army combat surgeon who is currently in Gaza, says he has “never in my career witnessed the level of atrocities and targeting of my medical colleagues as I have in Gaza.” Hospitals in Gaza are reported on the verge of collapse. “The weight of it all” Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan shares with Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo her experience working two weeks in Gaza. It’s not pretty (40 min video): “What I saw [in Gaza]… was utter and complete carnage,” Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan tells author and Zeteo contributor Fatima Bhutto in the latest episode of ‘The Exchange.’ Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor, recently spent two weeks in Gaza working at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central part of the enclave.
Created
Sun, 19/05/2024 - 13:09

A WAR veteran and a CrossFit coach have banded together to launch ‘Sawtell Men’, a free support group for men involving regular exercise on the beach then coffee and a chat. The purpose of the group is to better each other’s lives by encouraging great conversations and meeting up on a regular basis for a...

The post War veteran and Crossfit coach launch Sawtell men’s group appeared first on News Of The Area.

Created
Sun, 19/05/2024 - 13:07

OZFISH Unlimited, Australia’s fishing conservation charity, in collaboration with NSW DPI Fisheries, is spearheading a cleanup campaign for Bonville Creek on Saturday May 18, 2024. Recreational anglers are invited to join hands in this worthy cause to keep the local waterways clean and free of rubbish. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth...

The post Coffs Harbour fishers called to action to clean up Boambee Creek appeared first on News Of The Area.

Created
Sun, 19/05/2024 - 13:00

AT TIMES when a community is grieving it can be difficult to know what to say and to whom to say it. In light of recent tragic deaths within the Coffs Coast community, News Of The Area spoke with local ‘death doula’ Rani Foreman about navigating grief and loss. Advertise with News of The Area...

The post Death and dying: Ways to communicate in times of grief appeared first on News Of The Area.

Created
Sun, 19/05/2024 - 12:36

BURNT out and traumatised by corporate bullying, Helen Lambert met the news that she’d been made redundant with an open mind. Living in Balmain in Sydney’s Inner West, the onset of pandemic lockdowns in 2020 saw her role in employee engagement – often involving live events – shut down. Advertise with News of The Area...

The post From redundancy to Bellingen bliss appeared first on News Of The Area.

Created
Sun, 19/05/2024 - 10:00
The Seattle International Film Festival (the brick-and-mortar portion) wraps up this Sunday, May 19th. This year’s SIFF featured a total of 207 shorts, documentaries, and narrative films from 84 countries. The Festival will be immediately followed by a week of select virtual screenings from this year’s catalog (April 20-27) on the SIFF Channel. Hopefully, some of these festival selections will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you!  Luther: Never Too Much (USA) *** – I confess entering Dawn Porter’s Luther Vandross profile knowing little about the late singer beyond his association with David Bowie and a string of smooth groove hits I recall spinning on the AC radio station I worked at from 1983-1991.I emerged from this documentary with a new-found respect for the artist, learning that he also wrote and/or co-wrote a number of them (including hits for artists like Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, and Cheryl Lynn). Porter weaves a generous portion of archival performance clips and interviews with present-day recollections by creative collaborators and music mavens.