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Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 04:53
In his acceptance speech after Labor won the 2022 election, Anthony Albanese promised to look after disadvantaged and vulnerable citizens. During the cost of living crisis over the past two years he told people he felt their pain and had their backs. He just inverted these assurances with a $600 million handout to one of Australia’s Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 04:52
Some of the most dangerous people in the world right now are those normalising and sanitising fascistic politics. It was not just in the banal media discussion that preceded Donald Trump’s re-election; it can also be found at the ABC, including on Radio National lifestyle programming. One of the tropes to look for is the Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 04:51
In 2019, I was Australia’s Consul-General in Makassar, and I remember meeting a group of Muslim Australians from western Sydney: they were planning to make a film about the Makassar-Northern Australia relationship. Their leader was Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, a tall, bearded man of middle-age, in haji cap and long white robes. Sheikh Wesam was born Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 04:50
The decision by Australia’s federal Opposition leader to avoid standing by the Aboriginal flag is a dangerously divisive and cynical move. In case he has not noticed the current Australian flag includes the Union Jack which symbolises an extremely controversial period in our history. Senator Lidia Thorpe recently drew attention to the negative impacts of Continue reading »
Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 04:31

Although sponsored by Republicans, the new Crucial Communism Teaching Act bill enjoys widespread support from Democrats. Focused on China, Venezuela, Cuba and other targets of US empire, critics warn it will be used to promote war in public schools. 

The post Congress Revives Cold War Tactics with New Anti-Communism School Curriculum appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 01:38

Dear TomDispatch Reader, Two years ago, when I was putting together the end-of-year plea I always post to keep TomDispatch going in a tough world, I wrote: “This time around though, I have to wonder whether it may be the last such missive I’ll write.” Well, as it happens (thanks to the generosity of the readers of this website), it wasn’t. Seven hundred thirty days later — the beginning of our 24th year and halfway through my own 80th year on this ever more embattled planet — I’m back, asking for your support. Admittedly, there’s little I enjoy less at TomDispatch than bothering you for money (something I don’t enjoy when it happens to me). Still, you, the wonderful readers of... Read more

Source: Keeping TomDispatch Alive appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 01:00

How director Mani Ratnam managed to adapt Ponniyin Selvan, a 2,500-page serialized historical epic and one of the bestselling Tamil novels of all time.

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Dear Believers, come gather ’round the flames of the hearth as I spin the adventurous tale of Kalki Krishnamurthy—shamelessly adopting his intimately omniscient tone in order to illuminate his prodigious life and work. Ramaswamy “Kalki” Krishnamurthy was an Indian freedom fighter who was imprisoned three times by the British, a journalist who founded a long-running weekly magazine, and a phenomenally popular author whose serialized historical epic Ponniyin Selvan (published between 1950 and 1954) is one of the bestselling Tamil novels of all time. For Kalki’s centenary, the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu nationalized his works, freeing them from copyright restrictions, so they could remain continually in print. And in 2022, after decades of doomed film adaptation attempts, director Mani Ratnam brought Ponniyin Selvan to the screen.

Created
Sat, 14/12/2024 - 00:15

At Emers & Totch architectural firm, we specialize in arches. Not just any arches, but big arches. Monument arches. Think of the Gateway Arch: that kind of arch. No, we did not build the Gateway Arch, but that is the kind of arch we’re talking about. And we want to build an arch for your city, just like St. Louis has the Gateway Arch.

Who says only one city in the country can have an arch as part of its skyline? There’s no rule about that. Why can’t your city have a big arch too? What we’re saying is: it can.

What’s in your skyline now? Three tall buildings and a bridge? You need an arch. What’s your waterfront promenade missing? An arch. What’s towering over your convention center, nothing? It should be an arch. Your small to midsize all-American city deserves a striking skyline just as much as St. Louis does.

Created
Fri, 13/12/2024 - 23:38

The decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity must be a watershed moment. Governments across the world not only have a duty to defend and enforce those specific warrants but, more broadly, to […]