On this day after a detained asylum seeker threw himself off a detention centre roof to his death rather than be deported back to persecution in Fiji, this terrible yet fantastic post from Pamela Curr at the Drum should be required reading for all Australians with a social conscience:
Politics
Wins and losses – the prosecution of sexual violence
A tale of two legal systems.
In each legal system, there is a woman has been sexually assaulted.
Each woman is subjected to some sort of abuse by the person who is supposed to be prosecuting the sexual assault.
The similarities end there.
Friday Hoydens: That’s a pretty big teaspoon
Some Israeli women wield the teaspoon of civil disobedience and smuggle Palestinian women out of the West Bank for a day at the beach.
Quote for the Day: on narratives
A narrative is determined as much by what is omitted as by what is included.
Gillard ministry reshuffle and readjustments
It certainly looks like something else was on their mind beyond just filling portfolios according to factional balances and policy goals, given yesterday’s gaffes regarding the omission of the Ministries for the Status of Women and Indigenous Health.
Newspoll: new election would mean another hung parliament
So is it at all possible that all the frenzied yammering from the “we wuz robbed” CLN diehards about the desperate need for a new election ASAP might just STFU for a while now?
Retention of rural healthworkers needs more than increased funds
Fascinating post from Croakey: Globally, about one half of the population lives in rural areas, but less than 38 per cent of the nurses and less than 25 per cent of the physicians work there. The WHO has just released some global recommendations…
One Line: responses to the Gillard minority government
Single sentences that struck me forcefully over the last few days –
(Updated)
Endangered Sunday: North American Bumble Bee
I’ve never seen a Bumble Bee in nature. I’ve seen plenty of imported European honey bees (some of them in the wild), and plenty of Australian native bees (which are mostly solitary, so no hives for them – our few social species are stingless, which is nice).
But we don’t have Bumble Bees here, so I’ve missed out…
A little lesson in undermining women in power
This lesson comes courtesy of the Courier Mail. Four political stories about four different federal politicians and all of them use the politician’s last name in the title of the story, except one. Which story was it?
Hoyden About Town 