Issue 15 Hard talk
The vigil in the snow in Central Kiev continues. Viktor Yanukovych, who referred to his liberal rivals during the campaign as ‘those bastards who are preventing us from living properly’, says he will support a new vote ‘if allegations of electoral fraud are proved’.
Ukraine’s crisis has pitted Russia against the US and other nations in the west, and the country seems close to splitting in two.
Back in the US, the counting of provisional ballots in certain counties has led to numerous calls for further examination. Rev. Jesse Jackson, preaching to an overflowing Ohio congregation on Sunday, demanded a recount. ‘We can live with losing an election’, he said. ‘We cannot live with fraud and stealing.’
At home the analyses of what went so right for Howard and so wrong for Labor keep on coming and New Matilda first published some of the best of them. Rod Cameron, Graham Freudenberg, Barry Jones, Don Watson and many other writers have been republished by mainstream media in recent weeks.
This week Moira Rayner joins the critics of Latham Labor, seeing in Siegfreid and the Valkyries at Adelaide’s Ring Cycle elements of Latham’s dilemma and the masculinist culture he inhabits. Mick Kelly reckons Labor has lost its soul and a lot more besides. Greg Barns compares Canada’s non-aligned progressive democracy with its opposite here in Howard’s Australia. Tony Kevin exposes our media’s silence on the horrors and real meaning of Fallujah. There’s Leslie Cannold on the dangerous cult of the celebrity bioethicist, Peter Doherty on expatriates, Russ Radcliffe on some of our best political cartoonists. Trevor Cook looks at how far Labor has still to go to take advantage of the internet. There’s a blistering indictment of some of the implications of workplace participation for the disabled by Eleanor Gibbs, the Telstra cockup over Australian Idol is taken apart by Stilgherrian and Mark Christensen reconfigures public transport infrastructure as art and science.
Thanks for last week’s feedback on the question of how much length you want from our writers — the answer seems to be that the mix of long and short and range of topics is about right.
The tech problems are almost over — at least your complaints have largely stopped.
But there are still a couple of human beings on the end of the phone: Rod McGuinness and James Gallaway are there to help if you are still having trouble getting in or out or printing us off. You can reach them on (02) 9211 1635.