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Last week at work a young man pushed me around and threatened to bash me, another walked into my classroom and flung chairs and tables around. The last school counsellor left because she requested a second counsellor to help with the workload (she was seeing on average three girls a week who’d been raped) and was refused.

My students rarely hand their work in on time and come to school sporadically. I asked one Year Ten student, who took half an hour to get his book out of his bag and another half an hour to write one line, why he was so unfocused. He told me his mum was profoundly disabled, his dad chronically depressed and he had to work to support the family as well as go to school.

Another student, whose attendance had dropped right off, told me one afternoon he’d just got to school because his mum was in hospital so he had to take care of the house and his younger siblings. ... read more

Written by Rohan Wightman on 5-04-2010, 6 user comments

So long Alex Chilton

I have been thinking about Alex Chilton quite a lot lately after hearing that the Big Star mainstay passed away from a heart attack on 17 March, and I have since had the highly enjoyable boxed set Keep an Eye on the Sky, which came out on the Rhino label late last year, on high stereo rotation. This set should be absorbed in a single sitting because it becomes apparent that amid all the beautiful harmonies, energised rock’n’roll and intimate lyrics, an important thread emerges which might make a person wonder about the role of the mainstream entertainment industry in encouraging free creative expression.

The detailed liner notes included in the set reveal a band that never wavered from its artistic vision despite record label misfortunes. It also turned out that a small, dedicated audience that was assisted by much deserved critical praise for the band, quietly derived nourishment from Big Star’s amazing music over the years despite the small number of records sold. ... read more

Written by Dan Bigna on 1-04-2010, 3 user comments

Overland extract: Michael Brull on Zionism

In Overland 198, Michael Brull replies to Ned Curthoys and Dennis Altman on how Australian Leftists should respond to Zionism:

This is an intervention, of sorts, into the disagreements between the dissident Jews Ned Curthoys and Dennis Altman (see Overland 187, 196 and 197). Given the scarcity of those publicly distancing themselves in any way from Israel, dissident voices, even if they warrant disagreement, merit at least some respect, and I appreciate that both Curthoys and Altman vocally opposed Israel’s vicious attack on Gaza.

That said, I still strongly disagree with Altman’s view of the attack in one important respect. During the massacre, Altman wrote that Israel had been ‘clearly provoked’ and, in his more recent essay, he discussed the attack as ‘retaliation’. The war on Gaza is not the focus of this essay: for those interested, I have documented the facts at length elsewhere. Suffice to say, in the immediate lead-up to the attack, Israel rejected a ceasefire that was offered by Hamas. The assault was an act of aggression, not retaliation. Israel could have secured the safety of its citizens by agreeing to the ceasefire, and its government knew this, because its own sources show that Hamas had upheld the preceding six-month ceasefire more faithfully than Israel had. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 1-04-2010, No comments