Bad sex in good fiction: UK Literary Review awardA modern retelling of the legend of Oedipus, featuring a character who spends 12 hours of lovemaking with his mother, took the top gong in the UK Literary Review’s 2011 Bad Sex in Fiction Award, reports Emma Mustich.
December, 2011
Guy Rundle: The Drum, gay marriage and knowing your history
How did the cultural left win the war on marriage equality, asks Kevin Donnelly at The Drum? His answer? Radical leftists completed what he claims Antonio Gramsci called “the long march through the institutions”, to control the heights of debate.
Bank stand-off over interest rate cut
Crikey media wrap: The Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates by 0.25% earlier this week has turned into a stand-off with ANZ the only one of the Big Four banks to pass the cuts on to customers.
Screen Australia funding: $17 million of grisly goodies
This week Screen Australia announced a pre-Christmas goodies bag of funding investments, with $17 million dished out for a range of projects, many of them with a strong whiff of the macabre, writes Luke Buckmaster.
Durban: won’t somebody think of the children?
Often overlooked in debates on climate change is the necessity to engage childrens. After all, it’s children that stand to lose the most if we are unable to prevent dangerous climate change, writes Paul Mitchell.
Guy Rundle: Janet Albrechtsen on Margaret Thatcher and The Iron Lady
This week, Planet Janet is angry at the new Margaret Thatcher’s film The Iron Lady in which Meryl Streep plays the Tory supremo in her prime. Planet thinks it’s a lefty trick.
Banned film The Human Centipede II to be resubmitted to the CRB
Monster Pictures, the Australian distributor of banned gross-out horror film The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) will submit an edited version of the film for reclassification, reports Luke Buckmaster.
Eight of the best power grabs of 2011
The past year has provided a smorgasbord of power snatching opportunities for those looking to increase their influence. Tom Cowie examines the eight most important ones in Australia.
GDP: accept it — the economy is booming
Today’s GDP numbers confirm that the AUstralian economy is in robust health. Without Europe, there’d have been no interest rate cuts, write Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane.
The Power Index: the biggest power grabs of 2011
The past year has provided a smorgasbord of power snatching opportunities for those looking to increase their influence. Here we present eight of our favourite 2011 power grabs: Alan Joyce It was the industrial relations power play no one saw coming. Qantas had been involved in a running battle with the unions over Joyce’s plans […]
Another Beazley jnr set to step up to the political plate?
The name Beazley could once again grace the green leather of an Australian parliament with Kim Beazley’s daughter Hannah being vigorously bandied about ahead of WA Labor’s 2013 preselection round.
Guy Rundle: Rundle: Europe re-engineered on the run, but don’t mention the war
It is extraordinary, unprecedented, the European project that everyone was so solemn about being re-engineered on the run like, well, like the dodgy banks that put us in this mess in the first place.
RBA takes fright at a desperate
eurozone
The RBA has cut rates in anticipation of the impact of the European crisis. Given the news out of the eurozone, it won’t be the last cut.
Mortgage, interest rate cuts war as serious as the Nullarbor Nymph
Yes, the big four: CBA, ANZ, Westpac and NAB are sitting back and waiting for one of them to bolt from cover, so they others can get a lead on how much of the 0.25% rate cut to pass on.
Surveillance for service: not just cyber security firms after your data
The cyber security industry aren’t the only ones engaged in systematic privacy invasion.
Menadue: media missing the boat on asylum-seeker coverage
The Finkelstein media inquiry should have examined the role of the media in the so-called debate on asylum seekers and refugees, writes John Menadue, Centre for Policy Development director and former Department of Immigration secretary.
Australia Network-ABC headaches have only just begun
How will the Australia Network fit with the ABC charter, and in particular the public broadcaster’s independence from the government of the day?
In Russia, a bumper season for authoritarian self-sabotage
Russian nationalists have been in the news as of late. And there’s the perfect demonstration of the bifurcation of Russian nationalism into its two distinct halves.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Once you start knifing people, you never stop
Crikey readers have their say.
Good news out of Europe boosts markets
There were reports that European leaders might create a 2nd bailout fund, which would nearly double the capacity of Europe’s finance rescue programs.
The quality journalism project: the economics of Ross Gittins
If you’re looking for rational economic analysis, Ross Gittins’ columns are a safe bet. He’s the latest respondent in Crikey’s quality journalism project.
Power Shots: Power Shots: father of pokies fight … Howard on Plimer … megaphones watch …
Divine intervention for Clubs Australia campaign. Clubs Australia hinted that it had a trump card up its sleeve, but we couldn’t have predicted this one. The clubs have managed to get one of Sydney’s most respected religious leaders to front their campaign against Andrew Wilkie’s poker machine reforms. Father Chris Riley, Youth off the Streets founder and NSW Australian […]
The Media Monitors' Top 20: All attention turned to GIllard and the ALP conference
It’s been the coldest start to summer in 50 years and Julia Gillard got a cold response from some Labor party members, writes Silvana Cricri.
