Critical Times

By Joel Catchlove – December 2005

Despite the open-slather uranium mining
policy of the Liberal/National Coalition
government, just one new uranium mine has
begun production in the past decade. The
Beverley mine in South Australia, which began
commercial production in 2001, produces
about 10% of Australia’s uranium exports,
with Ranger in the NT and Roxby Downs in
SA producing the rest.

The Beverley mine uses an in-situ leach
mining method which involves dumping
liquid nuclear waste into groundwater with no
rehabilitation.

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Media Release Pukatja Community Inc
Ernabella via Alice Springs NT 0872 ABN 57 189 260 264
Tel 8956 2966 Fax 8956 2945
29 November 2005

“Anangu communities have spoken through a decisive vote
in support of the Anangu Justice in Our Land Campaign and
against the Government’s heavy handed interventions ”, says
Gary Lewis elected AP Executive member for Pukatja.
“In October this year the Parliament of South Australia rushed
through amendments to the land rights legislation, without
proper consultations with the traditional owners. The Anangu
response has been decisive.

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In quartz contentment of the stone
That from the people’s pearl did grow,
Slow brewed the loss of all we own
And buried deep the world we know.

Such suns that rise as shapes slip by
Where gold time gluts the sea and stars,
Where Death has dark dominion
Over citadel and bars.

Where music of the finer kind
Is frozen from our mortal clay;
Lest poignancy cure the prison mind
And save it from decay.

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This poem is composed entirely of
actual quotes from George W. Bush.
The quotes have been arranged for
aesthetic purposes by Washington
Post writer Richard Thompson.

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Professor of Philosophy, Flinders University 1967-1988
(Emeritus 1988)
10/12/1927 to 27/10/2004

“For I have held,
For half my life, hard to the faith
That a clear mind can do something with
Any known phenomenon,
And everything that can be done
Will be done if only we’re able
To render the world intelligible.”

A love poem Brian Medlin

Professor Brian Medlin will be remembered by many South Australians for his very public leadership of the campaign to stop the war in Vietnam. For many of us, the enduring image of Brian Medlin is the long-haired professor of philosophy, spreadeagled between two policemen, being dragged from the front of the anti-war march in the September of 1970.

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Australia is the only western country not to have a domestic human
rights bill but, the newly formed Human Rights
Coalition of SA reports :

2004 The ACT passed the first Human Rights Bill in Australia.
2005 The Victorian Government put out a draft bill for public
consultation and comment.
See www.

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“Of course the people don’t want war.
But, after all, it is the leaders of the
country who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the
people along, whether it is
a democracy,
or a fascist dictatorship,
or a parliament,
or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice,
the people can always be brought
to the bidding of the leaders.

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The 3rd Annual Australian City
Farms and Community Gardens
Network National Gathering

Putting down roots

Adelaide, March 6 – 9 2006

The Conference

For the first time, Adelaide will be hosting
the national community gardening
conference in 2006. The Australian City
Farms and Community Gardens Network
annual conference is a unique opportunity
for community gardeners (and those who
would like to be) to learn from each other’s
experiences, support and develop their practice,
and renew their connection with the vibrant
and growing national (and international)
movement they’re a part of.

Program

The Conference begins on the evening of
Monday 6th March 2006, with a welcome,
dinner, and evening of stories, photo journeys,
and short films from gardens around the
country.

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Exercise! It’s screamed from every social
pulpit imaginable.

If you don’t do it you’ll be
unhealthy, fat, lazy, die young and probably
develop deeply immoral tendencies.

But what is it people are actually doing
when they power walk, push weights in
gyms, sweat on a treadmill, hone, sculpt,
and regiment their bodies? Most exercise
systems rely on the maxim of no pain
no gain.

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Location: Central America, bordering the North Pacific
Ocean, between Guatemala and Honduras

Population: 6,704,932 (July 2005 est.)

Age structure: 0-14 years: 36.5% 15-64 years: 58.

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Ecstasy may damage the
brain’s physical defences

The drug MDMA reduces the brain’s
defences, reveals a new study of rats, leaving
it vulnerable to invasion by viruses and other
pathogens.

The researchers behind the study warn
of “clinical considerations which may apply
to the treatment of people who abuse
MDMA”.

And they say infections could cause
permanent damage to brain cells or alter the
ability of the brain to function normally.

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Ockham’s Razor: 27
November 2005 – What is our biggest
problem?

Robyn Williams: Well last week on this program we had
Jennifer Marohasy taking on what she called the celebrity
scientists, and their gloomy forecasts. She said that most
indicators of natural wellbeing show improvement, not decline. By
the way, she also accused Jared Diamond of asking Australia to give
up agriculture, something Professor Diamond tells me he did not
say, although his book ‘Collapse’ certainly gives that impression.

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INTRODUCTION

Global warming is not only real it is more intense and happening faster than earlier predictions. The last year has been a bad one for science deniers – if we compare the nay-sayers to that older form of scientific denial, the anti-evolution mob, it has been as if paleontologists had uncovered six or seven new missing links in human evolution in the last year or so. Of course the trick is that this isn’t about knowledge and reason, it is about vested interests.

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MAXINE Miss-KEW: Time now for John Clarke and Bryan Dawe with their view of the week in politics. (John ‘Caricature’ Clarke plays Prime Minister John Howard. Bryan ‘Dour’ Dawe plays the interviewer)

INTERVIEWER: Prime Minister, thanks for your time.

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Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Critical Times! Much has changed since we last produced an edition back in 2001, and yet it seems we face many of the same problems, only intensified. So why produce a newspaper at all? There is so much information in so many places these days – ‘it’s all out there’. Well, because we can! Here at Helps Road Institute we’ve been building Single Step Printing to the point where we can print our own paper on our own printing press. read more »