A Nation Apologizes. (Sydney Morning Herald.) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal children. Here the history told from an Aboriginal perspective in Archie Roach's great song "Took The Children Away." (Youtube) (song lyrics).
posted by fourcheesemac on Feb 12, 2008 - 77 comments

Day late and a dollar short filter: We all just missed a great show at the Brooklyn Museum, namely the hyper-realistic works by sculptor Ron Mueck. Mueck specializes in life-like castings of people in non-life-sized dimensions ranging from the huge to the very small. (Some links NSFW) (More inside)
posted by grapefruitmoon on Feb 6, 2007 - 40 comments

The Dreaming (arguably better known as 'The Dreamtime') is more than just the story of how the world was created as told by Aboriginal Australians. It is also the basis for their way of life and death, their source of power in life and it tells of the life and influence of their ancestors on their culture. It was so important to Aboriginal Australians in the time before the white invasion of Australia that it was the one commonly held belief amongst a culture that consisted of over 500 different tribes (discussion of Dreamtime beliefs here). Thought to be the oldest continuously maintained cultural history on Earth, it is often presented as a series of inter-related stories explaining Aboriginal Australian origins and culture, such as how the Australian landscape was created or how the Mimi spirits taught them how to paint these stories on the walls of caves more than 40,000 years ago.

And what better way to learn of several of the many different Dreamtime stories than to listen and watch them being told by Aboriginal Australians elders themselves? And if that isn't enough Dreamtime mythology for you, here's some links to various sites which allow you to view Aboriginal rock art to see how these stories were translated into a form of artistic expression which is now five times older than the Egyptian Pyramids themselves.
posted by Effigy2000 on Dec 23, 2006 - 14 comments

Puppetry of the Penis: Tackle Happy (2001) Any Australian Metafilterians care to explain this? I found a rave review of this DVD on Amazon.com's Future Bestseller's list. "Organ Origami", "The Fine Art of Genital Manipulation" and "Performances with Road Companies at Major Festivals Throughout The World"? I think the world's citizen's are owed an explanation.
posted by dgeiser13 on May 30, 2002 - 10 comments