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Anzac Day is special but limited in its depiction of Australian virtues. A deeper manifestation lies in the housing cooperative members of former Pay Corps members who used their military schooling in planning and organisation to launch a housing cooperative north of Melbourne. It was open to everyone, regardless of religion or race, and reflected the veterans' determination to make Australia a better place free from the class divide and unfairness of the Depression.
Nathan was diagnosed when he was young, and was encouraged by his parents to view the diagnosis as a gift rather than a curse. It manifests in part as a prodigious talent for mathematics. Nathan finds patterns soothing, and so mathematics becomes a refuge as much as an academic interest. He shares a close bond with his father, but his mother, despite her best efforts, struggles to connect in the same way.
Recently priests in England drafted a letter about this year's Synod on the Family. They invited other priests to sign it and made it public. In turn, Cardinal Vincent Nichols rebuked them even though Pope Francis has insisted participants in the Synod are free to express opinions. Free speech has long been tendentious topic for discussion in the Church. 60 year ago German theologian Karl Rahner was daring in the approach he took in his pamphlet Free Speech in the Church.
Daniel Mannix, who was Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne 1917-63, knew how to control an audience and shift the perception of events. He argued fiercely against conscription in the 1917 Referendum, and railed against the exploitation of struggling workers. On finishing his new biography, I imagined a meeting between him and Pope Francis, both masters of public symbols with a disdain for church clericalism and sanctimonious speech.
'If I'm deported back to Sri Lanka, torture is certain because I'm a Tamil.' On the day I hear of Leo's death I pass a tall maple, its star-like leaves, blood-red and flame-red, irradiated. The Australian government refused the visas applied for by Leo's family so that they might attend his funeral. As three Tamil men at a microphone sing a long hymn in Tamil the Basilica fills with an undertow of sound.
When Damo and Darren's 'Train Station' — Michael Cusack's animation of an obscene 'part derro, part yobbo, part bogan' duo fighting over a lighter — was published on YouTube, it clocked 2 million views in its first month, and made people very happy. I showed it to a friend who had grown up in England's north under Margaret Thatcher. He was not amused. 'Why are Australians laughing at poor people?' he asked.
Some aspects of the English/Scottish independence referendum confrontation rang interesting bells for Australia. But British PM David Cameron has had to tread cautiously on foreign policy to avoid adding grist to the 'Yes' campaign's mill. Not so Tony Abbott, for whom strutting the world stage works a treat to lift the pall of governmental confusion and unpopularity.
Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne has supported a national curriculum, while some observers have cautioned that it is not the panacea for improving educational standards that many may hope for. The Federal Review report released in the past week addresses many of the concerns, and on the whole their recommendations seem appropriate and constructive.
Muriel Wakeford was stunned to see the ocean suddenly scarlet, a shoal of new-mown corpses that lay face-down in the sea. She saw what few steps most men managed before a grey hail began dropping them like insects sprayed.
The justified insistence that Muslims should not constantly be called to account for the vicious behaviour of Islamic State is a reminder of the attitude towards Catholics in an earlier generation. They combined suspicion of anything Irish in the aftermath of the 1915 Uprising and more traditional judgments of Catholics on the basis of their beliefs and practices.
Considering my indebtedness to the two Aborigines who met [my family's ship arriving in Hervey Bay from Ireland] 151 years ago, I owe it to all my fellow Australians to agitate these issues of law, morality and politics here in Ireland so that back in Australia, the homeland which, in my religious tradition, was known as the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit.
Team Australia postulates that the world is a competitive environment of nations that win or lose. You have to choose your primary loyalty or affiliation: 'He who is not with us is against us'. The more one unpacks the term Team Australia, the nastier it gets.