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The chasm between Catholics and Protestants is thankfully unknown to my children. Paul Collins' new book A Very Contrary Irishman - The Life and Journeys of Jeremiah O'Flynn is a labour of love that presents a very driven man of the colonial era whose actions - and attributed actions - changed lives and helped shape our culture.
Hot-button topics such as economic management and asylum seekers are best seen from a wide lens, yet we seem determined to keep the rest of the world out of the frame. It is a sea-girt mentality that our politicians don't care to take apart because it is too hard to convince the average voter that there are in fact other people on the planet. Such denialism will inevitably leave us ill-prepared for significant challenges.
The homosexuality debate in church and society is an uneasy and often destructive conversation that should not be entered into lightly. Both sides thus need to beware: ‘Conservatives’ if they slip from opposing homosexual acts to opposing homosexual people. The ‘liberals’ for frankly writing, as Michael Kirby admits, ‘very easy pieces’. Well before Malcolm Fraser, Jesus said (Christian) ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’. Kirby, and the FUP authors, in Bonhoeffer’s terms, are cheapening grace.
We wear op-shop outfits, read classics, watch Q&A and sip lattes. There are puerile vanities here, but who doesn't entertain such vanities? Bogans, of course.
It's 1996 and I'm saddling up to give the Sir Robert Menzies Lecture at London University. My topic is Henry Lawson and Manning Clark. 'Manfred who?' asks a baffled London colleague. The lecture's on Melbourne Cup Day. It could be an omen.
What's behind the decline of State of Origin football in the northern states? Can the vitality the competition enjoyed in the 1970's ever be recaptured?
The birthplace of a nation? Anzac Cove lies in wait for Australian pilgrims.