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Why has Orwell's wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, been strikingly omitted from his many biographies? As Anna Funder's Wifedom delves into this oversight, we're prompted to question: have we truly moved beyond the casual patriarchy?
The word ‘Catholic’ is derived from the Greek Καθολικός (katholikos) meaning universal, of the whole, and the entire tradition is the very opposite of sectarian, particularist, narrow. It is most truly itself when it’s embracing and inclusive.
Many people, including on the left, talk about the centrality of work to our sense of purpose and dignity. Work is commonly understood as the method through which we acquire income, a sense of identity, make a contribution and find community, but for many, it has also become an extremely unreliable source of these things.
The result in Ireland is a timely reminder to political and/or church leaders in Australia who like to use Irish Catholic heritage as a way to defend their conservative views. On nearly all issues that have been debated by Australian Catholics against their religious obligations, the motherland is, clearly, no longer the source of moral legitimacy.
There must be something in between those world-wide 60 million urgers bobbing in their boats ... Nailing up our own 400, give or take a few, to crosses cut from tropic palms via chainsaws made in China, intending that the westward waft from all the dried and dying will stop those wallowers in Java from putting out to sea ...
One of the big science stories in the last month has been the invention of an artificial womb. The device has successfully assisted a number of lamb foetuses to term, and scientists are hopeful it will also assist premature human babies. What a wonderful development, to alleviate the health complications for those tiny babies and reduce the heartache for their parents. But the potential of the invention does not stop there. Like all tools, humans could choose to put it to use in ways that are good or bad.
Our Church is presently a strained, outdated social institution with an exclusively male hierarchy and clergy. But it is also the privileged locus for us to be called to the banquet of the Lord sharing theology and sacrament which have sustained the hearts and minds of similar pilgrims for two millennia. Thank God for Pope Francis who is showing us the way, helping us to find meaning in our changing and chaotic world, putting a fresh spring in the step of all those Catholics holding in tension the prophetic and the practical, the theological and the humanist, the tradition and the contemporary reality.
Much commentary on Trump's victory has veered between two explanations: either there is large proportion of the electorate with 'deplorable' attitudes to women and minorities; or economic dislocation has produced an angry white working class eager to punish political elites. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. The willingness to ignore or welcome Trump's misogyny is a symptom of the undermining of a deep sense of masculinity that, for some men, is their primary identity.
No-one doubted Trump's ascendancy would deeply fracture the world as we know it. But few of us could have anticipated the swiftness with which his orders would impact some of the world's most disadvantaged citizens: vulnerable, impoverished women. With just one signature, the newly-installed president snatched from these women access to services that are essential to their physical and mental wellbeing and their economic prospects - and, in so doing, endangering countless lives.
When we were all younger, I wrote about my three sons. In the words of Sir Thomas More, their characteristics strangely tugged at my heart, and like More, I fed them cake, ripe apples and fancy pears. Among other things. But eventually there was a mild rebellion about the writing, in the course of which my eldest threatened to send me a bill. Now I write about my grandchildren, three boys and a girl, who are too young as yet to be so commercially minded.
MK rang me after the 4 Corners program on the treatment of children at Don Dale. In western lingo we talk about a 'duty of care', but for my friend MK and the Arrernte people it is more fundamental than that. They talk abou arntanrte-aremele, which means looking after, holding, nurturing or caring for. Altyerre teaches that we must care for everybody, even the people who do wrong. And 'looking after' the children is the primary role of life. This is not about western, whitefella law, it just how it is.
Perhaps what will ultimately convince media and entertainment companies that it is in their interest to be sincere about diversity is that there's money in it. A UCLA study found that in 2014, eight films that had diverse casts (out of 163) also had the highest median global revenues and returns on investment. In addition, TV shows with majority non-white casts rated extremely well, even among white households. This challenges conventions around what media consumers find appealing.