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There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
Reflecting on the value of newspaper commentary on public life prompts self-reflection concerning the quality of what we columnists write and what we hope to achieve through our work. The ephemeral quality of a column suggests how important it is for us not simply to react to the news but to ask what lies beneath it.
The campaign against global warming has been heating up, and the latest protests have focused on works of art. Like the burning of books, assaults on paintings seemed to express contempt for human culture at its noblest. But as more details became public, the reality seemed more complex.
In recent years, Australian policies in relation to asylum seekers and refugees have been unnecessarily mean, cruel and disorganised. The election of the Albanese government provides the opportunity for a reset, putting behind us the past mistakes of both Coalition and Labor Governments in the last 20 years.
Liberal democracies seem increasingly threadbare, insufficiently creating just outcomes for vulnerable people. We need a rejuvenation of stable and fair democracies in which integrity and trust are evident. To that end, I suggest we revisit the liberal egalitarianism of 20th century American philosopher John Rawls.
At the end of the third episode of the Netflix biopic Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, as the ‘Watch Next Episode’ timer ran down, I turned it off and haven’t returned. At time of writing, Dahmer was the number three-ranked show on Netflix Australia. Why are viewers willing to watch? And against the scale of such horror, can there be any redemption?
With the likes of David Beckham and Tim Cahill openly supporting the FIFA Men's World Cup in Qatar next month, what of those troubled sporting figures wishing to take an ethical, moral stand against a tournament’s organisers? To that end, a new, disingenuous form of protest has emerged, one of virtuous self-promotion that eschews substantive effect.
With very little public debate or consultation, Victoria has repealed almost all laws relating to prostitution. Alone among all recreational activities, sex for payment is now unrestricted, even regarding health and safety. If we really care what happens to people, what place does sex work have in our society?
The world is facing cross-currents: a collapsing financial system that is balanced by the benefits of massive, long term improvements in production efficiencies, mainly because of technological advances. It is a bad news/good news story that can only be seen accurately if the intractable errors of contemporary economics are jettisoned. We are in a battle between finance fictions and reality.
Reverend Tim Costello's informal status as a nagging conscience to many Australian governments, including the Howard government in which his brother Peter served as federal treasurer, was formally acknowledged when the National Trust of Australia chose him as a ‘National Living Treasure’. Barry Gittins speaks to Tim Costello about the nature of power, and its place and exercise in public life.
In the last few weeks, we have been drowned, smothered or mired in words that have striven for solemnity. Such occasions as the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the various Grand Finals are held to transcend the everyday and so to demand elegiac or epic words. It is easy to laugh at the manifest failures to reach those heights, whether by Poets Laureate who should have known better, or by excitable journalists. There is, however, something endearingly human in the attempt.
There's an assumption that writers shouldn’t be writing about groups they don't belong to, as if this couldn’t be done with honesty and insight, respect and restraint. Difficult, yes, but impossible? Whether in fiction or non-fiction, outsiders might misunderstand and misrepresent the people they depict, but sometimes, insiders will too. Sometimes, outsiders will lack insight, but sometimes, when they’re curious, attentive, when they do not overreach, they’ll capture truth.
The beauty of questions is they remind us that we do not know, even as they lure us into their openness. Questions are rarely ever closed or settled. Honner’s books are built around questions. ‘If God made the world, who made God?’ Or, leaving behind pure speculation, ‘Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?’ These are deep mysteries, but they are not meaningless mysteries, Honner says.
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