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Keywords: Wills

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Invincible Nikitas learns to lose

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 06 April 2016
    7 Comments

    My grandson Nikitas is ten. When his name was chosen I was haunted by memories of Russian leader Khruschev and his long-ago shoe-banging performance at the United Nations. My son and daughter-in-law patiently explained that their son was to be called after Nikitaras, a hero of the Greek War of Independence. Thankfully, young Nikitas does not divide the world into friends and enemies, at least not so far. But he is very competitive; perhaps his name, which means invincible, influences his outlook.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The gloriously flawed humanity of our federal politics

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 August 2015
    9 Comments

    Recent weeks' events in federal politics stretch the imagination. The search for historical parallels brought me to the start of the Burke and Wills Expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria, the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain, and the race that saw Fine Cotton unravel. Each of these events was characteristically Australian. In Les Murray’s memorable phrase, they all had sprawl: the mingling of excess, overweening self-confidence, and the cutting of corners. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The snob who snubbed Australia's Indigenous imagination

    • Brian Matthews
    • 01 May 2015
    14 Comments

    Mrs Cowling was formidable. Her significant physical presence was accentuated by a commanding mien, impeccable English enunciation, and an impressive depth and breadth of literary reference supporting rock-firm opinions. All these years later, I wonder just how burdened she was in teaching literature to Australian students, which she continued to do into her 80th year, by her husband's notoriety.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Good race relations is not just an American thing, it's democracy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 March 2015
    17 Comments

    Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the voting right marches across the bridge in Selma, Alabama. The movie Selma is a great though imperfect study in race relations, which is still a hot issue in the US following the spate of police killings of young African American men. Good race relations still has a long way to go, as it does in Australia.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Signs that East Ukraine has averted mass human tragedy

    • Tony Kevin
    • 11 August 2014
    12 Comments

    On Sunday morning Australian time, we learned that the destructive civil war raging in East Ukraine seemed to be drawing to a close, essentially on Kiev’s terms. It appears that the tense test of wills between Russia and the West generated by the crisis, which briefly last week risked a wider war, has ended in a tacit backdown by Moscow.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's days of the dead

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 28 April 2014
    20 Comments

    ANZAC Day is a powerful and worthy ritual. But the tales of our soldiers make up only one of the ongoing chapters in the story of our country. There are many others. On 25 January, let us remember the Indigenous people who once nurtured the land. On 25 February, let us remember those who gave their lives in settling this unforgiving land. On 25 March, let us remember the people who lost their lives migrating to this country.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fear is the enemy of democracy

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 March 2013
    22 Comments

    Opposition Immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison called for a suspension of asylum seekers being released into the community, on the basis of a single violent incident. Fairfax Media showed these people are about 45 times less likely to be charged with a crime than members of the public. A fear mongering politician appears to have more credibility than the facts.

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  • RELIGION

    Ratzinger and Rowan Williams side by side

    • Andrew McGowan
    • 14 February 2013
    21 Comments

    Now that Williams has returned to academic life and Ratzinger has resigned, it is tempting to commit both their reigns to the category of failure, and debate mostly the nobility or otherwise of their inability to bend lurching structures or less gifted minds to their own wills. This would not, however, be the whole picture in either case.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Shop floor priest

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 April 2011
    6 Comments

    Fr Ian Dillon portrayed teaching as a power struggle, with students and teachers pitted against one another. He enjoyed criticising those in power at any level of state and church. His stories would end with a laugh, and his exclamation of delight, 'They really haven't got a bloody clue!'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Burke, Wills and ... Rudd?

    • Brian Matthews
    • 14 July 2010
    6 Comments

    Burke and Wills have long since attained the kind of heroic status Australians seem inclined to assign to catastrophic failure. But perhaps, in mid 2010, we might see their expedition's story as being more about the strains, perils and transience of leadership.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope skips language of love in Anglicans manifesto

    • Charles Sherlock
    • 20 November 2009
    25 Comments

    Pope Benedict XVI's recent Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus (‘Groups of Anglicans’) moves the pastoral openness of Vatican II towards a ‘Rome is right’ mentality. This is disturbing and dangerous, not only for Anglicans, but for Roman Catholics themselves.

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  • RELIGION

    Where to now for Anglicans and Rome

    • Charles Sherlock
    • 22 October 2009
    2 Comments

    If the Apostolic Constitution is phrased in overly-confident 'Romanista' style it will communicate a bureaucratic message and reinforce the suspicion that 'ecumenical endeavour' means 'return to Rome', rather than the vision of every Christian tradition being converted to unity.

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