Keywords: Complexity
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 22 March 2017
15 Comments
The Prioress in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales had a brooch alluding to Virgil's phrase, 'love conquers all'. In her case, her love for her two lapdogs beat her affection for mere people. But in public life one wonders about the truth of the epigram. Indeed a good case could be made that hatred conquers all, and that it is stronger than love. The advent of Donald Trump with his individual style has occasioned lament that the public world is now dominated by hatred and contempt. But there is nothing new in it.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 22 March 2017
All stories that deal with time travel will come up against paradoxes. Generally the success of the story will come down to how capably these paradoxes are dealt with, and how consistently with the story's internal logic. Otto Bloom turns on the concept of time as an extension of the physical dimensions. If time is as tangible as physical space, then all events in time are occurring simultaneously. That we perceive time as moving in a particular direction is a feature of our human consciousness.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 01 March 2017
18 Comments
It is a commonplace that our political discourse is much impoverished. Speeches are built around sound bites. The Trump administration is experimenting with letting go of speeches and communicating within the limits set by Twitter. In such a world there is little space for more complex rhetoric, for cultural reference, for reflection on historical precedents, or for wondering. Our politicians' words leave no echoes. It is worth musing on what may be lost in the thinning of public discourse.
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AUSTRALIA
- Mark Hearn
- 31 January 2017
6 Comments
2016 was a bumper year for the political double down. Journalist Mark Kenny witnessed a dramatic manifestation: 'Mr Abbott was seen to double down on his recent indirect messaging to Mr Turnbull about a possible return to the frontbench.' A combined 'double down with indirect messaging': perhaps a uniquely Abbott adaptation. Doubling down - otherwise known as repeating yourself - is the public language of aggressive redundancy, drowning out alternative voices and ideas.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 18 January 2017
2 Comments
The perspective is Jackie's at all times; JFK himself rarely appears onscreen, and often is just a shoulder or a jaw glimpsed in profile at his wife's side. Portman's is a fine portrayal, displaying at all times an abiding grace and dignity, whether she is washing her husband's blood off her face, or facing down the questions of an astute journalist who may or may not be on her side. In the making of the Camelot myth, Jackie models the presidential funeral on Abraham Lincoln's, by this very process rejecting her brother-in-law Robert's doubts that the Kennedy presidency ultimately amounted to much at all.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Frank Brennan
- 17 January 2017
17 Comments
Without any media fanfare, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop published a statement on 9 January 2017 announcing that Australia and Timor Leste had agreed to terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea. This news is more welcome to the Timorese government than to the Australian government. But the uncertainty created by this Timorese win might in time impact more adversely on Timor than on Australia. Only time will tell.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 December 2016
7 Comments
This year International Migrants Day has called for children to be released from detention. It is appropriate that an event held in the shadow of Christmas should advocate for children. For they lie at the heart of Christmas. The insistence in the Gospel stories on the obligation to respect and nurture children is not exclusive to Christians. It is echoed in the attention to children and concern for their growth into responsible adults shared by other religions and cultures.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Fatima Measham
- 08 December 2016
12 Comments
It is hard to overstate the sort of things that become permissible when the dominant political culture appeals to our darker nature. Take the cascade of brutality in the Philippines, or the stream of hateful incidents in the US. In Australia, white supremacist groups staged 'victory rallies' after the US election, and posters appeared last weekend at Melbourne University telling 'dunecoons, shitskins, niggers, chinks' to get out. This permissiveness isn't just about Trump, though he is a catalyst.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ann Deslandes
- 06 December 2016
6 Comments
I'm a 36 year old white Australian who grew up middle class in suburban Adelaide. I can count on one hand the number of households in the streets I lived on which were always-already made up of a mum-dad-kids scenario. The research on children's attachment, development and resilience shows kids need meaningful, culturally appropriate relationships with caring and competent adults in order to thrive as human beings. These adults can be pretty much anyone as long as they fit that bill.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Frank Brennan
- 02 December 2016
9 Comments
Neither India nor Australia can go it alone when confronting a global issue such as climate change. India cannot disregard the effects on other nations when it adopts laws and policies for alleviating the poverty of the poorest of the poor. Australia cannot disregard the effects on other nations when it considers restricting the availability of resources for export such as coal which might help provide electricity for the world's poorest citizens.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Frank Brennan
- 28 November 2016
'No matter what the economic, political and legal problems confronted by modern day India, our response can be improved by an application of the key principles and norms developed in the international law of trade and human rights, helping to enunciate the realm of law, regulation and political accountability, enhancing public scrutiny providing the right environment for doing business.' Frank Brennan presents the 25th JRD Tata Oration, Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, India, 26 November 2016.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tim Lyons
- 14 November 2016
7 Comments
Just as the 'wealth management' industry is based on the lie that anyone can be wealthy if they are prepared to take enough individual risk, the modern lie about work is that your place depends on vicious competition with those around you. This sort of sociopathic individualism denies the collective project, where even the team resembles more a gangster faction than a collective. Success is said to be a function of your own efforts, rendering solidarity not just foreign but inimical to your interests.
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