Keywords: England
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Michele Madigan
- 08 April 2016
16 Comments
The passing of Bob Ellis recalls his faithful accompanying of the 1984-1985 royal commission into the British nuclear tests conducted in South Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. His article on the Wallatina hearings described what he named as the commission's 'worst story of all': Edie Milpudie's telling of herself and her family camping, in May 1957, on the Marcoo bomb crater. Re-reading the Ellis article, tears stung my eyes. It's so good when truth is recognised and held up for our freedom.
READ MORE 
-
AUSTRALIA
- Gillian Bouras
- 23 February 2016
7 Comments
Elder abuse resembles child abuse in its iceberg qualities: both have received little attention until comparatively recently. In the case of elder abuse, very few cases ever come to court: old people are as helpless as children, similarly unable to plead their own cases, and afraid to: they have little power. The Yiddish proverb springs to mind: If you can't bite, don't show your teeth. The most consistent offenders, sad to say, are family members, who are often adept at exploiting the fear that is part of ageing.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Brian Matthews
- 10 February 2016
2 Comments
Eslingadene/Isendene/Essendon was its quiet and bucolic self when Richard Green, one of its respectable citizens, farewelled it in the 1850s, migrated to Australia, settled near Melbourne and, honouring his home village, called the area Essendon. Like its northern hemisphere namesake, Essendon does not appear in the Domesday Book, but Macbeth-like vaulting ambition, disjoined from care and humanity, has enrolled it in a modern Doomsday register and stained its name ineradicably.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 04 December 2015
1 Comment
'Tonight, gathered here in the Southern Cross Club in the national capital, gathered as Eureka's children. We affirm that there is room for everyone under the Southern Cross. I hope you will return to Canberra carrying the Southern Cross flag when we proclaim the Australia Republic on 1 January 2020 which will be two elections after Australia last had a monarchist leader of a major political party. Tony Abbott is the last of his type. Whether the prime minister honoured to witness the proclamation is Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten or another matters not.' Annual Dinner for Eureka's Children, Southern Cross Club, Canberra, 3 December 2015.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 06 November 2015
2 Comments
Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai came to international prominence in 2012 after being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, for her advocacy for girls' education. He Named Me Malala ponders whether her father shares indirect responsibility for the shooting, as he encouraged her advocacy. The question of exploitation is relevant whenever a child enters the public gaze, but here it threatens to undermine Malala's own agency, as a young woman who can think, speak and act powerfully on her own behalf.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Catherine Marshall
- 23 October 2015
15 Comments
Sissies are on their way out on British playgrounds. Guidelines produced by the Institute of Physics for the Department of Education recommend that teachers strongly discourage sexist language at school. While internet forums are replete with admonitions from members of the public furious at the erosion of so-called free speech, the guidelines are a welcome tool in the long and exhausting fight for female equality, and Australia would do well to consider adopting such procedures too.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Patti Miller
- 14 October 2015
13 Comments
I have always felt guilty about an inability to commit to any belief system. So when Montaigne said 'Only fools have made up their mind', I felt an enormous sense of relief. He knew that those who are certain are the ones to shut down newspapers, lop off heads, blow up planes, burn books. There is a thread throughout his essays, too, of him finding sex undignified and therefore unfitting for grown men and women. It is one of his many contradictions and confronts me with my own contradictory attitude.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 16 July 2015
4 Comments
English literary journalist Lucasta Miller noted that Hardy's title, Far From the Madding Crowd, with 'madding' taken to mean 'frenzied', is an ironic nod to idyllic perceptions of rural life; Hardy 'disrupts the idyll'. At the heart of the story is Bathsheba, a proud and independent young shepherd who becomes the new proprietor of her late uncle's farm. Her story unfolds against stunning rural landscapes that provide a sublime stage for violence both physical and emotional.
READ MORE
-
- Frank Brennan
- 08 July 2015
3 Comments
I suspect Pope Francis had some of our Jesuit alumni in mind when he wrote in his encyclical Laudato Si: 'A politics concerned with immediate results, supported by consumerist sectors of the population, is driven to produce short-term growth... True statecraft is manifest when, in difficult times, we uphold high principles and think of the long-term common good. Political powers do not find it easy to assume this duty'.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 17 June 2015
3 Comments
It was far from democratic and arose from circumstances of pure opportunism, but the Magna Carta was created as a break on arbitrary rule and power. Therefore contemporary moves to undermine such principles as the rule of law are prescient. Australia's parliament commemorates its birthday even as it extends the reach of national security laws and endorses a draconian refugee policy.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 20 May 2015
19 Comments
The Death of God debate raged on and off several decades ago. Now it's the Devil's turn. Medieval clerics believed he was everywhere. Earlier this year the General Synod of the Church of England decided it was time for him to retire, and have 'disappeared' him.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Duncan MacLaren
- 07 May 2015
4 Comments
It has certainly been an extraordinary election where, for once, Scotland has played a central role, especially in the realm of new ideas. It will be good for democracy in the UK if the predicted SNP landslide occurs, to put progressive policies ahead of party advantage and ensure the neo-liberals in Cameron's team are stopped from unleashing the same chaos as Mr Abbott in Australia, and compassion, care for the most vulnerable and services such as the NHS remaining in public hands return to centre stage again.
READ MORE