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Keywords: Envy

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The original orphan

    • Tony Kelly
    • 29 July 2014
    2 Comments

    Poor old fellow, angular, pinched awkward man, taut and pink-faced ... Everyone hesitates to take him in, wincing at his eagerness, and protecting conversation from his fantastic interruptions ... recently he discovered the name of his mother, long dead, and found some brothers ... Now a gush of communication after the long legal amnesia, he reports a big barbecue to celebrate the discovery of belonging after all.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Youths burned by the flames of self interest

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 26 June 2014

    When it comes to symbols of destruction and renewal, few are more potent than bushfires. That is particularly true in the Australian context. Galore's poignant coming-of-age story unfolds in the weeks prior to the 2003 Canberra bushfires. It is, in part, a rumination on adolescent self-centredness: its inevitability and inadequacy as a shield protecting the vulnerable, budding self from the flames of experience.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Inside the head of a mentally ill genius

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 June 2014

    Mental illness is no laughing matter. Except when it is. Frank is a musical genius, who spends his life with his face concealed inside a comically oversized head. His bandmates are in awe of him, especially starry-eyed keyboard player Jon, who in his naivety envies Frank's illness and the strange creativity that it entails. Things turn ugly when one member of the ensemble commits suicide during the recording of the band's debut album.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A Budget to enshrine inequality

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 May 2014
    47 Comments

    Governments have always included in their budgets a 'we're serious' clause as part of their determination to fix the economy. It has normally been directed at the vices of the underclass such as alcohol and tobacco. Now governments slash spending on the welfare of the disadvantaged.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Abbott and Hockey more Prince John than Robin Hood

    • David James
    • 05 May 2014
    11 Comments

    In politics, one should never opt for a balanced and thoughtful description of the truth when wild exaggerations will do. Especially when you want to take from the poor and give to, if not exactly the rich, at least the investor class. The dire pronouncements from the Abbott Government in response to the Commission of Audit's 86 recommendations reflect not only the PM's relentless negativity, but also more than a whiff of class war.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Cardinal sins in beautiful Rome

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 30 January 2014
    5 Comments

    The cardinal is senseless to the libertine Jep's enquiries about faith, and prone to missing ordinary human connections in the midst of his politicking and self-obsession. If this is an unflattering reflection of institutional Catholicism, it finds its counterpoint in an ancient nun known as the Saint, whose humility reveals to Jep the possibility of transcendence.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2013: Ja'mie's disability

    • Michael Mullins
    • 09 January 2014

    TV viewers are alarmed that they can so easily identify with Ja'mie King, Chris Lilley's studiously unlikeable comic creation in ABC1's Ja'mie: Private School Girl. In a previous incarnation, Ja'mie was sponsoring underprivileged Third World children about whom she knew little and cared less. People like Ja'mie have a pathological disability to feel the needs of others.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Ja'mie's disability

    • Michael Mullins
    • 28 October 2013
    18 Comments

    TV viewers are alarmed that they can so easily identify with Ja'mie King, Chris Lilley's studiously unlikeable comic creation in ABC1's Ja'mie: Private School Girl. In a previous incarnation, Ja'mie was sponsoring underprivileged Third World children about whom she knew little and cared less. People like Ja'mie have a pathological disability to feel the needs of others.

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  • RELIGION

    Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the Constitution

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 March 2013
    1 Comment

    Frank Brennan's address 'Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the Constitution' presented at the 18th National Schools Constitutional Convention, The Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, 21 March 2013.

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  • RELIGION

    Benedict's legacy of faith and reason

    • Joel Hodge
    • 11 March 2013
    4 Comments

    The deepest desire that humans have is for the sense of self found in happiness and fulfilment. Benedict held that reason, as the faculty that allows us to be aware of ourselves and understand the meaning of things, is directed not just toward knowledge but toward a deep and critical comprehension of what it means to be fully human.

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  • RELIGION

    Inspirational Abbott's Indigenous aspiration

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 February 2013
    15 Comments

    Let's not underestimate the significance of John Howard's successor giving credit to Paul Keating for his Redfern speech, before invoking New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi and calling for atonement. Still there is plenty of work to be done to attain proper constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Election year food, sex and meaning

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 08 February 2013

    David Marr's withering piece on Tony Abbot completes the political trinity. These writers manage the impossible: they have me feeling sorry for politicians. Well, almost. I'm not sure if such magnanimity is allowed in an election year. But what a pleasure to discover those grey Canberran corridors harbouring such a chiaroscuro of emotion.

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