Keywords: The Waiting City
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Mary Manning
- 04 January 2012
2 Comments
'I'm Shareena,' she says. 'I'm your radiographer for today. For your breast screen.' An old man looks away from the waiting room television when he hears the word breast. His eyes linger over my sensible tailored shirt and I wonder if I have left a button undone. Published 19 April 2011
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MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD
- Jessica Voelker
- 14 September 2011
1 Comment
One American physicist claims each breath we take contains molecules of air that were also breathed by Archimedes, Aristotle, and even Jesus Christ. Through physics, religion, the human body, and mythology, there is a thread that weaves us into a continuous rich tapestry.
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AUSTRALIA
- Anthony Ham
- 12 September 2011
3 Comments
The disparate strands of Libya's revolution have been held together by a single unifying thread: a visceral desire to oust Gaddafi. Extremely effective as a rallying cry for rebellion, this anti-Gaddafi sentiment is deeply flawed as the unifying narrative for a new nation.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 18 July 2011
5 Comments
When I appeared on Q&A with Christopher Hitchens, a young man asked whether we can 'ever hope to live in a truly secular society' while the religious continue to 'affect political discourse and decision making' on euthanasia, same-sex unions and abortion. Hitchens was simpaticao. I was dumbstruck.
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AUSTRALIA
- Bruce Pennay
- 18 July 2011
8 Comments
50 years ago this week, migrants and refugees from Eastern Europe rioted at the Bonegilla migrant reception centre outside Albury-Wodonga. The Federal Immigration Minister said such behaviour was not tolerated in this country, but investigation prompted public sympathy for the demonstrators.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
When you tried to walk through the wall you were still living at home. What did you see beyond the opacity of brick? You were so sure it would absorb you that moments passed before reality kicked in ...
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ARTS AND CULTURE
Imagine the same man, rather than consumed by hate, alert instead to humour, to the power of mercy, apology, simplicity, conversation, common ground. Imagine what he might have done for the religion he loved, to which he instead did more damage than anyone else in history.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Mary Manning
- 20 April 2011
5 Comments
'I'm Shareena,' she says. 'I'm your radiographer for today. For your breast screen.' An old man looks away from the waiting room television when he hears the word breast. His eyes linger over my sensible tailored shirt and I wonder if I have left a button undone.
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EDUCATION
- Gregory Day
- 23 February 2011
15 Comments
In trying to convince my atheist goddaughter to embrace her Catholic schooling, I found an unlikely role model. I'd never thought of Greer as a chip off the old block of a convent education. Now I realised that that's exactly what she was.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 09 December 2010
8 Comments
A ridiculously wealthy humanitarian, Bono is an object of scorn among grassroots human rights advocates. But a U2 show may be as close to church as a rock concert gets. Nowhere outside a church would you find so many voices declaring in unison: 'I believe in the kingdom come.'
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- George Estreich
- 01 December 2010
2 Comments
The word graffiti encloses a vast spectrum from vandalism to art. At one end, a black slosh across a dry-cleaner's window: no message, only a mess. At the other, a Martian-green man on the side of a defunct warehouse, brooding on a thought as immense as himself.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 12 November 2010
1 Comment
At the edge of each knot of resplendent women stood the groom. Uncomfortable in a constricting collar or a slightly askew bow tie or colours they'd never worn before and would never wear again. Many looked curiously grumpy. Wasn't this their day of days? What was going wrong here?
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