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Keywords: Wild World

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The enigma of the island

    • Ian C Smith
    • 23 June 2015
    3 Comments

    Our salt-blasted car rental veteran guzzled fuel, gearbox a disaster gasping past wallaby roadkill leaving the dramatic volcanic mountainscape for glimpses of carved bays, Crusoe beaches contrasting with weathered scrub, still farms.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rollicking ruminations on rage and revenge

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 May 2015
    1 Comment

    A man sets in motion an elaborate scheme to get back at everyone who has ever done him wrong. This maniacal anthology of short cinematic stories earned an Oscar nomination this year along with a bundle of other accolades in its native Argentina and beyond. The darkly comic 'Little Bomb' shows a man's life and mind unravel as he rages against the perceived injustice of a parking infringement penalty.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The root cause of IS extremism

    • James Fry
    • 17 April 2015
    16 Comments

    I was 14 years old and angry. My mind was fertile ground for an extremist ideology, like today's IS recruits. One day I met 30 year old Mal, whose chosen brand of neo-Nazi whackery presented a simplistic view of the world. Through my own experience, and my ongoing work with troubled youth, I shudder when I hear politicians talk of their commitment to national security yet at the same time defund community programs working with marginalised young people.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In memory of Leo

    • Diane Fahey
    • 24 March 2015
    8 Comments

    'If I'm deported back to Sri Lanka, torture is certain because I'm a Tamil.' On the day I hear of Leo's death I pass a tall maple, its star-like leaves, blood-red and flame-red, irradiated. The Australian government refused the visas applied for by Leo's family so that they might attend his funeral. As three Tamil men at a microphone sing a long hymn in Tamil the Basilica fills with an undertow of sound.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Never forget the actual St Patrick

    • Brian Doyle
    • 17 March 2015
    10 Comments

    A courage that could not be crushed, an imagination That could not be imprisoned, a song sung anywhere Free people insist on telling their own wild holy tales.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Grieving pilgrim's wild days in the wilderness

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 29 January 2015
    1 Comment

    Cheryl Strayed is haunted by her past — by her own sins, and by tragedies that have befallen her. As she walks, she hums, and the music she hears in her head leads her in and out of the past. Her solo 1600-plus km trek along America's Pacific Crest Trail is a metaphor for her life: each hardship she overcomes brings her a step closer to facing down the fierce regrets that gnash at her heels.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The musty sweetness of the Styx ghost

    • Chris Armstrong
    • 20 January 2015

    When you get home from a bushwalk the forest has infiltrated your clothing, skin, backpack, there is a musty sweetness when I open the cupboard door, a week later, it wafts out and I wait a while to unpick your scent of nature from the fabric of my self.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A Woman from the Provinces

    • Xiao Xiao
    • 16 September 2014
    2 Comments

    The woman from the provinces must have disturbed someone. Listen: the noise from below the Square. Countless faces aslant, breathing heavily. Rusting in the shell of broken words.

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  • MEDIA

    Robin Williams tried to outrun the dog

    • Megan Graham
    • 14 August 2014
    16 Comments

    As human beings we do all kinds of things to avoid suffering. Drink, drugs, hobbies, television, retail therapy. The list is endless. It is our job to survive and avoid suffering: to huddle around our loved ones, to live and thrive and not let the shit of life get us down. For Robin Williams, it seems avoiding suffering was a very hard task.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Time to take on the welfare sceptics

    • Catherine Magree
    • 29 July 2014
    22 Comments

    Imagine how the quality of the debate would improve if those who blamed the victims of poverty and illness for their plight were publicly labelled welfare sceptics or denialists, and forced to back up their claims. Social research academics would be thrust into the spotlight. If this issue received the scrutiny it deserves in the media there would be a sea change in attitudes to poverty, unemployment and income support over time.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My father's reign of mathematical precision

    • Nick Gadd
    • 16 July 2014
    14 Comments

    He was a civil engineer. His professional life was a matter of mathematics and rules. Driving over a bridge, he’d quote the equations that ensured it was safe and stable. There were formulae in his domestic life too. Strict rules about stacking the dishwasher. Knives and forks pointed downwards, to avoid careless stabbings.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Feelgood celebration of white male privilege

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 22 May 2014
    1 Comment

    Given last week's unequivocal iteration of the dire state of Australian politics, perhaps we've earned the right to a bit of escapism. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty proves adept at turning the warm-and-fuzzies up to 11. Still there's no escaping the sense that Walter's ability to jet around the world in order to find himself is implicitly an expression of affluent, white male privilege.

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