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Vol 18 No 14

07 July 2008


 

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Murder sequel has charm galore

    • Tony Smith
    • 18 July 2008

    Marion Halligan has a fine appreciation of the literary process linking author and reader. In Murder on the Apricot Coast she teases with a critique of sequels and argues that only the reader's imagination can extend the lives of literary characters.

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  • RELIGION

    WYD mass crosses cultures

    • Carmel Pilcher
    • 18 July 2008
    17 Comments

    The organisers of the WYD opening mass did not attempt to integrate Australian elements into the mass, but included them as added extras. The ritual structure of the mass requires creativity to make it connect with different audiences.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Humanity trumps moralism in WYD film festival

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 17 July 2008
    1 Comment

    The Iñigo Film Festival features films that reflect spiritual experience or the link between faith and justice. The Judas Pane plays upon traditional understandings of the gospels and critiques the subjective depiction of religious icons.

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  • RELIGION

    The Pope with something to say

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 July 2008
    7 Comments

    World Youth Day pilgrims have said they are going to 'hear' Pope Benedict. In the time of John Paul II, they spoke of 'seeing' the Pope. The emphasis has switched from theatre to scholarship.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Muslim and Catholic pilgrims share the wisdom of travel

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 16 July 2008
    8 Comments

    WYD pilgrims, like Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, know that in the act of travelling, they will learn things about themselves that they could never learn from books and sermons. Pilgrims are warriors whose battles are internal and spiritual.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Pope invokes 'spirituality of the land'

    • Chris McGillion
    • 16 July 2008
    3 Comments

    Australians see themselves more as a sunburnt people than as people of a sunburnt country. The Aboriginal smoking ceremony during the Papal Mass introduced a distinctive spirituality where reflection upon the physical environment is key. (April 1995)

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Guernseys of sackcloth and ashes

    • B. N. Oakman
    • 15 July 2008
    2 Comments

    There's more silver in my teeth .. than in our trophy cupboard .. Gravestones bear witness to our only premiership .. Every year we leap for the heavens .. and flop in the gutter .. My football team is hopeless.

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  • RELIGION

    WYD hope for Third World pilgrims

    • Margaret Rice
    • 15 July 2008
    3 Comments

    When it comes to international aid, Australians pride themselves on their generosity. There is a similar dimension to events such as World Youth Day, which play a formative role in the lives of young people from developing countries.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Minister's moment of grace at WYD

    • Michael Mullins
    • 14 July 2008
    2 Comments

    NSW Government World Youth Day spokesperson Kristina Keneally MP has described World Youth Day as a 'happy event'. She herself has personal experience of spiritual joy at WYD.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Miracle plant's monstrous potential

    • Harry Nicolaides
    • 14 July 2008
    10 Comments

    As Australia considers the Garnaut Report and the CSIRO predicts petrol could reach $8 a litre within a decade, the subject of biofuel has garnered increased interest. Jatropha, the so-called darling of second-generation biofuels, could cripple third world economies and ecosystems.

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  • RELIGION

    WYD blooms beneath the aphids

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 July 2008
    9 Comments

    While observers remark on the superficiality of connection and meaning in Australian society, events such as World Youth Day encourage participants to be reflective. This can lead young people to larger human and civic values.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Imagination beguiles in dystopic Russian debut

    • Jen Vuk
    • 11 July 2008

    Amid the Eastern Bloc ruins, Sasha wears her disenfranchisement like a seasoned dissident, while her mother wants to turn her into a good little Soviet. Petropolis employs comic absurdity in order to examine the human condition.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    German soldier's ugly art

    • John Bartlett
    • 10 July 2008
    2 Comments

    Nations need to believe in the nobility of their soldiers — anything less would be unbearable. There is an excess of ugliness in German artist Otto Dix's Der Krieg Cycle, perhaps the most powerful and unpleasant antiwar statement in modern art.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The ethics of 'kidsploitation'

    • Moira Rayner
    • 10 July 2008
    18 Comments

    Ethics is a process, not a position taken in the 'freedom of expression' debate. The issue surrounding Bill Henson's photographs and the Art Monthly magazine cover of a nude six-year-old girl is not porn or paedophilia, but the lack of ethical integrity in exploiting children for adult purposes.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Giving up on unreadable muck

    • Brian Doyle
    • 09 July 2008
    9 Comments

    As a reader, it's satisfying to reach that moment when you realise you don't have to finish the book you've been ploughing through. A book's unfinishability reflects less on the reader than on the writer. Even great writers flop sometimes.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Dirty words for child labour

    • Saeed Saeed
    • 09 July 2008
    1 Comment

    Sold to a contractor at the age of 13, Roghini Govindhan was put to work churning out matchboxes 11 hours a day. Now 24, Govindhan has campaigned as part of World Vision's Don't Trade Lives anti-slavery campaign.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    After the obscenity

    • Jo McInerney
    • 08 July 2008
    1 Comment

    It was easy to find the centre of the blast .. an eternity of razed houses, a stony desert .. dead soil, waiting for rain .. I write home often. My letters are cheerful.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Genesis of a tyrant

    • Oskar Wermter
    • 08 July 2008
    5 Comments

    Robert Mugabe was a bright and ambitious boy, but angry, lonely and insecure. Nothing has changed. His greatest weakness is that he cannot accept criticism, responding with anger and aggression. The whole of Africa knows that now, to its cost.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Anti-annoyance law will return to bite Church

    • Michael Mullins
    • 07 July 2008
    12 Comments

    The Church needs to go beyond the benign 'we didn't ask for it' excuse for tolerating the controversial World Youth Day laws, which it can only regard as convenient. Its own right to strident expression of its views is at stake.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Workaholic Australians can't buy time

    • Michele Freeman
    • 04 July 2008
    5 Comments

    Average personal debt is at record levels, yet many Australians say work interferes with their capacity to maintain community connections and friendships. Despite a culture that rewards overwork, part-time work can help create time for ourselves and our communities.

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