Vol 34 No 7

08 April 2024

CARTOON

Can't watch
- Glen Le Lievre
- 19 April 2024
1 Comment
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Courting: An intimate history of love and the law
- Gillian Bouras
- 19 April 2024
1 Comment
Love is a creature of its time, and so ideas, attitudes and conduct of affairs of the heart change and evolve as time passes. Courting explores breach of promise cases in Australia from 1788 until the 1970s, and in doing do, documents the development of Australian society from a penal colony to a free and much more individualistic one.
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RELIGION

Vatican invites global discussion on human dignity
- David Kirchhoffer
- 18 April 2024
9 Comments
Though there are few surprises in Vatican document 'Dignitas Infinita', this summary of Pope Francis’s moral theology on dignity invites a reevaluation of our shared humanity in the face of an increasingly complex ethical landscape.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Freud's last session
- Neil Jeyasingam
- 18 April 2024
3 Comments
Freud’s Last Session pits the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud against Christian apologist and author C.S. Lewis, a powerful concept, given the sheer cultural heft of the two historical figures.
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ENVIRONMENT

The unyielding spirit of Uncle Kevin Buzzacott
- Michele Madigan
- 18 April 2024
7 Comments
An Arabunna man, Uncle Kevin Buzzacott devoted himself to the protection of that delicate, glorious country of north eastern South Australia with its Great Artesian Basin’s ancient waters threatened by the succession of powerful mining companies operating Roxby’s Olympic Dam.
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AUSTRALIA

The inheritance of Anzac Day
- Andrew Hamilton
- 16 April 2024
Anzac Day draws us away from the geopolitical chess board to consider the price that so many persons have paid for the wars in which their leaders join. It reminds us of the need for diplomacy based on respect for the humanity of persons on all sides of conflict.
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INTERNATIONAL

When helpers become victims
- Joe Zabar
- 16 April 2024
2 Comments
When a missile strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers, it sparked global outrage and demands for accountability and raised questions around the protection of those who risk everything to provide aid in zones of conflict.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Escaping expectations
- Michele Frankeni
- 15 April 2024
What is so desirable about erasing our experiences from our faces? After all, they’re not called character lines for nothing. Shaw may have said youth is wasted on the young, but really youth is wasted on the aged.
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AUSTRALIA

Australia's dysfunctional housing quagmire
- Peter Mares
- 12 April 2024
1 Comment
The ABC’s recent Q+A housing special left many questions unasked and unanswered. Labor, Coalition and Green MPs all say they want more people to be able to buy their own homes. The most obvious way to achieve that would be to reduce the price of housing. Yet no politician will make that an explicit policy aim.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Between sense and sensation
- Nathan Scolaro
- 11 April 2024
3 Comments
Can a chatbot write a poem? The answer reveals something about the heart of human interaction. True connection, like true poetry, requires discomfort, vulnerability and a richness of experience that defies the simplicity of algorithms.
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INTERNATIONAL

When war becomes personal
- Andrew Hamilton
- 10 April 2024
5 Comments
Our attitudes to war change drastically when it becomes personal. The killing of Zomi Frankcom, together with other members of the Charity organisation World Central Kitchen, made the war between Israel and Hamas personal. It has led many people to see the destruction of Gaza and its people as not only regrettable but intolerable.
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AUSTRALIA

By the world forgot
- Gillian Bouras
- 10 April 2024
3 Comments
For the men in these conflicts, there was an expectation they would resume the lives they had left behind as if nothing had happened, as if they had been on an extended business trip. It calls to mind a phrase that has become common in recent years: unexamined trauma.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The Dinner Guest
- Damian Balassone
- 09 April 2024
4 Comments
The rhetoric of elites / sets off his built-in shit detector. He much prefers to eat / with hookers, drunks and tax collectors.
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RELIGION

The optimism of Timothy Radcliffe
- John Warhurst
- 09 April 2024
12 Comments
Timothy Radcliffe has a hopeful vision for the Church, yet noting the slow pace of institutional change in his recent visit to Australia, he presented a sort of optimism that eschewed any hope for immediate outcomes. The basis for Radcliffe’s optimism seems to be his assumption that it is acceptable for the Church to take its time.
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INTERNATIONAL

Kate Middleton and the end of all boundaries
- Laura Kings
- 09 April 2024
2 Comments
In a world where the public appetite for private news on public figures is insatiable, how do we foster ethical media behaviour that respects privacy and dignity in situations like this? Would well-wishes for Kate's recovery, even before her diagnosis was public, have been too much to ask?
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Vol 34 No 7