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Keywords: Humour

  • RELIGION

    New horizons for justice and solidarity

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 September 2018

    As leaders like Gough Whitlam and Patrick Dodson have attested, if we are to imagine and strive towards New Horizons for Justice and Solidarity, we need conviction, perseverance, capacity for compromise, relationships of trust, humour.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bobbling their way from innocence to experience

    • Barry Gittins
    • 13 October 2016
    1 Comment

    I attempted at one stage to lodge snippets of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience into the minds of our children. Emily complained that 'symmetry' didn't really rhyme with 'hand or eye'; Ben was and is more into dragons than tigers. The question later pondered of Blake's tiger 'Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?' regularly confronts me, as my wife semi-mourns and I embrace the maturing process that is taking our children towards adulthood.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dying with dignity in Madrid

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 August 2016
    6 Comments

    The film's quiet humour leaves open many spaces for reflection on getting older, and on mortality. Tomas is uncomfortable with the subject of death, but Julian is determined to confront it with honesty and dignity. His activities during those four short days reveal he possesses a well formed conception of his own humanity and mortality that is not short of admirable. We are as sympathetic to Paula raging against her cousin's resignation, as we are to Tomas' growing acceptance.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Laughing in the face of climate change despair

    • Fatima Measham
    • 30 May 2016
    12 Comments

    People understand that some of the solutions for the problems faced by current and coming generations are likely rooted in decisions made now. Future-proofing is not merely anticipation, but intervention on a scale that goes beyond households. It involves design and culture. It demands an international rather than insular outlook. Perhaps this is why gallows humour has seeped into my conversations about the future. I no longer expect our leaders to do something worthwhile about it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Diagnosing the great Australian sickness

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 March 2016
    9 Comments

    Who better to consult than Dr Hippocrates and his humours? Before Tony Abbott's deposition the choleric element dominated in Australia, full of sound and fury. This has been followed by the preponderance of the sanguine humour, expressing itself in that sunny optimism that makes light of problems. But more recent events suggest that the humours are again in chronic imbalance. The core weakness in the Australian constitution has not been removed with the accession of Malcolm Turnbull.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Family's bipolar drama is a laughing matter

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 02 April 2015

    Cameron's illness is severe enough that he has been institutionalised at least once. He is on lithium but tends to neglect it, preferring to self-medicate with alcohol. His sensitive but strong-willed daughters do not make his life easy, but neither are their mother's absence and their father's illness easy on them. Still, there is a good reason why these events are viewed with nostalgia, and a good deal of humour.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Ode to the death of hippie idealism

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 19 March 2015
    2 Comments

    In 1993 Joaquin Phoenix's brother, River, died of a drug overdose, in front of a club owned by Johnny Depp. Depp later starred in an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's drug-addled Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, prompting one film critic to wonder how Depp could see much humour in the material. One might now be tempted to ask the same question of Phoenix, who was present during his brother's fatal overdose.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    US health care a sick joke that’s coming to Australia

    • Ellena Savage
    • 23 January 2015
    9 Comments

    America's iniquitous health care system is often portrayed with dark humour in popular culture such as the 2007 Michael Moore film Sicko. Our own Federal Government has been putting constant pressure on our system of universal health care as it pursues a course of action that presents class warfare as fiscal responsibility. It raises questions about the vested interests behind dismantling health care protections for poor people.   

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The Bible LOL

    • Geoff Page
    • 04 February 2014
    6 Comments

    They say there's humour in the Bible, but I am not so sure. The scholars cite a joke or two. Why aren't there rather more? The Book of Psalms (one twenty-six) has mouths that 'filled with laughter' — but that's no consolation if a smiting's coming after.

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  • CARTOON

    Good ole Aussie humour

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 04 June 2013
    5 Comments

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bedtime flatulence and marital bliss

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 24 January 2013
    1 Comment

    Despite moments of crass humour, This Is 40 is centrally moral, even conservative in its elevation of 'heteronormative' family unity. It stands as a nuanced riposte to the simplistic assessment made by one character that Debbie and Pete 'aren't right for each other'. Marriages are complex, and even troubled ones may not be easily dismissed.

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  • RELIGION

    Eulogy for the 'Martha and Mary' of St Christopher's

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 November 2012
    1 Comment

    'The sun had finally come to Canberra. Therese was sitting out on the back patio surrounded by children and grandchildren. She had a ticket of leave from the hospital. With grace, humour and gentleness, she recalled that a friend had urged her to live until October when the roses would be in bloom. She schooled us all in beauty and truth even in the midst of adversity.' Frank Brennan's eulogy for Therese Mary Vassarotti.

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