The Nation Reviewed
WORLD
Comment: Address to the US President: Draft for a Prime Minister’s Address on the Occasion of Another Visit from the President of the United States
Don Watson
Mr President, Thank you for making room in your busy schedule to see me while you are in Darwin. In the short time I have at your disposal...
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SOCIETY
The Beat Goes On: Sex and Secrets in Public Parks
Sonya Hartnett
In a corner of the Darling Gardens in Melbourne’s boutique inner-city suburb of Clifton Hill stands a small, well-maintained toilet block...
More ...Comment: Phoney Education
Don Watson
The best measure of the boon these phones have been is to recall the woe of life before them. Just 15 years ago on trams and trains people...
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Bin Laden
The Art of Ideas: Wim Delvoye at MONA
Amanda Lohrey
The phenomenon that is Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is a Plato’s cave of multi-layered subterranean space where shadows of the...
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The Looks Department: The Rise of Cosmetic Medicine
Tanveer Ahmed
Dr Joseph Ajaka came to the world of cosmetic medicine in 2006 after the messy rupture of his training to become an anaesthetist. After...
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WORLD
Long in the Tooth: Trixie Gardner
Paola Totaro
The Baroness Gardner of Parkes, Conservative member of the British House of Lords, waves me through the Peers’ Lobby and with an informal “...
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SOCIETY
Island Rising: Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour
Fiona McGregor
Is there any place more typical of Sydney’s protean nature than Cockatoo Island? A decade ago, it was a wasteland. One hundred and fifty...
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POLITICS
Comment: The Greens and Fundamentalism
Mark Aarons
Despite the new reality in the Senate, there are ominous signs for centre-left politics. The bitter invective recently directed at the...
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CULTURE
The Sitting Act: Portrait Painting
Charlotte Wood
In my early twenties I earned money sitting for life drawing classes at the small and beloved art school in my university town. I was by no...
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WORLD
The Baskerville Case: Norfolk Island’s chickens
Ashley Hay
There are several things an astute observer will notice on arriving to Norfolk Island. First, the island’s eponymous pine trees, which rise...
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POLITICS
Comment: Palin Politics and the Tea Party
Don Watson
The fact of the automobile for instance; and Big Oil, which fuelled it; and the strip malls, which made the car indispensable to commerce,...
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Work and Play: Melbourne Zoo at 150
Christine Kenneally
The exoskeleton of the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect is such a deep, glazed black that it looks like it crawled out of a Flemish oil...
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
It Tolls for Thee: Generation Text
Guy Pearse
Ping! New message received. “Hi, this is Dr Carl O’Kane from the Townsville Hospital emergency department. I was taking your medical...
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POLITICS
Comment: Asylum Seekers
Robert Manne
The first boatpeople were South Vietnamese fleeing from the communist victory of 1975. Between 1976 and 1982, 2000 reached our shores. In...
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CULTURE
Comment: ABC’s The Book Show and Ramona Koval
Don Watson
Still, it might be apt enough for the ABC. What nobler ambitions does the national broadcaster have than uniting Australians in their...
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POLITICS
Comment: The Economic Myths of Peter Costello
Andrew Charlton
On 23 September 2004, three days before the launch of his re-election campaign, John Howard visited the marginal seat of Deakin in the...
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POLITICS
Comment: Political Leadership in Australia
Don Watson
As the bosses’ grip grows tighter, the membership declines and branches fold. Recently, the stalwart Senator John Faulkner used the word ‘...
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CULTURE
London Calling: The Ledbury
MJ Hyland
On 8 August, during the London riots, Brett Graham’s restaurant, The Ledbury, was invaded by looters. “There were 30 of them and they...
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SOCIETY
Strutting & Fretting
Paul Kelly
In show business, you’re generally either the main act or the warm-up. Over 35 years, I’ve been both. A good show needs different and...
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ENVIRONMENT
Flavour of the Nation
Gay Bilson
For our last breakfast on a tiny island in the Alappuzha backwaters in South Kerala, we had asked for kanji, a gruel of rice or millet....
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The Shortlist Daily
7 February 2012
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