The Nation Reviewed
POLITICS
Comment: The Shock Jock Rule of Campbell Newman
John Birmingham
It was Winston Churchill who famously refused to cut funding to the arts to pay for more Spitfires and destroyers during the grimmest days...
More ...Infomation Idol: How Google is Making Us Stupid
Gideon Haigh
Google is synonymous, too, with speed and simplicity. But nothing about it has been speedier or simpler than its rise. It is not a decade...
More ...
SOCIETY
Saturday Night: St Vincent’s Emergency Department
Fiona Harari
Surrounded by coteries of friends, two young women in party clothes are slumped in the waiting room of St Vincent’s Hospital in inner...
More ...
POLITICS
The New Republican: Preparing for Another Tilt at the Crown
Christopher Kremmer
On a Monday evening in Canberra, weary, suited bureaucrats are making their journeys home along pavements strewn with autumnal leaf litter...
More ...
SOCIETY
Quiet, Please: CityRail’s ‘Quiet Carriages’ Trial
Gail Bell
The ticket seller at the security window at Tuggerah Railway Station, on NSW’s Central Coast, hands me a leaflet showing a young man’s face...
More ...
SOCIETY
Red Dog: A Pet’s Mutiny
Helen Garner
In January my family, who live next door, went down the coast and left me in charge of our vegetable garden and their dog. Excellent. I...
More ...
CULTURE
Drawn Faces: The Last of the Court Artists
Anna Krien
Fay Plamka wheels her $20 Dimmeys suitcase into Courtroom 1 of the Melbourne Magistrates Court and settles herself near the dock. As the...
More ...
POLITICS
Once Were Warriors: Forgotten People, Elites and Class Warfare
Nick Dyrenfurth
On 18 January 1886, a remarkable letter to the editor appeared in the pages of the conservative Argus newspaper as a bitter wharfies’...
More ...
ECONOMICS
Comment: Blessed are the Wealth-makers
Don Watson
In 1848 a drover named O’Shaughnessy, the son of a convict, came across a man living in a gunyah in the reed beds of the Lachlan River with...
More ...
CULTURE
The Big Tumbleweed: The Docklands and the Broken Wheel
Robyn Annear
In the closing scene of Planet of the Apes, there’s that moment of awful realisation for Charlton Heston’s shipwrecked astronaut: “Oh my...
More ...Comment: Attack of the Clones
Don Watson
People who watched the first series of Yes Minister might remember a fringe character called Frank Weisel, a young man of little apparent...
More ...
SOCIETY
A Romantic B&B: The Bourbon & Beefsteak in Kings Cross
Paul Ham
Outside a dead bar in Sydney’s Kings Cross, a homeless prostitute sags against a wall. A yellow neon light announcing ‘The Bourbon’ is...
More ...
SOCIETY
Rockin’ Rupert: Murdoch’s Tweets of Doom
Peter Conrad
Tweeting, as the Beat poets might have said, is for the birds – though what kind of bird exactly? Most users of Twitter sound like...
More ...The Doc, The Vet, The Matrons
John Birmingham
Brendan Nelson, John Howard’s education minister, did a funny thing a while back. Funny strange, that is, not funny ha-ha. He apologised to...
More ...
POLITICS
Same-sex Union: Sydney’s Champion Gay Rugby Team
Benjamin Law
Seven pm and the Bondi sun is still caressing surfers, bikini girls and topless males pulling up from their cliff-top runs. Near the...
More ...
WORLD
Love thy Leader: Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard in Retirement
George Megalogenis
A curious feature of our political debate is the way it compels former prime ministers to lose their dignity in the endless feedback loop...
More ...
CULTURE
Flag of Convenience: Australia Day in Pyalong
Alice Pung
On the morning of Australia Day, the people of Pyalong notice their flag is missing. Pyalong is in central Victoria, loosely suspended...
More ...
CULTURE
All Frocked Up: Grace Kelly’s Gowns in Bendigo
Catherine Ford
On a recent March morning, the air over Bendigo Art Gallery turned suddenly noisy with lorikeets. Wearing ’70s day-glo capes and clocking...
More ...
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...
More ...Homing Truths
Cate Kennedy
Craig and Jarrod Boord are in their studio showing me footage of their film, Fast, Feathered and Fearless – a full-length feature...
More ...
Twitter
@THEMONTHLY @SLOWTV
