Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
The good empire
REGARDLESS OF WHO succeeds George W. Bush, the incumbent US president will have to deal with an emboldened Pentagon,...
Virtue, power: the dilemma of US foreign policy
ON COMING TO office in 2001, George W. Bush encapsulated his administration's intended approach to foreign policy in a...
A perverse appeal
I WAS AN accidental tourist. I travelled to Japan to see my daughter, Nora, who – like many young...
The writer in a time of terror
Winner, The 2007 Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism, Social Equity JournalismWinner, 2007 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, The Alfred...
Of Middle Eastern appearance
Selected for The Best Australian Political Writing 2008 "DO YOU EVER wish you were fully Aussie?" This question was posed...
Develop the north
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT WAS high on the Commonwealth agenda in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to such projects as the Snowy...
The exiled child
There have been many times in my life when people have come to negative conclusions about me, and many terms applied: juvenile delinquent, alcoholic, drug addict, drama queen, borderline personality disorder, self-destructive, hysteric, depressive, neurotic, phobic and hypochondriac. But I've discovered a new one, and according to the literature it may be at the heart of all the others: chronic trauma survivor.
Trying to find the sunny side of life
Selected for The Best Australian Political Writing 2008WHEN THE HISTORICAL datelines are being drawn up, the year 2005 may...
Turning the map upside down
IF WE TURN the map upside down and start Australian history where its documentation properly begins – in the...
Destination: Adelaide
IN THE DAYS when seatbelts were optional and parents smoked in the car without a second thought, Adelaide was...
Cracks in the veneer
FEDELE FRANZONI IS on the edge. He lives with his family in Hoppers Crossing, in the outer tract of...
A symbolic life
GATJIL DJERRKURA LIVED the last decade of his life moving between two worlds – the world of Canberra politics...
