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.
God wills it! The bitter fruits of fundamentalism
In any case history, insofar as it keeps alive the memory of past wrongs, is not helpful for the...
Trapped in the Aboriginal reality show
Selected for The Best Australian Political Writing 2008; Winner, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2008, The Alfred Deakin Prize for an...
The search for moral security
THE SUICIDE BOMBER who carried out the September 9, 2004, attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta was Heri...
Something better: fundamentalism, revolution, loss of faith and the future
THE CITY IN which I grew up was famed for its part in resisting the militant fundamentalism that swept...
Poems that kill
Children Beneath Our Skyafter a 'cartoon' by Michael LeunigThe sky was one of the redeeming features of the war–...
The gift of the hinterland
CREATING AN ENTIRE city is something hard to plan, even now we know we are supposed to. Since Brasilia...
Desert field of dreams
IN THE DISTANCE, the rows of high-rise towers on Dubai's infamous Sheikh Zayed Road glitter; ornaments on the edge...
Ants on highways
GOOGLE AND MUNGO. I am sitting at my desk staring at Google Earth. My computer is short of memory...
Once were Westies
AS A GUEST on a western Sydney community radio program recently, I noted the ease with which the young...
Waking from the dream
Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills,and fire made solid in the flinty stone,thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble,...
Fluid cities create
WHAT MAKES A city culturally dynamic? What makes a city the sort of place that people want to visit,...
City dreamers
FOR THE FIRST time in history, the number of people living in urban areas has outstripped those in rural...
