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.
This essay is good for my KPIs*
LAST DECEMBER, I was planning to write an essay on the politics of the imagination for this magazine. But...
Stuff
WE GET TO vote just once every few years, but every single day we consume, we buy, we acquire....
A half-formed nation
HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLLIE! I thought I’d drop you a line about life, the state of the planet and the future...
Delivering on the grand bargain
IT WAS A lack of recognition and respect for Eddie Mabo’s Torres Strait Islander customs and traditions that drove him to take on the might of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government. Mabo was a Queenslander from a humble background, though his legacy extraordinary and its consequences immeasurable.
Snow dome
IT LOOKED LIKE beer o’clock in a city pub on a Friday afternoon. Suits, noise, movement. But it wasn’t....
Teaching Australia
I AM THIRTY-EIGHT and tired. I’m only a third of the way through my class roll, a list that hurts my heart if I study it for too long. But I know what to do with these students. I’m an excellent teacher. I know how to bring them together. I am able to create a feeling of family and safety and security. In my classroom they know they can take risks and try new things and experience failure while being supported by me and by each other.
No permit for dignity
EARLY IN MY life in Australia, during the year I spent on a bridging visa that included no work...
On being Australian
MY FATHER, ALEX Carey, a fourth-generation Australian, was a lefty and an activist, who worked long hours as a...
An unending, tortuous war in Kashmir
KASHMIR’S STORY IS, for me, a personal history of unresolved pain and grief. Once called a paradise on earth,...
Keeping the faith
WHEN I RECEIVED the link to a blog post by someone preaching that Muslims should not use contraception, of...
The Asian invasion
THE FIRST RIDE-ON mower my parents bought was always breaking down. This seems an incidental fact, but really it...
Good things come in pairs
ONE OF THE first things you notice at a Chinese wedding reception is the Chinese character for ‘double happiness’....
