Culture

  • Freedom

    Chorus:This is a song of freedomof a people brave and strong,a song of Australia's freedom;it won't detain you long. Many came here as convictswhen they escaped the noose.The privilege of the ganderwould really suit the goose. Aborigines forced

  • Censorship and the 'silenced majority'

    Censored 2004: the Top 25 Censored StoriesBy Peter Phillips and Project CensoredSeven Stories Press, 2003367 pages, $36 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON On February 5, 2003, the day US Secretary of State Colin Powell made his case for war against Iraq

  • Goodbye Lenin, hello 'Ostalgie'

    REVIEW BY LOUIS PROYECT Goodbye Lenin!Directed by Wolfgang BeckerWritten by Wolfgang Becker and Bernd LichtenbergWith Daniel Bruhl, Kathrin Sass, Maria Simon, Chulpan Khamatova, Florian Lukas and Alexander BeyerScreening at Dendy cinemas, Sydney;

  • Summers: Good on data, poor on strategy

    REVIEW BY PAT BREWER The End of Equality: Work, Babies and Women's Choices in 21st Century AustraliaAnne SummersRandom House, 2003336 pages, $39.95 It is unusual to see a scathing condemnation by a prominent government adviser on the state of

  • Land of the Morning Star

    SYDNEY — A new documentary about the history of West Papua and its people's struggle for freedom, is to be screened on ABC TV on February 2, at 8.30pm. Made by Australian journalist Mark Worth, the film features rare archival film and eyewitness

  • Stifling dissent the legal way

    Slapping on the Writs: Defamation, Developers and Community ActivismBy Brian WaltersUNSW Press, 200396 pages, $16.95 REVIEW BY DALE MILLS Melbourne barrister Brian Walters has written a small but important book about the way that Australia's

  • Surviving 'civilisation'

    Cast AwayDirected by Robert ZemeckisWith Tom Hanks and Helen HuntWritten by William Broyles JuniorReleased on Universal Pictures DVD REVIEW BY LOUIS PROYECT Director Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away, made in 2000 and starring Tom Hanks as an air-crash

  • Poem

    Will you please observe through the wire I am sewing my feet together They have walked about as far As they ever need to go Will you further observe Through the wire I am sewing my heart together It is now so full of The ashes of my days It

  • Master and Commander: an ode to Francophobia

    REVIEW BY JOE ALLEN Master and Commander: the Far Side of WorldDirected by Peter WeirScreenplay by Peter Weir and John ColleeWith Russell Crowe and Paul BettanyAt major cinemas Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World has received

  • The making of 'the apprentice's bible'

    Tressell: The Real Story of the Ragged Trousered PhilanthropistsBy Dave HarkerZed Books, 2003282 pages, $33.95 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON "It made me cry and made me bitter", recalled a socialist who read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as

  • Giving voice to the voiceless

    From Nothing to Zero: Letters from Refugees in Australia's Detention CentresEdited by Janet Austin; introduction by Julian BurnsideLonely Planet, 2003193 pages, $22 (pb)"What a big joke with human rights. This regime is killing us