I have a confession to make…I wear Britney Spears’ “designer” scent. There, I said it. Embarrassed for me? So am I! But before you judge me too harshly, consider the power of this little pink bottle (diamante encrusted, of course) of “Fantasy”.
I have been chased out of lifts, poked insistently in the chest, and watched women, noses imitating Bewitched, cross the room to demand I identify my
If you were in Melbourne in the middle of last month and watching National Nine News, you could have been forgiven for thinking you’d been transported to Middle Earth.
Increasingly shallow, banal and celebrity driven, the commercial network which, for decades, prided itself on its news service, plumbed new depths of irrelevance, when a story about missing bridesmaids gowns ran third in their
Friday was the projected birth date of the baby boy I lost last year. It was a difficult day at the end of a difficult week.
My life’s been characterised by a period of emotional intensity, change and revival since I miscarried my baby last August - it was my third consecutive miscarriage. The love and care of family, friends and virtual strangers helped me survive the aftermath and the callous
I recently flew to Paris for a wedding. Envious? So you should be! It was a grand and moving affair.
The couple in question, my friend Micaela and her Flavio (yes, that is his real name!), are very much in love and clearly “meant to be”, so a wedding in the City of Love seemed apt.
He’s a former Swiss diplomat turned politician and cultural advisor to UNESCO and she’s an Italian academic,
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."
This is the heart of the Stolen
The problem with the Wayne Carey story is twofold: 1) The media, framing his violence-related arrests in two countries as a sad tale of an Oz sporting hero fallen from grace, buried the lead: the burly ex-football star is allegedly a woman-basher and 2) Australian culture with its religious celebration of sporting achievement, anti-intellectual interpretation of success and the succour it offers
The good news is: Australia Day festivities in Camden – recent hotspot of Islamophobia – transpired without need for the police riot squad on standby to intervene.
The bad news is: the day has clearly been hijacked by yobbos and boofheads.
It’s long been known as Invasion Day by Aboriginal Australians while for others it was traditionally little more than a day for reflection on the elusive
2GB – Sydney’s number one talk radio station – has become the first commercial radio operation in Australia to take its news service online.
The ABC, with its bi-media history, has been online since 1997 but Australia’s commercial stations have been slow to join the digital revolution. The lag in commercial radio’s web-presence is dangerous – the future of news is no doubt digital and
It’s been another bad news start to a new year. The aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan; the bloodbath that continues following a flawed election in Kenya; the deadly quagmire that is Iraq…
It would be easy to become overwhelmed by the human suffering and environmental devastation that comprise so much of our daily news consumption. And sometimes I do feel like shutting
A young friend told me this week she thought I needed to raise my ‘freak flag’ higher.
This followed her initiation of a discussion on my Facebook wall about the sex appeal of men in women’s underwear. Her view: “Seriously, what is not totally lust-worthy about boys in girls’ clothes?” My perspective: “Nope, 'fraid I can't say men in heels and women's clothes really ‘do it’ for me”. I agreed to
For me this has been a year of victories and losses…exhilarating highs and devastating lows.
My individual experiences have in some ways paralleled Australia’s year of upheaval and revival. Personally, I won a fiercely contested, long running legal case in the ACT Supreme Court against a corporate bastard. On a national scale, Kevin Rudd won government in a landslide victory against our former
Angry scenes from outside a community meeting in Camden last night evoked frightening memories of the Cronulla Riots for many Muslim Australians.
Nearly 800 people turned up to the meeting called to protest plans for an Islamic school in the semi-rural town on Sydney’s outskirts. Police turned away around 100 people when the community hall where the meeting was staged became over-crowded.
Australia’s Channel 7 has banned its staff from ‘Facebooking’, blocking their access to the popular social networking site via a central firewall. What a short-sighted, anachronistic means of attempting to boost productivity in a business that revolves around journalism and entertainment.
Web 2.0 platforms like blogging, YouTube and Facebook are not just time-wasting distractions from the
It’s customary to whinge at this time of year about the hollow celebration of the birth of the central character in the Christian story…to lament the crass commercialism and the incongruous merger of a winter European-style festival and the Australian summer heat. Then there’s the family politics.
But I usually enjoy Christmas – merry-making, good food, seeing friends and family who slip
It was billed as a gab-fest and a platform for Prime Ministerial egotism by a nay-saying Opposition, but the main achievement of this weekend’s 2020 summit in Canberra was listening.
In the face of growing political apathy and community expressions of disenfranchisement, Kevin Rudd decided it was time to acknowledge Australians’ right to be heard. And, in a move even the cynics have acknowledged
Being a woman is gloriously complex. Being a woman requires embracing the contradictory. Being a woman can also be dangerous.
Remember the putrid and widely condemned assertion expressed by Sydney’s Sheik Hilali, in the wake of a gang rape trial, that women who do not dress according to conservative Islamic standards are like uncovered meat which invites wild cats to devour it?
Across the
As the US Democratic nomination goes down to the wire, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continuing to fight it out in the primaries, I thought I'd share with you the insights of a young American journalist.
Ryan Mock is a former student of mine - he studied Journalism and Sports Media at the University of Canberra. He now works as a baseball broadcaster in Maryland but he retains a keen
Paris is good for the soul…and for a gal’s confidence.
I’m flying home to Oz after attending a friend’s wedding soiree in Paris. More on the entertaining nuptials in a later post, but top billing goes to the City of Love itself.
Coincidentally, I arrived in ‘Gay Paree’ on Valentine’s Day. The symbolism of the timing wasn’t lost on this hopeless romantic, but I was a little concerned the
The ABC’s documentary on Australian-born Muslim converts this week was a perfect case study for everything that’s wrong with the media’s portrayal of Muslim women.
Muslim women are both highly visible members of one of the most marginalised groups in Western society and the most vulnerable to vilification and media stereotyping. Ubiquitously portrayed as veiled, they are concurrently represented
Why is sorry still the hardest word to say for the Federal Opposition?
In response to expectations Kevin Rudd will make a formal Australian Government apology to the Stolen Generations a key order of business during the first sitting week of the new parliament, Brendan Nelson is blowing the dog whistle he inherited from John Howard.
The Opposition leader has condemned the Prime Minister’s plans
The President-in-waiting and the head of the police force are facing corruption charges. It’s alleged the politician took bribes from arms dealers…his anthem sung by loyal followers is translated as “bring me my machine gun”. The police chief is linked to a crime boss, who is in turn implicated in a high profile murder, but is favoured by the current president whose days are numbered thanks to
Australia Day (January 26th) – that nationalistic celebration of the First Fleet's landing which Aborigines refer to as “Invasion Day” – is shaping up as a potentially dangerous event in Camden.
The town on Sydney’s south-western outskirts is the site of a proposed Islamic School and a racist backlash against the plans.
A rally held less than a week before Christmas in opposition to the school
My kingdom for an ironing man.
I have a pile of ironing that reaches for the ceiling in my spare room. Much to my Mother-In-Law’s chagrin, I instituted an 'iron-as-you-wear' policy when I moved in with my partner. That was over 18 years ago.
So, when two male detractors lodged a blatantly sexist protest against Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign today with placards bearing the slogan “Iron
So, what are you doing for New Year's Eve?
I’m heading out to a party but I’m also thinking about a journalist whose courage and fearless reporting of South Africa’s evil apartheid regime helped change history and had a formative impact on my journalism.
30 years ago tonight crusading editor, Donald Woods, made a daring escape from South Africa after being banned from writing, speaking
Hello J-Scribers, I'm taking a short break over Christmas but I'll be back raising Hell and exposing myself to more ridicule by New Year's Eve!
Meantime, have a fabulous festive season, don't drink and drive and be sure to stand under the mistletoe for long enough to attract the attention of a smoocher! :)
Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2008!
Hilary Clinton has been reduced to wrinkles in a pants suit. Maxine McKew's skirt is centre stage. What's the show called? "Misogyny in Da House".
I've considered starving the issue - negative media representation of women in politics - of oxygen but this is a problem that clearly needs further public airing.
Why? Because when a woman of Hilary Clinton's character, experience and intelligence
It was an extraordinary week for women in Australian politics.
On the one hand, Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister – albeit in an acting capacity while Kevin Rudd was at the Bali Climate conference. But as she told the Sydney Morning Herald "I think if there's one girl who looks at the TV screen over the the next few days and says 'I might like to do that in the future
This post originally appeared on New Matilda
One of the early casualties of the Howard era was journalism with bite.
At the ABC, evidence of muted reporting and self-censorship emerged quickly as Aunty was harassed by Howard’s henchmen from day one. The National Broadcaster was beaten so viciously with the ‘anti-bias’ stick its managers and editorial staff began to recoil from challenging
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