How do you define youth? Is it an attitude? An age? A generation?
Often ‘yoof’s’ have a hopeful look in their eye. It’s a wide eyed demeanor, unsullied by disappointment or situations too difficult to easily categorize. Youth is still fresh and tender.
You can spy youth in the little kids who tear around fountains in their undies, tweens awkwardly tripping over themselves while smiling in their braces, the teenager looking scornfully at those who went before and plan how they’re like, totally going to do it differently and those in their twenties start building their new lives on their own on their first solo trips to Ikea.
Less obviously, you can also get a whiff of youth from the Grandma with the cheeky attitude, the Dad who gets down on the floor to play with his kids and when grown ups let their dignity drop for a brief moment to have some fun.
If we can identify and appreciate a young attitude maybe we’ll be able to do what the songs says and stay forever young.
Last year I went to North Korea. It can take people half a moment to register exactly where I went when I tell them. ‘You went where!?’ they yelp. North Korea is considered the scariest of the so called ‘axis of evil’ nations and isn’t the usual travel destination for 25 year old Australian females.
I went with the Rev. John Barr, from UnitingWorld, the international relationships arm of the Uniting Church. Part of his portfolio is responsibility for a very unusual project – an aid project to a town in the far north east of North Korea.
The project has been set up and run by two quietly heroic and deeply kind individuals – the Hong’s. Mr & Mrs Hong originally hail from South Korea but had been living happily in Melbourne for some years. With their three sons grown and successful in their chosen fields, the Hong’s and their church, the Melbourne Korean Uniting Church, approached UnitingWorld with a daring proposal – to set up an orphanage in North Korea.
In the far north east of North Korea, the winters are bitterly cold. So cold Russia’s main port of Vladivostok freezes over. China has no access to the Sea of Japan (or as the North Koreans call it – the East Sea) so North Korea and their warm water port of Rason is left with a rare economic advantage.
This book is, quite simply, ravishingly beautiful. Just to look at it and the exquisite animal art inside it is a pleasure.
Gibson has collected some of the thoughtful writing about beasts; lions, tigers and bears included, and strung them together as a reflection on the wilderness. His selection is wonderfully diverse and covers poetry, prose, myth and travel writing.
Written as a companion piece for The Bedside Book of Birds, it is meant as a bedside tome to reflect on before descending into dreams.
After the murder of her husband and the public rape of her daughters, Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni (an English tribe) very nearly drove the Romans from Britain; Pocahontas left her country and culture for an utterly unknown world; Mrs Packhurst demanded votes for women in a society whose patriarchy seemed unassailable, Hilary Clinton famously put "about 18 million cracks" in the glass ceiling and Oprah Winfrey, born into poverty and abuse, now reigns supreme in media and influence. These women fought for their fame and successes and fought hard.
But why don’t we see more female success stories? Why are there still so few female leaders? Why is there still pay inequality? Why do so many women spend their (shortened) lives in grinding poverty? Why are children still sold in marriage? Why don’t we have universal education and the assurance of true equal opportunity? While the answers to these questions are complex, one thing is clear: there is work still to be done. Equality is not here, feminism is still needed and we all need to face some uncomfortable truths.
The world's most famous places of worship are laden with a rich history of the great masters of visual art.
Michelangelo’s fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican is viewed by thousands of tourists every day.
The Vatican museum has one of the most impressive art collections in the world, with the Catholic church commissioning many great works of art throughout history.
One wall of the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, boasts Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco The Last Supper. But these days our Churches seem almost void of visual art.
Eating Animals Jonathan Safran Foer Hamish Hamilton rrp $32.95
By Amy Goodhew
I didn’t want to read this book. I was happy, blissfully ignorant in fact, reveling in the occasional bacon binge and guilt free meat lovers pizza. I enjoyed Safran Foer’s earlier work ‘Everything is Illuminated’ so I clicked on a link when I read that his latest work had turned Natalie Portman vegan. What she had to say about the book was powerful and frankly - I was spooked. What did this book say that was so powerful about what we eat?
I’ve just returned from a trip to Christmas Island to see first hand how asylum seekers arriving by boat first experience Australia. The spike in boat arrivals in Australia in the past 6 months represents the tiny tip of the massive worldwide refugee crisis. Countries in other parts of the world are looking askance at what they regard as a mean-spirited Australian response to the crisis. Compared with many other countries we are simply not carrying our share of the load.
Our delegation of church leaders wanted to explore how churches and other religious communities in Australia might join with voluntary and not-for-profit groups and compassionate locals to help humanize the strange and artificial world of Christmas Island Detention Centre for those on the inside.
FACT: Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change.
FACT: Australia has one of the highest incidences of pet ownership in the world with 63% of the 7.5 million households in Australia pet owners.
FACT: When fishing for tuna, 145 other species are regularly killed including manta ray, sharks, albatrosses, gulls, common dolphin, humpback whale and many, many others.
What do these facts have in common? They all relate to our complex and contradictory relationships with animals and food.
A joint project between the National Geographic Channel and Channel 4 has used advanced high definition cameras to capture animals and embryos during pregnancy and birth. They used infrared and 4-D scanning techniques, as well as realistic computer-generated models. We thought this was sufficiently incredible to pass onto you to enjoy the magic that is conception, gestation and birth.
Thinking globally and acting locally is something we’re become more familiar with. More and more of us are thinking a little harder about where we spend our money. Rather than buying the apples that are snap frozen, impregnated with pesticides, sand imported from who knows where - we buy local, fresh and organic. It’s sinking in that it’s better not to leave all the appliances running when not actually in the house, that we don’t need to drive when we could walk. What once was radical now seems just sensible. This way of thinking is extending to how we dress. People would prefer not to wear clothes put together by exploited and poorly paid people and the fashion industry is responding. Natalie Shymko looks at the growing industry of ethical fashion.
