The announcement that the Olympics will accept transgender athletes is set to raise a host of issues, particularly in contact sports, including the Australian Football League (AFL).   But first the Olympics.   Since 2004 male-to-female transgender athletes have been allowed in the Olympics after surgery and two years of hormone therapy. But they will be allowed in the Rio Olympics without surgery,…

For Sister Pauline Fitz-Walter All speaking needs this meaning, God is love: To breathe this sentence into breaths of life Through all conjunctions – to the heart of strife, Perfects believing, or attracts the Dove. The words are twigs of olive, topping the grove, Angelic fingers that prevent the knife; Or blood, the secret where the bride’s a wife; They’re water burning red…

Gallipoli may have been the campaign that served as Australia’s initiation to modern warfare, but it was on the Western Front of northern France that the Australian Imperial Force suffered its geatest losses in World War I. Australian troops sheltering from the rain shortly after their arrival in France. The battle of the Somme was a major British offensive orchestrated…

NO OFFENCE INTENDED: Why 18C Is Wrong by Joshua Forrester, Lorraine Finlay and Augusto Zimmermann Connor Court, Redland Bay, 2016 Paperback: 270 pages Price: AUD$29.95   Reviewed by Christopher Brohier, barrister-at-law   No Offence Intended is a strong and scholarly critique of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Commonwealth). Section 18C makes unlawful any act which is likely to offend, insult,…

SECONDHAND TIME: The last of the Soviets, An Oral History by Svetlana Alexievich Translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Paperback: 520 pages Price: AUD$37.95   Reviewed by Jeffry Babb   Russia has a great tradition of literary creation. Russians are said to read more books than any other nation. Writers are the “engineers of the…