Issues
Local news, local stories
Pretty Vacant A letter from New York
Are luxury stores the victims of success? Our most fashionable neighbourhoods appear like they’ve been looted: a third of the stores in the heart of the city are empty! This retail rot is a new form of urban blight.
Late for the Sky Gokay Gul documents the endangered birdlife of Sydney Park
“People don’t know how lucky they are,” says the bird man, looking me in the eye. “Because to understand the value of something, you have to take those things from the people’s hands.”
The Youth Are Rising School Strike 4 Climate, Sydney, 15.03.2019
It’s a shock to be reminded of the value of physical action and its energy in a digital age of ‘Likes’. As if in being here, and breathing in the atmosphere, something forgotten about people power is, quite literally, reborn.
Accidents Will Happen What drove me to first aid training
"Kids on bikes behind screeched to a stop as I ran to the crumpled body of a small 13-year-old girl..."
Murder Mystery Mystery Murdered! … or a game of Strip Jack Naked, with Christ and Nicholas Cage
“Must it all be discovered, plundered, colonised? ... I want my wonder left intact.”
Cowabunga Surf, turf, and organ donation on Bondi Beach
The connection between a cattle drive and organ transplants is a bit ambiguous, but I think I get it. When we were kids, my brother had to see a specialist every six months to keep him alive, so my first memories of Sydney are of the long car rides and motion sickness...
Winter in the City All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
I was walking somewhere between Crown and Oxford streets when I got news that my friend had taken his life. The urge to cry began to violently climb my throat. I held it in as best I could; I made it all the way to Taylor Square – then I just let it all out.
Cry in the Night Who do you call when troubled souls haunt your street?
"Kicking someone out of their space at 3am when they’re screaming, what are they going to do? It just didn’t seem conducive to any solution.”
Dealing With It Endometriosis affects one in ten women
Years of suffering and debilitating pain followed, only to be repeatedly told by health professionals that she just had ‘period cramps’ and to learn to ‘deal with it’.
Supply Chains A letter from London
Get this: actual French people are buying their sandwiches from a British shop called Ready to Eat (in French), you can’t get much more globalised than that.
A Hygienic Visit to the Pizza Shop Moments in Time
"Ugh, this is luke warm..."
Rage Against the State Machine Keep Sydney Open wants in the House
The anti-lockout advocacy group Keep Sydney Open has announced it will run 15-20 candidates in both houses come the next NSW state elections.
Death of a Seaman Maritime incidents on our coast
On Sunday, 3 June 2018 – just 17 kilometres east of Cronulla – an electrical officer aboard the Singapore-flagged OOCL Kuala Lumpur was crushed to death.
Scream Time or Screen Time? To save your child you need first to save yourself
“The way we give our kids smartphones and tablets to shut them up is not so different from the days when we freely gave children laudanum to keep them subdued.”