It is an excellent question: ‘What would Tom think?’ Professor Tom Parry AM (1945-2024), economics professor, raconteur, businessman, and regulator, who was laid to rest at the end of May, was a rarity. A sharp mind who made economic rationalism understandable, popular, and effective.
Jeremy Jones (1958-2023), prominent community leader, interfaith activist, scholar, writer, Rabbitohs barracker, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council director, past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, father, husband, mentor, and mensch, singularly contributed to modern Australia.
Rare is the book that with verve, clarity, enthusiasm, and authority establishes the claim that a thinker demands reappraisal and even celebration.
The presence of members of Jewish, Orthodox Christian, and various Protestant denominations at the funeral indicated that this was no ordinary man. “Even if you cry your eyes out, don’t worry; he was worth every tear,” the Bishop of Wollongong, The Most Rev. Brian Mascord, said in his homily.
What it means to be human is being reinvented. There is something new today about relationships, within families, with friends, in workplaces, in communities, within society.
John Richard Caldon, investment banker and entrepreneur, who died of complications of lung cancer on Tuesday 16 February, arguably had the greatest impact on Australia of any Yorkshireman since Captain Cook.
Australia’s political culture, as with western ruling elites generally, with the partial exception of the United States, is becoming more secular. Yet the world is becoming more religious. Faith still registers strongly in western societies. (Even in Australia, though the trend is clear, a clear majority still identify as Christian, though this is dropping.)
The Ramsay Centre is in the headlines again with news about the discussions with the University of Queensland on a major in western civilisation studies as an option in the university’s Bachelor of Arts degree. UQ intends to run a course which would teach text about the impact of the West on Aboriginal people.
Philippe Paquet’s Simon Leys Navigator Between Worlds is the first book length biography of the author, sinologist, and critic Pierre Ryckmans (1935-2014) who published under the pseudonym Simon Leys. A splendid achievement, on literary, philosophical, historical, and interpretative perspectives, this is arguably the finest ever account of any Australian.
Visiting accountant turned property investor Kate Braybrook and building tradie husband Mark, who have relocated from Melbourne. Looked at 20 growing US cities before picking Austin, capital of Texas.