A Sense of Place Magazine

Beautifully written stories on politics, social movements, photography and books

Page 41 of 55

Vintage Year for the Wealthy: COVID-19 Widens Gap Between Rich and Poor

By Tasha May with Michael West Media Executive bonuses inflated by JobKeeper, rising property and share prices, tax cuts for the wealthy. What’s not to like about 2020 for the top end of town? Tasha May takes a closer look at how… Continue Reading →

Yet Another Major Escalation In Establishment Internet Censorship

By Caitlin Johnstone YouTube, whose corporate owner Google is arguably the most powerful company on earth, is now deleting user videos which claim the US election was fraudulent. YouTube’s official statement on its decision to do this is very revealing, not so much for what… Continue Reading →

Alfred W. McCoy: What I Learnt From Fifty Years of Writing About Drugs

We live in a time of change, when people are questioning old assumptions and seeking new directions. In the ongoing debate over health care, social justice, and border security, there is, however, one overlooked issue that should be at the… Continue Reading →

New Lockdowns and More Regulations Are Disastrous for US Jobs

By Daniel Lacalle United States jobless claims have picked up, since the elections and the second wave of coronavirus have slowed down the economic recovery. Uncertainty about tax increases and changes in labor laws, including an increase in the minimum wage, add… Continue Reading →

The Persecution of Cardinal George Pell

By Paul Collits There was a pleasant surprise in the mail a few weeks back, when a new book arrived.  It was a book that I had not anticipated, though perhaps I should have.  It is The Persecution of George Pell,… Continue Reading →

Anyone Laughing Has Not Heard The News. Vale Mungo MacCallum.

By Tony Smith with Pearls and Irritations In 2001 I reviewed Mungo MacCallum’s memoir ‘The Man Who Laughs’ (AQ 73(6), Nov-December). Although this entertaining writer appeared to have retired from political commentary, I, like so many readers, was thankful that… Continue Reading →

I’m An Astronomer and I Think Aliens May Be Out There

By Chris Impey If intelligent aliens visit the Earth, it would be one of the most profound events in human history. Surveys show that nearly half of Americans believe that aliens have visited the Earth, either in the ancient past… Continue Reading →

The Hexagon of Tyranny

By Paul Collits We are facing a six-headed monster of tyranny.  Freedom is on the line, as Western, so-called democratic governments have trashed our basic human rights.  How much do we know, or care? The West now faces a hexagon… Continue Reading →

A Million Previously Undiscovered Galaxies Beyond the Milky Way

By Aidan Hotan, CSIRO Astronomers have mapped about a million previously undiscovered galaxies beyond the Milky Way, in the most detailed survey of the southern sky ever carried out using radio waves. The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (or RACS) has… Continue Reading →

Can It Get Worse After Trump?

By Alison Broinowski with Pearls and Irritations When Joe Biden is in the White House and Donald Trump is back in his tower or at his resort, some things about the Trump years will be missed. As newly elected leaders… Continue Reading →

From Brittle Stars Grows a ‘Tree of Life’: How Genes Trace Life on Earth

By Tim O’Hara, Museums Victoria A complete tree of life – showing how and when organisms are related to each other – has long been desired by biologists, but obscured by the vagaries of the fossil record. Now, next-generation gene… Continue Reading →

Testing….. Hubble

Panorama of the Milky WayCredit: Kelvin Hennessy https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=156622327066353&set=a.149603584434894 Sh2-157 (Lobster Claw Nebula / Hummerscherennebel) in Cassiopeia & CepheusCredit: Josef Pöpsel, Frank Sackenheim, Stefan BinnewiesLocation: Capella Observatory at Skinakas, Crete/Greece,robotic (with babysitting from Bad Arolsen/Germany)Date: September, 2022 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=158017963593456&set=a.149603584434894 IC 405 (also… Continue Reading →

Profiting From Covid – The New Growth Industry

By Paul Collits Welcome to the Covid economy.  Depleted incomes, smashed small businesses, bullshit jobs, a whole new platform for crony capitalism, deserted main streets.  What’s not to love? Not many businesses and industries are growing in 2020.  Main Street… Continue Reading →

Prehistoric Microbes Rewrite One Of Earth’s Mass Extinctions

By Kliti Grace and Calum Peter Fox, Curtin University Chemical clues left behind by humble microbes have rewritten the timeline of one of the biggest mass extinction events in Earth’s history. The so-called “end-Triassic mass extinction”, thought to have occurred… Continue Reading →

Real World Drawing: Dobell Biennial

By Ari Chand Why do drawers draw? Drawing is historically connected to creative practice, but also truth and accuracy. It helps materialise story and culture, perhaps because it’s often the fastest way to get an idea down on paper. But… Continue Reading →

Public Schools Abandoned For The Elite

By Trevor Cobbold with Michael West Media With its favouritism of funding wealthy Independent and Catholic schools, the Morrison Government has completed the demolition of the Gonski funding model that began with the Abbott and Turnbull governments. Yet public schools… Continue Reading →

The Digital Enablement of Totalitarianism

By Paul Collits The Covid affair of 2020 simply couldn’t have happened a decade ago.  It is a chilling thought that we are only cowering beneath the stare of Big Brother because of tech.  Yes, we are only going through… Continue Reading →

Covid-19: Politicisation, Corruption and Suppression of Science

From the British Medical Journal A scathing editorial on government misuse of Covid-19 to scare, intimidate and confuse populations while distorting the science behind the most over-hyped disease in history has appeared in the prestigious British Medical Journal.  Covid-19 has… Continue Reading →

Australian Sues The Emir of Dubai

Australian Sues The Emir of Dubai Well that’s not a headline you see everyday. But that’s exactly what one Australian has been doing. The story is a complicated one, made more complicated by the passing of time and a long… Continue Reading →

Jacinda, Justin, Joe, Boris and ScMo – A Busted Flush for the Anglosphere

By Paul Collits The Anglosphere faces a crisis of leadership.  The West is now ruled wall-to-wall by second rate ideologues and/or chancers, either determined to change the global order or powerless to prevent the revolution we now face. When the… Continue Reading →

Lives, Livelihoods and Liberties: Lost

By John Stapleton The arrest of 404 people protesting outside Parliament House in Melbourne’s central business district, and the issuing of 395 very punitive fines, has crystallised Australia’s descent into authoritarianism. It is now a simple statement of fact that… Continue Reading →

The Destruction of Australia’s Sacred Djab Wurrung Trees

By Peta Malins, Crystal McKinnon, Kim Kruger and Paola Balla In an open letter, more than 1,200 academics from universities and institutes across Australia have written to the Victorian government to protest against the destruction of Djab Wurrung country as… Continue Reading →

Australian Secret Intelligence Service: The Interviews

By Graeme Dobell with the Australian Strategic Policy For the first time in the 68 year history of Australia’s overseas spy service, the top spy Paul Symon has gone before the camera for a four-part series of video interviews, conducted… Continue Reading →

The Real Story Behind the Invasion of Afghanistan in 2001

By Paul Barrett with Pearls and Irritations In response to the suicide attacks on the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001, the US issued an ultimatum to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime to hand over Osama bin Laden and the other Al… Continue Reading →

We Accidentally Found a Whole New Genus of Australian Daisies

By Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, Research Scientist and Ben Gooden, Plant Ecologist, CSIRO. We accidentally found a whole new genus of Australian daisies. You’ve probably seen them on your bushwalks. When it comes to new botanical discoveries, one might imagine it’s done… Continue Reading →

Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept Resignation Exposes The Rot In All Mass Media

By Caitlin Johnstone Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, world renowned for his much celebrated involvement with whistleblower Edward Snowden, has made major waves throughout mainstream and alternative media by resigning from The Intercept, an outlet he co-founded in 2014… Continue Reading →

Fourteen Years of Brain Pickings

By Maria Popova Brain Pickings was born on October 23, 2006, as a short email to seven friends. Seven years and several incomprehensible million readers into its existence, I began what has since become an annual tradition — a distillation of the… Continue Reading →

Culture of Cosiness: Colossal Conflicts of Interest in Defence Spending Blitz

By Michelle Fahy with Michael West Media In Part 1 of this three-part investigation, Michelle Fahy investigates the corporate influence on government policy and how weapons makers cultivate relationships with politicians and top officials in the public service. Sweeping policy changes by… Continue Reading →

Opal Fossils Point to Giant Dinosaurs on Australian Terrain

By Timothy Frauenfelder and Nicolas Campione, University of New England North-central New South Wales today is known for its arid, drought-prone climate. During the Cretaceous period, however, it was a lush coastal floodplain with a high diversity of vertebrates including… Continue Reading →

The Price of Panic

Those who do not weep, do not see.— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables In 2019, the coronavirus family, which has been causing respiratory disease in millions of humans worldwide every year for millennia, welcomed a new member. The disease it causes,… Continue Reading →

Reignite Democracy Australia

By John Stapleton The group Reignite Democracy Australia has been busily documenting the many government abuses swelling out of Victoria under the most draconian and abusive lockdowns in the world. After weeks of mounting criticisms, all of a sudden Premier… Continue Reading →

A Nothingburger that Changed the World

By Paul Collits The madness of 2020 has changed our lives forever.  We owe it to ourselves to ask how, who and why? Whoever thought that any government would ever claim to have conquered death?  King Canute saw the challenges… Continue Reading →

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