Tag A Sense of Place Magazine
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
By Colin Chapman Harold Evans had an indefatigable role in encouraging and expanding coverage of international affairs in the publications he edited and in the books he published. He also had great enthusiasm for hiring and fostering well-trained Australian journalists…. Continue Reading →
By Michael West “Australians know there is no money tree,” said Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg at the apogee of the coronavirus in May. But there is. The Reserve Bank is creating money out of thin air. It’s called QE. Michael West reports… Continue Reading →
From TOTT News Draconian enforcement powers have become commonplace in Victoria since the beginning of the coronavirus ‘pandemic’, and are set to continue with the passing of the Omnibus Bill. Now, after blocking a business from opening their doors this… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits Should Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, leader of Australia’s second most populist state, resign? Should his NSW counterpart, Premier Gladys Berejiklian? The chances are that each of these paragons of morality and competence has covered up the truth… Continue Reading →
By Nicholas Cowdery with Pearls and Irritations The Australian prison population has doubled since 2000 and recidivism is at 55%. Yet almost all categories of crime have fallen in the past decade. Why do we spend $3.6 billion a year… Continue Reading →