While all the chaotic fireworks were exploding from Trump’s Oval Office — from Canada as the 51st State to Gaza as his waterfront Club Med — one little cracker caused barely a flicker of interest in a bedazzled media. (more…)
Robert Macklin
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The egg and I
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they boil an egg for breakfast. I’ve made a study of it. The conservatives wait till the water’s boiling before they put the egg in and hit the three-minute timer. (more…)
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Now, the New Year
In 2024 Democracy narrowly won the prelim on points. Now for the main bout. Its battlespace is the human mind where the contestants are truth and fantasy. If fantasy wins, our species will be decimated, our planet in danger of joining the dead worlds of useless gas and rock we glimpse in the universe around us. Victory for truth heralds a prospect that is truly inspiring – a future of extraordinary progress and achievement.
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Where is Albanese’s grand plan?
Anthony Albanese is feeling the pressure. He reminds me vividly of my biographical subject Kevin Rudd (Penguin 2008) after he lost the vote at the 2009 Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. Instead of pressing his case at home with a double dissolution election, he went to water. Thereafter, his decision-making became so erratic that his caucus rebelled, and Julia Gillard took his place as prime minister. (more…)
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Lest We Forget: Japan joining AUKUS a stark reminder of China’s Century of Humiliation
With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries. (more…)
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Battle of the gods
An older man, grey-haired but quite firm in his manner as he spoke to the ABC TV reporter on Palestine’s West Bank. He was an Israeli, he said, and he was claiming the building site because, ‘God gave us this land.’ (more…)
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If ever a writer and historian were deserving of a Nobel Prize, it’s Henry Reynolds
It is hard to overestimate Henry Reynolds’ influence in the great movement that culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.