Arts and Sport
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Ice Hockey Australia branded antisemitic as it red flags Melbourne tournament
Ice Hockey Australia’s decision to withdraw from hosting a lower-tier men’s world championship event citing safety concerns, has been denounced by Jewish and Israeli organisations as antisemitic, yet there’s no evidence of this. What is evident is that red flags are now appearing when Israeli national teams seek to participate in international sporting events. Continue reading »
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Albert Littler – Master Painter, trade union leader and activist
Albert Littler, a Master Painter, senior union official of the OPDU and CFMEU, and fierce advocate for the industrial rights of painters and decorators, died in September 2024, after years of suffering with asbestosis. Among Albert’s many claims to notoriety were headlines in the Herald Sun calling him an Art Bully and that he was Continue reading »
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Albanese drops the ball on rugby league diplomacy with PNG
In his acceptance speech after Labor won the 2022 election, Anthony Albanese promised to look after disadvantaged and vulnerable citizens. During the cost of living crisis over the past two years he told people he felt their pain and had their backs. Continue reading »
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Chinese dance spectacular, Shen Yun faces allegations of child trafficking and abuse
As Shen Yun gears up for its annual multi-million-dollar tour of Australia, the U.S.-based Chinese dance group is facing a class action lawsuit for multiple counts of child trafficking, abusive practices and breaching a slew of U.S. labour laws. Continue reading »
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Pedalling for Israel is peddling genocide
Unfortunately the Australian Friends of Palestine Association’s campaign to ensure that an Israeli team is not registered for any events in the International Cycling World Tour 2025 and especially in the South Australian Santos Tour Down Under has not met with success. Continue reading »
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BBC goes full Goebbels in support of Israeli soccer hooligans
“IDF will fuck the Arabs!”, “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans chanting on 8 November, as reported by The Times of Israel. Yet the BBC just compared them to Jewish victims of the Nazi pogroms. Why this story matters is because of the outsized Continue reading »
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Country town showcases world-standard young pianists
Every two years, a musical feat of world standard is achieved by a young Australian in an unlikely Victorian country town. Shepparton, home of irrigation and stone fruit, population almost 70,600, or an average AFL crowd, hosts it. Continue reading »
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Jack Iverson was, my father often told me, the finest bowler to whom he ever kept
Playing against England, in the home Ashes series of 1950–51, Iverson led the Australian bowling averages with 21 wickets at 15.24 runs per wicket. Bamboozling the Poms, in one Test he got 6 for 27. A little known fact is that Jack Iverson’s highest score in all five Tests was 1 not out. Continue reading »
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Anxious Democrat voters find new ways to self-medicate as election looms
Standing in the tiny foyer of a small theatre that had seen better days on a residential street in inner-city Philadelphia, I asked a fellow theatre-goer standing next to me, “Are you looking forward to some comic relief?” Continue reading »
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Jayson Gillham files legal action against MSO, launches crowdfunding campaign
Melbourne, October 2024 – Acclaimed Australian-British pianist Jayson Gillham has filed legal proceedings against the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) in the Federal Court of Australia, following the controversial cancellation of his performance in August. Gillham has also initiated a crowdfunding campaign to support his legal costs in this fight for artistic freedom and free speech. Continue reading »
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Showing one’s stripes: The MSO’s treatment of Jayson Gillham
Organisational management, especially when it comes to large entities, has little to recommend it. Arrange the schedules. Pamper sponsors and behave simperingly. Ensure a diet of pills to null the embarrassment. Mind the assets and fret over the brand. Sigh over ledgers and order spreadsheets. Continue reading »
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Melbourne Symphony Orchestra strikes the wrong note on Gaza
A well-known Australian band, The Cat Empire, has decided not to perform three shows scheduled with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra over the treatment meted out to Australian-British classical pianist Jayson Gillham. Continue reading »
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Will the real Olympic cheats please stand up
Because they are no longer the top dog in the Olympics, the US now wants to expand its kinetic and trade wars into the sporting arena, or at least the anti-drugs section of the sporting arena. Continue reading »
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The Olympic Games are not neutral and often used for non-sporting political and cultural purposes as the Paris Opening showed
I’ve never been a fan of the Olympics, although I occasionally check to see how Australia is going on the medal tally. I watched a bit of the opening extravaganza – it certainly wasn’t a “ceremony” – but got bored with Gallic self-importance, so I missed the Last Supper parody with a drag queen representing Continue reading »
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Why US politicians are picking on Chinese Olympic swimmers
As with Washington’s routine attempts to challenge all things Chinese as well as global multilateral agencies, its row with the World Anti-Doping Agency is par for the course. Continue reading »
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Why I’m not in the mood for the Olympic hurrah
The latest Essential poll published in Tuesday’s online Guardian revealed that a whopping third of those polled would, if given the chance, vote for the Mango Mussolini (the Donald). This is concerning. But it’s worse than first appears. Along with the dispiriting response to the Voice – based largely on conspiracy theories, lies and dog-whistling Continue reading »
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Afghanistan women’s cricket team seeks recognition
Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan almost three years ago, women’s sport has been cast into darkness there. Continue reading »
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Afghanistan’s underdogs upsetting the established order
One of the charms of sport is seeing underdogs upsetting the established order by overcoming teams they seemingly have no chance of beating. All sports have examples of such upsets. Long-term realities about relative strengths can fall in the short run. Ah, the glorious uncertainty of sport! Continue reading »
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Siding with the oppressors: WOMAD defends Ziggy Marley, ‘uninvites’ Palestinian artists
Two significant acts invited to play WOMADelaide 2024 have been treated in vastly different ways in recent months by the Director, Ian Scobie. Continue reading »
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Street play: A thing of the past?
We’d cross a long rope across the street and I used to have a dozen kids skipping down there. Even Mrs Munro came out – seventeen stone and she had no shoes on. She’d come out and skip. Continue reading »
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Day X approaches: Your silence is compliance
Where are all our rock stars? The battle for your freedom is raging. Led by Australia’s own Julian Assange, from behind his grey cell walls. Day X, Julian’s final appeal (20-21st Feb 24), is just around the corner and the global community rally behind him to make sure his keepers know the whole world is Continue reading »
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The power of play
A while ago I was – reluctantly – watching some television footage about the catastrophe in Gaza. To my amazement, a fleeting image appeared of two little girls, about 7 or 8, playing a hand-clapping game. I don’t know what nationality the girls were, or the location of their play. They could have been Israeli Continue reading »
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When celebrated dissidents find the grass isn’t greener on the other side
Ai Weiwei joins a long line of dissenters such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Liu Xiaobo who became disenchanted by the West. Continue reading »
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The Khawaja Debacle: Freedom of expression for the Boxing Day test?
Usman Khawaja played an important batting role in Australia’s recently finished demolition of Pakistan in the first Test in Perth. The ongoing controversy, however, around his writings on his cricket boots and black armband as a protest display have raised questions about the relations of sport and politics and the role of sporting and other Continue reading »
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“It is vital for us not to look away”: Louise Adler on the place of politics in the arts
“The world looked away during the World War, and Jews, 6 million of our people, were murdered in that looking away… It is incumbent upon humanity to look at what is happening in Gaza now and to say we will not accept this. We will say no. Not in our name.” – Louise Adler Continue reading »
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The musician and the soldier: Two revolutionary lives
A frontline medic writes of two individuals she met in Kayah State, whose stories exemplify the diverse ways Myanmar’s youth are contributing to, and sacrificing for, the revolution. Continue reading »
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In praise of Afghanistan’s cricketers
Much has been written about the International Cricket Council’s World Cup competition being played in India, but relatively few of the words have been about the incredible achievements of the Afghanistan team. Against a backdrop of poverty, war, political turbulence and natural disasters, the team performed magnificently. Continue reading »
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In the beginning was the word – and the word was UWRF
Indonesia’s expanding dark side was hardly noticed by festival audiences at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF). But for all his domestic popularity, Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo is no reformist liberal. Continue reading »
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In the Chinese new era, what’s new is old
Industrial transformation has accelerated China’s rise as a global power. In the New Era, which was officially recognised in the Chinese national constitution in 2017, the narrative of national rejuvenation is writ large: it underpins the Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and China’s various soft power campaigns. Continue reading »
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While Australia votes, India-Pakistan cricket is downstream of politics
On 14 October, my attention will wander between three unconnected stories as they unfold in real time. I will be in New Zealand on that general election date. Polls indicate the Labour government will be replaced by a centre-right coalition. But the peculiarities of the electoral system make election results and the outcome of post-election Continue reading »
