Arts and Sport
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Dear times and costly cricket: Australia’s Sri Lankan Tour
For a country experiencing its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948, the picture of a touring team pampered and fussed over might cause consternation. But the Australian cricket tour to Sri Lanka has only been met by praise from the country’s cricket officials, where logic is inverted, and the gaze of responsibility averted. Continue reading »
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Michael Edwards-The unfortunate irrelevance of the arts in Australia
Objective and anecdotal evidence shows that activity in the Australian arts sector declined significantly during the pandemic. Performances closed, venues shut, exhibitions were cancelled and many artists were forced to abandon their artistic careers — hopefully temporarily. The sector’s demise produced the occasional news item, but otherwise it has aroused little reaction from the public Continue reading »
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In sport and in society, women eclipse the antics of boorish males
While women display their abilities in fields monopolised by men, people in power not only allow these talents to be wasted but actively inhibit them. Continue reading »
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Cricket cannot afford to go back to the bad old days of abuse
Bored by the lack of an Ashes contest, past players are creating mischief by calling for a return to sledging. These calls must be rejected. Continue reading »
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Bad sport: harsh training regimes amount to human rights abuses
The International Olympic Committee should step up to protect athletes from brutal treatment while training for elite competition. Continue reading »
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Beijing Winter Olympics boycott is a hollow gesture
A boycott of the Winter Olympics serves no real purpose — history shows that Olympic boycotts in the name of human rights abuses are ineffectual. Continue reading »
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Squid Game: what the subtitles don’t tell you
Eight cultural specificities in Squid Game explained to help you do business, build stronger relationships and succeed in Korea. Continue reading »
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The new magazine publishing the best podcast interviews in print
Introducing The Podcast Reader, a new magazine for the intellectually curious that features select transcripts from the world’s best long-form podcasts. Continue reading »
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The counter-revolution that AFL needs
This weekend’s AFL Grand Final is only the seventh time that the finals series hasn’t included one of the great four: Carlton, Collingwood Richmond and Hawthorn since 1925. Continue reading »
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The documentary trying to build a democracy movement in Australia
In an entertaining, new documentary, Craig Reucassel is working with the Australian Democracy Network in trying to help build a healthy democracy that is more fair, balanced, accountable and participatory. Continue reading »
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Children of Coal: my mother’s story
Judith White grew up in the north of England when it still ran on coal. Her new memoir has her mother Joan at its centre. Continue reading »
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Doing the heavy lifting: Australians’ obsession with a metaphor
The Americans have been doing metaphorical heavy lifting since the 1930s. Before that heavy lifting was something done by people, such as wharfies or weight lifters, or machines, such as cranes. Continue reading »
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Summer games in Tokyo – the Paralympics
The current Paralympic Games are being carried out in the context of the dual crises facing Japan. Continue reading »
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Resilience via poetry, a South Sudanese story
Behind the stay-at-home Covid restrictions, the mental health of thousands is threatened. Cries for help multiply. To virus induced threats, including isolation if schools and universities stay closed, migrants must also deal with the trauma of past events plus the stigma of not always feeling accepted in a new country. Like Achol Arop. Continue reading »
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Paper, web-page, rock
We are madly digitising all the published materials we can get our hands on, but technophile Geoff Ebbs has an insight into the ephemeral nature of our digital obsession. Continue reading »
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White privilege in sport runs deep, including the Olympics.
Racist abuse experienced by Black England players is the tip of the iceberg and our response must go deeper and wider and shine a light on white privilege, in the global sports industry. Continue reading »
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Has the lesson of Guernica been forgotten?
Eighty four years ago, the much loved Spanish artist Pablo Picasso made a statement about war through a mural called Guernica named after the Basque town that bore that name. Have we forgotten his message? Continue reading »
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I weep for India, and those left behind
I will never again see India in the same light, once a place of excitement, vibrancy and opportunity. Its people are hurting at depths we will never understand. In my heart I may never forgive myself for what I’ve done. Continue reading »
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Standard piano keys are too wide for too many. But alternatively sized keyboards are on the way.
The piano is the instrument most preferred by music students. It is often the instrument of their dreams: playing beautiful music perfectly and displaying extraordinary pianistic athleticism. However, the conventional keyboard – with its fixed key width – is unsuitable for many, dooming them to a future of unmet hopes. We can’t change our hands Continue reading »
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Dismantling global white privilege: Book by Chandran Nair-Equity for a post-western world
One of the few uplifting political trends of the past decade has been the growing strength of movements for gender equality and, even more surprisingly, the demand for racial justice. But a higher-level structure of discrimination governs both racism and sexism: The global dominance of a white power elite in virtually every arena of human Continue reading »
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Infrastructure Australia should be abolished
A review of Infrastructure Australia risks putting the cart in front of the horse. It should consider whether the organisation should exist. Continue reading »
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Nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference in historical context
The Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is underway at the UN in New York. The record of the treaty is not perfect but it is the major persisting arms control agreement. If peace means a continuing negotiating process with the other, as President Kennedy asserted, we need more of this. Continue reading »
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Defence reviews; what are they good for?
It is essential that the new Defence review not degenerate into the usual ritualistic orthodoxy. In these perilous times it cannot be allowed to become a narrow, jargon-laden, orthodox military consideration but must situate Australia’s strategy and military posture in the context of the important foreign policy issues. Continue reading »
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Remarks on the Australia-China divide at the AsiaLink launch of Happy Together, by David Walker and Li Yao.
The juxtaposition and interweaving of life stories from Australia and China make for endlessly fascinating reading. Continue reading »
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Keeping them honest: A book review
This book Keeping Them Honest: the case for a genuine national integrity commission and other vital democratic reforms puts solidly the case for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission known in the trade I’m told as a CIC. Continue reading »
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“South Flows the Pearl” Book launch speech about Chinese Australian voices
Chinese people have been in this country almost as long as the British. …Unfortunately, from the 1980s on, following an increase in immigration from Hong Kong, South-East Asia and mainland China, there have been new waves of racism, so that even today the Chinese community still feels marginalised. Continue reading »
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Crossword clues and bullying: the almighty power of the Australian pro-Israel lobby
The influence of Colin Rubenstein and his lobby group does not just limit what mainstream media outlets dare publish, it forces self-censorship on editors and journalists alike, writes John Lyons in his latest book. Continue reading »
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Review: The shock, horror and rage of Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces
Respected journalist Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces is imperative reading for its detonating exposé of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan and the systematic cover-ups at varying levels of the Australian Defence Force operations. Continue reading »
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Answers to Trump questions about attacking China and Iran
The question of who would tell Trump the truth when needed and who would stop him if he tried to go to war with anyone became increasingly urgent as his presidency unfolded. On the matter of war, we now know the answer. Continue reading »
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Misreading Dark Emu
Criticisms of the book Dark Emu and its author, Bruce Pascoe, continue to appear, and to become more puzzling. It is as if the overwhelming popularity of Pascoe and his message have disturbed comfortable convictions about Australian history shared across a wide segment of Australian society. Continue reading »
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Review: ‘Human Kind’ by Rutger Bregman
What a marvellous book! A powerful refutation of one of the most deeply entrenched and mistaken assumptions built into our taken-for-granted world view that human nature is nasty. Continue reading »
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Bringing ‘the Doc’ to the masses – review of Gideon Haigh’s new book
H. V. Evatt could be a massively polarising figure and that is more than unfortunate. It has closed many minds to what we should be celebrating and promulgating as true Australian values. Those values – not merely espoused, but judicially declared and enacted by and because of Evatt – are in evidence throughout Gideon Haigh’s Continue reading »
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Ships in the Night: A Vietnam war story, by Greg Dodds
Greg Dodds’ career began as a professional Australian soldier who served as an intelligence officer with the Australian Task Force in Vietnam in the late 1960s. In this racy 200-page monograph, Dodds disposes with scholarly requirements – no footnotes, no glossary, no reading list or sources. To appreciate its full context, the reader should have Continue reading »
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