Features Australia
Reggae, Ramsay and Beethoven
The recent news that the form of music known as Reggae is to be added to the Unesco world heritage…
Virtue versus vague values
Which is preferable: values or virtues? The question might appear overly academic and of little relevance but how it is…
Churchill, Orwell and, er, Shorten
There probably is some depth of yet-to-be imagined perfidy Malcolm Turnbull or his son, Alex, will descend to before the…
Australian books
There is the feeling that after ten years of political failures and assorted cultural nonsense the community is yearning for…
Tyranny of the T-bone
While England was in the middle of tearing itself apart during the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and his fellow puritans…
The bishop thrown under the bus
Philip Wilson should be a hero to everyone who cares about justice. With little encouragement beyond the determination to prove…
From red-shirts to red shoes
Maybe like Dorothy of the ruby red shoes former foreign minister Julie Bishop is hoping that the scarlet stilettos she…
Slippery oil industry
When oil prices spiked to $US140 ($A193.85) a barrel in 2008, veteran analysts declared that prices would reach $US200 or…
Show me the man…
‘Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime,’ secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria assured the equally loathsome mass-murderer…
Making a hash of the climate debate
According much of the media, last Friday’s climate change ‘strike’ staged by school students across Australia was an epoch-making moment…
Sleight of hand of the ‘moderates’
Ever heard of the wonderful American magician team of Penn & Teller? My son and I saw them in Vegas…
Life tips for getting ahead in the modern era
Malcolm Fraser said life wasn’t meant to be easy and then went and joined the Greens anyway. So here are…
Battle of Britain, MkII
The European Union has never tolerated democracy. It preaches it to its member states and lectures about it to the…
Quit Paris, halve migration
The Victorian election demonstrates a desperate need for powerful leadership based on principle, something last seen in the 2013 Abbott…
The waffly centre won’t hold
I am writing this the morning after the Liberal party’s election fiasco in Victoria. And yet again we have more…
Cursed by their own art
Why do all our favourite, talented (e.g. Jim Carrey, Richard Gere), much acclaimed film stars (e.g. Meryl Streep, Sally Field)…
We don’t need no enculturation
What is the purpose of education? The question is rarely asked as school funding dominates the debate along with the…
‘Til we build Jerusalem
The two most commonly heard observations by Australians who visit Israel are firstly, that the country does not resemble the…
Business/Robbery etc
An act of utter corporate bastardry – but there was no alternative. When the Commonwealth Bank’s new duo of chairman…
Churchill’s shameful heirs
It would be difficult to imagine a more cowardly and contemptible action, or one heavier with the promise of long-term…
Aux bien pensants
Next year in Jerusalem Scott Morrison has no alternative now but to move the Australian Embassy from Tel Aviv to…
Terror’s wet nurse
There is a famous fable that if you threw a frog into a pot of hot water it would immediately…
LGBTIQX-men
Stan Lee’s contribution to modern pop culture was nearly without comparison. His creations in the pages of Marvel Comics –…
My plan for a new Korea
Trump does not nibble, he leaps, to high ground or low. North Korea is an issue ripe for a Trump…
Illuminating
The Bruce Munro interview