Photo by Nicholas Swatz on Pexels.com In a July 9 opinion piece in the Sydney morning Herald, we meet this shouty headline: Left’s identity crisis means Dutton can be a champion for equality. The piece is by the ex Liberal Senator George Brandis; he doesn't disappoint us with opinions we'd never expected from him. Let's … Continue reading A hopefully comic interlude interrogating one of Mr. Brandis’s opinion pieces
Category: Democracy
Community matters
What do you do to be involved in the community? I belong to the local tennis and table tennis clubs and help out with fund raising and clean up days. I play an instrument [not as well as I'd like] in the local community band. I attend many local events, agitate for change where I … Continue reading Community matters
Compulsory voting is a good thing
Do you vote in political elections? In Australia compulsory voting in federal state and local government elections is mandated. I think this is in general a good thing.
On reading ‘Strangers in their own land’ by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Trump spoke – falsely, I’ll say – to these people. That is why they voted for him. Why they would vote for him again in 2024, should he run.
Thoughts on reading ‘Strangers in their own land’ by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Neoliberalism and the self-harm faithful People of the earth [Part III] Louisiana is the major ground for Hochschild’s research. There, most of the people she meets – and gets to like –are hunters, fishers, cookers of their catch; lovers, ostensibly, of nature. And yet, tales of environmental woe [NATURE DESPOILED] abound in their world: ‘But … Continue reading Thoughts on reading ‘Strangers in their own land’ by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Thoughts on reading ‘Strangers in their own land’ by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Neoliberalism and the self-harm faithful PART II - The Great Paradox What Arlie Russell Hochschild calls the "Great Paradox" might itself spring from our difficulty in determining exactly what POPULISM is [or of what political wing; right or left, it is]. Populism has been both of or at least partially of the ‘left’ – the … Continue reading Thoughts on reading ‘Strangers in their own land’ by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Commentary on ‘Strangers in Their Own Land’
Neoliberalism and the self-harm faithful An introduction I’ve been exercising what passes for my mind with THE GREAT DIVIDE that currently occupies much of the debate about the state of the [American] nation. Forgive my anything but slick allusion to that address given by the US president, but it’s almost incumbent on anyone with an … Continue reading Commentary on ‘Strangers in Their Own Land’
Sky and the sounding of Trumpian clarions
Political commentary Sky Australia’s RWNJ crew are arguing, just two days after the electoral blueblood bath that was Labor's (& a Greens/Teals') win, that the Liberal Party needs to shift even further to the right. (See this Guardian article.) My first thoughts are that we are indeed becoming more of an underpopulated America than ever. … Continue reading Sky and the sounding of Trumpian clarions
Regarding statistics, floods and the public nuisance that social media can be
The Guardian asks: "Are eastern Australia’s catastrophic floods really a one-in-1,000 year event? Describing a flood as a one-in-1,000-year event doesn’t mean we won’t see another one until the year 3000. Photograph: Bradley Richardson/Australian Defence Force/AFP/Getty Images Scientists say describing floods as ‘one-in-1,000-year’ events can mislead the public about the probability of such disasters recurring" On … Continue reading Regarding statistics, floods and the public nuisance that social media can be
On humanity and the lack of it
To the extent the government is exercising compassion now, it is compassion driven by the bad publicity it is suffering...
Inkstained fingers 