Why shouldn't Facebook block news?
The woke wars have made it clear: celebrities aren’t philosophers
The latest Hollywood cancellation has raised the usual hackles. But the problem is that a vacuum in virtuous authority is…
A reality check for Kevin Rudd
In the days of Kevin Rudd’s rise, The Australian’s late, great Bill Leak used to draw him as Tin-Tin. No…
The West secedes – from reality
Western Australians go to the polls in just over three weeks tomorrow, and despite the recent lockdown flap, Premier Mark…
Facebook gives our already battered creative industries another belting
In response to the proposed media bargaining laws, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have banned Australian publishers from sharing and viewing…
What’s woke this week?
Woke stories have come in from all parts of the globe this week including Pittsburgh, Auckland and England. Read on to…
Facebook follies: Labor can’t tell their arse from their Albo
Labour communications Michelle Rowland, this morning: Make no mistake, the impact of the decision by Facebook today, which has been…
Why shouldn’t Facebook block news?
Facebook warned us in September that they would block news. Today they have followed through on their word and you…
Immunity passports and the the Leviathan of public health despotism
In his recent book Virus e Leviatano, the veteran Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli analyses how coronavirus has led to a form of health despotism replacing the rule of…
Stop the real steal
If you want to get rich, start a religion. L. Ron Hubbard said so and he should know. Failing that, start a…
The EU needs to stop punishing Britain for Brexit
There have always been those on the European side who believe that for the EU project to succeed, Brexit must…
Why are people gloating over Rush Limbaugh’s death?
The gloating over Rush Limbaugh’s death ought to shock the conscience. That’s not a political statement. That’s a cri de coeur about how our basic sense of human decency…
Covid cases have collapsed
Last month, Imperial College’s React study claimed that new cases of Covid were static or even rising slightly. This contradicted…
The ‘Great Reset’ is a globalist power grab
You think things couldn’t get much worse for so-called free speech than Twitter and the rest of the global censors…
Censoring creativity
When the creator of the ‘wall of sound’ died recently, the BBC declared in its headline ‘Talented but flawed producer…
Business/Robbery, etc.
It’s an unintended consequence that poses a major internal threat to the $70 billion Australian coal exports that are a…
Forestry fudging
Under pressure to adopt an essentially meaningless policy, a promise to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, Scott Morrison’s federal…
Hello, darkness
There’s something deeply disturbing going on in America which should concern freedom-loving people everywhere. It has been decades in the…
Sez WHO?
The joint China-World Health Organisation investigation into the origin of the Covid pandemic was always going to be a farce…
Trump: best days yet to come
Any fair minded, objective juror would agree that Donald Trump was never guilty of the high crime for which he…
Andrews vs the Christians
As long as the federal government is awarding Australia Day honours on the basis of individual sporting prowess then Australian…
The Dig
It was gratifying to see such a quiet and impeccably made film as The Dig make it to independent cinemas…
Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo
Second thoughts are sometimes better thoughts. The NSW government had second thoughts about closing down the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo…
Das Rheingold
You could hardly ask for a more exorbitant return to mainstage theatre than a production of the first part, the…
Robyn Nevin
The Adelaide Festival program describes her, accurately, as ‘our finest stage performer’. Robyn Nevin is appearing there (2 Feb-14 Mar)…
In the trenches
I can hardly recall a more engaging and uplifting biography than this life of Major-General William Holmes, who was killed…
A Romeo and Juliet-like tragedy in Uttar Pradesh
In the early hours of 28 May 2014 the bodies of two young girls were found hanging from the branches…
Gabriel Matzneff: the paedophile who hid in plain sight
Until this book was published, Gabriel Matzneff was a respectable man. The French author may have written about his affairs…
The stuff of fiction: Elizabeth Bowen exploits her extra-marital affairs
‘Why, Elizabeth, did you not tell me when we first slept together that you were a virgin?’ This is one…
The true diplomat considers the future more than the present
The 17th-century diplomat Sir Henry Wotton said that an ambassador was ‘an honest man sent to lie abroad for his…
CIA spies lose faith
With its grim John le Carré atmosphere, communist Eastern Europe in the late 1980s was a melancholy, out-at-elbow place. The…
A complex creation myth: Alexandria, by Paul Kingsnorth, reviewed
‘Challenging stuff,’ my wife remarked, having alighted on the page of Paul Kingsnorth’s new novel in which a character named…
Reality and online life clash: No One is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood, reviewed
Some writers — Jane Austen, for example — get to funny sideways, using irony and understatement. The American poet and…