37 Articles

Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Baby Killers
In an era when Geneva is mocked, dissent ineffective and baby killing tolerated, it is strangely perfect that a presidential aspirant and his running mate should have blood on their hands, whether of Vietnamese civilians or an Alaskan Moose.

Sunday, July 27, 2008
Washington comes to Mr Smith
(6 comments) 450 schoolgirls, a transparent blouse, a choral rendition of What a Wonderful World. No wonder Condoleezza Rice says"There is no better friend to the United States than Australia". Right now, probably the only friend.

Friday, June 20, 2008
The Age of Eco Surrealism
"You're all just playing with Climate Change", she said, "you haven't mentioned fences or guns"... or yellow pellets, or fading boomers fiddling with worm farms while sales of Lear Jets soar, or even the age of gothic malice, or eating the rich. So having digested these warnings, have I become clinically depressed?

Saturday, May 31, 2008
STORM IN AN A-CUP
(7 comments) When Sydney police swooped on an upmarket art gallery on the eve of an exhibition of photographs by Australia's internationally renowned artist Bill Henson, pandemonium struck. Photographs of pubescent children were removed by police. The tabloid press applauded the censorship and described the images as "child porn". The gallery owners received death threats.

Thursday, April 17, 2008
PINE GAP MIND GAP: A TERROR CELL THAT NEVER SLEEPS
(4 comments) Four Christian activists were recently put on trial for penetrating Pine Gap, a top secret military base in Central Australia which hosts the largest CIA facility outside the USA. The base provides targeting info to coalition commanders in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, not all of it accurate. Australian citizens remain unaware of their vital role in the "war on terror" and of Pine Gap's devastating impact.

Friday, February 15, 2008
Australia's "Sorry" inspires the White House
(3 comments) "These injustices must never happen again," the Prime Minister said, "they are a great stain on the nation's soul". For thirty minutes he held the nation in his hands, as millions cheered, applauded and wept. Watching a broadcast of the apology in the White House, George Bush was transfixed...

Thursday, January 31, 2008
THE SPEECH FROM HELL
(7 comments) These issues call for vigorous debate, and I think it's fair to say we've ignored the call. Yet history will record that amid our differences, we acted with malice. All of us were sent to Washington to carry out the business of billionaires. That is the purpose of this body.

Monday, January 21, 2008
The Dying of the Light
(2 comments) "Do not ever think in acquisitive terms". Are you laughing? At heart, the attempt to imprison Shakespeare in the past is a political act.

Monday, December 31, 2007
Rupert Murdoch is No Hero
(3 comments) After the hell of Guantanamo, the hell of MurdochWold

Sunday, December 23, 2007
DREAMING OF A WHITE HOUSE XMAS
(3 comments) First the old torturer, so lively and quick, Vice President Cheney dressed up as St Nick.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007
FUTURE OBVIOUS SURPRISES
(3 comments) Oil fuels illusions, invasions, food supplies and shopaholia. It makes the absurd seem normal.That's the mystery. The ice caps melt and we watch glacier surfing on You Tube. What's going on?

Wednesday, July 25, 2007
MURDOCH'S TRANSPLANT
Rupert is trying to colonize Australia's heart and re-brand his flagship paper as the epitome of 'intellect and compassion'. Watch out Wall Street Journal.

Monday, July 9, 2007
Is this man a psychopath?
(1 comments) The Bomber's tactic was on track. The gloves were off. Over the next three months, NATO would set out to prove that its air force could kill more civilians than the number achieved by the Taliban.

Saturday, June 2, 2007
The Fall and Rise of Flower Power
(1 comments) Were the hippies really right? It is tempting to think so in this age of ecocide and terror.

Sunday, April 29, 2007
TURNING UP THE HEAT
To a citizen 50 years hence: In this moment of madness we found that consciousness was king. It was a time when everything seemed possible, even a generational mind-shift. We saw a chance to live more lightly on the planet. Then winter came... and they put up a parking lot. Over the years we learned a lot about Paris Hilton and little of the Tigris Hilton, soaring to the skies from the rubble ...

Monday, March 5, 2007
CHANGING CLIMATE, CHANGING MINDS
Global Warming can set you free. 16 reasons to be cheerful.

Sunday, February 25, 2007
BEND OVER JOHN, DICK'S ON THE WAY
(1 comments) In a rousing address in Sydney last week, Dick Cheney revealed the enemy's plan of world domination, as the streets thronged with protestors. This White House transcript has been been slightly edited.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006
CLINGING TO THE DEVIL'S COAT TAILS
(2 comments) How is it that one man has the right to murder citizens anywhere in the world? Caligula the First was restrained by the terrain and logistics, then murdered by his bodyguards. The lunatic in the White House plans to send more troops into the Iraqi hell-hole. If this happens, thousands more people will die. How can other nations stand by and allow this to happen?

Monday, November 13, 2006
THE PARADIGM SHIFT HAS ARRIVED!
(4 comments) This moment in history is a bit like a Biblical epic, the forces of light rallying against the forces of darkness, with both sides thinking they are the forces of light. The stakes are high. The issues are clear. This month they reached critical mass. The dark forces are looking stupid and shifty and selfish, but they will fight back. This is where the danger lies.

Sunday, October 15, 2006
WILD JUSTICE: An open letter to the President
Spread far and wide across the globe are thousands of people with a grudge to settle. You have provided the inspiration of imitation to all the disempowered people on earth, the ones who are wounded in hatred and bad at forgiving. So keep away from Dallas ....

Monday, September 25, 2006
POOR, POOR, PITIFUL OZ
(2 comments) In Oz 2006, to be a "civil libertarian" is to invite abuse, while to dismiss human rights as "no longer sacrosanct", or to deny inconvenient facts about global warming or indigenous history, is to attract government patronage. Once we had bush poets, mocking the pompous; now we have scribblers, licking the hands of their feeders.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006
KILLING NEWS
These days, Rupert Murdoch's war-mongering is compulsive and his disregard for human wreckage is both calculated and global; but in the beginning, what marked his output was a casual (and sometimes fatal) disregard for the frailties of humans.

Thursday, August 3, 2006
THE COLLAPSE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
(7 comments) No wonder many of our young people are so daunted by today's global issues that they block them out, focussing instead on designer food and the antics of celebrities.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006
THE LAND WHERE PINOCCHIO IS KING
From the outside, Australia looks good; the Opera House, Nicole Kidman, jocks in hotpants. ....Listening to political debate today is like being locked in the Alzheimer ward with the treasurer and a shock jock.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006
THE DREAD OF BEING A BYSTANDER
(1 comments) We have failed to throw a spanner in the war machine; we have failed to seize the moment, we gave failed to re-invent protest.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The Politics of Evil versus Boston Legal
In one episode, there are more examples of people grappling with ethics, of pursuing what’s fair and right, than has been exhibited in the entire spectrum of the Bush Presidency.

Monday, May 15, 2006
BOMBOCRACY: The Musical, plus three men in a boat
Like tobacco ads, the evening news should carry an alert, “any connection between our edited footage and what really happened is accidental”. Be the first to know” … and the last to understand

Sunday, April 23, 2006
DE-SALINATED WHISKY & WILD WILD WINDS
The greening of Time marks a turning point, just like its famous 1966 cover, which asked, Is God Dead? Today we ask: Is the Earth dying? And are we dying with it?

Tuesday, February 7, 2006
CARTOONS THAT SHAKE THE WORLD
(1 comments) The moving finger draws, and having draws moves on, nor all your piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half a line.

Thursday, January 19, 2006
DIRTY WORK IN DAMADOLA
Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son" Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on In the end God spared the child, but not the CIA

Sunday, January 1, 2006
40 LESSONS FROM THE NEW MILLENIUM
(1 comments) Secret webs, scared bullies, a global mind shift. There is no God higher than Truth, said Socrates, but that was long ago. Today’s Truth lurks behind a thousand veils, while the new Gods pillage the future. Here’s some of what we think we now know:

Monday, December 19, 2005
WORN INTELLECTUALS WITH MARIJUANA COUGHS
Is fear and phoney patriotism turning Aussies into a bunch of self congratulating flag waving materialist pisspots singing our own praises, oy oy oy, yob yob yob, screaming ‘death to the wog wog wog’?

Friday, December 9, 2005
ABSURD’S THE WORD:Condoleezza Rice versus Harold Pinter
It’s happening, isn’t it? The fog is lifting. Enormous shifts of opinion at the last minute. And not just about the wars. About the belief system that sustains the wars, the dark hearts of those who run the wars, the malice of a media that sells the wars.

Sunday, November 20, 2005
The Land That Said No
What happens when ethics prevails. Welcome to a Murdoch free zone.

Thursday, November 3, 2005
WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?
Who’ll carry the coffins? Cheney and Rummy: “We think its funny, We’ll carry the coffins”.

Thursday, October 20, 2005
BETWEEN A HARD PLACE AND STEVIE NIX
Roasting flesh and Fleetwood Mac – how we’re bringing the fight to the cowardly dogs and Taliban lady-boys

Wednesday, September 28, 2005
WASHINGTON, WARPORN AND WILD WILD WEATHER