Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side of a hill. Living was a hawk in the sky ... Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond.
- Ernest Hemingway For whom the bell tolls
The press gallery killed Fairfax and it will kill other traditional media organisations too. Traditional media organisations and major political parties will have to change the way they work in order to change the way politics and policy are covered, because neither will or can survive if you're content to let the press gallery keep on being the press gallery.
The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation aims to educate Australians not only in the facts of Western Civilisation, but also in its beauties and wonders and its enduring relevance to Australian life going forward. Can it succeed in those aims? No. The directors of that organisation are wasting the benefactor's money, however much they wax lyrical about him, and they should either desist, or start getting on with it, rather than continue mucking about.
The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation aims to educate Australians not only in the facts of Western Civilisation, but also in its beauties and wonders and its enduring relevance to Australian life going forward. Can it succeed in those aims? No. The directors of that organisation are wasting the benefactor's money, however much they wax lyrical about him, and they should either desist, or start getting on with it, rather than continue mucking about.
This table from Peter Rees is an interesting analysis of proposed power plants for South Australia. At a time when zealots are claiming that so-called renewables (wind and solar) are cheaper than alternatives, the reality of building costs says otherwise. The notes and commentary are Peter’s as well. The three renewable projects will produce a […]
Michaelia Cash has overreached herself in politics, and has nowhere to go but down.
Conservatives within the Coalition should be enjoying their moment of triumph. They have negated a supposedly progressive Prime Minister and tethered him to the unpopular and disastrous policies of his conservative predecessor. They have cast off all but two of those pesky state governments, with their namby-pamby health and education and human services, and have command of the high ground of the federal government. They stand poised to deliver tax cuts, to hold forth against Aboriginal claims through the Uluru Statement, and for welfare crackdowns.
The fact that Barnaby Joyce had impregnated a former staffer and NewsCorp journalist was widely known before the New England byelection on 2 December last year. It has been ridiculous, and a bit sad, watching traditional media justify itself in relation to this story.
Fucking inconvenientLet's remind ourselves of the political situation in late 2017.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance should be a politician at the top of his game. He is the steward of several large transformative infrastructure projects, and a former state Treasurer: all that, and not yet 45. In his current predicament he is more like someone at the top of that slow initial climb of a roller-coaster, just before plunging and being jerked this way and that before eventually being returned to where he started.
This cost of the self-induced energy shortage in southern Australia over the 18-19 January was in the vicinity of $400 million.
Recent comments by Peter Dutton on Sudanese crime in Melbourne, in support of the Victorian Liberals' attempts to court that old political tart Laura Norder, underline two failures of strategy: in his portfolio, and within the Victoria Liberals in their quest for state government this November.
The end of the lineImmigration policy in Australia was set at the turn of the century by then-Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock, backed by John Howard and his government and only ever tweaked by successive governments since then.
Turns out my sign-up post for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2017 was not actually posted, despite the WordPress app on my phone telling me it was – and I never cross-posted here anyway.
In any event, although I read 10 books within my challenge parameters by about March or April, I did not post any reviews at the time.
So here is the revised sign-up post PLUS six reviews in one post.
The challenge:
I opted for the Franklin again: read 10 books, review 6.
For much of the past 12 months, the press gallery has agreed that the power of Peter Dutton has grown within the government, possibly to the point where he could challenge Turnbull for the Liberal leadership and hence become Prime Minister. It's time to call bullshit on that, and to point out that the more enthusiastic advocates for Dutton (or those most hungry for stink) aren't helping us understand how the government works.
There was a time when to be the best male Australian tennis player was to be the best at that sport, to be able to beat any man in the world anywhere in the world. Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, and John Newcombe, along with supporting players like Ken Emmerson or Tony Roche, dominated the sport as it transitioned from an amateur era to a professional one.