Thinking about One Nation with the help of Rebecca Solnit (and Hannah Arendt) For [many people], the present seems to be perpetual, unchanging, unyielding, offering confidence or despair that the future will be like the present, a conclusion that seems to be drawn from the lack of recognition that the
Ben Roberts-Smith has finally been arrested for war crimes. If our laws and institutions are to have any meaning, then serious breaches, egregious breaches, high-profile and horrifying breaches must have repercussions. The seeming impunity of Ben Roberts-Smith, who has only today been arrested for war crimes the Brereton Report detailed
On seeking direction in a directionless world Moments in time. Movement in time. Movements in time. As we spun past the autumn equinox, the darkness lasting noticeably longer each morning and edging closer each evening, the burst of winter weather turning the screws on my arthritic joints, I spent much
On language, coercion, and action "it is as though we were caught in a maze of abstractions, metaphors, and figures of speech in which everything can be taken and mistaken for something else, because we have no reality, either in history or in everyday experience, to which we can
A short post tonight because I can't go to sleep for thinking about this. I need to write some thoughts to help my mind slow down. And you get to read it. If you choose. Feel free. French President, Emmanuel Macron, standing in front of a nuclear submarine
On practising "soft skills" for a hard future Opposition education spokesperson, Julian Leeser, has apparently decided that the most important issue to weigh into on tertiary education right now is abolishing group assignments.* Funnily enough, I actually went to uni with Julian, at UNSW law school way back
Wonderings on the echoing implications of our relationship with death When I die, compost me. Put me under a tree - a snow gum, if possible - and let it feed. Let the mushrooms and their mycelia unmake me into morsels, into molecules becoming free to become something otherwise. Consider
💚 Zohran and Zack 💚 Is there a symbolism we can find in the fact that these two excitingly energetic, righteously angry, charmingly smiling outsiders shaking up global left politics both have names starting with Z?* Does it mean we've reached the end of the line? That, after this, we
On sitting in discomfort or seeking simple solutions It's hot. It's hard to think when the heat is so intense. And we need to think. We need to think through some painfully hot challenges. Challenges to which there are no simple solutions, no shortcuts. And the
On the gothic absurdity of the geopolitical circus and the sovereignty salsa Far be it from me, who at primary school was forever "Tim Hollow Head", to make jokes about people's names... But Nick Cave is touring, and this blogletter is named for a Cure song.
I didn't want to write this. I don't want to write this. I feel like I need to write something. I am writing this. I am not good at writing about my Jewish experience. I am still writing this, eight days after I started. -- All
The Albanese government's teen social media ban, which came into effect this morning, is perhaps the Platonic ideal of contemporary politics. It should make us all very angry. And then it should inspire us to get together and cultivate a better politics. With the kids this politics treats