Even an old troglodyte like me can appreciate the benefits of modern technology. So I may be a troglodyte but I am decidedly not a Luddite, even though I find some manifestations of modern technology unsettling. I can remember going to a lunch with a prominent international figure as the guest speaker when one of […]

I have written many previous essays on Islamist terrorism which is underpinned by a fundamentalist belief in Islam. I have examined the genesis of Islam and its initial success as not only a religious movement but as a colonising military force which resulted in the century or two after the death of Muhammad in a […]

Human advancement is inexorably linked to the progress of human thinking. What we have come to know and believe has been subject to multiple influences. In the West, prior to the seventeenth century, most people, the philosophers included, believed that there were only two prime sources of knowledge, viz. To relearn the wisdom of the […]

Even an old cynic like me is positively affected by the Christmas myth. In fact it often inspires me to write a myth of my own. In the past I have written a couple in a series that I have called How a Famous Christmas Song Came to Be. This week I intend to follow […]

The news, it seems, is largely bad news. We hear of traffic fatalities, plane crashes and the latest terrorist atrocities. We are fed statistics about growing obesity, drug and alcohol abuse and falling education standards. On the television we see the latest house fire, wide spread storm damage and pervasive floods and droughts, all too […]

I would like to question the conclusion that the election of Donald Trump is somehow a triumph of democracy. A democratic process that took 2 years to, arguably, find the leader of the free world, produced 2 basically unsuitable candidates and elected the least suitable of the 2. Despite Hilary’s highly appropriate experience, I consider […]

This week, I was determined to put the Donald Trump phenomena aside for a while, and I will. But I am compelled to comment on a few attendant issues that became evident to me in recent times. Firstly, what we have been seeing as a reaction to Trump, Brexit and other world events makes me […]

Our politicians are in some way representatives of the people, but they are no longer representative of the people. This, I believe is an emerging problem with democracy. My father was a staunch unionist and a dyed in the wool Labor supporter. When I was young he was very good friends with the local Labor […]

I have often written about the tensions we face as human beings, to on the one hand assert our specialness and separateness but on the other hand, because we are social animals, to want to belong. Out of this tension our egos have conspired to manufacture identity politics which is built about the notion that […]

Last week I wrote my essay focussing on climate change and the growth of renewable energy. One of the reasons I did so was that in a previous essay I had decried the impacts of section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act as unduly restricting free speech. Often when we are trying to have serious […]