The Perversity of Transgender Politics

It is such a strange phenomenon, Transgender Politics. It is built on the fantasy that human beings can voluntarily choose their gender. Many other aspects of our biological endowment are not challenged in such a way. I haven’t heard for example of brown-eyed people demanding that they should be called blue-eyed or short people demanding […]

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The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.

Charlie Kirk died in a mindless, murderous attack that reflects a growing assault on our democracy. Democracy is built on the foundation of free speech and the vigorous intellectual competition of ideas. In democracies we shouldn’t seek to silence those who disagree with us. We should listen respectfully to their ideas and if we disagree, […]

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Remembering My Father

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are largely occasions created for commercial reasons to make us feel compelled to buy presents and increase retail sales. They are cynical manipulations of our inherent feelings (normally) of affection for our parents. I must confess that I was blessed with the parents I had. I loved and admired them […]

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The Existential Threat of Radical Islamism

It is a strange quirk of the human condition that we almost universally romanticise the past. T H White captured the sentiment in his lovely book The Once and Future King. The myth of King Arthur and Camelot reflect our desire to reclaim an idealised past. As in many such myths (including the Christian one) […]

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Some Advice for Malcolm Turnbull


In the past I was foolish enough to write a number of essays purporting to give Tony Abbott some advice as to how he should do his job better when he was Prime Minister. It was, as you know, a waste of time. Despite these setbacks I find I cannot resist the opportunity to offer […]

April 16, 2016

In Praise of Hedonism


Trigger Warning: For any poor sensitive souls reading this essay let me warn that it eschews political correctness, and additionally, contains a lot of nonsense! How wonderful it is to live in a modern democracy like ours where so many people are concerned for our welfare. By and large, these all-knowing benevolent folk, not only […]

April 10, 2016

The Islamist Terror Phenomenon


Terror has been in the news again in the last two weeks. First there was the atrocity in Brussels and over the weekend a major terrorist attack in Lahore. The motive behind the killing of defenceless people in these mass murders is almost incomprehensible to most of us. The nature of these bombings was on […]

April 2, 2016

Happy Easter


As I sit down to write this week’s blog essay, Easter is almost upon us. Well, traditionally Easter is the most sacred celebration in the Christian calendar but for most of the population it has become little more than a very long weekend and a spurious opportunity to indulge children with Easter eggs and such […]

March 24, 2016

Creating the Worlds We Experience


A common expression that you are all familiar with is “looking at the world through rose coloured glasses” which implies that the person is unduly optimistic or idealistic. The saying propagates a myth. It implies that everyone else sees the world directly and consequently, more realistically. But as much as we might want to think […]

March 19, 2016

Multiculturalism


Growing up in a country town in North Queensland I had little exposure to other cultures. I went to school with quite a few indigenous children but I knew little about indigenous culture. In fact now I come to think of it they didn’t make a fuss of it either, but seemed determined just to […]

March 11, 2016

On Labels and Differentiation


Most of us believe Albert Einstein was a brilliant physicist who invented a new form of physics derived from  the Theory of Relativity, that enabled us to gain more insights about the universe then the previous paradigm of Newtonian physics allowed. But Einstein was a deep philosophical thinker as well. Let me share with you […]

March 6, 2016

Restoring Real Wages Growth


Times are tough if you are an Australian worker. Not only are unemployment levels presently high (currently around 6%) but wages in real terms are falling (except those who are ensconced in feather-bedded public sector jobs). Now, as I have argued in previous essays, one of the major reasons for these dismal outcomes is the […]

February 27, 2016

A Few Political Bits and Pieces


Some of you have remarked to me how difficult it must be to define a topic each week, research it and then write an essay to post for you. In reality it is not usually hard because I write about things that have interest to me and that have often come up in discussion with […]

February 20, 2016

Bridging the Gap – Opening the Mind


Life has many disappointments. There wouldn’t be a human alive that has not experienced a disappointment when fervently hoping for a better outcome. And this week we were bound for more disappointment as this year’s “closing the gap” statistics were released. But those of us who wished to see our indigenous compatriots prosper have had […]

February 14, 2016