In his 1927 essay La Trahison Des Clercs, French writer Julien Benda deplored the dogmatism of public intellectuals, who had lost the ability to reason dispassionately about politics. Almost a century on, what would he have to say about current so-called public intellectuals, whose utterances are mostly reduced to smug and condescending tweets, intended to …
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Real Freedom News Silenced?
You could say that the Liberal-Conservative (ie non-collectivist / anti socialist) Right in Australia is a very broad church, one which has a lot in common with any cathedral in Naples. That is, it is big, rundown, lacking in the money to maintain it, has a very leaky roof, and lacks enthusiasm from its parishioners. …
Further Calls To Rotate The AFL Grand Final
The 2021 AFL Grand Final is over. After texting various friends and acquaintances who barrack for Melbourne to offer my congratulations this morning, I have untied the Bulldogs scarf from the corner post of my front porch and put it and the other Bulldogs fan gear in the laundry basket. Next year, hopefully, the AFL …
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The Paul Roos Legacy
One of the things which fascinates me most about football is the anthropological aspect. That is, the culture of a football club. Being a lifelong supporter of a team which, until its current golden age, had a long history of underachievement, I am firmly of the belief that a club’s culture off-field will determine its …
John Elliott, We Hardly Knew You
The closest I ever came to meeting John Elliott was about ten years ago. At the time, I used to go to the footy at Docklands every now and then with someone who had some business dealings with John Elliott. He once suggested that I join him sometime when he was going to the footy …
The Dan Andreas Fault – Today’s Melbourne Earthquake
The last time I experienced an earthquake was August 2016. I had arrived in Rome from Florence and was about halfway through my first trip to Italy ever. At around 3am I was woken by some shaking. My first thoughts were that this was not a dream. My second were that one bottle of red …
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We Will Live With A Yellowcake Submarine!
I used to think that the popular Chinese Communist phrase ‘running dogs’, manifest in Mao’s Little Red Book, had gone out of fashion. It was rather cute in its day: ‘People of the world, unite and defeat the US aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous, dare to fight, defy …
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Reaching the AFL Grand Final in a Time of Plague
In this, 2021, the second year of Plague, my AFL team, Footscray (aka the Western Bulldogs) have made it into the Grand Final again, for the first time since our Premiership Miracle of 2016, and for only the fourth time in VFL/AFL history. It will be very different to 2016, the COVID plague has seen …
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Continued Lockdown Causes A Crisis In Legitimacy Of Technocratic State Authority
The announcement of 450 new Covid cases in Victoria this morning, some 5 weeks and 2 days after the current lockdown was announced by our technocratic state leader Dan Andrews has caused me some cause for reflection. The escalating numbers over the past few days, where we have been seeing triple figure announcements each day, …
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Little known side effect of the Sinovac COVID vaccine
There is little to laugh about regarding this plague currently making our lives difficult. However one of my friends just wryly commented that Astra Zeneca is much better than Sinovac because at least it works and doesn’t make you think that Tibet is a part of China. When all this is over and we can …
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Lost For Words! 