Showing all posts in June 2019

Charles Kennedy is the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the third force in British politics. In the upcoming general election, the party is poised to overtake the Tories as the alternative government. It’s been a remarkable rise and in today’s Guardian Kennedy explains the rationale behind their philosophy and the moral and political bankruptcy of…

Sister Helen Prejean is the writer of Dead Man Walking and a leading advocate against government killing, the death penalty. In today’s New York Times, she writes of Pope John Paul II’s legacy, his unequivocal opposition to state killing: “Of the many great legacies of Pope John Paul II, the one I prize the most…

For those who happen to be around New York in the coming while… Larry Clark is a photographer and filmmaker. The International Center of Photography is screening his movies including Kids, Bully, Another Day in Paradise and (the still banned in Australia) Ken Park as well as a selection of his most startling photos. Clark’s…

A majority of Israelis believe that the state should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate, according to a survey conducted by the Dahaf Institute. It’s a shocking result and it gets worse. The survey also found that only 34 percent of Jewish Israelis support a peace deal that entails a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders,…

Amy Goodman runs Democracy Now, a US-based “national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 300 stations”, designed to bring listeners the news and views shunned by the mainstream media. She’s written an article for the Seattle Times with her brother David on media consolidation and the need to maintain a range of voices…

Daily Flute gets the inside story on electing the next Pope. And, of course, ABC’s Kerry O’Brien will be bringing us all the results from the tally room.

An Alliance Against Babylon: The US, Israel and Iraq by John K. Cooley is the most insightful book I’ve read in ages. He argues that the recent invasion of Iraq marks a turning point in the most crucial relationship in the Middle East, between Israel and America. More ominously, he explains the assistance Israel provided…

Britain’s Channel 4 television screened a documentary on March 2 that should be mandatory viewing for those who believe that America’s justice system is in dire straits, or that wayward guards only let loose at Abu Ghraib. Cataloguing torture, abuse and shocking sadism, we’re given a picture of an ideology ruled by a punishment mantra.…

How much longer must we suffer this intolerable perversion? “The Pope died after a courageous battle with illness that gripped the world,” The Guardian whispered in hushed tones. I always wished nothing less than a peaceful end for the man admired by over a billion Catholics. In tributes flowing in from the corners of the…

PRIA is the Public Relations Institute of Australia. For reasons I am not entirely sure, they have linked to an article of mine from December 2003 primarily featuring an interview I conducted with Sydney Morning Herald online commentator Margo Kingston on the dire state of modern journalism, how news is increasingly packaged with PR and…