Humorist David Sedaris – whom I saw a few nights ago in Sydney, a man of startling insight, hilarity and wit with an oddly compelling high-pitched voice – on blogging: The whole concept is very new to me. I was in St. Louis and my publicist said there were a lot of bloggers at my…
Showing all posts tagged blogging
Where are the Palestinian creatives?
Following the recent death of legendary Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish – beautifully eulogised here by Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery – a blogger in Gaza wonders what’s happened to the creative arts in the occupied territory: We have to acknowledge that we have a problem here in our culture and way of thinking, and that…
Let the patriot games begin
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: Before the Beijing Games launched spectacularly last weekend, the vast bulk of Australian media expressed general disdain for China, finding little positive to report. It was just the kind of coverage that played directly into the Communist regime’s hands; such is the widespread belief there that the…
A different kind of Israel
Israeli blogger Gilad Lotan explains how the world misunderstands his country: Even though Israel receives more than enough coverage by mainstream media outlets, I know for a fact that the majority of people have long ago stopped trying to understand this never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In many people’s eyes, Israel is a place of war, bombs…
Dissing the greying crowd
Leading Chinese blogger Isaac Mao: China has a long tradition of people trying to fit into the group, moderating their behaviour to avoid standing out conspicuously – a culture reinforced by the man-made collectivism of the past half-century. Blogs have leapfrogged this tradition, acting as a catalyst to encourage young people to become more individual.…
Where is the US heading?
Andrew Sullivan, August 2: …Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side” stayed with me. It’s the most important book yet written about the Bush presidency. Perhaps it was seeing “The Dark Knight” at the same time, but if you read that book, absorb what is tells us about what has happened to this country these past seven…
Capitalism does not equal freedom
Will communications technology (mainly, the internet and mobile devices) combined with capitalism inevitably make everybody in the world more free? (Hint: no.)
Zionists (mainly) to blame
US Jewish blogger Phil Weiss hears leading Palestinian speaker Rami Khouri talk about the (welcome) shifts in the Middle East since 9/11: I wondered how long it would take him to get to the Arab-Israeli issue. It was about 30 minutes. From then on it was all that anyone could talk about. He did not…