Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
I occasionally have cause to wonder if my persuasiveness and clairvoyance are not greater than I realize. Case in point, Rupert Murdoch is a naturalized American. But I’ve argued for years that he seems more hell-bent on doing everything to destroy this country from the inside than Vladimir Putin is on doing so from the… Read more.
I’ve been lamenting the normalization of apocalyptic wildfires for years in commentaries like “Wildfire Redux: California Burning … Again,” “Texas Is Burning,” and “California Burning: ‘The New Normal’?” More to the point, in “Wildfires Rivaling Hurricanes,” I alluded to how climate change is forging a kinship between those affected by hurricanes and those affected by… Read more.
I am a despairing anti-monarchist. This is why I was so encouraged yesterday when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull explained his government’s decision to ban Queen’s Honours as follows: This reflects modern Australia. The knights and dames are titles that are really anachronistic; they’re out of date; they’re not appropriate in 2015 in Australia. (BBC,… Read more.
I took a lot of flak for my commentary during the Sydney café siege, where iPINIONS questioned the police response and suggested it would not surprise me if police did most of the killing and injuring. After all, they fired a thousand rounds to kill one lone wolf, when a sniper could have ended it… Read more.
A gunman who claims to have four bombs is holding up to 20 people hostage in complete darkness at a café in Sydney’s financial district… The siege began at 10am (local time) when [the lone wolf] – who was previously known to both Sydney police and media – entered the Lindt cafe in Martin Place carrying… Read more.
The world is reacting with shock (and some derision) today at the sight of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard being dragged to her motorcade by a scrum of bodyguards and riot police who were protecting her from jeering Aborigines. In fact, they whisked her through such a frantic, chaotic, and jostled path to safety that… Read more.
Australia is roughly the same size as the contiguous United States. But it has a population of only 22 million people; the US has 307 million. Therefore, you’d think Australia would be solicitous about attracting new immigrants to its shores. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. For the record, over 1 million people… Read more.
Attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians irrespective of their own background and their politics. This was Prime Minister John Howard’s sensible reaction last weekend, after Australians were shocked, shocked, by the KKK-style beating white locals gave a few non-white… Read more.
Schapelle Corby – presumed innocent: Do I look like a criminal? Black Americans are very familiar with draconian prison sentences for minor drug offenses. But Australian Schapelle Corby could never have fathomed her fate when she decided to bring along a little home grown weed to keep her and her friends in a partying mood… Read more.
