Shades of hypocrisy
Some observations on the realities of being and Aborigine in 21stcentury Australia by an observer who isn’t. One of my piano teachers was the sole child of Polish Holocaust survivors.…
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January 22, 2011
Will Australia ever move from Black and White to the Grey that sits between?
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by…
January 19, 2011
Ambassador Chan speaks about Moti, Sogavare and the Australian Government
The following article written by Ednal Palmer appeared in the Solomon Star on Saturday 15th January, 2011. While the article is ostensibly about the tenure of the outgoing Taiwanese (ROC)…
January 16, 2011
A blast in a bin; corruption holds sway
While strolling along the foreshore of Botany Bay today I spotted a Kingfisher. In Classical Greek mythology "Halcyon" is associated with the Kingfisher. There was an ancient belief that the…
January 14, 2011
The Rule of Law
The Rule of Law, in its most basic form, is the principle that no one is above the law. The rule follows logically from the idea that truth, and therefore…
December 12, 2010
Accountability / Corporate responsibility / Corruption / Culture / Discrimination/Racism / Equality of opportunity / Human Rights / Hypocrisy / Law Enforcement / Respect / WA Police
Racism takes many forms
Kevin Spratt, an Aboriginal man from Western Australia, was tasered up to 41 times in a week and went to hospital with fractures, a collapsed lung and a dislocated shoulder…
December 11, 2010
Justice Alabama Queensland style
Anna Bligh you’re a disgrace, a racist and potentially a war criminal! Yes, you the Premier of the rotten state. You know when I worked in PNG in the 90s…
December 8, 2010
The Liars Privilege – A Folly
Lord, how this world is given to lying. Quite so, Falstaff, but there is lying and lying. No, not another diatribe on police mendaciousness or theft or even racism, but…
November 30, 2010
The first thing we should learn
The first thing we should learn Epictetus was a stoic and the Enchiridion, from which the following extract is taken, was one of the principal manuals of Stoic philosophy. The…
November 29, 2010
The Art of Political Lying
“We are told the devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the beginning; so that, beyond contradiction, the invention is old: and, which is more, his…
November 28, 2010
The Mirrors
As society becomes more narcissistic, as we push ourselves harder and harder in the name of status at the expense of everything else, society starts heading towards the unknown. It…
November 22, 2010
Angelique, Pat and the ‘rule of law’
In my post titled Angelique, I noted that she was not the only Aboriginal person to have been discriminated against and forced out of the Australian Capital Territory Revenue Office…
November 20, 2010
Equality and human dignity
While sitting in my office this morning I received a phone call from a distraught friend, advising me that a mutual friend, an Indigenous Australian Artist, had become the latest…
October 21, 2010
The Cold Joke
The Cold Joke has subtle application for the Way Australia's Indigenous peoples are treated by our own Government. White the torture we are subjected to on a daily basis is…
October 20, 2010
“Men are respectable only as they respect”
So says Ralph Waldo Emerson, but what do the police and bureaucracy say in Australia? Well it’s something like: “If you don’t give us the respect we believe you owe…
October 18, 2010
Music gives a soul to the Universe
After plumbing the depths of human depravity in my last few posts, I thought it’s time for a little soul food, or at least soul hors d'oeuvres. Ah that’s the…
October 16, 2010
Domestic violence
The abuse of human rights comes in many forms and places. It wears the face of the average neighbour just as easily as it does that of authority or a…
October 16, 2010
Art the soul of life!
My approach to life owes much to Lao Tzu’s maximum: “Live life in all possible ways; don't choose one thing against the other, and don't try to be in the…
October 16, 2010
Tasers and the marganilised
Mr. Anand Grover, UN Special Raporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health findings on Australia’s treatment of its…
October 15, 2010
To Taser or not to Taser … is it even a question?
All those who have been following the Australian news in the last few weeks will no doubt be aware that there has been an absolute spate of police taserings right…
October 15, 2010