How Dr Zeus’ Horton Hears a Who Can Inspire Hope that Australia’s Evil Asylum Seeker Laws Can Be Beaten

I was reading Dr Zeus’ Horton Hears a Who to the kids the other night, and I got to the bit where the well-meaning compassionate Horton meets a nasty Kangaroo who laughs at Horton’s desire to look after a “speck of dust that is able to yell”. The speck is …

Franz Kafka’s In The Penal Colony, Manus Island, and Australia’s second wave of racism and xenophobia

“The matter stands like this. Here in the penal colony I have been appointed judge. In spite of my youth. For I stood at the side of our Old Commandant in all matters of punishment, and I also know the most about the apparatus. The basic principle I use for …

Reflections on getting old, addiction, and the martyrdom of Phillip Seymour Hoffman

For my first twenty eight years I celebrated my birthday, today in fact, with my sister. The sharing of a birthday makes it less a narcissistic celebration of self and more a celebration of self hood, the acknowledgment of a shared primordial experience of birth, blood, tears, and laughter.  Sadly, …

Tony Abbott and Vladimir Putin share the same authoritarian views on media freedom and we need to be very scared

According to Russian president Vladimir Putin, all state run media should be run by patriots. No real surprise here, because Putin is widely known as an authoritarian leader intolerant of dissent (and homosexuals). Unfortunately things are no different in Australia. Like the Putin administration, the Abbott government is firmly behind …

SuperTooth buddy Review

Buying a hands free Bluetooth car speakerphone like the SuperTooth buddy is making a big statement that you can’t afford a fancy new car that comes with hands-free, voice activation, and a heads-up display, but despite this, are firmly committed to not having an accident while discussing the weather or …

The cloud needs to get personal

Beyond status updates and pictures of food, digital technologies have yet to have a massive impact on how people collaborate out of the office. Facebook, text and instant messaging, and email provide a toolset which allows families and friends to communicate and plan activities in a fairly clumsy way. The …