As a civilisation we have lost our way when we no longer consider every single human being as equally precious
Category: word power
The location is a “historic”, cobbled street in Catania, which sits below Mount Etna.
Contrary to popular misconception, Europe’s biggest volcano has never “devastated” Catania. (although an earthquake once did)
Catania is second to Palermo in population, but Catania is Sicily’s industrial/commercial hub.
If Sicily/Italy ever does go down whatever “revolutionary road” the graffitist had in mind, let us hope that it leads to a less corrupt, less bloodthirsty, more fair and more freedom-favouring future than any avid student of history would have good reason to expect!
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The fabled “Silk Road” city of Kashgar (aka Kashi) in southern Xinjiang has been a trading hub for thousands of years.
One of China’s westernmost cities, it is home to circa one million residents, and is a fascinating destination.
Its gleaming, newish museum is huge.
Unsurprisingly, it houses many historical treasures.
It is billed as a “must see”.
If your desire is to learn anything meaningful about Xinjiang’s history, Kashgar Museum is in fact a “must miss”.
However, as a cheerlessly relentless example of the lies and utter drivel which totalitarian states inflict upon their citizens (and visitors), Kashgar Museum certainly offers a “world class” experience.
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The “rainforest” was crass, ersatz.
So was just about everything in this “suitably” enormous, multi-storey shopping centre in Guangzhou.
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Typically, signs of the “Do not…”/Strictly prohibited…” kind are dull and stern.
Rarely does one encounter even a failed attempt at humour.
So hats off to Transperth – the Perth (Western Australia) public transport authority – and to whomever won the advertising contract for the “no vaping on trains, buses, ferries and their stations” campaign!
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This post includes both musical and “word power” bonuses.
The afternoon of 21 August 2025 was not “stormy” in the Margaret River region, but local waters were turbulent.
In 1876 this was also true, as November transitioned to December…and the SS Georgette developed an irreparable leak
Over the ensuing hours a lifeboat was smashed, several people drowned, and several others were successfully transferred to the captain’s gig (ship’s boat/tender) which then managed to reach another Margaret River beach.
Meanwhile, the other fifty or so passengers and crew were heading south, on a sinking ship.
Its captain then attempted to strand the Georgette on Calgardup Bay’s Redgate Beach.
Here, a “miraculous”/“heroic” rescue was undertaken by two equally courageous local people.
The white one’s heroism was hailed, worldwide.
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The above cartoon was published this week in “The Age” & “The Sydney Morning Herald”.
Artificial Intelligence offers a whole lot of possibilities, not all of which are dire.
However, it is undeniable that AI has already become the great enabler of greedy bastards who seek to profit by plagiarising (and “dumbing down”) the work/s of the world’s writers, musicians and visual artists.
Hats off to Cathy Wilcox for using her natural intelligence to depict this reality so vividly.
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The headline above is the key sentence in an essay published on 04 May 2025.
That essay’s headline: Are the Liberals in danger of becoming the Kodak of Australian politics?
Yesterday’s Pelican Yoga post included its most telling paragraph.
It is a direct quotation from a speech delivered in 1946 by a young, multiply-wounded ex-RAAF pilot; in 1949 he became a Liberal senator.
In 1968 he – John Gorton – became Prime Minister.
As the essay’s author observes:
His vision was generous, compassionate and cosmopolitan: of an Australia and a wider world “in which meanness and poverty, tyranny and hate, have no existence.”
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An hour earlier, I had been standing in brilliant sunshine, as my eyes and camera gazed across intensely blue water, a rocky shoreline, coastal scrub, and colourful, granite-loving lichens.
By 2.45 pm, however, our little group was walking under a light grey sky, and heading just a little inland.
It was no longer pointless to point a camera lens at the “roof” of Flinders Island.
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The Missing Goose is a cafe/restaurant on Flinders Island, in Bass Strait, north of the northeastern edge of “mainland” Tasmania.
(its Slovenian proprietor/chef rescued an orphaned Cape Barren gosling. She took delight in its return to the wild, but fondly hopes that its adult self may, eventually, choose her venue’s backyard as its nesting site)
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