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Category: opinions and journalism

Word power: Arundhati Roy excoriates Narendra Modi

 

Direct quote from Indian Prime Minister Modi, crowing, in January 2021:

Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.

Arundhati Roy, describing India’s ghastly pandemic reality in April 2021:

The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.

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Word Power: Ratty, post-COVID-19

 

The rodent pictured above – well-rounded, petite, and “out in the wild”  – quite probably strikes you as “cute”, maybe even “adorable”.

But how about the longer-toothed, urban-invading ranks of Rattus norvegicus?

Allegedly, they are currently making themselves ever more “at home” inside our cities’ offices, shops and homes…

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Word power: previously banned, now compulsory

On 22 October 2019,  in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai, China, I met an obviously-ambitious sheep-owner.

Clearly, he was “improving” his flock, probably with help from Australia.

Some of his sheep greatly surprised me – very evidently, some of their “bloodlines” were merino.

The prosperous grazier’s mask was entirely appropriate to his dusty task.

However, wearing it would have been expressly forbidden in some other places/contexts, even in the much more open/democratic land of Oz…

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Word power: Richard Flanagan on “a writer’s achievements”

 

It’s presumed that the author starts with an intention and if the book’s published they’ve succeeded in it. But successful books are ones that have escaped the author’s intentions and become something else. Novels when they succeed are incoherent and contradictory and mysterious. Nothing is more secondary to a writer’s achievements than their original ambition.

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Word power: hey, big (Oz Fed Govt) spender!

This post alerts you to two provocative essays about Australian governments’ approach to “public spending”.

One looks at general home truths, facts, fictions and illusions, with particular reference to our “post-pandemic” economic & social well-being.

The other addresses Australia’s response to “the threat from China”.

According to Richard Dennis, we Australians are reluctant to look into the simple truth hidden in plain sight:

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Balance (#30 in “a shining moment” series)

 

For many birds, standing on one leg is entirely comfortable, even for extended periods.

When did you ever see any such bird lose its balance?

For Homo sapiens, it is another matter entirely.

However, our ability to stand on just one of our own two feet is very much more telling/predictive than most of us realise.

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