July 16 – 22, 2022
News
Comment
Comment
Rebecca Huntley
Like Covid, populism isn’t over
“Boris Johnson has joined Donald Trump and Scott Morrison on the list of leaders who have lost office in the past two years. We can say with some confidence they were all a particular kind of Covid-19 fatality: their inability to manage the pandemic – both in terms of appearing to manage it as well as actually managing it – was the main reason the three of them went from victorious to vanquished in one election cycle.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
What’s behind Tony Abbott’s return to the spotlight?
“No one did more to shape the direction of Australian politics in the past decade than Tony Abbott. His ruthless and determined resistance to effective action on climate change was reprehensibly short-sighted but was the template for four election campaigns.”
Comment
John Hewson
The obstacles to Australia becoming a green superpower
“The concept of Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower should be a no-brainer. A clean-energy revolution is under way that will drive societies around the globe to a low-carbon existence. This will rival in significance the Industrial Revolution, which was driven by fossil fuels – coal-fired power, and petrol and diesel engines.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
The Influence
Paul Selwyn Norton
For Paul Selwyn Norton, seeing Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset as a teenager opened up a new world of dance.
Fiction
Foundling
“The tree is an acacia, though the boy will never know it. He pulls himself through the winter evening, across the still river and into Bundey’s Paddock. Chasing a hornet, or a butterfly. Kicking a stick along the grass. It is the movement he notices first, in the shadows cast by that tree. A white cloth bag shifting. A cat? Or a wild possum? The boy thinks about calling to his brother, but he is braver than that. He is brave enough to lose the hornet to the cooling air and go towards the rags.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Reinvention
“I will help you get out of your comfort zone and be the best version of yourself.”
The recently retired CIA officer, who oversaw torture and rendition programs under George W. Bush, reinvents herself as a beauty adviser and life coach. Her advice is to drink at least four litres of water a day, with your head at a 10-degree incline.
Coups
“I disagree with that, as somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but you know, other places. It takes a lot of work.”
The former White House national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations admits on national television to having organised foreign coups. There’s very little for which this man won’t take credit.
Oversights
“Due to an administrative oversight these particular disclosures by me to the senate were delayed.”
The former Defence minister explains why she was six months late in declaring that she was a shareholder in a defence company to which she awarded government contracts. If only the illegal robo-debt scheme was as understanding.
Censorship
“The system is silencing everybody.”
The retail mogul complains about ‘cancel culture’ and the suppression of speech in a 23-minute interview on one of Melbourne’s highest-rating radio shows. You can’t pay for that sort of audacity, except the previous government did to the tune of about $22 million in JobKeeper.
Business
“We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
The chair of the Twitter board indicates he intends to force Elon Musk to complete the takeover from which he dramatically withdrew this week. Musk is beginning to wish the contract had a character limit.
Innovation
“People are going to hear crab whiskey, and I’d venture to say three-quarters of them are going to go, ‘No, absolutely not.’ ”
A New Hampshire distillery finds a novel way to help curb the locally invasive green crab population. Apparently the Crab Trapper is a “thinking, sipping” drink.
