July 30 – August 5, 2022
News
Comment
Comment
Raina MacIntyre
Hope, denial and Covid-19
“This is the year of hope, denial and cognitive dissonance about the emergence of newer and more challenging variants of SARS-CoV-2 far outpacing vaccine development. Like saying your grandfather smoked all his life and lived to 100, thus smoking is fine, people are telling each other ‘I had Covid and it was mild’.”
Comment
Paul Bongiorno
Putting a statement into action
“More than any other figure in our democracy, a prime minister can influence the direction of the nation. Anthony Albanese knows it, and he is not allowing the most difficult economic and strategic circumstance in more than three decades to deter him from forging new pathways.”
Comment
John Hewson
We are ignoring inequality in the land of the ‘fair-go’
“Australians are, on average, the fourth-richest people in the world. Before we start celebrating our luck or cleverness, we should be sobered by The Smith Family’s statement in its most disturbing TV advertising, that one in six of our children and young people are growing up in poverty.”
Letters, Cartoon & Editorial
Culture
The Influence
Robert Drewe
For Robert Drewe, Saul Bellow’s novel Herzog opened up the richness of interiority.
Fiction
A perfect day for bream
“African night crawlers are different from European night crawlers, see. They can tolerate extreme conditions, breed… Overnight, you should see, double in size. So, if you thread them onto the hook, like so, see… Fish’ll go for the wrigglers, make sure they’re still wriggling, but you want to know, don’t you? It was the same woman, and if I hadn’t have acted it could’ve ended terribly, he wasn’t much of a man, a person… Like this, see, they don’t have nerves, it doesn’t affect them… It started on a Tuesday.”
Books
Life
Puzzles
Quotes
Politics
“I will most certainly be using every single scintilla of that devious cunning.”
The longest serving member of parliament describes how he plans to operate in this one. To avoid confusion, when he says scintilla he is referring to the species of smallish rodent living in his brain.
Driving
“Do you want to die?”
The celebrity fisherman threatens another motorist with a gardening fork after an accident in Beaumaris. Last time he jumped out of his car like that it was to strip naked for his own sexual gratification – but, yeah, women are ruining sports commentary.
Technology
“This is total bs. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night!”
The entrepreneur denies breaking up Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s marriage by sleeping with his wife. As Twitter is learning, his takeover bids are all front, no follow through.
Law
“That has now been destroyed.”
The barrister representing Ben Roberts-Smith reflects on how the lawsuit has affected his client’s reputation. You could say Roberts-Smith’s good standing is like a hard drive set on fire to destroy photographs and financial records.
Race
“No, I won’t and never will.”
The senator storms out of the chamber, refusing to listen to an acknowledgement of Country. She said she had been “feeling this way for a long time” but presumably hasn’t consulted a doctor.
Poverty
“To please an inner-city, woke audience, you have abolished the card.”
The opposition leader condemns Labor for scrapping the cashless welfare card. It probably has more to do with the fact the cards produce worse outcomes for poor people, but then Dutton just loves mindless punishment.
