Coming Up Trumps in America

      I see that the lunatics are still in charge of the asylum over in the U.S. How is it that an advanced democracy like the United States can't put up a better choice than between two flawed characters such as Trump and Harris? In 2016 it was a choice between the mad and the bad. This time it was between the mad and the sad. Nevertheless, as an Australian I was praying for a Trump victory. Anything else was too terrible to contemplate.

Once More: the Moral Panic Over Domestic Violence

      It is hard to believe it is 9½ years since I wrote Why I Didn't Wear a White Ribbon, in which I provided the true statistics for domestic violence in Australia, and put them in perspective. Since then the figures have only got better, but everybody claims they have got worse, and they talk about an "epidemic of domestic violence". 28 women killed by their partners or ex-partners in the first four months of 2024, or one every four days! That certainly sounds like a spectacular increase since last year. Or is it?

Aboriginal Issues

       Despite being an Australian, I have a significant library on the North American Indians, mainly because they had a wider variety of lifestyles to those of our own Aborigines. They were hard done by by the Americans. However, that does not mean that their lifestyles were idyllic. The tribes tended to break down into two categories: the predators and the prey, the latter being the smaller tribes. Constant warfare was the order of the day, sometimes with unimaginable cruelty.

     The Australian Aborigines were also hard done by by white Australians. But that also does not mean that their lives were idyllic.