May 13th, 2024 As a break from the usual political and social commentary from the UK, I thought it would be an interesting digression to share some family history. The search of my family history unearthed some interesting (well, interesting to me) details of that history. It turned out to
Although not a great fan of popular music and culture, I do occasionally respect certain talented people: Mott the Hoople (of course), Paul French (history’s most underrated songwriter) and Don Walker (the brains behind the Australian band Cold Chisel) immediately spring to mind. Walker once wrote a song “Telephone
In the last few weeks, another comet was making an appearance in the sky. Unfortunately, it wasn’t visible to the naked eye until it was nearing its closest approach to the Sun. This meant that, like the planet closest to the Sun, Mercury, it was only visible at all
One of the most popular recurring characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels is Death. Yes: the Grim Reaper himself. Instantly recognisable as such in the novels, due to his skeletal body, heavy black cloak and, of course, scythe. That these images should be so instantly recognisable speaks to the
Since the turn of this century, the fabric of Western society appears to have become almost transparently thin and holes are evident. I put it down to Tony Blair, who became the Prime Minister of Britain in 1997 and subsequently cooked up a story with President George W Bush that
Paul Moon Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology They try but invariably fail – those writers who believe they are capable of encapsulating in prose or verse the essence of what it means to be a New Zealander. Even at the point of publication, their works seem anachronistic and clichéd.
History is littered with the corpses left behind by utopian revolutionaries. As Jordan Peterson points out, it’s pointless to condemn the grim toll of, say, the Maoists or the Stalinists, if we don’t forensically examine the ideologies that motivated their crimes and catastrophes. For instance, the Maoists insisted
A Midwestern Doctor midwesterndoctor.com By all metrics, Covid-19 was one of, if not the biggest medical disaster in history. Yet, unlike every other past debacle, there has never been a professionally done documentary of why this happened – instead, each production has simply focused on how many people were killed
It’s impossible to not be moved by the stirring hymn, “Jerusalem”. The hymn is, of course, the words of Christian mystic William Blake’s poem, And did those feet in ancient time… The poem was first set to music in 1917 by Sir Hubert Parry, and its most famous
Did contemporary Western culture peak in the 90s? Nostalgia is a fickle beast and there is a strong tendency to valorise one’s 20s as the best of any era. But I was in my 30s in the 90s. Much as I loved the 80s, there was a lot about
They’ve spawned books by the thousands and movie and true-crime documentaries by the hundreds, but is the Golden Age of the Serial Killer coming to an end? Serial murder is nothing new, of course. Records of what are now recognised as serial killings go back as far as Chinese
In Australian author Greig Beck’s ripping Lost World Primordia series, a group of moderns are time-transported into the primeval South American jungle. They encounter all sorts of prehistoric beasties, all very much alive and hungry. But the ‘boss’ monster is a terrifying gigantic snake: the aptly named Titanoboa: 14m
It’s often said that all Western philosophy is ‘a series of footnotes to Plato’. Of course, Plato was the successor to Socrates (and if you pronounced that ‘Soh-krayts’, you’re clearly a person of culture and distinction), and the contemporary of Aristotle, but it’s certainly indisputable that Plato’
Duggan Flanakin Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. A former senior fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. cfact.org “Power
New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science nzdsos.com Mary Hobbs, photographer, writer and publisher shares a poignant account of Anzac Day, reflecting on its history and its significance in the here and now as we stand on a seemingly critical cusp for the future of humanity. With national and
