In George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books (better known as the bowdlerised Game of Thrones tv series), jesters often play important, if minor, roles. Some, like Patchface, serve as one-man Greek choruses; others act almost as clandestine agents. The knight-made-fool, Ser
Michael Scott Bryant Professor of History and Legal Studies Bryant University Late in 1938, Nazis across Germany attacked Jews and their homes, businesses and places of worship and arrested about 30,000 Jewish men. The attacks became known as Kristallnacht – the “Night of Broken Glass” – for the streets littered with
Katie Pickles Professor of History University of Canterbury When the legendary Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup in 1930, the big chestnut horse didn’t just live up to his Thai name, which means “lightning”. He also brought together strands of colonial history and mythology that are only now properly
Adam Behr Newcastle University theconversation.com In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music … to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing. Not surprisingly, Paul McCartney was positive about the appearance this week of what has been trailed as the
Charles Krblich Chuck Krblich works in the insurance and reinsurance industries as a catastrophe manager. brownstone.org My wonderful wife handles all of the Halloween planning for our family. She arranges the costumes, the candy, puts up the decorations, and manages the inevitable costume parties. This year my wife chose
A controversial headline, perhaps, but designed to spark debate. I will attempt to justify it with some facts, both positive and negative; however, the negatives outweigh the positives by some margin. The 2023 election is of course a true result of an election run under the MMP system, but I
An article written by Sheree Trotter (Te Arawa) in 2017 and reposted by the Israel Institute of NZ a few days ago has some good observations. Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist organisation that does not recognise Israel and whose charter calls for genocide. Hamas is the
As I previously wrote for The BFD, human foibles of class and prejudice persist even on the spiritual plane. It’s notable, for instance, that ‘past lives’ invariably show a bit of cachet: everyone’s an Egyptian priestess; no one’s a plumber from Grimsby. Similarly, ghosts are notably posh
In 1941 the Australian Labor party came into office through a dirty deal by cross-bench MPs. Prime Minister John Curtin was completely unsuited to the job and thrown into an international crisis with little idea of what to do: he was saved from himself by officials and winning a
Ryan Turnipseed Ryan Turnipseed is an undergraduate in economics and entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University. There, he is the secretary and lecture chair for the Free Enterprise Society. Ryan is also the treasurer and a co-founder of the Old Glory Club mises.org Every mainstream school curriculum and state
Ronald Stein Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book Clean Energy Exploitations. cfact.org Worldwide crude oil consumption is currently estimated at roughly 96.5 million barrels per day. According to OPEC, global demand is
Co-leader of the Greens, Marama Davidson, described herself as a ‘peace activist’ before launching into a speech filled with anti-Israel rhetoric. She also repeated her self-titled ‘peace activist’ throughout. […] with multiple examples of inaccurate allegations being claimed, along with saturating her allegations with apparently unironic usages of
Alan Lash Alan Lash is a software developer from Northern California, with a masters degree physics and a PhD in mathematics. brownstone.org Renewed calls for mask mandates are on the rise, as reports of scary Covid variants are making their way through the news. My perception is that most
