JOHN F. KENNEDY WAS JUST DAYS from securing the 1960 Democratic nomination for president when Dr. W.A. Criswell strode, bible in hand, to the carved wooden altar of the mighty First Baptist Church in Dallas.Continue Reading
In 2010 Treasury released its Intergenerational Report, Australia to 2050 (PDF). The report concluded that a failure to act now to tackle intergenerational challenges would result in ‘severe economic, fiscal and environmental consequences’.Continue Reading
Western democracies, and as far as can be ascertained, most closed societies, despite knowing more pandemics would come, failed not only to build on existing preparedness, but actually cut funding, This happened in Australia under the Abbott government who cut funding to the CSIRO and its Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong (now named The Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness).Continue Reading
The fake news being spread about the virus is doing just as much, if not more damage than the virus itself (notwithstanding the deaths). The virus will eventually run its course. The damage done by the campaigns of disinformation, gleefully published as legit news by the Murdoch empire and friends and spread even further via social media, will leave a more lasting and damaging scar on the public psyche. Continue Reading
With the benefit of hindsight, you can see the incremental legislative shifts toward the tar-pit heart of darkness where democracies go to die. Continue Reading
After surviving a major cardiac event and subsequent heart bypass surgery in 2016, I slowly developed a whole new outlook . Note here that I was going to say “after suffering” a major cardiac event etc, but the fact is, I was drugged up to the hilt . It was my family who suffered. For months, I could barely walk, let alone “do” anything. Then there was the loss of income and ability to be active in any meaningful sense.Continue Reading