© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

A bed-time story for children about to die

Once upon a time there was a civilised country. Its people were intelligent and reasonable, by human standards, but it suffered the misfortune of acquiring some leaders who saw some advantage in leading them astray. These leaders used an age-old method of getting, increasing and keeping power: the old trick of persuading most of the population that a minority of “different” people in the country were bad and dangerous.  This trick almost always works for any population of humans. The trick works best of all when the “bad and dangerous” people own something valuable that can…

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Planespotters on the job in World War 2

ONE of Australia's military problems in World War 2 was trying to keep track of the movements of large numbers of aircraft over the giant land-mass. Planes, both friendly and hostile, crossed the skies at all hours, and it was important to try to keep tabs on as many of them as possible. A big part of the solution was the Volunteer Air Observers Corps, an organisation of thousands of civilian men, women and children who spent untold hours in observation posts they built on top of houses, on handyman-created towers in backyards, in the middle…

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Dressing up: a goofy costume gallery

People love dressing up, but not everybody can score a role on stage. Family photo albums are a rich source of images of amateur actors, young and old, pretending for a time to be somebody else. Of course, almost all of these photos would raise eyebrows today for cultural appropriation. She's a fairy, of course, with spotless outfit in a lovely woodland setting. From a glass plate negative, circa 1910. Remember "F Troop"? This classic 1960s colour slide by Eric Sutherland shows youngsters Kerry Stahlut and Mark Sullivan at Newcastle's East End. The young photobomber in…

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