© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY
Read more about the article 2020 has been bad for democracy, but look what might be coming next.
The Australian Government (left)

2020 has been bad for democracy, but look what might be coming next.

OH 2020. What a year you have been. Bushfires, drought, Covid-19, President Trump’s mind-boggling swansong, the non-declaration of a new cold war between the West and China: you brought so much dismay. It’s seemed so surreal to me, in Australia. For a start I had assumed that the Covid-19 pandemic would take off here, as it did in so many other countries. But – not to belittle the awful impact on those who were affected – the virus has been contained so far, contrary to my expectations. And yet, the pandemic has brought far-reaching consequences, especially…

Continue Reading2020 has been bad for democracy, but look what might be coming next.

Hitting Uncle Rupert where it hurts

Kevin Rudd is my favourite living former prime minister of Australia. I quite liked him as actual PM, and was sorry when he was smashed out of office by a coalition of big mining companies and the powerful trade unions that didn’t like his plan to make Labor a more broad-based party (my opinion, that). I was always dubious about those alleged internal ALP polls that claimed his popularity had plummeted and which formed the basis of the coup that replaced him with Julia Gillard. As journalist Alan Ramsay wrote back then, Labor destroyed two prime…

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Read more about the article Fatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957
Gloster Meteor jet fighters on service with the RAAF in Korea.

Fatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957

Recently, while I was visiting old acquaintances Doug and Peggy Paton, Doug mentioned a terrible plane crash he said he witnessed while he was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force, working at Williamtown fighter base north of Newcastle. Doug said the plane crashed while landing at the base, and he feared at one point that it might have smashed into the building where he was working. It was around meal time, he said, and there were few people around. Doug Paton in his RAAF uniform in the 1950s. He showed me some photos he…

Continue ReadingFatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957
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