© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

My theory about conspiracies

A conspiracy theory is when you think that some people are working together against the interests of others. In modern language a “conspiracy theorist” is understood to be a person with unreasonably paranoid beliefs about implausible conspiracies. It’s a label with negative connotations of mental illness and wrong-headedness because we know that some mental disorders are accompanied by paranoid conspiracy beliefs. I’ve known a few people who have abused too many drugs and wound up thinking everybody was conspiring against them. People on the radio were talking about them, they believed, and one guy who was…

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Read more about the article I owe my life to the Palais Royale
The Palais, as I remember it, in the 1980s. Norm Barney collection.

I owe my life to the Palais Royale

I owe my life to the Palais Royale. That's because my parents, like those of a substantial number of people of my vintage in Newcastle, NSW, met at that famous former music and dance venue. In my own youth in the 1980s the Palais was, as far as I was concerned, just another venue for loud music, expensive drinks and tense nights of standing in dark, crowded corners forlornly hoping to meet the girl of my dreams while also trying to stay out of the way of aggro drunks. It was different for my parents. In…

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Viruses, vaccinations and me

Have you had Covid? I’m not sure if I have. Twice since the end of 2019 I’ve had something that might have been Covid, but I don’t really know. The first time was after Christmas 2019. We were in Sweden and had to return to Australia in a hurry to deal with a family crisis. We caught a long, hard, crowded flight via Hong Kong and were surprised at Hong Kong airport when staff there – kitted out with masks and looking very stern – were pointing long-range thermometers at us as we trooped through the…

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