In Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a charismatic Edinburgh teacher enchants her chosen students with tales of art, love and - most dangerously - Mussolini’s marching columns. The novel is remembered for Brodie’s charm, but it is really a warning: what happens when authority decides what others must think.
That same temptation exists today, far from Edinburgh’s stone classrooms - inside the schools, agencies and programmes that claim to serve Australia’s remote communities.
Miss Jean Brodie believed she was shaping her girls for greatness; in truth, she was funneling them into her own ideology. Australia has its modern equivalents. No marching columns, no fascist posters - just well-funded agencies, city bureaucrats and consultants convinced they know what remote communities “should” think and how they “should” live.
History has shown where this path leads. Nazi and Soviet classrooms turned children into instruments of the state.
The ideology changes; the temptation to mould rather than mentor does not. Today the battleground is subtler – social-justice curricula, climate alarmism, identity politics - but the risk is the same: adults with power deciding what young minds must think before they have learned how to question. Just think of EKaren.
Read more: The Prime of Miss Canberra Bureaucrat
Elon Musk is more than a billionaire tech mogul...he’s a disruptor, a visionary, and a relentless force of ambition transforming industries from electric cars to space travel. With roots in South Africa and a path carved by relentless risk-taking, Musk has turned early entrepreneurial success into a mission to reshape humanity’s future. Through companies like Tesla and SpaceX, he’s redefining what’s possible on Earth and beyond, pushing boundaries while sparking controversy and inspiring a generation. Love him or loathe him, Musk’s impact is undeniable, and his legacy may just be in the stars.
Elon Musk is one of the most influential and polarising figures in technology, business, and popular culture today.
Born on 28th of June, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk’s journey from a tech-savvy child to a billionaire entrepreneur and innovator has reshaped industries ranging from electric vehicles to space travel. Known for his ambitious goals, unconventional approach, and often controversial public personna, Musk has become a household name, largely due to his work with companies like SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.
Yes, let’s be honest. The days when the Irish, Scots, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Poms, Kiwis and Chinese all packed up and headed down under or over yonder bear no resemblance to the current influx of migrants.
Society has changed, and societal expectations have shifted from what we brought and could do for Australia, to what we can do for migrants. And I do not think that is just. And it is certainly not fair.
This, my friends, is a very big shift indeed.
Read more: It's Time to be Honest - Settlers and Migrants have Changed
Times have changed and this is such a bad idea that even the most brain dead of brain dead could see that stifling something kids have accepted as part of modern living is the adult equivalent of the disastrous prohibition laws of the 1930's.
Read more: Prohibition didn’t make Teetotallers: it made Smugglers and Moonshiners
Dusty Gulch Gazette
November 21, 2025 – Vol. 147, No. 312
By Jedediah "Dust" Harlan - Special Correspondent - American Bureau
HEADLINE: "CROW SHOT, CLOUDS CRASH - GULCH FOLKS FALL BACK ON OLD WAYS"
Rattlesnake-fast chaos, folks, and a crow that got more than it bargained for.
One scattergun blast, one tumbling rockslide, and suddenly the Gulch was cut off from every “digital dollar” and talkin’ box this side of the county line.
Starry sky above, dust in our teeth, and a whole heap of old-fashioned reckonin’ waiting to happen ....just like our grandpappies did when the banks went belly-up. Oh, and I think we might have grown up watching too many cartoons...
This is a parody written by two kids in America responding to the article published here yesterday about the Australian plan to censor the internet for under 16 year olds. Enjoy.
Read more: CROW SHOT, CLOUDS CRASH - GULCH FOLKS FALL BACK ON OLD WAYS
by Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble - Chief Correspondent for Ratty News - Aeronautical and Ornithological Division
It was a strange morning. The kind where even the crows paused mid-caw and the red dust seemed to shiver. Two weeks had passed since a ghostly cloud - ripped straight from the pages of Stephen King’s latest nightmare - had descended over Dusty Gulch, hanging low and twitching like it had secrets it really didn’t want to share.
One particular crow, Clive, had hovered over town nonstop since the ECloud’s arrival. His relentless caw-caw-cawing had driven one resident past the brink. Duncan “Crow-B-Gone” Thompson had reached breaking point.
And life was about to become very, very interesting for the residents of Dusty Gulch… all because of what happened 14 days earlier.
Read more: Bullet Pops Digital Duck Dream: Dusty Gulch Goes Back to Cash and Crows About it!
A green hill in the Irish Sea has stood for 1,045 years. It has seen plagues, wars, invasions, kings, and empires. It has survived every human folly.
It is called Tynwald Hill, and it is the world’s oldest continuous parliament.
Once, it was simple: laws read aloud in the open air, petitions handed in by anyone who cared to show up, and every free person on the island hearing and judging in the same wind.
A parliament of the people, by the people, under the sky.
In 979 AD, the Manx gathered on a four-tier mound built from the soil of every parish. Every free man and woman heard the laws.
They listened. They judged. They held leaders accountable with their voices alone.
Read more: Tynwald, the Isle of Man - The Hill That Refused to Go Indoors
There are many ships of the Royal Australian Navy that are dear to the hearts of us older Australians. The Scrap Iron Flotilla that ran the gauntlet ferrying men and materials between Tobruk and Egypt, The Canberra, sunk by friendly fire in the Solomons, the Hobart going down against overwhelming odds in Sunda Strait but none compare with the adulation reserved for HMAS Sydney.
Today marks the anniversary of the sinking of HMAS Sydney 2. Lost with all hands following a heroic mutually destructive battle with the German raider HSK Kormoran on the evening of November 19th 1941. R.I.P.
Since 1901 there have been FIVE fighting ships of the RAN bearing the name HMAS Sydney.
The second HMAS Sydney started life as the cruiser, HMS Phaeton until purchased by the Australian government in 1934 and re-named in memory of her predecessor. She remained in Australian waters until April 1940 when she left as part of an escort screen for a large Middle East bound convoy.
Read more: Lost With All Hands - HMAS Sydney 2 - 19 November 1941
In military history, there are countless tales of bravery, valour, and unwavering dedication from soldiers who fought on the front lines.
But what about those fearless felines who have prowled the battlefield, armed with their whiskers and lethal claws? These purrsistent warriors have played some truly remarkable roles throughout history, and it's high time we give them the recognition they deserve.
Sometimes I think that we underestimate the role that cats, dogs and other animal and feathered friends play in our lives and in our world.
So sit and enjoy a journey into the history of cats and how they have evolved into being lazy, domineering, pampered pets from their early incarnations as demi gods and deities. But when you think about it, nothing much has changed really....... they are still demi gods and worshipped deities...... But things were not always as they are.
They did actually earn their keep.
Read more: A History of Whiskered Warriors - Fearless Felines and Combat Cats
After the Great Green Reset wiped out civilisation back in the 2020s, the surviving humans on Earth had returned to caves - mostly because tents kept blowing away in the renewable-powered storms. And so, in the year 3399, the last thinkers on Earth gathered for the Annual General Meeting of the Great Cavern Roundtable (an actual, literal round table - thank the ancestors for inventing the wheel).
Many earthdwellers had moved to Mars on the Musk MAGA crafts captained by the legendary High Commander Trumpasaurus and Captain AD Vance. Mars was now a thriving planet and people ate good food, lived in wondrous things called " houses " and chatted all day long on a thing called Starlink, devoid of interference.
Unfortunately, Earth had banned access to the broadcasts and of those that remained, many people had been wiped out by a virus called " Wokeness. " The virus caused functioning brain cells to dissolve into a puddle of swamp slime and procreation was severely limited due to the number of people who didn't know what a woman was so they killed all the babies just in case they were female.
And so it was that the few remaining living creatures on Earth convened their annual general meeting to work out what should be on the agenda for the next year.
Read more: Year 3399: Cavemen Reject Wind Farms, Choose Coal, Whale Applauds
On the night of 30 October 1938, millions of Americans leaned close to their radios and felt the bottom drop out of their world. Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast - a fiction performed so convincingly it became a national panic - proved something unsettling: people don’t fear what they know; they fear what they never imagined.
That moment matters now, more than ever, because we are living through a new kind of broadcast.
Not just from a radio tower called MSM, but from political platforms and activist pulpits insisting society can simply “transition away” from oil and coal - painlessly, quickly, without consequence.
It sounds comforting. It sounds noble.
And it is just as fictional as Welles’ Martians. The difference is, this time, when the panic finally hits, no announcer will step forward to say:
“Don’t worry. It isn’t real.”
Dusty Gulch Gazette – Special Edition (Front Page) RUCTION AT THE GULCH OVAL: SETTLED THE…
286 hits
Some men belong to history. Others belong to the national conscience. Bruce Ruxton was the latter.…
316 hits
The Prime Minister Who Disappeared There are many ways for a Prime Minister to leave…
375 hits
From Whitlam to Bondi Beach, how moral evasion became cultural habit Australia has woken up…
388 hits
At 9:41am on Monday, 15 December 2014, Man Haron Monis forced Tori Johnson, the manager…
457 hits
Recent news in Australia has sparked debate: a ban on social media for under-16s. The…
363 hits
Dusty Gulch Gazette – Special Scandal Edition By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble – Foreign Correspondent, Rodent…
357 hits
Back in 1904, H. G. Wells published a short story called “The Country of the…
383 hits
Education, often celebrated as a beacon of enlightenment and progress, can also become a potent…
386 hits
On December 9, 2019, New Zealand's White Island erupted .claiming 22 lives and leaving survivors…
396 hits
They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and nowhere is that truer than…
373 hits
Before the sun had fully risen over Hawaii, a chain reaction had begun — one…
475 hits
“Minor Problem: I Identify as a 73-Year-Old Tabby, Therefore I’m Legally Entitled to X (and…
489 hits
Dusty Gulch Gazette – Special Duck Census Edition By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble – Foreign Correspondent,…
380 hits
Flysa spent some of the early years of his life managing construction projects in the…
425 hits
In the heart of Ballarat in 1854, a ragtag coalition of gold miners took a…
524 hits
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Forty-One Years On — A Legacy That Still Breathes, Bleeds, and…
394 hits
Henry J. Kaiser: The Self-Made Miracle Worker and the Legacy of Vision This article builds…
452 hits
The birth of Australia’s iron ore industry wasn’t just an economic milestone - it was…
437 hits
The Quiet Hanson: Why Lee Sherrard Might Just Save One Nation (and Why She Might…
633 hits
Dusty Gulch Gazette – Emergency Midnight Edition November 27, 2025 – Vol. 147, No. 320…
458 hits
From a disease-ravaged ship anchored off a windswept coast… to thirteen scrappy colonies telling the…
415 hits
In Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a charismatic Edinburgh teacher enchants her…
588 hits
Elon Musk is more than a billionaire tech mogul...he’s a disruptor, a visionary, and a…
427 hits
Yes, let’s be honest. The days when the Irish, Scots, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Poms,…
448 hits
Picture this: You’re sitting down for a family dinner, and instead of chatting about school,…
442 hits
Dusty Gulch Gazette November 21, 2025 – Vol. 147, No. 312 By Jedediah "Dust" Harlan…
467 hits
by Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble - Chief Correspondent for Ratty News - Aeronautical and Ornithological Division…
457 hits
A green hill in the Irish Sea has stood for 1,045 years. It has seen…
463 hits
There are many ships of the Royal Australian Navy that are dear to the hearts…
432 hits
In military history, there are countless tales of bravery, valour, and unwavering dedication from soldiers…
455 hits
After the Great Green Reset wiped out civilisation back in the 2020s, the surviving humans…
430 hits