Today, I am featuring an article written by our dear blogger Malcolm back in 2021. He would have been coming up 90 then.... It seems very relevant for some reason. I hope you enjoy.
It is interesting to think about the various factors which influenced us as children … our first days at school, our early reading matter, so many new experiences which shaped our development. Depending on our present age, the answers to these questions will vary greatly.
From Cane Fields to Comic books and beyond, I am proud to have lived my life surrounded by heroes.
No matter where we come from, we have wonder in our eyes and joy in our hearts and that wonder and joy must be cherished and protected. Even if it means learning by rote and worshipping comic book heroes.
Read more: Through the Eyes of a Child - From Cane Fields to Comic Books
June is Gay Pride Month. Flags fly, parades roll out, corporations update their logos, and the media hums with celebration.
But here’s a question no one seems brave enough to ask: Where’s Bloke Month?
Where’s the month for the men who get up every day, go to work, fix what’s broken, say little, and keep the world turning? The men who aren’t glamorous or loud or “reinventing masculinity” - but who hold families together, protect what matters, and do it all without demanding applause?
While the noise grows louder for some, a quiet silence has fallen over others.... the kind of men who don’t march, don’t shout, and don’t beg for recognition. They just show up. They build, they protect, they endure.
No one’s throwing them a parade.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to ask: What happens to a society that forgets the value of its men?
They’re invisible. Uncelebrated. Sometimes even vilified. Maybe we need to think about this.....
Read more: Nostalgia Induced Amnesia - there is a lot of it about these days
Read more: Pine Gap’s Gaza Puzzle: Whiskers McNibble Squeaks the Truth
When I was sixteen, I sneaked ( or is it snuck?) into a theatre to watch a film that would stay with me for life. I was only 16 but I pretended to be 18. My older brother took me. He was good like that. He knew I would see it and felt it was better to do so under his watchful eye.
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange wasn’t just a film - it was a visceral, unforgettable encounter. What struck me wasn’t just the graphic violence. It was the contrast: the lilting beauty of Beethoven soaring over acts of sheer horror. The delight of Alex and his gang in depravity, paired with the elegance of music, made it more disturbing, not less. It showed me something then that I would come to understand only more fully with age: evil often wears the mask of culture, refinement, even charm. I was quite upset when we left the theatre. My brother said: " Don't watch things because they sound exciting unless you are ready. " And he was right. I was too young, But in many ways, I am glad I went to see that film when I did. It opened my eyes.
That thought returned to me recently, talking with Redhead, who turned 93 yesterday. Our conversation turned to today’s moral blindness, especially around the events of October 7 and the current violence in cities like Paris, Los Angeles, Melbourne, the list goes on. So many now shout "Free Palestine" with passion, but refuse to watch, even acknowledge, the brutality Hamas unleashed that day. Murder, rape, beheadings, the deliberate targeting of civilians. It was not resistance - it was terror. And yet, some people actively look away.
Like young Greta Thunberg.who refused to look. To watch. Thank goodness I opened my eyes when I did......
Read more: The Choice Before Us: A Clockwork Orange, Riots, or the New Nuremberg
The show takes a look at the horror that emerges when people are allowed to make anonymous decisions as part of a crowd.
It caused a degree of shock and horror at the time and was designed to show us how being anonymous in a crowd can, in his words, “turn perfectly nice people into internet bullies, or rioters, or hooligans”.
I am proud to pay tribute to a testimony to the power of coal. If a grand old lady of over 100 years can still stand with coal power in a world seemingly obsessed with renewables I have to say this: try running her on wind power or solar panels. Or looking for a big enough power point to plug her into each night. She works 14 hours a day in the summer months when the days are long and there is always a brisk breeze on Lake Wakatipu but she still thrives on Coal.
Anyone who has ever visited the beautiful town of Queenstown in New Zealand, will know the sight of the steamship Earnslaw.
The TSS Earnslaw is an integral part of Queenstown’s pioneering history and to this day a Queenstown icon. She was commissioned by New Zealand Railways to service the communities around Lake Wakatipu. Launched in the same year as the Titanic, the TSS Earnslaw’s maiden voyage was on 18 October 1912.
And this grand old lady runs on something that is demonised today - hard back-breaking work and coal.
An exclusive editorial investigation by Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Chief Correspondent, Ratty News
Dusty Gulch - To the untrained eye, it looked like a tantrum.Two titans of modern swagger....Donald J. Trump and Elon R. Musk...squabbling like boys at a sleepover, fighting over who gets the top bunk, the last lamington, or the final say in America’s next great drama.
One called the other “disloyal.” The other pretended not to care.... while a Tesla got keyed outside a moong bean festival celebrating gay pride in Gaza. Social media was abuzz. Left-wing judges wagged fingers. Meme factories shifted into fifth gear.
But here at Ratty News, we sniffed something deeper.
Was this ego? Was it orchestration.... A two-act spongecake of political theatre baked with surgical precision to lure out a nest of rats hidden deep within the walls of government?
If it isn't? Then that matters too......
Read more: Operation Lamington: The Top-Bunk Feud That Baited the Rats
On June 6, 1944, the world witnessed an extraordinary event that changed the course of World War II. Known as the Normandy Landing, or D-Day, it marked the largest amphibious invasion in human history.
The Normandy Landing was the result of months of meticulous planning and preparation by Allied forces. Under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a multinational coalition consisting of American, British, Canadian, and other Allied troops including Australian, came together to devise an audacious plan. The objective was to establish a foothold in Nazi-occupied France and initiate the liberation of Western Europe.
Canberra's finest fall from grace... and altitude
They came, they posed, they plummeted. In what was billed as a whirlwind outback charm offensive, Prime Minister Albanese, Climate Minister Chris Bowen, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong descended... quite literally... on Dusty Gulch for a photo-op tour that turned into a full-blown bush baptism.
Dressed in high-vis vests and sporting expressions of city-bred optimism, the trio’s visit quickly unravelled into a cautionary tale of political parachuting gone wrong, airborne budgies, CWA sabotage, and old fashioned bush justice. As Ratty Airways circled low and Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble reported live, the stage was set for a landing so unforgettable it may be commemorated in marmalade for years to come.
It was supposed to be a triumphant outback photo op for Queensland Day. Instead, it turned into a comedy of altitude and attitude - with the Prime Minister, the Climate Minister and the Foreign Minister all taking a dive, quite literally, into the heart of Dusty Gulch.
Read more: Budgies Down: Canberra’s High-Vis Hopeless Crash in Dusty Gulch
Anarchy often gets a bad rap. Images of burning buildings, rampant lawlessness, and a general sense of "uh-oh" tend to dominate the narrative.
But let’s put down our pitchforks and Molotov cocktails for a moment and consider the potential upsides of anarchy.
After all, every cloud has its silver lining, and every chaotic free-for-all has its perks. Just imagine? No more bureaucratic red tape.
Ah, bureaucracy, the bane of modern existence. Forms in triplicate, waiting lines longer than a Tolkien novel, and rules so convoluted that they make calculus look like finger painting. But in anarchy, guess what? No more red tape! Want to build a treehouse without a permit? Go right ahead. Feel like setting up a lemonade stand without a business license? Be my guest. The world is your oyster – shuck it however you please.
Read more: Government Protecting and Serving You - Yeah Right!
Part 2 of the Cane Series
I’ll admit, before diving into this series, I hadn’t given much thought to how the sugar industry shaped our Constitution. Like many Australians, I knew the name Sir Samuel Griffith from schoolbooks, maybe from a university crest or a street sign..but not much more. Yet, as I followed cane’s tangled path through Queensland’s past, it led me to a moment in time when sugar, race, labour, and law collided. And at the heart of it stood Griffith: barrister, Premier, and constitutional architect.
What struck me wasn’t just what he said, but why he said it....and what he hoped Australia might become.
On 31 March 1891, during the charged debates that would shape the nation's Constitution, Griffith rose to speak on a subject that had long troubled him.... the importation of black labour into Queensland's cane fields. He warned:
“...the introduction of an alien race in considerable numbers into any part of the Commonwealth is a danger to the whole of the Commonwealth... upon that matter the Commonwealth should speak, and the Commonwealth alone.”
It was a defining moment. Not just in law, but in the struggle to decide what kind of country this fledgling Australia would be.
Read more: The Barrister of Cane: Samuel Griffith, Sugar, and the Racial Architecture of a Nation
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