Tragedy, blame and the cowardice of easy narratives

After tragedy, grief is quickly hijacked by blame. Votes are counted, ideologies accused, and humanity lost in the noise. But violence is not a referendum, and collective guilt solves nothing. What matters is courage, evidence, and a media culture that informs rather than inflames.


Cow Bullshed

The Cowaramup Bullshed is the ‘Men Shed’ for the Margaret River region. Apparently others are planned for Margs itself and there is also  one at…


Motorbike Frog

Margs people or ‘Margites’ as I affectionately call them will get a kick out of  a newby (a Maggot) who was annoyed about what sounded…


MR Soup Kitchen

A bunch of really special people start chopping and slicing at the Margaret River Soup Kitchen every Wednesday morning in preparation for the 5.00 pm…


Going South

The Swan Newspaper is going south…specifically the South West of Western Australia.  We will be telling stories about the great southern region, its history and…


Saint Pastuer

Travelling companions aren’t always pleasant. If you are forced to sit beside someone who is obnoxious or smelly or you aren’t in the mood to…


Loaves (no fishes)

I always wanted to open a bakery…if I win lotto I will and call it ‘This Day’…as in ‘give us this day our daily bread’. …



Robida

Albert Robida was a French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist. He edited and published La Caricature magazine for 12 years. Through the 1880s he…


Why Australia Should Be With China, Not the USA

Australia’s future will be shaped not by distant alliances but by the realities of our own region. For too long, we have tied ourselves to Washington’s strategic fears, most recently through the costly and outdated AUKUS submarine deal. At over $360 billion, AUKUS locks us into dependence on the United States and Britain while doing little to secure our nation in an era when autonomous systems and advanced technologies define modern defence.

The real choice facing Australia is clear. We can cling to a declining America, which hides inequality and social control behind the rhetoric of “freedom”, or we can embrace our place in the Asia Pacific by working with China, our largest trading partner and a nation that has lifted millions out of poverty while building infrastructure across continents.

Western narratives about “reds under the bed”, about Taiwan as a spark for World War III, and about American moral superiority are propaganda designed to serve oligarchs and arms dealers. Chinese people, by contrast, have proved time and again to be generous, trustworthy, and valuable partners.

China is not our enemy. China is our friend. For Australia, the path to peace, prosperity, and independence lies not across the Pacific but with our neighbours in Asia.


Gary

Gary, is a special character. Someone who without even realising it is a celebrity around Margaret River in Western Australia.  And he has achieved this…


Typhoid Mary

Many people have heard the term Typhoid Mary, and may have even used it to describe someone who makes other people sick. What few people…


Our Lonely Galaxy: Why We May Never Meet Our Neighbours

Isaac Asimov once joked that humanity might be “a bunch of hicks way out in the sticks,” living too far from the bustling heart of the galaxy for anyone to visit. Perhaps he was right. In this sweeping exploration of the Milky Way’s architecture, Leo O’Hagan argues that our loneliness may simply be the price of distance — that civilisation thrives near the crowded core, while we drift quietly on the rim, listening for voices too far away to hear.