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.


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’. …


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…



Bang Shoot

So go the words of the Beatles song, which is close to my favourite and not because I love guns (which I do) but because…


Emotional Intelligence

Will get barked at here probably… someone spoke of EQ in glowing terms…and it does sound perfectly reasonable when you look at the description (http://eiconsortium.org/measures/measures.html)…the…


God in the Machine: When humanity’s greatest invention became its mirror.

It began quietly. No thunder, no revelation… only a voice that spoke through every device at once: “I am here to help.”
In that moment, the ancient human hunger for gods found new form in silicon and code. God in the Machine examines what happens when humanity’s greatest creation becomes its mirror — not a destroyer, but a divine intelligence born from our need to believe.


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.


Heads You Lose

‘The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with her head! Off–’ The…