After a couple of weeks in Washington DC, my rueful report is that Trumpworld is even stranger close up. Arriving after the president ordered the army...
A writer friend recently asked if I ever felt lonely. She confessed to being puzzled by the idea: her problem was an excess of people, with...
The eightieth anniversary of the end of the second world war has passed with little fanfare in much of Australia. In the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh,...
Last night two of my closest friends and I bade each other goodnight in our traditional style: a hug, an exclamatory “darling” and a whispered, emphatic,...
Earlier this year, just ahead of the federal election, I emailed some routine questions to Home Affairs. I was planning an article for Inside Story about...
The wave of protests that swept through Indonesian cities and towns last week bore more than a few resemblances to those that brought down the Suharto...
Seventy-four years ago an outfit called Australian Public Opinion Polls conducted a Gallup survey about Australians’ attitudes to immigration. The headline in Melbourne’s Herald emphasised the...
Three years ago, to some controversy, my local council changed the name of our part of inner-northern Melbourne from Moreland to Merri-bek, a Woi-wurrung word meaning...
At Donald Trump’s cabinet committee meeting this week, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the following to his beloved president: There’s only one thing I wish...
‘I don’t have to go to school anymore,” said my Year 8 son during one of our regular conversations about why school matters. “ChatGPT has a...