Category: Opinions
-
Black Hole Blues (and other songs from outer space)
With a title like that, I thought I was attending a musical event right in the middle of the Sydney Writer’s Festival. Black Hole Blues is music, but not as we know it Jim. I arrived and there was Adam Spencer, interviewing a woman I’d never seen before with an inter galactic background. Janna Levin,…
-
The Man Who Knew Infinity
I should have known about Srinivasa_Ramanujan, the subject of the Man Who Knew Infinity. It is the story of an unknown genius who turned mathematics inside out. But even my mere degree (a statistics major) is not required to appreciate this film. It is Ramanujan’s story that is utterly compelling. An unlearned man, he teaches himself mathematics and then…
-
The Daughter – Movie Review
The Australian movie The Daughter is like a wedding present, something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Based on Henrik Ibsen’s play, The Wild Duck, it tells a story both familiar and unfamiliar through a cast of well known actors including Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Miranda Otto and Anna Torv followed by Paul Schneider…
-
Don’t Blame the Media
I arrived at work last Saturday. In the corridors, I heard the cleaners talking about the Paris attacks. I went into the tea room and the TV was showing a rolling coverage. I stopped and watched but as time was short I left. After I finished my training session, I checked the latest news. I…
-
National Insecurity, the Internet and Data Retention
UK and Australia have introduced internet monitoring and data retention laws. Canada too is introducing a similar bill. France as well. The UK has had the High Court throw them out. But the Conservative Government is fighting back. Europe is also throwing out such laws. The USA is trying to postpone its response to the controversy over the…
-
The Best of Enemies : Movie Review
It’s 1968 and America is in turmoil. Martin Luther King has been shot, riots have broken out across the country, the Vietnam War is faltering, Robert Kennedy has been assassinated and Richard Nixon is campaigning for President.
-
Fire In Babylon : Attitude is Everything
Fire in Babylon is the best cricket documentary ever! And now the book is out too! I was lucky enough to see it at the Melbourne International Film Festival a few years ago. The documentary traced the rise and dominance of the West Indian cricket team from the mid 1970s. That dominance was due to a never-ending…
-
Michael Clarke : Three Moments
Michael Clarke is about to play his last cricket Test. Sadly, he will leave the game as an Ashes losing Test captain regardless of the result. For many people that will be his legacy. For some, this is the time to criticise and to bring up the past. But not for me. Here are the three…
-
Why Same Sex Marriage Is Now an Election Issue
As promised, Tony Abbott put the proposal of same sex marriage to the party room. But not his own party room where in all probability the motion would have been lost anyway. But quite cleverly or perhaps fearfully, the PM put it to the joint LNP party room. In doing that, he knew the same sex…
-
Far From Men : Movie Review
Set in the early days of the Algerian War of Independence, Far From Men stars the masterful Viggo Mortensen in a movie that is more than a buddy film, more than a war film and more than a chase film. Based on a short story by Albert Camus, the movie begins with Daru (Mortensen) a school…
-
Bernie Sanders? President?
About two years ago, on Twitter I started following this odd American politician. A man named Bernie Sanders. I thought to myself this man can’t be a Republican or Democrat. He’s saying what neither party could ever countenance let alone tolerate. Neither of the two conservative American parties would touch him for a second. Then I…