There’s optimism among the small government conservatives, liberty nationalists and MAGA hardliners from the first weeks of Trumps second presidency. The exposure of USAID to the world, revealing waste, nefarious conduct and ideologically bias that only proves that they were right. The US government is fascinating, it’s full of departments and agencies that continue to conduct themselves with little or no oversight or do things in secret or in the open. The government trips over itself, works against it’s own claimed interests but above all else it allows presidents and the government itself...

She looks up and pleads for mercy. Then the drone operator makes the decision to kill her. We get to see the life and death of war, the intimate terror as the mostly young are killed on the battlefield. Social media accounts share the misery with pornographic delight, the human beings in fear and pain who die are props or disregarded as objects. For a gaming addicted online world, maybe they are just seen as NPC’s. If they are a Ukrainian, then some take glee at the thought of their destruction as though it is a slight against their government or Western foreign policy itself. If it’s a...

The original Nosferatu is a masterpiece, a relic from an pioneering era of cinema that pushed boundaries yet to be found. The fact that we have the original at all is an accomplishment, an unauthorised copy of Dracula that was meant to be destroyed. An early copyright infringement strike where the widow of Bram Stoker sought royalties and the destruction of the movie that was inspired by her late husbands work. The names of the characters and locations were changed though for all intensive purposes in a period when Dracula was not public domain, it was legally decided to be wrong and thus...

“That's it, mum, goodbye,” he is dying, dead, a Ukrainian soldier in his last moments caught on helmet camera makes his peace. The eight minutes leading up to his death have been shared on social media, a close combat struggle between him and his Russian counterpart. With his left eye stabbed, his own blade turned onto him and pushed into his neck, the Ukrainian soldier talks calmly to his foe who stops the attack. They share a moment, a break in the absurdity of war. “The world is so beautiful. Let me leave calmly. Go away, please.” The Russian soldier bids his enemy farewell and adds, “You...

I was going to write a comment on some current discourse, the usual diatribe of impulsive viral outrage invented by those who live online. A reaction to trending tantrums. The usual produce from memetards who vomit digital junk the algorithms, whether one follows them or not the social media feed insists we see it. Then the likes, shares, comments and responses by those who help to fan the flames of nothing. All the while behind the memes are children, mostly little boys or another Ian Miles Chong, so desperate for wealth and fame that they sit behind their screens and consummate junk. I...

Peace on Earth is the mantra that we hear, especially now but on and off over the coming year. Those who use violence, will smile it out. Those who profit from war may cheer those words from corporate offices. Those who hate will do so for entire collectives of people, children included. Politicians will lie words of peace with the deceit they are loved for. Christians will die in the land where a Jew was born and died to become their saviour, while that very land is buried beneath rubble and bodies. The three religions of an Abrahamic God will fight, kill and wage war as ideologies but for...