In the past those of us distant from war could only see it in the print media and television. It was curated with the intent to gain sympathy, or conceal the brutality of those who we were supposed to be sympathetic for. As censored as it was at times graphic, though it was just in fragments. Now, we have an endless stream of images and video. If we dare to see them. War is a peculiar thing, it allows for the most horrible to occur on a grand scale. It is precisely because of the scale of such acts and who is committing them, that the insufferable horror continues on. Despite the savagery...

In his appearances on shows like Dick Cavett’s, Norman Mailer often showed himself to be an immense ego. Especially while seated across from his ever contrasting, literary sparring partner, Gore Vidal. Mailer as curmudgeon and as one audience member yells, “chauvinistic,” was there to declare himself as his generations Hemingway, the ‘literary champion’ of the world. The master of American letters. Mailer was a great writer, he knew that and demanded the world know it as well. From an era when the writer was held in regard, many then read, television shows often had authors on to debate and...

I am an artist therefore anything, I produce is art. Or, Anything I produce is accepted as art, therefore I am an artist. I pondered both outcomes, as I walked through the art gallery in the city. A combination of native works, landscapes that captured an Australia when it was a frontier, pioneers and ‘Aboriginals’ in an ancient land. Religious works of human whose eyes that looked beyond the viewer with empty gazes, golden orbs around their heads, immortalising them. To the paintings of important people or the aristocracy of the past and maritime moments, each done with passion, talent and...

The social media feed gruel has switched it’s serving of slop from the speculation about the potential outcome of one hundred men versus a gorilla. The content creators who recycle the same shit, because of algorithms and trends now concern themselves with the apparently ‘vile’ imagery of one Pamela Anderson, now in her late fifties, daring to present herself in public with no make up on, and without the assistance of filters. The mostly males from behind their meme accounts are shocked, armies of anime avatars and tradcon bros shriek in outrage. How dare this woman age! This woman did not...

In the photo essay, Ethiopia : The Scorched Earth, Mary Anne Fitzgerald writes in the caption beneath a photo of a young girl crying, “Tears of hunger are a good sign. During the final stages of malnutrition children are too weak to cry.” There was Live Aid and U.S.A. For Africa, once for Ethiopia. Millionaire singers, millions of viewers and millions of dollars raised, despite that millions starved. Well meaning intentions moved on once the songs slipped from the charts, the misery inspired single with little lasting impact for those in the place that had inspired it all in the first place....

I was going over the notes that I had taken for this current book that I am writing, and I found a quote from a conversation with a lady. I shall spare the details of what the focused conversation was about but she said something really interesting, “I learned who my husband was when he turned his parents in.” She was born in Albania, now in her early sixties and fortunate enough to have migrated to Australia during the 1990s. She divorced her husband once they both arrived in Australia. It was easier to remain married during the application process. They had lived through communism, a form...