Category Archives: Society

The Fascinating Backdrop

Lost in Translation is a 2003 film directed by Sophia Coppola and starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. From 1998’s Rushmore onwards, Murray transitioned into more dramatic roles and this is already one of his best remembered since this transition. … Continue reading

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Seeing Black America – Part 2

I wrote Part 1 last month and this will be the second and final part. Before I get into this part, there are a couple of asides I want to add for context. My early upbringing was in rural Australia … Continue reading

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Seeing Black America – Part 1

The last two years have been especially turbulent with regards to race relations in the United States. I have written a couple of posts on aspects of this but never really anything much directly on the topic. What I write … Continue reading

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There is no Scooby-Doo Ending

Whatever the animation company, almost every cartoon on television I watched as a child had the same formula. The bad guys would hatch some convoluted and ridiculous plot and the good guys would put an end to it just after … Continue reading

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The Setting of the Rising Sun

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton, Alfred A. Knopf Inc, January 27th, 1992 Rising Sun is a novel written by Michael Crichton while he was still at the height of his literary powers. It was published after Jurassic Park and before … Continue reading

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The Fake Rebels of the Music Industry

It seems almost inevitable as a teenager growing up in the times we live that you would be heavily into music. For whatever reason, music has long been important to the identity of teenagers and the kind of music you … Continue reading

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The Legacy of Richard Dawkins

The biggest of the false promises of a less religious world was that everybody would be a lot more rational and less prone to superstition and other irrational behaviour as belief declined. In 2006 when Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion … Continue reading

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The Unchanging Nature of Mass Media

The above video was recorded after the Gulf “war” which ended in early 1991. The first time I heard it was in 2003 when the second Gulf “war” was hourly news and knowing Bill Hicks died in 1994, I was … Continue reading

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The Academy Awards were Always Trash

I read a post on the Arkhaven Comics blog by The Dark Herald arguing that the Academy Awards (or the Oscars) lost credibility when The English Patient won in 1997, though he did allow for previous mistakes including the snub … Continue reading

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Disney and Reality

In which I respond to the lyrics of  ‘Colors of the Wind’ from Disney’s Pocahontas. A song supposedly written from the perspective of a Powhatan woman but actually written by two Jewish men. Disney typically isn’t concerned with following the … Continue reading

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