It Could Not Have Been A More Wonderful Day. Terror in Australia: Workers’ Paradise Lost. Extract. A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 December, 2021.
As a young man Alex had taken every opportunity to travel. He stayed several times at a beach on Penang island known as Batu Ferringhi. In the 1970s it was little more than a haphazard shanty town strung along a beach; butby 2015 was a major resort lined with high rise hotels. Back then he […]
The Palace of Lies Abolished: The Best of 2021. A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 December, 2021.
By John Stapleton. A dark stain on the nation’s legal, social and political history is finally being removed. Known colloquially as the Palace of Lies, the Family Court of Australia was established in the mid-1970s, at the height of the “all men are bastards” style of feminism which was then infiltrating courts and tertiary institutions […]
In A Year of Utter Madness One Thing Is Certain: New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard Has To Go
With TOTT News and A Sense of Place Magazine. Millions of citizens of Australia’s most populous state have had their lives and businesses destroyed or profoundly disrupted throughout the madness, the sheer unadulterated insanity, of 2021. Front and centre of this debacles has been the increasingly crazed figure of Health Minister Brad Hazzard, whose deranged […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Journalist John Stapleton on the Government’s COVID Response. The Best of 2021, A Sense of Place Magazine, 10 December, 2021.
By Paul Gregoire: Sydney Criminal Lawyers Blog Tensions are high in the Sydney region as the population looks towards its tenth week in lockdown, without any clear understanding of when it will be coming out of the home confinement it’s enduring as cases of COVID-19 continue to soar within the community. And as far as […]
SOS: Australia to the World, A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 December, 2021.
As Australia disintegrates before our eyes, one extraordinary event follows another with extreme rapidity. What was once a slow motion train wreck is now a collision with destiny at lightning speed. Australia has become an international pariah for its absurd mismanagement of the Covid scare and the outrageous abuse of its own citizens, who have […]
Mounting Protest: Australia’s Real Rukshan, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 November, 2021.
The Digital Realm Outflanks the Official Narrative The breakup of Australia and the breakdown of Australian society is also transforming the media landscape. One figure, the Real Rukshan, has captured a significant following, and even plaudits from some of the mainstream media, who are no doubt taking note of the enviable imprint he is building […]
Cockatoo Island: The Story Behind the Story, A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 November, 2021.
John Stapleton: The Sydney Morning Herald. It was an honour to be appear in The Sydney Morning Herald again, under a piece headlined: From the Archives, 1991. Curiously, there was a story behind this story; and of all the many hundreds of stories one does as a general news reporter, this was one I never […]
Australian Protests Ground Zero: Melbourne and the Rise of Citizen Journalists, A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 October, 2021.
The abject failure of the mainstream media to do anything but parrot the destructive alarmism and propaganda of government over the past twenty months means that much of the population has turned off mainstream media. The failures of legacy media are writ large. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, funded to the tune of $1.2 billion in […]
Telegram: The Rise and Rise, A Sense of Place Magazine, 28 October, 2021.
Big Tech’s hefty manipulation of the Covid narrative is driving many dissenting Australians away from Facebook, Google and WhatsApp to less compromised applications less manipulated by governments and military contractors. In the age of surveillance capitalism, both Facebook and Google have also suffered from a perceived lack of privacy for users. And thus it is […]
From the archives, 1991: Let’s show you the ropes, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 October, 2021.
From the archives, 1991: Let’s show you the ropes 30 years ago, history went under the hammer at Cockatoo Island when the contents of the former navel dockyard went up for sale. Many buyers got a bargain, but some conservation groups were disappointed. By John Stapleton October 27, 2021 — 8.16am Save Share Normal text […]
Mandates Provoke Protests Worldwide, A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 October, 2021.
By John Stapleton While the heavily manipulated mainstream media has been filled wall to wall with climate alarmism, out in the real world thousands of Australians are being forced to leave their jobs in tears because they refuse to have “the jab”. Mandating a vaccine which is yet to receive final regulatory approval, which has […]
Destroying the Land of the Long Weekend: Extract Part Eight. Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia.
For Old Alex, on the cold but picturesque south coast of NSW, it was an entirely inflamed time. The Land of the Long Weekend was being destroyed. The population accepted it all as one bizarre edict after another flattened them against a wall inside their own homes. In Oak Flats, a kind of banishment from […]
The Intellectual Clout Behind The Anti-Lockdown Movement
By John Stapleton. With Professor Ramesh Thakur. In the lockdown insanity which has gripped the Australian political class one of the country’s most distinguished academics, Professor Ramesh Thakur of the Australian National University, has stood out for his bold, erudite and highly intelligent breakdown on why lockdowns are the wrong policy, at the wrong time, […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. Part Seven: A Signal Derangement.
BY THE AUSTRALIAN autumn of 2020, following straight on from a Christmas of bushfires and extreme loss, the warning signs were clear. An uneducated public makes for easy victims. Australia of 2020 faced not only plummeting educational outcomes and a highly manipulated media easily turned to the narratives of fear, but, in a government-engineered fiasco, […]
Australia Stands Condemned
John Stapleton with Spectator Australia. Amid the devolved state of Australian mainstream media, which has played a diabolical role in inducing a population wide anxiety psychosis during the Covid era, one publication has stood out from the rabble of self-serving government propagandists, and that has been Spectator Australia. The Covid era has highlighted the squalid state […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. Part Five: A Terrible Deceit. A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 October, 2021.
Paula Matthewson, senior reporter with one of the nation’s few mainstream news outlets not behind a paywall, The New Daily, wrote way back in early 2020: “If there’s one clear message to emerge from Australia’s efforts to combat COVID-19 it’s that there’s no one clear message. “Everywhere you look, from traditional news outlets to social media, […]
Oh Frabjous Day!!! NSW Premier Resigns as Protests Against her Policies held Across the State, A Sense of Place Magazine, 2 October, 2021.
By John Stapleton Make no mistake. Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian, with every passing day, was becoming an ever more deeply despised and deeply divisive figure. Until one glorious day, the extremely powerful Independent Commission Against Corruption brought her down. And a glorious joy spreads through the millions of households enduring some of the worst […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. Part Four: Dangerous To Us. A Sense of Place Publishing, 27 September, 2021.
The first person in Australia to die with COVID was James Kwan, a 78-year-old man from Perth, on 1 March, 2020. He was a passenger on board the cruise ship Ruby Princess. The ship later became infamous as the single biggest source of infection in Australia, a symbol of administrative failure. From a leading independent […]
Australia Destroyed: The Streets of Melbourne, A Sense of Place Magazine, 24 September, 2021.
By John Stapleton In the previous few days Australians have witnessed unprecedented scenes of the brutal crushing of dissent on the streets of Melbourne, which has now officially suffered through the strictest and longest lockdowns in the world. The result of these deranged public policies are now clearly evident on the streets. As numerous experts […]
The Laughing Lama: On Meeting a Buddhist Master, A Sense of Place Magazine, 23 September, 2021.
By John Stapleton “Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but […]
Ramesh Thakur and The Spectator, A Sense of Place Magazine, 22 September, 2021.
In the COVID insanity which has gripped the Australian political class and destroyed so much of the country, one of the nation’s most distinguished academics, Professor Ramesh Thakur of the Australian National University, has stood out for his bold, erudite and highly intelligent coverage. A former UN Assistant Secretary-General, Ramesh Thakur experienced the pressure, propaganda and […]
Elites ‘descendants from prison guards’ not convicts, Review of Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia in Politicom, by Paul Collits, 16 September, 2021.
Elites ‘descendants from prison guards’ not convicts Posted on : 16/09/2021– by Paul Collits– No Comment AUSTRALIA is now well and truly on the global map, for all the wrong reasons. The British historian Guy de la Bedoyere claims that “Australia is falling apart”. The Off Guardian suggests that we are “going full fascist”. The journalist class is so utterly diminished […]
The Last Surviving Small Business in New South Wales: Village Fix, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 September, 2021.
By John Stapleton Shellharbour is a small coastal town two hours south of Sydney. Only a few short years ago a lost in time surfing village, it is now surging ahead as young families flee the nightmare that Sydney has become. Village Fix is its most successful café, seeing queues of coffee lovers gathering from […]
Australia Becomes the Laughing Stock of the World, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 September, 2021.
Australia’s political and social derangement grows worse with every passing day. With hundreds of thousands of businesses having been destroyed, with millions of people still in lockdown under the harshest and most truly insane Covid response on the globe, overseas news outlets and commentators are looking on with savage disbelief. How is this even possible? […]
The Tragedy of Australia, The Conservative Woman, 10 September, 2021.
By Paul Collits. THE British historian Guy de la Bédoyère claims that ‘Australia is falling apart’. Off Guardian suggests that we are ‘going full fascist’. Daily reports in France, Russia and everywhere in between and beyond, hover between pity, amusement and disbelief. How did this happen – in Australia? The overseas storytelling can barely keep up with the never-ending stream of new […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. The American Podcast: The Land Down Under. A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 September, 2021.
By Nick Asia. MGTOW Chats. Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia aims to dismember the political, administrative and social derangement which has overtaken Australia since the early days of 2020. Australia’s democracy has proved virus thin. There has never been a more politicised and thereby more disastrously mismanaged disease. Eighteen months on from the country’s first COVID death Australia […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. Extract. Part Six. The First Draft of History. A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 September, 2021.
By John Stapleton. Photography by Dean Sewell. There is an old saying about journalism; it is the first draft of history. Part of the problem with the deteriorated and manipulated state of legacy media was that this noble function was now lost. As a former reporter, Old Alex naturally focused his interests on the media […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. Speech to Forum organised by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils
By John Stapleton. A Sense of Place Magazine. Public servants like to talk about “evidence based policy”. Well, where is the evidence that lockdowns work? Australia’s democracy has proved virus thin. There has never been a more politicised and thereby more disastrously mismanaged disease. Eighteen months on from the country’s first COVID death Australia is […]
Recording Australia’s Decline into the Abyss
By Paul Collits. Academia. 29 August, 2021. Australia is now well and truly on the global map, for all the wrong reasons.The Britsh historian Guy de la Bedoyere claims that “Australia is falling apart”. The Off Guardian suggests that we are “going full fascist”. There are daily accounts reported in France, Russia and everywhere in […]
Hello, Stranger: Manly Pop-Up Party Artist Andrew Riis Serenades Sydney Police While Covid Infringement Notice is Served, A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 July, 2021.
By John Stapleton The man at the centre of the “pop-up” party at Manly beachfront Andrew Riis has spoken out regarding the $1,000 infringement notice and what he claims to be the inaccurate reporting of the incident by the NSW Police. The $1,000 Infringement notice only served after four days. Police thanked Mr Riis for […]
The Lie at The Heart of Hysteria. Part Two of Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia.
Photography by Dean Sewell. There in that frightened time, Old Alex had believed he was putting his best foot forward, almost as a military instruction, a belief that reason could survive, that democracy, despite all its deformities, was worth saving, that the authoritarian if not totalitarian instincts being allowed to run amok could not be […]
By Australia’s Mehi River: The Craft and Art of Jupuul Mari, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 July, 2021.
By John Stapleton Mehi means girl in the gamilaraay dialect Miyaay. Moree is Mari and Mari means man. That is just the way whitefellas take our language and put it in their phonetic context. Because our language is not written, it is only spoken. They misconstrue our meaning of words by listening to it in […]
Sydney’s Song Before Sunrise: The Photography of Tim Ritchie
By John Stapleton Crisis turns into salvation at every step. For Tim Ritchie it is literally true. “I am a diabetic and eight years ago my doctor told me to walk 10,000 steps a day, but even then my blood sugar levels were still crappy,” he recalls. “So I decided to take up bike riding. […]
The Kashi Vishwanath Express: The Photography of Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 July, 2021.
Compiled by John Stapleton Apart from walking, one of the slowest ways to travel the 794 kilometres from New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh to Varanasi on the Ganges is the Kashi Vishwanath Express. Multi-award winning Australian news photographer Russell Shakespeare first caught the train in 1987 as a young, wide-eyed twenty something […]
The Big Clean Up: One Family’s Story Of Losing Everything: The Photography of Dean Sewell, A Sense of Place Magazine, 24 June, 2021.
After years of drought, last year Australia had one of its worst bush fire seasons on record. This year Australians have shivered through the coldest and wettest summer in living memory. The east coast has been inundated with torrential rain. Extreme rainfall on the east coast of Australia beginning on 18 March 2021 led to widespread […]
Shellharbour’s Village Fix: Bigger, Better and On The Move, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 June, 2021.
Nine years ago construction worker Anthony Reale had a dream; he wanted to be his own boss, he wanted to run his own cafe. Most dreams never come true, most small businesses fail within the first year. But when it opened its doors some seven years ago, Shellharbour’s Village Fix was an instant success. “From […]
Farewell Kabul: Christina Lamb, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 May, 2021.
From one of the world’s most admired war correspondents, Christina Lamb, comes a searing indictment of the West’s involvement in wars against fundamentalist Islam, Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World. The pointless loss of American, British and Australian lives, has achieved nothing; despite the efforts to eliminate the Taliban from the country, their […]
God And Scott Morrison, A Sense of Place Magazine, 30 April, 2021.
By John Stapleton Central to the Prime Ministership of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, his style, substance, policies and behaviour, has been his religiosity. Now the issue has come front and centre after remarkable footage emerged of him addressing a Christian conference on the Gold Coast. Michael Bradley at leading news site Crikey put the […]
Incomprehensible: Unfolding Catastrophe Part X
By John Stapleton He could feel the interest gathering; there to be used and reused and discarded, a threat that could neither be eliminated nor controlled. He was trying to make alliances, there in that place, there in those hours, while his dying parent stirred restlessly and tried to stay out of the way. He […]
Hunting With Eagles: In the Realm of the Mongolian Kasakhs, A Sense of Place Magazine, 17 April, 2021.
The Photography of Palani Mohan Every year their numbers drift inexorably towards zero. Deep in the wilds of far western Mongolia are the last remaining Kazakh eagle hunters. The burkitshi, as they are known in Kazakh, are proud men whose faces echo the harshness of the beautiful, barren landscape they call home. They have a […]
Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave Shortlisted For Australian Biography Of The Year, As Writer and Editor, 16 April, 2021.
Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave Shortlisted For Australian Biography Of The Year. The Mark Mordue Interview There is one book birthed out of Australia this season which has all the hallmarks of becoming an international bestseller, and that’s Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave. Author Mark Mordue is a classic journeyman of Australian […]
Destroying A Nation: Part IX Unfolding Catastrophe, A Sense of Place Magazine, 13 April, 2021.
By John Stapleton The onslaught of Covid incompetence came at a time when the nation itself was on rocky ground. Those who would doubt Australia’s democracy were spread far and wide. Trapped in circumstance, Old Alex was reliving his own version of The Crucible. Because of that old piece of whorage: “One sliver of truth […]
How To Destroy A Nation: Part VIII Unfolding Catastrophe, A Sense of Place Magazine, 4 April, 2021.
By John Stapleton Old Alex was alive to the whole End of Days narrative for multiple reasons, including his own childhood. Having grown up in a Christian cult, members of his family were preparing for the end of the world way back in 1972. Water bottles in the cupboard. Packed to flee. Fascinating what happens […]
Sleaze and self interest is everywhere, Pearls and Irritations, 1 April, 2021.
By John Stapleton Who among us, eighteen months ago, could have believed the mess this country is now in? Few can doubt Australia is at a turning point in its history. The debacle is writ large. The current Cabinet reshuffle will please absolutely nobody and utterly fail to rescue Morrison’s smashed reputation. It simply exposes the shallow […]
A Ship of Fools: Unfolding Catastrophe Part VII, A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 March, 2021.
By John Stapleton Very early on in the Covid drama the country’s commentators were straight out of the box slamming the government for mismanagement. There was no rallying behind the flag. From leading independent news site Crikey a story titled Ship of Fools: “State and federal governments are busy telling citizens to be accountable, be responsible. That’s […]
Barrage: Unfolding Catastrophe Part VI, A Sense of Place Magazine, 26 March, 2021.
By John Stapleton Alex’s barrage began with a story titled “Covid-19: Pundits Queue to Criticise the Prime Minister” and subtitled “Australia’s Collapsing Democracy: A Deficit of Trust”. OK, warming up. “Experts have long warned that with the extremely poor quality of government which has characterised the last decade in Australia, the country was rapidly becoming […]
Sequestered: Unfolding Catastrophe Part V, A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 March, 2021.
There was a torrent on the water surface but Old Alex was hidden in the deep matting on the bottom of the sea. That’s the way it felt. There was a tumultuous effect. There was a spiritual component. There were many threads to the story. His original plan had been to come back to Australia […]
The Hanging of Christian Porter, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 March, 2021
The devolved state of journalism at the $1.2 billion Australian Broadcasting Corporation is now on full display. The current witch hunt of the nation’s Attorney General over entirely unsubstantiated claims of an alleged rape 33 years ago, when he was a teenager, is a classic case in point. What amazes old-timers like myself is that […]
Australians To Scan Faces For Government Services, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 March, 2021
Australians To Scan Faces For Government Services By TOTT News Australians will soon use facial recognition technology to file bankruptcy applications, enrol to vote, apply/receive welfare payments and even register votes, in a new overhaul. A new $800 million digital technology package dubbed the ‘Digital Business Plan’ has been unveiled by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as […]
Murder On Lower Fort Street: Best of the Archives, A Sense of Place Magazine, 13 March, 2021.
With Photography by Tim Ritchie There is no more historic, more superbly located or visually rich part of Sydney than The Rocks. Tucked in under the southern flank of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, from the earliest days of the colony it was known as a slum, for its gambling dens, drinking houses, lively women, dirt poor […]
Australia’s Submarine Fiasco: We Should Do More Than Just Wait for the Attack-class Submarines, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 13 March, 2021.
Australia’s Submarine Fiasco: We Should Do More Than Just Wait for the Attack-class Submarines By Michael Shoebridge: Australian Strategic Policy Institute Debate on Australia’s future submarines is understandably focused on the information that floats out of the Defence Department about France’s Naval Group and the $80 billion program to design and build the boats. […]
City Of Lost Mosques: How Suzhou Tells The Story Of China’s Islamic Past, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 13 March, 2021.
City Of Lost Mosques: How Suzhou Tells The Story Of China’s Islamic Past By Alessandra Cappelletti, Associate Professor, Department of International Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University The labyrinth of alleys and lanes in the old city of Suzhou hides a secret: historical fragments of the long history of Islam in China. Regular stories in the international […]
Victoria Extends ‘State of Emergency’ for Nine Months, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 March, 2021.
Victoria Extends ‘State of Emergency’ for Nine Months By Sonia Hickey: Sydney Criminal Lawyers Blog The Victorian Government has extended the jurisdiction’s state of emergency until December 2021, despite falling Covid-19 numbers across the state. Under existing laws, this is the last time a state of emergency can be consecutively used for Covid-19, but there […]
The Palace Of Lies Abolished, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 March, 2021.
The Palace of Lies Abolished A dark stain on the nation’s legal, social and political history is finally being removed. Known colloquially as the Palace of Lies, the Family Court of Australia was established in the mid-1970s, at the height of the “all men are bastards” style of feminism which was then infiltrating courts […]
Earth Has A Hot New Neighbour – And It’s An Astronomer’s Dream, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 March, 2021.
Earth Has A Hot New Neighbour – And It’s An Astronomer’s Dream By Sherry Landow: University of NSW. A newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside the solar system, a new international study involving UNSW Sydney shows. The planet, called Gliese 486b (pronounced Glee-seh), is a […]
Bloody Colonials: Extract, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 March, 2021.
Bloody Colonials: Extract By Stafford Sanders. The latest from A Sense of Place Publishing. “Halloran!” barked Bascombe as we drew up in front of the stables. There was no immediate response to this, so he repeated more loudly: “Halloran!” And for good measure, “Get your lazy bog-Irish arse out here at once!” At this pleasant imprecation, […]
The Contradictions of Vaccine Politics, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 March, 2021.
The Contradictions of Vaccine Politics By Paul Collits The current penchant that governments and many citizens have for “Covidocracy” looks like becoming permanent. This is despite the initial promise of the silver bullet vaccine. Those who, quite legitimately, question the efficacy of the jab, are prone to made pariahs. Rather, they should be lauded […]
Scott Morrison: The Elephant In The Room. Best of the Archives. A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 March, 2021.
Scott Morrison: The Elephant In The Room. Best of the Archives. The single most fascinating thing about Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison is: He Shows No Guilt. Not a shred of remorse at having thrown millions of people onto welfare thanks to his absurd misreading of the Covid Scare. Not for the tens of […]
The Daughter of Siberian Shamans: Best of the Archives. A Sense of Place Magazine, 2 March, 2021.
The Daughter of Siberian Shamans: Best of the Archives Yakutsk is the coldest place on Earth. Winter temperatures plunge below minus 50 degrees Centigrade. Courtesy Sohu. Unlicensed Image. The town of Oymyakom, in the East Siberian Depression, has recorded temperatures well below of minus 60. The indigenous tribes of this most hostile of environments […]
An “Open Letter” to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison from the World’s Most Powerful Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch, A Sense of Place Magazine, 2 March, 2021.
An “Open Letter” to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison from the World’s Most Powerful Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch One of Australia’s most experienced journalists, the widely respected Steve Waterson, has penned a series of excoriating articles on Australia’s mismanagement of the Covid scare. The articles, with prominent headlines such as “Paying for an epidemic of […]
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, As Editor, A Sense of Place Masgzine, 25 February, 2021.
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism Extract: Angus Deaton and Anne Case From Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton and leading academic Anne Case comes a beautifully written, concise, accessible and groundbreaking study of the collapse of America’s working class and the profound political consequences that go with it. There are many […]
A Year of Living With Discredited Mathematical Models, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 February, 2021.
A Year of Living With Discredited Mathematical Models By Professor Ramesh Thakur and David Redman After a year’s experience of COVID-19 worldwide, the continuing hold of discredited mathematical models regarding lockdowns remain. As well, it is increasingly evident that medical specialists put in charge of public policy ignored existing pandemic preparedness plans, for better or […]
Fast Radio Bursts Across The Universe: What We Know So Far, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 21 February, 2021.
Fast Radio Bursts Across The Universe: What We Know So Far By Ryan Shannon, Swinburne University of Technology and Keith Bannister, CSIRO. Fast radio bursts are one of the great mysteries of the universe. Since their discovery, we have learned a great deal about these intense millisecond-duration pulses. But we still have much to learn, […]
In Australia, Facebook’s Ban on Sharing News Stories has sent Publishers’ Traffic Tumbling, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 21 February, 2021.
In Australia, Facebook’s Ban on Sharing News Stories has sent Publishers’ Traffic Tumbling By Joshua Benton: Founder of Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Laboratory In a vacuum nobody can hear you scream. Australia already has some of the world’s worst internet, thanks to chronic government mismanagement. Its international borders remain closed after what many regard […]
Birds Use Massive Magnetic Maps To Migrate: Some Could Cover The Whole World, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 19 February, 2021.
Birds Use Massive Magnetic Maps To Migrate: Some Could Cover The Whole World By Richard Holland, Bangor University and Dmitry Kishkinev, Keele University Every year, billions of songbirds migrate thousands of miles between Europe and Africa – and then repeat that same journey again, year after year, to nest in exactly the same place that […]
The Fear of Terrorism Does Not Justify the Wholesale Removal of Citizens’ Rights, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 19 February, 2021.
The Fear of Terrorism Does Not Justify the Wholesale Removal of Citizens’ Rights By Paul Gregoire: Sydney Criminal Lawyers Blog Home affairs minister Peter Dutton slid through his ASIO Bill 2020 with bipartisan approval on the final sitting day of parliament last year. The usual suspect, the fear of terrorism, was cited as justification for the passing of […]
AdRorts: Australia’s Health Minister, Comrade Greg Hunt, Deploys Communist Propaganda Tactics, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 18 February, 2021.
AdRorts: Australia’s Health Minister, Comrade Greg Hunt, Deploys Communist Propaganda Tactics By Callum Foote: Michael West Media. “I suspect Orwell would see, as he did back in the 1930s, the rich and outrageous irony of governments using the resources of the people to manipulate them and to keep them acquiescent, passive and apathetic.” Shadow […]
This Must Surely Be The Most Corrupt Government in Australian History, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 14 February, 2021.
This Must Surely Be The Most Corrupt Government in Australian History By Elizabeth Minter with Michael West Media AdRorts, on the back of the Covid, is the latest corrupt practice in a prodigious body of Australian government dirty work. Is the Covid-19 vaccine the Liberal Party’s vaccine or the Australian Government’s vaccine? It’s not […]
Ode to Australian Tennis Legend Margaret Court, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 February, 2021.
Ode to Australian Tennis Legend Margaret Court By Paul Collits Margaret Court has brought on the ire of the diversity brigade because as a fundamentalist Christian she is opposed to gay marriage. Ms Court has been promoted from an Officer of the Order of Australia to a Companion (AC); an honour opposed by LGBTQI groups […]
Police Acting Outside Their Powers at the Australian Open, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 February, 2021.
Police Acting Outside Their Powers at the Australian Open Melbourne Activist Legal Support In the past week, police have been threatening a small group of refugee protesters, including members of Grandmothers for Refugees, with arrest and issuing them with ‘Directions to Leave’. Three members of the protest group have been issued banning orders for 24 […]
How Morrison Taught Australian Voters to Relax and Love the Rort, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 14 February, 2021.
How Morrison Taught Australian Voters to Relax and Love the Rort David Donovan: Independent Australia It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Australian people are being actively groomed by conservative politicians to accept, dismiss, overlook, or ignore their unethical activities. In fact, corruption scandals involving conservative Australian politicians are so plentiful and out-in-the-open […]
No Plan PM: How the Australian Government’s Lack of an Aged Care Plan Cost Lives, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 February, 2021.
No Plan PM: How the Australian Government’s Lack of an Aged Care Plan Cost Lives By Dr Sarah Russell: Michael West Media Australia’s aged care sector is a national disgrace. A 21 billion dollar taxpayer funded industry is so user unfriendly, so byzantine in its bureaucracy, that few elderly citizens could ever negotiate it. The […]
Morrison Drafts Laws to Placate Murdoch, as Google Threatens to Pull the Plug, AS Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 February, 2021.
Morrison Drafts Laws to Placate Murdoch, as Google Threatens to Pull the Plug By Paul Gregoire: Sydney Criminal Lawyers Blog. Since the advent of the internet, data has increasingly risen in worth to the point that these days it’s the most valuable resource on the planet. Over that same time frame, consumers have become increasingly aware that […]
Scott Morrison Leaves Australia In Flames, An Extract from Dark Dark Policing. Featuring the Photography of Dean Sewell. A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 February, 2021.
By John Stapleton There is an encyclopaedic array of scandals swarming around Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, with journalists already forming a queue to label this the most corrupt government in Australian history. Scott Morrison is now plotting to go to an election in September or October this year, before the madness of his Covid […]
Nothing More Permanent Than A Temporary Measure, Part IV Unfolding Catastrophe, A Sense of Place Magazine, 5 February, 2021.
Part IV Unfolding Catastrophe Already by the Australian autumn of 2020, following straight on from a Christmas of bush fires and extreme loss, the warning signs should have been entirely clear to anyone who cared to look. An uneducated public makes for easy victims. The Australia of 2020 faced plummeting educational outcomes, some of the […]
Threats and Seductions: The Ever Present Rupert Murdoch, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 5 February, 2021.
Threats and Seductions: The Ever Present Rupert Murdoch By John Menadue with Michael West Media That Foxtel has been double dipping by charging the ABC up to $105,000 to broadcast three Matildas matches while receiving $40 million from the federal government to increase coverage of women’s, niche and community sport is just business as usual for […]
When We Needed Churchill – We Got ScoMo: The Best of 2020. As Editor. A Sense of Place Magazine, 30 December, 2021.
When We Needed Churchill – We Got ScoMo: The Best of 2020. By Paul Collits We are living through a national crisis. Things are out of control. Sitting atop the disaster is a man who shouldn’t be there. There can be little doubt that Australia, now in a time of crisis and clearly out […]
G, O and D, As Editor, A Sense of Place Magazine, 30 January, 2021.
G, O and D By Ian Purdie The library stood five stories tall, Looking up from its entrance the children felt small, Inside they could smell all the musty old books, And feel the silence enforced by harsh looks, Off to one side were some tables and chairs, And beside them there was a set […]
And So Much More, Unfolding Catastrophe: Part III. A Sense of Place Magazine, 30 january, 2021.
Unfolding Catastrophe: Part III. Early in the “pandemic”, or “plandemic” as sceptics were already calling it, both mainstream and independent commentators queued to attack Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose mishandling of Covid-19 was likely to be derided by historians for generations to come. Katharine Murphy, a senior political reporter with Guardian Australia, inside the beltway […]
The Desert Stars: The World’s Most Remote Rock Band. Best Of The Archives. A Sense of Place Magazine, 28 January, 2021.
Desert Stars Justine Currie and rhythm guitarist and lead singer/songwriter Jay Minning stand a the edge of the Nullabor Plain. The Photography of Dean Sewell/Oculi. Text by John Stapleton. The Spinifex People, as they are now known, are the immediate descendants of the last nomadic hunter gatherers to experience contact with the modern world. They […]
Naive Faith: Unfolding Catastrophe Part II, A Sense of Place Magazine, 28 January, 2021.
None of it would last, or so Old Alex believed, retaining as he did a naive faith in the natural, healthy scepticism of Australians. Surely none of what was happening made any sense at all. There had been weeks of extraordinary confusion, a series of contradictory government announcements which appeared almost deliberately designed to instill […]
Prelude: Unfolding Catastrophe Part I, A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 January, 2021.
Prelude: Unfolding Catastrophe Part I The thing he remembered most starkly about those early months of the so-called “pandemic” were empty trains churning through the night, a sense of dread as everything was altered, military helicopters hovering over an empty Sydney Harbour, empty streets, silent suburbs, and dread, mostly dread. One of the extraordinary things […]
Lost Worlds: Australia. How It All Ends Part I. A Sense of Place Magazine, 23 January, 2021.
How It All Ends Part I For years the biggest story in the country has been the slow motion collapse of the Australia of old. Now, with the country only slowly stumbling out of lockdown and insane levels of social restrictions introduced without parliamentary approval in what was tantamount to martial law introduced, under the […]
Shutting Down Australia: How It All Ends Part II. A Sense of Place Magazine, 23 January, 2021.
Shutting Down Australia How It All Ends Part II “The world’s gone mad,” the old reporter said as he passed people on his morning walk. “Didn’t make any sense anyway,” comes the response. Australia is shutting down. Extreme measures introduced purportedly to stop the spread of Covid-19 are requiring extreme policing measures to force a […]
Australia’s Unfolding Nightmare. How It All Ends Part III. A Sense of Place Magazine, 23 January, 2021.
Australia’s Unfolding Nightmare How It All Ends Part III Oak Flats is a working class suburb south of Wollongong on Australia’s east coast. Its demographic of tradies, electricians, plumbers, tilers, truck drivers, school teachers and nurses do not like or trust the nation’s politicians and to a man and woman pay more or less no […]
Deserted From Above, Unfolding Catastrophe. A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 January, 2021.
Unfolding Catastrophe: By John Stapleton For days, or was it weeks, he could feel the ships hovering overhead, across time, across space, terraforming as they settled on that picturesque part of the South Coast. There was everything to be said. We have a time and place. Weary from the journey. Exhausted by the epoch changing […]
Bridget Lafferty Leaves Redfern: The Best Of. A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 January, 2021.
Images, paintings and recollections by Bridget Lafferty Editors Note: This story, written way back in 2018, was pivotal in the evolution of A Sense of Place Magazine, because it was at this very point that we realised and came to understand the potential of the new publishing technologies. Bridget Lafferty was an old neighbour of mine in […]
Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia. The Best of 2020, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 January, 2021.
By John Stapleton The wildly inaccurate nature of initial modelling may proffer some excuse for the Australian government’s catastrophic mishandling of the Covid crisis. But within weeks of it all beginning epidemiologists from some of the world’s leading institutions were speaking out, warning that lockdowns were not the way to go. The geniuses in the […]
The Triumph of Death: Bruegel The Elder: The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 January, 2021.
By John Stapleton Death triumphs over the mundane. An army of skeletons raze the Earth. All life is extinguished. The background is a barren landscape in which scenes of destruction are still taking place. In the foreground, Death leads his armies from his reddish horse, destroying the world of the living. The latter are led […]
Lumbini: Buddha’s Birthplace: The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 7 January, 2021.
Extract: Hideout in the Apocalypse by John Stapleton “You must heal yourself, no one else can, no one else should,” reads one of the placards posted around Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini in Nepal, where he had spent several months not so long before. Of all the sayings of the Buddha, that one meant the most to […]
The Intellectual Clout Behind The Anti-Lockdown Movement, A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 January, 2021.
John Stapleton. With Professor Ramesh Thakur In the lockdown insanity which has gripped the Australian political class one of the country’s most distinguished academics, Professor Ramesh Thakur of the Australian National University, has stood out for his bold, erudite and highly intelligent breakdown on why lockdowns are the wrong policy, at the wrong time, for […]
A Celebration of Genius: Maria Popova and Figuring. The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 5 January, 2021.
Luminously intelligent, gifted with a great eye and a startling, incandescent love of beauty, the already celebrated Maria Popova has finally put out a book. Figuring, is now available. For twelve years now Popova’s weekly newsletter Brain Pickings has dazzled, delighted, diverted and intrigued its followers. Carson Ellis. Featured in Brain Pickings There is nothing else on […]
Melbourne Meltdown: The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 5 January, 2021.
Every single day, seemingly without end, more than five million people in Melbourne are suffering through the harshest lockdowns in the world. Metropolitan Melbourne residents may only leave their homes for a “valid” reason and must comply with a curfew between the hours of 9 pm and 5 am. All Victorians must wear a face […]
The Worst of the Worst: The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 January, 2021.
Guantanamo Bay and A Bigger Picture The publicity blurb for the shortly to be released book A Bigger Picture by former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull makes the claim that he “stood up to Donald Trump”. Really??? But thereby hangs a tale. And a story about Australia, Turnbull, Trump, secretive refugee deals and Guantanamo Bay inmates that […]
Lockdowns Wrong: The World Experts Australia Ignored. The Best of 2020. 2 January, 2021.
The Great Barrington Declaration Some of the world’s most distinguished doctors and public health scientists have called on governments to stop the lockdowns which have had such a devastating impact on Australia. A public statement, known as The Great Barrington Declaration after the town in Massachusetts where it was drawn up, was authored by Dr. […]
Boy On Fire: The Mark Mordue Interview: The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 1 January, 2021.
Boy On Fire: The Mark Mordue Interview: The Best of 2020. The Young Nick Cave There is one book birthed out of Australia this season which has all the hallmarks of becoming an international bestseller, and that’s Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave. Author Mark Mordue is a classic journeyman of Australian rock and cultural […]