A post by resident curmudgeon GordonO pointed to a quote from President Obama,  that "Before that can be done, repairs have to be made to our credibility after Guantanamo and Abu Gharaib in the world's eye."

Gordon pointed out that:

The United States of America has been the most powerful force… Read full post »

As part of the small Australian contingent here at OS - and one who has been quiet lately - I thought I'd give an update on our dreadful bushfire situation down here. I know others have done so as well.

I live in the foothills of the Dandenongs, quite close… Read full post »

This is part 4 of 5. The first four parts are here, here, here, and here. 

 I had intended to upload these over a week or so, as I have a fair amount of real work to do. However, it is unpleasantly hot here, to the point where all… Read full post »

This is part 4 of 5. The first three parts are here, here, and here.

 I had intended to upload these over a week or so, as I have a fair amount of real work to do. However, it is unpleasantly hot here, to the point where all forms… Read full post »

This is part 3 of 5. The first two parts are here and here.

2. Updike's realism, Updike's naturalism

Are defecation, tipsy bar babble, days of accumulating small defeats,and tired, compromised, smelly connubial love part of our existence? Then put them into literature alongsi… Read full post »

This is the second part of my undergrad thesis on John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy. 

The first part can be found here.

This was a "minor thesis" - if you wanted to get the (Hons) in BA (Hons)  in the English faculty at my university, you had to spend an… Read full post »

I lived and breathed John Updike for a year,when I chose his Rabbit novels as the subjects of my undergraduate Honours thesis. I think it must have been around 1994, when I was 22. Uncertain about whether I really wanted to be a lawyer, I deferred my law studies to spend… Read full post »

Like most people, I sometimes wonder about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I wonder if it was the mob, Castro, the CIA, the KGB, or Lee Harvey Oswald. But while I've wondered about it, this is not the Kennedy mystery that really exercises my mind. The one I really puzzle… Read full post »

Like any country, mine has had its share of policy successes and failures. On balance, we are justifiably proud of our system of universal healthcare and our subsidised pharmaceutical scheme that gives us all affordable access to necessary medicines. Like unemployment benefits, these forms of state w… Read full post »

There have been a number of discussions over the last little while that relate to suggested etiquette, or new “rules”, for posting here on Open Salon. They often talk about Open Salon as a “community”, and, I think, implicitly suggest that when we post articles up here –… Read full post »

Dividing our children into cohorts based on their age is fairly new to human civilisation. I mean, of course kids of similar age have most likely always enjoyed playing together, but today it’s an industrial-strength phenomenon: after seven or eight years of school-year stratification, any kid… Read full post »

The Republican party has a problem, and it’s a big one. It was evident during the recent Presidential race, but was obscured by some of that race’s minutiae. And it may well continue to be masked over the next three years or so, because local races can still be won even… Read full post »

I think it’s mainly as a response to the rapid growth of Evangelicalism that the Dawkinesque style of (let’s say) “militant” atheism has gained ground over the last couple of years. I am talking about people like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, who no longer… Read full post »

I must say, I am really impressed with how the Sexiest Man Alive Open Call has lifted the quality of discourse on this site! It is great to have access to this growing database of how "aroused" different celebrities make particular OS contributors, or how "hot" those celebs are.

I can't… Read full post »

Over recent months, I developed a little habit of randomly googling famous people and seeing whether or not they endorsed Obama... primarily people who, for various reasons, I've been a fan of.

So I looked up Mellencamp and of course he had  endorsed Barack Obama (and hey, looks like he delivere… Read full post »

Just in:

President-Elect Barack Obama has just had a full day of intensive briefing in preparation for entering the White House. The briefing covered a wide range of matters, including the US military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the state of the economy  - including the impact of the sub… Read full post »

... or at least, he may have. The state is still considered too close to call, but if it is leaning, it is leaning to McCain.

The margin, however, is less than the 0.6% of the vote that Nader bled off.

I know it doesn't matter... but what if it had? … Read full post »

Our brains are so big, we now know, partly for the same reason that a peacock has such remarkable tail feathers, a lyrebird has such an astonishing song, or a baboon has such a spectacularly vermillion ass: sex appeal. It's our brains that make us sexy, and the main way they… Read full post »

Many Australians were astonished, recently, to discover an artist named Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu when he performed at the ARIA Awards 2008 (something like the Australian Grammy awards), which were broadcast live (right after Australian Idol). Though many were familiar with his work before… Read full post »

Those on the left and those on the right disagree about a hell of a lot of things. You name it - guns, taxes, abortion, capital punishment (or any other form of punishment really), drug laws - and positions that appear to be completely incompatible abound. I would like to suggest,… Read full post »

Recent polling consistently suggests that McCain is only around 7 points down in Michigan, but is trailing by some 15 points in Pennsylvania. For those who went through a modern western education system, that makes Michigan 8 points more pro-McCain than Pennsylvania is. Surprising, then, that the McC… Read full post »

There is no longer any real doubt that Barack Obama will win the impending presidential election. Nor is there any doubt that he will win by a substantial margin. John McCain may have made a good stab at shoring up that part of the Republican base that offered him only minimal… Read full post »

- Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have? 

- The United States of America. The rest… Read full post »

Please be advised that I am suspending any participation on Open Salon to focus on the economic crisis.