Reading

Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:54
Pearls and Irritations has been a source of enlightenment since its foundation in 2013. It has progressively increased in importance. What began as an interesting addition to the Australian media landscape has become an irreplaceable source of ideas and distinctive interpretations provided by a large collection of authoritative experts few of whom have access to Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:52
As the shock waves from last weekend’s Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The ‘division’ that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:51
The Medical Association for Prevention of War renews its call of last week for the Australian government to express in the strongest possible terms that Australia supports the application of the rule of law impartially and in all circumstances, and explicitly condemns violations of it not only by Hamas but also by Israel in the Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 04:00

It’s almost robot fightin’ time again, folks!

Of course, I’m more excited than anybody to be going into our twentieth (!!!) season of sparks flying, parts exploding, and essentially no danger of the robots becoming fully self-aware and brutally murdering us all.

While, yes, given recent technological advancements, it’s somewhat logical to ponder how we—the premier robot fighting league in the world—might fend for ourselves when said robots have the ability to think and reflect on past trauma inflicted upon them.

That’s why I’m here as CEO of BattleBots to tell you directly and unequivocally: Don’t worry about it.

It’ll probably be fine.

If nothing else, take heart in the fact that I personally consulted numerous experts on the topic. I’m happy to report that almost none of those experts expected us to one day be lit aflame and/or brutally sawed in half by our own monstrous creations come to life.

Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 03:00
Jim Jordan is the heir to the Gingrich Revolution. Another day, another clusterf***k in the US House of Representatives. After days of behind the scenes haggling (and reports of strong-arming) Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said he was ready to call for a vote to make him the new Speaker of the House. The word on Tuesday morning was that they believed they had commitments for the necessary votes and the worst case scenario would be defections in the single digits, which were being rationalized as protest votes that would fall away on a second ballot. As it turned out Jordan lost 20 votes and after originally calling for another vote in the afternoon they postponed until Wednesday morning. By the time you read this that vote might have taken place already or perhaps Jordan has seen the writing on the wall and dropped out. The rumors are that serious discussions of making the “acting” Speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina a temporary Speaker with full powers to get the House through the appropriations process although nobody seems to know exactly how that would work.
Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 01:30
And a way out of cynicism Polling has been bad for years. Traditional models seem to be failing. Too many focus on horse-race politics. But why? Dan Pfeiffer this morning: Despite historically high turnout in the last several elections, people are disconnected from politics, angry at politicians, and distrustful that the political process can make an iota of difference in their lives. To be fair, Americans have always had some cynicism about politics and a distrust of government dating back to dumping tea in the Boston Harbor. But the levels of discontent are unprecedented and happening across the political spectrum. Pfeiffer is commenting on a Pew survey that came out in September. Is it any good? Who knows? But its findings may be instructive for Democrats in 2024, Pfeiffer believes: That last bit is good advice. Trump’s brand is rule-breaking. Even if his instincts are criminal. But Joe Biden has instincts too. Not for what Americans tell pollsters they believe about this country, but for what they want to believe about it.
Created
Thu, 19/10/2023 - 00:00

Robyn Schiff’s work has long demonstrated that American poetry can be both ornamental and discursive, both formally inventive and intimate. But the intimacy, in her latest, is woven more explicitly—and even more movingly—into the history and science that have long been the stuff of her métier. Information Desk is described as an epic. It takes its name from the station in the center of the great hall in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a literal desk that, across Schiff’s layered and teeming lines, becomes a metaphor for the Western mind itself. So as the book takes us through the museum—the book is a work of ekphrasis that contains, like nested dolls, poems about art within a poem about art—it also becomes a poem about our moment, about how we got here, about how we grew up into the disturbed and doomsday realms of our present reality. The book does all this by way of three larger, longer poems—sections?—made up, mostly, of six-line stanzas that seem always on the verge of crumbling: their architecture is both strict and fickle, willing to shift as the feeling shifts.