Category: Terrorism

  • Some thoughts on extremism

    I posted this on Twitter and Facebook last night in the wake of the Paris attacks and thought I’d post it here as well for posterity and to share some additional thoughts. Like everyone I was shocked and appalled by the attacks and my heart goes out to everyone in Paris and France. But as…

  • Coogee Memorial

    Blue ocean Holds my heart and tears Reminds me of you So far away Today is the ninth anniversary of the 2002 Bali Bombings. The bombings killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, and Bali is often considered our version of September 11, the moment when our part of the world changed forever. Many of those…

  • September 11: Ten Years On

    In many ways I almost can’t believe that it’s been ten years since September 11. Perhaps it’s because I remember that day so well and it had such an impact on how I looked at the world but it feels like it was only a few months ago to me, maybe a year, not ten.…

  • The Next Day (September 12)

    Images from Wikimedia Commons The next day of life:Sorrow rising with the sunA broken heart mourns Memories of you:A kiss under candlelightOur daughter’s first smile Clothes in the closetSleeping in an empty bed:An intense longing Faces on billboardsFlags unmoving in the breeze:Two towers, falling One among thousandsLying in a smoky grave:Irreplaceable A river of dreams:Thoughts…

  • October 12 (Bali Bombings)

    Photo from Wikipedia October 12 (Bali Bombings)CJ Levinson I wonder what you sawWhen you looked at the world?Did you see how far we’d come?I wish I’d known how to open your eyesSo that you could really see You asked me why I don’t believe in GodAnd I still don’t know if I can explainAll I…

  • Quantico by Greg Bear

    Greg Bear has written some of my favourite SF novels in the past but for the last few years has been moving more into the mainstream with his fiction. That’s fine with me as I’ll read anything I can get my hands on and Bear’s thrillers are different to most, but I admit I’m looking…

  • Remembering September 11

    I’ve been wanting to write a poem to mark the 6th anniversary of September 11 but I wasn’t able to finish it in time to post it today. I couldn’t get it to sound the way I wanted it to… to say everything… and then today I came across this video and I think I…

  • When does protection go too far?

    This hasn’t been a good period for John Howard. Howard forgot a Tasmanian Liberal candidate’s name on air, and then the ridiculous upgrades to the government’s VIP aircraft were revealed: $100,000 worth of upgrades, including $9000 in silk wall panelling and $6200 in almond-coloured leather added to the ceiling (refits that were later dropped). The…

  • Nation of convicts or second chances?

    You know, some people really should learn to keep their mouths shut. But maybe Sheik Hilali isn’t capable of it. He went on Egyptian television, saying that Australian Muslims were more entitled to be in Australia than Anglo-Saxons because they hadn’t come here as convicts. This coming from the man who had previously compared immodestly…

  • Acceptance vs. Diversity

    There have only been a few times in my life when I haven’t felt proud to be Australian. The most notable was during the Cronulla riots. They stood for everything I had always thought was unAustralian – racial hatred, intolerance -, and watching them for the first time I wasn’t sure I was in the…