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Category: opinions and journalism

Balance (#30 in “a shining moment” series)

 

For many birds, standing on one leg is entirely comfortable, even for extended periods.

When did you ever see any such bird lose its balance?

For Homo sapiens, it is another matter entirely.

However, our ability to stand on just one of our own two feet is very much more telling/predictive than most of us realise.

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Word Power: planting trees, claiming credits…credible?

In Australia, the unpleasant truth – rarely admitted – is that in many instances, the answer to the headline’s question is “no”.

Carbon credits counted in government projections can, quite literally, go up in smoke and blow out the emissions side of the CO2 ledger.

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Word power: vital question for Bill Shorten

Our politicians and our mainstream media are equally to blame for Australia’s 2019 Federal Election campaign having become a seemingly-endless avalanche of inanity, predictability, pork-barreling, propaganda, evasion and irrelevance.

However, letter-writer Ian Bevan of Landsdale, WA, has at last voiced the burning question…

(as published in The West Australian on Friday May 3, and quoted in full, below)

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Word power: Moby Trump

“My” local daily paper – The West Australian – has recently become relentlessly parochial and adopted inane journalese as its house style.

Its headlines especially grate: almost all are prime examples of what smug dullards consider “clever”, of what twits mistake for wit.

The West‘s editor may or may not be a bona fide idiot; perhaps he is just a bright young lickspittle, fulfilling a brief to “dumb everything down, cut every cost and cross-promote the linked TV station, endlessly”.

So, it was a particular joy/relief to encounter some actual journalistic flair…

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