September

It’s a pretty reasonable guess that, over the coming week, we’re going to hear a LOT more about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Ten years on from that awful event, the media will hammer us remorselessly with commemorative newspaper liftouts and TV specials, and we’ll quickly tire of emotionally-loaded words like “courage”, “tragic” and “heroism” being used ad nauseam.

At times, it will seem like a collective remembrance of tragedy almost completely disproportionate in scale to the nearly three thousand lives lost on that day. (Which, to put that number in perspective, is one fifth of the number of people that died in March this year as a result of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.)

Continue reading "The day that changed everything" »

Found: the real Julia Gillard, in a column she has written today for the Herald Sun about why she loves the Western Bulldogs.

You can sense the PM’s emotional investment in it. “The Herald Sun has asked me why I love the Dogs, but that is a near-impossible task within the word limit I’ve been set,” she writes. “Our club’s enduring heritage as sons of the ‘scray is unmistakable - the colours, the song, the mascot and the initials FFC on the jumper at the nape of the neck remind us of our club’s proud past as Footscray.” Alongside there’s the Victorian Premier, John Brumby, talking about why he loves Collingwood (insert your witty choking comment here).

There are only two weeks of September remaining before we reach the sporting tundra of October. Last year on The Punch Luke Mcilveen wrote about the devastation this barren month can bring. I recommend reading the whole piece as a spur to enjoying the climactic weeks of sporting action ahead before we all wake up on a Monday and realise the next thing on the domestic calendar is the racing, which isn’t so much about sport as it is about tie colours and the latest trends in hats.

Continue reading "Follow the PM and pen a tribute to your team" »