Category: Politics
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Off We Go
HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali | Wednesday, May 10, 2018 IT’S been a while between scribbles here at the Diary’s desk, for all sorts of reasons that really don’t rate a mention. We have heard no complaints, but we’ll ignore that silence and the signals it…
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Absolute Rubbish
HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his diet of worms THE CAGE Ubud, Bali Wednesday, Apr. 18, 2018 THE perennial problem of rubbish has yet again raised its head as a topic de jour. The trash that litters Bali’s beaches – it’s not only in the tourist-overburdened south – is something that won’t go away.…
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We Have Been Warned
Sunday, Mar. 25, 2018 SOMETHING happened the other day that caused me to think deeply about the political direction Australia is taking. It was a disturbing incident; it was nothing to worry about personally, but it gave me pause. It did so especially because it came in the course of an exchange of…
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Drawing the Line 1
HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Saturday, Mar. 24, 2018 A PHOTO appeared yesterday – we saw it in the social media, which is a thing these days – of a packed crowd, said to be more than 3,000, though numbers are always difficult to estimate, of…
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Goodbye and Thanks for All the Words
HECTOR’S DIARY Tasty and distasteful morsels from his regular diet of worms THE CAGE Bali Monday, Jan. 15, 2018 WE’VE had to say goodbye to Jewel Topsfield, who has been the Fairfax media correspondent in Indonesia for three years. It’s one of those rotational things: people get posted in, and then they get…
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Beggaring Belief
HECTOR’S DIARY His regular diet of worms and other (usually) non-religious fare The Cage, Bali Wednesday, May 31, 2017 FAITH is a personal compact between a person and his or her deity. The faithful, of any ilk, should be honoured for their commitment to a life beyond secular concerns and for the higher…
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Waiting for the Last Trump
U.S ELECTION Sep. 29, 2016 Them good ol’ boys were drinking whiskey and rye and singing ‘this’ll be the day that I die’ – Don Maclean, ‘American Pie’ Update 10 Oct. 2016: This election sign somewhere in America says it all. THE 2016 American presidential election pits against each other two candidates for whom…
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Lost in the Forest
Hector’s Bali Diary, Apr. 13, 2016 His fortnightly diet of worms and other non-religious experiences A Hollywood actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, visited Sumatra and said he thought it would be a great idea to protect the rainforest and the orangutans living in it, especially from palm oil plantations. This is an unexceptional statement. It is…
8degreesoflatitude 