Current Issue ‘Destroying the Joint’
Hashtag feminism
By Robyn Annear
“Do you want to know how God turns a man into a feminist?” asked Margie Abbott, addressing a business gathering in Penrith (the God-struck man in question being her husband, the federal Opposition leader). “He gives him three daughters.”
I don’t believe it. My father dismissed women as sluts, nags, idiots and upstarts – all except me, whom he loved to th
Confessions of a graphomaniac
Echo Chamber
By Linda Jaivin
Hello. My name is Linda and I am a graphomaniac. The condition, an uncontrollable impulsion to write, was first noted by the nineteenth-century French psychiatrist Jean-Etienne Dominique Esquirol. He named it “graphomania”, from the Greek words for writing and madness. It is a close relative of typomania, an obsession with seeing your name in print or your writings published. I first came
Murdoch’s Tweets of Doom
Rockin’ Rupert
By Peter Conrad
Tweeting, as the Beat poets might have said, is for the birds – though what kind of bird exactly? Most users of Twitter sound like fatuously chirping budgies. But Rupert Murdoch’s fluffy plumage moulted long ago, and the tweets he has been posting since 31 December resemble the hoarse emissions of a buzzard or a baleful raven, uttering prophecies of doom. “Time ahead very, very tough and dangerous,” he croaks. On another occasio
