what is a “writer”?

I guiltily enjoyed this rant by Timothy Egan in the NY Times about people who become “writers” as a result of celebrity or unusual life experiences rather than the possession of actual writing ability.

Most of the writers

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verballing 101

The South Australian Government has gone ahead with legislation to ban David Hicks from selling his story.  He’s still allowed to tell his story, but he’s not allowed to sell it.  Lucky him.  Presumably he’ll be able to…

great moments in on-line publishing history

For a glorious, and no doubt brief, moment today, the International Herald Tribune displayed this uncannily accurate headline on one of it’s lead stories:

The article is/was on-line here. Don’t…

desiccated coconut redux

Following on from our former PM’s recent comments in the media (Costello is “all tip and no iceberg” and the PM is a “desiccated coconut“), a friend points to this great site, which contains…

it’s easy to see without looking too far that not too much is really sacred

Another snippet from the US election, where they make Australia’s current efforts in political mudslinging look altogether quaint and provincial. There’s currently a controversy over remarks made by the loathsome right wing ‘commentator’ Ann Coulter about John Edwards,…

all your seasick sailors, they are rowing home

We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for

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Born Again German

I’ve always been fascinated with the relationship between language, thought, and identity. I remember someone once told me that words are the building blocks of thought, and it stopped me in my tracks. I’d never questioned what my thoughts were made of before, and it led me to the bizarre question – how would we think without words? Try it for a second. Kinda difficult to get anything except basic imaginings & rememberances, huh. Well then – what happens when you are forced to learn, and think in, a new language?

gotta get up near the teacher if you can if you wanna learn anything

This person is a representative of an Australian university:

If you don’t get your grammar quite right but if you know your subject and if you can solve a problem in IT or if you can provide a profit and

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