History’s a Riot

Last week a small crowd gathered in front of a London Police Station in Tottenham, demanding answers to the police shooting of Mark Duggan, an alleged drug dealer who police say shot at them first. However, forensic evidence has so far only found police ammunition used at the scene. As the police continued to ignore the crowd for hours, all hell suddenly broke loose with two police cars being set on fire and sparking the latest London riots. This isn’t the first time that Blighty’s capital has been the epicentre of an outbreak of public anger turned riotous. To this day there have been quite a number of riots or protests involving violent disorder at the heart of the Commonwealth.

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How MasterChef is Skewering Australian Cuisine

It has become a bit of cultural phenomenon. Australian MasterChef over the past few years has been the runaway hit on Aussie television. A show where your average Joe can walk in off the street and become the newest, fandangle chef destined for a career on primetime television showing interested viewers their take on risotto.

Like any popular “reality” television, MasterChef’s clever premise bases itself on the sweat, blood and tears that goes into manipulating people with extreme tasks in a competitive environment under the glare of studio lighting and the focus of $120 thousand dollar high definition broadcast quality cameras.

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Chicken and Chips and Multiculturalism

I live a pretty exotic life. Over the years I have refined my tastes and have educated myself in the ways of art, music, cinema, literature and of course world cuisine. So the other day when I was in Red Rooster having just ordered a classic quarter with a rooster roll on the side I was contemplating the fact that the city I live in has made it so much easier for one to gain such knowledge when residing in a truly multicultural society. As a Melbournian I think it’s reasonable to say that I do indeed live in a resoundingly successful multicultural metropolis, a point that was just about to be reiterated as I dined on what I believed to be some sort of bird, most likely chicken with some chips that were almost undeniably made with real potato extract.

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Run For a Reason: From Melbourne to Sydney - 21 Marathons in 21 Days

A few Aussie gents are in their last few days of a mind-blowingly epic endeavor: running from Melbourne to Sydney. In 21 days.

Running about 42 kilometers a day, that's the equivalent of a friggin marathon a day! Most people train for ages for one single marathon, after which they can collapse into a useless pile of exhaustion and exhilaration at a job well done, and call it good for the rest of the year. 

But not Joel Craddock, Nick Hayes, or Ben Maddern.

They set off on June 26, and have been going strong ever since. They've blogged every day from the road and as their most recent post from Day 16 shows, they're still alive and kickin. Their goal is to raise a staggering $35,000 for the McGrath Foundation, a foundation that raises money to place McGrath Breast Care nurses in communities throughout Australia and increase breast awareness for young Australian women.

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Sri Lanka - The Forgotten Atrocity

Updated on Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 5:46PM by Daniel James

Some are calling it genocide, others are calling it the systematic slaughtering of thousands of innocent men, women and children and others are calling a contravention of the rules of war.

Whatever happened in Sri Lanka during the final brutal days of its long and bloody civil war, it is plainly clear that there are serious questions that need to be asked of the current Sri Lankan leadership by the international community.

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Twelve Months of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has now been in office for 12 months, a year that can only be described as turbulent at best. After scraping back into government, with the help of Independent and Green Members of Parliament at November’s federal election that has forced Labor into minority government the Australian political landscape is almost unrecognisable.

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Libya/Syria? Who cares? The Congressman has a Penis.

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One Boy. One World

There is not a person in the world whose heart shouldn't break up a little bit from reading a headline like, “13 year old boy tortured and murdered...” regardless of where the child is from or the circumstances surrounding him. We know there is evil in the world and sadness from inside our own homes to all across the globe. It's a little harder pill to swallow though, when the bad guys doing the evil deeds are the very ones who have control over you.

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