Amid reports of doubters who (still) believe Covid is fake news, this week we examine the history of public protest and vaccine hesitancy in times of contagion. Those 3,000 or so people who mingled on Sydney’s streets a while back, protesting against the Covid lockdown, protesting about vaccines – it’s nothing new. In the early 19th century, Joe Public was getting riled up by the spread of cholera and the seemingly poor response by doctors and…
There was not much else to do in sports-mad New Zealand in October 1964 other than join the legions cheering on our most famous athlete, Peter Snell, at the Tokyo Olympics. He remains the only athlete since 1920 to win the 800m and 1500m event at the one Olympic Games. The Tokyo medals came four years after Snell, then an unknown, sneaked away with the 800m gold medal at the Rome Olympics in 1960. The…
Today we’ll be talking about ‘doom scrolling’ and our addiction to negative news, even though we know how bad it is for the psyche. Despite complaining about the doom and gloom fed to us through the media, we can’t quite get enough of it. Psychological studies have shown that people’s brains have a bias towards negative or sensational news. So even today, in the time of CovidNSW – The Rising, we leap upon the latest…
Warwick’s annual Jumpers and Jazz festival took me back to a day at the dentist in Maleny. I was lying prone, mouth jammed with all sorts of stuff. Soft, melodic saxophone music drifted down from the ceiling (with the poster of the Blue Mountains). “Than Gltz?” I garbled. Roger removed the suction hose “What’s that now?” “Is that Stan Getz?” “No, but good guess,” he said, replacing the suction hose. “What’s your best guess?” “Chrli…