Opinion

Jeff Corbett

Deriding difference

Posted: 07 Apr 10 | Many of us so crave acceptance by our peers that we are willing to adopt their beliefs, attitudes and prejudices without question, and I do believe that acceptance is dependent on that. |

Comments (55)

Shakespearean claptrap

Posted: 06 Apr 10 | My teenage son is about to study Romeo and Juliet at school, and I cannot see why today's young people should be required to endure any of Shakespeare's tedious rot. |

Comments (65)

Scrumping

Posted: 31 Mar 10 | There is a thrill in scrumping, in gathering food from the fields and the wilds, a thrill that is more than simply getting something for nothing. |

Comments (31)

Dual cameras

Posted: 30 Mar 10 | Anyone running a red light, or taking a late risk on an amber, has no defence, but checking the speed of people proceeding through green lights smacks of revenue raising. |

Comments (38)

Comfort food

Posted: 18 Mar 10 | Google's top 50 recipe searches for 2009 take us way back to the days when we were scolded for staring at an Asian person, when anything that wasn't of British descent was fit only for animals, when wine was for alcoholics. |

Comments (33)

Insulting Aborigines

Posted: 17 Mar 10 | The respect I want as a person of Aboriginal descent is the same respect, no more and no less, awarded to every Australian. I don't want to be insulted by being labelled as special, separate and in need of an excuse. |

Comments (114)

Catholic celibacy

Posted: 16 Mar 10 | It is a nonsense, and an insult to men, to claim that celibacy leads Catholic priests, and presumably other men, to sexually abuse boys. |

Comments (42)

.02 for all

Posted: 15 Mar 10 | I suspect that the statistics marched out by government agencies whenever they talking blood-alcohol limits could do with critical analysis by statisticians and experts not in their camp. |

Comments (52)

Soccer's divas

Posted: 12 Mar 10 | Perhaps we can inject a modicum of manhood into soccer's divers with a match between the Newcastle Knights and the Newcastle Jets - the first half they play soccer and the second half real football. Let's bring a bit of reality to the dive. |

Comments (98)

Kurri in a lather

Posted: 11 Mar 10 | Kurri Kurri has been working itself in a lather of outrage and bellicosity this week at obviously false reports that the pedophile Dennis Ferguson had moved to town, and it has not been a good look. |

Comments (56)

Unpaid tradesmen

Posted: 10 Mar 10 | I knew they were free fodder for building firms and banks, but I was not aware of the vulnerability of tradesmen to householders and other small clients who simply refuse to pay. |

Comments (59)

Shaving legs

Posted: 09 Mar 10 | Choosing an excuse for shaving legs is not the only challenge for a cyclist. There's also the question of how far up. And whether to apply a bottle tan. |

Comments (28)

Footballers' loyalties

Posted: 08 Mar 10 | If police make out their case against Wicks and Houston, it will appear that the club has not countered the tolerance or blind eye that was obvious when Andrew Johns admitted in 2007 that he'd been using drugs for a long time. |

Comments (76)

Other people die

Posted: 05 Mar 10 | My survival is proof that death happens only to other people, and so I am as untroubled by the RTA's roadside warnings SPEED KILLS as I used to be by cigarette packets' SMOKING KILLS. |

Comments (46)

Youthful confrontation

Posted: 04 Mar 10 | Piercings have expired as a statement, underwear has retreated to where it belongs below the belt, outrageous hairstyles are now admired, loaded-nappy jeans are worn only by dregs and young women are tucking in their wobbling belly jelly. |

Comments (28)

Communication overload

Posted: 03 Mar 10 | Personal communications must have multiplied 100 times in 20 years, meaning that for every phone call or letter (or telegram) I received 20 years ago I receive 100 text messages, mobile calls and emails today. |

Comments (26)

Phoney doctors

Posted: 26 Feb 10 | The board has failed to set standards for the use of the medical terms doctor, surgeon and physician, and health practitioners who've long been coveting or improperly using the title Dr have jumped in to claim it. |

Comments (42)

Live-alone rejects

Posted: 25 Feb 10 | We who are embraced by the political mantra of "working families" and the marketers' ideal of "happy families" regard live-alone men of certain ages with suspicion and live-alone women above a certain age and with no obvious reason for their aloneness as failures, rejects, unfortunates. |

Comments (26)

Health cover injustice

Posted: 24 Feb 10 | The Federal Government has its Lifetime Health Cover program encouraging young people to take private insurance for life, yet it does nothing to help retiring people maintain their cover for the rest of their life. |

Comments (26)

Undesignated nudity

Posted: 23 Feb 10 | Nudists like to tell us that getting their gear off is unburdening, that jumping around naked with a beach ball is freedom, that line dancing in the nude makes sense, but I reckon there's something else going on. |

Comments (25)