Pogo stick Pogo stick

Pogo stick

Canberra

American politicians routinely warn against “politicising” mass shootings. Although they take to the airwaves to discuss airline safety in the wake of a plane crash or security measures after a terrorist attack, discussing gun laws after a lunatic shoots scores of people to death—asking whether, perhaps, the ease of obtaining weapons in America might have something to do with the frequency with which mass murderers kill people with firearms—is understood to somehow be in bad taste. So let’s not mention the massacres at Port Arthur and Dunblane, which prompted Australia and Britain to pass more restrictive gun laws that dramatically reduced the risk of dying by gunshot in both countries.

The Economist’s observation following the Las Vegas massacre

Versailles

“Don’t worry. When it gets tough we stick by you. You have a friend. You may have lost 27 friends but you have us.”
— Alexander Downer, Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, consoles Brits at the High Commission’s Australia Day celebrations

Happy New Year

Mortlock Wing, State Library of South Australia

Radelaide

Melbourne