Dr Paul Allen

Pauline Hanson is right.  Last week, in response to a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in Australia, the Socceroos released a video ahead of the World Cup. In it, the players take turns sharing their ethnic stories on top of a heartening piano soundtrack. They say, “We are a reflection of modern Australia”. Commenters express their wish for Hanson and One Nation to pay attention – this is the real Australia. This followed her comment at the National Press Club that Australia should be a monoculture. Her response? “ The Socceroos, in fact, represent my vision of a monocultural Australia, people from different backgrounds and cultures and nations all wearing green and gold and representing one nation under one flag and succeeding under the same set of rules.”  In fact, Hanson has always maintained she is not racist, even while wearing a burqa for a political stunt in the Senate chamber. Her reasoning? Islam is a religion and not a race. In both accounts, she’s technically right,...

Douglas Wilson's poem implied that the American institution of slavery was good and noble (“The Experiment” in Untune the Sky). In fact, the noun used in the poem to describe the supposed goal of the American South was “virtue.”  Another work by Wilson, coauthored by Steve Wilkins, Southern Slavery as it Was. While ostensibly opposed to the “racism” of the South, the book was nothing other than a thorough defence of antebellum Christians who were slave owners. As a product of a secular university (and certainly a secular culture), you could easily be floored to see a well-known Christian leader defending slavery. Since then, you can find other Christians who believe the same thing: that the Bible not only permitted the American slave trade, but that those slave owners in the South who claimed the name of Christ and yet profited from the buying and selling of human beings could do so with a clean conscience before God. Perhaps the pertinacity of this belief explains lingering ra...

Graduation (Photo credit: besighyawn ) It’s graduation season. And as such, scores of graduating students and their doting family and friends will be exposed to the senseless drivel known as a graduation speech . This speech is supposed to prepare the students to face the real world—or perhaps the “real world” of going to college. One last shot at making something out of these thugs. Most graduation speeches follow the same format. And they are filled with inspirational quotes and silly sayings that somebody’s mom will post on Facebook three years later with pretty little flowers and a demand to share. Or maybe the saying will be really good and you’ll see it on one of those overpriced placards that people buy to put in their storage sheds. Usually the graduates are just lied to. Here are six lies they’ll likely be told: You can be anything you want. Just dream and work hard . This sounds so wonderful and loving and I’ve heard it so many times I feel like a jerk saying it isn’t ...