"I'm comparing the messy reality of modern #Australia with the even messier reality elsewhere. When you compare us to others, we often come out on top." ~ Australia is freaking amazing, #JustinWolfers #TheMonthly #politics #economics #auspol

Link to article on The Monthy: https://www.themonthly.com.au/justin-wolfers/2025-10-16/australia-freaking-amazing

just #reminiscing about the good ole days before #melbourne was over-gentrified right out if my price range (i feel like an exile, some times)

#TheMonthly (an independent publication) has a catch-up with #SophieLee (Tracy Kerrigan in #TheCastle, Tania in #Muriel’sWedding)… i knew she retreated to a world of mohterhood and manuscripts, but it seems she’s now living in London. a link to the short article is below, if you are inteested
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reminiscing mainly cos i always thought Sophie Lee was under-rated, under-used, typecast and cursed perhaps by her looks. saw her at #LaMama one night in 1994 in a play called Tanya and Kit. i used to see lots and lots of small productions dirt cheap — even bad shows are interesting if they are live, cos there is something magical about live theatre, and maybe the small space adds to it?
anyway, Tanya and Kit was spellbinding.

Tanya and Kit by Harry Cripps, La Mama, REVIEW, 7 May 1994
THEATRE
At La Mama, until June 1994
Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 7 May 1994
This review was published in The Melbourne Times after 7 May 1994

Two women meet in an apartment and both believe they live there. They become intimates, familiars, inseparable. Harry Cripps' Pintersque script is interesting, involving and funny. It comes to life with the two actors, Sarah Chadwick and Sophie Lee who have a great rapport on stage.

Chadwick plays Tanya, a "sleek and dangerous" woman with an unspecified executive position. Her performance is masterly, her presence magnetic, her timing and delivery impeccable. Lee has a charming ingenuousness as Kit.

This is a quirky play which works on many levels although it incorporates some improbable left-field plot elements.

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https://www.themonthly.com.au/may-2025/nation-reviewed/our-first-issues-cover-star-sophie-lee?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Friends%20of%20the%20Monthly%20%20May%20issue&utm_content=Friends%20of%20the%20Monthly%20%20May%20issue+CID_364d91dd7bed35cd05524d4ec40ae6ac&utm_source=EDM&utm_term=Our%20first%20cover%20star%20Sophie%20Lee&cid=364d91dd7bed35cd05524d4ec40ae6ac

The Monthly's popular daily column will be spun off by Piers Grove, whose last publishing venture saw a mass exodus of staff.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/01/10/schwartz-media-sale-the-politics-piers-grove/

Schwartz Media has sold off The Monthly’s popular daily politics column, The Politics, to former Betoota Advocate publisher and Daily Aus investor Piers Grove for an unknown sum. It is understood the sale went through in early November 2023.

The new spinoff website will be led by Rachel Withers as editor-in-chief; Withers currently serves as contributing editor of the column.

Crikey understands the sale triggered two redundancies — including Withers, who accepted a move across to the new publication.

A draft press release, seen by Crikey, described the new venture as “an exciting opportunity to expand The Politics, bringing the progressive, no-bullshit attitude towards Canberra politics you’ve come to know and love from The Politics newsletter to a new media outlet”.

Current subscribers to the daily email, which will remain free, will be transferred over to the new website in early February. Withers will continue to pen the daily column from Monday to Thursday, with RRR’s Daniel James at the helm on Fridays.

Grove served for six years on the national committee for the Australian Republican Movement, as well as a bevy of climate organisations and startups. His experience in publishing is primarily among progressive and youth-focused outlets, having started as the founding publisher of The Betoota Advocate in 2014. In September 2019, Grove also took over as publisher of Instagram-focused outlet The Daily Aus.

In December 2021, Grove stepped down from both outlets to take over youth news website Junkee as publisher, after it was bought out by RACAT Group. Within a year, Junkee was facing accusations of dysfunction, heavy losses and a mass exodus of staff, as revealed in a Crikey investigation. Grove subsequently sold his stake in the venture to RACAT and stepped away from the organisation.

Speaking to Crikey, Grove said he “looked forward to growing and expanding The Politics and broadening the masthead” moving forward.

Withers told Crikey she was “stoked to have the chance to create another home for smart, progressive politics in Australia”.

“I’ve always wanted to launch something like this, and it feels like exactly the right time (yes, even amid mass layoffs) for something fresh, youth-led, and free of many of the constraints facing other media outlets,” she said.

The Monthly editor Michael Williams confirmed to Crikey that “Schwartz Media and The Monthly will have no further editorial or business involvement with The Politics”.

Williams added that The Monthly team was “extremely proud of the following that has built up for The Politics, and its deserved reputation as a place for smart, engaged daily political content and will be keen readers of it in its new standalone form”.

Schwartz Media founder Morry Schwartz and editor-in-chief Erik Jensen did not respond for comment.

Oh golly! Well, it seems that my daily read bookmark for https://www.themonthly.com.au/the-politics can be deleted now. Atm i don't have a new url.

#TheMonthly #ThePolitics #AusPol #Media #RachelWithers

#Machinelearning, by #RichardKing

#TheMonthly

“the principal challenge of #ChatGPT, [is] its potential to inflict yet another defeat on our agency, and thus our capacity for freedom and flourishing.”

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2023/april/richard-king/machine-learning#mtr