Waiting for the fires reveals what's important

Tony Kleu Well, that's another box of books and memories packed, to be sent to safety in the city while we sit it out in this acrid, Stygian gloo in the Blue Mountains.

Comments 14

Calm commute's become the Tour de France

Heckler I've been riding a bike for a long time – I seem to remember a certain camaraderie among cyclists in Sydney. Now it seems like the Tour de France.

Comments 25

In the Herald: October 22, 1991

Brian Yatman In the wake of the aborted Bjelke-Petersen perjury trial, Queensland was likely to tighten control over jury selection. “The Joh trial has become a total farce,” wrote Bill Turner, of Wentworth Falls.

Voters didn't like the stench, so got rid of it

PAUL SHEEHAN Voters despise arrogance and sanctimony and when you get both, you get a robust response when the electorate gets a chance to vote.

Comments 53

First Word: Letter of the Morning

The very model of a modern PM

Following that brilliant Gilbert ∧ Sullivan take by Mike Carlton in the weekend edition, pardon my impudence in trying to compete with the master but nevertheless, here goes...

Comments 13

A note from the Letters editors

Julie Lewis and Marc McEvoy, Letters editors Why a Letter to the Editor that says, "there is no sign humans have caused climate change" would not make the grade for our page.

Axe the carbon tax, keep the cap

Chris Dunstan When Parliament resumes, the first item of business will be abolishing the carbon tax.

Comments 35

Union cabal keeps Labor in death grip

Rodney Cavalier Union members do not vote for Labor. This is an unpleasant truth, glided over during the recent ALP leadership contest by those advocating votes for members of unions affiliated to the ALP.

Comments 38

Make some allowances for common sense

AMANDA VANSTONE Opinion Tony Abbott could do more to bring MPs to account.

Comments 137

Can Australia claim to be a sovereign nation?

Malcolm Fraser The increasing American attention to the Pacific is bad news for Australians.

Ideology runs in drive to build WestConnex

Mehreen Faruqi The NSW government is touting WestConnex as the largest integrated transport project in Australia.

Comments 56

This tale has a yappy ending, some sadness

Joan Wickersham My friend Holly was never a dog person, until, suddenly, she was. His name was Zeus, and he was a Bernese mountain dog . She was crazy about him.

Opinion

Be warned, Orwellian logic has come full circle

Joe Nocera Our privacy has slipped away in this digital world.

Comments 4

Junk mail with real junk? No thanks.

HECKLER Last week I received the unsolicited "gift" of a folder of animal stationery – again with the request for money.

Comments 2

Trust the experts and we shall get through this

There are times when members of a community have to make individual sacrifices for the greater good. As NSW prepares for a week of potentially disastrous proportions, now is one of those times.

OCTOBER 21

Letters to the Editor

Most years I shake my head in disbelief at the announcement of the Australian of the Year, for they are often exceptional people doing their job with exceptional ability, and no doubt receiving exceptional recompense.

Column 8

Column 8 can announce that, after Saturday's Sydney Harbour Snark Safari, and scrupulous and exhaustive analysis of the data thereby acquired, Port Jackson can be declared ''Snark Free''. Mostly…

In the Herald: October 21, 1921

Brian Yatman "The 1938 celebrations are in the near future, and a great deal of fishing for big game fish will be done,'' wrote Harold R.Scott, of Wollstonecraft.

Legislative hard men flex to impress each other

ANNABEL CRABB Do something bad, get caught, get punished. It's an ancient formula, the essentials of which have been serving us reasonably well ever since Adam and Eve first traded conspiratorial glances over an apple.

Comments 4

Power can sway us from playing by the rules

PETER MARTIN Opinion Of all the lies told in the parliamentary expenses scandal, the most dangerous is the white one - the one designed to make it look as if it's the rules themselves that are to blame.

Saving sufferer requires more than gimmick

Melinda Tankard Reist This year it's predicted 14,940 women will get the disease, but juvenile boob-centric campaigns trivialise it. Should we be about ''saving boobies'' or saving lives?

Comments 3

Decisive action needed on expenses

BIANCA HALL Opinion Since his elevation to Prime Minister on September 7, Tony Abbott has fronted the media a handful of times, making good on his vow to moderate his media appearances.

Maybe some sacrifices wouldn't go astray

Tessa Manning Please, Generation Y, when you criticise the baby-boomer investors for driving property prices up beyond your limit, think about the context.

Comments 12

Brothers grim left legacy of mischief

PAUL MCGEOUGH How instructive at a time when Washington has not been working, for Stephen Kinzer to pop out another book to give us a stunning window into a period when DC thought it was working very well.

Urban dwellers miss with Shooters' support

KIRSTY NEEDHAM Opinion Shooters Party MP Robert Brown had to take two blood pressure tablets before entering the NSW upper house to debate a law that has succeeded in disbanding his beloved Game Council.

There's nothing to see here, really

Sam de Brito As niche websites and social media have drawn away traditional media's readers, it seems to be increasingly adopting many of the ''look-at-me'' gimmicks smaller sites use to grab attention.

A fan going the extra Miley

CHARLES WATERSTREET The fact that Miley Cyrus, and anything she does, gets more hits, more YouTube viewers, more Twitter, more coverage than the US debt crisis, is the harbinger of the end of the Western World as we know it.

Adam Bandt has every right to get fired up

PETER FITZSIMONS For yonks the Greens have been saying if we don't look after the planet there will be hell to pay, and so when that hell on earth arrives it is legitimate for the likes of Adam Bandt to draw attention to it.

Music

Technology captures music's soothing power

CATHERINE ARMITAGE Most things lose their mystique if you look at them for long enough, and so it is proving with music, except you need to listen, not look.

OCTOBER 20

Letters to the Editor

If Steve Cakebread could not change a light bulb all by himself, it is no wonder he cannot manage his finances.

Government must end education wars

The Coalition is discovering how the delivery of policy solutions in government is much harder than raising the problems in opposition.