Shôn Ellerton, November 5, 2020
Just hoping that all this election stuff will end soon because regardless who is elected in, it’s going to be an interesting four years.

The first day of the election has finished and it looks very much like Biden could bag the presidency. As of writing, the election is not over yet with several key battleground states in the fray and the possibility that finalising the counts could take several days or more. Whatever happens, I sincerely hope that whoever loses, concedes gracefully. And I fear, sadly, that this is not going to happen. …

Shôn Ellerton, November 4, 2020
My rant on non-Americans getting emotionally involved with American politics.

OK. This is a bit of a rant.

I am so very glad that only American citizens can vote because am I sick to death of hearing uneducated opinions of non-Americans espousing their high and mighty virtues of who should be voted for the next US president. It would be too freaking blatantly obvious to point out which candidate the mainstream media in general prefers, so I will leave that with the reader’s imagination.

For those who think they know who should be best to lead the United States and yet, have never lived in it or even set foot in it, and have only got their information through social media circles and mainstream media should, perhaps, concentrate on dealing with issues closer to their own homes. For those that have read enough about American history — not through mainstream media — and able to hold a reasonable argument without resorting to shitty memes and stupid little one-liners incorporating words like ‘racist’ and ‘fascist’ do have a place in contributing to a reasonable discussion on who should be the next leader in a country far from their own. I wholeheartedly invite them for reasonable discussion and a nuanced argument. …

Shôn Ellerton, November 3, 2020
E-scooters are a great way to explore your city and they’re also a lot of fun!

This year, I discovered one of the more fun ways to get around in my city of Adelaide by hiring an electric scooter, or for short, the e-scooter. For those not knowing what it’s all about, companies like Lime, Neuron, Beam and Ride, to name but a few, have set up networks of hireable e-scooters in which anyone, by use of an app on a smartphone, can scan a code on the scooter to release it for use. Once it is no longer needed, the rider parks it, taps the app on the smartphone to end the trip, and the scooter is then locked and ready for another rider. …

Shôn Ellerton, October 29, 2020
The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter get a roasting by angry Democrat and Republican senators but for mainly selfish reasons.

Once again, big tech is under the spotlight on grounds of being censorious, spreading misinformation, inciting hatred violence, being politically biased, and, of course, having far too much power overall. …

Shôn Ellerton, October 28, 2020
I find commuting by train to be free of stress so long as I avoid having to share a carriage with any of three other specific commuters.

The disposition of having a very sensitive nose is a serious one, especially if one is a regular user of public transport, such as I am.

I enjoy my daily forty-minute commute by train into central Adelaide. The train meanders high up on the hillside following the beautiful shoreline of St Vincent’s Gulf to then descend through the leafy suburbs of Brighton, Marion and Clarence Park before passing through the parklands surrounding the central business district to then arrive at the terminus. …

Shôn Ellerton, October 24, 2020
Robin Di Angelo’s White Fragility may have been one of the most divisive books I have read, but I am glad I took the opportunity to read it. Here is my personal take on the book.

This year would not be complete without discussing one of the most remarkable books of the year, White Fragility by Robin di Angelo. Remarkable because I have a lot to remark about it after reading it earlier this year. …

Shôn Ellerton, October 15, 2020
In all my fifty years, I have never come across a year of such rampant hatred.

Many would not disagree that the year of 2020 has been one filled with confusion, paranoia, and most of all, sheer vitriolic hate. If anyone who had read George Orwell’s dystopian novel or its excellent movie version starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, Nineteen Eighty-Four, may remember the daily mandatory 2-minute moments of hate that all the members of the Outer Party had to exhibit after being rounded up in an auditorium while some fictional enemy of the party was blabbering away from the giant telescreen. The blue-clad Outer Party members were required to shout and hurl abuse at the telescreen while the black-clad Inner Party members quietly sat in the front and not required to take part in the frenzy but, rather, to oversee if any members of the Outer Party were not voracious enough in their anger. In the story, the enemy of the moment was a character made up by the Inner Party of Eurasia (the nation state in the novel) and this character that they had made up had the name of Goldstein, who was characterised as an intelligent-looking dissident with the sole aim of subverting the State. Move ahead to 2020 and in today’s reality, it is not Goldstein, but rather Trump, and as for the inner party and the outer party, I would say they could quite easily be represented by the media and the masses respectively. Naturally, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, telescreens, a way to spy on the public, are practically everywhere in people’s lives. They are two-way and cannot be turned off, except by those owned by members of the Inner Party. …

Shôn Ellerton, October 2, 2020
Showers of ducks, polite looters, pirates, the Sargasso Sea and polar bears makes up my story of guns and some of the lessons I learnt from them.

I’d like to write a little something on my thoughts of guns and my personal experience with them as someone who has never owned or wanted one but somehow, or another, had many encounters with them. Writing about some of my experiences gave me a fresh perspective about guns and why they are, paradoxically, a necessary evil. Many of us have had experiences with guns and many of us have stories to tell about guns. Some good, some bad. For the most part, in day-to-day life, I never see a gun, except in front of a screen. Never handle a gun. Never dream of owning one. Frankly, I don’t like guns at all. However, like the common cold, guns are here to stay, and we can only try to do our best to live with them. In this piece, I talk about some of my experiences with guns, some of which are comical, and some of which, changed my perspective on guns and crime. …