Rick's Blog

#bunyipsbooksbeyond

Use the menu below to explore "All Posts," or delve into selected topics like "Children's Picture Books", and more.

Last Sunday morning, I noticed her in the church yard of the San Albino Basilica in Mesilla, New Mexico, 30 miles from the border. A delicate, black, lace mantilla draped over her head and shoulders, almost blending with her hair. The mantilla has long been a symbol of faith, femininity, and tradition across Spain and Latin America. In Mexico, has its own unique identity. A blend of Catholic devotion, indigenous artistry, and social expression. The mantilla’s roots reach bac

George Orwell gave us a useful little word for a very modern problem: Doublethink . The ability to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time, and to believe both. In Orwell’s 1984 it sounded extreme: “2 + 2 = 5” and “2 + 2 = 4” living side by side in the same brain. Today, we don’t have a 1984 Ministry of Truth , but we do have something more polite and better dressed: University leaders who are expected to be wholly dedicated to the public good, while also s

How are you to imagine anything if the images are always provided for you? Assimilate. Ubiquitous. Everywhere all the time. That little string of thoughts could almost be a lost footnote from George Orwell’s 1984 . George Orwell coined the word doublethink to describe a terrifying mental gymnastic: The ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time and to accept both as true. It wasn’t a bug in his dystopian society; it was a feature. If the Party said 2 + 2 = 5,

When Malala Yousafzai walked onto the stage at the Mondavi Center on November 18, 2025, UC Davis wrapped itself in the language of moral courage. The Chancellor’s Colloquium billed the evening as a conversation between a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May, celebrating a woman who risked her life to speak out against injustice. But outside the glow of the Mondavi Center, the huge entertainment center at UC Davis, a different reality hangs over the c

On burrito nights, I don’t really cook. I drive to a small restaurant, stand in line with everyone else, and order dinner in foil and paper. Burritos for home. For a long time, that was the whole story. Then I started noticing a man who spends most evenings on the sidewalk nearby. Homeless? Unhomed? I still fumble for the right word. Labels never feel big enough for a whole human life. He sits with a backpack, sometimes with a plastic bag of belongings, sometimes with nothing

If you wanted to explain Roger Federer to someone who has never watched a tennis match, you could start with a single, startling piece of math. Over a 25-year career, Federer played 1,526 singles matches and won 1,251 of them - a towering 82% win rate , one of the best in the history of the sport. He collected 20 Grand Slam singles titles and 103 career titles along the way. And yet, in those same matches, he won only 54% of all the points he played That tension - dominance

There were two paintings in my childhood home that felt less like decoration and more like members of the family. One hung above my father’s desk: The Macquarie River near Dubbo, NSW by Colin Parker , painted in the early 1960s. The other watched over my mother’s room: Through Winter Trees by Colleen Parker , dated 1984, and purchased by my mother after my father’s death. For decades I thought of them simply as Dad’s painting and Mum’s painting . Two separate choices, two

There aren’t many marketing professors who become household names, fewer still who manage to turn balance sheets and antitrust policy into compelling storytelling. Scott Galloway , NYU Stern professor, serial entrepreneur, podcaster, columnist, and now commentator on masculinity, has somehow done exactly that. At a moment when tech feels untouchable, politics feels tribal, and a lot of young people feel lost, Galloway has positioned himself as a kind of blunt, data-driven unc

When Georgia O’Keeffe arrived in New Mexico in 1929, she described it as love at first sight. O’Keefe said: When I got to New Mexico, that was mine. As soon as I saw it, that was my country. Her words would later echo through decades of tourism campaigns and art history textbooks, shaping the mythology of O’Keeffe Country . A place imagined as vast, empty, and waiting to be claimed. But from an Indigenous perspective, the land O’Keeffe called mine was never hers to take. It a

I was walking along a cobbled street in the heart of Kraków, half tourist and half daydreamer, when the scene unfolded. It was one of those soft afternoons when the light seems to linger on everything. On the stone facades. On the tram wires overhead. On the small clusters of people drifting between cafés and churches. A busker a block away was playing something vaguely familiar on an accordion. The air smelled of coffee, caramel, and city dust. And then I saw them. Four nuns

There are words that feel like memories even when we hear them for the first time. Halcyon Days is one of those phrases. Soft, nostalgic, and strangely luminous. It evokes warmth, calm seas, and a sense of time suspended. We use it to describe the peaceful chapters of our lives, yet its origin is not in leisure or luxury, but in love, grief, and transformation. The Myth Beneath the Calm In Greek mythology, Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus , the god of the winds, and wife

There’s an Italian phrase that seems to hum rather than speak. Sta’ calma . Two words. A pause disguised as instruction. It doesn’t strike the ear like a command. It drifts through the air like a breeze through a curtain. In English, stay calm feels utilitarian, even slightly anxious. A plea amid commotion. But in Italian, sta’ calma feels elemental. It’s not merely telling you what to do. It’s reminding you what you already know. The language itself breathes for you. Techn

In an era when the edges of the map still blurred into the unknown, one young Englishman set out not to conquer new worlds but to understand them. Sir Joseph Banks - botanist, explorer, and confidant of King George III - helped transform how Europeans saw nature itself. His name survives in flowers, islands, and libraries, yet his life remains a study in both enlightenment and empire. Lincolnshire Beginnings Joseph Banks was born in 1743 on his family’s estate at Revesby Abb

The 2025 State of the Climate Report published today (29 October 2025) in BioScience offers the clearest warning yet. The planet’s vital signs are in crisis. Of the 34 indicators that scientists track to measure Earth’s health, from atmospheric carbon and ocean heat to ice loss and biodiversity, 22 have reached record levels . “Earth’s systems are nearing tipping points that could plunge the planet into a ‘hothouse’ regime,” warns William Ripple, co-lead author and professo

The Australian Club in Sydney was founded in 1838 as a private gentlemen’s club, located at 165 Macquarie Street in the center of Sydney, overlooking The Royal Botanical Gardens and Sydney Harbour. It is the oldest gentlemen’s club in the southern hemisphere. Early on, the Club provided a space for Sydney’s elites to meet, dine, stay, and network. Merchants, lawyers, bankers, and those with social standing. 1838–1840: After being founded in 1838, the Australian Club was f

We always think there’s so much time. Time to call a friend. Time to visit a parent. Time to send the message, make the trip, finish the project. We imagine the future as a long stretch of open road, waiting patiently for us to arrive. And then, something happens. It might be a phone call in the middle of the night, a doctor’s appointment that changes everything, or simply the realization that someone we meant to see has quietly slipped out of our orbit. The world doesn’t alw

In the swirl of history’s great catastrophes, the story of Sir Nicholas Winton stands out. Not for spectacle, but for quiet courage, meticulous organization, and deep compassion. Born in London on 19 May 1909, Sir NIcholas carried out one of the most extraordinary rescue operations in the lead-up to World War II. An operation that remained largely unknown for decades. Background Nicholas George Winton was born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain. The family

Neil deGrasse Tyson was born on October 5, 1958, in New York City, and grew up in the Bronx. From a young age, he was fascinated by astronomy. At 9 years old, a visit to the Hayden Planetarium ignited a lifelong passion for the stars. He built his own telescope, read astronomy books, and even gave public lectures while still a teenager. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he was editor in chief of the school’s science journal and captain of the wrestling team.

There’s a particular kind of silence that falls over a grandfather’s heart. It’s not the quiet of a Sunday morning or the hush of a sleeping house. It’s the stillness that comes when you ask, “Would you like to go for a walk?”and the answer is a distracted, “Maybe later, Grandpa,” without eyes ever lifting from a glowing screen. The Promise of a Walk Grandpa pictured these walks. Hands held. Sticks in hand. Pockets filled with rocks. Leaves that had to be treasures. He imag

It slips into our sentences almost unnoticed. “She was, like, exhausted.” “And I was, like, what just happened?” We hear it everywhere....