Some Roistering from the Australian Press

As we increasingly live in a world where everyone must have the same thoughts and use the same words, I'm finding the give-and-take of Australian political reporting to be refreshing.

PEOPLE keep dying in violent and terrible ways, and nobody seems to know why. Following the recent slaughter of 44 people at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, US secretary of state John Kerry told a press conference: “We’re still trying to ascertain what happened and who did it.”

One day, many years from now, with the assistance of global police networks, we might have an answer. At US news outlet MSNBC, this post-Istanbul question was asked: “Is there a pattern to recent terror attacks?”

Again, nobody has a clue. It’s a complete mystery. What on earth might be the common factor linking mass killings in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, London, Madrid, Bali, Israel, Libya Somalia, Cameroon, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the Philippines, Russia, Burkina Faso, Kenya and now Istanbul? What pattern might there be?