T.M. Shannon

I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land I’m on, the Cabrogal people of the Darug nation, and all Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders, and I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.

Australia is a land with over 50 thousand years of history, and I support all efforts for reconciliation and correcting the past wrongs of colonisation.

Hi everyone,

Well, we made it to the end of 2025. I will say it went quick, but it’s finished on a very sombre note, and I worry what 2026 will bring at home and abroad.

Book-wise, I’m still plodding along but giving up a February finish date as I’m battling a lot of rewrite-itis and spending a bit too much time on the island of Vvardenfel.

Work-wise, we survived the Christmas madness and the traffic it brought, now just the trip through New Year’s to go and it’s into quiet time with most of everybody off on holidays.

And with that, I’ll jump on in.

A Dose of Farewell

My dad passed away on Christmas Eve from an lung aggressive that caused sepsis then pneumonia before it showed itself.

I hadn’t talked to him since his spinal disc surgery, then a few years before that after I found my way to Church, and years and years before that.

But unfortunate as it was, both of us playing a part, in the few short hours I spent with him we made peace, and with his final wish for me, it’s time to get in better contact with my sister and brother.

Sad? Yes. Death doesn’t come easy. But while my sister headed home to be with the fam for Christmas, I sat with my brother and one of dad’s best friends listening to Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, just being there with him after the end.

Dad was a mad muso who especially loved his blues, and leaves quite a collection of music I’m going to split with my siblings. It might be a small thing to remember him by, but I’ll take what I can get to make up for lost time.

Life is precious and can come to a close earlier than you expect–dad wasn’t even 70, and I had my bad heart health news at 44. But with my 7 weeks off vapes, and my dad a long-time smoker, I reckon it’s fair to say don’t put toxins in your system.

Vale, Michael Brian Shannon. I’ll see you in the great beyond.

A Dose of Fatal Hatred

In 1996, a lone gunman with a semi-auto rifle killed 35 and wounded 23 in Port Arthur, leading to Australia’s wide-sweeping gun laws that outlawed semi-autos, but left us with lever and bolt-action rifles

Until the Bondi Beach terror attack on 14th December—the first night of Hannukah—we hadn’t had a mass-casualty like Port Arthur shooting in almost 30 years.

This, of course, is a whole different beast to a very mentally-ill man with an AR-15. A father and son going for Islamic State points killed 15 people and wounded 41, their targets Jewish.

I’ll say it bluntly, no matter where you stand on the Israeli/Palestinian situation, you go after civilians as targets or collateral damage—or take joy in either—you’re the epitome of evil and not worth membership in the human race.

This atrocity, too, brought acute antisemitic violence to Australia—what Jews around the world fear and even experience—and we have to take a long, hard look at antisemitism here.

But because the perpetrators were/are Muslim, we now have to do something about Islamophobia in retaliation, and that means taking a long, hard look at the right-wing and anti-immigration mobs—because they’re all about racism and division.

Moreover, I don’t want to hear a bloody Catholic priest or a Christian of any stripe cry about how the Church is under attack in the west—Church doors aren’t firebombed here, people aren’t gunning for us, and we don’t live in the fear of Bondi atrocities on public faith displays.

It’s my hope that light comes from this darkness—and indeed some has shone already in Bondi uniting to commiserate and show solidarity. God’s love is for everyone, not just for Jews, or Christians, or Muslims over anybody else.

As with Port Arthur, I hope this is the last time we see hatred of this magnitude in Australia, and if we do, I hope we see it decried and punished whenever it arises, and from whatever direction it comes.

A Dose of What Comes Next

And greater queerphobia follows—I bet you didn’t know bisexuality was also erased from the Stonewall Memorial website and US travel advice. You shouldn’t be surprised, though, as we don’t fit into the black and white, one or the other mentality of the haters.

I fear for the US coming up to the Mid-term elections. You may not think I have a stake in that worry, but my kid lives Stateside. My kid mentioned, there’s the worry about cutting birthright citizenship, too.

I don’t believe we belong here. A once-left leaning political party here has gone centre-right and is doing nothing about affordable housing. There’s all manner of authoritarian tinpots ruining humanity. We’ve got an environment to still give a crap about.

I wish I could change it all. I feel impotent I can’t change a thing. But like the hope mentioned above, I surely hope we can look back on a blip in history and not the beginning of the end.

A boy can dream, right?

A Dose of Au Revoir

I make no apologies for a maudlin post, but I tapped it into my phone surrounded by family for Christmas lunch, and if we could all share that sort of atmosphere with each other, no matter who or what we are, our world could be a better place.

Take care all,
T. M.