An Obadiah Slope column
Not a calf, but maybe a lot of bull: A MAGA pastor explained that this statute at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club is definitely not a Golden calf after he was criticised for dedicating it. Pastor Mark Burns, a board member of Pastors For Trump, is pictured during the ceremony.
“At Wednesday’s dedication ceremony, the sculpture was draped in white and blue fabric, resembling a Greek toga, The Independent reported. It was encircled by a few dozen guests seated in chairs, as Pastor Mark Burns — a member of Pastors for Trump, a loyalist group — spoke at a podium.
Burns is Trump’s “favourite MAGA pastor” editor John Podhoretz stated, possibly sarcastically, on the Commentary magazine podcast from the flagship US Jewish publication. “Last time people did something as idolatrous as this, they were stricken with leprosy – the golden calf.”
Burns is Trump’s “favourite MAGA pastor” John Podhoretz stated, possibly sarcastically on the Commentary magazine podcast from the flagship US Jewish publication. “Last time people did something as idolatrous as this they were stricken with leprosy – the golden calf.”
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Bondi reverberates: The Hanukkah Festival massacre at Bondi Beach has left an indelible mark on Australian culture, which has shown up in two entries in the Archibald portrait prize. Obadiah visited during the week, and these pictures, though not hung together, formed a pair.
” I painted our Bondi hero, Ahmed al Ahmed,” said Julia Dover, a first time archibald finalist. “He is my friend. a man who seized evil.
“On 14 December, Ahmed made a selfless decision. In an ultimate act of bravery, he disarmed a terrorist with his bare arms at Bondi Beach. Holding the gun, he chose not to shoot the terrorist lying at his feet.
“As Ahmed later explained, ‘I don’t want blood on my hands.'”
Instead of Bondi, Dover based her picture on Ahmed at the SCG, where he was cheered by the crowd shortly after leaving Hospital.
This painting by Michael Zavros is called “Alex with his tefillin in the sea.”
Aavros told the Archibald exhibition, “A few years ago, my mother thought she saw me on television. But it was Alex Ryvchin. In the following months, a few friends also observed that we looked alike.
“Following the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, Alex was in the media a lot. As Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and a natural leader, he spoke passionately about the pain in his community and the changes he feared would emerge in our nation…
“When two gunmen attacked Jewish people on Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025, Alex led the nation in a way our elected leaders failed to do,” said Zavros.
Ryvchin is depicted in the sea, where he might look like the artist, but he is wearing tefillin – aka phylacteries, pairs of small black leather boxes containing Hebrew parchment scrolls, worn by adult Jewish males during weekday morning prayers. Here, Ryvchin symbolises Jews as ordinary Australians, and also religiously separate from most of us.
Just like Christians, Obadiah can’t help observing. But, sadly, different too.
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Getting things wrong: When Obadiah used the term “side B” talking about celibate gay or same-sex-attracted Christians a little too loosely, in a report on Sam Allberry, by applying it generically, a bunch of knowledgeable people swooped. Obadiah thought the process shed light on a complicated topic, so it turned out for the good. The Other Cheek was definitely turned.
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AVB asked: one of the commentators was gay advocate, Anthony Venn Brown, who followed up with a sincere question about whether masturbation is (still) regarded as a sin. Obadiah’s first thoughts are that the difficulty is that the lust side of it is a form of coveting, thus breaking the tenth commandment.
And selfish fantasies, and that’s what they tend to be, are selfish. Well, that’s a start.
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Orwellian: Possibly the smartest political commentator of the moment is Kos Samaras of the Redbridge group. Here is his post-Farrer take in the Australian:
“It’s the economy, stupid. The towns that swung hardest to One Nation share a profile:
• Median age climbing
• Wealth going backwards
• Population shrinking
• Local economies in decline
• Small businesses barely breaking even.”
And the Nine Papers’ David Crowe traced George Orwell’s trip to Wigan and found something similar. His story “A horrible place’: This gloomy town shows why angry voters are lurching to the right” reveals that the left behindness of Orwell’s searing exposé remains.
Behind the culture war rhetoric is real deprivation and inequality. When people feel left behind, it is often because they have been.
Correction to name David Crowe as the author of the Wigan piece