A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, gilmae, Gummo Trotsky, Amanda Rose, Tim Sterne, Jen McCulloch and Stephen Hill
Politics
Australian
If you imagined that concrete "big things" at tourist spots were a uniquely Australian kitsch phenomenon, think again. |
Robert Merkel drills down into the detail of the population, sustainability, climate change, water and the future of our cities subgroup at the 2020 Summit, including ideas that didn't make the cut.
Sinclair Davidson argues that the Rudd government has no serious policy agenda and is long on symbolism but short on substance.Miriam Lyons, guest poster at Larvatus Prodeo, beats Gummo Trotsky's disinclination to link any more 2020 posts by not being a middle-aged man.Jim Belshaw((A middle-aged man. ~GT)) likens Get Up to the League of Rights.Guy Beres thinks Costello should formally retire like Loopy Latham before publishing his memoirs. Coming soon, to a bookshop near you - biography wars! Mark Bahnisch((Still on the lower side of middle-aged. ~GT)) looks at one side of the coming contest. International The Poll Bludger live-blogs the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, while Publius reports on exit polls showing Clinton 4 points in front. David Roberts ignores the Democratic primary hoopla and focuses on John McCain's environmental policies.Perry De Havilland:
The UK government has been peddling a culture of fear since 9/11 as an excuse for ever more control over people's lives. Strange how people in Britain managed to survive all those years of Irish terrorism without such madness.
Here's what he's talking about.
The tribulations of the luvvies are the same in Kuwait as Australia((Does Kuwait have bogans too? And do they wear flannelette caftans? ~GT)):
A simple order of an espresso in the morning is extended into a ridiculously long banter about the million different variations of beans and water that they offer ... You want an espresso? Then how about you try our frozen cinnamon mango shake with a crushed snickers bar. By the time your order is complete, your constant begging for an espresso has evolved into a seven shot caramel affogato accompanied by a chicken quiche.
clarencegirl((Actually a girl, or really a middle-aged man in drag? ~GT)) has been CCed a badly paragraphed e-mail to Obama.
tigtog((Not at all a middle-aged man. ~GT)) suggests voting for Hilary in the Pennsylvania primary.
gandhi((Male, but probably a few years short of middle-age. ~GT)) looks at recent events in Paraguay.
Economics
Dave Bath((A man, of at least middle age. ~GT)) doesn't take kindly to the possibility of cutbacks at the ABS.
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Issues analysis
Eric Rauchway looks at the 75th anniversary of Roosevelt's first 100 days in office and the resulting "New Deal".
David Tiley offers insight into the pricing of hearing aids.
dr. faustus would like to continue using his green laser pointer in the class, thanks. Kindly remove unenforceable prohibitions.
Andrew Norton finds stunning, simply shocking, evidence in a new report that Australia has not de-cohered during the Howard years.((The Left hyperbolised shit they don't like? No! Cue CL to tell us how the Right have no standing to laugh because they don't beat up on Fox for its insinuations of treason. Or something.~gilmae))
No, Virgil, global warming didn't stop in 1998. So says middle-aged Tim Lambert, citing two other middle-aged men from the National Climate Centre. Meanwhile, Virginia Postrel highlights the hypocrisy of politicians talking about carbon caps and emissions trading while simultaneously promising to reduce high petrol prices. Post-middle aged male and straight(?) newbie blogger Alexander Downer agrees. ((Don't know if Virginia is straight or middle aged but she's American, which doesn't count for present purposes (which are revealed below) ~ KP))
Arts
Lesley Chow offers an interview with the lead actor Ben Pfeiffer who plays the social climber Glumov in a new production of Russian playwright Alexandr Ostrovsky's bourgeois comedy The Scoundrel That You Need.
Alison Croggon describes her participation in the creative stream of the 20/20 Summit, considering how broadly complex and disparate ideas of artistic policy were rapidly corralled by the session facilitators into a few brief talking-points for the final plenary session. Here is Croggon describing the surreality of being involved in an enormous enterprise with such an array of participants and onlookers: -
"It was a world of corridors and party rooms and the Lego gigantism of Parliament House. It was instant media feedback via huge screens in the Great Hall, in which events I had witnessed live that morning were rendered in the afternoon as image and symbol, already swollen into myth. It was a thousand conversations. It was an exhilarating, bruisingly exhausting experience, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything."((Apparently Alison failed to notice that her group's resolutions consisted almost entirely of 'arty snouts in the public trough' proposals. "Everyone expected the Creatives to ask for more money. The Creatives were more concerned that the rest of Australia understood what they had to give," Alison observes. And without a hint of irony . ~ KP))
Carl Nilsson-Polias considers Claude Miller's story of lost Jewish history, Un-Secret rather prosiac despite the elaborate narrative structure.
Saint shows some of the architectural works of Santiago Calatrava.
Twelve Major Chords on "perhaps the greatest album cover of the year."
Sport
tigtog((As noted earlier, not a middle-aged man. ~GT)) posts a short sports quiz.
Snark, strangeness and charm
Alexander Downer((A former Foreign Minister in late middle age. ~GT)) has started a blog.
Rebecca would like to see more diversity in the blogosphere:
After reading Australian blogs for a few years now, its pretty safe to say that the very vast majority of the whole sphere is made up of middle-aged, white, middle or upper class, straight men.((If you've been wondering what the f**k Gummo has been fulminating darkly about right through this edition, here it is ~ KP))
dr faustus hates the lack of anything resembling a common standard in batteries, chargers, memory cards etc. Why wasn't this a "big idea" at 2020?
Middle-aged Jeremy wishes Catherine Deveny would stop giving the Right free kicks.
'Fulminating'? I resemtle that. I prefer to call it a running gag.
^---White, lower-middle-upper-middle-class, quite-a-few-years-from-middle-age male
Can I fulminate darkly as well? I think when Rebecca says 'Australian blogosphere' what she really means is 'Australian politics-or-related-issues blogosphere'. There are segments of the Australian blogoverse that are almost universally women. In the knit blogs, a segment I'm somewhat familiar with - there's but a single significant male voice. I'd be prepared to bet real money that amongst the wider non-issue, personal blogs - Live Journal for example, the gender split is right around 50/50.
gilmae, can you point me to a couple of good knit blogs? (not joking)
Hmmm - maybe I should take up Fairisle again.
In fact, Jeremy gets downright into channelling Norm Geras with this:
Bugger it, the rest of us are going to have to find a new word for ourselves.
And I thought the most memorable line of the blogosphere for the last couple of days was this, from Tyler Cowen:
FWIW, I don't believe I am middle-aged, although I am definitely white and male.
I believe it is fair to say that I am woefully unqualified to advise on knit blogs - and the quality thereof - other than that they exist in vast numbers and are pretty much all girls.
On the other hand, if if it was to be discovered at home that I was asked such a question and did not link to Her blog, medical issues might ensue. So at the very least you could use her blog roll. She's fussy about what she reads so I expect what she links to must be reasonably good.
Hmm, David eh?
Three blogs by intelligent women who make things
soozs http://soozs.blogspot.com/
muppinstuff http://muppinstuff.typepad.com/
pea soup http://www.peasoupoftheday.blogspot.com/
Back in the day when I was doing Arts solely I tried to link to crafty blogs a lot.
Rebecca's had her blog for four months. She's not aware of the extent and structure of the ausblogosphere as is actually totally normal for someone who's just beginning. When I started I was less interested in the local scene than in the overseas blogs I felt attracted to. I am a bit suspicious about her assertion that the blogosphere is overwhelmingly White, though. How does she know?
But the ausblogosphere is simply not one sphere at all. It's built like a minimally overlapping bundle of 3-d venn diagrams. We all form our own clusters and tend to think of the one we live in as the 'real' blogosphere. When all the time there are dozens of other gangs rubbing along out there just as self-sufficiently. It's not just generic clusters either. There are christian knitters and lefty knitters, diy aestheticians who are more interested in the concept of knitting than in extreme technical proficiency; conservative and progressive lit bloggers; and there are people who just blog about whatever but run together because of temperamental affinities.
I think she's right in a way though because the blog cluster around here, catallaxy and LP is not particularly aware of its status as one group among many. It does annoy me when some folk bang on about how members of this blog community are 'leading' the ausblogosphere (because it's so naive to think that) but in the main the inwardness of this group is probably more a reflection of shortage of time for meandering blogreading than a real lack of interest in what else is going on in the world.
How to we define "middle-aged" these days? As an early-thirties male, I'd suddenly be very depressed to discover that I was, in fact, middle-aged. In fact, it might make me cry, which is unbecoming of a middle-class straight white male, such as myself.
Bec doesn't want intelligent women who make things Laura, she wants other angry trans feminist type and proud homosexualists like her who CARE.
Maybe ML can add a Lifestyle category once a week.
(As in crafts/handyman/fashion etc.)
Whatever she wants she will eventually find it. It's a matter of time.
Please no lifestyle category! May as well have a Women's Page.
I think between Arts and Snark, Strange and Charm we have it all covered.
Laura (Comment 10) said:
"Rebeccas had her blog for four months. Shes not aware of the extent and structure of the ausblogosphere as is actually totally normal for someone whos just beginning."
Rebecca is no newbie, but has a long and proud tradition of blogging. Of course, I'm biased, as a fellow alumn(a|us) of Dead Roo.
NB too re: diversity. This week I've been selecting a link or two from Global Voices Online for the international section. It's a great site which I'm a bit addiced to -- round up of blogospheric action all over the world. http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/
dr faustus,
In one of the short stories in Dubliners, Joyce described a character in his 30s as "middle aged". I suppose middle-aged means somewhere about half-way through your normal life expectancy, plus or minus an arbitrary few years.
The definition of 'middle aged' is rather elastic. As those notoriously cashed up baby-boomers have gotten older, they've tended to stretch the social definition of yoof to maintain their illusion that they're the yoofful vanguard of social change. Then the crisis hits when your bathroom routine starts including a Rectinol up the bum before you put on your Bond's hipsters and Levis.
Please Gummo, I'm having morning coffee ...
Gawd what is this Rebecca chick smoking? Feminist notions of diversity? The shortest book ever written.
As much as I liked my piece at Catallaxy, to be picked up twice (in two days) does seem a bit extravagant.
I'd expect Dubliners, who are weaned straight onto Guinness and progress to Irish Whiskey by the time they're eight, probably look middle-aged by the time they're 18.
According to this, the average life expectancy for a male born some time around when I was born was 71.2, which means middle-aged is somewhere around 35, so unfortunately, I'm not far off!
One consequence of this, however, is that someone who is 40 is really well past midd-aged, and is thus old. I think I can be content with that.
Patrick - I'm not defecting from the left. I'm just saying we shouldn't let people like Catherine "I miss hating Howard" Deveny get away with pretending they speak for us.
Sinclair: Yesterday we managed to link to a post by (Cast Iron) Helen twice in half a dozen lines.
Jeremy: I know, but I was referring to both the realisation that a lot of lefties are exactly what righties say they are and the clincher:
Anytime you do want to defect, of course, you'll be welcome ;)
Thanks Laura for the links.
Sinclair: Yesterday we managed to link to a post by (Cast Iron) Helen twice in half a dozen lines.
If it hadn't been one of my rare two-lines-and-a-link posts I'd be having tickets on myself.
I can't believe Club Troppo does this every single day. Sometimes it's as much as I can do to drag my weary carcass to the keyboard once a week to post something. Can they keep it up??
Not quite. It would have at least one more page than The Original and Insightful Ideas of John Greenfield Esq of Sydney with an Appendix of his Superlatively Witty Aphorisms and Epigrams.
"Can they keep it up??"
Good question. I'm not really sure. It really is a very big daily job and sometimes a bit of grind rather than a pleasure. Nevertheless I think it's worth the effort, and we've got a reasonable size team collborating on it, and we also rotate when needed. Thus James Farrell, Helen Dale and Legal Eagle are currently having a break from ML. So far we've managed to recruit new volunteers when needed e.g. Richard Phillips who would have been co-opted before now if I hadn't gotten confused about his email address.
Too true. It's all down to those middle-aged men and their herd mentality. As soon as one of them's written a 2020 post, every bloody one of them has to come up with something bigger and better.
I think Rebecca's point has some worth (part of the problem is that many bloggers only regard areas such as voting and political parties as being "political"). Politics is far broader than that (note that knitting blogs are raised).
As for Rebecca's comment:
"Im really coming to wish that feminist/queer bloggers could get more organised here."
There has to be more explanation of what being a feminist and/or queer means these days from feminist/queer bloggers (and an admission that the feminist/queer communities are really diverse and not organised in general). Indeed, many gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered and intersex folk, unfortunately, won't even use the term "queer".
However, I think that we shouldn't presume people's life experiences just because they blog about certain topics (people are interested in diverse things). And there are heaps of blogs out there, but I think most people just read a select few.
What is a homosexualist?
It's not that I'm ungrateful, and I do think the daily posting is a fantastic effort.
Alas, dr faustus, because of the shortage of skin-destroying UV rays in Ireland, both men and women there tend to have excellent, young-looking, wrinkle free skin well into their 40s (when gravity begins to make the buggers pay.)
Darlene (and Rebecca)
I think Rebecca's point has some validity too. Possibly even Gummo does, despite his running joke. It should be clear from ML that there actually ARE quite a lot of female political bloggers and both males and females who can't really be described as "middle aged". Moreover, there are also lots who aren't 'straight', although many don't feature the fact continaully in their blogging personas.
Nevertheless, there's no doubt that there are more middle-aged, middle class blokes than any other cohort (statistics confirm this, we covered in in ML not long ago). Younger 'netizens' tend to gravitate more to social networking sites like facebook, bebo etc. Part of the reason for the greater number of male political bloggers, I suspect, is also that the often snarky, combative atmospherics deter quite a lot of women (as both bloggers and blog readers).
I suspect that the US political blogosphere isn't actually any more diverse than Australia's in proportionate terms, it's just that it's vastly larger in absolute terms so that it's possible given search technology to find at least a few bloggers who write about more obscure/less mainstream issues.
OK I'll 'fess up (much as it goes against the grain): Rebecca does have a point on the middle-aged blokey stuff. As a middle-aged bloke myself, I've got to admit that I do follow my own middle-aged blokey interests and pathological obsessions when I'm looking for stuff for ML.
That's enough earnestness - and blog commenting - for today. Time to pack up the pastels and the coloured paper and take off for the local park to sketch ducks or something.
As much as I'm a bit unimpressed by Gummo Trotsky's naff response, thanks to Darlene at Ken for at least addressing what I said.
I think Rebeccas point has some worth (part of the problem is that many bloggers only regard areas such as voting and political parties as being political). Politics is far broader than that (note that knitting blogs are raised).
I'm referring to the political blogosphere, yes. That this does not include knitting blogs isn't much of an explanation for the overwhelmingly male, middle-aged and white makeup of the former here, in contrast to that in the Stats. This isn't necessarily an attack; in my last blog (The Dead Roo), I was much more part of this sphere, and hell, I'm white as well. I'm simply saying that when it comes to any sort of diversity, the Australian blogosphere fails.
There has to be more explanation of what being a feminist and/or queer means these days from feminist/queer bloggers (and an admission that the feminist/queer communities are really diverse and not organised in general). Indeed, many gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered and intersex folk, unfortunately, wont even use the term queer.
I use queer as an alternative to the still-growing alphabet soup (LGBTIQA/SGL) because it's practical; I don't think it changes the group I'm referring to.
What is a homosexualist?
It's a Saintism. Apparently there is a difference between a "homosexual" and a "homosexualist" (I'm presuming similar to the RWDBs with "Muslim" and "Islamist"), which amuses me. And since I've been in the mood for taking the piss out of Saint lately, it just had to go in my blog subtitle...
It should be clear from ML that there actually ARE quite a lot of female political bloggers and both males and females who cant really be described as middle aged. Moreover, there are also lots who arent straight, although many dont feature the fact continaully in their blogging personas.
I'm not denying that there's some out there, but the numbers are vastly smaller in proportion to the Americans. I think in today's there's a gender ratio of what, 25-4? This isn't really that great. I'm not saying it's your fault; I've seen the ML feeds, and you can't be leaving that many people off. But it does suggest that there's something a bit different, and perhaps, a bit awry, about the way we do things blog-wise out here.
I suspect that the US political blogosphere isnt actually any more diverse than Australias in proportionate terms, its just that its vastly larger in absolute terms so that its possible given search technology to find at least a few bloggers who write about more obscure/less mainstream issues.
I think this explains part of it, but not all.
One of the other things I wrote about was the tendency of the Australian sphere to lean towards newspaper-editorialesque analysis and commentary (even if partisan), than the more grassroots/let's-go-actually-do-something-about-something-that-affects-me/
-or-that-I'm-passionate-about blogging I see on many of the US blogs I read, including quite a few of their Big Blogs. I'm curious as to why you folks think that is.
There are actually 8 posts by women linked from todays ML out of a total of 31 i.e. just over 25%. My gut feeling is that that's a fairly typical proportion for ML and also equates fairly closely to the proportion of female oz political bloggers.
As for the range of topics covered by Australian bloggers, it isn't obvious to me at least that it's less diverse than the US (with the qualification I've already made). That said, I don't get much if any time to read blogs beyond the (large) number I review each day for ML. No doubt ML doesn't cover the full range, partly because that would be almost impossible anyway and partly because any human-selected digest necessarily to a fair extent reflects the interests of its compilers, even though we try to select a wide range of posts in the hope that readers with a wide range of tastes will find at least something to interest them. However, I take your main point to be not so much a criticism of ML as an observation that the ozpoliticalblogosphere as a whole is less diverse than the US (irrespective of which parts of it ML chooses to cover). As I said above, that doesn't accord with my own observations. To the extent that it does I think it's a consequence of the US being around 12 times Australi's size.
Seven or eight, anyway. If the ML editorial board gets to democratically assign gender, that is :- )
Or vastly smaller in proportion to the US blogs you read. I seriously doubt this.
I think this might be fair:
But I have an answer:
The US is 15 times bigger than Australia and is generally more disposed to that sort of community engagement across the board.
Thanks for your responses, Rebecca.
Actually, I should clarify my mention of "knitting blogs". It seems that soon as the topic of women and blogging is raised, knitting blogs get a mention.
A Saintism, hey. Homosexualists are presumably much more political and activist than plain old homosexuals.
The word queer can also be used in the sense of anyone who is challenge heteronormativity; thus a heterosexual could potentially be queer. It also could be considered to be more about the politics of identity than rights' based activism (e.g. a queer might think that fighting for same-sex marriage rights is a waste of time because marriage is a heterosexist construct). However, "queer" can also used as a way of shortening that pesky long acronym.
Anyway, this is an issue worth thinking about more, and I think your challenge for feminist/queer blogger to get organised is something to think about (or at least discuss further).
"I suspect that the US political blogosphere isnt actually any more diverse than Australias in proportionate terms, its just that its vastly larger in absolute terms so that its possible given search technology to find at least a few bloggers who write about more obscure/less mainstream issues."
This is true, Ken. Is there a regular female contributor (not just a ML contributor) at Club Troppo, by the way?
Feminist/queer bloggers that is...and I hope people think while they are discussing. Sorry for the less than articulate comment.
"Is there a regular female contributor (not just a ML contributor) at Club Troppo, by the way?"
Not ones who are prolific anyway. Backroom Girl and Jen post from time to time but neither is anywhere near as prolific as either Nicholas or myself. We haven't really had a frequent female blogger since Wendy and Sophie retired hurt. Any suggestions for quality talent who might be interested in posting or cross-posting at Troppo will be gratefully received.
That might be the case but I mentioned it because knitting blogs are the example I use when referring to the world of blogging beyond Issues blogging. It remains my contention and ever will that knit blog output is greater than most other blog genres.
Instead of those blue boxes, how come you FPs (in joke) don't just leave a comment down here with us slummers?
"A Saintism, hey. Homosexualists are presumably much more political and activist than plain old homosexuals."
Au contraire. No offence to saint or Rebecca but Gore Vidal was using the term in the 70's to describe homosexual men who rejected a broader gay cultural definition. It's about confining what you do to what you do rather than rather than buying into the notion that what you do automatically creates some broader sexual orientation-based sense of shared community and culture. Vidal rejects gay because he thinks that the human condition is basically a bisexual continuum and it's silly to construct a cultural identity around a particular aspect of it.
I don't think he's convinced all that many people........
That's interesting Geoff, thanks.
"4. GT: Actually a girl, or really a middle-aged man in drag? []" My world rocked on its axis until I rushed into the loo and dropped my knickers to peek - what a relief, I'm still a greyhaired old woman who liked a younger nickname!!
Instead of those blue boxes, how come you FPs (in joke) dont just leave a comment down here with us slummers?
It's a party in the post, and not everyone's invited.
Trotsky. Is the daily regimen a response to a medical condition or done for pleasure. Just so you know I'm not being judgmental
I'll do some cross-posting (and even posting!) for you now I know you're in need, Ken. Just not right now, I have an evidence tutorial on Friday...
That 1 per cent dividend idea was, to most of the Creative Stream, a minor point. There were much more interesting possibilities discussed that haven't seen the light of day.
Alison was privy to some of the many discussions which were about finding resources outside government funding. Or talking to health professionals who told her how art, for instance, is considered essential in its mental health and geriatric programs. Or discussing how including arts in school education is shown, in study after study, to produce healthier, happier, brighter and more socially adjusted kids, how a vital culture makes more cohesive communities and pays dividends in social capital, how culture is a cheap and very effective means of international diplomacy, and so on and so on. And it wasn't just the Creative stream talking this way. A room full of corporate women discussing Productivity was reportedly told by its facilitator that he was sick of hearing them say that they needed the arts. No irony needed.
You are not middle aged until you find a grey hair in yer pubes. After that, you are too depressed ever to be young again.
Hi Alison
All I can say is that those convening the Creative group displayed very poor political judgment in the way they packaged the ideas that were presented as the group's conclusions. They were almost without exception ones of a seemingly "snout in the trough" nature. As Henry Ergas observed:
I don't doubt that there were lots of less seemingly grasping ideas discussed and still on the table. It would have been more prudent to ensure that some of them were given more central billing, especially in a budgetary situation where a razor gang is currently insisting on some very real cuts to some important existing programs in a range of areas. The Creative group's PR skills at least look to be very poor indeed. Hopefully Cate Blanchett's PR and managerial skills will be more in evidence in running a theatre company (or God help the STC).
Perhaps Henry Ergas had an agenda of his own. I was also under the impression from various reports that it was generally agreed that almost none of the groups were particularly happy with the fit between the official report and what they thought they'd said in the sessions.
Ken, what are your own views on arts funding generally?
You might be interested in a bit more data about the creative strand sessions. For Screen Hub, I commissioned film producer Sue Maslin to write a personal account.
She said that the key practical ideas that surfaced in the screen part of the discussion were:
"1 Increase expenditure on Research & Development
Tax Incentives for private investment in R & D
Mandating 20% of government screen funding expenditure to be allocated to R&D
2 Reward success
Ensure incentives which reward screen content which demonstrates significant cultural and financial success
3 Remove barriers
Rigidity of funding models and reporting requirements
Inadequate marketing support
Inadequate support for new digital media technologies
Legal complexity and excessive documentation
Rigidity of R&D investment
Lack of increase in real terms for national broadcasters to invest in local talent
Lack of practitioner representation on boards,
Complexity of applications
Optical fibre to the node and not to the home
Inflexible and expensive insurance
4 Future proof government screen and broadcasting policy:
Make producer offset format and technology neutral (including non time based media)
Mandate 80% quota for Australian content by broadcasters in digital delivery five fold increase in support of public broadcasting as a hub / brand for quality, distinctive Australian content into the future
5 Develop metrics to measure cultural value creative credits (i.e. carbon credits) as a tradeable commodity
6 Ensure access for emerging practitioners to screen agencies in changing media environment.
7 Simplify governance demands of screen agencies
cap administrative / internal costs at 5 10% of annual budgets."
I am not sure what the R&D stuff actually means, though I guess it refers to the general point that development costs should be seen as an R&D expense and covered by those tax provisions. But you will see that many of the provisions don't refer to money (and are familiar to people in many other sectors that work with the government.)
It should also probably be said that people are not asking for the dreaded handouts; in the screen sector, people are asking for the opportunity to do work, for which they are paid.
I remain surprised that the group did not come out unequivocally with a call to increase funding for the government broadcasters, which is woeful compared to comparable systems and has significant flow-on effects, particularly if the money is spent in radio, education, publishing and kids' programs.
David
That stuff certainly sounds more persuasive and defensible than the points covered in the MSM in the immediate wake of the Summit. Trouble is, it's the MSM take that shapes the public's undertanding.
Kerryn
It may well be that most groups were unhappy about the extent to which the public communiques reflected what was actually discussed, but the Creative group's public message was the most egregious of all the groups from what I saw.
On your question, I think that in the short term, given current fiscal constraints, no part of the arts industry should be expecting or demanding significant new or enhanced spending programs. In the longer term I agree that funding has been progressively eroded over time (more so for ABC and SBS than for flagship performing companies, and more so by the states than the Commonwealth) and needs to be restored. I don't accept the economic rationalist position on this (which no doubt Ergas reflects) that the arts should be regarded as just another market that should be expected to pay its own way, or just another "rent seeking" interest group. I endorse the sentiments in Alison's post and comment in that regard. That said, the immediate term economic imperatives dictate caution and self-restraint in making demands on the state, and there are some self-indulgent participants who would permanently weld themselves to the public nipple irrespective of merit if given half a chance. The precise balance between market demand and public support/sponsorship/patronage will always and necessarily be a fraught and dynamic balancing exercise.
Oh yes, I know; I've seen all too many of them and I could not agree with you more. Arts funding at its most effective is a wonderful thing, but in practice it has its down side, just like any other area of public funding. Thanks for this detailed reply, Ken -- I find myself on various arts funding allocation committees from time to time, and the more I understand about the range of views on it, the more effective and representative a participant I can be.
Can't speak about broadcasting or film funding because they are different sources and models about which I know little, but I should also have said up there that these days few if any undeserving applicants for other kinds of arts funding -- literature, music, visual arts, craft, theatre, dance -- do do get half a chance of getting any at all, much less of getting permanent support; the competition for arts funding gets more ferocious every year. I think this is a good thing, but I'm sure many would disagree.
You are also raising the question of the political smarts of many in the arts commmunity. Most practicing artists have dumped pragmatism in favour of inspiration, and it makes for some simple minded postures.
In the screen area, I am fond of saying that most of the noise is the sound of failure. It is a democratic area, in which anyone can set themselves up as practitioners, but most of them slide very slowly down the wall into oblivion.
The survivors tend to be quiet. They have work to do. That is a very general rule, but there is truth in it.
Yes. And it's the same with writing.
Except, if I have understood the points which preceeded this, they are asking to be paid by the government.
That one per cent idea was, as Ken points out, incredibly bad PR. Can you imagine telling the kid whose local football club just lost a $10k federal grant that the 'arts' were getting a billion or so in chump change? What's the idea - that he thinks 'oh cool I should be an artist' or that he hates art and artists and Labor forever??
Not to mention that the idea is, in addition to bad PR, stupid beyond comprehension in its own right: What about the single mum whose pension gets cut by a sloppy mistake because one per cent of Centrelink funding went to some dumb art program? Etc, etc.
Finally, how the f*** can anyone have such a sense of entitlement as to even think of such an idea? If I dig and refill a hole in my backyard for 10 years, I will have expended a hell of a lot of effort, but I do so aware that I am not being paid because nobody cares about it! Same if I write/paint/perform something that no-one ever reads/looks at/watches.
I don't have anything against art, in fact I am a downright lefty hippie in my consumption patterns ('arty crap' is second only to restaurants in my discretionary spending), but I am happy to pay for what I want to see/read/watch etc.
David's on the money.
One lifetime is not enough to put together the body of work at mind, let alone have that time and energy - and inspiration - lost to endless talk. It is possible in (at least some areas of) the arts to just get on with it.
Sometimes, too, because the arts are so valuable (overall) to the nation's wealth, that this value is willfully passed off in attitude so as to make a person feel they deserve by right to have their idea - or their wanting to live that life - given support. Get a group of those people together and 'the arts' gives off a repulsive sound, as too many years and so much jibber has proven.
'Arts funding' - where it is valuable if not necessary - is complicated by these misappropriating attitudes. Detrimentally. The problem, for my two bobs, is not about money, it's about management (in the real world). Fund the teaching, and development, of that! And do it before any particular creative idea is even mentioned, so as to instill it and not to lose it.
While the matter of funding the public broadcaster is as clear cut a case of debatable need as can be, surely the question has to be asked here: did the Creatives make it clear that they would do themselves no favours if their communique gave even the faintest impression of "we need more money".
It would have been better for the Creatives to communicate simply that (systemic) failing within the areas of the arts have been identified. That's in the least. That might have started getting people to listen again.
Moreover, it could be a valid case that when there is a need for fiscal constraint, that is the time the arts should come into their own, and get the job done. That's when the community needs it most. Were these identified and acknowledged? And did it highlight even more the absolute need not to present as the tired old whinge?
Putting the public off is not going to achieve anything. Switch the focus from money to management and you have a chance.
The public take out, according to valid perceptions raised here, and by ommission of anything Big (read workable and valuable) in media, is yet more of the godawful talktalk and that misappropriated 'need' of "we need more money".
That was always going to be the elephant in the room.
Added to all of this is the obvious fact any media will jump on the funding thing: the kneejerk was also always going to be there too. Was that acknowledged and dealt with?
So once again the general public get a halfbit circus, so unnecessarily.
Except Patrick, there is no demonstrable benefit to the process of digging up and refilling holes. As pointed out before, there is research demonstrating the benefits of the arts.
The (high) arts have always survived on special funding. In the past it's been the aristocracy. We don't have that anymore, and realistically government money is the only alternative. Yes, there are risks and arguments against it being up to government bureaucrats deciding who should get how much to put towards what various programs, but opposite that is the very real risk that if the government spends nothing on the arts, then most forms of art that didn't appeal sufficiently to the short-term interests of the masses would die out fairly quickly - we'd lose our orchestras, galleries would have to sell their masterpieces, and films and theatre productions that weren't special-effects blockbusters or sing-a-long musicals would become a thing of the past.
What I have seen suggested though is that the funding should be channelled towards early educational programs - e.g. exposure to the arts in primary school these days is virtually non-existent, and yet without that early introduction, many people end up turned off by forms of art that take a bit more time and effort to appreciate than modern popular forms of art where the focus is much more on immediate and broad appeal.
Geoff Honor
Thank you for reclaiming "homosexualist." . Gore Vidal coined 'homosexualist' as he quite rightly argued 'homosexual can only ever be an adjective to descibe an act; it can never be a noun. And I object to being called an adjective.'
The great man would take his last breath if he knew that 'homosexualist' was being coopted by the gruseome alliance between the gender feminist politburo and the "Queer" set.
Quelle horruer!
The Creative presentation was in my view, as I sat in the Great Hall, disastrous. And contained ideas none of us had heard of (eg, summer schools).
Just one illustrative point - a mighty strong recommendation was the beefing up of teacher training and skills in the arts, with ongoing professional training (and obviously better pay - I think everyone said that). More and better jobs for teachers, surely? No, it was reported as only a scheme for artists in residence (taking jobs AWAY from teachers). Not all the journalists' fault - after all, they can only report what they're given. But still.
I don't think saint qualifies as a member of either party in that 'gruseome' alliance. What is a 'gruseome' and what's the pronunkiation? My guess would be 'gru-se-oh-may'.
Some etymology would be helpful too.
I wonder if Gummo realises how much that comment resembles a Tim Blair "gotcha" nitpick?
Aagh! Gotcha Gotchaed!
Thinking about our discussion of the creative strand overnight, I realised we are having an apples and oranges moment. We are going into a horror budget, sadly, but the proposals from the summit are aimed at 2020. There may be an irritation factor for voters if they remember to compare these nebulous goals with the reality of hard times at the money pump in May, but the two will not affect each other in reality.
It may be worth saying that the proposals belong to venerable logic - in the past the philosophies have been called "demand side funding" - supporting marketing etc etc - and "audience development". Both these strategies are very appealing on many levels, not the least being the pleasure of staying out of direct funding to artists, and the inevitable subjectivities of this.
Patrick's argument about closing kinders to feed feral artists depends on the comparisons you make. While he is writing about a certain direction of political prejudice, I can go the other way. A number of people in the past have said things like: "One air force jet would pay for all Australia's orchestras.." etc. (I have no idea if that is true, btw.) But I can tell you that it costs much more money to train a Qantas pilot than anyone in the film business.
Arts funding is already very embedded. As an arts consumer, Patrick could take a quick squizz around his shelves and ask how much depends on the public purse. It is a salutary exercise.
Peter Garrett, by the way, was explicitly telling artists in his travelling workshop before the election that most artists had jobs, and it was better to subsidise their form of income than the art. Hence, the education stuff in the 2020 proposals. I agree with him - one of the most insidious problems for artists is the collapse of the relative value of the wages from their day jobs.
While that is a general problem, and much worse for struggling families etc than for an artist forced to get a full time job rather than play the piano, there is a particular issue with cuts in the sector. Remove writer programs in schools, and the income of kids' writers takes a horrible dive. Increase the workload and rigidity in the academic system, and its no longer possible for a filmmaker to teach and make films.
(to end with a personal bitch - the wages on the writing end of documentary film have not gone up in more than fifteen years.)
GT
OK, you are a dab hand at proofing. Do you also take dictation? File? But seriously, I do not know who "saint" is. My point is that over the past decade - especially in the universities - there has been this boneheaded alliance between "Gender Studies" and "Queer Theory" where they try to tell poofs and straight sheilahs that they are really diesel dykes. After one week, even the most enthusiastic homosexualist would convert to breederism.
JG,
OK, so we're talking at cross-purposes, with a little help from our mutual detestation of each other's hopelessly distorted, ideologically blinkered world-views. I was unaware of Gore Vidal's use of 'homosexualist' until Geoff Honor mentioned it. saint's use of homosexualist as a pejorative is overly familiar to me. Here's an example.
(GT)
Brr. saint links to that 'pussification of oz' post with the word 'homosexualist' in that post, GT. When I saw the url for the PoO post - yes - I saw the html file references me...'as-gilmae-says.html'. I wonder what I said.
Sorry about that reminder gilmae. The link was purely for JG's information.
Now it's time for me to take another break from the intertubes, this time to read Marshall McLuhan whose writing is a very obvious pre-emptive plagiarism of Foucault and Derrida.
GT
Before I respond, one thing I must clear up. I most certainly do NOT "hate" anything about you or your views. You are letters on a computer screen, not Ivan Milat! :) I enjoy differences and intellectual argy-bargy on blogs precisely because it is an environment where half-assed ideas, passionately held commandments, thought-processes can be "tried on for size," have the hem adjusted, a little let out in the middle WITHOUT having to go through all the anxious pussyfooting and politicking that are required (for very good reasons I might add) in seminars, businesses, the pub, blah, blah, blah.
If I found myself "hating" somebody - or even their views - whom I had never even met, I would call the men in the white coats myself!
I assume it's not just me that can't access Andrew Norton's blog currently?
I think Andrew volunteered to be a guinea pig for some hosting venture that Jacques Chester is trying to develop. Presumably they're in the process of shifting the blog to the new server.
Btw David, most artists are very practical and pragmatic. It's a necessary survival skill. I've been practising basically fulltime as a writer for a long time now and I know whereof I speak. And before you start slamming me with the Bolt thing that I don't sell any books, it's not true, I sell quite a lot - it's principally how I make my living and I'm aiming for total self sufficiency. But my central art is poetry, and the thought of living on the royalties for that is laughable. I'm lucky, I have another - a few - strings to my bow. But I am quite unusual that way. I think poetry matters even if it doesn't make money. And to write it well takes more work than you might imagine. It's a very specialist skill and frankly I wouldn't have had the space to do that learning if I had not had grants (mind you, it's ended up giving me more of a reputation in the UK than I have here, another peculiarity of this country). And that's the dilemma - if artists can't practise their art, they're not going to get good at it, and that practice is actually a full-time job, if you're actually going to be serious and not think of it as some kind of superior hobby.
Something about invisible pink unicorns gilmae.
And yes, while I think Vidal was equally loony in his bisexual continuum ideas, I think he - and others like him were right about not constructing a cultural identity around 'gay'. I don't know why people would want to lock themselves up into such a prison.
Camille Paglia - hardly a bastion of Christian morality - makes a similar point (not that she's particularly coherent):
But yes homosexualist these goes more to the gender feminist politburo and the Queer set, the NSW education department and the ABC :-) Fascists in the making.
...these days
Oh right. I thought it might have been something to do with the content of the post.
Now, you know what I hate? This thing of, say you have a man whos Anglican and maybe every month or every few weeks he goes out and picks up a guy. Today, in this fascist environment its "youre gay! Youre gay and youre secretly homophobic! You are self-loathing! You are hiding behind the mask of respectability!" What if hes just Anglican and likes to sleep with men now and then?…I dont like the situation because right now its bad for gay people!
Alison - "before you start slamming me with the Bolt thing that I don't sell any books".
Why would I do that? I don't think we are disagreeing at all. Political smarts is not the same as pragmatism, or the ability to stitch together an income out of grants, teaching, commissioned work and sheer risk taking, which we have both done.
Here's an example of lack of political smarts: the federal government has pushed the screen community to create one unified voice for some time. The various guilds formed a peak body called The Australian Screen Council. Right now, it is falling apart as the Writers' Guild and the Directors' Guild have a horrible stoush in which one or the other party is being v. dumb.
All the individuals in these orgs have plenty of survival skills. The ones that don't have largely been weeded out, as per my post above.
I'd never realised that the Oz 'sphere was radically age-ist to many white, middle aged, male bloggers, eh? Surely that tells the silly bint that white, middle-aged male bloggers actually give a shit sufficiently to put their thoughts on politics, society, environment, science, arts and even sport into the ether. Clearly, it seems we white, middle-aged male bloggers aren't writing enough about home, hearth and lion-fruit. We'd better pick up our acts.
Silly bint!
Seems Rebecca can't take a little pointed criticism