Nicholas kindly suggested to me that we might like to cross post our three favourite posts from August at each other's blogs to see if commenters' reaction is different. So here's the first of mine, originally published at LP . -------------------------------------------------...
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Just popping in to my old home quickly to alert Troppo readers to a post on the Politics of Civility over at my new digs at LP . It's not a comment on recent controversies on these pages , but rather some reflection on how civility works politically in blogosphere debates, and...
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Ken's jumped the gun on me , so I may as well officially launch my new blog and declare it open! Troppo readers are of course very welcome visitors. And thanks everyone for all your kind words on my farewell post here .
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Or, Lapsing, then Lapsing into Solo-dom I think this will be my last post on Troppo . For some time, I've been thinking seriously about a number of conflicting impulses relating to my blogging life. For a start, I really need at this time to focus all my writing energies on my...
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"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." - George Orwell. In his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language , George Orwell wrote: In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things l...
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One of my favourite bloggers, Phil Gomes over at Citystate has a very interesting reflection on the eclipse of op/ed columnists by bloggers - well worth reading . One of the constant bugbears of the blogosphere is the degree to which it's parasitic on mainstream media. Lately,...
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I'm indebted to "Santamaria socialist" The Currency Lad for his recommendation of John Edwards' new book Curtin's Gift: Reinterpreting Australia's Greatest Prime Minister . I read a lot of Australian political history at Uni, but not much in the way of political biography - th...
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Sadly, Irish comedian Dave Allen has passed away unexpectedly . His show was one of the highlights of my week's viewing as a kid. May his God go with him .
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There's an interesting discussion going on the Howardian power grab vis-a-vis the states over at Catallaxy sparked off by the resident representative of the Carlton-living, latte right Federalist faction of the Liberal Party , that is to say, Andrew Norton. Atypically for rece...
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In light of recent debates at Troppo , readers might be interested in an excellent op/ed piece by Gary Younge in The Guardian .
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A quick update on the IR wars. Kenneth Davidson has a cogent op/ed piece in The Age today demonstrating how lowering the minimum wage would not necessarily contribute to employment, would harm the low-paid, and do nothing for the skills shortage. The government's latest gambit...
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As the intensity and pace of the Troppo culture wars over sexuality and schools diminish rapidly (though increasingly people are commenting elsewhere - see Tim Dunlop's contention that there is no centrist position on the issue recently posted at Road to Surfdom ), it's probab...
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Just eight days after she announced her retirement from blogging , to general and justified lamentations from her devoted readers, Gianna came back ! Yay! Welcome back, G! Why wasn't I told earlier???!!!!
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I'm not inclined to participate further on the debate on non-heterosexualities and school education, partly because I think it's rapidly running its course , and partly because at the moment I can better focus my writing energies on my thesis. So after this post, I'll disappea...
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Rob Corr has put up a very measured post summarising the debate which started with the incident of the student teacher having her prac terminated because she answered children's questions about her same-sex partner over at Kick & Scream . Rob's post is tellingly titled 'Discre...
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Feeling generally overtired, a bit ill, and reeling from all sorts of things that are stressing me, I was delighted to be asked out by a good friend of mine for a Corona or two tonight (a very good rule of thumb is that any drink that can reasonably have a lime in it is a good...
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Unfortunately, I'm feeling unwell today so unable to go into work. Happily, though, this gives me the chance to post on International Women's Day. There are a number of entries around the 'sphere - Rob Corr's birthday is also today, and he has some interesting reflections on c...
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You'd get the impression from parts of the recent comments threads around this joint lately that Western civilisation is about to collapse if the shaky heteronormativity in schools isn't immediately reinforced. As a number of us have pointed out, though, there are real people...
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Much of the talk about IR Reform is based on assertion - and misinformation, or perhaps creating an impression which proves to be untrue on closer inspection, if that's a different thing. The current contention that a panel of experts is needed to assess the economic impact of...
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I previously argued that talk of values - usually found associated with education debates - can be code for imposing conservative social values on everyone , and that one value that rarely gets mentioned is the fundamental liberal value of toleration. As the right wing culture...
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At the very welcome recommendation of a friend, I reread the second "Lightness and Weight" chapter in Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being on Saturday. Kundera reminded me of the truth of a metaphor Maurice Merleau-Ponty used for how our lives are shaped by remembered...
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Fresh from a coup in snatching the free to air coverage of The Ashes series against England which Channel Nine declined and the ABC dithered over, public broadcaster SBS will tonight show highlights of the Danish Royal Wedding . I'll be watching - I still have Princess Diana's...
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Or, the Civil in Civility It's odd that we hear so much about the Judaeo-Christian tradition (usually in the context of values) these days from the Culture Warriors who believe that our values are going to ruin all around us . It's as if, like the artist Frederick Goodall , th...
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Trackback spam is coming in thick and fast this afternoon. As blogs' defences have eliminated much comment spam, this is the new spammers' method of choice. What's extremely outrageous is that some of the spam that Troppo has been reeling under appears to come from legitimate...
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Shaun Carney sums up the intended result of the Howard Government's IR reforms : In practical terms, the changes would be likely to drive wages down at the lower end of the market while also increasing the number of people who can be employed. In that sense, the consequence fo...
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There seems to be some presupposition in the debates over the culture wars that once upon a time, there was an orderly, well educated and prosperous Australian society with no social cleavages and where everyone knew the 3 Rs and knew their place. It's the hidden premise, if y...
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One thing I share with Neo-Conservatives (and there aren't too many to put it very mildly) is a belief that politics is and ought to be about much more than the economy (though I deplore their economic irresponsibility). This insight, of course, is not original to Neo-Conserva...
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Frequent Troppo commenter and proprietrix of her own blog, yellowvinyl , who's a friend of mine, rang me today to let me know that she has cancer. She asked me to pass on her apologies for being testy in comments threads, which I'm sure are wholly unnecessary in any case. She'...
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...quoth Federal Treasurer Peter Costello . 0.1% growth in the December quarter, 1.5% over the year. This character is looking more and more like a clown, or as Homer Paxton argues, a barrister with no grasp of economics making the best case. Since everything's currently (and...
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In my previous post on right wing postmodernism , I referred to the work of American political theorist Sheldon S. Wolin. Wolin also has some relevant points to make about the "underclass" debate , which surfaced on Troppo in the wake of the Macquarie Fields riots. Wolin trace...
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Chris referred in his post on po/mo and history to right postmodernists such as Kojeve and Fukuyama. These figures - both enormously influential - and both central to my PhD thesis, would be worth a post in their own right. But I want to pick up on something said in comments b...
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First, it was Kinsey : ... the right-wing police have turned their sights on Bill Condon's new biopic, Kinsey, in the same hysterical terms that greeted Alfred Kinsey himself more than half a century ago: Such immoral subjects shouldn't be made public. Robert Knight, the (pred...
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As Labour ministers backed down on aspects of the Terrorism Prevention Bill after losing a division in the House of Commons and being roundly condemned by MPs from all parties for the anti-civil libertarian aspects of the bill, a big contrast can be drawn with the latest devel...
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On another thread, Chris pointed out an uncanny resemblance between Princess Mary and Emma Peel . This leads me to muse - why is it that the film adaptation of The Avengers is largely without grace, charm or wit compared to the wonderful original tv series ? Bad scriptwriting,...
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What astonishes the contemporary reader is, first of all, that a genuine, independent intellectual like Galbraith was permitted to serve in government, let alone become the confidant of presidents. Facile anti-intellectualism is the order of the day now... Thomas Frank, author...
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The Academy Awards ceremony was just dedicated to US military forces serving overseas.
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Or, The Art of the Academic Jobsearch I spent part of my morning finalising my application for a Research Fellowship in Griffith Uni's Socio-legal Research Centre . All the advice that's been around for years in HR is that cvs and selection criteria responses should be succinc...
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I've been a regular net user since 1997, and first discovered the thing in 92, when we were delighted to find we could access the Village Voice sitting in the Semper Floreat offices at UQ. A feature in the Fin magazine on Friday made the point that many of the utopian claims m...
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I thoroughly enjoyed the Inaugural Brisvegas bloggers' meetup on Friday night. My first post-grogblog comment was at Mel Gregg's place and a round up of other attendees' posts can be found at the Meetup message board .
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First good news on the election front since Premier Pete won 63 of the 89 Legislative Assembly seats in Qld a year ago - Labor continues its clean sweep of the states and is re-elected in WA . Discussion Question : Given that the Howardians are so dominant federally, why are t...
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The WA election is tomorrow. I haven't been following it, so will make no predictions. However, there are certainly national implications - the rise of the Beazer was said to be essential to Labor's prospects for re-election, and if the Coalition are elected, it might be inter...
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Or, Tres Catholique [After Umberto Eco] I had the very great pleasure tonight of showing a couple of friends from Melbourne the wonders of the Valley - or at least that we do good Jazz band (Kafka) and good bar (The Bowery) here in Brisvegas. Or at least, that being a regular...
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Quick pitstop from the Toowong net cafe closest to Thesis land. Just wanted to remind people in Brizvegas of the grogblog at Ric's Bar tomorrow night - Troppo readers and commenters are most welcome. Also a plug for Funk for Tsunami at No. 12 in the Valley tonight - which a fr...
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"A narrator should not supply interpretations of his work." In his recent post on postmodernism and history , Chris Sheil discussed Umberto Eco's great novel The Name of the Rose . I've just dug out my copy of his Reflections on the Name of the Rose . What he writes in the fir...
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Or, the Return of the Political While I remain disinclined to engage with the contention of some Troppo commenters that anyone who identifies with the Left or admires Eric Hobsbawm must immediately don sackcloth and walk towards the scaffold on the Place de Greve with a lighte...
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Back in December, Scott wrote about internet dating . I'm single again, and as I'm hardly likely to meet anyone sitting in an office in Toowong by myself writing a thesis, I'm giving cyberdating a go . I don't want to write about my experiences, as I don't want to invade anyon...
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I was on campus on Monday to borrow some books for my PhD. It's the first time in nine years that I'm not gearing up for the teaching semester, so I'm feeling fairly relaxed at the moment. I'm evidently so out of touch that I didn't realise til I got there that it was O Week....
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Aside from IR, the big issue Cabinet will be discussing today is welfare reform . A single payment, which I support, is still too difficult according to Minister Kevin Andrews. One reason might be, as the Fin reported yesterday, that there is no portfolio of Social Security an...
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As part of my work, I regularly read US periodicals such as The Public Interest and Foreign Affairs . The former is home to leading neo-cons, while the latter is more the house journal of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. Both are enormously influential in setting t...
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or, Bollywood Bliss I'd never seen a Bollywood film before today. I'm a longtime fan of Hong Kong cinema, particularly the work of director Tsui Hark , and this genre has well and truly become a crossover phenomenon, both in terms of style and effects in action films, and in H...
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Looks like Troppo was right to place Saintinastraitjacket in the "centrist" category on the blogroll - he's done the Moral Politics Test and scored the perfectly centrist position . It's a better test than some, and one of the fun things is that you get compared with US Presid...
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...is the title of an article by Sigmund Freud, who along with Marx and Nietzsche, has been seen as an originator of the "hermeneutics of suspicion" and thus a spiritual parent of postmodernism. In the wake of the Troppo theory wars, John Quiggin has reminded us that one of hi...
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Since, as we all now know, Troppo is home to lovers of literature, I'd urge you all to visit Catallaxy where two posts are of interest. Andrew discusses the importance of the opening line in written expression , which has led to some great examples in comments, and Jason has a...
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Overlooked in the vigorous debate over postmodernism that has consumed Troppo over the past week or so is the distinction between postmodernity and postmodernism, which is one strongly established in sociology (often associated with the work of Zygmunt Bauman .) Bauman argues...
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As a follow up to his last commentathon, which raised over 2k for the tsunami disaster relief fund, John Quiggin has opened another comments thread - this time he is donating $1 for every comment up to 1000 to Medecins Sans Frontieres , with a preference for the money to go to...
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Despite Janet Albrechtsen's recent tirade on the necessity of free speech, femonazis and PC etc etc, the "debate" on abortion seems to have disappeared from the headlines. This in itself points to the limitations of the media as a true public sphere for the resolution of issue...
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This will be my last entry in the Troppo literature wars, which I suspect are running out of steam with the same positions being reiterated. However, I wouldn't be doing my job as a sociologist if I didn't point out that the way that we read literary works and assess their val...
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Longtime left commentator Martin Jacques has an interesting article in the Guardian about the politics of New Labour's Third Way, a phrase we're unlikely to hear anyone in the ALP utter any time soon in the wake of Latham's departure into the ether. But the similarities betwee...
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... can be found here , for new readers. The exam will be on Friday at 9am sharp. Bring a 2B lead pencil, as your chief examiner/Grand Inquisitor, Rafe Champion , will be setting a multi-choice test. Seriously, I'd love to post more on my literary obsessions like Kit Marlowe,...
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I posed a question on Sophie's thread which is yet to be answered - if Nelson's mooted enquiry decides to turn English teaching on its head, how will it achieve its aims? The accreditation of teachers and the framing of curricula are state responsibilities. Getting away from t...
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Troppo has been filled with sometimes fairly arcane discussion about the merits or otherwise of postmodernism in recent days, sparked off by the Sawyer Affair (there are multiple posts but follow the links from the most recent one). I don't want to revisit the questions of Eng...
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Ok, although we're doing the poll thing on Troppo a lot of late (on recent popular music and children's books that influenced us ), it's been a while since we've had a good old fashioned Troppo contest. The topic is David Lynch's Mulholland Drive . The usual prizes will be awa...
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Hendo (who may or may not be a Republican, it's hard to tell) thinks Camilla will become the Queen of Australia under Australian constitutional law . In other revelations, Hendo predicts that "Charles will never be Governor-General of Australia". Ho hum. Oh, Hendo would rather...
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A staple of state oppositions' rhetoric is to accuse the incumbent government of holding too many enquiries and not taking decisions. I wonder why nobody's been saying that about Brendan Nelson. Last year, we got the enquiry into phonics, graced with the presence of Miranda De...
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A cabbie told me the other night that it's really difficult to get people to work as drivers at the moment because there are so many more pleasant and better paid jobs on offer. This, he claimed, was the reason so many recent Sudanese immigrants are driving cabs in Brissie. We...
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We interrupt this blog temporalily to announce the first meeting (well, in a while) of the (grandiloquently titled) Brisbane Weblogger Meetup Group . We're meeting at Rics Bar in the Valley on Friday 25th at 6pm . Any visiting or resident bloggers, commenters or blog readers a...
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Aside from two entries at Troppo by Sophie and me , there's been some other commentary on the Charles/Camilla nuptials around the blogosphere (for a sample, try Tim , Currency and saint .) There is no doubt - aside from the constitutional/legal arguments previously advanced at...
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At the suggestion of sundry commenters, Troppo is pleased to present a poll on books that you read as a kid that had a great impact on you. It's quite a nice exercise in nostalgia and reflection, and seems appropriate to me because today's my birthday! Please nominate ten. If...
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Or, RWDB Political Correctness Run Wild Observa asked on Ken's comment thread below with respect to Associate Professor Wayne Sawyer, whose ill-chosen comments about school English and voting for the Coalition have provoked vigorous debate (at least here at Troppo ) and sundry...
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Reuters reported about half an hour ago that Prince Charles will marry Camilla Parker-Bowles on the 8th of April . Kim Beazley's recent desire to revive the Republican debate in Australia will now probably get a kick along. However, that will be for the wrong reasons if it's s...
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The phrase of course is courtesy of a previous column by Andrew Bolt lamenting the politicisation of education . In a week when education has had a few headlines - with Dr Nelson's proposal for a National Leaving Certificate exam being almost universally dismissed as impractic...
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After Liberal MP Dr Mal Washer (who was instrumental in killing Tony Abbott's plan last year to invade the privacy of doctor-patient confidentiality for teenagers) proposed that sex education be made compulsory in all schools regardless of religious affiliation, John Howard ha...
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I've been doing some rearrangement of my life and working arrangements to reduce the time taken on my PhD to manageable proportions, without driving me crazy. I've now got til March 31st to submit the thing, and what I'm also doing is hiring an office in a suburban location wh...
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Just wanted to emerge quickly from thesisdom to draw people's attention to three new posts on this tragic issue which is increasingly exposing a lot of very flawed practices in a range of public domains. Saintinastraitjacket has some very interesting thoughts as well as a comp...
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There've been some interesting discussions developing on the thread about Andrew Bolt's demonisation of Desperate Housewives . If I'm reading it correctly, commenters are having difficulty agreeing to a definition of what constitutes "quality" in television, and the issue of t...
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A Troppo Scoop* Troppo was the first to bring you news that Australia was discovered by Chinese Admiral Zheng He , and also broke the story that the Templars live in tunnels under Hertfordshire ... The true identity of "Nabakov" (pictured above, centre), the commenter who alwa...
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... if Andrew Bolt is really a right wing op/ed columnist or a master of satire? Check out his thoughts on Channel 7's Desperate Housewives or feast yourself on this Bolty appreciation by Jess at Ausculture , and make up your own mind about the mystery of the preacher-teacher...
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Michelle Grattan writes with some anger of Amanda Vanstone's pathetic failure to apologise over the detention of schizophrenic woman Cornelia Rau in Baxter Dentention Centre . A confused Ms Rau was discovered by Queensland Police claiming to be a German national, put in a gaol...
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Andrew Norton at Catallaxy recently published a scathing review of Marion Maddox' book God Under Howard . His scorn for this work by someone very loosely described by her publisher as "the leading authority on the intersection of religion and politics" in Australia is justifie...
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[In Place of the Shorter Hendo] I'm off for a bit. I need to clear more time for focussing on the last stages of my thesis, and enjoyable as blogging is, something has to give. At least I won't have to read Hendo this week . Thanks very much to all those who reminded me of wha...
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(Image reproduced by kind permission of Scribe Publishing) During Julia Gillard's candidacy for the Labor Leadership much ink was spilled about whether Australia was ready for a female Opposition Leader, and whether such a Leader would need to be married with kids. I don't wan...
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A big issue in the Australia-US FTA debate last year was the possible implications for local content on tv. It's reasonable to ask whether there is that much compulsively watchable Australian tv around at the moment. Certainly, as just about every tv reviewer in the country ha...
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Bureaucracy was arguably invented in Prussia, and German civil servants are justly reknowned for their impartiality. This apparently extends to cutting benefits to jobseekers refusing sex work .
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Miranda Devine heads her column this week "More Like a Leaking Nuclear Reactor than an Arts Faculty" . The target of her ire is Sydney University's Arts Faculty. I made the point a few days ago in passing that Sydney Uni has seen more than its fair share of disputatious academ...
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It was my little sister's birthday yesterday - she's 34. As Lucy Harker said in Nosferatu "time is an abyss, a thousand nights deep". I will also be having a birthday soon - on the 13th of Feb (which wasn't a good High School birthday at all - the day before Valentine's...). I...
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The Guardian today has two news items which may not be unconnected - a profile of Lynton Crosby , former John Howard strategist and now strategist to Michael Howard, the UK Tory leader, and a call from the Tories' Education shadow for British students to learn "basic facts" ab...
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John Quiggin thinks that the left side of the blogosphere is a much more vibrant place than the right - a turnaround in John's view from when he first started blogging. I'm in the process of updating the Troppo blogroll - and most of the blogs I plan to add are leftish or cent...
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Fresh from her win as Best Australian Personal blog, Gianna proves what her readers knew all along - she can post some damn good politics as well. Her whole post is worth reading, but her point that Ruddy's comment that the ALP is a "God awful shambles" will come back to haunt...
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Julia Gillard made one extremely interesting suggestion in the remarks she made yesterday at an Australia Day function when announcing that she would not contest the ALP leadership . Gillard suggested that Beazley should drop his affiliation with the Right faction as a token t...
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Keks has announced the results of the 2005 Australian Blog Awards . Troppo won in two categories - best Australian Collaborative Blog and Best Northern Territory Blog (this year there was some competition). Congrats to all the other winners and runners up - including Troppo fr...
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As Gilly hits the phones to guage support , the tortured politics of the ALP's attitude towards Gilly's marital status etc. is examined in a feature in The Australian . Among other outrages, apparently her kitchen is too clean. I wish I could say the same about mine. The Oz in...
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Who'd have thought that Eric Hobsbawm's concerns about the difficulties of exporting democracy would be echoed by a Professor at the George H.W.Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University ?
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As if to prove the point I made in my previous post about the current mission of the Sydney Institute to expose all media types as feckless readers of the signs of the times , Hendo can't resist bagging out other journos for getting it all wrong about Latham . Hendo advances t...
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It's about the horse race, stupid! I recently suggested to The Currency Lad that he visit the wonderful Lifeline Bookfest in order to pick up a copy of that classic 1930s Australian novel The Currency Lass . I've been over the weekend (for non Brisvegans, it happens twice a ye...
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Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has echoed NSW Premier Bob Carr: "I think Kevin has enormous ability and I think one day there's a very strong possibility that he will be prime minister of this country," Mr Beattie told reporters. He said what Labor needed most was a healer a...
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Eric Hobsbawm, the world's greatest living historian, has some cautionary words about the conditions for democracy and the limits to power in the Guardian , in response to the aims set out in George W. Bush's inaugural address : This idea is dangerous whistling in the dark. Al...
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There's an interesting sidebox in an article on the Labor leadership race in today's Sunday Mail where Julia Gillard discusses her intention not to have children and her single status: Julia Gillard believes she can lead Australia as a single, childless woman. The Opposition h...
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US Deputy Secretary of Defence and leading Neo-con Paul D. Wolfowitz has no need to resign in the face of Abu Ghraib, "the army we have" and so on and on, because as President Bush said, "we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections" . Nor is he as for...
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Christopher Pearson writing in The Australian has (or thinks he has) the good oil on the social agenda of a third term Howard government: Legislation preventing gay marriage was the Coalition's most significant third-term concession to the more conservative of its supporters....
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Pablo Picasso's Guernica George W. Bush has been inaugurated for a second term, promising to spread freedom "to the darkest corners of the world" . With much discussion of whether the second term will bring a new direction, this is an appropriate time to consider whether the W...
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...comes Chris Sheil at BackPages , with a momentary Friday night return to blogging to endorse Ruddy for leader (and Julia for Rudder if there's a Deputy spill) with the persuasive argument and fine political reasoning that made BackPages the doyen of blogosphere political co...
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Good to hear from the inimitable Laurie Ferguson that Gilly isn't "just a trendy commodity" . "She's actually intelligent, articulate and strong-minded", Ferguson opined. Ferguson also said "I think she'll fire people". The next Labor leader could do worse than fire the distin...
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My name's Mark and I'm a blogoholic. Well, I'm not drinking any grog, have just decided to change the "go out once a week" rule to "don't go anywhere except to Coles or the Uni library", and progress is happening on finalising my PhD thesis for submission . But not enough, and...
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On the 7.30 Report , Dr Peter Botsman called for a rank and file election for Labor Leader. His criticism of Beazley for lack of party reform was also interesting. Crean tried to some extent, Beazley did not. The fact that Beazley is the candidate of AWU leaders Bill Ludwig an...
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As Rex points out , it's interesting indeed to read the whole of Julia Gillard's remarks then contrast them with how they're played in the media ( SMH story here , The Age and the Murdoch take ). I'll put the whole transcript over the fold . Note the repetitious nature of the...
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From today's press conference at Melbourne Airport. JULIA GILLARD: I'd like to thank the many members of the media who volunteered to come out to the airport and help me with my bags. That was very generous of you. We thought in view of those many kind offers that it was proba...
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If anyone's still having difficulties posting a comment, it's probably because of an issue to do with the way your firewall interacts with our site. Please refer to this thread for information as to how to configure your settings to avoid this issue. As is well known, Troppo i...
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And Other ALP Leadership News Nic White at The 52nd State has helpfully compiled votes in the blogosphere primary for ALP leader. So far Gilly's got 6 bloggers backing her, the Beazer 3, Rudd 3, anyone but Beazley 1, and "never voting ALP again" 1. Elsewhere on the net, Margo...
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In a review of Elektra , Paul Byrnes in the SMH makes this astute observation : Garner looks terribly serious, her plump lips pursed into a parody of determination. Boy, that top lip is plumper than I remember it being in Suddenly 30, the last film I saw her in. That lip would...
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Continuing the age old tradition of arcana imperii in the interests of raison d'etat , Dr Condoleeza Rice has refused to be drawn on "interrogation techniques" in her confirmation hearing , saying that going into details would not be in the interests of "American security": Ri...
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An automatic consequence of Latho's resignation from Parliament will be a by-election for his seat of Werriwa. One Labor member is quoted in the SMH as saying: "There's a real prospect in the current climate that we'll lose that seat," one MP, who asked not to be named, said....
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For my money, Michael Gordon's piece in The Age is the best op/ed article on the Labor leadership contest published to date. Writing of Beazley, Gordon comments: But others are more sceptical. They see Beazley as a caretaker leader who will see the party through tough times, b...
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My grandmother died on 16 November 2004 and I, along with her other three grandsons, was a pallbearer at her funeral. One thing that was moving was a photo of her as a young woman on her coffin. The Catholic Church is now moving to restrict such personal touches : Placing meme...
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After John Quiggin set a useful precedent with his commentathon to raise money for Tsunami aid, Gianna at She Sells Sanctuary has announced that she'll donate the proceeds of her blog ads to Tsunami relief. Good one, Gianna!
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As a number of commenters have already advised Troppo readers, Mark Latham has resigned as Labor Leader and as Member for Werriwa . At some point I might do a retrospective on Latho's time in office, but at this stage I just want to wish him well, hope that he recovers his hea...
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Rob Corr at Kick & Scream has come up with a good argument for Gillard as leader - unlike Henri IV, for her, Paris isn't worth a mass. She's got some convictions.
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Hendo's jumped on the communist t-shirt bandwagon that had the blogosphere rolling last week with posts at Troppo , Catallaxy and Quiggin . Gerry excuses Prince Harry's wardrobe malfunction because the third in line heir to the Australian throne is "ignorant" and asks rhetoric...
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Margo Kingston's back from hols , and appears to be the only journalist still supporting Latho, while doyens of the press gallery such as Michelle Grattan join Jim McGinty and (by implication) Peter Beattie in demanding that he stand down . What's odd about Margo's first post...
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While voting is underway for the 2005 Australian Blog Awards , news surfaces about another award. For sexiest RWDB . ELSEWHERE : Visit Darlene's place , to learn why this award might constitute objectification of RWDBs.
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The Currency Lad has returned , and is supporting the Tractarian Ticket for the ALP leadership... Welcome back to blogging, C.L. To commemorate this event, Troppo is happy to unveil a blogosphere exclusive - a candid snap of Currency pondering his next post taken by one of our...
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The weather's horrible at the moment here in Brisbane. Sticky, humid, and it's hard to sleep. The other day I was talking about the political climate in the Joh era , and suggesting a bit of a link (other tropical cities - like New Orleans - have shared loopy, extravagant and...
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John Howard must be getting a little irritated by Sophie Panopolous. The co-convenor of the backbench tax and welfare reform group doesn't seem to spend too much time developing ideas, as the economic rationalist ginger group of the Fraser years did, but rather constantly sing...
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"The fact that the left did not make use of the lash does not stop the right from resorting to the backlash." Tim Dunlop over at Road to Surfdom is steamed up : God, if I click on one more left-leaning blog that has a post about how bloody wonderful it is that Andrew Sullivan...
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I really will have to get moving on that promised post reviewing Julia Baird's book Media Tarts: How The Australian Press Frames Female Politicians . Kerry-Anne Walsh writes this about Julia Gillard : The Victorian MP has been at Mr Latham's elbow for his roller-coaster 12 mon...
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John Quiggin is offering to donate one Australian dollar for every comment on this post at his site until midnight tonight to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal ... Click on the hyperlink, go over there and post a comment now! At the time of writing, John has received 209...
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While Troppo Armadillo has pioneered a new form of direct democracy through its advice to the Labor Party to pick either 1. Julia 2. Rudd for Rudder (thanks, FXH) or the other way round, the blogosphere primary is now well and truly off and running. Staying at home first, blog...
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I had some hopes that the election of Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian National Authority would lead to a breaking of the deadlock between Israel and Palestine. These hopes were bolstered by the entry into the Israeli government of Shimon Peres and Labour . Howeve...
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Many of us will always remember the election campaign of 04 through the lens of frequent late night visits to BackPages . So, this tidbit from an article on the internet and democracy is interesting indeed: Most blogs languish in obscurity but some give rise to new media perso...
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ALP Caucus members are reported to be having meetings to work out who the next leader should be. Latho might also be better advised to pick his mates for their communication skills next time: Labor frontbencher and a close supporter of Mr Latham, Joel Fitzgibbon, said while he...
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The Oxford tortured faith research is not, it seems, the only bright research idea to come from the land of the free: A US plan to develop a bad breath bomb and a chemical weapon to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other has been revealed in newly declassified...
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Back in December Scott wrote about Internet dating . Yellowvinyl has been a participant in the cyberdating game, and has some interesting (and sharp!) reflections on the vicissitudes of finding a partner online . Unfortunately Livejournal doesn't support trackback, but Troppo...
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All the discussion of communist t-shirts overlooked, as far as I can tell, the use of fashion to make a statement about a political or a social issue, as opposed to being an aspect of the commodification of dissent. The photo of Naomi Campbell above is from British designer Ka...
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Latho has made his statement . Reaction seems, largely, well, confused. The SMH ponders whether the Party will go back to the Beazer or plunge into the unknown. Senior MPs, this time identified as frontbenchers, are said to be confused and angy : Far from soothing his party, M...
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It was Joh's 94th birthday today . Time to revisit the Dispatches from Johburg and share some random memories of my teenage years under the reign of Bjelke: - as a young public service clerk, going up to the third floor of the Treasury Building with some friends and sitting in...
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Alex White at Psephological Catechism has published an article on his blog about Labor's need to articulate a different vision of Australia . I couldn't agree with him more. John Howard's "ordinariness" and his identification as the quintessential avuncular Aussie have been a...
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I'm more and more convinced the world morphed into postmodern weirdness when I wasn't looking. Or there's been some sort of Gwyneth Paltrow like time distortion parallel universe thing happening. This just in : People are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in...
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Christopher Sheil of late lamented BackPages fame , threw a cat among the pigeons in the thread on Che t-shirts . Chris coined the neat new theoretical concept "conspicuous indignation" to explain why right wing pundits and pollies get all steamed up without actually doing any...
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Troppo Armadillos have been sceptical about Latho's leadership future since the election. In November, I asked if Latho would be home by Christmas, or at the latest by February . Chief Armadillo Ken Parish (presently on walkabout somewhere in the Deep South according to dispat...
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At the half-way mark of the Twentieth Century, in 1950, the French Annales historian Fernand Braudel wrote, "what an endless century it has been, indeed, leaving its bloody mark on Europe and on the whole world". Eric Hobsbawm describes this murderous century now past into his...
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With a bit of encouragement from her friends , frequent Troppo commenter yellowvinyl has turned blogger. Her blog, also called yellowvinyl , should be one to watch. Good luck, Kim!
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The case against Bush's foreign policy is often diminished by attack style books such as Michael Moore's or tired and repetitive critiques such as Noam Chomsky's. It's refreshing then to come across in my reading for my PhD thesis a well-argued, brilliantly documented and coge...
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The Courier-Mail reports , "State Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg has labelled Prime Minister John Howard unhelpful and " idealistic "..."
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Incorporating the Shorter Hendo (TM) In the late 70s and early 80s, Joh Bjelke-Petersen used to get awfully frustrated with a group of small l Liberal backbenchers known as the "ginger group". They had a habit of speaking out against government policy and occasionally crossing...
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Mark at his Doctoral Graduation I'm slowly finding my way around the Brisbane blogosphere. It's very random - we don't appear to have the same sort of community that exists in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Or at least if there is one, I can't find it. As I reported earlier , I...
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Miss Piss at piss'n'vinegar is rightly horrified by a proposed law in Virginia requiring women who have a miscarriage to report it to the police within 12 hours - on pain of a fine or gaol term. In a discussion on Michael's post on Pentecostalism , Irant expressed some sceptic...
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A while back I criticised dogmatism among atheists as well as an excess of certainty in belief. The question of theodicy , as I noted a few days ago , is popping up again and again in the wake of the Tsunami tragedy. To some degree, I think this debate now has a momentum of it...
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A Guest Post by Michael Carden Pentecostalism was much discussed in the leadup to and aftermath of the Australian election, with much debate around the link between churches such as Hillsong and the Liberal Party and the politics of Family First. For a lot of commentators and...
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A recent trip to the Myer Centre convinced me that the latter day Leninist sects like the GreenLeft mob are on the wrong track with the protesting (and the infiltration of community groups, etc etc). The quickest and easiest way to destroy capitalism would be to convince teena...
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The debate on theodicy continues. In the SMH , Linda Morris elicits "qualified opinions" . This has to rank as a cheap shot, surely: After all, why is it, ponders Alan Nichols, acting director of Public Theology for the Evangelical Alliance of Australia, that religious organis...
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The SMH has the now traditional daily report on Latho's leadership. With the exception of the references to Latham's illness, the same story could have run any time since the election. Same leadership non-contenders (Rudd, the Beazer, the Glimmer Twins) and same notion that Pr...
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In the wake of news that Mark Latham's pancreatitis has recurred , only announced after he was criticised for his lack of comment on the Tsunami tragedy, reports are already appearing about his leadership being called into question . This is not a good start for Labor's new ye...
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Mark at Sydney Uni in 99 (Skiving off from a Conference at UWS Parramatta, captured just before wine consumption in Glebe) The Emerald City? At last, a musing on life from me. I quit my job at QUT today. I've worked there for eight years, which is long enough. I'm applying for...
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"Paul Keating is the greatest Australian Prime Minister since Federation". Discuss.
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Some commenters have reported that it's not possible currently to post comments. I'm extremely grateful to Evil Pundit for a possible diagnosis of what's gone wrong. Please read the comments on this thread if you're having any difficulties. Unfortunately, I'm no technical guru...
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Dean Philip Jensen, whose views on the Tsunami we've discussed here and here , has been calling talback in the wee hours, according to the SMH . (Thanks to commenter yellowvinyl for drawing this to my attention). The Dean must have felt that he needed to explain why he was cal...
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Tim Dunlop at Road to Surfdom has the latest info well summarised. UPDATE : I'm happy to join Tim, Phil and Rowen in commending the Prime Minister for his handling of this issue and the extent of Australia's commitment to Indonesia .
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To coincide with the release of the Cabinet Papers from 1974, The Currency Lad wrote a rather acerbic post on Gough Whitlam . Some how or other (as you do in the blogosphere), I ended up debating the contribution that Islamic civilization has made with a number of commenters o...
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Craig Emerson has worked out how to restore Labor's economic credibility. The Buddhist Way . ELSEWHERE : Robert Merkel at The Road to Benambra dissects Emerson.
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I must be getting old. I had no idea til I read about it at Virulent Memes that Einstuerzende Neubauten had a new release out in 04... Anyone care to list the best new albums of the year just gone?
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It's time to vote in the 2005 Australian Blog Awards .
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The number of right-wing blogs I read has just dropped from one to none. Sadly for the blogosphere, The Currency Lad is taking a blogging hiatus to work on finishing a book and a new research project. We'll miss you, C.L., you were always worth reading - a fine writer, very fu...
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Or, Another (Condensed) Dispatch from the PhD Thesis Front Prior to s11, the paradigm case for the new wars of the new world order was the Kosovo War in 1999. This is more properly seen as the last act in a drama which began with Milo¡ević's speech on the 600th anniversary of...
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The SMH previews new tv shows for 2005. This is really sad : Rock Star (Nine) In a nutshell INXS search for a new singer, with auditions in the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and Japan. Biggest hurdle Too much American polish on an Australian band. X factor Producer Mark Burne...
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MsFits wants to know where Mark Latham's been. It's an interesting question - with all that's been happening from the Bhaktiyaris to the Tsunamis, I can't remember hearing a lot of reaction or comment from the Labor Party. A search of Google News tends to suggest MsFits is rig...
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This is becoming a trend. Gerry's talking sense again . ELSEWHERE : Phil at Citystate has more on Hendo .
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As Geoff observed in a previous thread, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams , wrote an op/ed piece for the UK Telegraph conceding that faith may be disturbed by the horrible disaster in Asia : The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on thi...
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Following on from my recent ruminations on politics, love and participation, I wanted to explore further some questions about how we could revitalise our public discourse and culture and political participation in Australia. Central to my previous argument was my agreement wit...
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As part of the discussion in the thread about inappropriate responses to the Tsunami tragedies , it was noted that Immanuel Rant had criticised the Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen's remarks about God's will ... Dean Jensen was quoted as saying "the will of God involved...
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Saintinastraightjacket at DogFightAtBankstown reminds us that 2005 is the UN Year of Microcredit . I agree with Saint that microcredit is an aid approach worth supporting. Go read his post for lots more info.
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The New York Times reports on "G.I. Families United in Grief, but Split by the War" . And a blogger tracks the stories of war amputees .
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It's heartening to read that governments like the US and the Japanese are now increasing the amount of aid they are giving to the countries and people affected by the Tsunamis . The stories appearing daily about the human and societal impact are heartbreaking. It was most appr...
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Or, Should Columnists Condemn Puppet Porn? Some denizens of the leftish Oz blogosphere heart conservative columnist Andrew Bolt - in a big way . He's MsFits' "one true love" . Darlene Taylor has a post entitled "A Quickie with Bolt" . Jess at Ausculture addresses Andrew thusly...
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The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Francisco de Goya, 1746-1828 One of the nice things about blogging is the feeling of camaraderie and collegiality that you get. One of the not so nice things about writing a thesis is that you feel almost necessarily isolated. So I was ab...
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Paul Keating famously educated the media and himself about the art of "pulling the levers" of the national economy. For a few years, the J-Curve was the subject of water-cooler discussion, the "twin deficits" theory was widely bandied about, and everyone had an opinion on micr...
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Immanuel Wallerstein On One More Year Taking another leaf out of The Currency Lad 's book, I've updated my New Year's Eve report and will now proceed to a brief post on politics (note - it's thesis related! ). But rather than excoriate Gough Whitlam like C.L., I'd like to brin...
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Or, The Thesis That Ate January Just a quick entry to let people know that my blogging activity will be a bit sparse for a while while I bring my PhD thesis to a state warranting submission. Rejigged bits of the thesis may pop up from time to time, and I'm really grateful for...
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I hope all Troppo writers and readers have a wonderful 2005. May all your resolutions be kept and all your hopes be fulfilled. No doubt it will be a good year for the Australian blogosphere. It's nice to be able to welcome back Georg , formerly of Psephite , who's returned wit...
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The Currency Lad challenges "Laborite bloggers and columnists" to discuss the AWU's opposition to Chinese workers as guest workers in the fruit picking industry . I'm happy to take him up on it. The Labor Party was rightly condemned for some marginal seat campaigning in the el...
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2004 has been a political year par excellence , with elections in the US and Australia. As the turning of the year is always a good time to reflect, it's interesting to note some thoughtful posts appearing in the blogosphere of late. Don has posted a stimulating piece on the p...
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'The Soothsayer', Giovanni Batista Piazetta (1683-1754) Or, The Tiny Hendo Hendo doesn't seem to have taken a break for the Christmas season, turning his talents rather in an increasingly mystical direction . In other media news, I've already complained about the tired trope o...
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I concur wholeheartedly with Scott's condolences for those affected by the terrible tsunamis. I've posted the links for readers in Scott's thread, but I'll repeat the post here of some links to bloggers advising of appeals which can be accessed online as well, as it's easier t...
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Via Suzoz at Personal Political , I've just discovered and read this interesting column about raising kids without any religion by Adele Horin in the SMH . Some time ago, the British sociologist Anthony Giddens , until recently Director of the LSE, noted that one marker of a p...
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Revellers on a Hot Hill End Night That's me in the middle. I don't normally wear Hawaiian shirts but it's a good troppo look. Well, all the presents are bought and only the grog remains (though I made a start on the bubbles on my partner's back deck last night relaxing with a...
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Or, Keep the Wolfe from the Door lest Western Civilisation fall... Shocking news from a US survey that college students are having casual sex. Chris McGillion writes: Research into the sexual practices of American college students has identified a new phenomenon known as "hook...
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At last, some insight into why John Quiggin is a Professor (I mean apart from all those publications, research projects etc...). New research has shown that academic promotions often go to the hirsute . ELSEWHERE : I missed my daily dose of Prof. Quiggin for a week or so, due...
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Via Saint , we learn that the Government has broken (or at least significantly tweaked) one of its big spending promises for the election. The "unlimited" child care rebate is now limited to $4000, you'll need to keep your receipts, and you won't see anything til 2006. Ross Gi...
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I've been keeping an eye on the nominations for the 2005 Australian Blog Awards . Good thing too. Courtesy of one of the nominations for Troppo (thanks everyone!), I discovered a fellow Brisvegas Blogger, Observant Little... , and one with good music taste and a shared fondnes...
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Tim Dunlop is reviewing Keith Windschuttle's latest potboiler, The White Australia Policy over at Road to Surfdom . So far Tim's got through the first two paragraphs. If he's going to review it paragraph by paragraph, I don't envy him the task!
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Just in case you were wondering if there was a "Single Girl's Guide to Dating Donald Rumsfeld" available on the Internet, Troppo can help you out. Read it here . It's worth the click.
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Continuing a much loved blogosphere tradition , Saintinastraightjacket and Sedge provide the minimalist deconstruction of Hendo this week ... I note that Hendo has a swing at the "Keating haters" and at "conservative inspired alienation". Maybe he's following the Governator in...
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Julia Baird asks : If God was a DJ, as smooth-bellied songstress Pink has claimed, would the disco version of the national anthem be four-to-the-floor? Would crowds swell and sway on the dance floor to a revved-up Advance Australia Fair, as they did some time ago to the disco...
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If my reckoning is correct, I've missed Gaudate Sunday. I was horribly late this year in purchasing Advent candles. I'm normally a very observant cultural Catholic . It should be the third Sunday of Advent, that is to say, a week ago. The great thing about Advent candles (a bi...
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Some of us were wondering in the thread about the SBS Movie Show what Zoe was on about when she compared Fenella Kernebone to Roger Waters. She's now provided a case for Ms Kernebone to answer at her blog Crazybrave . Go see for yourself and decide if Zoe's onto something here...
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I was a law student once. There's a fair bit of tedium in reading case reports, but I always enjoyed reading judgements by Lord Denning MR. Tim Dunlop over at Road to Surfdom thinks a citation from a recent judgement by Lord Hoffman is the quote of the year. Lord Hoffman think...
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"Angelus Novus" - Paul Klee Mein Fl¼gel ist zum Schwung bereit, ich kehrte gern zur¼ck, denn blieb ich auch lebendige Zeit, ich h¤tte wenig Gl¼ck. - Gerherd Scholem, 'Gruss vom Angelus' The Currency Lad has been busy ranking Australia's Prime Ministers . Gary Sauer-Thompson ov...
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Australian film might be in strife but Oz Music is in good form. I'm taking a break from the thesifying to clean the ap't up in time for Christmas. That requires music! I'm listening to Beth Gibbons' Out of Season , the wonderful Sia (originally from Adelaide)... and something...
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There's been some lively debate, including a contribution from Rowan Atkinson , over planned British government moves to criminalise religious vilification. You can read about it here at Crooked Timber . It looks like we might soon be having an antipodean version of this debat...
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I am shocked and horrified. Clover Moore is not Scrooge, the Howard Government is! The parliamentary Christmas tree is no more. It's been sold to the ACT government and is now somewhere in Civic (alert Canberra readers, please tell us where!). It seems it was too expensive to...
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I wasn't going to bother with Hendo this week . In any case, Rowen at Sailing Close to the Wind has already posted 'The Smaller Hendo'. The Currency Lad has been on the case , or maybe at the awards ceremony, as well... But basically, Hendo was right about everything and all o...
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Having given up on wrestling with Leo Strauss' esoteric and exoteric meditations on the question of What is Political Philosophy? for the night and having exhausted the pleasures available from Letterman , it's a relief for this tired sociologist to read something in the paper...
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Troppo Contest of the Week! Continuing the TV theme , I think I watched the worst ever American reality tv show set in Australia last night. Outback Jack . The host is called J. D. Roberto. The premise is that twelve "uptown girls" think they're going to a mansion to pick a ba...
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I caught SBS' Movie Show last night. I've only occasionally watched it since the departure of David and Margaret to ABC. I was half curious because the distinguished Mr Stratton has attracted some negative press in the right wing corners of the blogosphere of late . But the Da...
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Via Kick & Scream , I've just learned that the home-grown 2005 Australian Blog Awards have called for nominations. Interesting to note that Evil Pundit has already been nominated... I'm still wondering why he hates Sweden so much...
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Lately, we've heard an enormous amount about elites, (aka latte sippers) . A project for the future might be a post to put to rest this tenacious fallacy forever (I live in hope generally...). Often these dreaded elites are associated with universities. As the news breaks that...
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Rob Corr continues his excellent coverage of Indigenous issues at Kick & Scream . Rob picks up on Pat Dodson and Noel Pearson's critique of the Mulan 'agreement' : The Government had a role to play in increasing expectations in indigenous communities, but "more careful thought...
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Writing in the SMH today , Edith Cowan Uni politics lecturer Peter Van Onselen and consultant Phil Senior call for Labor to focus on the bush. There are more rural/regional seats than outer metropolitan seats and Labor holds fewer of them. But Labor can't do that while the par...
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It's almost trite to point out that if you read the Latin poets of classical Rome, one thing you will come across again and again are laments about the moral standards of youth... and any readers of Robert Graves should be equally aware of Augustus' concern that sexual morals...
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by commyxtion and mellyng, furst with Danes and afterward with Normans, in menye the contray longage ys apeyred, and som useth strange wlaffying, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbittyng. That's Ranulph Higden, writing in 1352, and complaining in his Polychronicon about the...
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Internet quizzes are always fun. Except for those pesky iq tests... Via internet quizzes, I first found out that I was 47% slutty , and that there was an 80% probability that I was a woman. Courtesy of Alex in a comment on a Catallaxy thread , here's a more serious internet qu...
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I told the story of Second Lieutenant Melissa Stockwell who lost her leg in Iraq because her Humvee had no doors. US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld was yesterday subjected to unexpected and critical questioning on a visit to US soldiers in Kuwait. One key point was that...
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Bloggers, of course! Commenter harry wrote a while back , in answer to my question, "To what degree do blogs represent a source of news or commentary on politics for you?": Great source of useful links to news. Good for breaking news but often this is surrounded by a lot of sp...
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Or, Yet Another Troppo Contest At Fafblog , the Medium Lobster has a post which begins: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when you look down and see a tortoise. This is standard procedure, designed and developed to protect you and the homeland. Do not be alarmed:...
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Since his death on the 8th of October, I've been planning to write something about Jacques Derrida . In particular, I want to write on his thought on politics, which has been key to my own work for some years now. But the time has not yet arrived. For the moment, The Nation ha...
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Geoff Clark, still Chair of ATSIC, asks today with reference to a new mutual obligation plan at the forefront of the Government's approach to Indigenous policy (aka the 'fuel for hygeine' plan ): "Who is going to stand at the gate and see whose kid has the cleanest face?" he s...
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Courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald's new blog, Radar (note to SMH: if you're going to have a blog, please link to it on the front page!), some thoughts about why younger Australians are often working a 70 hour week. In Australia, contrary to a long secular trend (and in def...
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Posh and Becks feature in a nativity scene at Madame Tussaud's. Photo: Reuters. Continuing my musings on fame and its contemporary cultural significance, what's going on when our Nic is named UN Citizen of the World alongside Hans Blix and Lakhdar Brahimi, Angelina Jolie saves...
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Ross Gittins asks : Which do you think is more common: murder or suicide? If you think it's murder, congratulations - most people agree with you. But you - and they - are quite mistaken. Suicide outnumbers murder by far. That question is a cognitive psychologists' party trick....
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Brett Whiteley's ghost haunts BackPages In the week that a ghost fetched $65000 on Ebay , something spooky is also happening in the Australian blogosphere. It's not quite the face of ET in a piece of breakfast cereal, or the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, but it's definitely...
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I agree with Hendo! Well, at least in part! Maybe it's because Hendo is trying to ward Chris Sheil off from a potential move back into the blogosphere by learning from Chris' frequent demolition of his logic to actually supply some, but last week I felt that Hendo made a bit o...
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I was chuffed today to discover that there is a tribute show to Leonard Cohen in Sydney headlined by Nick Cave and my absolute favourite songstress of all times, the wonderful Beth Orton . It's on over Australia Day weekend next year. I am so there. ESSENTIAL READING : Reading...
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Poor old Latho. In the wake of weeks of overwhelmingly negative press coverage , he's slumped in the polls and the party's slumped to lows not seen since Simon's leadership began to enter its terminal phase. But I don't think Ruddy's cause is going to be helped by an endorseme...
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Louise Dodson, writing in today's SMH , claims that the battle for the Catholic vote is not over. Bishop Kevin Manning, Catholic Bishop of Parramatta , had some acerbic and pointed remarks to make about the possibility of changes to the Industrial Relations laws by a coalition...
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Dresden after its WWII bombing. Thus, nuclear physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer after witnessing a nuclear explosion. In Ken's post on literature and world events, Stephen astutely cited the work of W. G. Sebald . A novelist, academic and critic, Sebald was born in Wertach im Al...
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"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." - George Orwell. Ken poses the question of why there seem to be so few writers tackling big issues of the stature of George Orwell . Maybe Orwell himself had the answer in his 1946 essay P...
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Peter Beattie pictured in today's Sunday Mail . Taking photos is fun. I've recently bought a new mobile and being a nice boy, unlike some Coogee beach regulars , am avidly asking friends if I can have permission to take their photo. Being a newspaper photographer or an editor...
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Courtesy of Melbourne blogger Alex at Psephological Catechism (whose honours thesis on St Augustine looks to be really interesting), this news just in for Troppo readers. A Google search for the string fetishised armadillo only yields two results. And one is a link to a post b...
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Spectator Editor and former Tory Shadow Minister for the Arts, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson MP (pictured above with unnamed friends), provided the Oz blogosphere with some light entertainment recently with a juicy sex scandal , in the finest traditions of British politic...
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P. J. Harvey sings live... I'd been planning to write on the truly appalling line of questioning NSW Bar Association President and barrister for Tara Anglican School for Girls, Ian Harrison SC, launched during a recent court case where an 18 year old woman alleged that she had...
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Stephen posted recently on some laughably bad coverage of the Ukrainian elections aftermath by John Laughland . Writing in the Guardian , Timothy Garton Ash thinks European commentators have a problem with democracy in the Ukraine because of their distaste for Eastern European...
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So what exactly gets up employers' goat about union officials visiting workplaces ? When this issue is raised, stories are often told about intimidatory behaviour on building sites. But, no such justification has been offered this time. The only actual incident I can recall as...
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Brisvegas residents or visitors might like to note that the Straight Out of Brisbane Festival has an event on tonight which could appeal to anyone with a predilection to (occasional) ranting: 6-8pm :: The great ideas rant-off :: Venue :: Festival Club Speakers OUT, Ranters IN....
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The Finn brothers have been touring Australia . So I'm currently listening to Split Enz' excellent Moving Pictures (now playing - 'Poor Boy'...). Being a teenager of the 80s, (and one whose lp collection succumbed to a flood under a Queenslander), my first listen for yonks is...
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Brendan Nelson has announced the composition of his literacy enquiry. The establishment of this review was a response to the heated (and over-politicised) debate over the relative merits of whole language and phonics as methods of teaching children to read. A surprise inclusio...
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I recently posted on the imbroglio swirling around St. Mary's Catholic Community in South Brisbane. Today, Father Peter Kennedy of St. Mary's takes Archbishop Bathersby to task in the Courier-Mail . Fr Peter accuses the Church of being out of step with a democratic society. Th...
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According to the US publishers of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary , the most frequently searched word on their online site this year has been "blog" ... It's interesting to note that in an election year, five of the other nine words were political terms (eg "electoral", "sovere...
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Celebrity Capital: Rebecca Loos Writing in the online Fairfax publication Radar , Ben Cubby asks : Is Casey Donovan really Australia's most promising young singer? Possibly. But for every enraptured viewer loosing off votes for Australian Idol there was someone watching the pa...
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In my post on Redfern , I referred in passing to the the actions of Sydney Archbishop Cardinal Pell in appointing conservative Priests from the Neo-Catechumenate movement to St. Vincent's, once the parish of Fr Ted Kennedy and a hub for the Indigenous community - a subject of...
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Friday marks the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion. For all I know, this might be big news in Victoria, but I suspect the current debate over the cultural and political significance of this event is not being widely heeded. But it's worth taking a look at. Let's start...
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At the suggestion of commenter Alex on an earlier thread about the electoral and policy ways forward for the ALP , this is a thread thrown open for any readers who'd like to give the ALP an early Christmas present and suggest a philosophical/political strategy to re-invigorate...
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Or, The End of Empire Part Two John Quiggin has an excellent take on the US Imperial overstretch I commented on in an earlier post .
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As Latho multiplies the apologies by adding one to all of us for the Labor Party's latest bout of navel gazing and back biting , finally someone in the ALP has something sensible to say. Wayne Swan's staffer, Denis Glover, calls on the party not to ditch the elites . Analysing...
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Photo by the Sydney Morning Herald's Dean Sewell. There could be trouble ahead in Redfern. I can remember when, in search of affordable hotel accommodation attending a conference at Sydney Uni in 1998, I stayed in nearby Chippendale. The hotel manager warned me not to walk the...
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I don't often agree with observa, a frequent commenter on this and other blogs. However, I was struck with this comment on the Latho thread : one of the great attributes that Howard has, is a management style that allows the various personalities to make the running from time...
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There is a good review in the Guardian by Simon Waldman of Dan Gillmor's new book on the impact of blogging on journalism , We The Media . And the Guardian is also raising the profile of the British blogosphere for its readership with a competition for the Best British Blog ....
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Well, it'll be an interesting day in Canberra tomorrow when the ALP Shadow Cabinet meets. Mark Latham, who increasingly finds himself subject to leadership destabilisation , has taken the bit between his teeth and vowed to discipline Senator Stephen Conroy, the Labor Senate De...
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We seem to be returning to Ancient Greece for our film plots. The latest entry in this genre, Alexander , being an Oliver Stone film, has stirred up some controversy . And it's not just about Colin Farrell's silly wig, or Angelina Jolie's portraying his mum when she's only a y...
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Paul Keating's intervention during the 1996 election campaign when he claimed that Asian leaders wouldn't deal with John Howard is almost universally recognised as a big mistake. Of course, a lot of odd things are said on the hustings - well, that is to say, impromptu odd thin...
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Over at Kick & Scream , Rob Corr's commenters kick around the idea of another non RWDB-centric Australian Blog Award. Rob also has some interesting thoughts on bloggers and commenters meeting in "real life". I'd be interested in hearing Troppo readers' perspective on this. Do...
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Around the time of the US election, Don and I had quite a few posts about the cultural divide in the Land of the Free and its implications for politics. For new readers wanting some background, go here , here , here and here for a sense of the debate... Continuing this convers...
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Or at least February? More reports are in today suggesting that Latho's shelf life may be very limited , with the leaks turning into a stream and the knives well and truly unsheathed. I commented in an earlier thread that any attempt on Latho's part to reach out to new constit...
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In his SMH column today, Ross Gittins reports on some interesting new research which shows that while Independent Schools do better in getting students into Uni, these same students are out-performed in first year by students from Government and Catholic schools. Gittins also...
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Now is the time to submit your nomination for Best Australian Blog . Apparently, according to Jess at Ausculture , Tim Blair wins every year. Will this poll break the run of the 'coalition of the willing'? UPDATE: David Tiley advises us in comments below of another Best Austra...
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As the Sydney Morning Herald reports that a new BBC Channel 4 reality tv series will show footage of couples having sex (in a tasteful way and for educational purposes, of course), news.com.au brings us the tantalising tidbit that Gretel Killeen has dumped Saxon . The wonderfu...
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Sadly, BackPage s is no more , but Gerard Henderson continues to provide fuel for bloggers' illogic spotting impulses . In today's Sydney Morning Herald , Henderson tackles Latho's triangulation dependency . Mark Latham is a long-time proponent of the Blairite 'Third Way', fro...
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Yes, you read correctly. The great German sociologist Max Weber once answered the perennial question of whether religion was primarily conservative or progressive in nature through a discussion of theodicy. His answer was that it can be either. Theodicy is the philosophical pr...
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No, James Naughtie is not a Tory MP. Rather, he's a British journalist who's just published a rather interesting book called The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency . Naughtie's analysis of the close identification between Blair and Bush is fascinating - and rev...
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Or, Latho's Farewell to the Working Class Robert Reich, Harvard Economist and Clinton's Labor Secretary, made something of a splash in policy terms with his coinage of the term "symbolic analysts" in his 1992 book The Work of Nations . Reich argued that comparative advantage i...
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I think with Sophie on board we'll have to start a Troppo Literary Award! Stimulated by Sophie's post on Les Murray , I've been pondering the lack of popular or media recognition of some for our excellent emerging and young poets. This is no doubt partly explained by the econo...
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I can remember sitting in an undergrad Political Sociology lecture in 1991 and hearing the acerbic Lecturer authoritatively state "Women in politics are only suited to nurturing roles, like Minister for Families or Social Welfare". I piped up, "What about Joan Kirner and Carme...
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Chris Sheil has brought us a marvellous story - you read it first in the Australian blogosphere (unless you're a Guardian subscriber, of course). The Tory Shadow Minister for the Arts, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, also editor of The Spectator , has had to resign after l...
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During the election, a number of groups including the AMA noted the inattention paid by both political parties to urgent issues about the living standards, economic outcomes and health of Indigenous Australians. After the abolition of ATSIC earlier in the year (supported by La...
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From Nietzsche's Zarathustra : State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells lies too: and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.' That is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and a love over them: thus t...
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Or, What We Really Know about the "Culture Wars" and American Elections Who'd have thought that Thomas Frank and class analysis would set the Australian political blogosphere on fire in our attempts to analyse the American election? Ken's sought to douse the theoretical flames...
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Chris Sheil at Backpages , Don Arthur here at Troppo and myself in an earlier post have all been picking up on the work of Thomas Frank in an attempt to understand what happened in the US election. The more I reflect on this, the more I realise that what we've all done - in di...
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It looks like the blue states and the red states split in the US presidential poll is almost identical to the results in 2000, and both Houses of Congress are still almost evenly poised - with some small movement to the GOP. Chris Sheil's post at Backpages and comments there b...
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If Bush is re-elected tomorrow, there is speculation that Colin Powell will step down and Paul Wolfowitz (currently Deputy Secretary of Defence and the most senior Neo-Conservative in the administration) will take his place as Secretary of State. If Bush loses (and I'm hoping...
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John Gray provocatively begins his interesting article "The Curious Dogmatism of Atheists" ( reprinted in Friday's Fin ) with the assertion that - A revival of atheism is a curious byproduct of the September 11 attacks. We've read a lot recently about religion and politics, wh...
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Or so said Second Lieutenant Melissa Stockwell on her return to the States after a routine trip in a Humvee from the Green Zone in Baghdad to the morass of Mosul outside Iraq's sanitised Western occupied zone led to an attack on her armoured vehicle, which because of the disor...
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Or is Wicca a legitimate religion? Sophie's stirred Troppo commenters up into a debate questioning whether membership of the Church of Satan ought to be considered a legitimate religion. Among other things, I do some work in the sociology of religion, and having published some...
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Wendy provided me with some food for thought the other day when she serendipitously drew my attention via her post on a light switch puzzle to the fact that the English political philosopher Norman Geras has a blog . Geras is the author of an excellent book, The Contract of Mu...
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As a bred (if not born) Queenslander with a long memory of the Joh years, I can never quite recapture the feeling of relaxation that used to wash over me driving over the NSW border into the land of Wran in 1985 and 1986. I was having a beer with a couple of friends on Saturda...
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Robert Manne is an interesting thinker. His personal trajectory from anti-communist intellectual and ideological conservative to social democrat has been well documented in his own writings and in reports on the controversy over the end of his editorship of Quadrant magazine....
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