An open thread where you can, at your weekend leisure, discuss whatever you like.
And happy Chinese new year for Sunday! The year of the dog begins…
Archive for January, 2006
In the National Review Online, there’s a piece by Jonah Goldberg where he gives righties a reading list to understand lefties. Australian readers probably won’t find it too interesting per se, as it’s very much focussed on the history of American liberalism, but it’s a neat idea. Which books have influenced your politics or political thinking? What would you recommend to someone of a different political persuasion that they could read to get an idea of where you’re coming from politically?
Unlike Laura, I don’t have any groovy internetty prizes to give away (unless you’d like a gmail invite), but I’ll post the lucky winner of the most persuasively and creatively written comment a copy of Eric Hobsbawm’s On History. You can either read it yourself or share the lefty love with a rightie friend or loved one!
Ps: The competition will remain open for one week, until midnight (AEST) on Friday 3/2/06.
Pardon the alliteration, but yesterday the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, put the Federal Government, the Murdoch press and their mates like Martin Ferguson to shame with a timely speech on the dangers of global warming and other environmental problems.
A quick post to give Brisvegas readers, or readers visiting our great town, the heads up about some fabbo bands. I wandered off to Rics tonight to see the always excellent Peachfish (Brisbane’s answer to Ani DiFranco and P J Harvey), and was also mighty pleased with the set by Kate Bradley and her band, whom I hadn’t seen play before.
The full band version of Peachfish, Brindle, are off to Canada with a few other Brisbands to showcase Brisbane music, including the wonderful Women in Docs, which is fab, and Kate is touring Australia in 06, so look out for dates.
You can listen to some mp3 samples via those links. I don’t know what the distribution of their respective cds are like, but if you can find them, you wouldn’t go wrong. Vegas readers can of course visit Rocking Horse for all their musicy goodness needs.
One interesting comment Kate made during her set was about her unwonted use of acoustic guitar. Noise restrictions - enforced by State legislation - meant that only the bass could be amplified. Along with the controversial 3 am lockout policy, what this shows is that the rhetoric from the Labor state government and Lib/Lab Council about the Valley being an “entertainment precinct” (bureaucratic/media speak for inner city area with a vibrant music scene!) is just that. It’s good that urban renewal has brought people back into the Valley to live. It’s not good if the complaints of a noisy few diminish the reason why people were attracted to the Valley in the first place - the atmosphere, and the music! If Labor Deputy Mayor Cr David Hinchliffe wants to run with slogans like “Valley, loud and proud” he should put his regulations where his mouth is…
It’s always nice when a newspaper article quotes a pop song; makes catchy blog post titles a snap. Today’s pop song is the theme song of Brisbane medical researcher Professor Ian Frazer, motivating him to do good things for others:
And that’s what I like, I like this idea of doing good for other people. And if people can be encouraged to catch that disease in doing good for other people, I’ll be really pleased.
Professor Frazer has just been announced this year’s Australian of the Year, because like our Prime Minister points out, “It’s a reminder that that excellence in Australia is to be found not just in sport, not just in business, but also very much in medical scienceâ€?. Seriously!
The PM has also said that he will speak to his Health Minister about “possiblyâ€? making the vaccine available in Australia. Possibly. They’ve announced that he is the Australian of the Year, because of the work he has done in developing a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of Australian women, and they haven’t decided yet whether it will be made available. Continue reading ‘Catch my disease’
Vlado is progressively announcing the winners of the Australian Blog Awards tonight.
The winner of the Best Australian Collaborative Blog is … LP!.
It’s a pity Catallaxy and Troppo weren’t nominated, because I’m sure that their general excellence would have given us a run for our money, but I’m chuffed anyway by the support shown by blog readers for our site.
I just wanted to draw attention to an excellent post by Pavlov’s Cat on John Howard’s speech on Australian history.
Elsewhere: More on Howard and history from Glen. Some other Australia Day reflections at Public Opinion, Esoteric Rabbit Blog, Ms Fits and Labor First.
Update: Mr Lefty gets into the patriotic spirit of things.
Another update: Barista enters the Howard History Wars.
An open thread where you can, at your public holiday leisure, discuss whatever you like.
NB: Enjoy a bbq a day off work while you can - WorkChoices comes into effect on 01/03/06.
You might like to remember the Indigenous people of this country on this day, which ought not to be our national day.
1. Voting in the Australian Blog Awards closes tomorrow.
2. Don’t forget about the Sydney Grogblogging on Saturday night. I, and a good contingent of LP Bloggers, will be in attendance. You don’t have to be a blogger to come - commenters and readers are most welcome.
This is a serious look at multiculturalism from a leftist perspective. Gratuitous insults in response to those of the Islamic faith are unwelcome.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the terminology:
Assimilationist: The policy we had before multiculturalism, involving a belief that migrants would automatically become “assimilated” without much assistance.
Melting Pot: An American idea in the early 20th century that the mix of people could convert the Anglo-American culture into a new hybrid.
Cultural Pluralism: The best example is Canada where two major but different cultures of French and English descent people live together in one nation.
Moral Panic: Usually a media instigated tactic to blow up incidents of particular crimes out of all proportion creating a public panic. Obviously this sells more newspapers. (In criminology this is know as deviance amplification.)
“Yellow Peril” Doctrine: The belief after federation that Asian people would descend upon and destroy our nation.
The failures or otherwise of multiculturalism are difficult to quantify as the terminology “multiculturalismâ€? itself is nebulous to the extent that across the political spectrum it attracts such hotly contested and reductionist views (reducing complexity to simplistic slogans for example). I shall define multiculturalism in this post as “the recognition in public policy that a society is composed of various elements, especially those based on language, nationality or religion.â€?(1) When the subject matters of immigration and national identity inevitably converge with multiculturalism, the ongoing John Howard promoted “Anglo-Celtic mainstreamâ€? narrative post 1996, appears to be highly persuasive and arguably pervasive. While the government of John Howard has reduced institutions of multiculturalism, ongoing Labor state/territory governments continue to support it as do communities at a non-institutional level. It is my argument that any “failuresâ€? of multiculturalism overall, are largely functions of immigration politics allied to beliefs on race and/or religion, John Howard’s “Anzac monoculturalismâ€? and media inspired moral panics. Continue reading ‘Multiculturalism: Has it failed? (Part 1)’
There was an interesting comments thread at Catallaxy recently, which alerted me to an ALP policy proposal for a Pacific Community which I hadn’t heard of through the media (though ALP proposals on assisting those in the Pacific affected by climate change did get a run). Unfortunately, the discussion paper which outlines the strategy for a Pacific Community doesn’t appear to be online (which limits discussion!), but it seems to me that the assertion made in a speech launching the paper by Bob Sercombe MP - that the Howard government’s policy towards Pacific nations is either far too heavy handed or alternatively totally disinterested - is about right. Labor proposes movement towards a regional Community with a free market in goods and labour, and a range of institutions to address common issues and human rights standards. It seems to me that a free market in labour, and assistance with technical and higher education, has great potential compared to paternalistic foreign aid and preening ourselves as a regional “Power”. However, this approach has been flatly rejected by the government, for reasons which haven’t been adequately explained.
A pointer to those reasons might lie in the context under which the discussion arose at Catallaxy, where commenter Mark Richardson wrote of his fear that Australia would be subsumed by a regional state and later clarified, in response to questions about his nationalist views:
My kind of nationalism (traditional ethnic nationalism) was the first to go under liberalism because it’s based on unchosen forms of identity, which conflicts with the liberal principle that it is our freedom to choose through our own individual will and reason which should be paramount.
It seems to me that’s a good thing. What’s right about “traditional ethnic nationalism”? Our sovereignty is already circumscribed by many international agreements, and this sort of reaction doesn’t appear to be sparked by something that really does impinge on our freedom to determine our own values and social policy arrangements, the US-Australia FTA. Similarly, the ability of (largely North American and European) backpackers to legally take jobs in areas such as hospitality and rural industries doesn’t create the same controversy as opening labour markets where there are shortages to Pacific Islanders.
What’s to fear about a Union of South Sea Republics?
[Via Dibo at Stoush.net] The Journal of Australian Political Economy has just released a special edition on the political and economic implications of WorkChoices. All the papers are online for you to read.
I have commented before on the music industry’s collective failure to understand the Internet and strange allegiance to business models that involve using extortion against your customers. However with the release of sales figures for 2005 there are signs of an awakening intelligence in the boardrooms of the music industry.
Global industry revenues fell about 2 per cent through last year. The interesting factor is that the record industry is starting to realize that they can’t continue to blame downloading for the problem.
Continue reading ‘The Music Industry Shows a Glimmer Of Understanding’
A great result for Canada in todays election. The Conservatives have won a minority thereby kicking out the corrupt, intellectually bankrupt, bloated and lazy Liberal party. If ever there was a need for change, this was it. At the moment the numbers look like this:
CON - 124 - 36.28%
LIB - 102 - 30.19%
BQ - 51 - 10.48%
NDP - 28 - 17.48%
IND - 1 - .52%
OTH - 0 - 5.05%
However, the outcome suggests another election within a couple of years as the conservatives clearly have no mandate, and govern at the pleasure of the other parties discretion - or when everyone has had enough of the Conservative wackjobs - and eventually cobble together a coalition to preventing them from adopting any one of their nutty Republican Party inspired policies. Make no mistake this was a house cleaning exercise by the Canadian people and suggests no turn to the right.
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