As the Twig is Bent by Terry Lane (Dove Communications, Melbourne 1979)
This book (ex Aquinas College, Ringwood) was actually a genuine find. In it, Lane presents interviews with sixteen prominent Australians about their childhood. One of them is the historian Manning Clark of whom Lane writes:
…Manning Clark has bbecome an outspoken critic of Australian Society in his books, articles, speeches and broadcasts, expressing a profound pessimism about the future. The events of November 1975, ‘that year in which the money-changers and accountants – the men with a passion for interest rates as dionysiacal as the passion of some men for “other things” – were to have their terrible day of triumph’, have left him deeply disturbed. Because of his defence of the Whitlam government … there was a storm over his commission to broadcast the Boyer Lectures on the ABC in 1976. An attempt to censor the lectures before they were recorded was thwarted when it was made public.
Continue reading ‘Gummo’s Op-Shop Book Corner’
Because Mark’s clearly still recovering:
An open thread where you can, at your weekend leisure, discuss whatever you like.
It all started on the 10th of March with the Dragons and Tigers and will end about 8:45 Sunday night with either the Broncos or the Storm being the 2006 NRL Premiers. It has been an interesting season but the post mortem will come later. The immediate concern is who will win Sunday’s game.
But before I do that let’s get one thing clear. I am tired of the wailing from the sackcloth and ashes crowd, both in the NRL and AFL, bemoaning no local sides in the deciders. Get over it. There are 13 clubs in the NRL and 14 in the AFL who failed to make the grand final. You don’t hear their fans crying about the state of the game because their club didn’t make it. It should be all about the best two clubs at the end of the season. Both codes have expanded and this narrow-minded state based parochialism concerned with the “rights” of Sydney or Melbourne based clubs to be in the respective grand final is to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Except for State of Origin of course.
Now, let me tell you who is going to win…
Continue reading ‘NRL 2006: The Decider!’
There was a fun blogging get together at the Clock in Surry Hills last night. Summations of the evenings events can be found at Steve Edney’s, Jason Soon’s and tigtog’s blogs.
I must say I had loads of fun.
What a great bunch of bloggers we have here in Ozblogistan.
By way of a community service, I’d like to remind our NSW/ACT readers that from October 1, you will no longer be able to get free energy saving light globes and water saving showerheads for free[1]. That means you only have two days to get yours!!
Continue reading ‘Got your free light globes yet?’
As many of you may have noticed, LP has been practising its disappearing act today.
Something’s happening at the webhosting end, and hopefully it’s all been sorted now.
Check out Dr Faustus, at The Killfile on Pathologising the Arsehole. Well worth a look.
Just a quick plug for the event I’m attending which is the reason for my trip to Sydney and then to Newcastle on Friday..
If you’re around tomorrow, Flutey is talking cartooning at 1.30.
On Friday at 3pm, there’s a session on Written Politics. Jane from Crikey is representing Crikey, but she’s trying to talk me into also representing Crikey! So I may be speaking - apparently the Chaser lads are on the same bill.
And on Saturday at 10am, Zoe and I are on a panel about the politics of blogs and the politics of blogging.
There are many, many other good things going on, with a particular focus on blogs and blogging. So go read the programme here and come say hi if you happen to be in Newcastle.
Says Albrechtsen:
Here’s a snap brain quiz. Which sex uses, on average, about 20,000 words a day, in contrast to the 7000 uttered by the other sex? If you answered… women, … you’ve been watching too many Woody Allen movies. Now, science is confirming that Woody was right all along.
Um, no. Anyone who reads the Language Log would be well aware that this is a bogus statistic that can be traced back to a self-help book, but not to any scientific study. In fact, “Most studies reported either that men talked more than women, either overall or in some circumstances, or that there was no difference between the genders in amount of talk.”
Albrechtsen’s column is about The Female Brain, a book by neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine that argues cultural differences between genders are largely the result of neurological differences between the male and female brains. Albrechtsen makes the good point that talking about possible neurological differences between the sexes should not be taboo — but nor should columnists accept bold new claims on controversial topics without checking the science behind them.
Language Log’s Mark Liberman became interested because differences in communication form a significant part of Brizendine’s claims. The trouble is, much of what she says on language seems to be unsupported by research, and some of it is probably accurate though you wouldn’t know from her citations.
Continue reading ‘The science of The Female Brain’
One of the good things about being a slash person (in my case lecturer/consultant/writer/editor) is that you get to do all sorts of interesting and varied contracts rather than a full time job that’s much the same all the time. At the moment, I have a short term gig sitting in the Editor’s chair of Online Opinion while Susan is on hols. It’s really fun to work with authors commissioning, developing and editing articles, and I’ve come across a few gems so far which it’s a real pleasure to publish.
One is this great piece by UWS sociologist David Rowe on the history and current state of play in Rugby League. David asks:
It is now over a decade since the Super League War confirmed all the worst fears of those who see contemporary sport as a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate commercial media. Rugby League has recovered on the surface, with a unified league, open competition, respectable crowds, television ratings and sponsorships in the usual places.
The NRL competition is successful in that it does produce a rapid turnover of winners – it rains reigning premiers, with seven different teams having won since 1998 and no team winning consecutive competitions. League loudly asserts that the house rent in twain in the last century is in good order for the current one. But is such optimism justified?
Speaking as someone who regrets the loss of local loyalties to Brisbane teams and the distinctive Brisbane Rugby League style of play which were effectively eclipsed by the Bronco’s entry into what was then the Sydney competition, I have a lot of sympathy with David’s historical perspective. I more or less gave up watching Rugby League altogether around the time of the Super League imbroglio. So it’s interesting to see David structure his reflections around just that event:
Despite official pronouncements that the Super League cataclysm is a thing of the past, it continues to stalk the code like Banquo’s ghost at a Macbeth family dinner.
You can read about the Australian Society for Sport History online.
Surely, it’s time once again for this occasional LP feature.
The idea is an absolutely lighthearted no stoushing allowed post.
And by tradition, a discussion starter or two. The user generated Suicide Girls news is always a good insight into what’s on the minds of emo, alt and pierced/tattooed stateside youth. Why that is relevant here, I have no idea.
But two tidbits.
Did you know Kate Hudson has eleven toes? Should I be jealous that I only have five?
Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy have been posthumously outed. If true, are you surprised?
A public lecture is being presented on Thursday night as an event associated with the International Association for Internet Researchers (AoIR) Conference being held in Brisbane on 27-29 September. Looks interesting - details over the fold - the topic is the Politics of the Internet in Indonesia.
Another current Brisbane conference on Online Teaching and Learning features a really interesting paper on “Mobile Learning and Social Learning” by Brisbane academic and blogger Joanne Jacobs and her co-author Deb Polson. You can read it via Jo’s blog.
Continue reading ‘Things internetty’
Republished from today’s Crikey email:
Queensland has already sent two potential Prime Ministers to Canberra, and Joh never quite made it. Last century, both TJ Ryan and “Red” Ted Theodore, shifted to Canberra after their premierships. Both were touted as possible Labor PMs. Ryan died in office, while Theodore never quite cast off the ghost of the Mungana scandals, leaving eventually to make tons of money with Frank Packer. But the Sunshine State has never sent a state party leader down south specifically to become Deputy PM.
Glenn Milne is now spruiking Lawrence Springborg as a potential successor to Mark Vaile. The idea actually makes some sense. Springborg presents well, is intelligent, and reasonably progressive as Nationals go. Therein might lie the problem. Springborg, as Milne notes, a “great mate” of Barnaby, led his party into the division lists with Labor last year in State Parliament on a resolution opposing WorkChoices. Compared to the robots at the top of the federal Nats, the Borg has more personality, but is also more of an unreconstructed agrarian socialist.
It’s more likely that Lawrence might be considering a tilt at Ron Boswell’s Senate seat.
Continue reading ‘Down the Theodore track’
(or Abolish Centrelink Redux)
Australians have a real talent for bureaucracy.
(Some famous bloke whose name I’ve forgotten)
I went out to Melbourne University yesterday afternoon, to check out a course. It’s supposed to be the next move forward in the slowly evolving plan to escape the underclass or at least move upwards a couple of steps on the social ladder to a slightly better kind of underclass. I came home in a pretty good mood – the course suited me, I got along pretty well with the course co-ordinator – a very experienced publishing industry professional. One bit of trivia I picked up is the reason why Australian books won’t sit open the way a Japanese book will. It’s all in the way the grain of the paper runs through the page. In the average Aussie book it runs the wrong way.
I came home feeling pretty optimistic about the whole thing. When Zeppo Bakunin came home later, he asked how it went and I gave him a recap of the afternoon. I finished by remarking that as long as my head-care specialist, Dr Ziggy Stellenstaub, was prepared to go along, I could probably bludge my way through the course on DSP while I developed my writing skills with a view to a new career as a professional hack. Ziggy and I now have a gentleman’s agreement that, given the number of times we’ve both tried to fit me back into the mainstream, nine-to-five job market only to have me turn up in his office a few months later because I’m nervous about getting too close to trains in the morning, we’re not going there again this time.
Continue reading ‘Centrelink Really Must Go!’
Bill Clinton was quoted in a long feature in the New Yorker recently on the importance of Democrats getting on the front foot when the GOP hurl mud at them. Kerry, he suggested, shouldn’t have let the Swift Boats saga go on for ages without fighting back.
Clinton can’t be accused of not practicing what he preaches.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday being described as “combative”, Clinton took Bush to task for his inaction over Osama Bin Laden and also vigorously challenged the “fair and balanced” style of Fox reporting. The empire is fighting back, with conservative op/eders, Fox itself and right wing bloggers deriding Clinton for having a “meltdown” or throwing a “tantrum”.
The context for all this, of course, is Bush’s strategy for the midterms - branding the Democrats as soft on terror. The Democrats, running heavily against the war on Iraq, have to explain what they would do differently in Iraq. Clinton is trying to counter both. But as with many things Bill, he himself has become the issue. Nevertheless, the interview is great political theatre - you can watch it here.
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