A vigorous discussion of various aspects of the controversy about Bill Henson’s photography (and particularly about the images of naked adolescents now at the centre of a media and legal storm) continues on this thread. I think it might be useful if we tried to separate out some of the issues - I think that discussion shows that a lot of us are agreed that an incredible number of different topics are collapsed together in the framing of the Henson “debate” in the media. So on this thread, I’d like to discuss the politics of the Henson controversy. Please restrict responses to that specific aspect - others can be discussed here on the continuation of the previous thread.
It’s pretty clear to me that the only political winners from the brouhaha over Henson’s photographs are the culture warriors themselves. Whether or not Miranda Devine knew what she was setting off is perhaps a moot question, but it seems obvious that the culture warriors are rejoicing in being able to find an issue that positions what they normally bang on about as much more central to public debate than their usual fare. I doubt their own triumphalism is warranted - they still face the problem that ranting and raving about Islamism and the enemy within and global warming denialism fails to cut through in a changed landscape of public opinion - not every issue will allow them to position all their enemies - “luvvies”, “the left” - in such a neat row with the highly emotive issues of child sexual abuse and internet pr0n as a hook to draw attention to their opinionating. This thing has moved at the speed of light in the media cycle, but conversely its centrality to the media cycle has already ended - we’re back to all things petrol.
Thanks to Iain in comments on another thread for this link. I was in the mall today having a puff on my way home from returning some library books when a Brisbane Times reporter asked me some questions about Campbell Newman’s new plan to have specific “smoking zones” in the CBD. So I have a new media persona - as a “Queen Street mall smoker”! It was the journo’s idea that I should hold up the cigarette for the photo, incidentally.
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I have very little to report - since my weekends as with my weeks at the moment are a combination of sleeping and thesis work. So, instead a few photos of curios in the Brisbane CBD. First, a “printer’s devil” sculpted above the main door of the old State Government Printing Office in George Street. The origin of the phrase is uncertain and disputed but what’s certain and undisputed is that it inspired some rather fab sculpture on buildings. Secondly, two facades of old buildings between the Treasury Hotel and the Myer Centre on Elizabeth Street - the buildings themselves were demolished long ago (as long ago as the 1980s, I think) but their facades remain - seemingly immunised from redevelopment for reasons I don’t know. But I like the gap in the streetscape.
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Ross Gittins has a great piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today, making the obvious point that:
… households earning $150,000 or more - starting at almost twice the median - are in the top 15 per cent of households.
The top 15 per cent aren’t rich, but they’re certainly not battlers. They’re not even anywhere near the middle; they’re up near the top.
The average earnings of adult full-time employees are now $60,000. So someone on $150,000 is pulling in 2½ times average. And you’re asking the rest of us to feel sorry for you? You reckon the bottom 97 per cent of taxpayers should be paying you special benefits?
The carry-on we’ve seen from people pulling down a paltry $150,000 a year borders on the obscene when put beside the troubles of the people who really do have cause for complaint, single pensioners living it up on $270 a week. That’s a bit over $14,000 a year - less than a 10th of what the well-off whingers are getting.
But how can people living on two or three times the average income genuinely believe they’re middle-income strugglers?
He goes on to answer his own question, and in doing so, makes the point that people usually have a poor perception of what others’ incomes actually are, and that they tend to compare up rather than down. There are oodles of studies that make that point.
If I tried really hard, I could probably think of some bad things about working from home. But today, it was all good. By about 3pm, I’d edited around 18000 words of PhD thesis to my satisfaction, and was on top of teaching and book review editing tasks, so having noticed when I wandered down to the shops earlier for some lunch it was an incredibly beautiful Brisbane autumn day, I decided to go for a gratuitous walk to the city - along the Riverwalk - about 2.2k. With a bit of discussion around the traps about Brisbane transport lately, it’s worth mentioning that Riverwalk, a network of walking and cycling tracks along the river stretching for about 20km, is one of the most visionary projects undertaken in our fine town in recent decades. An initiative of the Jim Soorley Labor Council in the late 90s, it was initially opposed by riverside property owners and the Liberals. But aside from giving New Farm residents the chance to walk or cycle to work, the floating pontoon section which stretches from Merthyr Road along to the Story Bridge and then joins up with the city stretch is just such a wonderful contribution to the city’s amenity. It’s usually jam packed with office workers around 5pm, and a little later on with strollers, joggers and cyclists, but if you can get the chance to do the walk on a week day outside peak hour, you have it almost all to yourself. I seized the chance, really enjoyed the walk, and snapped some photos.
There are more than I’m posting here, and you can see them all at this link. If you want to see a bigger version of any of them, remember to click on the “full view” link once you’re inside the gallery. If you haven’t done the walk, you might be interested by some of the unusual views of the iconic Story Bridge.
One of the big credibility problems The Borg has with his “new face of Queensland” nonsense is that at least on the National Party side of the Pineapple Party benches, he’s surrounded by a bunch of time serving geriatrics. The younger members - including Deputy Leader Fiona Simpson - have hardly made much of an electoral impact either. There’s a risk to running on “age” and “renewal” - Anna Bligh is no John Howard, and she’s not that much older than The Borg himself. Nor has she been in Parliament seemingly forever - “fresh” Lawrence is approaching the 20th anniversary of his election. Sam Clifford from Public Polity takes a look at another big fissure in Lawrence Springborg’s narrative - the fact that the ALP has been renewing itself with some genuine talent.
It looks like some of the Class of ‘89, those ALP MPs who entered politics when the ALP finally defeated the Nationals, are going to step aside for the next election. MPs like Rod Welford, the Education Minister, will be sorely missed but there needs to be renewal in government to maintain strength and contact with the world outside. There are a number of promising young Labor politicians like Ronan Lee, Andrew McNamara, Grace Grace, Stirling Hinchliffe and Andrew Fraser who will form the next generation of Labor’s front bench and will shape the future of the state (much to the ‘Borg’s chagrin).
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I had dinner in town on Friday night with a friend - we went to Pane e Vino, where I think the quality of the food isn’t what it once was. We were reflecting later that our continuing to patronise this establishment was probably an artefact of habit more than anything else - back in the mid 90s, it was one of the few places to eat in Brisbane town at a price point between Hungry Jacks and the really posh silver service joints. Now there are bistros all over the place, but we haven’t tried any. So any recommendations of good CBD eateries where you can get a meal and a glass of wine for about thirty bucks are much welcomed!
I was back in town yesterday - going to the QUT Gardens Point library for books for the thesis. When I emerged from the library, the weather had changed from being a beautiful sunny day to cold and grey - and it felt like a storm was building up. By the time I got to the bus stop on Adelaide Street to go home, the sky had gone a very odd shade of yellow - just minutes before the storm hit. Fortunately I had my camera with. It was a doozy of a storm - the bus stop crowd had to move back about half the width of the sidewalk to avoid getting drenched, and heralded the coming of some very cold winds. So we were all rugging up last night!
Lawrence Springborg is one step closer to achieving his grand dream of five years’ standing – a united conservative party in Queensland. This courtesy of new Liberal President Gary Spence, who, to the fury of some Liberals, has responded to the Nationals’ plebiscite by agreeing to a vote by rank and file members – and appearing to prejudge the result by embuing the “Liberal National Party” with an aura of inevitability.
That may be a tad premature, as the announcement of the “breakthrough” was quickly followed by anonymous Libs leaking about the possibility of a break away party should the Pineapple Party become a reality. There’s also the position – articulated by Brendan Nelson – that nothing should happen until discussions on amalgamation at federal level are finalised – at some indeterminate time in the future.
So exactly who’s doing the assimilation? Resistance is futile, as the Star Trek version of the Borg intoned monolithically, because Lawrence Springborg has already been anointed leader in advance of any decision by the new party, and no democratic process is apparently envisaged for the division of the spoils of opposition. In fact, as Graham Young reports, so undemocratic is the process that former assimilation critic George Brandis has gone quiet after a deal for Senate preselection, which also protects Barnaby Joyce’s interests by giving him a Senate seat (Ron Boswell’s) even if he loses at the next election.
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Unfortunately, I forgot to recharge my camera battery, so no pics this week. We’ll have to content ourselves with an image from Keating! The Musical, which I took my mum to see last night for Mothers’ Day (she’s a big PJK fan). Apparently, I’m not alone, as Paul Keating also took his mum to see it. I’d be really interested to know what non-Labor folks would think about it. They’d have been lonely in the audience at the QPAC Playhouse last night, surrounded by a gallery of Labor luminaries from Anna Bligh down. It’s also interesting to speculate whether a hypothetical Howard! The Musical would get much of a run - and I’m not sure Terry Serio would be cast in the eponymous role - his portrayal of Howard was cruel in its verisimilitude. Alexander Downer, in Rocky Horror style fishnets and corset, came off much better.
I also enjoyed catching up with a couple of friends who’d been at the matinee for a drink at The Point on Grey Street at Southbank first, always a good spot for a glass of wine or a cocktail, and while I’m doing recommendations, I went round to some other friends’ place for dinner on their back deck on Friday night and ate a very scrumptious lasagne concocted out of the pages of the Veganomicon - best. cookbook. eva! Today? Well, it’s been a lazy Sunday!
There’s a really fascinating article at Wired about blogs and websites tracking down urban eccentrics. You know who I mean. In Brisbane, I can think of “Rock & Roll George”, the Marilyn Monroe woman (always impeccably groomed), the evil homeless guy who hits people with his umbrella, the plastic bag man who used to sleep outside the Anglican church in Toowong, the fake nun in the white tuxedo who pushed an empty wheelchair down the middle of New Farm streets for many years, and the cowboy whom I once overheard refusing at Rics to explain to the barwoman why he was what he was or who he was, all the while conscious of his minor celebrity.
The article doesn’t cover stalking or the right to privacy, which raises some questions. It also doesn’t really adequately get to grips with the sociological phenomenon of why we talk about such folks and what they feel about it all. Any thoughts?
Our friends at Griffith Review are holding an event in Brisbane tomorrow at the State Library of Queensland from 1 to 4pm:
The 2020 Summit was just the beginning. The more substantial and critical task is to advance the process by building consensus, by continually developing engagement and cooperation between traditionally divided streams, factions and ideologies. Join us for a free seminar featuring twenty Summit delegates who will report on their impressions from the Summit proceedings and consider pragmatic steps forward to identify and achieve Australia’s goals. Come early to enjoy lunch - your own or from Tognini’s Cafe - outside the State Library’s beautiful new building. Panellists include Julianne Schultz, Michael Wesley, Michael Good, George Williams, Matt Foley and many more.
Incidentally, my copy of the May edition just arrived in the post. It’s on Cities, and I’m looking forward to a stimulating read as always. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to announce a discount bulk subscription offer for LPers in the not too distant future.
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I’m just getting over the flu (and a secondary infection which caught me in its grip) so I have been having a lazy weekend. Overdosing on anime dvds as well as dosing on antibiotics (including all of Ergo Proxy, which, like Kim, I’d also recommend.) I took some photos down in the Valley yesterday on one of my trips to the video store I’m rather happy with though.
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
I suspect they’re dead and gone now as uni courses (cos’ Madonna is a very Gen X phenomenon), but one of the staples of the anti-pomo anti-cultural studies culture wars used to be claims that Universities were teaching subjects about the Detroit diva rather than, you know, Shakespeare.
But I still think she was and is a cultural phenomenon. Her radicalism and her cultural reach into lives shouldn’t be underestimated. I was bopping around (bipedally in those days) to Like a Virgin in 1985 when I was just a little twelve year old thing, and I can remember being thrilled by Desperately Seeking Susan, which in retrospect now reads like a mirrored fantasy where both Susans incarnate different aspects of Madonna’s own biography and evolving mythos, transposed to New Jersey and New York City. In any case, she made a lot of sense to a Catholic school girl!
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
After a big burst of thesis writing, I’ve spent a rather miserable weekend, lamenting the fact that I didn’t get a flu shot this year. But before the lurgy got its grips into me, I did go down with an old Uni friend to The Bowery in Ann Street in the Valley - Brisneyland’s best bar to be sure - for a propitiatory Laphroaig or three. When the nights start getting cooler, it’s time to unstop the malt scotch bottle!
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
By contrast to the last twoweekends of art and free drinkies, I had a very asocial one - have a major deadline on my thesis - chapter due by Thursday. So my only outing was to the Queensland Uni library for some books! Though this arvo I’m attending the Search Foundation“Re-Imagining the Good Society” event where I’m speaking. I took the camera along to UQ, and took some shots of the Green Bridge from Dutton Park to the St Lucia campus - one of the few unequivocally good things to happen on the Brisbane transport scence in the last few years. It’s restricted to walkers, cyclists and buses, and is also designed to reduce public transport and car congestion in the Western suburbs - UQ is the second biggest car traffic attractor in Brisbane afer the CBD.
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
I also got lucky in terms of the afternoon light for photos of the fountain and the lake between College Road and Staff House Road, and continuing the uni theme, snapped the Royal Exchange pub at Toowong on the way home - aka the “RE” and the scene of much binge drinking (yikes!) during my undergrad days.
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Lawrence Springborg is one step closer to 
I suspect they’re dead and gone now as uni courses (cos’ Madonna is a very Gen X phenomenon), but one of the staples of the anti-pomo anti-cultural studies culture wars used to be claims that Universities were teaching subjects about the Detroit diva rather than, you know, Shakespeare.
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