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.
As mentioned in a previous post, I’m speaking on Sunday at a forum organised by the Search Foundation in Brisbane. The idea is to discuss how we in the left might formulate some objectives that transcend both particular campaigns and electoral politics - in short, an exercise in re-envisioning goals. I’m circulating my paper in advance of the meeting, and I’ll be talking to it rather than reading it, but since there was some interest on the previous thread, I’m also posting a link here. [pdf]
I’m looking at a subsequent magazine publication, so any feedback and discussion is greatly appreciated, and as I’ll be extemporising around the text on Sunday, I’d also be delighted to incorporate any constructive comment in the talk itself.
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!
Continuing the photography event/free drinks theme from last weekend, I ventured across the river to Raw Space at South Brisbane for a cocktail party celebrating their current exhibition (Heimo Schmidt and Kate Bernaeur) on Friday night. The event had a nice vibe, with most of the action taking place on the long deck facing Melbourne Street where a guitarist was playing. It was good to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while, and I can also recommend a visit to have a squizzy at the photos… Saturday - lunch @ New Farm Deli, a bit of shopping, and a bottle of wine on some friends’ back deck. Later this arvo, of course, we have the LP drinks @ Kaliber to look forward to.
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos in this post, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Once you’re out of the inner city, the vista the suburbs present to your eye from the train window is a tad undifferentiated. Sure, you can pick where weatherboard gives way to brick, as you travel through time as well as space, but if you’re not paying attention, it’s not that hard to miss your station. And in Brisbane you’re out of the inner city pretty quickly - the distance of two stations does it. Unlike Sydney and Melbourne, you’re speedily in the realm of big quarter acre blocks with old houses perched and shifting on their stilts as they hug the verdant hills, knowing that they’re interlopers. But some - landmarks is the wrong word - icons compel your eye’s focus.
No one who’s ever caught the Caboolture or Sandgate-Shorncliffe trains would ever miss Albion station. The old flour mill is too delightfully out of scale and incongruous to miss. It dwarfs its surroundings.
It’s lain vacant for six years now - as with so many other noteable Brisbane buildings, the victim of a tussle between the Council and developers, eventually to be resolved mostly in the latter’s favour - with the token addition of a modicum of public housing (which will give the new residents something to whine about) and a claim about economic renewal. The increase in the value of the surrounding real estate usually goes untouted - at least by the planning authorities, concerned ostensibly with public purposes as they are. It’s this sort of thing that led to a lot of disillusion with the Labor administrations of Jim Soorley and Tim Quinn, and probably contributed to former Labor leader David Hinchliffe almost losing his ward in the election just a few short weeks ago.
As well as hosting public fora, one other thing LP is up to is facilitating conversation in livespace. I want to get away from the whole “meet a visiting blogger and get trashed” thing and more towards the have a few quiet Sunday drinks and have a convo thing. If you’re interested, and in Brisbane on Sunday, we’ll be at Kaliber in the TCB Building on the Brunswick Street Mall from 4pm. As Nabs might (just) recall, they do good cocktail. And there’s a band, but also outside seating where you can have a chat.
A bit more notice has been given of this event via Facebook, and it really is convenient for organising stuff - for instance, if there’s a late change in plans, it’s easy to contact all attendees quickly. So do please sign up for the FB group if you think you’d be interested in such events and other fora in future.
If anybody wants to organise something under the LP banner in their own town, give us a shout (as Brendan Nelson would say).
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 another really pleasant weekend. Friday night was art crawl night, kicking off with a bunch of friends at the Dell Gallery at the Queensland College of Art for free drinks as part of the Queensland Festival of Photography program. (It’s ongoing, so check it out if you’re interested - I hear good things about the Annie Hogan exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane.) We then headed across the river to Jugglers Artspace in The Valley for the launch of Nic Plowman’s new exhibition. After that, various bars, etc! On Saturday, some other friends and I decided to do Taco Saturday on their back deck - with a couple of bottles of New Zealand white, and some tacos we made with much garlic at every stage - watch out, vampires!
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 a really pleasant weekend - Friday drinks, then dinner at Thai Wi-Rat in the Vall, and sweets at Gerbinos. Saturday I caught up with friends for brunch at Moray Cafe, popped into town for a bit of science fiction bookshopping at Pulp Fiction, and then went to Brian’s place for a joint birthday dinner (mine was actually ages ago but I was sick at the time, and his was much more recent) where we sorted out the problems of Australia and the world (sorta), looked at some old photos from Brian’s days on the farm as a teenager, and exchanged presents - Brian got a history of Prussia and I got a bottle of Cragganmore single malt! I can also recommend anchovy sauce. Today - internetting, sleeping!
Here’s some photos left over from last week’s peregrinations around the ‘hood.
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.
The Search Foundation is holding a series of roundtables in capital cities leading up to a national conference in 2009. The idea is to stimulate discussion in order to contribute to a reimagination of the objectives of the left in Australia. I’m speaking at the Brisbane event on April 20. Prelimary details available at this link:
I think this sort of thing is fabulous - it’s very easy to lose sight of longer term goals and the necessity of developing both a realistic critique of Australian society and aims which go beyond the necessary every day struggles for various causes or for electoral victory. So I hope and trust it will be very worthwhile.
The event is invitation only, but if you’d like to be put on the invite list, please email Rachael Jacobs at this address.
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
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.
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.
As mentioned in 
Recent comments
Jane, zorronsky, Adrien, David Rubie, Paul Burns, David Irving (no relation) [...]
dk.au
Jane, Paulus, dj, wizofaus, Desipis, conrad [...]
David Rubie, Liam, Paul Burns, Sans Blog, David Rubie, tigtog [...]
jo, Nabakov, Adrien, Mark, Ambigulous, Adrien [...]
David Rubie, Don't let your son go down on me, I won't let your Mum go down on me, Don't let your son go down on me, Helen, Rubie, don't make your love go down [...]
dylwah, Desipis, Fine, Matt C, Alister, Chris (a different one) [...]
wizofaus, wilful, FDB, Don't let your son go down on me, Robert Merkel, wilful [...]
jo, Posey, GregM, Ambigulous, Ambigulous, Posey [...]
Katz, Adrien, j_p_z, Patrick B, Patrick B, Lloyd [...]
Brian, marks, Elizabeth Hart, Elizabeth Hart, Peterc, Peterc [...]
Oh Sadi, the cleaning Ladi, Luke Weston, CountingCats, feral sparrowhawk, Brian, myriad [...]