We’ve done our best to provide a reasonably comprehensive coverage of World Youth Day here at LP, in part because the News Limited papers, being major sponsors of the Pope fest, have studiously ignored most of the actual hard news, except to cast stones at those criticising the Church’s conduct on several justifiable grounds, in favour of happy-clappy stories about the happy-clappy pilgrims and general hagiography. As I commented earlier, the irony is that B16 himself is treated more like a pop star than a Pontiff on a mission, so in the interests of balance and fairness, if anyone’s actually interested in the full text of what the Pope had to say, you can read it here. As journalist and veteran Vatican watcher John L. Allen jr. observes, it’s classic Ratzinger.
Archive for the 'Urbanism' Category
It’s no secret that “the sectarian strand” is one of the less attractive aspects of Australian history, and interestingly, probably not one featured highly either in the so-called “black armband” or triumphalist narratives so beloved of our home grown Antipodean culture warriors. That may be because the deep cleavages - overlapping but not identical to class and ethnicity - around Catholicism and Protestantism needed to be elided and to be buried in order to construct the “Anglo-Celtic” identity which came into its own at the same time that the state aid controversy was settled into its grave and multiculturalism launched on its career. And not coincidentally. “Anglos” and “Celts” were on different sides of the political and cultural coin in the Great Southern Land of the Holy Spirit for most of its whitefella history. In a way, Gough Whitlam is probably the progenitor of the “mainstream” Anglo-Celtic Australian. But sectarianism typically rears its head as a defensive accusation whenever the Catholic Church is particularly prominent in public debate, and whenever criticism is directed at the Church’s institutional power.
In the context of World Youth Day in Sydney this week, this accusation has been levelled both with regard to criticism of the extraordinary powers granted to police by Greg Craven and with regard to the ABC’s highlighting of Cardinal George Pell’s ethically very questionable handling of clergy sexual abuse complaints by Andrew Bolt. More broadly, the media sponsors of World Youth Day at News Limited have worked themselves into a lather of holy righteousness, denouncing “aggressive secularism” and lauding all the Popey goodness they’re sponsoring - without disclosing that sponsorship in their journalistic or opinion pieces.
It may well be that a residue of sectarian anti-Catholicism might be in play on the margins of all this, but one of the big ironies is that while Tony Abbott and others speculated that Pope Benedict’s message might not be communicated effectively, the Pope himself has seemingly become a football to be kicked around by the usual suspects in distinctly Australian culture wars which often have only a tenuous connection with his concerns. But are there not genuine issues - of public interest - that can and should be raised at a time when Catholicism is top of the pops in the media stakes?
Continue reading ‘Is criticism of World Youth Day automatically Catholic bashing?’
To be fair to Morris Iemma and his bunch of clowns masquerading as a government, New South Wales isn’t alone in imposing risible and over the top security regulations for major “public events”. We’ve seen similar things in finance talkfests with Melbourne and CHOGM in Queensland saw Peter Beattie invent preventive detention for “known public nuisances”, as well as going to ludicrous lengths to prevent protest. But Iemma’s mob seem to have made it an art form, perhaps because as I’ve speculated before, their sense of authoritarianism compensates for their total ineffectuality in governing just about anything else than public events. (Compare - “public services”.) But the latest bunch of regulations for the Pope Fest really take the cake. It’s more or less private governance. Where’s the public benefit in preventing pilgrims attending World Youth Day in Sydney this month from being annoyed? Will their world really come to an end if someone hands them a condom or wears a t-shirt with an anti-homophobia message? What possible public justification does the NSW government have for denying basic rights to freedom of expression at the instance of the fragile petals in Cardinal Pell’s hierarchy?
Stock image courtesy of the Italian Cultural Institute.
I have to defend the town I lived in from 1996 to 2002 from the all too flippant calumny in this comment. (And incidentally Nancy Pelosi, one of whose Congressional campaigns I worked on, as well as heaps of local ones for both the Democrats and the Greens… - she’s so right in this comment about the Clinton campaign.) As I’ve said about a thousand times before, pro-Americanism or anti-Americanism is the dumb. It’s far too complex a country to condemn or praise in toto, and - incidentally - one I’m proud to be a citizen of. But I will say, as someone largely brought up in Brisneyland, that San Francisco is one part of the world where there’s enough cultural similarities that we can feel, not at home, but able to negotiate our way into feeling like this is Heimat, as it were. Or, at least, I felt that way. Continue reading ‘I left my heart in San Francisco…’
A lot of the discussions about web 2.0 and the media tend to conflate citizen journalism with all sorts of other things that happen in the online media spaces. Bloggers, for instance, can be citizen journalists, but by no means all bloggers are, and perhaps a lot of bloggers occasionally are but are more often than not not… One of the traditional functions of public journalism, now rarely fulfilled in Australia, is to bring together a lot of relevant information that non-experts wouldn’t be able to find readily, contextualise that information, and relate it to issues and developments which materially affect citizens. Sometimes, still, you’ll find this done well on national issues, but at the local and even state level it seems to be almost a dying (if not dead) art. That’s why the sort of work blogger Derek Barry is doing here in Brisbane is so valuable.
LPers might remember my post a while back about the redevelopment of the old flour mill next to Albion station. At Woolly Days, Derek has done a top notch job of doing exactly what I’m characterising here as public journalism with respect to that very development, which is on his patch. I think we need to see a lot more of this. It’s a space that the MSM have left almost entirely empty, and because these sort of things are not just hugely important to citizens’ amenity but also to fostering real participation and civic capacities. Derek’s post also situates what’s happening in one inner city suburb of Brisbane within its global context - which again is something in my view that big media almost never does.
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.
… Or have we already had it?
Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans has called for a “great debate” about immigration.
Possibly because it doesn’t involve leaked emails from Malcolm Turnbull or struggling battlers on 150k losing benefits, coverage of the immigration decisions announced in the budget has been fairly sparse, with this piece by Paul Kelly something of an exception to the rule.
The long and short of it is that skilled migration and temporary working visas have been lifted to almost 300 000 a year, with more on the way. Add in international students and those on some forms of tourist visa and you have a very large boost to Australia’s workforce.
Kelly’s correct to write that Howard lifted the migration quota over his term in office, but doesn’t add that he played the politics of it through distracting attention with all sorts of “look! over there! Muslims!” scares. I’m not sure I agree with Kelly that there’s going to be a particular political risk for Labor here. I suspect that Paul Keating took the brunt of it, with his “embedding in Asia” rhetoric and his economic case for migration a long time before the perception of the need for more migration to build a skills base and competitiveness really kicked in. Opposition to the changing face of Australia washed out of the national psyche, largely, one could argue hopefully, with the receding of the Hansonite wave of protest and indignation. John Howard may have had his face turned towards the past in this regard in his last years of office.
We probably should be having a debate on the ecological consequences of increased infrastructure spending for a bigger population (among other climate change related impacts), and on the fact that while “unemployment” might be still near record lows, there are still a lot of people either underemployed or locked out of the labour market for reasons that are fairly intractable to short term policy influence, but I doubt we’ll be seeing much of either.
Continue reading ‘Will “the great immigration debate” take place?’
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.
Riverwalk XV by *phenomenologist on deviantART
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.
RSVP here.
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.
Enjoy while it lasts by *phenomenologist on deviantART
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.
There’s a good and a bad way to do the post-industrial redevelopment thing. Continue reading ‘Progress‘
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!
Oh, if you were worried about the baleful effects of public holidays on national productivity (which I most sincerely hope that you weren’t), rest easy after reading this post from Peter Martin.
Here are some piccies I took on a walk on Friday afternoon.
Little Larder by *phenomenologist on deviantART
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.
If you’re in Brisbane or if you’re visiting, you really should sign up for the FourThousand weekly email:
FourThousand is a weekly snapshot of Brisbane’s subculture - a Brisbane guide to film, music, design, books, art, goods and links for people who realise that the best things in life are often hard to find.
Lots of free tix, and FourThousand are aiming for 4000 subscribers. Although Kevin Rudd has now made Brisneyland famous, there’s a lot more to do around here than having a nice cup of tea and an Iced Vo-Vo.
4000 14/12/07 cover photo by nimuroji.
Disclosure: FourThousand is edited by a friend of mine, and some of the cover photos are shot by friends of mine.
As the glittering office and apartment towers pile ever higher on the narrow peninsula that hosts Brisbane’s CBD, news came last week about a true atrocity from a developer - the demolition of part of the Regent Theatre, and its replacement by… an office tower. The irony here is that much of Brisbane’s built heritage was destroyed in the late 70s and 80s, and this is the second “Save the Regent” campaign. Developers, the Bjelke-Petersen state government and interchangeable Labor and Liberal Council administrations marched in lockstep to knock down much of old Brisbane, and the Regent was a pioneer for the policy of partial preservation which reached its apogee under Liberal Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson - where many buildings were “saved” by the retention of their facades. In the case of the Regent, in 1980, the 1929 foyer and entrance hall were preserved and some of the fittings re-used in the “Showcase cinema”. You can read about the history of the building here.
The current proposal would preserve what is there, but fundamentally change the character of the building by alienating its purpose as public space - and as a cinema - and giving us yet another 38 story office block. The developers defend their project with the unoriginal claim that “the redevelopment of the Regent would see it given a new purpose.” Well, to be sure. But the lavish entrance hall will no doubt be protected by security guards and the only people who’ll enjoy its charm will be the suits who work there. It’s a nonsense to suggest that this sort of vandalism is in any way protecting the heritage of the cinema. Just as with the demolition of Festival Hall on Albert Street a while back, what will also be demolished is the material embodiment of many memories. To treat the Regent like this is to eviscerate its history and present design - as a theatre.
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’ve got the flu, so not much to report for me. But I did take a constitutional this afternoon - the weather in Brisbane is just beautiful at the moment - so different from the putrid and stinky Februaries of the last decade or so. And I took some photos for a mini-architectural tour of my ‘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.
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