This will hurt me...

Shag on a rock or a cormorant on a pontoon? Bellerive Beach, Hobart, March 2021. Like A Thief In Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Humanity by Slavoj Žižek Žižek is a funny bugger. This is more a collection of essays with a loose connective thread than a consolidated and coherent thesis. I very much enjoyed (perhaps not the right word) those elements exploring the breakdown of any ideological consensus. For mine, Žižek accurately identifies the failures of the left to reconcile with those most disaffected by prevailing neoliberal globalism that has seen an immense benefit to the few at the expense of the many. Conversely, I have no interest at all in those sections exploring the revolutionary potential of Hollywood musicals or his musing on the #MeToo movement. On that, while he is closure to the mark when it comes to Weinstein, masculine ideology and the dominant power structures at play in sexual dynamics, his resistance to the embrace of active consent did read a little too ...

Here is a photo of Tasmania Police's Hobart HQ right in the middle of town. Following on from the earlier post, ABC radio have had a story on loop all day saying how I have “ criticised ” Tasmania Police’s decision to utilise sniffer dogs at an upcoming music festival. I guess that I have, but I thought that what I offered was far more constructive than. I’d like to think that I have an excellent working relationship with the local constabulary. I certainly think that they do a good job more generally. But the thing with the gigs and the sniffer dogs is that it just isn’t very effective. The ABC quoted Tasmanian Police as saying they have a “no tolerance” rule for all drug users at the festival, but that doesn’t fit with how they deal with drug users in a general sense. Public policy is not a neat, simple business, and it generally doesn’t fit with black and white visions of how things work, so in this sense, I don’t envy the police when it comes to something like drug use. The law...

Are you sick of rude, opinionated people yelling at each other about politics? I know that I am. Thus I enjoyed this little instruction manual . Everyone cops a serve, just the way that I like it. You might like it too. Be warned though, there is a little fruity language.

Politics can be an exciting, boring, uplifting, depressing and downright nasty business. It always has been. For these reasons I have made it the focus of my study for an awfully long time, but also for these reasons I more often than not try to avoid following it at all costs. I was going to do this whole positive bit on 'politics' being essentially about the conciliation and compromise of innumerable issues in the pursuit of maintaining peace, harmony and (hopefully) prosperity that is (roughly) 'just/fair', but my heart just isn't in it. Against my better judgment, I decided have a look around at some of the reaction to Sarah Palin being chosen as McCain's Vice-President nomination, but the discussion is just so split along partisan lines that I just can't be bothered. There are an awful lot of hateful people out there who seem to confuse 'righteous anger' with 'coherent argument'. My free time at the moment is WAY too valuable to waste ti...

As the site itself says, the World Freedom Atlas is a "geovisualisation tool for world statistics" that covers the years 1990 to 2006. It draws from most of the major academic literature that measures and ranks various 'freedoms' (political, social, legal and so on), and really does give an idea of where a state sits in the context of various freedoms visually. If - like me - you dig stats, maps and the innovative use of technology to bring stats and maps alive, take a look. The World Freedon Atlas can be found here .

A number of days ago I spoke about a concept often used in teaching political science called The Tragedy of the Commons . To illustrate, I used one of my stock examples, that of whaling. Today, I could not help but photograph another of my hoard of examples to demonstrate public policy problems, which may be more readily apparent to people the world over. The building in which my office is located houses a number of businesses. Each floor of the converted warehouse has a small kitchenette, shared between offices. There are just three offices on the top floor, ours; a barrister/solicitor office; and an IT crowd who seems to do some sort of animation. As one might expect, the barrister and staff are all very neat and tidy, and for the most part our lot buy their lunch and don’t really use the kitchenette. I do, however, enjoy an instant coffee on a cold morning, so regularly use the kettle. That is generally the extent of my usage. The IT crowd, predictably, consists of a group of young,...

I can’t really be bothered to enter too much into Alexander Downer’s latest theatrical outburst as he exits Australian politics, as I am more than aware that he's playing the same old kind of politics that he always has. That said, it is nice to see him go out as big a hypocrite as he has been throughout. His quote: "If Mr Rudd doesn't run a candidate in Mayo, well then he's slinking away in a cowardly way and he should be prepared to face up to the judgement of the people of Australia whenever that judgement is called to be made. I think they're treating the people of Mayo with contempt if they're not prepared to run a candidate when they're the Government of Australia." So let me get this straight, the guy who contested (and won) the seat of Mayo in the 2007 election, but whose party lost miserably and looks set for a good stretch in opposition. Perhaps understandably, he doesn’t like the taste of opposition so he bails out early, forcing a by-elect...

This is just a very quick post on matters of public policy. I wanted to voice my ongoing displeasure with the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and their seeming inability to separate self-interest with the interests of Australians more broadly. I think (actually, I know), the key thing that frustrates me with this organisation is their constant refrain that “we care, we’re doctors, we help people” as if they practice their profession out of the goodness of their heart. Don’t come the raw prawn fellas, doctors are actually pretty well compensated for the hours that they work. They also work in what must be the most highly protected industry in the entire country. There would be unions across the country that would love having the power to bully and intimidate ‘bosses’ in the way that the AMA regularly does. Anyway, I am glad that we are starting to have this debate . I can only hope that the fact that the AMA appears to have ‘ declared war ’ on the Commonwealth Government might mean...

I have expended quite a few words on Robert Mugabe over the past few months, but really, I think that five words is all that you need: What an odious, obnoxious prick. His comment this time? Prior to his dodgy runoff election he comes out with : "Anyone who tries to undermine our land reform we will challenge. We are prepared to fight for our country or to go to war if we lose it - as happened to our forefathers." This is exactly the rhetoric that one could see in Spain prior to the Spanish General Election of 1936 (albeit from both sides in that case). We know what happened there .

To celebrate Henry’s upcoming appearance on WIN News tonight, and the forthcoming expansion of TEAM MCCRACKEN/FITZGERALD , I have decided to utilise the Photo of the day slot as a feature on the little bloke himself and how he fits into the TEAM . Think of it as a This is Your Life (thus far). So here is the first picture. Here we can see Henry at ten months. I remember this day well, because it was at this point that he really started to get his act together with the crawling. I have a video of the act that can be viewed here . Next up, we have Henry sort some our many excess books with Jen early last summer. Here he showcased his literary worth and selected those texts to go, and those to stay. True to form, he piled up the Hemingway in the MUST KEEP stack, and turfed most of the literary criticism, post-modernist theory and pretentious art wank out the door. Good boy Henry. Here you can see Henry and me on his first birthday. For some reason he was trying to slip away unnoticed, bu...

Look at picture: Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. He says he hates gay people and wants to chop all of their heads off . Hmmmmm. Let me look at that photo again: Yeah, the thing is you see, you're still not convincing me...

Without a shadow of a doubt, Hugo Chávez is the rudest head of state currently going around. Over the years, we have seen and heard many examples of his discourteous behaviour: ex-wives ; ex-lovers ; Spanish royals ; US Ambassadors ; the General Assembly of the United Nations ; the US President (a lot); Mexicans ; along with pretty much everyone else! So there should be no surprise that he's at it yet again ! I do like the logic though: Angela Merkel is German politician. She identifies (broadly) as ' of the right '. Some German right wingers supported Fascism in the 1930s and 1940s. Hitler was a Fascist. Ergo , Merkel = "..." With those powers of reasoning, Chavez should be heading up the UTas branch of Socialist Alliance !

Today I've found an interesting ad for US Savings Bonds from 1952. Essentially, They have decided that the best way to promote the bonds is by drawing up a map of Communist Party members in each State. One assumes the thinking was that the terror provoked by the knowledge of five fifth columnists in Alaska potentially getting up to no good would be enough to scare the housewives out of a few dollars to stump up for another H-Bomb! This is one of my all time favourite ads, as it reveals a certain mindset (paranoia) at a time when the Cold War (still in its infancy) threatened to turn hot. I'm sure that the Bonds people saw this as a public service announcement of sorts, kind of like mapping of the outbreak of some horrible disease. Maybe the implication implicit here is that Bobby Joe down in Kansas better start rooting out the seditious six! When I look at this map though, there is one thing that I can't help but ponder. I wonder about that lonely Red down there in Mississ...

I was looking at this photo essay from Foreign Policy magazine this morning, and one photo struck me in particular. It essentially was someone packing a briefcase full of cash. As I mentioned yesterday , with inflation running at over 100,000 percent, Zimbabwe's rate of inflation is currently the highest in the world. Now, like most I suspect, I'm struggling to get my head around what that means, and its broader implications for people. Using a couple of different online currency convertors, ZWD$1 million fetches roughly: AUS $37 or US $34 or Euro €21. Now this is achieved using flat currency transaction on market rate. In the real world, Zimbabweans would have to take whatever the black marketers are offering. The scantest of research reveals that the best that they might hope for out of that same ZWD $1 million is somewhere between US $3 to US $5. To be totally honest with you, I still can't get my head around it. Surely wages cannot keep up with that sort of inflation....

You may have heard that there has been an election going on in Zimbabwe. In what will be a test for democracy in southern Africa, the results may well decide the fate of liberal democracy in much of the under-developed world. The BBC has an interesting pictorial essay on the election, and it fits nicely with their streaming of 'on the ground' contributions and observations that have been solicited from all over the country. This is an excellent insight for those of us lucky enough to live in stable countries, and should remind us to be very thankful for our comparatively 'dull' electoral systems. The Times over the weekend featured an excellent article that spoke of the " the electricity of hope " that can be felt in the electoral processes of developing countries. In a result that has – to be frank – stunned me, independent monitoring groups have said that returns posted at about two-thirds of polling stations have given Tsvangirai 55% of the vote to Mugab...

Two ads for today, and they have a political theme. As in any dictatorship, anniversaries were big events in the former-East Germany. My post for today features some government posters prepared for the thirtieth anniversary of the DDR in 1979. The emphasis that you can see in the two that I have chosen is generally indicative of the propaganda line of the state: a youthful, peace-loving, hard-working nation that was strongly supported by its citizens. And didn’t that turn out to be true? These posters interest me as much for the way that they conflict with the general idea of what East Germany was supposed to be like as the designs themselves. Remember, for most of us in the West the images of the DDR were stark: depressing, horrible food, old people shuffling about, monotonous, tired, lots of mullets , angry in a despondent kind of way. Really, it was like Devonport. "Our congratulations!" "Everything for Human Happiness." A broader collection of thirtieth annivers...

I wanted to say something about Pru Goward's 'interesting' public comments on paid maternity leave of late. Aside from an unhealthy self-indulgence – in that any model bar her own is seemingly unacceptable – it makes some rather awkward assumptions about what it means to be a feminist. At any rate, I wanted to say something about it but haven't had the time. Fortunately though, Kim at Larvatus Prodeo has done so, and expanded into some of the margins of the maternity leave debate that also interest me. It may also interest you, so if so, pop along and have a gander!

That naughty Abu Bakar Bashir is at it again! I don't want to enter too much into this guy or his latest caper, because to be honest there is no need as the guy doesn't need my help to establish that he is a fool. However, there is one aspect of his latest tirade against infidels that struck me. Here is this bloke, 69 years old, advising to the youth of Indonesia that "the young must be first at the front line - don't hide at the back. You must be at the front, die as martyrs and all your sins will be forgiven. This is how to achieve forgiveness." Right. And how many times has old Abu martyred himself for the grand cause? That would be the first question I would ask if someone was advising me to die for something they believe in.

Unlike DMX, I've heard of him. And I know that the guy has admirable qualities, and I know that it's very much against the trend (at least the global trend), but I just don't get the whole Barack Obama thing. I know what it means for people to have a viable African-American candidate, and I know that many Americans appear to be looking to make a statement that the US is capable of choosing a 'progressive' and more articulate alternative to the current occupant of the White House. But Obama? He just leaves me cold. For a while I wasn't sure what it was that left me that way. And then it clicked. I've figured out what it is that makes me unsure about Barack Obama. No, not the cult-like behaviour of some of his followers (although that too freaks me out a bit, but it's not unknown in US politics). What turns me off is who he reminds me of when I hear him speak. And who is that, you may well ask. Johnathon Livingston Seagull . That's who. And if you re...

(With a nod to Kottke.org for the tip.) Apparently the rapper DMX has some fame in the world of music, although to be honest I'd struggle to identify him. I have heard of him though. Anyway, he revealed in an interview just published that he had never heard of Barack Obama, and it prompts an amusing little back and forth. People need to think of this the next time they wheel out a celebrity to pimp a politician or cause! The original discussion can be found at the XXL magazine's website . (Note: the interviewer is in maroon, DMX in green). " Are you following the presidential race? Not at all.   You're not? You know there's a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there's Hillary Clinton. His name is Barack?!   Barack Obama, yeah. Barack?!   Barack. What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?   Yeah, his dad is from Kenya. Barack Obama?   Yeah. What the fuck?! That ain't no fuckin' name, yo. That ain't that nigga's n...