I know, ok?

I know.

But you see, there was a thesis, and then there's been teaching.
And there's been some resting, and there's going to be a wedding. And a new house. And some kind of overseas trip...

So - I know, and I'm sorry. But there's stuff happening out in the world.

I'll be back though - you can't get rid of me that easily.

Obama, Rudd, and the Politics of Cool [A response...]

As a quick response to politics.tom ...

I wonder whether Rudd still has that 'game', that slight aura of 'cool' that he managed to scrape together during the campaign. More and more, I'm getting the impression that he ended up with a lot of reflected cool, simply by being cooler than his opponent.




Since coming to office the sense of humour, energy and inventiveness that characterised aspects of the Kevin07 campaign seem to be missing. Some of this is simply the difference between campaigning and governing, between being a challenger and a leader.

Joe Trippi, at a public lecture at Melbourne Uni last night, talked about the ability of the insurgent to be interesting, to take risks in order to grasp power. In his conception it is the the challenger who [even if only through desperation] can afford to be inventive, interesting and different. For Trippi, billed last night as "the man who invented internet politics" this was behind the strategy he planned for Howard Dean in the 2000 US election, and the bottom-up campaign style of Obama.

But as politics.tom points out, Obama hasn't lost it since coming to office - and I can't help but wish Rudd had tried a little harder to hold on to it.

One week to go...

...and then I will be back to the frequent poster that you know and love. Ok, fair enough. I will BECOME the frequent poster that you always wished I could have been, back in the old days.

In the meantime, I have a paper cut. It is very deep, and it is on that little connecty bit between the index finger and the next finger on my left hand. This may not seem like a problem, but it really really is. For two reasons.

Firstly, it hurts. A lot. So I have those two fingers taped together with bandaids.

Which leads to problem two - it is very difficult to type with two fingers taped together. Honestly. Try it.

So, I'll be back, in the post-thesis world, when my incredibly serious paper cut had healed.

It's not me, it's my thesis...

... which is due in about four weeks. Oh, dear, dear.

So I'm sorry for being neglectful.

But in the meantime - Obama. Mad Men. Anne Tyler. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-5. Simon Schama's History of Britain. Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino. Don Watson's American Journeys. Movida.

I promise I'll be back.

Obama and the power of language

Throughout the course of this thesis I've read many a victory speech - mostly workmanlike, grateful statements and thoughts for the future.

Not that it really needs to be said... but Obama gave a cracker the other night. Personal, powerful and political.

Listening from 'elsewhere' this particularly leapt out at me:

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.


But it's hard to deny that the most powerful part of this speech was when Obama made it real [and I also can't deny there were tears in my eyes]:

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one thats on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. Shes a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldnt vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that shes seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we cant, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when womens voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we cant, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can.


I understand the deep-seated and wide-ranging historical and cultural reasons why Australian politicians don't speak this way... but for a moment last Wednesday, damn I wished they would.

Couric and co, the Straight Talk Express, and West Wing imitating life

In honour of our US politics-gender-media expert, who has left us to return to Chicago... a piece from Salon about the role of female newsreaders in this election.

Also, NY Times on the parallels between this campaign and the last two series of the West Wing.

And Eugene Jarecki in the Huffington Post on the derailed 'straight talk express'.

All worth a read to get you in the mood. Bring on election day...

Obama, Davies... and the news media.

While wading through the buckets of coverage on the upcoming US election [does anybody else just LOVE Michelle Obama?] I came across Anne Davies in today's Age:

"In this election, the blogosphere has become the front line for smear and innuendo, whether it be allegations that Senator Obama is a Muslim or that Mrs Palin is a book-banning, gun-toting bigot."

This bothers me on so many immediate and deeper, need-to-be-thought-out levels that haven't even occurred to me yet. What leaps off the page is equating "Islam" with "smear and innuendo - or at least inferring that some people are using it in that way - without ANY thought, reflection or analysis of some of the inherent problems with that automatic assumption. One kind of smear: being a bigot. Another kind of smear: being a Muslim.

I suppose I wanted something - a sentence, anything - on the incredibly problematic nature of this equation, where culture or religion is essentially equated to intolerance or narrow-mindedness. [This isn't to say that Sarah Palin IS any of those things, but rather that a discourse that equates the two as similar kinds of allegations is deeply troubling.]

So do we just give up on the hope that the mainstream news media can be capable of this kind of deeper analysis, a place to draw out power relations, assumptions and social structures? Or perhaps that's an unrealistic expectation to begin with, and that's where research and scholarship comes in?

All I know is that this kind of reporting, which blends 'news' and 'analysis' and 'observation' is certainly not helping.