Oh the tedious inevitability of it all

another rejection..

The split in the ranks of Australia's conservatives lends an air of the hypocritical to their earlier attacks on the Labor party's factionaldisputes (Party tricks bring Vaile home, 31st May). Perhaps they could agree that some dissent within their party as well as in society more generally can be a productive thing. Surely a political system which fosters debate and dialogue is the basis of a more robust democracy than one in which a false homogeneity is maintained?

spam

i've been receiving spam mail alarmingly frequently from "LongerHarderErectus". Perhaps they do realise i do not own my own male genitalia and in fact are advertising Homo Erectus?

Amazon thinks i'm a nerd

In the same way that TIVO is thought by many people to judge and categorise them, i've been finding that Amazon.com recommendation have taken on a spooky, semi-psychic level of accuracy. Today it suggeted Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' just as i was thinking i should read more Beckett which got me thinking...

Personalization techniques have been adopted by many companies already both on and offline. Some of the ways in which this information is gathered provides fodder for the TodayTonight crew with their sensationalist "they'll spy on you to see if you have a dog and then sell that information to pet-food manufacturers" (of course i think that we should be concerned about civil liberties but i'm not sure whether Big Brother ultimately cares as much about my domestic animal ownership as my political affiliations) but the Amazon method of checking your wishlist/purchases and library for some reason doesn't give me this feeling. Instead i feel flattered when it recommends Bataille, fascinated when it deduces that i will probably enjoy Lacan and warmly amused when it recommends the latest Get Fuzzy compendium.

I have heard that this does not work so well for other people, a good friend received many freakily accurate suggestions of obscure Scandinavian literature before Amazon started recommending powertools. I think it wanted him to branch out. Am looking forward to the day when Amazon realises the disproportionate amount of depressing modernist literature on mine and deduces that i need Prozac. Or perhaps some form of weaponry.

On leaving people to die on mountains..

eurovladd
9:02 AM

And not that I give a shit either way but there seem to be a lot of peoplewho weren't at the top of Everest who seem to think they knew the exact specificities of the event


cvm
9:17 AM

Is a tricky one.. Seems a little bizarre they could still make it to the top but couldn't help him down. And frankly anything that encourages respect and mutual obligation rather than just stupid competitiveness gets my vote.

Must be all those years of gender studies...


eurovladd
9:23 AM

Am with you on that. But I think it is very hard for people who weren'tthere experiencing the conditions etc to be able to make the call as towhether or not you could do something from 8800km below is all.

But yes, is a bit odd.

cvm
9:25 AM

If i was a cultural studies person i'd say that it was still important to be able to talk about the potential ethical demands of a situation based on themost accurate information on has available regardless of our direct accessor not to those conditions.

Just as well i recovered from that..


eurovladd
9:32 AM

True. But there will always be a disjuncture between the ethics of atheoretical situation and the lived experience of those in the corresponding"real" situation.

"EXTERNAL REFERENT TO AISLE FOUR!!"


Sorry. What just happened?

"Business is business" ~ David Luca

If ever anyone says to you that there's nothing inherently wrong with asystem where "value" is code for "dollar value" think of Mr. Lucas here (a farmer from the UK) who sells gallows to African nations such as Zimbabwe. I'm not convinced by the Liberal Party's argument that somekind of laissez-faire market-regulated system will ensure this, history shows that ethics arenot necessarily going to be particularly financially lucrative (rememberthat Swiss stockpiling of Nazi loot par example?).

Perhaps increasing age is actually more likely to make me a socialist.. Very strange.

Wheat with the properties of velcro..

Someone asked me yesterday what "fibre" is. i.e. the dietary fibre that we're always being exhorted to consume more of to prevent gremlins growing in our bowels, or some such. My answer was something about undigestible parts of food which served as a kind of manual broom through the guts (sorry, this is getting a little puerile). I kind of made this up.. it's probably vaguely true though.

The question then is: is anything undigestible high in fibre? Assuming the answer here is yes we could then place cement in the same category as bran which many would argue is long overdue.

The current Sydney flu: Imagined previously by Douglas Adams

"It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water."

May is a charm

Many in the current government refuse to acknowledge the existence ofclimate change until it comes time to argue for uranium mining and nuclearpower plants. These same people then reverse energy saving targets on newhomes that had been designed to tackle climate change ("Cheaper, not so green homes" 2nd May). Surely it's time to move beyond merely 'convenient' environmental policy to a broader vision consistent with not just itself but the kind of future that we can survive in.

Aprils pitiful little rejects...

Tony Abbott’s opinion piece in yesterdays SMH (Balance gets the wobbles in lofty stacks, 12th April) seems another indication of an already disturbing trend towards allowing politicians to use the pages of our national newspapers as spaces for Party Political advertising thinly veiled as comment. Surely the political mix of the Heralds’ own commentators should be enough to give us a broad range of political arguments and perspectives without having to replace journalists or columnists with Liberal or Labor party hacks. If the Herald is going to continue this trend, perhaps we could have a separate page on which State, National and International politicians can have their say away from the democratic spaces of the letters and comments pages?


It is argued that one of the signs of a robust democracy is the ability to tolerate and benefit from dissent. Indonesia’s treatment of the Papuans is a clear denial of their right to disagree with, and agitate for change of, their government. It is interesting to note that Australia granted the Papuans protection visas based on claims of persecution by their government for speaking out. Meanwhile our own government attempts to curtail dissent in Australia through sedition laws and criticism of those who speak out against the Pacific solution policy. It’s not just Jakarta who should be asking for an apology; the blatant double standards here mean that the Indonesians, Papuans and the Australian public all deserve a long and sincere apology (“Jakarta: say sorry or no ambassador”, April 19th). Preferably followed by a resignation.


Recognizing the evils that have been perpetrated by our forbears does not inherently demand that we think of Australia society as anything but “relatively benign and tolerant” (Truce, and truth, in history wars, April 20th). On the contrary, an understanding of the history of dispossession and disenfranchisement experienced by Australia’s indigenous population can help us to understand how we as a society have changed and how much action is still necessary to ensure that Indigenous Australians are never again treated like second class citizens. The view shared by Ms Devine and Mr Windschuttle that our society would be crippled by such admissions misrepresents the general public of Australia who on the whole recognize that it is possible and often productive to recognize a shameful history and it’s resonance with other historical events like the Holocaust to ensure that we can with some confidence say “never again”.