Round the blogging traps - EM Lilien and fin de siècle, Ramana and fear of the other, Neil Whitfield's reminiscences

I have often mentioned Hel's ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly. It remains one of my favourite blogs.

The illustration -  EM Lilien, Das stille Lied, c1900 - comes from a guest post on Hel's blog, Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation: EM Lilien, by (I think) Dr Lynne Swarts, a Sydney historian and academic.

I had not heard of E M Lilien. When I first saw the illustration I thought Aubrey Beardsley and fin de siècle. If you look at the Beardsley in this post, Monday Forum - fin de siècle, the decadents and other such matters, you can see why I had that reaction.

There is indeed a linkage between Lilien and equivalent movements in France and England, although Lynne is writing from a particular perspective, Lilien as Jewish and Zionist intellectual and artist. It's another thread.

I had not realised that Hels had broken her finger in rather dramatic circumstances. I quote:

This week I was walking down the street, never less than 2 metres away from the closest person. Yet two hoons ran up from behind, yelling about the stupidity of allowing elderly people out of their houses. In fear I fell over on the concrete footpath, breaking one finger, dislocating another finger, cutting the face above the eye and bruising the jaw like a boxer. 

Ouch!!!!!!!!  Seriously, while covid-19 has revealed much that is good in human society, it's also drawn out some of the stupidities. 

This graphic comes from Panic, a post on Ramana's Musings. I would add  Facebook and news! 

Written on 20 March at the start of Indian lock downs, the post takes a practical and philosophical view. Of course one should take sensible precautions, but in the end fear becomes it's own worst enemy leading to paralysis.

Another short Ramana post, A Common Enemy, deals with the fear of the other, the way in which this feeds into division. Ramana's blog features short posts that mix sensible commentary with personal reflections and details of personal life. Specifically on the fear of the other, we have to resist this for ir creates poison.

Finally in this short round up, I continue to enjoy Neil Whitfield's reminiscences and repeats of past posts on Neil's Commonplace Book. Neil and I met through blogging, later in person. After these years, Neil's posts are in part a journey through my own life.

It's been a while since I did a blogging round-up. Somehow, day to day pressures have changed my focus. Time I did some more!   

Round the blogging tracks - Matthew's trip to the Middle East, more on Israel Folau

All work and and too little play has made Jim rather a dull chap recently. Both my blogs and my fellow bloggers have been somewhat neglected. It's been a miserable day here in Daceyville,  cold and raining quite heavily, so I thought I should take some time just to browse.

Over on Happy Antipodean, Matthew da Silva reports in detail on his Middle Eastern trip, daily reports with photos. It's quite a long series. Perhaps the best way to navigate is to start at the first day, Abu Dhabi on the outward leg, and then follow through using the side bar. This is easy to do because the posts are all in order.

I have not visited any of the places Matthew mentioned. I found it an interesting series, well illustrated with his photographs, although I learned perhaps more on the vagaries of taxi drivers and street touts than I might have wished! And I got a little lost in the multiple pricing references.

Of the sections, I found Amman, Petra and Istanbul, most interesting, Jerusalem less so, although there were still incidental things of interest. I'm not quite sure why I had this reaction, but the picture I got  was very blurred.

On 20 April 2019 in Problems of employment and free speech - Folau, Ridd and Anderson, I explored in a tentative way the issues raised by Israel Folau's sacking by Rugby Australia because of the way he expressed certain religious views. In a comment, marcellous pointed me to a strange case, Gaynor v Local Court of NSW & Ors [2019] NSWSC 516. The summary reads:

CIVIL PROCEDURE – where plaintiff made application that judge should disqualify himself because of apprehended bias – where plaintiff argued that the judge’s apprehended bias is based on the alleged political views of the judge’s tipstaff – whether the alleged political views of the tipstaff would cause an independent observer to believe that the judge could not or might not bring an independent mind to the task of deciding the case – application dismissed.

I read the case with a degree of bemusement trying to work out what it was all about. Fortunately, marcellous provided a later explanation in Twinks and Tipstaves. I leave it too you to read. It's worth it!

In early June, Winton Bates had a parallel column on the Folau case, Does Israel Folau deserve support from advocates of free speech?  Winton's view was yes, although he was not absolutely convinced by John Stuart Mill’s arguments in On Liberty on the question. Interestingly, ethicist Professor Peter Singer (hardly an advocate for Folau's religious views) also quotes Mill from On Liberty in concluding that the Australian Rugby Union had acted unwisely. In Singer's word, the ARU had "scored an own goal". 

I suspect that Rugby Australia Chief Executive Officer Raelene Castle would now share that view. The case has blurred together issues associated with freedom of speech and freedom of religion, including the question of the extent to which an organisation can impose conditions on free speech as part of an employment contract. From a purely practical perspective, it has cost the ARU a key player in the lead-up to the World Cup and has divided a code with so many Pacific Islander players who share Mr Folau's religious views. It has also cost the ARU a fair bit of cash with more expense to come to defend an unfair dismissal claim.

I do not know how all this will play out, but it has been an unfortunate experience.

Postscript

Mr Folau is really making things difficult for those of us who are concerned with underlying principles with his latest public forays. This is but one example of the latest reports. If he wishes to be a preacher he is entitled to argue his views. One could say that now he has been sacked, the matter is under legal dispute, he can say what he likes. But I do think that he needs to recognise that there are other views. I think that there is a conflict between the preaching role and his role as an ARU employee. 

Initial reflections on thirteen years of blogging

My first post on this blog came on 19 March 2006, so the blog turned 13 last Tuesday. In human terms, that makes the blog a teenager. In blogging terms, I fear that it may have entered old age for there have been so many changes over that period.

Since starting, I have published 3,339 posts here, some very short, most middling length, some very long. I don't know how many words I have written here, somewhere over two million would be my guess. While my posting has sometimes been irregular, the blog provides a record of issues, events and changing attitudes over that period, in general and in a personal sense. I am not the same person I was in March 2006, nor are my attitudes the same. Just so much has happened.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to reflect on some of the past events and my associated writing here and on my other blogs. In saying this, I don't want to make a rod for my own back. I remain busy and somewhat disorganised. But at a time of another fundamental change in my own life, it seems a sensible thing to do. I note that the change is not bad, it's just change.

Inevitably with so many words, there is a lot of dross. However, I also think that I have said some useful things that are worth repeating and discussing. 

Death of Anna Carlborg

For those who knew her, I am sad to report that Anna Carlborg (AC) died last week. Several years ago she had cancer which they thought had been caught. It returned last last year.

Anna was a remarkable woman, Born in Poland towards the end of the war, she grew up under the communist system, training as a mathematician. She left Poland when her then husband took a job at IBM in Paris. They came to Australia where Anna worked in IT at IBM and Westpac.

Anna lived between Poland and Australia, appreciating both although sometimes not sure just where she belonged. She was widely read with a love of film and theatre as well as literature. It was Anna who introduced me to the art of flânerie, something that became an addiction. I guess that I was doing it anyway!

Anna began blogging in 2013. Her blog, My Observations, captures her interests and sometimes idiosyncratic English, thinking Polish but then writing English. She was very kind and much loved by her small group of friends including those she met through blogging.

Round the blogging tracks - China Financial Markets, Club Troppo, Darcy Moore's blog with a dash of Milk Maid Marion

I remain bogged down in other writing. I will give a report here when I have a little more progress to report. For the moment, I took the day to revisit my blog list. I really, really need to update this.

On China Financial markets, Michael Pettis asks the questions Does Cutting Taxes on the Wealthy Lead to Greater Growth?.His conclusion:

 Policies that increase income inequality can in some cases lead to higher savings, higher investment, and greater long-term growth. But, in other cases, such policies either reduce growth and increase unemployment or force up the debt burden. What determines which of these outcomes takes place is whether or not savings are scarce and have constrained investment.

I have to say that this strikes me intuitively as very sensible. I wonder what Winton might think? Mind you, to get an answer we might have to drag him a way from his current consideration of Aristotle and happiness!

On Club Troppo, Nicholas Gruen has begun a new series on the use of wellbeing frameworks in policy development, starting with What have wellbeing frameworks ever done for us: Part One. I must say that I was puzzled when the Australian Treasury adopted, or seemed to adopt, this approach, something that Nicholas discusses in his first post. I just couldn't see what it might mean in any practical way.

On his blog, Darcy Moore's MyData: Personalising the Curriculum addresses the question of the use of personal data in teaching or of teaching about personal data. I actually found the post a little confusing. Its quite an interesting post, but seems to me to mix quite different things together: one was the need for students to be aware of and educated about their personal data and the way in which it might be used; a second thread was the use of that data and the issues surrounding it as a broader teaching tool.

The post left me a little depressed. There are some important issues here, but it reminded me just how complex life has become in general andfor young people in particular.

Changing directions, over at The Milk Maid Marion, Marion complains Don’t call me a “female farmer”, I am just a farmer. She wonders about the prevalence of women only agriculture groups.

What am I missing? Why do women flock to special female-only groups and why do so few of us turn up to broader industry events? 

What do you think? Are female-only ag forums important to make women feel comfortable expressing ourselves or do they simply reinforce a perception that we’re somehow not able to perform in mixed company?  . 

I actually think she has a point, although the comments picked up the other side. One of the things Marian expressed reservations about was the Museum of Victoria exhibition, Women of the Land that displays "objects and audio-visual stories that collectively make up the first official documentation of women's contribution to Australian agriculture." The exhibition is an outcome of the Invisible Farmer project subtitled "The invisible farmer: the forgotten history of Australian country women". The ABC story on this project begins:

Australian farming women have been on the land as long as men, but they’ve been largely ignored by the history books. This is despite their significant contribution to the rural economy

I bristled a little at all this. Before going on, this is the photo used to illustrate the ABC story. Comments follow the story.

This 1944 photo of a woman riding is used to illustrate women in agriculture. But if you look at it closely you will see that it does nothing of the kind. It's actually a very gendered posed shot. Look at the sandals and the tie.Now consider her riding the mower in that outfit.

This shot of Aunt Kay picked almost at random was probably taken a little later but certainly in the 1940s. It's a more realistic shot

Roles in agriculture were gendered as were inheritance patterns. However, the idea that farming women were in some ways invisible strikes me as a bit of a travesty. They certainly weren't invisible to me growing up. In fact, they struck me as fiendishly practical and competent.

Nor were their roles limited to "domestic duties". They did whatever was required to support what were in most cases family businesses. Far more women managed properties than their equivalents in other sectors of the economy.  

There is a balance issue in all this, of course. In agriculture as in other parts of Australian life, there have been shifts in roles and attitudes. However, I do wonder if the particular focus in this exhibition and the preceding Invisible Farmer project is partly a reflection of how much has been forgotten in an increasingly urbanised city focused Australia, as well as current preoccupations.

Its not possible to research and write in the areas that I do without being very conscious of the role of women in agriculture.The material is all there.  

This last sidetrack has exhausted my time. I will have to finish here.

Congratulations to marcellous on surviving ten years of blogging

It is ten years since marcellous started blogging, an anniversary celebrated in Ten years. The post begins:

It is ten years since the first post on this blog. Some kind of retrospective seems called for. 

I had lurked on others’ blogs for years.  I probably caught the blogging wave just as it was about to recede.  As early as September that year I wondered if that was so as I saw blogs falling by the wayside.  That may have been more churn than decline, but by 2012 or 2013 other social media were clearly leaving blogs behind.  Now it is mostly the older and more fixed in their ways who persist. (My bolding.).

Mmmm. I agree re the impact of other forms of social media. I agree that blogging has greatly changed and should now be perhaps be classified as an aging form. However, when I look the really big changes in blogging the position is a little more complex than that.

The original diary blog has certainly declined , while there has been loss at the younger end of the age spectrum. The days when I used Google blog search to track evolving events are long gone, replaced by twitter and the adoption of live blogging approaches by the main stream media. And yet? Is it just the case that we have settled into our own niches? After all, new blogs are still emerging, although they are now probably far more special purpose.

Looking at my own platforms (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, column) based on what data I have plus my own impressions, there are interesting differences across platforms.Some of the data is a little uncomfortable. For example, on Twitter 63% of my followers are male, only 37% female; 84% of my followers come from Australia, 64% from NSW. That's a bit unbalanced.

On my public Facebook page by contrast, males drop to to 56%. Facebook also provides age data where there is a distinct younger skew. By contrast, on this blog I think my readership and certainly my commenters are older. This is the case for my newspaper column as well. Those interested in history in general including local history do tend to be older.

I fear I have sidetracked a little, although I blame marcellous for that! However, my purpose here was actually to congratulate him on surviving ten years of blogging. marcellous's post provides an overview of some of his posts including his neglected favourite Drug dealing in the Eastern Suburbs – a true story.  

 

Sunday Snippets - mainly climate change and the need for middle ground

This is the first of two photos from ABC New England North West that made me smile. They were taken at Red Range on the New England Tablelands. The second will follow in a moment.

This morning's post is a meander with a special focus on what other bloggers are saying.

In Where are the sandwiches of yesteryear?, marcellous mourns the loss of Sydney Opera House sandwiches (among other things).This is followed by a rather nice review, Berg, Bruckner, Dohnanyi, of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performance that was associated with the lost sandwiches.

It is a truth universally acknowledged - I do like that phrase however hackneyed it may have become - that I am not a music buff. marcellous makes me wish that I were!

This is the second photo. You may see why I laughed. There is a strong toilet theme in Australian humour. The dunny has been the source of many jokes.

The decision on who should build Australia's next submarines is close. According to a story in the Interpreter, the Japanese bid looks sunk. If so, that would be a real turn around after earlier remarks by the then PM Tony Abbott.

In On-line Opinion, Don Aitkin repeated a piece from his blog ‘But aren’t 97 per cent of climate scientists sure that humans are causing global warming?’ The phrasing gives the answer. I think that Don has a point, but I do get so sick of certain elements of the debate.

As I write, 171 countries have ratified the Paris Climate treaty, so it now has the effect of law, if with considerable ambiguities and uncertainties. One of the points I tried to make in the context of the Abbott Government's actions was a very simple one: regardless of one's views on the overall issue, there was a global consensus that action needed to be taken. That was a reality that had to be recognised. In those circumstances, it made no sense in policy terms to dismantle the Australian emissions trading architecture since some form of emissions trading seemed likely to emerge at global level. The Government could achieve its policy objectives in another way.

There was never any chance that my view would be accepted, the politics dictated otherwise, but I remain convinced that my position was sensible in public policy terms.

Moving beyond this point, the thing that I find so difficult lies in the way so many things get confused together to the point that it can be difficult to have a sensible conversation.

Is climate change happening? Quite possibly. There is actually more consensus on this than would appear at first sight, a consensus concealed by the debate about causes. Those attacking the current climate change orthodoxy point to past examples of climate change. Essentially, it has occurred, will occur, One consequence of this interest is an expansion in our knowledge of past climate.

This is something that I am personally interested in and do write about, especially in an Australian context. When I first studied history, I more or less, mostly more, took climate as a given. I am now much more sensitive to the impact of climate variations on human history, both short and long term. We also know just so much more about past climates. I would count this as a real plus of the focus on climate change, although knowledge and awareness was expanding before the climate change debate became so intense.

Within the debate about climate change, the thing that I am most interested in is the question of sea level changes, for that is arguably the most important element both directly, how it affects land surfaces, and indirectly, how it affects climate. We know that sea level changes are often slow, but can also happen quite suddenly and dramatically. Some of the evidence, or at least the reporting on the evidence, would appear to suggest that we may be about to experience quite dramatic sea level changes. I would like to know more about this.

Once we move from the question of whether climate change is happening and what it might mean, we then go to the question of causes. Here I am inclined to accept the argument of human induced causes. I just don't think that we can pimp so much stuff into the atmosphere without effect, and the warming effect of certain gasses appears to be well established. However, I don't know how much of the changes can be attributed to human action, how much to other factors. So now we have two uncertainties, those associated with the extent of climate change, those associated with cause.

Then we come to the desired responses to all this. Here I simply despair, for we have entered the role of theology, of beliefs, rather than science. Long ago in the context of Sydney water restrictions, I wrote of the way that climate change was being used to justify very silly policy positions. Now it's gone to extremes, especially on the environmentalist side.

We live in a world dominated by two existential positions.

One says climate change is happening, it's a disaster. it's human induced and therefore we must take whatever steps are necessary to solve the problem, and this includes the following steps Fit in here whatever position you like. A second says we don't know if climate change is happening, if it is happening we don't know that it's human induced as compared to a natural phenomenon and, in any case, we don't know what to do about it. Fit in here opposition to any action at all. There can be no joining between these two extremes.

 For those of us who sit in the middle, life can be a tad uncomfortable.Ask questions on climate change and you are a deniest. Support coal mining and you are committing a moral sin notwithstanding price based arguments. In a reducing emissions world, you can still have coal mining if the emissions price is right. Coal mining is an economic, not moral, activity.  Alternatively, say climate change seems to be happening, it could well be human induced on the evidence, we need to do something about it, and you are a wet leftie.

It's all quite hard. In some of my writing, I have tried to define a position that says if it's happening, what might we do about it? How do we create structures that allow a fast, phased, response? What are the options we have? How do we use these changes to our advantage?  In answering the last, I tried to look especially at new land-use techniques that, intuitively, might offer special benefits.

I don't accept the position of a conflicted right, conflicted because the right's denial of climate change makes debate difficult,  that price based solutions are the sole answer, although I think that price based solutions are central. I don't accept the position of the left that we should ban on one side, subsidise on the other. Some of this is crazy stuff.

Idealistically, what I want is middle ground where we can have a sensible conversation.

I have sidetracked from my original idea of snippets based around a review of what other bloggers are saying. Sorry about that.
.

Saturday Morning Musings - reflections on a decade of blogging

The first post on this blog dates to March 2006. It was just a test post. The first substantive posts appeared in April 2006. For that reason, I count the anniversary of the blog from that April. On 8 April in my opening post, I wrote:

Since my first test post, I have been mulling over how I want to use this blog. 

Much of my professional work is client or management focused. There is so little time for reflection, for integrating the things I do and learn, both professional and non-professional. There is also little time for conversation. 

I work mainly from a home office. On some days I am alone for six to eight hours except for the constant email traffic, most focused on work issues. This adds to the conversation gap. 

So, thinking about all this, I want to use this blog to chat about all those things that would otherwise be submerged.

It took me a while to work out what I was doing. There were three posts in April, just one in May, six in June. Posting then accelerated. The first comment came in July from Geoff Robinson in response to a story I had written on his then blog.

Ten years, 3,037 posts, 10,176 comments including my own responses later, I suppose one could say that the blog has settled into something of a pattern! I haven't felt the need to be especially reflective about the blog's history, although I have been enjoying Neil's reflections and repeats over at his latest place. I say latest place advisedly, for Neil has been through several phases of what I once called that dreaded blog instability, changing templates and opening and closing blogs with gay abandon. I, too, have done a bit of that, although Personal Reflections itself has remained relatively stable.

Neil and I first began interacting in August 2006 following the death of writer and playwright Alex Buzo. I have been enjoying his present posting in part because of our shared interactions over what is now almost a decade, more because there has been some really interesting stuff there.

I said that I haven't felt the need to be especially reflective. April 2006 was a different world, one I remember quite clearly. The girls were still at school, my routine still dominated by the rhythms of domestic life. I was wrestling with particular problems at the time.

All my writing is at least tangentially autobiographical, if only because it links to events or issues that I selected as interesting if not important at the time. One result is that the last decade is the most documented of my entire life. I hadn't realised the extent of this until I started editing the Belshaw's World columns for possible publication. I became very uncomfortable as I did so.

Belshaw's World was a weekly personal column in the Armidale Express written over the period from the end of 2008 to early 2012, over 120,000 words in total. While it spans many topics, it contains many then current personal stories and anecdotes written to entertain, from house moves to cats to school stories to the minutiae of domestic life. I hadn't actually realised how strong the personal was until I came to editing. Therein lies the rub.How much to edit, how much to retain?

In 2006 I was in a different place, at the start of a change process that would affect every aspect of my life.

In 2006, I was wrestling with the question of a return to the more conventional workforce, of just finding a new job, of the extent to which I was prepared to be ambitious in a work sense, of getting back on the ladder, of giving up certain dreams. In 2006, writing was important, but still ancillary. In 2006, family life was still central.

Over the next decade, everything changed. Today, in 2016, I am in a better place, but the passage to that place has been hard and often very painful. One change was the progressive realisation that I did not want to return to the professional rat race, if indeed I could after my sidetracks. A second was the transformation of writing from something I did on the side to a central position with other things on the side. A third was the importance of valuing what I have now, what I have and can still achieve, something I alluded to in my connections post.

So I have decided to let most of Belshaw's World stand. It is real, part of the story of a life. The target publication date remains July, although the pressures of my new job may mean that slipping a little.

   

Updated blog list for Personal Reflections

Having updated my separate history blog list, I have now largely finished the task of transferring book marked blogs from my aging and collapsing internet explorer to my blog list page on this blog., although I still have a few to go and some checking and tidying up to do.

I now have some 43 blogs listed along with a brief description of each blog. This will make it easier for me to do my rolling blog checks and to properly resume my regular round the blogging traps reports. Bit sad though just how many of my old favourites have dropped out.    

Updating history blogs - and computer frustrations

This is inside the old moat and bailey castle that forms part of Cardiff Castle.

I have been updating my history blog list.Painstaking process checking individual links and then making sure that they open in new windows. The idea is that people should be able to browse, click, look, close and move on.

I do find computers and the internet frustrating sometimes.So time wasting. This came via Facebook

Windows vs Ford...

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, Ford issued a press release stating:

If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash.........twice a day.

2.. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3... Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4.... Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5..... Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6...... The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7....... The airbag system would ask,"Are you sure?" before deploying.

8........ Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9......... Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10.......... You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

PS - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call "customer service" in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!""

My nominations for the Creative Blogging Award

AC kindly nominated me for the Creative Blogger Award. Thank you Anna.

This type of award process was common in the earlier days of blogging. It was a way of encouraging fellow bloggers at a time when blogging was still new. The process died away, so I became curious about the starting point this time. I searched back through almost 100 Google pages. I didn't find the starting point, but I can tell you that it appears to date back to at least early May, that there have been several minor rule changes, as well as several different badges for people to include on their sites.

It was quite an interesting journey taking me through multiple tropes or recurrent themes. At one stage, I found myself learning more about make-up or female fashion than I, as a mere male, would normally want to know. Still, there was some nice gear there.

AC advises that there are rules to accepting the Creative Blogger Award:

1. Thank and post the link of the person who nominated you.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself to your readers.
3. Nominate 10-20 blogs and notify them.Pass on the rules.

Mmmm!

I am not sure about those five facts. What can I say that is either not too revealing or that has not already been revealed?

1. I have always been an insatiably curious if somewhat dreamy individual. I guess that I still am!

2. I absolutely love Yum Cha. Big table, lots of chatter, swinging the rotating serving tray in the middle of the table around to dig in with chopsticks, drinking lots of green tea and some wine.
3. I have wanted to be a writer since at least secondary school, although that vision was always somewhat unfocused because I wanted to be many other things as well. It's a vision that I am still working through.
4. I am naturally shy and somewhat introspective, traits that were accentuated by a bad and very lonely period at school that lasted several years. As part of the solution, I had to teach myself how perform in public.

5. I can be quite stubborn and persistent where I consider something to be important, sometimes to my own detriment. 

 Now turning to the blogs. Here I don't feel bound by the rules, but will share with you some blogs that I value and why. You will already know some of them. To the bloggers nominated, don't feel that you need to participate nor comply by the rules. It's just my pleasure to nominate you. 

Camille de Fleurville's Sketches and vignettes from la Dordogne is a new blog, started in April this year. Camille  lives in a village with her "Little Family". She describes her position in this way: 

Now, you must know something about the Little Family. They are two ladies of nearly 56 and nearly 20 (next week) who are my wards as they are "affected" by Down Syndrome and have no parents left. I am their closest next of kin. We live together sometimes happily, sometimes more "stormily" with flashes and thunder but everything must be forgiven and forgotten when they go to bed. They are my reason for living in the country and in this house. I take care of them and, in a way, they take care of me. 

I came in contact with Camille through the D E Stevenson discussion group where (unlike me now: I lurk because of time constraints) she is a regular contributor. Her blog is a gentle blog, stories of local life in an interesting region of France with anecdotes of family life. In some ways, it has a flavour similar to AC's blog and is all the better for that. She is trying to involve her Little Family in the process. Maybe you could drop in from time to time?

I hadn't quite intended to create this theme, but I now want to turn to the Hollands. Rod Holland's brother used to work for me in Armidale as an industry and policy analyst. Rod found me partly through that, more because we shared common interests.

Rod's  blog, Northern Rivers Geology, has just been selected as worthy of permanent retention in the Australian National Library's Pandora electronic archive. 

Before going on, this photo from the Northern Star shows two members of the Lismore Lions Club with members of the Holland family following purchase of the new wheel chair funded by the Lions Club plus a member of our little village that I won't name. I got into trouble for mentioning him in an email! 

I knew from snippets on Rod's blog that there were problems, but I didn't know the details. You can follow the story on Becky's blog, My Faith or on the new Facebook page for those who are members of Facebook. 

In her blog, Becky says "You are welcome to our little space!"  This is a similar theme to Camille's blog. The world's problems are too big for any of us to handle. We can only deal with them in our individual space.  Meantime, Rod, activate that geology blog. We want you!

Staying with a contribution theme, I want to pick up one of our old favourites, Neil Whitfield's Commonplace Book.It may sound odd to nominate such a familiar blog, Neil is a very long standing blogger. We used to joke a little about his varying blogs and his dreaded template instability, but he has certainly been a creative blogger and continues to have interesting material.

My next blog is an academic one, John Hawke's weblog, subtitled paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution. This is a truly serious blog, but a very good one. It keeps me in touch with fields such as the results of DNA analysis of prehistoric peoples. Don't be put off. Try some searches. The search facility is a little unclear, but if you click on the icon at the top left in the header, it will take you to the search menu.
Recent discoveries on the world of ancient hominids have almost totally reshaped our views of the human past. Among other things, it has become clear that homo sapiens and other human species are far more interconnected than we realised!

My next blogs are again ones I have mentioned before.

The first is the Lowy Institute blog, The Interpreter.This is a truly interesting blog for those interested in international relations and Australia's place in the world. It is one of my constant must reads.At one stage in my past, I had access to all the international cable traffic coming into my then Department. The cable folder was delivered by hand on a daily basis. I had to read it and then hand return it. Among other things, it gave me access to most (not all: some were just too sensitive to include but had to be seen on an eyes only basis) of the political  and economic reports from Australian posts around the globe.

Most of those with access just browsed. I read the stuff in detail because I found the reports absolutely fascinating, an education in international economics and politics. I probably wouldn't have that type of access today. There are so many more rules.

Security then was actually quite tight. The end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, were still in the future. Ronald Reagan had just become President of the United States, There were very tight rules, but there was neither the obsessive desire to control nor the weaknesses that were to come with centralised electronic systems. Nor, come to think of it, was there a serious problem with information overload bringing with it the constant need to sort the wheat from the chaff. Less information, more time to think.

I have digressed! Now I use the Lowy blog in the same way I used to use those cables. It keeps me in touch in a way that I simply cannot achieve from the main stream media.

Finishing quickly now with two final blogs.

As with the Lowy Institute blog, I have referred to Professor Martin Lewis's Geocurrents blog many times before. As a geographer, Martin is into maps, fascinated by maps and patterns. He explores patterns and issues in different parts of the world - the political geography of Poland, the history of the Arabian Peninsular, the changing distribution of and history of particular languages, social and political trends within California. They are are all grist to his mill so long as they can be expressed via a map!

My last blog is The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, a history blog. Like me, Janine Rizzetti is interested in Australian history. I enjoy and gain value from her pieces.                     .

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A Thursday meander - Archibald short listings, a little on blogging

Up quite late and then spent time just responding to comments and feed back across various platforms. This painting by Filippa Buttitta of painter Judy Cassab is one of the 2015 Archibald Prize finalists. You will find all the finalists here.

I have selected this because it links to yesterday's post,
That Australian life - the Archies are back: a nostalgic excursion. I'm not sure what I think of the various entries. What do you think? 

I said that I spent a fair bit of time just responding to comments and feedback. I have too many platforms, I fear, but they are all important to me, each linked to different parts of my life and interests. On all of them, L value the interaction quite highly. 

In this context, I have been pleased at the way that Winton Bate's Freedom and Flourishing is now starting to gather comments, if still from just a few of us. Winton is also bringing interaction, as I try to do, up into the main posts.This helps him, but also adds value to those who do comment.

Another blog in the early comment comment phase is AC's My Observations. Here Ramana, as he so often does, has became a regular supportive commenter. Each blog has to find its own place. That takes time, sometimes a lot of time! With so many blogs now, so many rival platforms, what I call our blogging village has tended to fragment.I find myself that I don't comment on other people's blogs in the way I used too. I think that's a weakness on my part.

As I write, the Greek Parliament has backed the bail-out deal 229 to 64. That's fairly decisive, although 30 of the ruling party voted no. These events are going to be debated for years!

Finally, congratulations to Rod Holland for having Northern Rivers Geology selected as worthy of permanent retention in the National Library of Australia's electronic Pandora Web Archive. Well done!     

Blogs, aquifers and basic instincts

Good morning, Welcome to Thursday 18 June 2015.

In a comment on Randy McDonald's A Bit more Detail, ianmoore3000 wrote:

I have become quite bad at reading other people’s blogs.Which is bad as I know that part of the internet’s magic is that no one reads your blog if you don’t read anyone else’s.

Ian is right of, of course. It happens to me too. So in that previous paragraph, I have given you links to two blogs, Randy's (always worth a check) plus Ian's World War 1 Live, also worth a check.

Staying with blogging, Evan pointed me to this link on blogging: How To Find Where Your Potential Readers Hang Out. Several people have recently asked me what is involved in establishing/growing a blog. I know after all this time, but just don't focus on it very much. Perhaps a consolidation post along the lines "So you want to become a blogger?"

 In a piece originally from the Washington Post (attributed), the Canberra Times reports New NASA data shows how the world is running out of water. That heading is not quite true. The piece is actually about the way we appear to be depleting some of the world's largest underground aquifers. I have been wondering about that, for the depleting aquifers are in very sensitive areas.

The world's most stressed aquifer — defined as suffering rapid depletion with little or no sign of recharging — was the Arabian Aquifer, a water source used by more than 60 million people. That was followed by the Indus Basin in India and Pakistan, then the Murzuk-Djado Basin in Libya and Niger.

California's current water problems have been widely reported, attracting attention because the area is so populated, wealthy and media centric. California (and the US) has the wealth to resolve the problem. Not so sure about Africa.

Finally, the Canberra Times has a piece that came from Bloomburgs - Don't dismiss Greece's baser instincts - that I want to come back to later.

Have you noticed, by the way, how often I now refer to the Canberra Times? I have actually become quite addicted to it. Fairfax Media has been trumpeting the rise of the Canberra Times web site as one of its successes and indeed it is. But the reason I started going to the Canberra Times is that it carries major stories from other Fairfax .papers that I cannot easily access because of the pay restriction.

As an analyst, it is not unusual for me to, say, hit the Sydney Morning Herald stories eight or nine times in a single day. I always link to those stories I select, but I very quickly run up against the 30 story maximum month intake before the pay wall comes in.

No doubt Fairfax will change this. But, for the moment, the Canberra Times is my major national newspaper and all by historical accident. It's still counted as a Fairfax regional paper dating back to Rural Press.

Postscript

Interesting piece on the impact of water shortages in India. I'm not able to judge its accuracy.

Sunday snippets - a short blog round up

It's been some time since I did a blog round-up. That's partially a reflection of time pressures. I haven't been able to follow along in the way I used too, although I hope to do better.

Clare Belshaw has created a new web site to provide a platform for her various interests. Her blog is now included in the new site.

Sketches and vignettes from la Dordogne is a new web site on my list. I mainly know where the Dordogne is in physical terms from the Tour de France, although I remember the history. Must go there one day. Have a browse. Sixtene writes well. 

Yvonne Perkins Stumbling Through the Past is, as the name says, a history blog. Like many of us, Yvonne doesn't write all the time, thirteen posts so far this year, so you don't need to check it on a daily basis. But have a browse and if you like it, add it to your visit list. I was pleased to see. by the way, that Yvonne recognised the role played by Indian soldiers at Gallipoli - Indian Soldiers Fought at Gallipoli.

John Hawks' weblog remains a superb resource for those of interested in the ancient human past. Seriously, this is a very good blog indeed. If you haven't visited, please do.

The History Blog remains one of the most fascinating history blogs of all.Consider this post, Artifacts recovered from HMS Erebus dive or this one Scythian gold vessels found with opium, cannabis residue. Interesting.

On Canadian History, I continue to browse Christopher Moore's History News on a very regular basis.It gives me different perspectives.

After a longish break in posting, marcellous has suddenly sprung to to life in If a tree falls with a retrospective round-up. The introduction says it all:

Lest an unblogged concert suffer the same fate as an unheard falling tree, I’m returning to blog life with a bit of a catch up. This has turned into a bit of a marathon post.

Mmmm!

I have come to the end of the time I allowed myself for this morning's post and, again, have barely scratched the surface.

At the moment at a personal level I have an efficiency campaign running. One aspect of it is my blog reading. I was once so efficient.I had my extensive blog list well structured on Explorer by categories. Now that Explorer is in terminal decline and I have switched platforms, it's much harder.

Memo to Microsoft. In wishing to preserve and maximize the value of what you had,you stuffed your future. But that's a topic for another post.    
   

  

Old posts and the problem of broken links - revisiting the Brough intervention

I had intended to resume posting with a piece on the Tiwi Islands. This picture from Wikipedia shows traditional burial poles.

I knew that I had written something before, so searched around to find the posts. The Tiwi Island references date back to 2007 and were more fragmentary than I had expected.

One of the posts I found dated to 23 June 2007, Mr Howard, Mr Brough and Australia's Aborigines - 1. Is it really almost eight years since the intervention?

I felt a little sad reading the post, partly for personal, partly for professional, reasons.

At a personal level, I remember just where I was when I wrote. Other posts of the time contain references to the daily round of domestic duties as the primary child carer - Clare's hockey, cooking meals for the girls, the school runs etc.I miss it now.

At a professional level, so little has changed since the intervention. There have been advances, but we seem stuck in an endless loop destined to constantly repeat. I am not talking just about the problems in Aboriginal communities, but about the way that discussion within the Aboriginal community and beyond constantly circles.

I found that first Brough post to be good. It took a very long time to write because I was constantly checking sources, trying to provide the chronology of events. I think that the later posts were good too.

In checking the post, I found that formatting errors had crept in. Later when Google changed its system, a side quirk was the transformation of large slabs of text into red. I use red in quotes, but somehow the red then carried on into the text following the post, creating a big editorial correction problem.

I called the post up and started editing, checking the links as I did so.

In a recent comment, Winton commented about the problem of broken links in older posts. I agreed, suggesting that the problem was worst in the Government sector because of constant changes. Now in checking the links in the post I found that every Government link was dead.

There is enough detail in the post to follow the story without checking the sources. I left the links in the post with a footnote apology so that people would understand that it was based on research. However, you have to take my word without being able to check the original source material.

Having now revisited, I think it time to check all the posts in the series and provide a central entry point. The posts are not perfect, but they do provide a useful record.
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Updating Belshaw’s blog list 1

I have begun the slow process of updating my blog lists. It’s slow because I have to squeeze the time required into an otherwise very busy schedule. Since I am updating, I thought that I would devote today’s post to a blog review.

Denis Wright died on 7 December 2013. I have retained his blog, My Unwelcome Stranger, on the list and will do so so long as the blog survives on-line. Denis was a very brave man who retained his joy in life to the end.

Do read the blog, starting with the final post, a last message from Denis. Right at the end, Denis’s blog achieved global reach because of its messages of hope and endurance.

It has been quite a while since I mentioned Barbara Martin’s Canadian blog. I used to read it all the time and then, somehow, it dropped of my radar. I think Barbara stopped posting regularly, something that we all must watch. The blog continues with its marvellous pictures of the Canadian bush.

Tikno has not posted since 21 November 2013, and I have, with sadness, deleted the blog from the list. Tikno occupies a special place in my blogging memory. The link with him and with Niar marked the start of a period when our little blogging village developed first a connection with Indonesia and then beyond. Sadly, this dropped away quite quickly. While I still get a little information through Facebook, I do wonder what happened to those who briefly flashed across our blogging firmament.

Anna Carborg’s My Observations is a new addition to my list. Postings are weekly, if sometimes irregular. I enjoy her writing style.

I have retained Catallaxy Files on my blog list because it provides an alternative view. Here I was struck by a Steve Kate’s post, Excessive savings[!] and Keynesian economics that reminded me of my lack of knowledge.

When I first studied macro-economics all those years’ ago, the simple Keynesian message had two parts. Savings must always equal investment. That was established as an identity. The second part was about plans. If planned savings exceeded planned investment, ie people and businesses wanted to save more than others wanted to invest, then the lower consumption would not be offset by investment spending. Since actual savings and investment must equal, balance was achieved by involuntary investment (rising inventories) that would ultimately lead to reduced production, lower incomes and lower savings bringing savings and investment back into balance.

The macro focus is necessarily short term. It says nothing about the longer term, including the situation where longer term savings consistently tend to exceed investment either because the investment opportunities are not there or are not there at the required rate of return adjusting for changing perceptions of risk.This seems to me to be a very different issue.

I have added Michael  Pettis’ China Financial Markets to the main blog list. I find it an insightful blog that also links to Steve Kates’ arguments. 

This photo of the herb garden at the Sydney Botanic Gardens comes from the photo blog Sydney - City and Suburbs. This is another blog that I haven’t mentioned for some time. It continues to run some rather nice shots about life in this harbour city.

I have added Christopher Moore's History News to the main blog list. The blog carries frequent short posts on Canadian history and historiography. I refer to it all the time.

Well, since I started this post I have played tennis with my daughters and put a pie on for lunch. I really need to eat now. Talk to you later.

Monday Forum – what are your favourite blogs, why?

This post began as Sunday Snippets focused on history blogs, but has now become the Monday Forum post. The topic today is what are your favourite blogs, why?

The History Blog reports Shackled remains found in Gallo-Roman necropolis, along with Lost avant-garde painting found in Stuart Little’s living room. The piece begins:

Art historian Gergely Barki was watching Stuart Little with his daughter Lola on Christmas Day 2008 when he recognized a painting above the living room fireplace as Sleeping Lady with a Black Vase, a lost masterpiece by Hungarian Avant-Garde painter Róbert Berény. Berény painted Sleeping Lady with a Black Vase at the turn of 1927/1928. The model was his second wife, cellist Eta Breuer who posed for several of her husband’s post-Impressionist works, often with her cello even though she had stopped playing professionally when she married Berény.

In History News, Christopher Moore muses on the Canadian position:

There used to be an arm's length principle in public funding for art and culture: the funders of culture should not get to determine what gets produced. But that has been going by the boards. Funding is tough to come by, and where's the harm in a little compromise? But gradually all our independent historical and heritage agencies begin looking like government advertising.

Here in Australia something of the same thing has been happening. Sadly, the focus on remembering the events of the First World War has become yawn-making. Is any one listening or watching out there?

A lot of history is actually quite boring, except to the specialist. It is only later when all the bits are fitted together that it becomes of interest to a broader audience. Then it challenges our basic conceptions.

John Hawke’s blog does a pretty good job in combining the immediately technical with the broader. These are the titles of some recent posts:

• Neandertals inside and outside humanity
• Changing the currency of academic science
• Dan Fisher and the art of elephant preservation
• Profile of Nina Jablonski and skin pigmentation

I suspect that most of us still carry the perception that Neanderthal man was wiped out in a Darwinian style battle. In fact, we are all  Neanderthal. The genes live within us.

ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly continues to be one of my favourite blogs, although it had been a little time since I visited. That was a mistake. If you just browse, you will see what I mean.  

In passing

I haven’t posted since Tuesday, in part because of work pressures, in part because I have been making a determined effort to reinstate writing on my New England Travels book. I lost all momentum here.

Looking back at comments over the last few weeks, I don’t get a lot of comments compared to some blogs, but they are regular and they add value.  I don't promise to do this, its actually quite a lot of work, but I thought that I would turn my next Sunday Essay over to a report and analysis of the remarks made by you, my commenters.

A part trigger for this was a radio interview I was listening to on the way that media organisations use (or sometimes don’t) their comment streams to capture value. I am hardly a media organisation, but the point is still germane.  In my case, the value is what you say.   

Saturday Morning Musings – Thomas and the privileges of the on-line world

I am feeling reflective this morning. Its partly triggered by the nature of the topic, Saturday Morning Musings, more by events during the week combined with the end of another month.

Somebody once asked me are your on-line friends real friends? By that they meant, I think, that I was spending too much time enmeshed in on-line interaction. Was this real interaction? It was meant as a criticism, I should be doing real things, but I also found it very difficult to explain. How do you explain village life to them when they don’t know the village even exists?

During the week Thomas Elley was awarded the Student Edge Teacher of the Year 2014. Further comments follow the video.

Thomas’s first post on Deus Lo Vult was on 2 May 2006. His last post was on 26 December 2012. By then his blogging had become irregular because of other pressures. He started another blog intended to be more reflective, but by now his teaching was absorbing him.

Thomas became an integral member of our little blogging village. During his blogging time and later via Facebook, we followed Thomas. Neil Whitfield's Thomas – 2014 teacher of the year records our pleasure at the award. In a response, Thomas wrote:

Thanks, kvd, for the comment. There were smiles all-round, as you could see!

And Neil, thanks for the comments here, on Facebook, and the trip down memory lane! I know it’s been a long time since I was a regular blogger, but my downfall in blogging coincided directly with my immersion into teaching. I distinctly remember my first practicum being at the same time as Obama’s election, and the dissatisfaction that came with not being able to come to the natural resolution after following the campaign for a year!

In churning up these throwbacks, it’s somewhat amusing to me how pivotal and important blogging was to me ‘back in the day’. Indeed, my (all of us?) world and life is quite different from those days. I’ve watched on as you and Jim (being the two main bloggers I interacted with) have continued on, albeit traveling newer, somewhat different paths to when we all used to be in regular communication.

It does seem as though we have met! Mind you, I was very envious of the recent photo Jim had on his blog of you getting tea with him and his ‘group’ – it had always been a want to at least (in passing) meet you both at some point!

And, in a reference to another remark above: I tend not to think of our earlier interactions, nor our firsts. One of us was young, stupid, and attempting to be funny (or perhaps relevant?)!

Instead, I like to remember that time (and frequently!) where we were all part of an e-community, doing our own, separate things, but strung together out of random interests and musings. I have always flirted with trying to come back in some way – firstly when I was doing honours and trying to merge blogging with my research, then later keeping one of the cliche (and, in my opinion, over-hyped) teacher-blogs-cum-reflections. I have tried my hand at reflecting on my reading – though, as anyone who follows on my blog knows, the time I even get for reading is quite limited!

Alas, I fear that my glory days of blogging have fallen away, not to be resurrected lest I get to your stage in life – retired!

Just one bit on the comment you have left here: I am so fortunate to be in a profession like this, and I am sure I feel the same level of pride, responsibility, and joy that you had over your career. It’s been said a few times in the last few days that my school is lucky to have me. I disagree: I am lucky to be at that school. It is a place where – hopefully – we see the future of Australian society, with acceptance, tolerance, and an eye for commonality (instead of differences) is what unites the vast majority of the students. Academics aside, I get to see a microcosm of the Australian society that, hopefully, will be reflective of the macro when this generation comes to lord over us!

Again, thanks for your comments Neil. They (still) mean a lot.

At the risk of being a bit ponderous, Thomas’s words are worth reflecting on.

Katy Barnett, Legal Eagle, was another early member of the village. She began with The Legal Soapbox. On 8 May 2008, she stopped posting there to join the inimitable scepticlawyer, Helen Dale, to create a new blog,  Skepticlawyer, now with an s in the title.

As with Thomas, life pressures took Katy in new directions that lead to cessation of her blogging. However, through blogs and then later Facebook, we followed Katy through her personal and professional journey from work in a legal firm with its pressures and uncertainties to the jump to academe and the problems of contract work and then permanency. We experienced the joy of the kids and family life and the health issues. Today, Katy is an Associate Professor with publications to her credit.

Helen Dale’s journey began in dramatic fashion. Then first through Cattalaxy Files and later skepticslawyers she established herself in the blogosphere. Now she is a senior adviser to  David Leyonhjelm, a Liberal Democrat member of the Australian Senate. I am not in a position to comment on the role of blogging in the changes in Helen’s life, although my personal view is that it has been very important. I can say, however, that in following Helen’s life through blogs and and later Facebook I have gained both personal and professional understanding of her changing role and life.

Going back to an earlier point in this post, I don’t understand why people should deny the validity of the on-line experience. After all, the exchange of letters among people is central to our understanding of cultural and social history. Many of those people had never met or met just on irregular occasions.

The on-line world is no different, just perhaps more immediate and (maybe) intense. I actually feel privileged to belong to my own village and the broader community beyond. Yes, I am a fairly intellectual person, but it’s the personal as well as the professional that is important.

Anyway, I am out of time this morning. I remain just glad, so glad, of the privilege that I have been given in getting to know people like Thomas.  

Postscript

I see that AC has written a companion post to this one, Musings on belonging, written from her personal perspective.

Ten blogs that may interest you

I have been carrying out an experiment on my public Facebook page. All these things take time to maintain, and I had serious doubts about value. So decided to pay $77 to FB to promote the page (FB for advertise) for a week. So far, I have added 17 likes for 987 people reached.

I still don’t know if the page is worthwhile, but it is interesting in regard to FB metrics!

Most of my regular readers know my favourite blogs, so I do try to mix things around. Given that I have some new people on FB and will be cross-posting there, I thought that I would re-focus on some of my favourites in this post.

But before going on, discussion on Monday Morning Forum – what do you like, dislike about Australian architecture? is just getting underway. This is what kvd reckoned was a real Queenslander as compared to what I put up. What do you think? What do you most like/hate about modern architecture?

AC’s blog remains one of my favourites. She has just been in Florence. This is one of her stories from that trip: They have time. I have to say that her descriptions of Florentine men make me feel quite inadequate!

Ramana is an Indian blogger from Pune. His usually gentle tales make for good reading. You will find his blog here.

The Lowy Institute blog is, I think, Australia’s best foreign policy blog. Its not a complicated blog. I read it all the time because it keeps me in touch with international issues and especially those in Australia’s immediate environment. 

Australian Policy On-line is a very good site for keeping in touch with the latest research and analysis bearing on the development of public policy in Australia. This is one place to go if you wish to break yourself from the the one-line sound bites so loved by the Australian political leadership on all sides.

The History Blog is an eclectic blog featuring in popular form some of the latest historical research from around the world. Would you drink this? -  200-year-old seltzer water bottle found on shipwreck. Staying with history, Christopher Moore’s History News provides a constant short introduction to Canadian history, my own blog New England’s History provides an introduction to Australia’s New England region, while Legal History is as the name says if with a very US focus.  

Turning to Australian politics, Club Troppo is the grand-daddy of left centre blogs, although posting has become more irregular over recent months. By contrast, the right-Libertarian blog Catallaxy Files has maintained its regularity, although the posts are also very short. The best reporting on the latest Australian opinion polls continues to come from The Poll Bludger, a Crikey blog.

Well, that’s ten blogs excluding my own, I think, therefore, that I might leave this post there.