Masters and Servants

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Even if you're not Irish, you're in luck this St. Patrick's Day because we all have a dispensation to drink (Why is not the same allowed in 2 days time on 19 March for Jozef’s Day?). For me, St Patrick is even more special as it is my confirmation name. Yesterday over Vivien’s expresso a group of magnificent seven ; ) discussed the underdogs mentioned in the book Dirt Cheap. Irish and Slavs have always been the underdogs and I assume that is one of the reasons I chose the name at the age of 16. On the light note Andy noted how everything is possible. Although St Patrick’s day falls in the Lenten season, the 40 days prior to Easter restrictions of meat and alcohol, which are in place during Lent, these by some miracle were lifted and people would feast on the Irish meal of bacon and cabbage and drowning it with beer...
Here's what's cooking for St. Patrick's Day Shave or waste tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day, when everybody's Irish

A three-leafed clover Everybody is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day
It is a holiday known for wearing green and drinking. But why, when St. Patrick’s Day has roots in religion and politics? The Leprechaun; The Shamrock

St. Patrick’s Day is March 17, the religious feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and a day when those with Irish lineage celebrate their heritage.
A lot of legends surround the story of St. Patrick, yet there is not a lot of definitive information.
He was born in Britain and came to Ireland through slavery. He worked as a shepherd for more than six years. During that time he was alone with only sheep and his thoughts on top of a mountain. He turned to God for companionship.
St. Patrick, in his own writings, said that while dreaming he heard a voice, which he thought to be God, told him to leave Ireland. He escaped and returned to Britain, where he devoted his life to God by becoming a priest.
Then St. Patrick had another dream in which a voice told him to return to Ireland as a missionary and convert the Irish to Christianity.
One of the best-known stories about St. Patrick is how he drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Since there are no snakes in Ireland, and most likely never were, this tale is thought to be a symbolic metaphor of St. Patrick bringing Christianity to the country, driving out its pagan beliefs.

• Snakes and Symbols [St. Patrick's Day may be about celebrating the Irish, but it's actually... ; Trinity -- the Father, Son and Holy Ghost ]
• · Irish or no, Imrich or no: Nine ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day ; For many, St. Patrick's Day is an excuse to drink beer St. Patrick's Day Recipe
• · · St. Patrick's Day is rich with myths and legends regarding Irish customs. In addition to wearing something green and wishing on a four-leaf clover, other Irish customs include kissing the Blarney stone and searching for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow Dishing up ways to enjoy St. Patrick's ; If it seems everyone is wearing green today, consider that the number of Americans who claim Irish ancestry is second only to the number who claim German ancestry St. Patrick's Day by the numbers
• · · · A new twist on St. Patrick's Day favorite ; The story of how St. Patrick's Day came about is full of myths and legends The folklore of St. Patrick's Day
• · · · · Some Bad Irish Luck For St. Patrick's Day ; IRA caught in the shifting tides of history
• · · · · · Far from being a saint, until he was 16, he considered himself a pagan. He escaped from slavery after six years and went to Gaul where he studied in the monastery under St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre for a period of twelve years. Piping Hot Customs and Traditions; The History of St. Patrick's Day

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It is not often I am asked to compile links for a particular book. Well today I was asked by one of the colourful characters at Ville of Hurst who has reread Da Vinci Code three times and is familiar with the issue of the Catholic Weekly. How many people around us are being treated like non-people or like they do not exist? In this book there are no surprises for me - I know how incompetent and unkind most managers are towards their charges. Media might be peppered with massive skill shortages yet most workers travel to work in the red rattler train style afraid of being sacked at the end of the day. Is this smart practice? Whether you work on the ground floor or the underground it seems that Only inconspicuous cleaner is a good one. Ach, in hard-core irony style one wonders how many suspicious and caprious bosses are only after perks rather than the responsibilities that comes with a true leadership. Like Orwellean pigs inside those fat barns they fail to acknowledge real or virtual lesser human beings ;-)
There aren't many authors or journalists being sought for interviews by both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but The Australian's Elisabeth Wynhausen is a little unusual. Her new book Dirt Cheap is an expose of life "at the wrong end of the job market" and involved the author working in a string of low-paid jobs incognito. Wynhausen has now been interviewed by both Boss magazine and the Socialist Alternative. Surely a first? Everyone keen on dirty deeds

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Art of Surviving
Over a period of ten months Elisabeth Wynhausen went undercover and worked as a factory hand, an office cleaner, a retail worker and a kitchen hand, moving from state to state and attempting to live on her meagre earnings.

Dirt Cheap - Life at the wrong end of the job market is the inside story of what it is like to work twelve-hour days on a factory line sorting eggs at a battery hen farm; of working a split shift of thirteen hours cleaning a nursing home for just over ten dollars an hour.
As Elisabeth discovers that many so-called 'unskilled' jobs actually require an incredible amount of skill, so too does she learn that exposing the conditions of low-wage work can be sheer hell for your lower back, not to mention your morale.
Caustic, courageous and often funny, this is a unique view of class, power and middle management seen from the other side of the serving counter, and a very personal experience of what it is like to be under-paid, under-appreciated and part of Australia's emerging underclass.

• His Greed and Heart and Mind of Ston(e) [I came to Dirt Cheap, Elisabeth Wynhausen's account of a year working for minimum wages, fully expecting to hate it. An Australian knock-off of Barbara Ehrenreich's best-selling Nickle and Dimed seemed eminently cringe-worthy ; ISBN: 1405036443; Pages: 240; Price: A$30.00; Imprint: Macmillan Australia: Dirt Cheap: Life at the wrong end of the job market]
• · Dirt Cheap: Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market Julie McCrossin: Life Matters ; by Edmund Campion in Online Catholic: God under Howard
• · · Life at the wrong end of the job market ; The class system is alive and well ; Underclass expose just doesn't work
• · · · In her new book, Elizabeth Wynhausen learns how hard it is to live on the minimum wage Masters & Slaves ; Life at the Bottom; A slippery slope to inequality
• · · · · The final of Lit Idol took place on March 14 at this year's London Book Fair, the world's leading publishing business event Lit Idol 2005 UK ; Bruce Elder, who "agrees", and Susan Wyndham, who "disagrees" Writers' festivals are a waste of time ; Increasing sex frequency from once a month to at least once a week provides as much happiness as a $US50,000 ($63,000) a year rise Sex better than cash in the happiness stakes

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Mark Schaver provides another useful list (Amerikan bias): The most useful Web sites for reporters

The Blog, The Press, The Media: The blog next door
I think one of our real challenges today is finding ways to have debates about culture in public.

Politics is endlessly debated. So is sports. But where are the frank public conversations about art and about culture? Not just someone spouting an opinion. Not just another self-promotion or evangelical sermon. How do we get the public engaged in talking about art? We have to promote the conversations wherever we can.
To me, art is about wrestling with ideas, about engaging with creativity in a vigorous back-and-forth that leaves me changed in some way. I love that an encounter with really good art usually provokes more questions than answers and sends me out looking for more.

• Is there a Better Case for the Arts? [The buzz among librarians and investigative journalists this week was the Choicepoint situation ChoicePoint to stop selling consumer information ; If this story is right, it's even scarier than the Choicepoint situation Hackers have gotten in to Accurint]
• · It only seems fair. I've written How to Save CNN How to save blogs from ourselves; Blogs provide the ultimate platform of one-to-many communication that encourages openness, honesty and integrity yet quickly punishes the use of the spin of old. Why Establishment figures enter the blogosphere
• · · Political Insider Jeremy Wallace ; Mover and Shaker in Politics Katherine Harris' blog
• · · · Incredible Blogs ; Google Mobile
• · · · · To help "grassroots" journalists, bloggers, students and other Web publishers without formal journalism training to write more accurate and informative content. Wikis on journalism ; Observer the First Sunday Newspaper has a Blog
• · · · · · Information and Research Services, Parliamentary Library (PDF file): The advent of the internet and mobile phones have made communication easier and quicker, but the change is not necessarily for the best. Do Australians have a legal right to privacy?; Russian Dolls

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The Lord knows how to give generously, but He has no idea how to distribute things evenly among His children. Parents often mumble these words beneath their breath as they struggled to bring their children into a real world. Angela Schwindt makes a wise point - While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
If you study to remember, you will forget, but, If you study to understand, you will remember. We need to understand that in distribution of power dwells out greatest potential for suffering and joy in life, in art, in literature ...
Ropo Oguntimehin once observed that education is a companion which no future can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate it and no nepotism can enslave

Eye on Academics & Teenage Tempers: WE Don't Need No Education
This special feature is brought to the Google Lovers By Political Theory Buffs As Robert Frost said: Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.

Academic news and debates: Academici is about networking with academics and researchers across continents and about content, facilitating (free of charge) the exchange of ideas, discussing research findings. A Southampton professor will unveil a new plan that could revolutionise how academics and the public view research. From The Chronicle of Higher Education, postdocs are becoming more common, but do they help new Ph.D.'s get jobs or merely keep the planes circling? More on the new online publication Inside Higher Ed. High-school programs that offer low-income students personal instruction and postsecondary degrees are rife with good intentions and challenges. A new movement is increasingly grabbing attention: democratic schools. What happens when children get a say in their own education? O brave new world, that has such edutainment coordinators in it! College students at no greater risk of alcohol-related problems than peers. A student writes a controversial article about athletes for an investigative journalism course at Rutgers, with widespread fallout. So what if Johnny and Susie, as the song says, “don’t know much about history”, is it really such a big deal? And historians are still divided about the meaning of the Shoah in the context of the development of western civilisation

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.
-Mark Twain
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
-W. B. Yeats
Education is bitter but the fruit is sweet. (Adopted Aristotle: The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet)
-Agustin Marissa
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
-Galileo
If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.
-Slavic proverb

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Bloggers uncover that someone working as a reporter in the West Wing is also advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay escort — someone whose name, a year earlier, had appeared in the U.S. attorney's subpoena of White House documents during the investigation of the Valerie Plame-CIA scandal Sex, lies and spies: This isn't news?

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Nations of Grazing Sheep
As politicians pad their pockets, will the electorate wake up? How we see what those before us saw? My favorite politician was John Hatton while Bob Dylan’s was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who reminded me of Tom Mix, and there wasn't any way to explain that to anybody.

The scandal revolving around the question of just where Prime Minister Stanislav Gross got the money to pay for his apartment is rocking the country. Or is it?
Political scandals are nothing new. But here, one thing is certain: Politicians never resign. No matter what. Intoxicated deputies (both while in session as well as behind the wheel), corrupt ministers, and a prime minister and president who lie are all allowed to keep their jobs. Small wonder then that Gross refuses to step down, despite demands from the opposition that he do so.
Despite recent entry into the EU, in the Czech Republic most of the major pillars of democracy are decaying, not growing. This is because the legislative, executive, and judicial pillars have all coalesced into a ruling caste that has self-preservation and enrichment through associated corruption as its only priority. For example, early on in the crisis, Gross' major ruling coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, declared the Cabinet to be defunct — yet, for some inexplicable reason, they still refuse to leave it. Also at the Cabinet level, the culture minister has initiated a witch hunt against the nobility, calling it a class whose post-1989 acquisitions via legal restitutions should be "re-examined" so as to possibly return them to the state that stole them in the first place. As such, the Supreme Court, with judges now appointed by President Vaclav Klaus, has taken back property from the Colorado-Mansfeld family, to whom the same court awarded it three years ago. The court said the previous court did not have the right evidence. In refuting the most basic of judicial principles, namely, a verdict based on given evidence at the time, the Supreme Court is now a bunch of kangaroos.

• Taxing Times Among the Political Kangaroos [ France has method to deal with corruption; Exposing the Myths: Manufacturing Public Opinion ]
• · Ali Mazrooie, a top member of the main reformist party, Iran Participation Front (Jebhe-ye Mosharekat) is the newest well-known politician who has started to write a weblog Iran Participation Front; The Winds of Political Change … And Why You Almost Never Feel Them Coming
• · · George Bush’s “ownership society” leaves out the things we actually own — our bodies, our privacy, our dignity, our bedrooms Who Owns What? ; If Republicans were true to their stated principles of smaller government, free-market economics and the "ownership society" touted by President Bush, they would do something quite alien to their traditional practice: They would support the spread of labor unions instead of trying every trick to foil workers' efforts to organize To succeed at shrinking government, you've got to empower workers
• · · · Black Bourgeoisie at 50: Class, Civil Rights, and the Cold War in Black America ; Eucalyptus Drive and the Kelly Gang: Police sorry for ignoring alleged bashing by fugitive ; For Anthony Muilwyk, a metalworker and union delegate, surely a black eye was not unusual Even union delegates have feelings: judge
• · · · · GST Greed Give us GST share and we'll cut tax: Carr ; In the time-honoured manner of leaving essentials to last, the rules of engagement to provide the next phase of NSW electricity generation are finally taking shape. If the state gets it wrong, we will face power blackouts within a few years or out-of-control electricity prices Balancing demands of power
• · · · · · The Minister for Women, Sandra Nori, scrolls a (first) virgin honour roll to mark International Woman’s Day: Tracey Menzies: NSW Woman of the Year! ; With the help of the internet, users are learning about what they are taking, with beneficial results Bumper crop of drug overdose scares misses the real story

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Bloggers uncover that someone working as a reporter in the West Wing is also advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay escort — someone whose name, a year earlier, had appeared in the U.S. attorney's subpoena of White House documents during the investigation of the Valerie Plame-CIA scandal Sex, lies and spies: This isn't news?

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Nations of Grazing Sheep
As politicians pad their pockets, will the electorate wake up? How we see what those before us saw? My favorite politician was John Hatton while Bob Dylan’s was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who reminded me of Tom Mix, and there wasn't any way to explain that to anybody.

The scandal revolving around the question of just where Prime Minister Stanislav Gross got the money to pay for his apartment is rocking the country. Or is it?
Political scandals are nothing new. But here, one thing is certain: Politicians never resign. No matter what. Intoxicated deputies (both while in session as well as behind the wheel), corrupt ministers, and a prime minister and president who lie are all allowed to keep their jobs. Small wonder then that Gross refuses to step down, despite demands from the opposition that he do so.
Despite recent entry into the EU, in the Czech Republic most of the major pillars of democracy are decaying, not growing. This is because the legislative, executive, and judicial pillars have all coalesced into a ruling caste that has self-preservation and enrichment through associated corruption as its only priority. For example, early on in the crisis, Gross' major ruling coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, declared the Cabinet to be defunct — yet, for some inexplicable reason, they still refuse to leave it. Also at the Cabinet level, the culture minister has initiated a witch hunt against the nobility, calling it a class whose post-1989 acquisitions via legal restitutions should be "re-examined" so as to possibly return them to the state that stole them in the first place. As such, the Supreme Court, with judges now appointed by President Vaclav Klaus, has taken back property from the Colorado-Mansfeld family, to whom the same court awarded it three years ago. The court said the previous court did not have the right evidence. In refuting the most basic of judicial principles, namely, a verdict based on given evidence at the time, the Supreme Court is now a bunch of kangaroos.

• Taxing Times Among the Political Kangaroos [ France has method to deal with corruption; Exposing the Myths: Manufacturing Public Opinion ]
• · Ali Mazrooie, a top member of the main reformist party, Iran Participation Front (Jebhe-ye Mosharekat) is the newest well-known politician who has started to write a weblog Iran Participation Front; The Winds of Political Change … And Why You Almost Never Feel Them Coming
• · · George Bush’s “ownership society” leaves out the things we actually own — our bodies, our privacy, our dignity, our bedrooms Who Owns What? ; If Republicans were true to their stated principles of smaller government, free-market economics and the "ownership society" touted by President Bush, they would do something quite alien to their traditional practice: They would support the spread of labor unions instead of trying every trick to foil workers' efforts to organize To succeed at shrinking government, you've got to empower workers
• · · · Black Bourgeoisie at 50: Class, Civil Rights, and the Cold War in Black America ; Eucalyptus Drive and the Kelly Gang: Police sorry for ignoring alleged bashing by fugitive ; For Anthony Muilwyk, a metalworker and union delegate, surely a black eye was not unusual Even union delegates have feelings: judge
• · · · · GST Greed Give us GST share and we'll cut tax: Carr ; In the time-honoured manner of leaving essentials to last, the rules of engagement to provide the next phase of NSW electricity generation are finally taking shape. If the state gets it wrong, we will face power blackouts within a few years or out-of-control electricity prices Balancing demands of power
• · · · · · The Minister for Women, Sandra Nori, scrolls a (first) virgin honour roll to mark International Woman’s Day: Tracey Menzies: NSW Woman of the Year! ; With the help of the internet, users are learning about what they are taking, with beneficial results Bumper crop of drug overdose scares misses the real story

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) just released a report stating that the total number of Australian internet subscribers topped 5.7 million – an increase of 520,000 from the previous six-month period Australia internet usage rises 10pc in 6 months
Assuming that a web search is the same as fossicking through a newspaper archive is the biggest research mistake search-engine expert David Hawking ever made. In 1993 he worked on the Parliamentary Sound Text and Image Environment (PASTIME), Federal Parliament's first electronic Hansard search engine of parliamentary debates. The challenge was to design a system for non-technical users. Experts muster a search party

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Gambling with Security
In this exclusive extract from his upcoming book, famed hacker Kevin Mitnick arms security managers against social engineers hacking their way to a free lunch.

In the summer of 2002, a security consultant whose handle is "Whurley" was hired by a resort group in Las Vegas to perform security audits. They were re-engineering their security and hired him to "try to circumvent any and all processes" to build a better security infrastructure.
On his first day, he approached a very relaxed employee and quickly found the person discussing details of his job. He told Whurley he lost his employee badge all the time, and would share a badge with another employee to get in for the free meals provided in the staff cafeterias.

• The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers (ISBN 0764569597) by Kevin D. Mitnick and William L. Simon goes on sale this week for $45.95. The Art of Intrusion [How many blogs were there in 1997? ; Bewildered by blogs? If you're wanting a better understanding of blogs, these sources may be useful ; Rebecca Blood Blog History ]
• · The Jeff Gannon affair has not yet morphed into a full-fledged political scandal, or retreated to the realm of embarrassing footnote, so this may be a good time to pause and reflect Gannon and the Bloggers ; This is comedy at it's best; mirroring society. He takes his shots at all bloggers too In this Rob Corddry segment on the "Secrets of New Journalism Success
• · · Who owns your desktop? You, or the owner of whatever webpage you happen to be browsing? Who Owns Your Desktop? You Do! ; One of the most popular individual bloggers discusses microcelebrity and his decision to go pro Bloggers who sell ads
• · · · via Crikey: Liars, cheats and cokeheads. I love tabloid journalists ; Piers Morgan puts some spin on the wrong axis
• · · · · Visit today to download info and enter to win a plasma TV. The language of the business culture, or "corporate lingo," took a dramatic turn with the advent of the word "software." What changed is history. Now, once again, techie lingo is teasing our communication skills and our corporate understanding ; Australia will never be able to create companies like Google, Sony, Nokia, Hilton, Unilever, Toyota, Shell or P&O as long as the economy is dominated by gouging cartels supported by a high-taxing limp-wristed government This list tells you everything that is wrong with Australian business
• · · · · · At a Suit's Core: Are Bloggers Reporters, Too? ; n any case, operating on the maxim that I will try almost anything once, I have decided to take the plunge. Besides... where else could I chat with the public without paying for ink or air time? Mayors are often called by several names; blogger might be one of the more benign monikers

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Naked Eye of the Sun Herald fame notes when Dianne Beamer, the Carr Government Minister, will make her long-awaited appearance at the Orange Grove inquiry before the ICAC. The two insiders, Alex Mitchell and Kerry-Anne Walsh, suggest that every leader at the Bear Pit is under threat at the very moment. The imminent departure of the premier Bob Carr for an overseas job is on the cards again. Karl Scully, Morris Iemma, John Watkins and Craig Knowles are some of the head-counters ready to dive at the starting blocks. Ach, a suggestion of duel between John Brogden and Barry O’Farrell is made. The question is who is challenging Andrew Stoner. There is a cameo entry about Belinda Neil, hurricane-tempered wife of John Della Bosca. Naughty and nice Peter Breen asks a thought-provoking question and another legal eagle named John Hatzistergos goes into climax with: Yes, yes, yes! So do Czech out page S(i)x exactly of the hardcore copy of the Sund Herald dated March S(i)x 2005 AD SMH

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Messing With Heads
Imagine taking every single emotion, memory, experience, tablet all into one … and those fighting each other to see who is the victor

It just f… with your head. I had to sleep with a knife under my bed 'cos I used to think people were going to come in and bash me during the night or something. Just for me mull or something, yeah .. A whole generation of Australians has grown up believing that smoking pot is a harmless pastime.
They need to think again. The view of cannabis as a benign drug is under challenge – not from conservative family or religious groups but from the science and medical community.

• Cannabis of Surreal Lives [Colonel Gaddafi says Libya & other countries will withdraw from the UN unless the Security Council is scrapped & its powers transferred to the motley rabble General Assembly. Crazy Gaddafi called the Security Council an ugly, forceful, & horrible instrument of dictatorship — an executioner’s whip with no appeal against its judgment, even if its judgment is unfair, biased & harmful Gadhafi Wants Libya, U.S. to Be Friends ; Bizarrely, Gaddafi has also applied for a seat on the dictatorial Security Council Thanks be to the Beautiful Atrocities ; Australia is a haven for criminals who launder drug money, according to a United States State Department's 2005 Narcotics Control Strategy Report Report warns of drug money ]
• · These days the pursuit of justice and democracy on a global scale is more difficult, yet arguably more pressing, now that the major threats to civility move below and above the nation state. Will the idea of ‘global civil society’ help us work out how to do it? On civil society ; When I heard that President Bush was being blamed for not caring if federal judges lived in fear, just 72 hours after the mother and husband of federal Judge Joan Lefkow were found slain, I wondered if I had time. You be the judge of Schakowsky's true intentions
• · · Robert Tickner served as Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Affairs in both the Hawke and Keating Labor governments. From 1990 to 1996 he was in the thick of the fray as these governments confronted a two century long legacy of neglect and discrimination, in circumstances which became increasingly bitter and divided Robert Tickner: Frequent Blood Donor and Current CEO ; What makes Joschka Fisher so sexy?
• · · · While political leaders keep muttering pieties about the joys of democracy, and why it should be forced on people at gunpoint, there are any number of cases where democratic traditions and principles are disappearing. So there he is, John Howard, as much in control of this country as Causcescu was in Romania. And far, far less likely to be toppled. The power of one: One-Legged Democracy; It’s easy to get crosswise with the United States. Just ask Qatar. In 1988 it was Stinger missiles-today it’s Al Jazeera Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy
• · · · · They say you can't understand people until you've walked a mile in their shoes. I just walked across Belgrade in a brand-new pair of Nikes The Sham Economy: Where the criminal underground beats aboveboard capitalism ; And it is possible that economists of the past few generations may have committed one of the greatest blunders in intellectual history An Important Emerging Economic Paradigm ; Costello and Carr trade blows over tax take
• · · · · · Anne Applebaum: The Soviet Gulag ; Pyrmont, like Vrbov, is named after a German spa town (Bad Pyrmont) near Hanover. Legend has it that in 1806 the landowner Captain John Macarthur held a picnic on the peninsula for some visiting Englishwomen. One of them remarked that the bubbling springs and rocky outcrops reminded her of the beautiful spa From heaven to hell in one easy walk

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Ministerial drivers who quit their jobs did not have the temperament to cope with the long hours and pressure, Premier Bob Carr said today after two resignations in recent weeks. No room for bludgers in the workers party ;-) Ach, the true stories ministerial drivers cannot tell! Mr Carr said driving for a minister was hard work and involved long hours
In her 31 years at Ascham School, Rowena Danziger could never have imagined the office of headmistress would ultimately become a chamber of isolation. That the ensuing mutiny on Darling Point spilled over into Sydney's financial and legal worlds was inevitable, given the pedigree of the warring parties. Schoolyard showdown as Ascham's posh riots

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The law is not finders keepers
It's too easy to blame a couple of bad kids for the Macquarie Fields riots. The reasons for the violence lie a lot deeper ... Much more than a matter of free will in the Fields of broken dreams Give yourself up Jesse, urges Carr Intellectuality usually means never having to say you're sorry

Mick Kennedy is angry. Not with the same scalding rage shown by the mob of teenagers on the streets of Macquarie Fields this week nor the disciplined fury of police officers forced to endure volleys of rocks and bricks, petrol bombs and insults.

Bob Carr has conceded that social disadvantage may have played a part in the riots at Macquarie Fields, promising to conduct an audit of government services in the public housing estate to determine their adequacy
• When rage hits boiling point [It is so easy these days to be frame or to frame others. Collect hair or other easy DNA identification and Ole! Months later you will not be the same or the other person. It started as a tropical holiday with family and friends, but if the worst scenario unfolds it will end in front of a firing squad Weighing the evidence ; The case against young Australian Schapelle Corby in Bali raises more questions than answers Evidence lost and bungled could decide trial ]
• · Shays Holds Hearing on Overclassification ; House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, March 2, 2005 Emerging Threats: Overclassification and Psuedo-Classification ; The substitute for Robert Bork, Kennedy has wielded immense power in his years on the court The most powerful man in Washington?
• · · Bloggers somehow resist the urge to mock all those left wing, right wing political Marco Polos tripping over in print, which is hard. It's like trying to quit smoking. When political mismanagement is in spotlight, accountability flies out the window Inner City Councils of Destination: Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi ... ; David Seifman of the New York Post obtained city records to show that “more city workers are commuting in their government-owned cars, despite Mayor Bloomberg’s boast that his administration is slashing spending while maintaining services.” The number of civilian NYC employees who commuted in their city-provided cars increased 11 percent from 2003, even as the overall workforce increased only slightly. Peoples Cars & Lazy Bureau-rats ; Sheila McLaughlin of the Cincinnati Enquirer evaluated an Ohio program that requires drunk drivers to put special license plates on their vehicles, finding that “a year after Ohio started requiring the special tags, a sampling of more than 300 local cases and interviews with lawyers, judges, police officers and legislators indicate that the law is unevenly administered, enforced and monitored Driving without shame: Ohio's scarlet letter
• · · · Introduce sole driver rule for anyone under 20 years of age - punching peer pressure for P-platers Teenage Driver Fatal Accidents ; Trouble everywhere even among the Saint Surburbs A Decade of Hard Labor in NSW
• · · · · Police swooped on houses in the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Fields, arresting nine people and searching properties in the area that has been plagued by several days of riots Nine arrested with driver still on the run ; Hardly a black face on the Block - Sartor's vision for Redfern Sartorian Italians Only ; Too much gap between the have-nots
• · · · · · Hitler won atomic bomb race, but couldn't drop it ; Taking the Gloves Off With Respect to Greenspan — First, it was Senator Reid annd now, it's Paul Krugman Paul Krugman takes a look at the president's bagman: Mr. Greenspan: Deficits and Deceit

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The corruption obsession also crowds out debate on other crucial problems. A country’s bankrupt educational system, malfunctioning hospitals, or stagnating economy cannot compete with headlines about the latest corruption scandal
Critics fear new rules may undermine fight against corruption

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Bad Medicine
The war on corruption is leaving the world worse than we found it.

About a decade ago, the world witnessed a corruption eruption. As democratic winds swept the world, the dirty deals of once unaccountable dictators and bureaucrats came out into the open. During the Cold War, kleptocratic dictatorships often traded their allegiance to one of the two superpowers in exchange for its countenance of their thievery. With the superpower contest over, such corrupt bargains dried up. And, thanks to the information revolution, the slightest hint of corruption at the highest levels quickly became global news

Once people learned so many politicians had been on the take—often in cahoots with business leaders—it was only natural that there would be a public outcry for a “war on corruption.” Countries enacted anti-corruption legislation, corporations adopted stern codes of conduct, and nongovernmental organizations such as Transparency International were launched to “name and shame” countries into action
• Much was done, but not much was accomplished. What we are doing is not working. In fact, it may be hurting [ Ach, As politicians pad their pockets, will the electorate wake up? ; ]
• · It's an open secret that the US intelligence community has its own classified, highly secure Internet We Need Spy Blogs ; An era of serial war, Rawls, Habermas and Bobbio as theorists of a perpetual peace. Jurisprudence and force in three parallel philosophical constructions of the present international order, and the unsettled afterthoughts—American, German, Italian—that accompanied them Arms and Rights: Rawls, Habermas and Bobbio in an Age of War
• · · Last fall, the race to stop terrorists from acquiring a nuclear bomb passed through Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There, on the morning of September 19, a Russian Antonov 12 cargo plane touched down carrying two nearly indestructible steel canisters. Under the watch of elite security forces armed with machine guns, Uzbek officials unloaded the canisters and drove them to a remote, wooded area about 20 miles from the Central Asian capital. Waiting there at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, which houses a small nuclear reactor used for scientific research, was a team of Americans, Russians and officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency Can Terrorists Build the Bomb? ; The Unionization of Nontenure-Track Faculty Fighting to be Fired (But Only with Just Cause)
• · · · Has exile been overstated, by Edward Said and others, as a characteristic condition of the modern artist? Darko Suvin suggests a more fine-grained typology of displacement, distinguishing between exiles, émigrés, expatriates and refugees, and proposes the category of ‘border intellectuals’ as a better understanding of figures like Said himself. Reflections on the inner phenomenology of each condition, and the historical forces that have produced them. Some reflections on exile and border intellectuals: Displaced Persons; The Prophet Outcast The Impermanent Revolution
• · · · · Bush's Feb. 24 speech in the center of Bratislava would have been unthinkable just seven years ago, when Slovakia was blackballed by the European Union, dubbed a "black hole" by a U.S. secretary of state, and embarrassed by the brief kidnapping of a president's son Slovak glory days ; Social issues are supposed to set young people on fire
• · · · · · After 9/11, it was all over the news. For months, snatches of cellphone conversations in Karachi or Tora Bora routinely made the front page The New Hows and Whys of Global Eavesdropping ; The Next Big Race After nuclear arms, is energy next?

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Getting a first book published is a monumental undertaking for most authors, particularly if their tome is not a new-age self-help book or a shrill political diatribe. So for those writers who manage to get a publisher interested in their work and make it to press, the anticipation of publication is a heavy time, and every wannabe's road to success is unique The Lucky Few
Setting aside—trust me, only briefly—the flap over Lawrence Summers' recent remarks, it's hard to think of Harvard as a university in crisis A new book on Lawrence Summers and the crisis of meritocracy

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: The Word on Word-of-Mouth

Children are being deprived of the opportunity to enjoy books because schools are obsessed with their position in league tables

Reading has always been seen as a source of considerable pleasure for many. This is important, but perhaps has been forgotten by some schools in their pursuit of higher tests results that will improve their position in the league tables. You will find no pleasure in books if you cannot read, but it is equally possible to be able to read and derive little pleasure

• Schools: Reading For Tests? Or For Pleasure? Schools 'fail to teach the joy of reading' [Memories of prison haunt this legendary artist's work Nightmares and visions ; Word of mouth 'winner for books' ]
• · Publishers can spend a fortune promoting their hottest literary discoveries. Bookshops can deploy all their marketing ingenuity to produce imaginative displays. But when the book-buying public comes to choose a new read, it is word of mouth that counts A friendly word is best way of turning a book into a best-seller ; A UK survey conducted in conjunction with World Book Day reaffirms that word-of-mouth is the strongest force in book sales alongside recognizing and wanting to read another book by a favorite author Rumour has it: fins spread word on Cold River ; In an age where readers are looking for feel-good novels, Scotland excels at feel-bad books Dark and dour Scottish writing 'needs sexing up'
• · · Former CIA Director George Tenet's multi-million dollar book deal struck with Crown shortly after he left his post at the agency last year was fueled by his stated intentions of candor and relative speed in bringing that candor to market (with hopes for a late-2005 release). But Tenet has issued a statement saying his is postponing his plans: "An undertaking of such historical consequence simply requires more time to both do the extensive research and to gain the necessary perspective." No new date for the manuscript or publication was offered Tenet Spooked By Fast Deadline; It came long ago to the worlds of music ("American Idol"), moviemaking ("Project Greenlight") and fashion design ("Project Runway") Reality-Based Art, Or Art-Based Reality?
• · · · The Conservative party today proposed a crackdown on convicts cashing in with books about their prison experiences. Sarah Crown takes a look at the works of 10 writers who drew inspiration from their jail time The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky ; We live in an era of unprecedented bullshit production, Defining Bullshit
• · · · · For Jews, vital line divides self-criticism and self-hate ; Literary rediscoveries form a routine part of cultural life. They have a certain protocol. A given author has been "unfairly neglected." The reissue of a book is "long overdue." The rescue from oblivion is, in effect, the righting of a wrong. The case of Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins--then black, now white Intellectual Affairs
• · · · · · An extortionist in Australia used the Vigenere Code – made famous recently by the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code – to blackmail a construction company. Extortionist Uses Da Vinci Code To Blackmail Company ; If you dive in today without knowing why, you might not surface for a long, long time. The Public Library's digital gallery is lovely, dark and deep. Quite eccentric, too New York Library Online ; In the days leading up to the movie industry's most glamorous night, the Oscars, the word heard frequently around Hollywood this year is not glitz, or hype, or excitement. It is fatigue. Strange, perhaps, and unexpected. The fatigue is palpable ... Is Hollywood Tired Of Itself