The latest series of Big Brother premiered last night and I couldn’t resist putting those two words – “big” and “brother” – in this first paragraph because it will generate a lot of google searches; and because shared housing is one model that demonstrates the problems with the latest campaign to convince us we should […]
Continue Reading...Posts in ‘Uncategorized’
Higher taxes and house mates
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004Dine Out With Darlene: Interview With Senator Amanda
Monday, May 3rd, 2004Figuring Amanda, or Mandy as I will soon be told not to call her, is used to fine parliament house style dining I choose Cuisiny A La Classy, that well-known haunt for C list celebrities, for our meeting. I arrive early and thus ensure we get a table near the wine rack. Twenty minutes and […]
Continue Reading...Internet Dating: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places?
Friday, April 30th, 2004Apparently, meeting a potential partner in between Wham and Duran Duran’s latest hits is becoming a thing of the past since singles started trading their dancing shoes for a computer, modem, internet connection with a reasonable download limit and unlikely nicknames such as “shyandretiringozgal” and “Aussiestud”. Miranda Devine in The Sydney Morning Herald recently revealed […]
Continue Reading...Why Professor Flint must go
Thursday, April 29th, 2004THE cat fight between John Laws and Alan Jones must not be allowed to obscure the serious questions that have arisen concerning the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), “Professor” David Flint. As a believer in the Constitutional Monarchy I have long held the view that Professor Flint is the best thing the republican […]
Continue Reading...A scandal with wide ramifications
Tuesday, April 27th, 2004ANYONE who watched the “A Current Affair” expose on Brisbane “entrepreneur” Keith Lloyd and his association with the Shafston International College could not help but be appalled at the revelations, and alarmed at the possible wider implications. I did not know until I saw the program that the particular college is in fact a privately […]
Continue Reading...Celebrating ANZAC Day
Tuesday, April 27th, 2004John Howard credits the rise in enrolments at private schools to a desire by parents to have their children taught values in education. I think he is only partly right. It is a desire to have children taught the “right” values. There is no such thing as value free education and no matter what school […]
Continue Reading...My Last Blog Entry
Monday, April 26th, 2004This is my last ‘Ambit Gambit’ blog entry. In it I’ll make a few comments on how I think the whole Internet thing is going. The Internet is undoubtedly an amazing invention, perhaps as important in its long–term impact as writing. The form still has some way to go to be really broadly functional (and […]
Continue Reading...Hits and Mrs
Sunday, April 25th, 2004Politicians’ wives, or ex-wives, have been in the news a bit of late. In Australia, we seem to hear from the missus when she can confirm her husband was the drongo we always suspected him to be. America, meanwhile, prefers to see its political spouses gazing lovingly like a bride on her wedding day, even […]
Continue Reading...Ingrid Tall – guest blogger, almost
Wednesday, April 21st, 2004Every now and then you get what is called in the parlance a “get out of jail free card”. I think I got one of those last night when the Liberal Party preselected Dr Ingrid Tall to be the candidate for the seat of Brisbane in the next federal election. The Liberal Party has referred […]
Continue Reading...Kathy and Frank, Alex and Alistair
Wednesday, April 21st, 2004Discussion surrounding sexual assault allegations levelled at some sportsmen has challenged the idea that maleness is naturally expressed by certain behaviours. The Family Court’s decision last week to approve a 13-year-old’s eventual transition from woman to man appears, at a time when masculinity and femininity are viewed as social constructs rather than inherent states, as […]
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