I hope readers will indulge me in a minor gloat regarding the defeat of Michael Lee, the Labor candidate for Lord Mayor of Sydney, despite rule changes designed by his mates in Sussex Street[1] to guarantee his success. Fortunately, the voters didn’t feel like being dictated to and went for Independent Clover Moore instead.

Lee wasn’t the worst Communications Minister in Australian history (no prizes for guessing who was), but he certainty didn’t cover himself with glory in this or any of the other ministerial positions he held. I crossed swords with him in the early 1990s over his claim that it was a good thing for Australian to have two (incomplete, but almost exactly duplicate) optical fibre cable networks, rather than one network with proper coverage – perhaps the high point of microeconomic reform-related stupidity in Australia. As far as I can tell his only qualification for public life is that he looks good in a suit, but that seems to be enough to ensure that his patrons keep on promoting him.

fn1. NSW Labor state headquarters and base of the rightwing machine ( the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ have little ideological significance in the ALP these days, so the word to focus on here is ‘machine’).

The (slightly apocryphal) tradition in our dojo is that the birthday boy or girl gets to spar with everyone else in succession. Fortunately, this didn’t happen. In deference to my advanced years, however, we all did 48 squats at the end of the training session last night,

I’m happy to say that I’ve been selected as an Australian Citation Laureate for 2004. This is more or less the equivalent of a high rank in the blog ecosystem, something which I have certainly not attained – perhaps this is a signal that I shouldn’t give up my day job.

To push the analogy a bit further, a citation is the academic equivalent of a link from one paper to another (these days, with electronic publication, citations may actually be hyperlinks). As in blogging, it’s better to be cited adversely than not to be cited at all. Citation counts are even trickier than blog hit counts (do you count all authors in multi-authored paper, self-citations etc etc). The Technorati of the citation business is Thomson ISI who publish citation indexes for the sciences, social sciences and humanities and who give the “citation laureate” awards.

I’m in Canberra to collect the award right now, but it’s a flying visit so no time to catch up with fellow-bloggers. Maybe next time.

The phenomenon of recommendation letters for students being written by the student was discussed a few months back, but, as recommendation letters aren’t a big deal here in Australia, I didn’t pay much attention. Today, however, I met a new version of this. I got an email from someone in the US, previously unknown to me, attaching a CV and a draft recommendation letter, and asking me to sign it. I declined without reading the CV, and without formulating a precise reason. Has anyone else encountered this?

In the case of the dismissal of tenured professor Nona Gerard from Penn State (details here, Brian Leiter cites the generic response

Thank you for your email. President Spanier is out of the country so I am responding on his behalf. I will be sure he is aware of your opinion. I can assure you that there is much, much more to this than you are reading in the papers. I hope you realize that the University is also limited in what it can say publicly about this case at this point in time, especially given that the faculty member has already indicated she plans to file a lawsuit. I can also assure you that the University’s hearing process was followed explicitly at every step of the way.

“We have never taken away anyone’s job for criticizing the quality of a program, and we never will. You should also know that when five members of the University community who heard over 40 hours of testimony in what was a quasi-legal proceeding would vote unanimously that the faculty member was guilty of grave misconduct, there is not just smoke but a lot of fire. For the faculty member to make public statements about due process not being served is understandable in her circumstances, but simply untrue.

“What you have been reading in the press has simply not reflected the whole story.”

As it happened, I recently received an almost identical letter in relation to a property dispute in which I am peripherally involved. In both cases, I’m tempted by the simple response MRD> But I think it might be worth exploring the issues a bit further.
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It’s time for the Monday Message Board, where you get to post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). My suggested discussion starter – Peter Costello, soon-to-be PM?

I’ll be giving a Perspective on Radio National tomorrow (Tuesday) just before the 6:00 news. Also, I missed it but sometime blogger David Morgan was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire a week or so ago. Can anyone tell me how he went?

Meanwhile, in a much more significant and substantial manifestation, NSW #1 blogger Gianna has given birth to a son (story but no pictures)

It’s time for the Monday Message Board, where you get to post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). My suggested discussion starter – Malcolm Turnbull, future PM??

This piece by Michael Shmith is mainly about smoking. But one passage resonated with me

Growing up in a smoking household was a rite of passage similar to the dreaded ceremony of school milk. Just as I remain convinced a generation of baby boomers are repulsed by milk because of the warm quarter-pints we were forced to consume at morning recess, I believe childhood exposure to secondary smoking often served as a subliminal early warning system

I think, though I don’t know, that compulsory school milk was the product of lobbying by the dairy industry. If so, there can have been few more counterproductive pieces of interest group politics. Like Shmith, and for the same reason, I never touch the stuff.

It’s time for the Monday Message Board, where you get to post your comments (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). My suggested discussion starter – is it hot, or what??