When I was first told by my wife about this story, I expected it would turn out to be an Internet factoid, probably much-circulated, melding the old stories of paintings hung upside down, works painted by ducks and hailed as masterpieces and so on. But the Independent’s account gives chapter and verse. The Royal Academy, having received a sculpture by one David Hensel with the plinth packed separately, decided to reject the sculpture and exhibit the plinth.
My piece from today’s Fin ReView section
Is about free sharing of information, and is rescued from behind their increasingly adamantine paywall.
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Weekend reflections
Weekend Reflections is on again. Please comment on any topic of interest (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). Feel free to put in contributions more lengthy than for the Monday Message Board or standard comments.
Soccer or Football
Over at Crooked Timber, Kieran Healy raises the vexed question of “Soccer or Football”. I’m firmly in the camp of soccer, or, if you want to get prissy about it, “Association Football”. The various football codes are roughly contemporaneous, and the term football has always been used generically (also to refer to particular codes when there is no great danger of confusion).
If the argument is based on majority usage, the relevant majority for me is among English-speakers in some community of which I am a member. Whether I define this as narrowly as possible (say, people I personally speak to) or as broadly as possible (all English speakers in the world) I don’t get a majority of people using the term “football” to mean “soccer”. I think a claim of this kind is about as justifiable as if the martial arts renamed themselves as just plain “arts” and demanded that the term “art” be used consistently with this.
Quibbles about how much different codes use the feet don’t seem to me to valid, and in any case would not particularly privilege soccer (where the head and hands are used a lot), compared to say, Australian Rules. And the fact that people in non-English speaking countries mainly play soccer and therefore use terms meaning or sounding like football to refer to it cut no ice at all.
Golden Toilet Brush
The new IR laws take us back in many ways to the conditions of the 19th century. In some ways this is good for trade unions, since they need to campaign actively, rather than relying on industrial courts and awards. The LHMU which covers cleaners is taking the lead with its Clean Start: Fair Deal for Cleaners. Many employers have agreed with the broad principles of the campaign, described here. Others have not and the first Golden Toilet Brush has been awarded to property company Allco which has declined repeated invitations to meet cleaners’ representatives.
Queenslander!
Having grown up in AFL territory, I don’t follow rugby league really closely, but in Brisbane it’s impossible to avoid being caught up in the State of Origin which was, after all, essentially a Queensland creation.
I couldn’t really understand all the doom and gloom that followed the first-round loss. It was only one point after all, and if it had happened that Queensland scored the last minute field goal all the rhetoric would have gone the other way. Anyway, there won’t be anything like that after last night. NSW played pretty well, but only a consolation try in the final minutes saved them from what would have been the most crushing defeat in Origin history. A great game to watch, too, with lots of open play and daring moves.
Should be good for the wool Industry
Today’s Fin runs the headline “Investors bale as market mood darkens”.
I assumed this was a subeditor’s error, but a check around the internets suggests that “bale out” is common usage in British English, even though the only suggested etymology (from bailing out a boat) clearly requires “bail” (= bucket).
In other news, the Fin is cutting back its free online presence even further, replacing it with AFR Access, described as
a flexible investment research application that combines our news and analysis with a range of renowned information and data sources and adds rich tools and unprecedented search technology.
This is interesting, given that WSJ and (I think) FT seem, if anything, to be opening up a bit. It’s clear though, contrary to Guy Rundle’s suggestion a while back, that charging for content is going to remain a very minor part of the Internet economy.
Back to full employment?
I’ve been arguing for some time that the government should use the current period of strong demand to make a really strong push to reduce unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment. This piece in the Australian looks promising, though on reading closely it’s hard to see whether there is actually a serious commitment of funds and effort or just another rearrangement of the existing programs. If the government was willing to put the kind of money it’s repeatedly splashed around in tax cuts into a program aimed at driving the unemployment rate down to 2 or 3 per cent (by putting people into jobs, not by pushing them out of the labour force), they would win my support.
A puzzle on US politics
One of the striking features of US politics over the past fifteen years is the rise of partisan feeling. The blogosphere reflects this, and has helped to accelerate it. Whereas US political discussion used to be dominated by appeals to bipartisanship there now seems to be more party-specific rancour than, for example, in Australia.
On the other hand, there’s a lot of commentary about the absence of competitive races and the increasing advantage of incumbency.
These two trends seem inconsistent to me. Of course, with strong partisan loyalties you expect a fair number of safe seats for either party, but the discussion of incumbency is mostly about the strength of individual incumbents. And even with many safe seats, there ought also to be a large number of marginals.
Has anyone attempted to reconcile these conflicting trends?
Monday message board
It’s time, once again for the Monday Message Board. As usual, civilised discussion and absolutely no coarse language, please.
As a discussion starter, should we continue to celebrate the Queen’s Birthday with a public holiday?
John Quiggin 