“They didn’t know whether to give me an A or to commit me. ..Critics still have that problem with my work.”
Ishmael Reed on school, Julian Lucas, "Ishmael Reed Gets the Last Laugh", New Yorker, July 19, 2021
Latest Papers
The working papers collection comprises historical papers as well as current ideas and works in progress on some of the major issues and topics of our times.
The lost South Coast forests..
In a world of misinformation, when everybody seems to be lying, “realness” is the most precious commodity.
The Australian Nation, is a strange webbed footed creature with the bill of a duck and a tail like a beaver, it is an unlikely combination of Westminster "responsible government" and the United States Federal System. The idea of a President is impossible or perilous.. on this much we can hopefully agree across the barricades of politics.
The social democratic consensus that has been the moral foundation of much of our world since the 1960s is dead. In public discourse we can no longer assume that values such as democracy, egalitarianism, justice, fairness or even the doctrine of loving one’s neighbour are foundational values which bind us.
More on the 2016 Mata Mata walk to Cape Wilberforce with thoughts on the Sja'ir Perang Mengkasar, the Rhymed Chronicle of the Macassar War of 1666
If Andrew Inglis Clark had enjoyed the long life of his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, Australians would know about their Constitution and Australia would be a republic with an Australian head of State or preferably an Executive Council replacing the Governor General and all of the Governors of the Australian States.
Jim Petrich is an old fashioned mover and shaker. In this short paper Jim describes "The Bennelong Group" - a fabled moment in time when leaders worked together for the national good across the political divides.
How could mainstream society not hear or honour the perennial Aboriginal request for self determination? How could colonial and modern administrations get things so wrong for so long? Perhaps we will understand these things better when we learn of what happens right in the middle of our own small communities and when we can really feel the aspirations of individual people who are only a breath away from us.
These letters are a glimpse into another time and place.
