Trevor Cook

Pericles, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Opera House

On tuesday night, I went to see the new Bell Shakespeare production of Pericles. I've never read it, and hadn't seen it staged before. Most people think it's pretty dreadful. Ben Johnson apparently called it a 'mouldy tale', indeed it has a plot line that devotees of the young and the restless would be familiar with. And if you've read Bloom on the subject, you will know that the great critic was particularly scornful. Not enticing. But this is a great production, good acting, wonderful sets and divine drums. It all makes for a fun night at the theatre. And it's got a happy ending, so if you're put off by the bloody endings of the great tragedies, rest assured. As my 16 year old son said afterwards: "if that's one of his worst plays, no wonder people think Shakespeare is so good"

Dreyfuss on democracy

Poor Godwin Gretch - a martyr to the cause of public service

Godwin Gretch, a hard-working and intelligent bureaucrat, has fallen foul of the gap between myth and reality in the senior echelons of Australia's public service. The myth, fondly recounted by the mostly faceless senior bureacrats in Canberra, speaks of independence, impartiality and fearless advice. The reality is that your career only progresses if you do what your political and bureaucratic masters tell you to do or your career hits the skids. 

At Senate estimates hearings on friday, it was obvious that Gretch had decided to take the path less travelled and tell the Parliament and the public the truth as he understood it. His demeanour spoke of stress, intense discomfort, because he knew that he was about to break the unspoken public service code of silence and acquiesence. 

Government senators and a senior Treasury official, all obviously well-briefed that Gretch was a bomb ready to explode, tried desperately to protect Rudd and Swan from this rare, and very inconvenient, display of public service integrity.

Gretch is a hero, or he ought to be, and an unlikely martyr. His career has been shredded, let's hope his health and personal well-being do not suffer too much. 

The Gretch episode points again to the reality that there is something rotten, and delusional, at the heart of our political system.

Michael Sandel's Reith Lectures

Sandel is a professor at Harvard, a brilliant and extraordinarily popular academic. He is currently presenting this year's BBC Reith lectures.The first two on 'markets and morals' and 'politics and morals' have been great, thought-provoking listening. Sandel also recently did an interview for the great philosophy podcast which is well worth listening to.

Simon and Garfunkel, Sydney 21 June

A great show last night. Naturally, being 67 their voices are a bit weaker and scratchy but the music is magic. Always was always will be. And then there's the nostalgia impact. Listening to these songs and suddenly memories of my teenage years are flooding back over me. The show encourages you to be a little misty-eyed about the years of hope in the sixties, the times when you thought the world could only get better (before we learnt that this idea of human progress was just a bit of Victorian era spin). Their band was tremendous. A wonderful night's entertainment.

Neocons, the uni bubble, ALP & unions, Che

Neocons for Ahmadinejad - Freedom or war? In addition, Greg Sheridan has an interesting perspective on the limitations of reform in Iran, though I don't think this is strictly analogous with Tiananmen because unlike the Chinese economy the Iranian economy is tanking, and once the reform genie is out of the bottle it can morph well beyond choosing one of the two mullah approved candidates.

Will higher education be the next bubble? - too many people investing too much for too little return? On strictly financial grounds, a lot of people in Australia would be better off going to TAFE then going to uni, unless they are going to uni to study subjects they're passionate about. 

ALP and unions fighting again -  a little is healthy but don't overdo it. 

Images of Che - Gawd, will it ever end. The Mona Lisa is famous for being famous and so is this minor South American revoultionary fighter (or terrorist thug - depending on your point of view). 

Iran, economic recovery, alcohol, medical research

Will the global recession destroy Iran's repressive theocratic state - it's an ill-wind and that sort of thing, but as we know economics drives politics, not the other way, in the modern world. Quote: "Iranian statistics put unemployment at 17 percent and the inflation rate at 25 percent; the real numbers may be higher. And chronic mismanagement may even send Iran’s oil revenues — the backbone of its faltering economy — into steep decline." Friedman also writes on the strangely pro-Western turn in recent Middle East elections.

Recovery? - it could go either way, or we might just stagnate for years. Includes a particularly scary graph on world trade. See also Martin Wolf in the FT. Some scary graphs and an interesting conclusion in this blog post; the global shock is just as bad, but the policy differences are better (and hopefully more effective).

Is alcohol good for you? - The interesting thing about this article is the way it looks at the problems with observational research in the medical area. 

Bloomsday articles

Why I have 15 copies of James Joyce's Ulysses.

Trieste celebrates Joyce

Bloomin' typical

World growth, China, cooking, readable dissertations, underdogs

World Banks predicts global economy will shrink 3 percent. Some analysts are pointing to China and other major emerging countries as the source of the much hoped-for recovery. Yes, the decoupling theory is back. Meanwhile, happily for Australia, the Chinese Government seems to be putting the 'robust public debate' about the failed Chinalco debate behind it. This is not a good time to get too populist about Chinese investment.

Forget the recipe. Can you cook by learning the magical ratios? Certainly they help but there's a lot more to it.

Blogging might help make your thesis readable, even interesting. Anything that might help academic work become a little more, well, engaging has to be worth a try. As long as it doesn't lead to trivialisation and play to that faux seriousness in our culture where you read books about books, or worse articles, and then confuse it with actually doing the reading. 

Glawell on underdogs. Support for the probable loser in any contest (other than where your side is involved) is a key part of Australian mythology. Gladwell, who makes a great living turning academic prose into engaging journalism (see item above) says Goliath makes the rules and to win David has to change the rules. This, of course, doesn't necessarily make you popular. Oh yeah, and David also has to work a lot harder. 

Must read articles - 11 June 2009

When it comes to hard ideas and serious thinking, the book is still king - the Internet does not provide the same intellectual structure and scope as a book when it comes to big ideas, this also reminds us that the big ideas benefit from collaboration and criticism (but not I suspect crowd sourcing), but it still comes down to one, or a few, people doing the hard work that goes into writing, and ditto the author suggests for reading. Consuming more media, and ever-more accessible material won't cut it. Scholarly books provide the hard reading we need and which can't be got from the media and blogs etc. 

How a trillion dollar deficit was created (or the GFC is only responsible for a little bit of it) - Bush was a hopeless president by many measures not the least of which is budgetary and economic. This NYT article demonstrates that the real problem was Bush and not the GFC. We are lucky in Australia that we started with a strong fiscal position before the GFC, but that's no excuse for us to plunge into excessive debt now. 

The paradox of subsidised public transport - British Rail is becoming more popular, in the sense that passenger journey are increasing. Good news. Yes except if you're managing a depleted treasury. Every extra passenger journey means another slug to the public purse, at a time when the British budget is heading towards insolvency territory. I suspect Sydney's public transport problems owe a lot to successive NSW governments actively encouraging private over public transport in order to avoid this problem. Short-term thinking - yes, very - and now we have a long-term problem.

Skidelsky on the battle between economic theories and theorists. The GFC has renewed old battles.