Anger fades. This is both a 'good' thing and a bad one. After all it's no fun to go through life as angry as I am (trust me on this). Angry at our so-called 'leaders' who mouth pieties and platitudes while not taking actions which would give our species the slenderest chance of survival. Angry... Continue Reading →
“You’ve had your fun” – on emotions, rituals and resistance #USSStrike
So, the USS strike moves into its fourth week, with more industrial action likely. I've just lost a small gig because of it, but am not on the breadline yet. For the Vice Chancellors to climb down now, and admit that their scare campaign around the pension scheme is based on the rubberiest of figures... Continue Reading →
IAM what IAM – on models, muddles and human failure.
Six weeks or so I went to a talk by a man I respect immensely. I knew exactly what I would be getting – he's delivered basically the same talk every time I've seen him, going back over a decade. He explains what we need to do, starting now (we should have started decades ago,... Continue Reading →
Holy Moses or “There’s never an irony policeman when you need one”
We watched the documentary. Excellent if problematic, it was basically a morality play: a bunch of old white powerful men in a self-designed and policed echo chamber are eventually brought low by a scrappy band of diverse (gasp) women. And so immediately after the film there was to be a discussion. And a bunch of... Continue Reading →
Brilliant neglected book: “Ecological Pioneers” #Australia #environment
I like to believe I've read a lot these three and a half years (even by my own somewhat Rabelaisian standards). Specifically, on the Australian environment movement/climate change/climate policy etc. I've read a few excellent books, a few stinkers and lots in between (thankfully mostly at the 'excellent' end, and towering piles of journal articles... Continue Reading →
Collegiality v bureaucracy v palm trees and Stamford Raffles. And Instagram.
It's been a while since I posted, because I have been a) thesising b) writing a book chapter (intimately related to a) above)) Still, this and a book I just read (see next post) deserve recording for posterity (or at least until the electricity systems collapse). My friend Mark Carrigan (top bloke, btw) has just... Continue Reading →
Tom Uren and the class war
So, to my shame I don't know enough about people like Tom Uren. That shall be rectified #afterthethesis. For now, this, from a speech he gave in 2007, which touches on his time as a POW working on the Burma railway. Talk about natural experiments... "There are many people and experiences that have nurtured my... Continue Reading →
Canute in reverse: Macron’s climate summit
Today thousands of the great and the good will gather in Paris for the latest in a long line of climate summits. Initiated in July by French President Emmanuel Macron, it falls on the two year anniversary of the Paris Agreement. With three goals - "Take tangible and collective action, innovate, support one another" -... Continue Reading →
Dodgy Academic Concepts #94: “Digital Haussmanisation” and the 21st century city
When I'm not Finishing My Damn Thesis (FMDT), I either watch Roger Federer doing his ballet/ice-skating combo, or else have interesting conversations with supervisors and friends. Via a post-supervision chat I found myself uttering the phrase "digital Haussmanisation." Let me "unpack" that, with complete sentence structure and so on. For hundreds of years (longer?) elites... Continue Reading →
Maps, territories, landscapes and moonscapes: three brilliant guides to the transformations
It's easy to get lost, to feel lost, especially when you're diving into new literature(s). Your supervisors can do just so much (mostly tell your thesis is not up to scratch (yet), or point you in the direction of some really good literature (institutional work, much?) But for the bigger/biggest picture? Well, who has the... Continue Reading →
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