Interlude continuing: thinking about Complex Problem #2

Cambridge University Press this year will publish The Politics of Official Apologies by Melissa Nobles, Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. Some idea of where she is coming from, as well as a reminder to us that we are not entirely unique here in Australia, may be gathered from this interview:

Within two years of the publication of Shades of Citizenship, you were looking at the issue of reparations and what you call “official apologies.” Did the official apologies focus grow out of the reparations debate?

Actually, it’s the other way around. In 1998, I read an article on the front page of the New York Times that the Canadian government was apologizing to the indigenous population. And I asked myself, “What does that mean? What are the politics of that? And will it matter?” And then, in 1999, there was a huge debate in Australia about whether the government should apologize to its aboriginal people. So I thought, “Hmm, something’s going on here.”

Unnoticed milestones

On 17th January Sitemeter for the Floating Life sites ticked over Visitor # 175,000 while on the 18th English/ESL hit # 77,000. This blog alone will reach its (WP counting) 4,000th read later today or perhaps tomorrow.**

Top individual interest in the past seven days here has been shown in these:

Summer stories…25
Education Week’s “Quality Counts 2008″ 25

I am listing the posts or pages that had 20+ visits in the past seven days.

Over on Oz Politics we have:

The Great Surry Hills Book Clearance of 2005 49
About 44
That hypothetical Year 10 lesson on the White Australia Policy 31
Their 1968 and mine 21
I commend Waleed Aly in today’s Herald 20

Old Floating Life still collects many visitors through searches. Leaving aside the perennial interest in Firefox time-outs (64 visits this past week) these scored:

Interlude: thinking about Complex Problem #2

Look at the current crop on the Vodpod on the right. We are at an an interesting crossroads here, as business left unfinished since around 1996 — but of course much much older than that — again concerns us. You may detect a bit of context-setting over there on the pod.

But you could do worse than go back and look:

Bringing them Home

Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families

Our city

See Discovered: 300 who died alone.

An outbreak of civilised discussion?

I have been quietly watching developments on Arthur’s blog, starting here. Arthur wrote then: