Coffee break

For a few days the only new entries here will be on the Gateway Page:

There’s a bit more back-editing happening here too, mostly tidying.

Progress in editing

2005.
2006.
2007.
2008.

Changing themes

It may be temporary, but I have found a glitch with all the two column themes with right-hand side bars that I ran on the site in the past 24 hours: in the ‘read by month’ mode they were all in some months, but not in others, dropping the side bar to the bottom. Very nasty… Hence that left-hand side bar number for a while, ironically one of the first templates I ever used here.

July1: bear with me while I experiment to see if I can solve the dropping side bar problem…

Papal Surry Hills July 2008

Residents in Surry Hills — World Youth Day Co-ordination Authority: the map (PDF) and details arrived in our letter boxes this morning. I am thinking of setting up a stall for my holy relics…

Which reminds me of an earlier Papal Visit in 1986, a scene from which you may see here:

The World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals

Foreign Policy: The World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals and Prospect Magazine’s Top 100 came my way through The World’s Top Public Intellectuals Are… posted on Nah, Nope, Not Quite, who commented:

Perhaps I am horribly uninformed, or perhaps not. I will confess that my five votes were biased towards the West (they’re either American or English), though there were many more that I wished I could have voted for…

The results are also interesting because you know the people on the list care about where they rank. Salman Rushdie beat Christopher Hitchens (Amis wasn’t even on the list). Poor Ian Buruma finished dead last. Thomas Friedman was in the middle of the pack. And still other names shouldn’t have been there at all (I’ll leave you to judge who).

In any case, the results merit consideration…

What is drawing most attention is that the top 10 were all Muslims. What hasn’t so much been noted is the variety of thought within Islam the list indicates.

Experiment over…

Yes, the side bar is a side bar once more. Hope you all like it — and don’t forget to do the poll.

Have your say on the issue of the day!

There’s a poll on the current Australian petrol price situation over the fold. Do participate! You can find it too on the new Polls Page.

Da book meme

OK Bruce, I’ll bite. Here are the rules:

The instructions as I can gather go; repeat instructions so the next clod in-line can repeat them when you tell them to repeat them (you didn’t tell me to repeat them did you Mikey!); turn to page 123 of the nearest book to you (I’m assuming with 123 pages in it) and write out the 5th sentence.

Glad to see you have The Little Red Writing Book by your computer, even if Christopher Hitchens was 4cm closer. I happen to have Mark Twain’s Roughing It closest at the moment, but only because I was too lazy to put it back on the shelf a few days back, and here is p. 123 of the edition I have (Konemann 2000):

Chapter XXI

We were approaching the end of our long journey. It was the morning of the twentieth day. At noon we would reach Carson City, the capital of Nevada Territory. We were not glad, but sorry. It had been a fine pleasure trip; we had fed fat on wonders every day; we were now well accustomed to stage life, and very fond of it; so the idea of coming to a stand-still and settling down to a humdrum existence in a village was not agreeable, but on the contrary depressing.

There it is. I nominate Kanani, Aluminium, Denys, Thomas (if he is in a position to respond right now) and Marcellous. I would nominate The Rabbit and Adrian, but neither has a blog any more — or if they do it is locked down… Adrian has Facebook, of course; and The Rabbit? Well, that’s a mystery…

25 June 2008 – Three New Judges Appointed to the Federal Court

25 June 2008 – Three New Judges Appointed to the Federal Court: Delenio just forwarded this via Facebook.

One of them is (my I feel old, but pleased) a member of the class of 1986! See also here.

Legal too, but unrelated…

I had a rare phone call from The Empress,

God’s Politics – Dobson and Obama: Who is ‘Deliberately Distorting’?

This entry, and a few YouTubes posted on the same blog since, is quite fascinating, even to an outlander like me here in Australia. Just over a year ago I asked Who on earth is James Dobson? I quoted there the US blog Daddy, Papa and Me:

I have harped on this over and over and over again. These groups (American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the ilk) are hate groups. The take a group of citizens (GLBT) and demonize them as diseased and worse.

Many in the religious right object when their speech is called ‘bigotry’ and even close to ‘nazi propaganda’ in its ferocity. The main argument they use is basically that we are ‘reducing the level of disourse’. I find it a strange argument. These groups and people affiliated with these groups will demonize me and other GBLT in some of the most hateful language, but then call ’shill’ those who would call them on it.

The fact is, these groups demonize gays in nearly identical terms and ways anti-semitic groups and early Nazi propoganda did. These groups and their spokespeople use use hate speech not far removed from the KKK might say about blacks.

These are hate groups. There is no argument.

Socially aware evangelical Jim Wallis is somewhat more circumspect in his language, but only somewhat.

Flash Intro Page: Kevin Hunter

Kevin Hunter left a really nice comment on my GLBT Page. He has quite a background:

Kevin Hunter is an uninhibited fiction writer of young adult books. The issues he tackles with in his material tend to be dark themed in nature, love based and in places erotic and sexually charged, but in the end fun reads. He is the author of the books Jagger’s Revolution and Navy Blue Eyes. Kevin Hunter was born in Arcadia, California, a valley suburb of Southern California. He currently resides in a beach city in Los Angeles…

Kevin began work in the entertainment field at the age of 23 joining one of Hollywood’s most respected actors, Michelle Pfeiffer… After three years with her, he then made a move into film production hammering his name into stone in the film industry working with some highly notable talent and producers while adding to a mounting list of production credits that include Via Rosa’s The Deep End of the Ocean, as well as Crazy in Alabama, The Perfect Storm, Dr. Dolittle 2 and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone…

I was not displeased.

Pause for some music

Thomas, who may well be packing right now, mentioned this a few days back:

Which also takes me back to The Albury Hotel some time last century…

And then I was also reminded during by back-editing here that in February 2006 I was the guest of Marcellous for a performance of Madama Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House. Not this one, but good nonetheless:

Strawberry Hills Pub « Floating Life: what’s in the archives here

Strawberry Hills Pub « Floating Life I have blogged with Blog This on Firefox/Windows Live Writer for no reason other than this is the point I have now reached in the archives as I go back editing and checking and occasionally deleting as I Sitemeter the individual posts. I have to confess this activity is giving a spurious boost to my Sitemeter stats too, but perhaps not more than the losses caused by unsitemetered posts not being registered over the past week.

The post also tugs at the heart a little, and 2006 — 2006! — seems distant indeed.

However, let me explain the archive here, as it is rather odd, being a blend of posts from several sources: two ventures on Blogspot — one of which is still there though on hold.

More from that Pew Forum

Do consider the statistics in the previous post as you contemplate the following. I have chosen attitudes to homosexuality and to environmental protection.