November 2007
94 posts
The rise of the Australian workaholic
According to Greg Barns in yesterday’s Crikey, Liberal Leader contender Malcolm Turnbull is something of a workaholic:The one thing that stands out in my memory of the stint I had with Turnbull all those years ago was his indefatigability. This is a man who sends you emails at 3am. He is someone who constantly churns out ideas, strategies and missives to his staff. Turnbull works and works and...
Kevin Rudd, Agent of Change? →
Antony Loewenstein has a piece in the awesome US magazine, The Nation, today.
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“Is that your idea of the perfect date?”
– Akshay, on the same photo.
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“I don’t care if they are consenting adults. That sort of behaviour is...”
– My editor, Jose, on Kevin Rudd’s new Facebook profile pic (which shows him and his wife Therese inserting the same Senate paper into the ballot box).
Below are some images from the NewMatilda.com/Centre for Policy Development/Larvatus Prodeo/2SER election party on Saturday night.
“Attention attention, this is a test only. Attention attention, this is a test...”
– That would be the fifth message we’ve had over our building’s broadcast system this morning. I feel like I’m in North Korea. The great leader has spoken.
“I once had dinner with Ruddbot years ago and he left suddenly - before the food...”
– the brilliant Annabel Crabb, in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald
Net campaigns peeked behind the party scripts →
My final election column for The Age.
Thought for the day
New governments are better than new years, because unlike the latter, they actually have a chance of signifying a new beginning.
YouTube election, my ass
(Silly title purely to increase the chances of someone actually reading this post.) To top off an extremely nerdy week, I spent Friday night at the UTS Public Right To Know conference - talking about online media and the election with Chris Nash (pictured with me below) and Mark Bahnisch (who took both of the photos below). My talk focussed specifically about social networking media, the key...
Love to vote
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a political editor, there’s little I love more than a good election. In fact, when I was in third year uni and wrote my own version of ‘My Favourite Things’, elections were the first thing on the list. Elections and O-Week and twenty-firsts and dancing… These are a few of my favourite things I think there’s some innate human thrill to...
Interesting South
Last night I went to this, a new alternative-style conference created by these guys. It was inspiring, thought-provoking and, as I always like to say, “well executed,” with cheese and chocolate stands in the intermission and free second-hand books upon arrival. Always great to see new cool things happening around Sydney. Photos are below.
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“It’s like New Years Eve for nerds.”
– Me, on the sheer number of election parties happening on Saturday night.
Heidi and Spencer = So (un)real
Watching this scene between Heidi and Spencer in The Hills (found via Gawker) got me thinking about the very particular type of self-consciousness of this kind of quasi-scripted, very dramatised reality television - Newlywed, Laguna Beach, The Real World etc. I wonder what kinds of parallels there are for people who broadcast their lives online?
Union scare campaign works on Libs, not swinging...
My friend X, who works for the Labor Party on the numbers side of things, posited something interesting last night: that the Coalition’s anti-union advertising is targeted not at swinging voters, but the Liberal and National Parties’ blue and rusty-brown ribbon bases. Apparently swinging voters (in particular young swinging voters, who have never experienced a militantly unionised...
The short email challenge
Tim Longhurst has set himself the challenge of responding to all emails in 25 words or less. Given the number of emails I have to deal with at the moment, I would attempt the same, but given my tendency to use exclamation marks and emoticons to make my correspondence seem more friendly, something tells me I’d just feel rude. It’s a good idea, though.
Good post by Margaret Simons on Crikey today →
on improving the quality of election coverage in Australia.
“Become part of Australia’s most engaging politics and news community and...”
– From the design template of the new NewMatilda.com site.
Citizen journos turning inwards →
My latest Age column.
Bros before Hos/Chicks before Dicks
A friend of mine said today that she didn’t really have a problem with girls/women prioritising their relationships with guys/men above their relationships with their friends, because romantic/sexual relationships held the promise of love, marriage, children and someone who would travel overseas with you if you asked them to. They have the potential to offer life partnership in a way that...
Books and stuff
It’s funny really, how short our attention spans are these days. I want to write a book. Not just “a” book, but a great book — the kind of book that makes you reconsider how you view certain elements of the world, and makes you want to underline sections here and there in the hope of capturing, or at least remembering, them. I also know myself well enough to know that the only way I’ll ever...
WatchClearly video production is not my forte. But my dog peeled and ate an orange this afternoon, and I found it quite amusing, so I thought I’d film it. Stellar commentary in the background.
