The blog, like most other people, has lots of good intentions which often don’t amount to much. The most persistent is buying books and putting them aside for later. Sometimes it is years before the blog gets around to them and sometimes they are still sitting on shelves.

The Umberto Eco principle is also useful. Eco had a massive library and was always being asked by visitors: “have you read them all?” Well no bibliophile ever has – partly because they will be buying books without making actuarial calculations – and partly, as Eco explained, because the bibliophile has generally looked at the books, knows what’s in them in general terms and sometimes picks them off the shelf to look something up. But the bibliophile also has the pleasure of taking up a work some years after the initial fuss about it has died down. read more

The former Supreme Court Justice, Frank Vincent QC AO, has achieved much in a distinguished career at the Bar, as a judge, Patron of the excellent Western Chances charity and in the fields of probation and domestic violence and many other fields.

But above all else he is known in Port Melbourne as a son of Port, the son of a family who worked and lived in Port before it became fashionable and very expensive. His father was a waterside worker and he has had a long association with maritime industrial matters. read more

In all the post-Trump analysis the most consistent feature has been the emphasis on the ‘post-truth’ phenomenon and the decline of the traditional media’s role.

Some interpretations have dated the post truth era from Karl Rove’s comments about how the Bush administration created its own reality and that while the traditional media was interpreting a new version the administration had moved on. Successive Republican apologists and apparatchiks continued to employ the tactic through the Iraqi disaster (it wold have all been okay if Obama hadn’t withdrawn troops) and the GFC (all caused by forcing otherwise responsible banks to lend to poor people for homes). Needless to say these ‘realities’ were echoed by the Republicans’ Australian epigones such as Alexander Downer and others. read more

The blog is taking a break for a while. Back after some maintenance –for the blog not the site – but in the meantime a few snippets.

Readers should check out the new book by Murdoch University’s Dr Kate Fitch. The book – Professionalizing public relations: History, gender and education – explores “the historical development of public relations in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. It offers new insights into public relations history with a focus on the changing relationship between women and public relations, the institutionalization of public relations education, and the significance of globalization in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on archival and interview research, it challenges common misconceptions around the origins of Australian public relations and women’s early contributions and careers,” Kate says. read more

The Australian Bureau of Statistics paid a PR company $395,000, according to Mumbrella, to create and implement a media and PR strategy for the recent Census. They also paid an ad agency $2.8 million to create the advertising campaign. Yet an FOI request revealed the government had no crisis communications plan. read more

On October 22 2004 Bangerang elder Uncle Wally Cooper provided the catering for an RACV planting day at Lake Mokoan in Victoria – now the Winton Wetlands. The blog knows this because a remarkable man painted the scene and has included it in an illustrated pamphlet, Caring for Country: One person’s thoughts. read more

The stark contrast between Australian Army PR strategies and those of the Australian Border Control approach has been highlighted in two journal articles – one by a serving Australian Army Military Public Affairs officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Logue, and the other by a University of Newcastle academic, Leicha Stewart. read more

We hear a lot about bubbles, post truth and so on – all important in their way – but obscuring a larger puzzle: are the right wing media leading or following their audiences?

The puzzle was highlighted by a recent New York Times article on what it termed the ‘civil war’ among the right wing commentariat. The article by Robert Draper (September 29) highlighted the problems confronted by a right wing media activist and a key Tea Party player, Erick Erickson, who opposed Trump then lost 30,000 subscribers, was maligned by other conservative commentators and received numerous death threats. read more

The EC President, Jean- Claude Juncker, is believed to have said some years ago that: “We all know what we need to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we do it.”

Whenever there is discussion of ‘reform’ or the current economic problems the phrase gets trotted out with the sub-text – the masses don’t know what’s good for them. But the problem may be different altogether as the author, James Crabtree, said in the Weekend FT (17-18 September 2016). “What if the rich world’s political class no longer know what to do?” he wrote. read more

One of the amazing things about humans is that they are all convinced they are above average. If you don’t realise what this means you are an example of what is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Basically the finding indicated that the smartest among us realise their limitations while the rest are not aware of quite how ill-informed they are – which is a nice way of saying dumb and dumber. read more