Bob's blog - the realm of threalm

The long and the short of it It has been a curly week for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission . ASIC has made a right hash of a decision about what to do about short selling of securities quoted on Australian securities markets. Setting aside the content free dialogue that has been going on for over 6 months in the media; prompted by throw away remarks from our Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, about the Government's forever imminent legislative crack down on "short selling"; now that the Government and ASIC have had their hand forced by international attempts to act in a co-ordinated way to stabilise markets and reduce panic, ASIC stuffed it up. A brief chronology: Thursday, 18 September US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announces an $800 billion liquidity injection into the for the US financial system, in an attempt to restore confidence in the US banking system after the failure of Lehman Brothers, (amongst other stuff). Friday, 19 September, ASIC ...

Patrick Snowden , a dear friend, died of a brain tumour at the age of 47 on 5 September 2008. Jack Snowden, Pat's 16 year old son, Jeb Carroll and Pat's brother, Peter, each gave magnificent eulogies for Pat at his funeral service on the morning of 12 September 2008. This is the text of the brief remembrance I gave later that day at his wake, along with others, at the Longueville Pub in Sydney. PATRICK JOHN SNOWDEN Patrick was the truest of friends. Like many here today, Pat and Tracey have been an indelible part of the fabric of our family's life for decades. My wife, Susie, met the inseparable pair at Macquarie Uni Law School. Pat gave us the most valuable wedding gift conceivable: he passed up the opportunity to play for the 1988 Club Championship at Oatlands to attend our wedding; an act of self sacrifice in the interests of friendship that was typical of him, and for which we revere him. We have been on family holidays with the Snowdens , staying in the same apartm...

Who's Judy Garland now ? Barack or Sarah ? Phew! And I thought the Democratic primary race was a blast. Following the hopeful innocent along the winding road with scruffy dogs, straw men and the heartless, whilst battling a wicked witch, to his ultimate nomination, became an almost undreamed of adventure for us rubes in the 'sphere. But now, incredibly, another Dorothy with ruby slippers has dropped out of the sky in a hurricane and rudely intruded on our dream. And it looks like she may have finally killed off that wicked witch too. You couldn't script this, even in Oz. But it is becoming a tad confusing. Who is the real Judy Garland now? This whole identity thing has become very messy, but what a spectacle to behold. It seems improbable now that the world could just go on supporting kindly grey haired old white guys hiding behind curtains. But who can predict anything anymore in populist politics. This US presidential election could just be the best Olympics ever! Roll on...

If only I knew some I'm tempted to say I wholeheartedly agree with this alluring new heuristic, from Sathnan Sangera of the Times , except I don't know any celebrities, so how would I know? It would probably be truer for me to say that I adhere to the smugly self satisfying belief that people who believe in the importance of celebrity are intellectually impoverished fashion victims. If I knew any celebrities who thought their celebrity was important to our relationship other than as an irritant, then I would find it hard to be their mate. And for the very reason that Mr Sangera speculates: they would be over sensitive to having the piss taken out of them for having feet of clay. But what of his other suggested life lessons: Never brush your teeth if you're dressed in black. Don't trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle. Always put the shower curtain inside the bath . Only the last one of these holds water for me. I obviously don't get out much, because I al...

Stephen Potter redux ALDaily pointed me recently to a type of article I haven't seen for yonks: a self-mocking parody on the latest fads in pseudo intellectual one-upmanship. And here was me prematurely grieving at the apparent passing of this eternal game. David Brooks in the New York Times writes : " Dear Dr. Kierkegaard, A ll my life I’ ve been a successful pseudo-intellectual, sprinkling quotations from Kafka, Epictetus and Derrida into my conversations, impressing dates and making my friends feel mentally inferior. But over the last few years, it’s stopped working. People just look at me blankly. My artificially inflated self-esteem is on the wane. What happened? Existential in Exeter Dear Existential, It pains me to see so many people being pseudo-intellectual in the wrong way. It desecrates the memory of the great poseurs of the past. And it is all the more frustrating because your error is so simple and yet so fundamental. You have failed to keep pace with the curre...

08.08.08 The world will shortly simultaneously sit down to watch the same circus act together and feel the inner glow of connectedness. I can hardly wait. What am I to do between now and 10 pm here when the global telecast is scheduled to kick off? I already feel a breathless anticipation for my pointless despair at the intergalactic disconnection between the hyperbole of the commentary and what the ceremony will actually be communicating. At least with the Eurovision Song Contest or America's Next SuperModel or the World Darts Tournament there is some refuge in unintended irony and self parody that permiates the execrable excess or frivolity of these events. Not the Olympics. We are exhorted to take this mush completely seriously and are hushed if we demur. Ughh ! I will watch some of it though. Initially mainly to see if any of the teams or athletes are brave and clever enough to outsmart statist officialdom and make an effective protest against China's repression. And l...

Solzhenitsyn's passing James Lileks struck a chord with me when I first read his blog 4 or so years ago. Along with his narrative skills, I think it is the way his startlingly familiar suburban world is conveyed with such unapologetic dignity and humanity, that makes him read so true. He is such a contrast to the over intellectualised strivings of most of us baby boomers towards urban sophistication and academic hauteur. You feel refreshed and uplifted at his ease in aptly capturing significance in minor insights gleaned from the ordinariness of his days. Alexander Solzhenitsyn died yesterday. The extraordinariness of this once ordinary maths teacher, lies in his survival through an ordeal of suffering at the hands of implacable oppressive cruelty that might otherwise have defied words, were it not for his great courage and literary genius. A greater contrast with the glossy material mid-western prosperity of Lilek's existence and Solzhenitsyn's tortured spiritual an...