Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Culture Brisbane Creative City (BCC)

Brisbane is the third biggest city in Australia and is home to more than 1.3 million souls who do consider themselves the luckiest people in the world. How many Mayors in the world take a trouble to share their vision wherever they go? Brisbane Mayor is in a habit to stimulate dialogue whenever and wherever he moves. This little nugget arrived in my email today.

Living in Brisbane 2010 plan - the goal of Brisbane being a Creative City was identified as one of eight key themes that are vital to maintaining Brisbane’s reputation as Australia’s most liveable city.

I believe that we have come a long way towards achieving this goal. Certainly in the field of literature local writers such as Venero Armano and Nick Earls have received widespread acclaim and provide fantastic role models for young Brisbane writers. I ... hope that a future Booker Prize winner may be waiting to emerge somewhere in our city and I can assure you that the Brisbane City Council will do everything it can to make this possible.

Jim Soorley
LORD MAYOR
· Soorley Living Vision [Extract from the letter By Soorley]

From Edinburgh to Santa Monica cities that have survived and thrived through the era of globalisation have discovered a competitive edge: creativity. Under the banner of Creative City, the Brisbane Institute will celebrate, promote and conceptualise city creativity and Brisbane's role in enhancing Queensland's culture, society and economy. The papers of the Creative City seminar began the dialogue that will continue over the 2000s.
· Creative City [Brisbane Institute]

History says that creativity like democracy happens most powerfully when people gather in real life. We are all walking in each other's footsteps, standing on each other's shoulders, learning from each other's brilliance, and suffering from each other's griefs. It is sobering and comforting to reflect on how inevitably we are a part of a single human family. As Dr. Tom Dooley said, it takes ordinary people to do extraordinary things!
· Vision [Creative Class]

Literature A BOOKSTORE THAT DOESN'T KNOW BOOKS

A Giller Prize judge walks into a big bookstore in Toronto the day after Canada's biggest literary award is given and finds the clerks know nothing about it. I tried to think of clever things to say about a Canadian bookstore that doesn't know books, about a bookstore that doesn't pay attention to what's happening in the literary world, about a bookstore that doesn't support the writers who create its profits. The further down the street I got, the more I found myself sounding like Marx. Karl, not Groucho.
· Prize of Ignorance [Toronto Star 11/12/02]

Politics Buffalo Elections

The Buffalo News surveys state legislative races in Western New York, which saw all 22 incumbents win big, and asks, "Is voting becoming meaningless?" Even after reapportionment of districts, a Buffalo News analysis of election results in Western New York for the House, State Senate and Assembly shows that races were less competitive this year than in 2000.
· Russian Rullete (sic) [Buffalo News 07/11/02]

Internet Like a blog? Find more!

As If I'm Not Blogging Enough Waypath is making me to visit more weblogs.
Waypath is a new search tool for weblogs that finds blogs related to one you choose. Enter the full URL of a blog and it gives you a menu of other blogs.

· Log On [Straight Path]

According to one site found on Waypath, the newspapers are agog at rape allegations inside the Royal Household.

Yawn.

The British state daily rapes million of people of billions of pounds to pay for 'services' that fail to deliver whilst blighting the economy and distorting civil society... yet the idiot media concentrates of the trivial antics of House of Windsor, who are little more than a bunch of national tourist attractions who at least generate more money than they cost the hapless taxpayer. Now that is the true scandal, not who might or might not have buggered whom in some drafty palace.
Regina v Burrell