The Trad Pad

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A great modern writer is dead. John Fowles has died. The writer of The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Magus is one of twentieth century’s greats. Time magazine chose TFLW among the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present. We loved it when it became a movie with Meryl Streep.

There is a phrase about to get wider currency. It is “cultural exception”. What is cultural exception? Free trade agreements are in increasing use. Australia, in the last year or two, has negotiated a free trade agreement with the USA and is involved in trying to establish one with China. Despite free trade being the name of the game in the contemporary international economy, many members of the World Trade Organization assert a right to limit cross-border trade in the interest of national cultural sovereignty. Unfortunately, there is virtually no evidence of interest by Australia in asserting its national cultural sovereignty. It would rather put lamb chops on the table of American citizens than go into bat for its own culture or intellectual property. On the basis of cultural exception, Canada has tried to regulate the sale of American periodicals. France has tried to limit the dominance of American films and protect its French film industry. Reflecting contending interpretations of intellectual property rights, some developing states have opposed as cultural appropriation the commercialization of local botanical knowledge by foreign pharmaceutical firms (”bioprospecting”). Some nations - well, let’s be blunt, it’s mainly the USA - view cultural exception as a thinly disguised form of protectionism.

France has struggled to get cultural exception recognised and accepted on the international trade agenda. It got a boost when joined in the struggle by Canada. Is it only a co-incidence that Canada has a significant Francophone population? As of the last week, France and Canada have just got a heap of friends and they have got them together with the assistance of UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). See here for UNESCO’s definition of the application of cultural exception.

Last weekend, the nations of the world voted on cultural exception. More than 150 of the 191 member states of UNESCO voted to approve The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions to protect cultural diversity. The USA and Israel - who have only recently rejoined UNESCO after lengthy absences - voted against the convention. Gutless Australia who won’t stand up for itself and certainly won’t go against the USA in the form of the Bush Administration abstained along with poor Kiribati - whose main interest is to seek a place for itself in the world as increasing sea-levels (caused by the global warming which Bush and Howard & Co. deny/ignore) threaten to swamp their island nation.

The US is feeling quite frustrated about this. No links here but search the net and you will find the outpouring there by the bucketload. How dare someone not want open slather for US movies! The hypocrisy of the United States is endless. It protects its own and wants open slather for themselves. But Aussies remember. They remember well how Rupert Murdoch had to take out US citizenship in 1985 to comply with that country’s media ownership laws.!

John Schumann is back. He of Redgum and I Was Only 19. He is back and he has brought Henry Lawson with him on his latest album Lawson. He has so many of our best loved musos with him - The Pigram Brothers, Russell Morris, Shane Howard, and Marcia Howard among others. Back to the tradition and give it a future. Thanks guys!

http://www.nla.gov.au/guides/federation/images/lawsonh.gif

This has come to me from jonny baker’s blog who got it from howies. I think it is beautiful, thoughtful and challenging..

You know that dream you carry around with you each day?
It’s kinda important.
Wasn’t it what you were put on planet earth to do?
They say everyone has a calling, can your still hear it?
Doesn’t it eat away at you?
That treadmill you are on, did it ever get too much?
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to do your thing?
Did you ever feel time was passing you by?
Just how many days have you left before your last?
Did you ever wonder about stuff like that?
Did you ask yourself ‘what was stopping you?’
There is never a right time.
You will be too old.
Too young.
Too something or other.
When was last time you took a risk?
Did you remember how alive it made you feel?
There are no guarantees of success.
It’s not called a leap of faith for nothing.
It’s not too late, honest.
Jump.
You might fall.
You might fly.

The Endeavour Journal - picture from the National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia is sending national treasures from Australia’s Great Libraries on walkabout from 3 December 2005 . The exhibition celebrates our history, our nation, our libraries and our treasures. It offers a unique opportunity to view, in one place, more than 170 rare and valuable objects—many never before displayed—that are housed in Australia ’s national, state and territory libraries.

There are all sorts of things including Henry Lawson’s pen. Have a look at them here.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.nla.pic-an2256760
I have a special interest in Captain James Cook’s Endeavour Journal. I am a descendent of John Gore, one of three Americans on the Endeavour. He came from the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. It is believed that the Gore family/descendents may be the only family descended from a crew member of the Endeavour living in Australia.

The family are definitely of the venturing kind. Captain John Gore’s son, Rear-Admiral John Gore (whose guardian, should anything happen to his father, was Sir Joseph Banks), came to Australia to a grant of land at Lake Bathurst, near Goulburn in New South Wales. Various Gores are buried at the back of the graveyard of the beautiful tiny little Anglican Church at Lake Bathurst.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an2288558-v
The Rear-Admiral’s son, Graham Gore, travelled on The Beagle when it sailed in Australian waters. There was no artist on board The Beagle but Graham Gore was a talented man and he became the unofficial artist on board. A painting of his, with a date of ca. 1841, Burial Reach, Flinders River, is in the National Library of Australia. The Flinders River is the longest river in Queensland, Australia and flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Graham Gore perished in the Arctic on Sir John Franklin’s expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The date of his death is given as 1847. For many, many years little was known of the fate of the Franklin expedition except for a note in the beautiful copperplate handwriting of Graham Gore found under a cairn of stones. The story is told in a most intersting book by Beattie and Geiger called Frozen in Time.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an23646705-v

I have just listened to a delightful interview with Chester Porter QC on Radio National’s program, Life Matters. It was about his book, The Gentle Art of Persuasion. He pointed out that defeating someone in argument - no matter how brilliant or flashy - was not the same as persuasion, as changing a person’s mind by persuasive argument. He also believes in the transparency of argument.

He used as an illustration the arguments on both sides of the Federal Government’s proposed industrial relations changes. He says that one thing the government is not saying is that it has the intention by this legislation of doing away with the trade union movement. He wondered if this was what Australians really wanted? Chester has retired from the Sydney Bar - well, he has his life membership - and his book ought to be well worth a read. Are you listening Santa? I would like this in my stocking please.

Many words - Many pictures
about the human carnage in Bali.
You will find none here
except an expression of my love and sympathy.
My words are insufficient
for my emotion.

A lucky few are getting their names into books by some very famous and best selling authors. See the details here. Funds raised in the auction for named places in the books go to the First Amendment Project, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting freedom of information, expression and petition.

This is a bit of a reversal of The Bulgari Connection by Fay Weldon in which Bulgari sponsored the book and Weldon’s contract required her to specificially mention a dozen or so Bulgari items.

Luxury can now be defined by black toilet paper. Buy some here. This info came via Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing who adds the qualifier that in the UK luxury means cheap and nasty.