Strong Verbs Are Just Better

Thought for the day- polling day edition:

So this is what student activists look like now. Labor Left activists, no less. Sober and disciplined, thoroughly Ruddified. With wardrobes and manners fit for small talk with benefactors...

Outside in the quad, once the champagne was drunk, the snapper finished and the speech from Laurie Oakes over, McFarland's cocktail-dressed successor, Kate Laing, passed me her business card. On it I noticed the council logo, based on a Soviet star, is now stamped on official stationery innocuously in a mild blue ink.

This refined new world of student politics seemed all the more striking two days later when the antics of the Liberals of Lindsay became public. While young activists wear suits like old conservatives, old conservatives, a dentist even, have taken to a classic tactic of student activists, distributing fake leaflets in the dead of night.

...

The reams of copy written about the conservatism of my generation may need to be revised. Material changes to the way the country works, rather than embracing right-wing ideology, explains why university students these days appear so sober, sensible, professional. They embrace casual work not necessarily because they embrace the casualisation of the labour force but because that is the work that is available and that is what is necessary to support yourself through study now.

Student leaders court corporate benefactors, not because they believe sponsorship is the best funding model but because that is what is now necessary in the era of voluntary student unionism, an era set to continue even if Kevin Rudd wins government today.

Describing us as conservative only paints half a picture. We are not a conservative generation. We are a generation that has come of age in conservative times. We have done what the times demand. If the times ever change, so will we.
-Lisa Pryor, SMH 24 November 2007

Went and exercised my democratic rights this afternoon. Numbered the ridiculous Senate ballot paper 1-79. Twice, in fact, since the first time I got down to 40, and was deciding between the crackpots (which is worse? Family First or the Pauline Party? Socialist Alliance or Fred Niall?) and discovered that I had accidentally overlooked the entire labour party. Oops.

Also had great difficulty getting my ballot paper into the box of democracy on the way out, but that could just be because i'm stupidly uncoordinated.

Bonus Points to me for: Resisting the urge to tell the Greens Party campaigner to save the trees when declining his offer of a how-to-vote slip.

Does anyone else think Peter Costello looks like a changed man? The prospect of party leadership must be agreeing with him. This speech'd be the longest speech I've ever heard him give, but he seems confident, in control.
Almost the kind of man you could trust your country with.
Unfortunate ears, though.

ed: oh, fuckery. the perennial bob is back again.
*Sigh* I guess there was never any question, given that he was running against a Jim. No one not named Bob can hold the seat, it is a Law.

ed 2: geez, Peter Costello's giving a rousing speech! a moving speech! who'da thunk it from him?

ed 3: aha, and they cut him off in the middle of it to cut back to lil' Johnny.

ed 4: whatever else you might think about lil' Johnny, he's a damn good politician. This is a bloody excellent farewell speech.

ed 5: my mother really will cry at anything.

ed 6: "public service is the greatest form of service" HAHAH! Howard, Costello, don't share your speechwriters!

~

Here we go... The Premier of Queensland (?), the woman introducing Rudd, certainly seemed happy.
Whatshername Rudd is doing a shimmy. Oh dear. (Is she prepared to take her workers off AWAs, i wonder?)
lets see the Ruddster go... starting off quiet. Thanking Lil' Johnny. "Public service" again. Ah, wait, here he goes, nice and strong. National pride. Looking to the future.
He's reading his script. Negative points, K-Rudd. Lil' Johnny had his memorised.
It's a good, steady confident speech though. He's got a very rhythmic public speaking voice, the K-Rudd.
Interesting. I will be a Prime Minister for all Australians. I will govern in the national interest. This is a personal speech, not a party one. But we don't vote in a prime minister, here. We vote in a party.
Wait, here it is. "This government that I will lead... will prosecute this agenda". You can't prosecute an agenda, Ruddster. You PROMOTE it, nitwit.