Le Flâneur Politique

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NBN Reaction: ZDNet Video

09 April 2009

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Check out this video from ZDNet: Sydneysiders' reactions to the NBN.

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Dr Michael de Percy: Michael de Percy is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Canberra, Academic Fellow of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, and a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
All comments on this blog are Dr Michael de Percy's personal views only. For media commentary, please contact Michael via Expert Guide or email michael.depercy@canberra.edu.au.

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La Chute: Albert Camus on the consequences of not learning to live

The Fall by Albert Camus

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the last of Camus' works completed before his death in 1960. First published in 1956, the work is presented as a monologue by Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a Parisian lawyer who has moved to Amsterdam to become a "judge-penitent". I will return to this term later.
Clamence has become bitterly cynical about judges, law, and justice, and has taken to womanising, drinking, and generally driving himself into the ground through hard living. I've read other reviews suggesting the work is Clamence's "confession", for others it is his "self-accusation". The story (it is clearly a philosophical work, rather than a novella) incorporates the stolen panel "The Just Judges" of the Van Eyck painting, The Mythical Lamb (also known as the Ghent altarpiece). The panel was actually stolen in 1934 and is missing to this day.
There are a few other historical references which I found fascinating, inclu…

Essay Notes: "Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics" by Gabriel Almond and Stephen Genco

Almond, G. A. & Genco, S. J. (1977). Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics. World Politics, 29(4), 489–522.

Written in 1977, this article considers the scientific turn in political science. Traditionally, political science focused on descriptions of political systems, laws, and history. I have discussed Charles Merriam, founder of the "Chicago School" of political science, in an earlier "journal note". Along with Harold Lasswell, Merriam encouraged greater scientific rigour in political science research. Almond was notably a product of the "Chicago School" of political science, earning his PhD in 1938, the year Harold Lasswell left and two years before Merriam retired. The adoption of the scientific method of the hard (or natural) sciences, which had influenced psychology and economics, and, by this time, was influencing political science, is the subject of this article. Almond and Genco bring to the attention of political scientists the issue of…

Moodle: Higher Ed's Great Open Source Experiment

What is Moodle?
Moodle is an open source educational platform that has a global reach with millions of users worldwide. As part of this open source experiment, many Australian educational institutions have adopted Moodle as their primary Learning Management System (LMS). Unlike proprietary LMS, which tend to be pedagogically neutral, Moodle’s “social constructivist” underpinnings have changed the nature of how education is delivered in these institutions. But is the change for the better?
Open source versus proprietary software
Unlike proprietary or commercial software, "open source" means that the software code is freely available and institutions do not have to pay licence fees based on the number of users. However, institutions pay for support services such as their own (or third-party) help-desks and technicians to implement and manage the software on their servers (whether owned by the institution or controlled by a third party).
In contrast to commercial LMS, Moodle has…

Practising Stoic Philosophy

After reading on Trove about the various lectures that have been conducted in Gunning from at least the 1880s, I wondered if there was still an appetite for such lofty pursuits in the Gunning of the 2010s? And after a surprising response via the Gunning Community Facebook group, it seems there is!
During my recent long service leave, I began reading a number of books on Stoicism, and I have embarked on a cover-to-cover reading of the Great Books. As a political scientist, I have always believed that a liberal education is essential to a healthy liberal democracy. Of late, the Great Books have fallen out of favour in our education system, and so too has our faith in our political system.
I have always been inspired by Robert Hutchins' (of the University of Chicago and the person responsible for the Great Books education system which is seeing a revival in the United States) idea of The Great Conversation.

In the Gunning Library today, librarian Peta Luck made an important observ…

Le Flâneur Politique by Dr Michael de Percy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.politicalscience.com.au.

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Dr Michael de Percy does not guarantee, and accepts no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained on this website or any linked site. Users should seek appropriate independent professional advice prior to relying on, or entering into any commitment based on material published here, which material is purely published for reference purposes alone. All views on this blog are Dr Michael de Percy's personal opinions only, and do not represent the views of any other entity.

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