| Riding the wine wagon
I ENJOY a glass of wine with my food. When the match is right, for example, salmon and Pinot Noir, or a light-bodied Chablis and oysters, the meal becomes an exquisitely enjoyable experience. I enjoy wine with music and art. A glass of champagne does wonders to a romantic evening. Wine adds much to the pursuit of beauty and pleasure. Over the past decade, more and more Malaysians are drinking wine, especially red wine. I initially thought that there was an Epicurean movement in the making. When I saw wine served in Chinese tea glasses at room temperature (over 30C recently) and in a raucous, noisome and odoriferous ambience, I thought again. Instead of sipping and savouring, there was gobbling and gulping. It was not for reason of aesthetics that most of them have taken to drinking wine.
LivingWell names new program director
LivingWell Cancer Resource Center, a complementary cancer resource center in the Fox Valley, has announced the appointment of Jillian Smallwood as program director. Smallwood will be responsible for oversight of the 30 programs provided by LivingWell, as well as work with a staff of five program personnel and dozens of professional volunteers. She will also oversee the planning, development, implementation and oversight of all programs and services offered at LivingWell. .
Mugwumps can save America
The No Child Left Behind education reform would attract married mothers. The faith-based initiative, opposition to abortion and Bush's coded religious language would motivate lower-income white evangelical Christians. A promised amnesty for illegal immigrants was intended to woo Hispanics. And so on, all the way down to a last-minute commitment to protect West Virginia steel from foreign competition. This method of policymaking by analogy has not served America or the Bush Administration well. As a professor of mine used to remark: "History never repeats itself - it only appears to do so, to those who neglect the details." And so it proved. Unlike Hanna's campaign of 1896, Rove's campaigns of 2000 and 2004 were not huge Republican triumphs - and they do not seem likely to lead to an era of Republican political dominance.
Chubb's university challenge
Australia's catch-up cannot be predicated on a thinly spread distribution of any additional investment because of the scale and pace of our competitors. The hard reality is that the rest of the world is not waiting for Australia, and if we play catch-up politics internally waiting a few more decades in some vain hope that the Dawkins reforms will eventually give every university a place in the sun we may well be watching the world from the sidelines," he says. Professor Chubb nominates five prerequisites for an education revolution: substantive policy reform and tough decision-making; going beyond the "stretched" ranks of the public service to the university community for policy ideas; more public funding and greater cost-effectiveness; community support; and a clear vision. He commends Labor's pre-election commitment to mission-based funding compacts, in which universities are better able to respond flexibly to market demand and areas of strength as well as Labor's plans to link compact funding to tightened access to research funding and training on the basis of verified research quality.
|
