Loose cannons

New ideas dept.

"The October 14 New York Times has a big article on the 'Wildmen'. Apparently this is a growing cult among men who are getting together to rediscover the primitive, soulful wildman inside themselves. On the one hand these 'wildmen' don't want to be cold and unfeeling like their fathers were. On the other, they don't want to be the nerdy wimps that the women's movement created by challenging gender roles. Aside from this issue, they never talk about women or sexism. The men just want to talk about themselves." — Breakthrough (San Francisco).

Just business

"Television presenter Jana Wendt told a court yesterday she did not think a program alleging that Sir Leslie Theiss had engaged in bribery and corruption had demolished his reputation ... [Theiss] claims the programs wrongly alleged he bribed Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, then Queensland premier, often and on a large scale to win lucrative government contracts." — Telegraph Mirror, March 23.

Free market

"Eastern Germany's unemployment rate is 8.9 per cent. But with hundreds of thousands on 'short-work schemes', a halfway house to unemployment, about one in three is actually jobless.". — Financial Review, March 20.

Lost causes dept.

"The Labor Party is considering major reforms of its structure to encourage more people to join the party." — Sunday Telegraph, March 24.

At least while the lights are on!

"Political meetings at the branch level are boring beyond belief." — NSW Labor Council secretary Michael Easson discussing the mystery of falling ALP membership.

Misguided, but not stupid

"About 20 per cent of people who joined the party resigned within a year". — ALP national secretary Bob Hogg, also puzzling over Labor's vanished members.

From GLW issue 6