SansIcarus

Mark Riboldi’s Internet Home


  • New Publication: Loci of Power and Connection framework

    New Publication: Loci of Power and Connection framework

    This post contains the content of a X/Twitter thread that I posted to spruik the publication of my first solo-authored journal publication. ‘The Loci of Power and Connection (LOPAC): a framework for exploring the democratic relationships of civil society organisations’ (CSOs) The article is available free online here The twitter thread is here. Or keep…

  • Community Campaigning can Trump Populism [article]

    Originally Published by ABC Religion and Ethics, 26 May 2022. “This was not your typical election outcome. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is forming government with the lowest primary vote in history. The moderate men of the Liberal Party were wiped out in urban areas by moderate liberal women. Populists Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson…

  • Every corner of the multiverse

    When I say “science fiction”, some people may think of socially awkward boys with pale skin, Hollywood blockbusters where characterisation is sacrificed for special effects, or pure escapism that ignores the grim realities of the world we live in. Personally, I go for the intersection of philosophy, politics and popular culture. Like the dystopian critique…

  • The case against Bill Cosby

    There’s this mix of anger, disappointment and sorrow when an icon from your childhood is revealed to be much less the person you thought they were. I’m really grateful people like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Monique Schafter and many others continue to challenge Cosby publicly, giving the women who say Cosby assaulted them a voice that…

  • Happy New Year and all that [Jan 2015]

    Hello! Looks like the second half of 2014 really got away from me; The last time I sent out this monthly email was in mid-September. Back then I wrote about ‘chasing rabbits’ – about getting distracted from the things we want to be focussing on by all those things that pop up… yes, I realise there’s…

  • Two songs and two books with Gough Whitlam

    Like a lot of things with politics, I came to know about Gough late. I was of a generation who inherited his government’s landmark reforms – reforms I’ll forever be thankful for and hold as a model of progressive government – get in there and move things forward, don’t just tinker with the engine to…

  • Immersion in the familiar

    I flew north to attend the 2014 Byron Writers’ Festival in early August with some trepidation. A week earlier I’d returned from a research trip to Japan with the burning desire to write. I didn’t want to stand around in queues to hear writers talk about writing in a veiled attempt to boost book sales…

  • Chasing Rabbits – Help! [September 2014]

    One of the many things I learned about while working in politics is chasing rabbits. It’s a pretty simple game – every time you see a rabbit you must chase it. It’s a bit like those ‘whack-a-mole’ games they used to have at amusement parlours, or the talking dogs in the Pixar movie Up, who…