THE NATION REVIEWED

Mr President, there are people dogging you. There are people saying America’s hollowed out like a walnut with weevils: the communitarian ethos by which it flourished in the great years has been replaced by outrageous greed and self-indulgence … That’s what they say, Mr President: not us – them.

In the Monthly Comment, Don Watson drafts a ‘Prime Minister’s Address on the Occasion of Another Visit from the President of the United States’. Written in the spirit of mateship, this address suggests that the republic of America is rotting; that it has erred in sending soldiers to Iraq; that the Wall Street bailout flies in the face of good sense and fairness. From one mate to another, this speech implores Obama to see that he has things “upside-down and arse-about”.    

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Plus, in “The Art of Ideas”, Amanda Lohrey visits Wim Delvoye’s curious exhibition at MONA; in “The Beat Goes on”, Sonya Hartnett strolls Melbourne’s parks and spies more than just dog-walking; in “The Looks Department”, Tanveer Ahmed uncovers the booming industry of cosmetic medicine; and in “Long in the Tooth”, Paola Totaro meets Trixie Gardner, the only Australian member of the House of Lords.

THE MONTHLY ESSAYS

Ahead of this year’s twentieth anniversary of the party’s formation, the Australian Greens appear to be at the pinnacle of their success. It’s tempting to think it can only be downhill from here.

In “Divided We Fall”, Sally Neighbour draws a new and revealing picture of the third force in Australian politics through exhaustive interviews with party insiders. Neighbour locates the fault lines within the Greens and follows them back to their grassroots, in the very different beginnings, ideals and goals of the state groups who joined to create the party in 1992.

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Perhaps Scott Morrison entered parliament imagining a very different career, where the nobler instincts of his maiden speech would define his politics. However, the gusto with which he has assailed the government over asylum seekers suggests that his decision to adopt such a hardline stance was morally uncomplicated.

In “Who the Bloody Hell Are You?”, Nick Bryant asks what makes Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison tick. A former tourism industry organiser, Liberal apparatchik and Turnbull moderate, Morrison has resorted to increasingly strident populism and inflammatory rhetoric on border protection under Tony Abbott’s leadership.

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Plus, in “The Elephant in the Room”, Michael Wesley forecasts turbulence and mutual misunderstanding in Australia’s relationship with India; in “In the Picture”, Sebastian Strangio visits Burma to witness the slowly unclenching fist of the ruling junta; and, in “Angry Boys”, Julia Baird takes the temperature of the American electorate at January’s Iowa Republican caucus.

ARTS & LETTERS

I approached Akira Isogawa with great caution and serious questions. How was it that a designer so absorbed in the history of Japan and its ancient silks should have found his first, best and most loyal buyers in the land of the T-shirt and the thong? 

In “The Bride Wore Black”, Peter Robb meets Akira Isogawa, the Kyoto-born, Sydney-based and internationally renowned fashion designer. Robb traces Akira’s childhood in Japan, the influence that the traditional silks, patterns and unique folds of the kimono had upon him, his journey to Australia as a young man with very little English and his rise as a fashion icon, making clothes both worn and collected as art. 

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Pauline Kael is the poor immigrants’ kid who made good but never felt quite at home in the moneyed world of New York society. Her pugnacity and her humour are distinctly American, and in her writing you can hear that she is both cosmopolitan and parochial, rural and urban, democratic and meritocratic.

In “Citizen Kael”, Christos Tsiolkas reflects on the life and writing of Pauline Kael, whose film criticism has had an enduring influence on his experience as a film-goer. In the context of a new biography, Brian Kellow’s Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, Tsiolkas pays homage to Kael as a mentor, a pioneer and, above all, an ardent devotee of film.

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Plus, in “Gumbo”, Paul Kelly praises singer–songwriter Allen Toussaint, an influential figure in New Orleans R’n’B from the 1950s on; in “Philosophic Emissions”, Peter Singer reviews Roger Scruton’s Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously about the Planet; and in “The Politics of News”, David Marr examines David McKnight’s Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Power.