ALCOHOLICS Anonymous is the most successful self-help group in the world and by far the most successful agency in helping alcoholic men and women stop drinking, and stay stopped.
Yet its critics (and there are many) argue that there is no reliable empirical evidence to support the efficacy of AA and its 12-step program. This is not true.
While it is the case that AA itself keeps no records and that its only membership requirement is a desire to stop drinking, recent American studies show how and why regular attendance at AA …

DURING the last federal election a friend was having her hair cut at a local hairdressing salon. Flipping idly through a magazine, she came across a photograph of Julia Gillard. The young hairdresser (but of voting age) peered over her shoulder and asked sweetly Who is that? It may come as a surprise to our politicians, but many Australians would struggle to name the senior members of cabinet, some would even struggle, unless prompted, to name the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader.
Yet opinion polls indicate that many people appear …

THE first female premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, and the first female prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, share one thing in common; they are both politically doomed. The only difference is that Bligh will almost certainly be defeated at a Queensland election in March, while Gillard will be replaced before the next federal election.
For Bligh, the timing of Gillard’s replacement is crucial. While Gillard remains Prime Minister she is dragging down Labor’s state vote in Queensland by 5 to 7 per cent. Yet while Labor is travelling badly under …

HAVING just been on the end of a less than ecstatic review of our political-sexual satire Fools’ Paradise, a friend reminded my co-author, Trevor Jordan, and myself of a quote attributed to Oscar Wilde.
The great playwright and poet allegedly opined that: “The artist’s opinion of the critic is rather like that of a telegraph pole’s opinion of a dog.”
Whether Wilde said this or not, it got me thinking about how best, as a writer, to deal with criticism. As those who know me know, my rule of thumb, and my …

Click here to read my Alumni story in The Fulbrighter Australia, October 2011