Sydney Uni media n' government student and freelance writer Judith Ireland - who recently did a SMH internship under MK's supervision - has a ripper take on the Sydney launch over at Vibewire. We particularly loved Judith's nod to some useful political anthropology. Here's a sample of her piece:

In 1961, the American political scientist Robert Dahl (no apparent relation to Roald) made the distinction between two kinds of people in democratic society. Most people, more interested in their daily existence than political decision making, fall into the first category of homo civicus or 'civic man'. In our super-busy, post-industrial world, different members of society specialise in different areas. Every voter may have been involved in the golden days of Ancient Greek democracy, but today we are happy to leave political decision making to the experts: the lobbyists, activists and politicians who make up the smaller second category of homo politicus, or 'political man'.

And yet if homo civicus believes the actions of the government threaten his primary interests, he can be provoked into fleeting but effective involvement in the political process: