Waiting for Godot opens officially on Thursday, April 30^th at Studio 54 on Broadway. It hasn't  been staged on "The Great White Way" since it was originally performed there in 1956 when on Friday, April 20, 1956 Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times:

 

Don't expect this column to explain Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," which was acted at the John Golden last evening. It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Although "Waiting for Godot" is a "puzzlement,"... Mr. Beckett is no charlatan. He has strong feelings about the degradation of mankind, and he has given vent to them copiously. "Waiting for Godot" is all feeling. Perhaps that is why it is puzzling and convincing at the same time. Theatregoers can rail at it, but they cannot ignore it. For Mr. Beckett is a valid writer.

 

Which brings us to the 44^th President of the United States.

 

As he has reached his first 100 days in the office, the usual media discussions regarding his tenure so far, have surfaced.

 

Perhaps Barack Obama summarised matters almost as if he were giving a prologue to Godot, when he told a Georgetown University audience on April 14:

 

There is... an impatience that characterizes this town [Washington, DC] - an attention span that has only grown shorter with the twenty-four hour news cycle, and insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits, there's all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way.

This can't be one of those times. The challenges are too great. The stakes are too high.

 

In fact President Obama's words are no less true of Canberra, but in this case as Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is not far off his 500^th day in office; it is reasonable to look back to see what has been accomplished -- but being The Funneled Web we'll keep it to higher education and research policies while conceding that the promise to lead in ameliorating the world's climate has evaporated and the 2020 Summit brought forth but a few mice.

 

It would be fair to say that during Mr Rudd's prime ministership the government has at best been in a holding pattern as regards both higher education and research -- the additional resources that have come the way of the universities over the past year-and-a-half have stopped the backsliding in chosen areas.

 

However, support for the enabling sciences and mathematics remains woeful relative to the requirements to resurrect them to a top tier OECD standard. That in turn affects the quality of teaching and the evocation of student interest all the way down the educational chain. The reviews of Australian higher education and Australian innovation by Professor Bradley and Dr Cutler clearly focus on these issues.

 

Now with the Global Financial Crisis casting a dark shadow over Australia's economy, Kevin Rudd and his ministers find themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place; in this case how to steer Australia to be well placed when the world moves out of the global economic depression.

 

And President Obama's first 100 days isn't helping matters when it comes to improving the perception of Australia's milieu concerning research and higher education.

 

There's that reinventing of the United States as a nation (superpower) representing "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" together with that US$787(A$1,074) billion stimulus package he got through the US Congress. It contains an additional US$21.5(A$30.1) billion for R&D above current allocations.

 

Is it stretching the data an assumption too far to see this as the starting point of an "Obama Doctrine" whereby the attraction for the best and brightest of all nations regains ascendancy for the US and make no mistake it will be at the expense of other nations such as Australia if their inaction allows it.

 

So, for example the president of the Royal Society, Martin Rees said, in noting the UK government's trend to force basic research to prove its economic worth, that if it continues, it could undermine the real worth of basic science in Britain: "The value of our universities lies in the transformative discoveries that emerge unpredictably and unplanned. The research councils should not stifle this potential."

 

Australia's research and higher education sectors are in fact under insidious siege and if Mr Rudd and his Cabinet don't become meaningfully proactive, we've got a very serious problem hurtling our way.