Author Archive
Am I a luddite? Neh!
… [T]he project of digitising the information held in the world’s printed books is too important to be dealt with purely as a commercial venture between rights holders and a potential supplier of services. …. If we let Google have its settlement we will all be the poorer. Not for a while, perhaps, but one […]
Merlin Mann on the internet
The internet is becoming this thing where it’s just people trying to become successful on the internet by showing other people how to become successful on the internet. It’s this unbelievably fractal ponzi scheme. It’s very Escher. Boy, it’s a terrible terrible ghetto of information out there. It’s like a snake masturbating its own tail. […]
A loss of moral authority
There is added moral authority when someone who hasn’t had to struggle sounds a call to help those less privileged. Beyond mere noblesse-oblige, Teddy Kennedy became a leading voice of ‘liberal’ ideology, with an emphasis on equality and innate justice best expressed in the civil rights movement of the 1960s — but applied far wider […]
Groping for the truth
Why does a lie offend us? Why is it that a lie — especially a lie to our face — vexes us so? Our efforts to identify the veracity of a claim (sometimes a very basic claim), can be frustrated by liars and rogues. So much of our lives can be taken up with efforts to […]
The power of an appeal to decency
A recent reference to a made-up threat of ‘Death Panels’ led me to recall a famous political showdown. Legend tells us this interchange sparked the beginning of the end for Senator Joseph McCarthy. While McCarthy was not without opponents to his paranoid demagoguery, lawyer Joseph Welch went down in history as a giant-slayer. Welch was […]
Falling into error: when we think we know why…
Fundamental attribution error It’s intriguing how often you will stumble across someone’s hallucinations about another person’s motives for action. In earlier posts I’ve discussed the character attacks that a critic (any critic) can commonly expect to endure in response to them giving their gift: ‘Oh you’re just saying that because you’re … [fill in the […]
Remembering Karla
They can be strange lands, the pathways of our memory. Our recent discussions about animosity and forgiveness and letting go of disappointment and anger has provoked recollections of a case which I haven’t thought about for long time. When I was a news reporter twenty years ago I covered the search for a young girl […]
“Do I believe in the forgiveness of sin?”
I heard this question in a BBC Heart & Soul documentary today about a family where the father had sexually abused his young daughter. The wife described how she had come to a place where the question, “Do I believe in the forgiveness of sin?” arose when considering her husband’s actions towards her daughter. Her […]
The Paradox of Animosity
I’ve been thinking, prompted in part by a comment from Chowbok who said: Hatred is the easiest of emotions to invoke. Is it possible to be trenchantly, even violently opposed to what you perceive as wrongdoing without slipping into HATRED of the perpetrator? If we agree (you and I) that bitterness of spirit is a […]
Reflections on grief and mortality
A recent death in my family – the latest in what seems like a bad season for us – has provoked some musings about this haphazard procession of events we call Life. Is there any novel thing one can say in response to the death of a loved one (whether parent, spouse, child or friend)? […]
How to have a FAIR argument
For a number of years I worked as a political reporter at Parliament Buildings in Wellington (New Zealand). During my time in that highly competitive pressure-cooker environment I learned a lot about truth, perception, political ‘reality’, and human nature. I hope I also learned to be careful with what I say. While I was in […]
Heart warming
Pearl & I performed street theatre sketches with our friends and squirted our guests with water pistols at our wedding… these guys have the same spirit. Heart-warming! Done anything this ‘crazy’ lately? – P
Daring — if there was no risk it wouldn’t take guts
I like this image for two reasons: One – the graphic design speaks to me. Two – it kind of makes my point: ‘Many saw evil. They dared to stop it.’ I can’t tell you how many people will cheer from the safety of the sidelines, or grumble uselessly about something they perceive as not […]
Moral courage — being willing to stand in scorn
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls […]
Is there a ‘whistle blower’ personality type?
It’s emerged that the latest book by economist Gareth Morgan After the Panic is being recalled because there’s “a mistake that must be corrected” (see notice from the publishers here PDF) … a new edition is being readied to replace the first edition (now a collectors’ edition?) This self-styled “straight shooting” book was launched just last month […]
