Archive for the ‘Big Questions’ Category
More inconvenient juxtaposition
While I am committed to the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ I must admit to a groan of dismay and recognition when I read this NZ Herald headline: Missing uni cash: priest quits job A priest working as a senior executive at the Auckland University of Technology has resigned after “accounting discrepancies” involving hundreds […]
Head on a spike
So Alasdair Thompson’s words, taken by so many to reveal an anachronistic misogynist attitude, have cost him his job. Even more intriguing is this line from the NZ Herald‘s ‘breaking news’ story: His conduct sparked an angry outcry on micro-blogging site Twitter and saw the Council of Trade Unions call for him to be fired. […]
On a collision course
I briefly mentioned in passing the small c ‘controversy’ generated by blogger Martyn ‘Bomber’ Bradbury loudly expressing his opinion about whether or not blogger Cactus Kate (Cathy Odgers) was suitable ACT MP candidate material. ‘Hell no’ Bradbury says (or words to that effect) because he says she’s a ‘far right hate merchant’ who has previously […]
An ‘abiding distrust’ for anonymous speech
Here’s a really good article from Dan Gillmor defending the use of pseudonyms and anonymity on the web — even in the light of Tom MacMaster’s Amina ‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ hoax… Sounding real is not the same as being real. The fake Amina’s blog was especially well done, with details that sounded authentic even to native […]
Assange … a right to scrutinise the state.
We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state. The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness. — Julian Assange Pretty hard to argue with that. […]
More fakery on the internet. (So what’s new?)
A part of me wasn’t surprised this morning to discover the ‘lesbian’ ‘Syrian’ pro-democracy blogger supposedly ‘abducted’ by ‘security forces’ last week was actually a 40 year old American man called Tom MacMaster living in Scotland. My Twitter feed this morning was full of vitriol and disappointment about this imposter Tom MacMaster who provoked support […]
Nothing to hide but NOT nothing to fear
Here’s a good article on privacy by Daniel J Solove, who I last referred to when sharing some thoughts in my post Is it worth dishonestly defending a reputation? No. Solove’s article is called Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’ — it’s a preview of his next book, and it’s a worthwhile […]
Negative credibility
Ha! I like this concept … Writing on The Guardian‘s Comment is free website — Andrew Breitbart and the unwilling suspension of disbelief about the right wing web maven who ‘exposed’ Rep. Weiner — Dan Gillmor referred to his model of ‘negative credibility‘ and included this neat graphic: Gillmor’s article is worth reading, as, like the erudite j-school […]
Moral courage and standing in scorn, part 2 (in love)
What seems like a long time ago, but was only July 2009, in the early days of this blog, I wrote a post Moral courage — being willing to stand in scorn: So, in the end, each one of us has to find our own moral centre – the place inside us from which our […]
Bradley Manning – out of place in the US army?
The Guardian has produced a video of their investigation into the background of accused WikiLeaks source/security leaker Bradley Manning, showing he was (apparently) regarded as mentally and socially unfit to be deployed to Iraq. It reveals that Manning’s discharge from the army prior to deployment to Baghdad was reversed because of the severe shortage of […]
Blast from the past has lessons for today
A very clear and loud whistle was blown … Born in London from German parents, Frederick Voigt was the Manchester Guardian correspondent in Germany from 1920 to 1933. Voigt was one of the most important of the newspaper’s foreign team in the 30s, becoming famous for exposing the threat of the Nazi regime Today, when […]
Everything we know about you guys is wrong
I just watched How to Train Your Dragon with my son and some friends … it’s a magnificent, heart-warming movie, which incidentally addresses one of the perennial themes of ThePaepae.com — recognising our fear of ‘the other’ or ‘the out-group’ (in this case, dragons) and that fear’s role in conflict. Embedded in the storyline is […]
Compulsory ‘uncovering’ of sin
I read this article last week with a shudder. A mother has been jailed after her conviction for child neglect: A mother who knew her partner was sexually violating her two daughters has been jailed for a year for failing to act, in an unprecedented case of child neglect. So, effectively, this individual has been […]
Great headline: Do Narcissists Know They Are Narcissists?
{snort!} Of course they do! Read all about it from Scott Barry Kaufman at Huffington Post. Quite funny.
