Archive for the ‘Encouragement’ Category
Naff
I like Gin Wigmore. I already done said it. But that idea of using a picture of yourself with a red background on one side and blue one on the other? Well, that’s just naff. – P
Time for some more Leonard Cohen
Breathe in, breathe out … – P
Steve Jobs’ biographer talks to Jon Stewart
Nice. The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
Phew!
The All Blacks held on in a tough, tense final against ‘old bogey’ France. Well done to Richie McCaw, Graham Henry and the team. – P Update: front of the NY Times …
Put yourself in her shoes
This is worth reading … Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street. It demonstrates something I’ve seen — police becoming fixated with ‘keeping order’, and applying strong-arm tactics to people who are not their normal clientele, and will inevitably apply ‘scrutiny’ to their civil-rights-cramping actions. I’ve been caught by this myself, and […]
Priorities
I spoke to Adam Feeley, the head of the Serious Fraud Office yesterday about the conspiracy charges the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption had just laid against the unsuccessful Crafar farm bidders, particularly May Wang, He told me the charges resulted from 16 months of work by a dedicated SFO team, co-operating with the […]
Confronted with information indicating we are wrong, we get ‘cranky’
I listened to a brilliant lecture with Q&A on iTunes U last night by Eli Pariser, the author of The Filter Bubble. He was talking about the ideas in his book as part of a London School of Econmics Summer 2011 Public Lectures and Events. (Here’s the iTunes U URL [1 hr 20 min]. He’s […]
Engaging, rather than demonising
I respect and pay tribute to people whom engage with others with whom they disagree — and I try to do so myself. I’m reading veteran BBC journo Peter Taylor’s book Talking to Terrorists. It’s very good, deeper than I expected, and insightful of the motivations of people involved in struggle. This is from the […]
A character reference for Trevor Mallard that I find more plausible
Long-serving Labour MP Trevor Mallard cops a fair bit of hateful abuse from the attack dogs in the NZ political blogosphere. He’s routinely denigrated and slandered by people with an obvious axe to grind — partisan political activists. You know the type. As a point man in the Labour Party he’s obviously a target for […]
Getting to know your ‘targets’
Via Andrew Sullivan, via Cameron Slater over the weekend, this interesting New York Times essay by Stanley Fish on how public ‘enmity’ can be a precious thing, and ‘meeting your opponents’ puts you at a terrible risk of ending up liking those you criticize. Good writing. But how could Habermas ever be taken away from […]
No weasel words
Irish rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll is an impressive man, even in defeat. Here’s how he responded to losing to Wales in last night’s Rugby World Cup quarter final. We failed to do ourselves justice. You have to earn everything you get in Test rugby and today we were off the pace – and we go […]
Congratulations Kimbra
I spotted this artist as ‘one to watch’ a while back — sparking minor eye-rolls from my teenage daughter at my positive comments. But she admits I spotted The Tings Tings too, and Mark Ronson. Yeah, I’m a pop-culture genius. (Just put my Horlicks down over there, thanks Matron.) Anyway, good on Kimbra. She’s just […]
Let’s make it an even 5-million views … Leonard Cohen
When I watched this, it was sitting at 4,956,083 views on YouTube. I’ve seen Leonard Cohen perform this song LIVE twice: Montreal, Canada and Wellington New Zealand. What a legend. (Yeah, I’m a fan.) Apparently there’s a new collection coming out: The Complete Albums Collection while we’re waiting for a new album. – P
