Category Archives: Life

Life, Politics & Government, Sundries

Goodbye 2016, hello 2017

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I had a look at the archive, and last January we were confronted with the question One-third of Australian pensioners live in poverty?, an overheating planet, and groups of men humiliating, sexually assaulting and robbing women around the main railway station in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.

A year later it has become clear that opportunistic, small-scale acts of terrorism are going to be with us for a very long time.

Meanwhile Britain voted to leave the EU, Americans shocked the world by electing Donald Trump, and after eight excruciating weeks of campaigning, Malcolm Turnbull fell over the line, and with a dummy spit on election night, and as one Coalition insider said, “with his authority diminished and his judgment is being questioned on multiple levels”, proceeded to try to govern with a polyglot senate. Continue reading Goodbye 2016, hello 2017 →

Life, Politics & Government, Sundries

Saturday salon 24/12

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1. Party time for the Tories

Christmas is the silly season, it seems, for LNP politicians. George Christiansen likes to keep himself in the news. Earlier this month he cam back from the Philippines praising President Rodrigo Duterte for his program of summarily shooting people involved in drugs. Duterte showed the way himself when he was mayor, personally shooting three people to show how it is done.

Now Christiansen is saying he may have to leave the Liberal Party unless the Turnbull Government starts acting like a proper conservative government. There have been consistent rumours that Cory Bernadi is on the move also. Both are fans of Trump. Continue reading Saturday salon 24/12 →

Life, Politics & Government, Sundries

Saturday salon 17/12

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1. Do we need a new conservative party?

One Nation would tell us we’ve already got one, but Essential Report has now conducted a poll about an Abbott-based party, asking the question:

    If a new conservative party was formed and included people like Tony Abbott, how likely would you be to vote for them?

Overall the answer is ‘not very likely’ with ‘Total unlikely’ at 58% and ‘Total likely’ at 23%. However the Lib/Nat preference is evenly split at 41% each way. Continue reading Saturday salon 17/12 →

Life

Compassion, empathy, feelings, emotion

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The notion that we all operate in an empathy field was raised by BilB on another thread in a political context. Ootz subsequently raised Daniel Goleman’s ground-breaking work on ’emotional intelligence’.

Richard Davidson, whose book with science writer Sharon Begley The Emotional Life of Your Brain: how to change the way you think, feel and live I outlined in the post Emotional style: the concept did his doctorate at Harvard when Goleman was there, they mixed in the same set and taught classes together.

Davidson went on to lead his own research team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is good mates with the Dalai Lama and his work on monks who engage in compassion meditation turns out to be counter-intuitive and, I think, important. Continue reading Compassion, empathy, feelings, emotion →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Environment, Life

Can we survive the 21st century?

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Stephen Hawkins thinks we will probably go extinct on this planet if we don’t find a new one within 1000 years. Science writer extraordinaire Julian Cribb wonders whether we will make it past 2100.

His book Surviving the 21st Century: Humanity’s Ten Great Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them poses the ten existential challenges facing Homo sapiens, and answers each one. It is a book of solutions, severally and collectively. Continue reading Can we survive the 21st century? →

Life, Politics & Government, Social Science and Society, Sundries

Saturday salon 26/11

23 Comments

1. Australia trails only Switzerland in wealth table (pay-walled)

    AUSTRALIA’S lofty status as the world’s second richest nation remains intact, new figures reveal, despite household wealth stalling this year.

    In the seventh annual Global Wealth Report from Swiss bank Credit Suisse, the “lucky country” posted an average wealth of $US375,600 ($508,900) for every Australian, second only to banking hotbed Switzerland, with an average net worth of $US562,000.

Continue reading Saturday salon 26/11 →

Life, Social Science and Society

Mob rule on the intertubes

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There are a few topics I currently feel passionate about, and if I don’t do this one now it will slip off the list.

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Last week Richard Fidler did a re-run of his interview with Jon Ronson on what it’s like to be publicly shamed and Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Twitter and Facebook have become places where people can be mercilessly attacked and threatened. Many lose their jobs, are afraid to go outside, and their lives forever change. Some, says Ronson, commit suicide. Continue reading Mob rule on the intertubes →

Life, Politics & Government, Sundries

Saturday salon 5/11

17 Comments

1. Utah found a brilliantly effective solution for homelessness

The homeless are usually given transitional housing, and then are required to get a job and get sober before they are given more permanent options. Utah has implemented a scheme first developed in New York where the homeless are given permanent housing and then offered help to transition back into mainstream society, in this case in the form of a social worker to provide assistance.

    homes are not free: new tenants have to pay $US50 or 30% of their income to rent each month (whichever amount is greater).

Mostly it works and is cheaper for the state, saving on things like shelters, ambulances, hospitals and jails. Continue reading Saturday salon 5/11 →

Life

Life is fragile

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It was a pretty awful week last week, starting with various murders still in the courts, including the sentencing in terrible one where a man fuelled with alcohol and drugs raped and killed the young French student at Kurilpa on the southside, near the Gallery of Modern Art. There was another at Goondiwidi, where a woman was choked and strangled with her jeans.

dreamworld_7964024-16x9-220x124Then we had the four deaths at Dreamworld and the bumbling by Ardent Leisure CEO Deborah Thomas and the Dreamworld management. Continue reading Life is fragile →

Life, Politics & Government, Sundries

Saturday salon 15/10

5 Comments

1. Australian managers are second rate

Martin Parkinson, head of the PM’s department, told CEDA what we need to do to become truly innovative.

What caught my eye was what he said about Australian management in manufacturing:

Life, Politics & Government, Social Science and Society

Liberals flounder as the marriage equality plebiscite turns to sludge

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The week began with Newspoll maintaining Labor’s TPP lead at 52-48, and ended with Kelly O’Dwyer endorsing a bill that criticised the Government. In between Turnbull got the Senate to pass his legislation supporting Victoria’s CFA volunteers, with Pauline Hanson’s support, and one of the National senators stood aside so that Pauline could join the NBN committee.

The major political event of the week, however, was Labor killing off the marriage equality plebiscite legislation. Sure, it still has to go to the senate, but Xenophon, the Greens and Labor oppose it, so it can’t pass.

Laura Tingle says the Faustian bargain Turnbull struck with the Nationals to become PM is eroding the rationale for replacing Abbott with Turnbull. Continue reading Liberals flounder as the marriage equality plebiscite turns to sludge →