I was listening to some live music last night* and one of the performers said something like here is a song about some of the monkeys in my circus. Your circus will be different but we all have monkeys. He had me at monkeys. That is a great way to… read more →
Ever had that feeling that when times are challenging you learn more. No one actively likes having a tough time but if everything was easy / peasy I suspect we’d be in cruise mode and oblivious. Many years ago a wise friend referred to some of this as the growing… read more →
The combined population of Australia and New Zealand is about 29m as of October 2018. The population of the Nordic countries is about the same. The Nordic region includes Scandinavia of which Sweden is the largest country by population. According to the Business Sweden office in Sydney summary of… read more →
I went along to the Polarised long form debate between Douglas Murray and Cornel West in Auckland. It also toured in a number of Australian cities who had similar but not identical experiences. The “Polarised” title itself is paradoxical. The sub text there is “lets have a game of divide… read more →
A few years ago I heard a great interview* with Dr Cornel West on the National programme. I loved that it was at times scathing about the U.S president (Obama at the time 2011) but still generous and hopeful and considered across a range of topics. Now 7 + years… read more →
In what must be a massive win for pedant grammar twats everywhere an economist is probably right that inequality is less of a problem than unfairness. Semantics aside inequality is the net result of unfair conditions in the market that affect individuals and society across all sectors. The traditional political… read more →
Back in 2011-2013 when there were various Arab uprisings including the Egyptian one I started writing a blog post about how I thought social media was changing the game in political terms. A friend in Thailand suggested it was too soon and not to be over hopeful that anything much… read more →
There is a family story about the Von Tempsky violin which had been owned by my great grandfather Tim Howard until 1898. Apparently the violin was a 1625 Maggini*. Howard had been a policeman and a farmer near Invercargill and by all accounts a good violinist or fiddle player as… read more →
Last week I caught part of an extended interview with Dr Marcus Davey on improving health outcomes for premature infants between 24-28 weeks. The interview was with Kim Hill on Radio NZ. “Dr Marcus Davey, a developmental physiologist and senior researcher, is part of a team researching pre-birth genetic… read more →
Just because we can do something is not a great argument for doing that particular thing. I’m thinking that the current monopoly of the online universe by Google and Facebook in particular is being distorted well beyond what we altruists ever imagined. In a world where Google was guided by… read more →