Wednesday, December 13, 2017

TIME Person of the Year 2017 The Silence Breakers

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better
– Ralph Waldo Emerson.

MEdia Dragon aka Feste, in Twelfth Night, introduces a central theme when he tells Olivia that "the future is uncertain, laughter momentary, and youth 'a stuff will not endure'



“Some will not look on suffering because it creates responsibility.” Fulton J. Sheen,Those Mysterious Priests ... read more

29 Wise and Inspiring Shakespeare Quotes | Bright Drops

6 Year Old reviews toys and makes millions

A writer must refuse to let himself be turned into an institution,” wrote Sartre, turning down the Nobel. Thus began the Sartre Prize for Prize Refusal  Sartre 



A Magazine For Southeast Asia’s Literary Scene Strives To Produce Sharp Political Commentary – And Avoid Censorship



The Mekong Review is published out of Sydney, partly to avoid some censorship, and despite a tiny staff and a patchy delivery system, it’s doing well: “The magazine punches above its weight: Its contributors include some of the best-known authors, journalists and academics who follow the region, including Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, and Emma Larkin, the pseudonym for a Bangkok-based American writer who has published several nonfiction books on Myanmar.”



How We Use “Um” To  Control Our Conversation



Things like “ums” and “uhs” signal there’s some delay in processing. But as a speaker, what I can do is exploit those kinds of signals. I can use them dishonestly. I can use something like “um” to give the overt signal that I’m having some sort of trouble with processing, but in reality, all I’m doing is trying to claim more ground and get you to keep waiting for me to finish.




Tax Adviser

Order here


VW executive gets seven years for U.S. emissions fraud Reuters. Adrien: “If only DOJ had pursued banksters with the the same enthusiasm. Still it is a victory ..and it has changed the conversation about diesel in Europe..where the air is, believe it or not, a lot worse than in NYC.”
More on this here.


Economists in 2017: What Can They Agree On? The Market Mogul 
Jeremy Hunt attacks Facebook over app aimed at children Guardian. UK health secretary on the offensive.

Ruth Dudley Edwards: The trouble with closed minds is that they make for very dull, meaningless conversations


Germany Preparing Law for Backdoors in Any Type of Modern Device Bleeping Computer  Help me. “Force manufacturers to include backdoors”? How about “tell German authorities about the backdoors that already exist.”

Bitcoin Is a Bit of a Miracle at Any Price

Is serialism one of the hot genres of 2017?


TIME Person of the Year 2017 The Silence Breakers: The Voices That Launched a Movement – “…This reckoning appears to have sprung up overnight. But it has actually been simmering for years, decades, centuries. Women have had it with bosses and co-workers who not only cross boundaries but don’t even seem to know that boundaries exist. They’ve had it with the fear of retaliation, of being blackballed, of being fired from a job they can’t afford to lose. They’ve had it with the code of going along to get along.
They’ve had it with men who use their power to take what they want from women. These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought…The women and men who have broken their silence span all races, all income classes, all occupations and virtually all corners of the globe. They might labor in California fields, or behind the front desk at New York City’s regal Plaza Hotel, or in the European Parliament. They’re part of a movement that has no formal name. But now they have a voice…”


Who's listening? Australians are well ahead of Turnbull's ICAC rethink.
Three-quarters of Australians want a federal ICAC and a majority want a greater say in what government does.

 

Parkinson floats national citizen survey.
Get ready for more disruption, there's more to do, says the APS head. Solving three problems in one, a regular survey could bring the public service and the community closer together, and that would be worth the discomfort.