The Perversity of Transgender Politics

It is such a strange phenomenon, Transgender Politics. It is built on the fantasy that human beings can voluntarily choose their gender. Many other aspects of our biological endowment are not challenged in such a way. I haven’t heard for example of brown-eyed people demanding that they should be called blue-eyed or short people demanding […]

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The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.

Charlie Kirk died in a mindless, murderous attack that reflects a growing assault on our democracy. Democracy is built on the foundation of free speech and the vigorous intellectual competition of ideas. In democracies we shouldn’t seek to silence those who disagree with us. We should listen respectfully to their ideas and if we disagree, […]

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Remembering My Father

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are largely occasions created for commercial reasons to make us feel compelled to buy presents and increase retail sales. They are cynical manipulations of our inherent feelings (normally) of affection for our parents. I must confess that I was blessed with the parents I had. I loved and admired them […]

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The Existential Threat of Radical Islamism

It is a strange quirk of the human condition that we almost universally romanticise the past. T H White captured the sentiment in his lovely book The Once and Future King. The myth of King Arthur and Camelot reflect our desire to reclaim an idealised past. As in many such myths (including the Christian one) […]

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Seeing Things Differently


In my little blog essays I have often talked about world-views. My rusted-on readers would know by now that a “world-view” is essentially a filter through which we view the world. Anais Nin’s famous quote, “We don’t see things they way they are; we see things the way we are,” alludes to this truth. The […]

May 12, 2012

Working Mothers


Australia’s aging population is putting some strains on both our society and our economy. Many of our older workers are leaving the workforce resulting in a diminished tax base and a higher demand for health and welfare services. One of the strategies that both sides of politics is employing is to offer more inducements to […]

May 6, 2012

I and Me.


In his fabulous little book “Awareness” the Jesuit teacher Anthony de Mello differentiated the subjective self and the self as object by referring to them as “I” and “me” respectively. Not being able to make this differentiation causes us no end of troubles. The issue of dualism and its resolution has been a problem for […]

April 28, 2012

Working Australia


I have been a bit busy this week and haven’t been able to spend much time on a blog essay for you. But I thought I might discuss a few issues that relate to the world of work and where it is going. My good friend Charles Brass runs the Future of Work Foundation. We […]

April 21, 2012

Considerators, Dogmatics and Fanatics


I remember reading a quotation from someone eminent many years ago (my aging brain can’t quite grasp at this moment who) to the effect that it is a sign of psychological maturity to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in the mind at the same time. I know, myself, many times in my life […]

April 14, 2012

The Road to Xanadu


Last November, I visited Beijing and whilst there went to visit the “Forbidden City”. The Forbidden City was the residence of the Emperor except for some of the summer months when he went to his Summer Palace. The Forbidden City was a very luxurious place where the Chinese Emperor and his court and his concubines […]

April 6, 2012

Being Un-Australian


I read recently a little commentary piece where someone was sick of hearing the pejorative “un-Australian”. It is something we read quite often in the press and although I confess its use grated with me I hadn’t given it much thought. But when I come to think of it, it is a real cop-out! I […]

April 4, 2012

What’s Happening to Our Democracy?


In previous blogs I have bemoaned the fact that many public debates are being stifled by the fact that some minority groups with particular vested interests seek to have their particular points of view from being challenged by indulging in pseudo acts of self-suffering which they term “taking offense”. That in itself is a curb, […]

March 25, 2012

In Praise of Women


We have recently, on Thursday 8 March, celebrated International Women’s Day. This event apparently has been celebrated since 1909. Many countries have public holidays in recognition of their women folk. Some of you might occasionally suspect that I am a misogynist, sexist, chauvinist. But even I can find substantive reasons to celebrate the accomplishments and […]

March 21, 2012

The Tyranny of the In-Tray


It is one of the paradoxes that I encounter when coaching executives that those who seem to want help with time management are invariably those who are best at it! It seems to be that if time management is something you care about you probably have already done more than most to ensure you are […]

March 10, 2012