Our Woke Defence

I was astounded the other day to learn how the Government has set net zero emission targets for our defence forces. Our defence services are currently undermanned.(probably a politically incorrect word) and under provisioned. The government seems determined to hobble our defence capability. In an extraordinary display of wokeness it seems to believe it will […]

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Diversity and the Decline of the West

Post-modernism has thrown up considerable challenges for Western societies. More and more it demands that minorities are given voices which is undoubtedly, usually, a good thing. But we continually have to mediate between listening to minorities and maintaining the welfare of the majority, for after all in a liberal democracy decisions should be made on […]

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On Being Especially Ordinary

When I was a young power station manager I had an American engineer from Tennessee as my deputy. He told me a story about Abraham Lincoln. I can’t count for its veracity but I will repeat it just the same. At a function Lincoln was approached by a woman who gushed, “Mr Lincoln it is […]

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Let’s Stand with Israel

It is now twelve months since Hamas terrorists perpetrated a huge atrocity against the people of Israel. The scale and the barbarity of this incursion is beyond the imagination of most civilised people. The abhorrent nature of the Islamist extremist perpetrators is highlighted at the joy they expressed at the killing of innocent citizens in […]

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Learning to be Happy


Some years ago I was invited to be the guest speaker and to make presentations at a graduation ceremony at the Central Queensland University. When I commenced my address I stated that I had come to address a deficiency in the university’s curriculum. The Vice-Chancellor seemed a little startled at this suggestion and there were […]

August 21, 2011

Maintaining Our Social Capital


Well, what a week it’s been – riots in London, the USA losing its AAA rating, financial crisis in the Eurozone and our own share market taking another plunge and then recovering. What has gone wrong with our modern democratic capitalist societies? To begin with, I suppose, one of the downsides of democracies is that […]

August 14, 2011

Towards More Informed Public Debate


Our society seems increasingly permeated by polarising issues. Issues such as climate change (and subsequently the carbon tax), the issue of refugees arriving by boats, the government intervention into remote indigenous communities, the threat of terrorism (particularly by Muslim Jihadists) and so on seem to rapidly polarize our society making meaningful debate quite problematic. It […]

August 6, 2011

Terror of another Kind


I felt compelled to write about the tragedy in Norway this week, but I scarcely know where to begin. In the face of such a repugnant act I am left bewildered and struggle to make sense of it. Norway is a socially progressive country with one of the highest standards of living in the world. […]

July 31, 2011

When Will They Ever Learn?


I remember in the sixties hearing Pete Seeger singing his composition “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”  All five verses of the song finished with the plaintive question; “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?” It is a very good question. In this essay I want to explore learning in an organizational […]

July 24, 2011

Flies in the Ointment – A Parable for Our Times


“All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.” Thomas Aquinas In far off Moladavia there was a village called Climatesan. Now Moladavia was a poor country and most of its citizens struggled in a subsistence economy. But Climatesan was more fortunate than most. Whereas most of the land […]

July 17, 2011

Spiritual Evolution and The Perennial Philosophy


Eventually all of us have to contend with the question, “Does God exist?” and if we answer in the affirmative we then have to ask ourselves, “What is the Nature of God.” Let me confess at the very beginning of this essay that I believe that God exists, or at least my interpretation of a […]

July 9, 2011

Watching The Play


In “As You Like It” William Shakespeare wrote the famous lines: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts…” We all have multiple roles. We can at any time be for example, a father, […]

July 3, 2011

Equanimity


The minds of those of us who have an enduring sense of well-being are like deep oceans. Sometimes on the surface the elements may occasionally whip up a few waves, but they can not touch the depths which remain in deep abiding tranquility. Neuroscientists have shown that such people have more activity in the right […]

June 27, 2011

Some Patter on the Batter and Katter Matters


What troubled times we live in! As if it wasn’t enough to have to contend with climate change, seemingly losing the war in Afghanistan, and not being able to stop the boat people, all of a sudden we have two new issues to contend with. This might be OK for all you ladies that are […]

June 19, 2011