The fact that less people appear to be coming to Australia by boat (and let’s face it we have no idea how many people are trying, due to the secrecy around it) is no vindication of our asylum seeker detention policy. Especially when the Secretary General of the UN has personally questioned it in public.
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It had been a clear and sunny day, but the cold wind that sprung up was as bitter and savage as Michael Clarke's memoirs. After our early good form and enjoyable games, I had been disappointed not to play last week because of the bye, which meant I was pretty frustrated to miss this week’s game with a new injury as well. Still, the next game seems to come around as frequently as Peter Dutton’s gaffes, so I will still get plenty of games in this season.
Read Full Article Paris is certainly a beautiful city that brings a wash of pleasant memories whenever I hear the name, but this week the city’s name has brought a much different range of emotions. The terrorist attack appears to have been a catalyst for discussion- including some fairly extreme views- on a range of subjects including the media, terrorism, border protection, Islam and why anyone listens to Andrew Bolt at all. Each of these topics could have been the subject of their own essay (except for the Andrew Bolt thing- that is just a mystery with no explanation) and I have written about several previously, but with so many things in my head I thought I would just outline a few related thoughts that have come to me in wake of the attacks.
Read Full Article Hobart turned on one of those beautifully warm Summer’s evenings, that would prompt Kenny Rogers to write a song and we were lucky enough to be playing touch football. After losing a couple of female players at short notice, the possibility of a sausage fest (any event were there are more than twice as many guys as girls) was on the cards. Thankfully the Cruel Sea (I showed my age last week with a reference to Jane’s Addiction, which half my team had to google, so I figure I may as well keep doing it) was making an appearance, giving us just enough girls to put a full team on the park.
Read Full Article I’m not racist but…
Actually I better start that sentence again, since those words are usually a prelude to a racist statement. Right, take two. I am against racial discrimination and vilification because I’m against all forms of bullying and abuse. Last week on a Hobart bus, a man made news for reportedly unleashing a tirade of racial abuse at a woman of Indian heritage, when she interceded on the behalf of a teenage girl he was behaving in a creepy and predatory fashion towards. As I made very clear elsewhere, I am both saddened and embarrassed that I have enough ignorant and hateful countrymen (and women- I’m equal opportunity in my disgust) that members of other minorities have had to endure harassment and intimidation based on their race or religion. I should be very clear that I was pretty disgusted when I heard about the incident. However, I did find the focus on racism in this particular case to be rather blinkered, as there was a little bit more to this story. Read Full Article The drizzly rain looked as gloomy as Joe Hockey’s first budget, as I drove towards Wentworth Par and despite the fact that it was quickly drying out, ongoing worries about my injury meant I wanted to play about as much as the New Zealand cricket team wanted to play against the Cricket Australia XI. I got changed in the club rooms and headed for Ground 1 with the lingering smell of deep heat clinging to me the way asylum seekers cling to their children when they see Peter Dutton.
Our opponents for the night were the Banditos and as the start of the game drew closer, it appeared likely that they may follow Bill Shorten’s lead with Malcolm Turnbull and not actually provide any recognisable opposition. Just as I was anticipating an early night, the Banditos appeared like ninjas, showing they were aptly named for their stealth. Read Full Article Failure. I recently experienced it with a goal that was quite important to me. I actually thought I had insulated myself quite well, reminding myself that it was an extremely ambitious goal and that success was not likely. I had also put some cognitive effort into accepting that, even if my ultimate goal was unsuccessful, the exercise had been productive and positive anyway. Armed with some prepared self-talk and very content with my life and achievements to date, I was surprised by how hard the experience hit me. When it happens in relation to goals that matter to us, it is not an enjoyable experience and one that we often try to avoid. I haven’t had to deal with many failures of this kind in the last two decades. I had assumed this to be a fortunate aspect of my life but I am now questioning this assumption. Perhaps I have been selling myself short. Would I have achieved more if I set higher goals? Why are we afraid to fail? Read Full Article |
I realised that the website was getting a little difficult to keep track of and people would have no way of keeping track of which new posts were recent. I will use this page to display links to any new articles from now on.
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