February 2012
6 posts
5 tags
Albo speaks about the Labor leadership
Already one of the all-time great Labor speeches; a reminder of Labor values made in despairing circumstances as, tragically, so many other great Labor speeches have been. Anthony Albanese, Leader of the House of Representatives Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices, Sydney 25/2/2012 (summary - full speech and Q&A at link below) “I have devoted my life to advancing the cause of Labor. I...
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WatchChris Bliss on why comedy is the original and still the best viral communication genre. Key features of comedy: ‘economy of language’ and ‘the alchemy of laughter turns our walls into windows and seduces us into looking at an idea from a new point of view’.
3 tags
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The best NBA draft class of all time? I'm gonna go... →
4 tags
WatchReligion for Atheists: Can we benefit from the practices of religion without the dogmatic content? Can rituals enrich our secular ideas? Alain de Botton says yes and much more. I say amen!
June 2010
0 posts
December 2009
1 post
lapetitecoccinelle:
“New slang”, The Shins.
A...
November 2009
4 posts
Somerset Maugham - The Perfect Traveler, by Pico...
“We’re not used to thinking of Maugham as a hippie, but it’s worth recalling that he was roughing it around India for three months when he was 63, seeking out swamis and yogis; he told his friend Christopher Isherwood, a few years later, that his great wish, when he turned 70, was to return to the subcontinent and study Shankara. He had no time for the likes of Henry James, with his...
“God may be dead, but the bit of us that made God continues to stir.” - Alain De Botton
September 2009
3 posts
“During the transition, the administration created an online “Citizens’ Briefing Book” for people to submit ideas to the president. “The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we’ll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors,” Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s friend and adviser, wrote to...
August 2009
11 posts
“I do not believe that human culture can ever reach a perfect synthesis of its diversified and incompatible components. Its very richness is supported by this very incompatibility of its ingredients. And it is the conflict of values, rather than their harmony, that keeps our culture alive.” - Leszek Kolakowski, who died last month.
“Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow...”
– The Lost Art of Reading, by David L. Ulin. (via The Rumpus) (via the lovely ms rachelhills)
What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later →
DarlinghurstNights →
“The 140-character limit of Twitter posts was guided by the 160-character limit...”
– BEN SCHOTT - “Twittergraphy”, NYTimes.com
Class Dismissed: A new status anxiety is infecting... →
Some 25 years have passed since the publication of Paul Fussell’s naughty treat Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
