A word of praise today for one of my facebook friends, Leon Gettler.
Gettler, BTW, is a freelance writer who lines in Melbourne, Australia. Gettler's facebook profile includes the following quotation from Winston Churchill:
"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public."
I've forgotten why I initially linked with Gettler, but we are both facebook friends with Sam Antar, and that is a story in itself. (For another day.)
Anyway, I'm writing this because of one bit of Gettlerian phrase-making that I particularly admired,. He wrote recently on FB of a conversation he had had with a management consultant who sells "benchmarking and best practice." But ... this was Gettler's point ... you don't help anyone achieve excellence that way. Steve Jobs didn't become Steve Jobs by learning to imitate Steve Jobs.
All you are doing, Gettler reports himself saying, is "creating karaoke corporations."
Karaoke corporations. I love it.
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
09 September 2011
29 July 2011
Bradman and Sachin
Amidst some random surfing (yes, it is random when I do it) I encountered some efforts at humor about cricket. A sport I know absolutely nothing about. Several of the jokes involved people named Bradman and/or Sachin.
Sachin turns out to be an Indian cricketer, full name Sachin Tendulkar, described somewhere as "the first and the only player in Test Cricket history to score fifty centuries, and the first to score fifty centuries in all international cricket combined." Don't ask me for an explanation of that.
Bradman? Sir Donald, if you please. He passed away in 2001, but he was an Australian legend. The Aussies think he was the greatest cricketer ever. At his height, in 1931, a London paper said, "It is almost time to request a legal limit on the number of runs Bradman should be allowed to make."
And he wasn't even named Bruce.
If you have an Aussie and an Indian in the same room, and you want to get a lively conversation underway, ask them whether Sachin is greater than Bradman. There is at least one facebook page devoted to that question.
Anyway, here is one of the corny jokes arising out of this intergenerational/international comparison.
Sachin one day said: "God has sent me to teach the world how to play cricket."
Bradman replied: "That's a mistake. I didn't send anyone!"
Sachin turns out to be an Indian cricketer, full name Sachin Tendulkar, described somewhere as "the first and the only player in Test Cricket history to score fifty centuries, and the first to score fifty centuries in all international cricket combined." Don't ask me for an explanation of that.
Bradman? Sir Donald, if you please. He passed away in 2001, but he was an Australian legend. The Aussies think he was the greatest cricketer ever. At his height, in 1931, a London paper said, "It is almost time to request a legal limit on the number of runs Bradman should be allowed to make."
And he wasn't even named Bruce.
If you have an Aussie and an Indian in the same room, and you want to get a lively conversation underway, ask them whether Sachin is greater than Bradman. There is at least one facebook page devoted to that question.
Anyway, here is one of the corny jokes arising out of this intergenerational/international comparison.
Sachin one day said: "God has sent me to teach the world how to play cricket."
Bradman replied: "That's a mistake. I didn't send anyone!"
17 January 2008
Who is the "Minor Royal"?
I'm usually happily clueless about this sort of thing, and apparently I'm months behind the curve.
But let's gossip about our mother country's royals. Dominick Dunne, in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, writes from London. He has a lot on his mind: the divorce proceedings of Mr. McCartney, the revival of inquiries into Princess Diana's death, and so forth. Rather buried in all this is a blackmail case.
Apparently, a "minor royal" was the subject of a blackmail attempt in the summer of 2007. I gather that the adjective "minor" indicates not his age but that there is some safe distance between him and the nuclear family of the Sovereign.
At any rate, the laws of the UK prohibit the mentioning of his name, though this hasn't kept people from talking. The story has it that a video exists of the (male) minor royal engaging in a sex act with another man, an aide. It also shows the aide, not the royal, inhaling cocaine. In a nice touch, the coke was apparently provided to him in an envelope bearing the royal insignia. So there's the hint, at least, of the solicitation of sex for drugs.
Minor royal went to Scotland Yard about the blackmail, and undercover detectives set up a meeting with the possessors of said video tape in a hotel room. They posed as discreet intermediaries for the minor royal (not much of a pose, since that is in effect what they were). When money was mentioned, the detectives made their arrest.
Dunne also recounts that the name "came out on the Internet and in the Australian papers in a graphic, detailed report."
But Dunne doesn't provide it.
Okay, I'm curious. Not so curious as to do a lot of work on it, but mildly curious. So I went to the webpage for the first Australian newspaper to come to mind, the one aptly named The Australian, and I entered "cocaine blackmail royal" in its search engine.
That yields nine stories. I've just been sampling them, and it appears The Australian isn't naming names either. It names the two blackmailer defendants. But not the compalinant.
It plays a bit of a process-of-elimination game, though. "Neither Prince William nor his brother Prince Harry were involved." Whew.
Anyway, that's as much research as I'm going to expend on the matter. Vastly more than it warrants, surely.
But let's gossip about our mother country's royals. Dominick Dunne, in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, writes from London. He has a lot on his mind: the divorce proceedings of Mr. McCartney, the revival of inquiries into Princess Diana's death, and so forth. Rather buried in all this is a blackmail case.
Apparently, a "minor royal" was the subject of a blackmail attempt in the summer of 2007. I gather that the adjective "minor" indicates not his age but that there is some safe distance between him and the nuclear family of the Sovereign.
At any rate, the laws of the UK prohibit the mentioning of his name, though this hasn't kept people from talking. The story has it that a video exists of the (male) minor royal engaging in a sex act with another man, an aide. It also shows the aide, not the royal, inhaling cocaine. In a nice touch, the coke was apparently provided to him in an envelope bearing the royal insignia. So there's the hint, at least, of the solicitation of sex for drugs.
Minor royal went to Scotland Yard about the blackmail, and undercover detectives set up a meeting with the possessors of said video tape in a hotel room. They posed as discreet intermediaries for the minor royal (not much of a pose, since that is in effect what they were). When money was mentioned, the detectives made their arrest.
Dunne also recounts that the name "came out on the Internet and in the Australian papers in a graphic, detailed report."
But Dunne doesn't provide it.
Okay, I'm curious. Not so curious as to do a lot of work on it, but mildly curious. So I went to the webpage for the first Australian newspaper to come to mind, the one aptly named The Australian, and I entered "cocaine blackmail royal" in its search engine.
That yields nine stories. I've just been sampling them, and it appears The Australian isn't naming names either. It names the two blackmailer defendants. But not the compalinant.
It plays a bit of a process-of-elimination game, though. "Neither Prince William nor his brother Prince Harry were involved." Whew.
Anyway, that's as much research as I'm going to expend on the matter. Vastly more than it warrants, surely.
02 September 2007
Meanings of Realism
I suspected there'd be a lot, but I wouldn't have been right had I guessed at a number.
Just for some geeky fun, I entered the word "realism" in the search engine of wikipedia this morning. Such a search generally gets you to a "disambiguation page," which is what it sounds like. It tells you that the word you entered could refer to any of X number of articles, and lets you click from there to the one you want.
So, how many different sorts of realism are represented by the collective efforts thus far of wikipedia editors?
By my count (the lay-out is complicated enough that there are different ways of counting) ... there are sixty-four realisms.
There are twelve realisms under the category "art" alone. And art doesn't include literature, which has another eight. (Actually, there's some overlap in the realisms listed in those two categories, which I'll ignore.) There are seven realisms in international relations, three under law, twenty-six in philosophy, two in physics, and four listed as "other."
Artistic realism in the first-listed, and most abstract, sense is "the depiction of subjects as they appear in life, without embellishment or interpretation." Is it "realistic" to believe that "realism" in that sense ever exists? Surely not, but it isn't only on this list, it's on this list twice -- once for the dramatic arts and once for the literary arts. Actually, you could make the case that it's on the list three times, with a slight variance of wording the third time. Whatever.
My favorite of the philosophical realisms is "Australian realism," which is apparently the technical term for the outlandish theory that Australia is an actual place, not just an invention of the Monty Python troupe.
I kid. Australian realism is a materialist/reductionist school of thought associated with several philosophers from down under, some of whom aren't even named Bruce.
Just for some geeky fun, I entered the word "realism" in the search engine of wikipedia this morning. Such a search generally gets you to a "disambiguation page," which is what it sounds like. It tells you that the word you entered could refer to any of X number of articles, and lets you click from there to the one you want.
So, how many different sorts of realism are represented by the collective efforts thus far of wikipedia editors?
By my count (the lay-out is complicated enough that there are different ways of counting) ... there are sixty-four realisms.
There are twelve realisms under the category "art" alone. And art doesn't include literature, which has another eight. (Actually, there's some overlap in the realisms listed in those two categories, which I'll ignore.) There are seven realisms in international relations, three under law, twenty-six in philosophy, two in physics, and four listed as "other."
Artistic realism in the first-listed, and most abstract, sense is "the depiction of subjects as they appear in life, without embellishment or interpretation." Is it "realistic" to believe that "realism" in that sense ever exists? Surely not, but it isn't only on this list, it's on this list twice -- once for the dramatic arts and once for the literary arts. Actually, you could make the case that it's on the list three times, with a slight variance of wording the third time. Whatever.
My favorite of the philosophical realisms is "Australian realism," which is apparently the technical term for the outlandish theory that Australia is an actual place, not just an invention of the Monty Python troupe.
I kid. Australian realism is a materialist/reductionist school of thought associated with several philosophers from down under, some of whom aren't even named Bruce.
21 June 2007
When I Travel
When I travel, it is my habit to try to get a handle on the news of the place I'm visiting. I buy the local papers, and look for locality-specific stories.
Of course, nowadays, you can read almost anything anywhere. You can read the Irish Examiner, for example, here: http://www.irishexaminer.com
Still, I generally wouldn't think to read the Irish Examiner without the impetus of a trip to the place. And when I have that impetus, I try to make good use of it.
So this is what I learned. There's been a general election in Ireland recently, and the dust having settled, Fianna Fail has become the dominant political party within a ruling coalition. What does the Gaelic term "Fianna Fail" mean in English? "Soldiers of Ireland," literally, although party members seem to prefer "Soldiers of Destiny." Anyway, the coalition is of a center-left sort, and will include the Green Party, apparently for the first time.
There's much ink spilt on the challenges that the health-sector, and the ministry with responsibility for the same, will face in the months and years ahead. Mary Harney, a Progressive Democrat, will remain the Minister of Health, although the Prog. Dems lost seats in last month's voting. Her own position in the cabinet is stronger than it was, apparently because a nurses' strike during the election collapsed. Nurses, as one journalist with a gift for feline cliche put it, are "licking their wounds."
On a lighter note, nudist groups are said to be stepping up their campaign to secure designated beaches in Ireland for the exercise of their preferred ... um ... means of total-tan-acquisition.
And I ended up reading about Tullow Oil. Tullow, founded in Ireland in 1985, has since moved its headquarters to London, UK, but is still listed on the ISE as well as the LSE. The newspapers tell me that it's just reported positive results from exploratory drilling in Uganda. They also mention rumors, which the company denies, that some of those positive results come on the other side of a border, in Kenya.
The stock price rose on this combination of confirmed and denied reports. After a long period of hovering around 5.5 euros, it increased its value by more than a third in days, to 7.5.
So, unless you're Irish, you probably now know much more than you need to about what'sbeen in their newspapers of late.
I won't speak of the sports pages here, but I did notice that on television the counting is up rather than down. A rugby match lasts 80 minutes. When I ducked into a pub for "a pint of plain" and saw that a match was in progress (South Africa versus Australia) the television showed the time as 78:00, then 78:01 etc. The viewer was expected to be able to figure out what that meant in terms of time left, unless the announcers were expected to remind him/her constantly -- and (since this was a close match) the latter is what happened.
South Africa, by the way, won the match. Twenty-two to eighteen.
Of course, nowadays, you can read almost anything anywhere. You can read the Irish Examiner, for example, here: http://www.irishexaminer.com
Still, I generally wouldn't think to read the Irish Examiner without the impetus of a trip to the place. And when I have that impetus, I try to make good use of it.
So this is what I learned. There's been a general election in Ireland recently, and the dust having settled, Fianna Fail has become the dominant political party within a ruling coalition. What does the Gaelic term "Fianna Fail" mean in English? "Soldiers of Ireland," literally, although party members seem to prefer "Soldiers of Destiny." Anyway, the coalition is of a center-left sort, and will include the Green Party, apparently for the first time.
There's much ink spilt on the challenges that the health-sector, and the ministry with responsibility for the same, will face in the months and years ahead. Mary Harney, a Progressive Democrat, will remain the Minister of Health, although the Prog. Dems lost seats in last month's voting. Her own position in the cabinet is stronger than it was, apparently because a nurses' strike during the election collapsed. Nurses, as one journalist with a gift for feline cliche put it, are "licking their wounds."
On a lighter note, nudist groups are said to be stepping up their campaign to secure designated beaches in Ireland for the exercise of their preferred ... um ... means of total-tan-acquisition.
And I ended up reading about Tullow Oil. Tullow, founded in Ireland in 1985, has since moved its headquarters to London, UK, but is still listed on the ISE as well as the LSE. The newspapers tell me that it's just reported positive results from exploratory drilling in Uganda. They also mention rumors, which the company denies, that some of those positive results come on the other side of a border, in Kenya.
The stock price rose on this combination of confirmed and denied reports. After a long period of hovering around 5.5 euros, it increased its value by more than a third in days, to 7.5.
So, unless you're Irish, you probably now know much more than you need to about what'sbeen in their newspapers of late.
I won't speak of the sports pages here, but I did notice that on television the counting is up rather than down. A rugby match lasts 80 minutes. When I ducked into a pub for "a pint of plain" and saw that a match was in progress (South Africa versus Australia) the television showed the time as 78:00, then 78:01 etc. The viewer was expected to be able to figure out what that meant in terms of time left, unless the announcers were expected to remind him/her constantly -- and (since this was a close match) the latter is what happened.
South Africa, by the way, won the match. Twenty-two to eighteen.
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