“A strong positive response to [Edward] Hopper’s paintings is by no means uncommon, in America and throughout the world. But I’ve come to believe that it’s singularly strong among readers and writers…those of us who care deeply for stories…It’s not because of the stories his paintings tell….[They] don’t tell stories…They suggest – powerfully, irresistibly – that there are stories within them, waiting to be told…It’s our task to find [them] for ourselves.” – Lawrence Block, editor/writer for this collection.
“I don’t trust words, I trust actions.”
“Only trust someone who can see these three things in you: the sorrow behind your smile, the love behind your anger, and the reason behind your silence.”
Selena Gomez “If you have three people in your life that you can trust, you can consider yourself the luckiest person in the whole world.”
Nan S Russell is partial to one of my favourite quotes 'wisdom is the daughter of experience' Nan has shared many stories on the topic of "Trust: The New Workplace Currency"
Prison camps, dystopia, terrorism, intelligentsia: Russian history has been a godsend for literature. And for political language as well... Da Da
Film director Bruce Beresford on surly stars and Hollywood ratbags
Bruce Beresford is settled in at the table reading a newspaper, even though I have arrived for our lunch more than 15 minutes early. "I've just flown in from LA this morning, so excuse me if I talk nonsense," one of Australia's most accomplished film directors grins as he greets me.
I initially assume he has arrived early so he can get lunch over with and go home and sleep, but the 75-year-old is showing no signs of jetlag or of talking nonsense. We are in a cosy Chinese restaurant just a block from Oxford Street in Sydney's Surry Hills. Beresford, who is based in Sydney but is often at his flat in London or working in Hollywood, has agreed to meet here because we both have a personal connection to Mahjong Room. Attracted to the venue's '60s-style decor and traditional wooden mahjong tables, he shot a scene from his 2009 movieMao's Last Dancer here. My partner owns the restaurant.
It is 30-plus degrees outside and Beresford is dressed casually in a dark T-shirt and tan trousers. He is a big man with a youthful energy and he laughs easily, almost a high-pitched giggle, particularly when he is joking about himself or his movies. It feels more like lunch with a highly-entertaining uncle rather than someone with an Oscar under his belt who has spent the last week talking to Hollywood studios and Chinese financiers about directing a potential $US150 million movie.
ABA Journal: “Lawyers have to safeguard client data and notify clients of a data breach, and the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has issued a formal opinion that reaffirms that duty.
Clarke, Amanda and Piper, Benjamin, A Legal Framework to Govern Online Political Expression by Public Servants (May 14, 2018). Clarke, Amanda & Benjamin Piper. 2018. “A Legal Framework to Govern Online Political Expression by Public Servants”, Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal, 21(1), 1-50. . Available at SSRN: A Legal Framework to Govern Online Political Expression by Public Servants - https://ssrn.com/abstract=3251375
“This paper considers the extent to which public servants should be allowed to engage in political activities in online fora such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The question of the appropriate balance between the principle of political neutrality binding public servants and their Charter-protected right to political expression has been extensively addressed in the case law.
However, the framework set out in the existing jurisprudence was developed in the context of more traditional forms of political engagement, and fails to provide clear guidance in an age when the political activities of public servants, like those of Canadians as a whole, have to a large degree migrated to social media and other platforms on the web. In an effort to remedy this deficiency, the authors lay the foundation for a revised framework for assessing the permissibility of online political activity by public servants, consisting of four analytical factors: the level and nature of a public servant’s position; the visibility of the online activity; the substance of the online activity; and the identifiability of the online actor as a public servant. Adopting this test, the authors contend, would enable adjudicators to strike a reasonable balance between freedom of expression and the principle of political neutrality, by recognizing that in today’s world both politics and life as a public servant play out online.”
Cumex
Files: European Taxpayers Cheated out of €55 Billion
European financial elites have lifted 55 billion euros, about US$63 billion, out of state coffers by receiving tax reimbursements for taxes that had never been paid, a new crossborder investigation has revealed. The schemes are comprised of two mechanisms: one where traders try to collect tax reimbursements for non-existing tax payments and another where they are reimbursed twice for the same taxes.
European financial elites have lifted 55 billion euros, about US$63 billion, out of state coffers by receiving tax reimbursements for taxes that had never been paid, a new crossborder investigation has revealed. The schemes are comprised of two mechanisms: one where traders try to collect tax reimbursements for non-existing tax payments and another where they are reimbursed twice for the same taxes.
ANTHONY PUN: A response to PM Morrison’s speech in Hurstville concerning Australia/China relations
This Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ announcement that it was filing for bankruptcy. On the ABC’s Rear Vision this Sunday a panel of financial and economic experts describe how the Global Financial Crisis developed, how the world’s governments responded (praise for Kevin Rudd), and why there has been such a sluggish recovery in the real economy.
Writing in Foreign Affairs (“The forgotten history of the financial crisis”) historian Adam Tooze of Columbia University attributes the recovery from the GFC to American leadership in ensuring that the US Federal Reserve responded by providing liquidity to other countries’ central banks. (Europeans, Chinese and Australians may have different perspectives.)
Also reflecting on the ten years since the GFC, Joseph Stiglitz writes in Social Europe“Unless and until the selfishness and myopia that define our politics – especially in the US under Trump and his Republican enablers – is overcome, an economy that serves the many, rather than the few, will remain an impossible dream”.
On the other issues commanding our attention there is a 2009 John Clarke and Brian Dawe interview. Plus ça change…
Writer Anne Frank Never Became (And Whom The World Wouldn’t Have Liked As Much)
"Frank's diary was not the work of a naïf, but rather of a writer already planning future publication." (She made plenty of revisions, and they were obviously thought through.) "The problem is that the entire appeal of Anne Frank to the wider world — as opposed to those who knew and loved her — lies in her lack of a future." … [Read More]
In a book that will delight lovers of stories and art, Lawrence Block, editor and writer, presents stories written by himself and sixteen other authors in response to seventeen paintings by American artist Edward Hopper (1882 – 1967). Most of Hopper’s paintings are quiet, with little, if any, action and few, if any, characters. The overall mood for most of Hopper’s paintings is bleak, and his characters appear to be lonely, immersed in their own thoughts, and alienated from society. Though Hopper specializes in the play of sunlight and shadow (hence, the title of the book), he does so with dramatic effect, and most of his major paintings show isolated characters dealing with the darkness, the light being just beyond them. All of the seventeen writers who have contributed a short story to illustrate a Hopper painting clearly catch the mood of depression and withdrawal which seems to characterize so many of these paintings, and anyone familiar with the work of these writers, most of whom are mystery writers, should also know what to expect: Only two writers create stories that can be said to have even slightly “happy” endings, and one of those occurs on a deathbed.There is one joke in King of Thieves, and it’s that the thieves are old. That’s it – that’s the whole movie. Jokes about diabetes, diarrhoea and how, at their age, these retirees deserve a bungalow abound. References to unpeeled bananas and a scene set to Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy add a swirl of gentle homophobia into the mix.
Based on the true story of the Hatton Garden heist in 2015, James Marsh’s film tells of a group of aged ex-cons, played by Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay and Ray Winstone, who team up with a youngish tech whiz (Charlie Cox) to steal £100m in cash and jewels from a series of safety deposit boxes. The gang also recruitMichael Gambon’s beer-guzzling Billy the Fish as their fence.
There are a few rascally moments, such as Jim Broadbent setting off roman candles in his back garden, but mostly it’s a staid affair, laden with dragged-outscenes of the gang doing thejob. Not even Benjamin Wallfisch’s jaunty score can keep things moving.