Monday, January 20, 2020

Sounds Like Titanic in two waves: Fictional Life of Media Dragons

Taxing Observers of No Importance - It's a long time already since I stopped talking ...

Vaclav Havel's Necole Stephens said it all:  “When you find yourself cocooned in isolation and you cannot find your way out of darkness… Remember that one of the smartest things one can do in life …is to play stupid!



Remember, this is similar to the place where caterpillars go to grow their wings.” 

“I wear my mistakes like badges of honor, and I celebrate them.” 
― Amy Schumer, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo




“A beetle will chase after an opening of light, while a cockroach will scatter at a crack of it. How are we different from insects? Nobody is purely good or purely evil. Most of us are in-between. There are moths that explore the day and butterflies that play at night. Polarity is an integral part of nature — human or not human.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem






Corporations don't lead, they follow — and they have a message for our politicians


Not just subconscious, but DNA deep
When we talk about organizations, or other forms of collective action by groups of people, we often speak as if we have dominantly conscious control.... [read more]

 Ten Days of Preparation Gone: Samizdat and insider's insider's Definition of cricket and corporate  bodylines - a tactic devised for and primarily used in the Ashes series between England and Australia in 1932–33. The tactic involved bowling at leg stump or just outside it, pitching the ball short so that it reared at the body of a batsman standing in an orthodox batting position.
Wave 1: There are certain tactics workplace bullies use to control another colleague, or to force a colleague to resign or be terminated. Commonly used tactics are social ostracism, and character assassination.


Wave 2 restructuring by boy and girl psychopaths in corporate clubsWave number two is the degradation and character assassination targets face at the hands of the institution to which they turned for protection and relief. Instead of honestly investigating bullies’ actions (lord knows targets have volumes of evidence documented), employers prefer to circle the wagons, to get defensive, and to protect the bully at the expense of reasonableness, responsible fiscal accounting, and productivity. As if defending the bully is not wrong enough, apologists for the bully tear into the reputation and character of the bullied (now complaining) individual. It is certainly retaliation. No laws are violated unless the narrow definition of membership in a protected status (grounds) group is enjoyed by the target and not by the bully.




Facebook’s Auto-translation Changes Name Of Chinese President To 'Shithole'

The social media platform’s autocorrect translated the name of the president to ‘Shithole’ in a post made during his visit to Myanmar.





This Writer May Have Been Russia’s Harriet Beecher Stowe



“Any man who’s ever killed a chicken knows that it’s best not to look it in the eye. [With his Sportsman’s Notebook, Ivan] Turgenev forced his fellow landowners to do that, look the serfs in the eye. Alexander II acknowledged the role these stories played in guiding him to issue the Emancipation Edict that freed the serfs in 1861.” – Literary Hub
It’s a golden age for slick  longform narrative podcasts. They’re entertaining, but often inaccurate. Do listeners care?...   Clinging to Barrowing Gossips

The philosophy of Latitude East smalltalk. Behind our pleasantries lies an existential query: Just who do you think you are?... Just Who Do You Think I am?    

 

 Alexa, How Do I Protect My Organization’s Data From You? - Law Technology Today: “Has Alexa infiltrated your company yet? There are 3.25 billion users of digital voice assistants in the world. It stands to reason that if you haven’t seen one of these devices on employees’ desks yet, you soon will. The industry is expected to grow to eight billion users by 2023…” 




  Gods of the Upper Levels and Hierarchies ...



The Impact of CEOs in the Public Sector: Evidence from the English NHS

The myth of magical CEOs seems to break down in the public sector  




How Esther Perel Turns Couples Therapy Sessions Into Podcasts



“Perel, a famed Belgian cross-cultural psychologist and educator who has written numerous books and given countless talks on the subject of relationships and sexuality, conducts these sessions based on a structural conceit: couples who apply and get accepted are given only one session. There’s a functional purpose to the one-and-done format. The scarcity raises the stakes for the people going into them, incentivizing a need to get as much on the table as soon as they can. The result, when documented, is a concentrated capsule of human drama.” – Vulture
Why is a caterpillar wrapped in silk while it changes into a butterfly? So the other caterpillars can't hear the screams. Change hurts”
― Rory Miller


The butterfly is a great
symbol for change, transition, adaptation, and growth. As Kafka noted, metamorphosis has always been the greatest symbol of change for poets and artists. Imagine that you could be a caterpillar one moment and a butterfly the next.
 ”The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.” 
– Richard Bach


Queen's message to Harry and Meghan couldn't be clearer: It's over


The most experienced British monarch in history knew her subjects would never have let the couple have their cake and eat it.



Why McKenzie must resign or be sacked

The nation will laugh the next time the PM attacks the integrity of unions or banks unless Bridget McKenzie is sacked for putting politics first.
Simon LongstaffContributor


Federal ICAC would investigate sports grants affair, former NSW auditor-general says

 / 
A federal independent commission against corruption would get to the bottom of the sports grants scandal, according to Tony Harris, who was the auditor-general of NSW for seven years

Senator Bridget McKenzie’s brazen indifference to the findings of the Australian National Audit Office reporton her administration of a now infamous sports grant scheme tells us all we need to know about the quality of political leadership in this country.
Showing how ethically bereft our governments have become, the former minister of sport, who now holds the agriculture portfolio, has defended her conduct by invoking two of the worst arguments available: that "no rules were broken" and that "the ends justify the means".