Saturday, June 11, 2011



The prize is awarded annually to a journalist whose work has "penetrated the established version of events and told and unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel', as Martha Gellhorn called it." Julian Assange wins Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism

Here’s a hot shot of inspiration: The New York Times deputy national editor Adam Bryant could be described as the "CEO whisperer." Bryant conducts regular interviews with CEOs and other leaders for his weekly Sunday Business feature called Corner Office. Among the many lessons Bryant has gleaned from top executives such as Gordon Bethune, Howard Shultz and Eduardo Castro-Wright is they tend to get misty-eyed when they speak about certain employees who exhibit a quality Bryant calls "fearlessness." Who are the fearless? They are rebels who refuse to accept the status quo when things are merely "fine." They advocate turning the system upside down and even breaking it in order to make it better. The fearless are also those who have made non-traditional and often risky career choices. According to Bryant, CEOs appreciate people who value experience and want to broaden their base of skills instead of simply climbing the ladder. every single day I try and do something that’s out of my comfort zone and I think that’s just a good rule for living

River of Shadows: And I mean it
My personal life, Ayn Rand says, ‘is a postscript to my novels; it consists of the sentence: “And I mean it.”’

If you try to find out about the legacy of Ayn Rand, your search engine will probably direct you first to aynrand.org, a website run by the Ayn Rand Institute in California. The ARI was founded in 1985, three years after Rand’s death, by Leonard Peikoff, her friend and heir. It runs a newsletter called Impact and, via the Objectivist Academic Center, undergraduate courses in the Randian world vision.


Your Voice in My Head, As Astonishing as Ayn ['m rather interested in the idea of reviewing nonfiction. Like, how up to the task should the reviewer be? How knowledgeable, how willing to call someone on their bullshit? (I obsess over this a little bit, actually, since I've been reviewing nonfiction exclusively at my books column for the Smart Set. One 60-ish man, a former Fortune 500–company administrator, bragged, Sergeant McKee says, that his retirement plan consisted of having sex with as many prostitutes as possible Smart Set ; We periodically have to give thanks for the existence of Rebecca Solnit, for pieces like "Men Explain Things to Me." And now, her piece on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, asking why the storyline has to be so goddamn obvious, so metaphorical.
What makes the sex scandal that broke open last week so resonant is the way the alleged assailant and victim model larger relationships around the world, starting with the IMF’s assault on the poor. That assault is part of the great class war of our era, in which the rich and their proxies in government have endeavored to aggrandize their holdings at the expense of the rest of us. Poor countries in the developing world paid first, but the rest of us are paying now, as those policies and the suffering they impose come home to roost via right-wing economics that savages unions, education systems, the environment, and programs for the poor, disabled, and elderly in the name of privatization, free markets, and tax cuts.]
• · Global Wealth Continues Its Strong Recovery with $9 Trillion Gain, but Pressures on Wealth Managers Persist ; FRANK Lowy is known as one of Australia's most successful businessmen, having co-founded the Westfield group and turned it into a global shopping centre empire. Mirja and Kevin Denlay, are said to be clients of LGT and Mr Kieber passed on their names to the tax office
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• · · · Ever wondered what goes through your mind when you choose where to sit on the train? Or in a waiting room? An interesting study by researchers for the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has an interesting take on it all. Sit Still ; Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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• · · · · · Leaders talk about holding large-scale public conversations, but they won't succeed if the methods are unsatisfying for participants, if an authentic conversation occurs at all. In this paper, Lyn Carson presents the World Café method, a viable way of involving large numbers of people in a meaningful, conversational exchange. She describes how a particular World Café event was designed, and then explore the value of the World Café method as a means to achieve social change. Professor Lyn Carson from the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney talks about using deliberative democracy to solve the world's 'wicked problems' Designing a public conversation using the World Café method ; World Café ; Sydney Film Festivals and Cafes