Backup

I don't go out often these days. Part of it is due to age but perhaps the bigger reason is that I know how easy it is to get sucked into this parallel universe of the clubbing environment that is not real but it could soak up a whole lot of unnecessary and productive energy. Last night was a case in point. The boys wanted to take advantage of the Queen's birthday long weekend and go out to The Beat. Everything was fine at first. As usual, we kept to ourselves and looked after each other. That was like an unspoken code between all of us. I was having fun - until this guy who normally served us Friday night drinks at the place we usually go to showed up. We had known W for some time. He is generally quite reticent when when we see him on Friday nights. I got the feeling a while back that there was something about me that he liked. To make things worse, he is very cute. My modus operandi, when I meet someone I am attracted to, is always to not pay them any attention or show...

The world is in conflict but no one seems to be articulating the precise nature of that conflict. From what I have observed around the world, the actual opposing forces are subtle and not often articulated - they are the notion of race versus culture. If you look at countries like China and Denmark, the people in these countries see race as the defining feature of their nationality. They believe that if you are racially Chinese or Danish, no matter where you are at in the world, you will always be Chinese and Danish. On the other side is the new world notion that race has nothing to do with ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship - it is the person's culture that defines their nationality. Unsurprisingly, the latter concept is more pronounced in the new world like the USA, Canada, and Australia where the population is more diverse in racial make-up. Personally, perhaps because I live in Australia, the latter makes more sense to me. At the end of the day, if you share a common...

As Australians, we walk a tightrope between maintaining good business relationships with China because our economy depends on them and keeping China at arm's length from a sovereignty point of view. Many Australians are worried about outwardly criticising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but the lack of open and honest critique on the CCP could very well be Australia's downfall in the long run. In my view, here are the headline issues Australians should think carefully about: 1. The CCP has been working in the background to gain more influence all over the world, whether it is in the South Pacific or Africa. After years of surplus trading as the world's cheap labour hub, China has become very wealthy and would likely overtake the USA as the largest economy in the world in the not too distant future.  2. Ironically, as China has benefitted from capitalism and free trade, its totalitarian ideology continues to exert itself as the sole reason for the Chinese success s...

After last night's shock Federal election results, the two major parties are coming out today and making all sorts of comments on why things turned out the way they did. But the more I listen to them, the more I think they are missing the point. To the ALP, stop making excuses for your loss. You didn't lose because the LNP made preference deals with the UAP and One Nation. You didn't lose because Bill Shorten was unpopular. You didn't lose because the LNP ran a great election campaign. You lost because your tax policies were abrupt, extreme, and had alienated too many people. You could not ignore generations of people who had been working hard to build their personal wealth to secure their future without relying on the aged pension under a policy that had been in place for the last 30 years (ie, negative gearing) and just pulled the rug from under them if you won. Yes, you were going to grandfather the negative gearing changes but your radical policy could literally...

We were getting ready to go to work yesterday morning. Suddenly, I heard Sam yelled out from upstairs: Sam: Oh no! Me: What?! Sam: There is a bee in the house. Me: Well, what do you want me to do about it? Sam: Kill it! Me: I can't kill a bee. I love bees. Sam: No, kill it. I don't want to get stung. Me: Oh, just let it bee... I didn't hear anything from him after that but I could see his eye-roll in my head.

Like my personality profile, my political leaning over the years hasn't really changed: Because I am so close to the centre, I generally don't vote on parties. Rather, I vote on policies. This time round, the policy that dominates my attention is the economy. But whichever way I vote, I can never do so without feeling a level of disgust. Let the election season begin!

I feel very compelled and moved to blog this entry. By way of context, I had one of the most stressful weeks in my career. The week started off with the culmination of a week-long plan to terminate someone's employment. This wasn't the first time I had to terminate someone but this was the first time when the termination came as a complete surprise to the employee, albeit the surprise wasn't caused by me; rather, it was caused by the massive lack of self-awareness of the individual involved. Anyway, the whole plan involved a lot of behind-the-scene work that lasted a whole week but the termination itself took place in a brief moment between 10 to 15 minutes. It was heartbreaking to see the shock and sadness that was etched on the employee's face. I am a pacifist and don't ever want to cause another human being pain but there I was, doing exactly that, even though there were obviously very good reasons for the decision to terminate. Funny thing about causing ...