Asian pride, or lack thereof
If I’m honest, I’m probably more proud of my parents’ law degrees than they are of mine. I’m…
To tweet or not to tweet?
Sometimes I wish I was good at Twitter. It would be proof that I'm not just intelligent but super witty and have something to say about the state of the universe. There may be no "I" in team, but there is definitely "wit" in Twitter.
If I was a tweeter, here's what I would tweet
Here are a few things that have crossed my mind to tweet but never made it to the Twittersphere ...
Angry enough to be free, safe enough to thrive
Safe enough to thrive I read Greta Thunberg’s UN address today and I’m glad I was looking at…
So there’s this giant thank you card you should sign
I wasn’t always an optimist – quite the contrary. When I was 14, I wrote this poem about…
Converse and convert
I stumbled upon an interesting website this week. In the wake of the failed plebiscite and planned postal…
Of vengeance and forgiveness
Did anyone else catch the Jesus parallels in the Divergent series? All in all I was mostly disappointed with the trilogy, but at least there were some interesting ideas.
The books, however, did explore themes of guilt, regret and sacrifice. I suppose in that context, some Jesus undertones are unsurprising.
The problem with American
Last week, on my flight from New York back to Sydney, I binge watched Season 1 of The Newsroom. It’s a series created by Aaron Sorkin, the guy behind The West Wing, with Jeff Daniels playing Will McAvoy, an anchorman on cable news.
In the opening scene of the series pilot, Will is on a panel with a Democrat and a Republican at a university, when a student asks the panel: “What makes America the greatest country in the world?”
The question triggers an epic and rousing outburst from Will, who dresses down both major political parties and rails about why America is no longer the greatest country on earth.
“But it could be”, he then says in softer tones.
That first season of The Newsroom aired in 2012, before Donald Trump ever campaigned for president, promising to “make America great again”.
Coincidence? I doubt it.
Election reflections: Ecuador and Bolivia
A politician who keeps his word? Who would’ve thought! But after a whole decade as Ecuador’s head of…
How libre is your Cuba?
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of a good cuba libre. Or two. Or three. But despite it being my drink of choice, I never really thought much about the name of this basic cocktail until Fidel Castro died.
There was something about the festivities on the streets of Miami that felt wrong. Tasted sour. It’s a cuba libre, dammit - let’s reserve the sourness for pisco, whiskey and amaretto.
The cynical optimist
I’ve always been a cynic. From the time I was in primary school hearing about French nuclear testing in the Pacific, Aung San Suu Kyi being put under house arrest and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, I didn’t have much faith in people.
Strangely enough, this dark view of the world eventually led me to Jesus, my hope. So now I am this walking paradox, being both a cynic and an optimist.
Two weeks ago, I blogged about democracy and the need for greater participation. On Monday, a bunch of us put that into practice by meeting with over a hundred senators and members of parliament in one day.