harmonics 12.05.06 glancing at the sky i see a star damaged by the light around me hemmed in the controlled dispersion of our electric lives and I am humming an awkward tune turning it into a whistle tuning into and out of what makes the star real in this moment that i am watching it seeing it and enjoying it's damaged harmony with mine Moving photos 14.05.06 I have photos of you put up on the walls of...

Ok, so one of the guys that I tutor for, Ron Irwin, asked me to help him write an article on Affirmative Action (as this is a passion of mine, in a strange way). One of the adjuncts was that Men's Health also asked him to write on the 5 Biggest Myths on Affirmative Action and on Black Workers. I got 5 for Affirmative Action, but I didn't get further than 3 for Black Workers. I read an article by Fryer and Loury last year and a lot of what I wrote was influenced by...

I was asked the following 3 questions - they are in bold. I responded as I did below. You can comment to me what you think. (a) How do we inspire less selfishness? Tough question. Meditate? Pray? Construct morality on social contract theory? Construct institutions that incentivise selflessness - i.e. use selfishness to defeat itself? What do you guys think would make a practical difference? Ok, I don’t think that we can really inspire less selfishness,...

So a few perspectives that may be of interest in the mountains of economics reading that I have done. Firstly, Englebert (2000) isolated a ‘legitimacy’ index that contained variables of democratization, graft, corruption, etc in order to ascertain whether that was an adequate explanation of something called ‘The African Dummy’ by Barro (1994) (The Africa Dummy is a variable occasionally thrown in to cross-country regressions because of just being an African...

It's actually Sunday morning now. I like Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings. I am listening to the band 'Something for Kate'. They're a kind of chilled rock band, the song 'Hide' is a fun one, one of the lyrics goes 'You only hide because you know I'll find you'. I wonder about it, about having someone who would hide from me so that I could find them. Notwithstanding all that, life is good (s'good). Lecturing has improved, even subsequent to a clash with the...

I had always thought that I would be a good teacher, that I am a good teacher. I have been challenging this recently. Wow! It has been difficult teaching 1200 students, good difficult though. I am learning about my own capabilities. I teach 4 classes a day – the expectation being that on average 300 students will come to each lecture. The variety of the students is fascinating, frustrating and daunting. I have to cover 6 chapters in 4 weeks worth of lectures (15...

Father 17.04.06 You rail at my inability to talk to you Not understanding the child's voice in me two and ten and sixteen years old howling at the three times departed: returned figure claiming to be my father for I am still the children that I was and unforgiving and uncomprehending as they were I still am Communication 24.04.06 I. Would it be all right for me to cry on your shoulder...