Sometimes you see what someone else has written and think: “Wow. I couldn’t say that any better.” This, from a rally in support of religious freedom in New York City does it for me… Thank you. One day it could be my freedom under threat from bigots with loud voices.

That’s what I’m talking about. Enough with the pious BS from the religious right and those looking for a smokescreen or trying to earn brownie points with their one-eyed supporters. WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully endorsed allowing a mosque near ground zero, saying the country’s founding principles demanded no less. “As a [...]

Speak up! Tell your truth — Do the right thing NOW. You may not always have the opportunity … As someone said elsewhere: “I am not perfect or lily white and try never to claim to be.”  … but we do our best, right? (This art just resonated for some reason.)

Recently in Why speak up I shared… At any time, in my view, you are either a force for good or ill — opposing evil or assisting it: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. — Edmund Burke I know I come across as a sort of [...]

This eye-catching card, um, caught my eye at the Howick Public Library this afternoon. It reminded me of my post: Why speak up? — in part because it assumes a public duty to report crime, or at least share information about it … and recognises there’s a ‘risk’ in standing up. It only makes me [...]

Recent events have seen me revisiting a theme (or meme?) of this blog — and central to my own thinking: WHY SHOULD one speak up about perceived wrongdoing? Let me start by saying this: Life is complicated. Sometimes people and things can appear to be one thing on the surface but as you look closer, [...]

Cost of principles? Too pricey, it seems. ‘Tested and found lacking’ would be one way to describe Google’s push-me-pull-you relationship with the Chinese government. Highlighted first in March Google ‘leaves’ China over censorship with worldwide fanfare and admiration that they’d finally grown some stones, it started to unravel a bit (The cost of principles?) and [...]

Helen Thomas is the 89 year old White House correspondent who ‘retired’ over her comments that ‘Jews should get the hell out of Palestine’, leave the ‘occupied’ land, and ‘go home’ to Poland, Germany and America. (Yikes! Jon Stewart had a take you can see here via Huffington Post.) But this interview in Vice magazine [...]

From a review of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ appearance at a recent tech Q&A: Jobs acknowledged that the next-generation iPhone photographed by Gizmodo was circulating as a part of the normal testing of wireless products. “To make a wireless product work well you need to test it. You have to carry them outside. One of [...]

REAL ESTATE ALERT from Neil Jenman Thursday May 27, 2010 Dear Subscriber A few weeks ago, my wife and I got an extortion demand – take down your web sites, abandon the publication of your book, Stitched! or your children will be targeted. On Friday May 14, Channel Seven ran a story about the threats [...]