— Eddie Perfect in his Letter to the Woman Who Changed My Life in Women of Letters.
— Dereck Rooken-Smith is the Assistant Director-General for the Office of Development Effectiveness.
The collapse of the News of the World is partly the result of a new understanding by British politicians that their political future no longer depends on the patronage of Rupert Murdoch. David Cameron and Ed Milliband realized that they not only could but should disown their relationships with him – an act which would have been considered political suicide only a few years before. And it was not just that the stranglehold of newspaper proprietors over politicians had been relaxed. The final nail in the coffin for the News of the World was a short campaign on twitter which persuaded companies to withhold their advertising from Britain’s biggest highest-circulation newspaper.
This suggests that new media is not just a faster and 24 hour news channel. The political economy of media is changing…
"— Owen Barder on how twitter and new media are impacting politics. Fascinating.
— Keith Richards about his band mate Mick Jagger in his (fascinating) autobiography ‘Life.’ This could be said about everyone, no?
— Tony Windsor, Australian Independent MP, telling it like it is.
— More than 1 billion people are hungry around the world, but it’s not as straightforward as you think, say Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. The whole article is worth reading for its insightful examination of the ‘food crisis.’
— American writer Loiuse Erdrich’s words resonated particularly loudly after my first visit to IKEA in Melbourne over the weekend. This is from her excellent interview in issue #195 of the Paris Literary Review.
— Mark Canavera in a heartbreaking lament about this week’s violence in Cote d’Ivoire, you should read the full essay available via Chris Blattman
— Janet Street-Porter on why it’s important to listen to ‘your friends who speak complete drivel on the phone’ in the best women’s magazine ever, The Gentlewoman.
Foreign direct investment has far outstripped foreign aid in many countries. Yet such investment does not seek to reach the poorest and most vulnerable, it does not seek to ensure significant gains in health or education nor does it seek the equality of women and minorities.
Effective aid addresses the basic needs of livelihoods, education, health, clean water, sanitation, and the rule of law for the poor and vulnerable in developing countries. Foreign direct investment alone cannot break the cycle of poverty for the “bottom billion” of the world’s poor who live on less than a dollar a day.
"— Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of Australia, on the effectiveness of aid. While I agree with what Fraser says, I would change ‘cannot break the cycle’ to ‘does not break the cycle’. As an aside, am I the only one frustrated to see the same old anti-aid arguments being trotted out again and again?
— Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own.
— Strong words by Steven Wright in The Provedence of Things for Overland Literary Journal. I personally don’t go as far as he does with the economic reading of things, but his words about trauma being mundane struck a chord.
— Stephen Elliott, The Daily Rumpus 21/12/10
— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethica, (which was also the inspiration for my recent tattoo).
— Chris Blattman criticises the UN and NGOs in the threat broken promises play in fragile states.
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