Bob's blog - the realm of threalm

Humility, Hardwork, Honesty, Honour and Humour After reading in Jonathan Haidt's wonderful book, The Happiness Hypothesis , about Benjamin Franklin's daily self scoring regime to make himself better practised in behaving virtuously, I have been mulling over how an attention-span-challenged modern like myself might successfully implement a similar system, adapted for our times. Choosing which of the many possible virtues to measure oneself against is fraught with challenge and all the inherent perils of wanton list making , so my criteria, for the moment, has been reduced to ease of recall in a tight spot, hence a resort to onomatopoeia . I can just remember 5 things, sometimes, so here is my new ready reckoner to arm myself with as I prepare for my daily engagements with my fellow humans. Remind yourself, the 5 aiches : " humility, hardwork , honesty, honour & humour " As a boy I was subjected, through a school cadet corps, to the gross stupidities of mass ...

McCain loses when he shows the content of his characterisation It's an inspiring and historic thing that America can transcend race and elect a black man to be its president. My residual concern is that however storied this triumph of the great American experiment in democracy may be, they may not have got the right guy for the job. It is not enough that he is black. He really does need to be good enough too. If America is to live out the true meaning of Martin Luther King's words that a man should be judged, not by the colour of his skin, but by the content of his character, it seems quite possible that America has again chosen poorly. If McCain had won instead, we might also have had cause to have doubts on this too. I know that the conventional wisdom is that McCain's true mettle for this job was already tempered and battle tested as authentic by his experience as a POW and as a working Senator with a real resume of achievements. How can one not respect and admire this c...