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May 31, 2005
Difficult Employees
Following up from my post regarding unfair dismissal, there is an interesting thread over at Orgdyne at the moment regarding Diffficult Employees.
List moderator Anil Behal struck a chord with this statement:
I am struck by the notion of "difficult employees" within the organizational setting. I would be very intererested in hearing from you if you have been a so called "difficult employee" yourself, and/or managed such employees in the past. I don't believe that there is a body of research out there that specifically looks into the psyche of a difficult employee, or from the standpoint of managerial leadership, what gets played out in her inner theatre.
Having been a rather "difficult employee" myself, at least throughout my corporate career, I'd like to see if someone can define the term "difficult." Difficult and dissenting voices in groups and organizations often hold the systemic anxiety "for" the organization, but also run the risk of being scapegoated by the organization to somehow make the anxiety disappear. I suggest that some "difficult" employees may make wonderful, and extremely compassionate leaders, if they can somehow survive the onslaught of the organization to annihilate them.
Posted by chriscurnow at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2005
Unfair Dismissal
The Australian government has reecently announced changes to our industrial relations system.
A breathtaking agenda that changes everything.
The easiest change to understand is the redifinition of a small business in regard to unfair dismissal laws. Companies with up to 100 employees can now dismiss staff members without regard to unfair dissmissal laws. This been a rallying point from employer groups ever since the labour government introduced the legislation about 15 years ago. The argument goes that employers are reluctant to take on staff because it is now too hard to dismiss incompetent, unethical or lazy workers.
With the new laws, I fear that it is now too easy for unprincipled employers to manipulate staff.
However, the problem really lies with how organisations deal with underperforming employees. All too often the organisation doesn't want to confront the problem - which is almost always bigger than just the employee concerned. The reticence to face the problem is in fact a problem in itself. It might even be the problem. For as long as problems are not dealt with, the employer can hire and fire all they like but they will still have problem employees.
The scenario we all know too well is scapegoating. Things are not going to well. Maybe there is discent in the workforce. Maybe we just don't seem to be able to make decisions. Maybe quality is a consistent issue for us. So we take all our sins and put them onto the scapegoat who, in leaving, makes us all feel better. For a brief moment. Then all the same issues start bubbling up again.
Instead of blaming unfair dissmissal laws, employers need to look at their organisations and find the real problems. It's not really hard to dismiss an employee who is really underperforming. It is much harder for find courage as a manager and look into the way you lead your team. To examine your own faults and courageously be open about them. To seek feedback and take it on the chin. To seek to understand who your team is interacting and why they are making it hard for one particular person.
This is all really hard stuff. But it is the only way to build a great company.
Posted by chriscurnow at 8:55 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2005
Faith
It's quite an amazing journey we set ourselves when we establish our own business. Our current political leaders like John Howard and Peter Costello like to laud those who establish small enterprises but neither of them of had to endure the sleep depriving, blood pressure raising uncertainties that relying on your own wits brings to all of us.
This business certainly has its highs and there is something very appealing about being your own boss. But that's only half the story. There are times when the brilliant ideas don't work out. Maybe the marketing was wrong. Maybe the idea was wrong. Maybe I didn't follow it through with enough energy. Whatever the reason, there are times when I find myself sitting here in despondency having reached the bottom of the barrell.
The bank account is looking pretty grim. Bills are coming in. I don't know where the next piece of work is going to come from.
It's a story every small/micro business person can tell you.
It's journey that's not for everyone. If you need security you won't find it in small business. (And Howard, Costello et al. want to make us all one person businesses.)
But if the journey is for you, there's something you need to sustain you through these low points, and something you need to find within yourself to bring something new to the world - faith.
I'm not talking about religous faith (although that can be important). I'm talking about faith in yourself. The reason you have decided to set out on your own journey is because you believe in yourself. You believe you have something to offer the world.
And you do - you!
But therein lies the fundamental dilemma of the one person business. You know you are a person of value. You know you have something to offer. But when you set yourself up. When you hang up your shingle, you are puttting your belief in yourself to the test. Will the world agree with your assessment of yourself.
In a way, when you hang out your shingle, you are taking your clothes off. You are exposing yourself to the world and allowing the world to judge you - and your (my) deepest fear is that the world won't like you. (I still have John Powell's book I discovered profoundly as a teenager -Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am)
This is where you need to find your faith. Your faith that you know how you are. You know you're special value to the world. The real question you need to ask yourself is how much you believe in yourself? This is the faith of the micro business person. You need to reach inside yourself. Find the rock that is at the core of your soul and believe in yourself.
From this belief your good ideas and good actions come. It's so hard to forget about it. To allow yourself to be overcome by the obstacles and your own fear. But the only way through the minefield is faith.
Posted by chriscurnow at 2:48 PM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2005
The ABC's (or is that 'The Age's) woes
Gay Alcorn, writing in The Age this morning, finds (national government broadcaster) ABC local radio station 774 on the slippery slide to fluffiness.
Im not sure what she was so upset about.
The ABC is a cultural institution in Australia. Those of us who love it do so with all our hearts. I have been a diehard listener to 3LO/774 since I got my first car in 1972. I had a 1962 Mini that I paid $300 dollars for and, as an electronics hobbyist, made the radio for it myself. Back in those days i was a new student at Monash University and listened to Terry Lane pioner talk back radio. I'm pretty happy with the station's continued tradition of trying new ideas over that time.
Richard Stubbs, erstwhile popular funny man on commercial FM radio, is the station's latest experiment. 'Stubbsy' doesn't fit the profile of the typical conservative ABC presenter. He makes light of the day and perhaps makes the day a little lighter. He doesn't take himself that seriously, perhaps subtely promoting the benefits of the approach to those with an overdose of the disease.
OK, back to Gay Alcorn.
She found Stubsy fairly frivolous. I heard the segment and it was not his most mentally challenging. It was light entertainment (but I'm also not sure there wasn't some serious social comment behind it). She picked out the 15 minutes of light relief in Jon Faine's three and a half hour program and branded him as "becoming fluffy". After criticising Red Symmons (former Skyhooks member and commercial TV villain) for his background she finds that he is smart and has wit and enjoys him. Virginia Trioli, who to this listener has great talent but too often spoils it by trying to make a story out of nothing, is regarded by Alcron as the high point of the day. So to sum it all up - what's the problem, Gay? You don't like one new presenter.
Now if you really wanted to find fault with ABC programming, you should go after the removal of Clive Robertson from the ABC Classic FM breakfast slot.
Posted by chriscurnow at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)
May 25, 2005
New Breast Blog - now live
Finally, earlier entry for a discussion of the rationale for this new blog and its relationship to chriscurnow.com
Posted by chriscurnow at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
Bennis on Business Schools
In this month's Harvard Business Review, Warren Bennis and James O'Toole examine How Business Schools lost their way (Subscription required).
Business schools are on the wrong track. For many years, MBA programs enjoyed rising respectability in academia and growing prestige in the business world. Their admissions were ever more selective, the pay packages of graduates ever more dazzling. Today however, MBA programs face intense criticism for failing to impart usefull skills, failing ro prepare leaders, failing to install norms of ehtical hevaior - and even failing to lead graduates to good corporate jobs."
chriscurnow.com has previously reported on Henry Mintzberg's criticism of MBAs
Although the article supports a lot of Mintberg's argument, Bennis and Jones take a slightly differnet tack. They seek to find the roots of the current malaise in business schools. They argue that the slide dates back to the late '50s where America's leading B schools made a conscious decision to pursue scientific research. This led, over time, to an emphasis on pure research, the appointment of professorrs who could peform the research in preference to those who had actual business experience, and a consequent alienation from the realities of the uncertainties of management.
While chriscurnow.com argues that rigorous research does not have to be quantitative, we largely agree with the premise of the article.
Bennis and Jones go on to say that the solution lies in adopting the "professional model" of medical and law schools where practice is as important as theory.
Posted by chriscurnow at 2:56 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2005
Is Corporate Social Responsibility optional?
Leon Gettler of The Age has just started his own blog.
In this entry he discusses the efforts that several corporations are putting into Corporate Social Responsibility. He singles out the born again approach of GE:
GE chief Jeffrey Immelt unveiled GE's eco-imagination blueprint that will see GE more than double its research and development into clean technology for its customers, double its sales of new technologies and products that conserve water, and reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions by 1 per cent over the next seven years. It's a big shift for GE, you wouldn't have seen it when Jack Welch was running the show.
On the down side, Gettler refers to some new research from the Australian Graduate School of Management that suggests that consumers don't particularly care about corporate ethics when making buying decisions. So is CSR really worth the effort?
Well firstly, it's easy to take some research and grab a headline out of it. I'm not sure the work behind the AGSM piece fully supports the headline. I think there's more to it than that. However, what if we were to accept the conclusion that ethical approaches don't make a difference to buying outcomes. Does that mean we should give up on CSR?
In short, No!
There is something we forget in all the debate about how corporations should behave and the oft stated little challenged assertion that the purpose of corporations is to provide the greatest possible return to shareholders. (For an anlysis of the untruth of the last statement I point you to Art Kleiner's book Who Really Matters
The thing we forget is that corporations exist only to the extent that we allow them to. In effect, the require a licence to operate. A licence for the people who operate the corporation to be granted indemnity against certain forms of prosecution. It is this indemnity which is a corporation's greatest strength and greatest weakness.
It is it's greatest strength in that it enables it to raise far greater amounts of capital than it would otherwise be able. It's greatest weakness in that it lures the operators of the business into believing and acting as though they are beyond the law.
Nevertheless, it is our governments that grant these licences (ie allow the business to become incorporated). Our governments may, on our behalf, impose any such condittions on the granting of a licence as they see fit for the protection of both the corporation and the society in which it operates.
There is very little argument that governments have the right to impose taxes on corporations - although all self-respecting corporations use every reasonable endeavour to minimise the amount of tax they pay. (And some seek to operate in tax havens an pay no tax at all.) Why then should not governments not require corporations to pay a 'social tax' and contribute to the development of the society in which they belong.
In large part governments and societies have expected this type of tax to be paid but have left it largely unregulated. Some companies provide very little back to the environment in which they operate whilst others contribute a great deal. Overall, we have be prepared to accept that the balance has been OK. Not perfect but OK.
With the corporate excesses of recent years, we have realised that we have, as a society, been lazy in imposing social taxes on corporations. It has seemed too hard and the more powerful of us stand to gain considerably from minimising this type of obligation. In the process corporate leaders have largely been able to hold the argument that they have no social responsibility - their only obligation being to shareholders. Try telling the Enron shareholders that their executives had only their (the shareholders') best interests in mind.
No, as much as self interested executives and large shareholders try, we must not allow them to move the goal posts in terms of their wider responsibility. To the extent that we have been lazy and self interested to allow them to win this argument in the public mind, we must take a stand and move the goal posts back.
So, I don't care about whether consumers care or not. I care only that we, as a society cares. We have the ability to set the rules. Let us set them. Let us demand corporations exercise responsibility in return for the protections and opportunities for profit that we offer them.
Posted by chriscurnow at 2:10 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2005
New Breast Blog
I've been slightlty uncomfortable for a while now about the amount of space that Breasts have been taking up at chriscurnow.com.
My justification for this has been that it is part of the world of work. The way western society has sexualised and objectified breasts is symbolic of male dominance over women. It also drives a wedge between men and women. As men our objectification of breasts often gets in the way of real relationships with women. One of the more minor effects of this is women get sick of us talking to their boobs. A much more serious effect is the power game we play by ranking breasts as though the only quality of value a woman brings with her is her breasts.
Of course, in most work situations (and chriscurnow.com is about the world of worrk), this is not played out very visibly and there a lot of men who treat their female colleagues with respect. But male dominance is a subtle but powerful sub-text to many situations.
So this is all appropriate discussion for a blog about the world of work.
However, I think breasts have come to have too much presence in this blog. I still want to pursue tthis issue as a means to provide greater understanding between men and women but I don't think here is the right place.
So today I registered breaststories.com.au. I haven't got confirmation that I can have this domain name (I don't think there will be any problems) so it's not visible yet. But expect to see it around in the next few days.
chriscurnow.com will still address issues of sexuality, sexaul equality and the role of sexualitty at work. We just won't be focussing on breasts so much.
Posted by chriscurnow at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2005
Authentic Leadership
I've had a few occasions over the past week to think about authenticity.
Being authentic is one of my most fundamental values. The other day I worked with a colleague who was struggling to find her own authentic response to a difficult situation as well as trying to guide her organisation to find a similar authentic response.
Then along came BOSS magazine last Friday. (I try to set aside every Friday morning for some general reading. BOSS magazine is my regular reading the second Friday of each month.)
BOSS's cover story was "Authentic Leadership". Now if you read the article please ignore the sub-heading which sounds like the work of Deputy Editor Catherine Fox. Fox has an unforunate habit of starting every article she writes with "Forget .... [insert second latest fad here]." I find this so annoying. I hate fad surfing. Fox promotes it by suggesting everything she writes about replaces the last thing she wrote about. I mean why bother writing about something if it's value lasts only until next month's article. It seems to me an incredible shallow approach to the important things in life.
I take particular issue with it this month because it is the antithesis to the subject of the article.
Authenticity is lasting. It is fundamental. I think Jim Collins would suggest that some things are really fundamental and lasting.
Regarding authenticity, what is it? According to BOSS writer, Mike Hanley, it is "being yourself". However according to lead thinker for the article, Rob Goffee, "Jay Conger professor of organisational development at the London Business School" it is more than this - "it is an artful authenticity."
I've put Goffee's book Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Sure I think that being authentic will inspire the people who follow you, but that's not a reason to seek "authenticity".
Authenticity is just that. Authentic. It is not about being authentic so that you can get more out of the people who work for you. It is about being authentic because it is the right thing to do.
My definition of authentic adds to the one above. I suggest it is "being true to yourself." Knowing your own values and being true to them. Knowing what you think is right and doing it. Of course you will find circumstances that will challenge your values. Circumstances that will cause you to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to take a shortcut, rather than face up to a difficult situation. How you or I handle this depends on our own conscience. Being authentic though means at least we get our conscience invvolved adn make that decision with referecne to our values.
Too often leaders do what they think other people demand of them and ignore their moral or ethical qualms. Being authentic means making their own decisions with regard to the circumstances and their own internal compass.
That is the type of leadership I find inspiring.
Posted by chriscurnow at 1:54 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
The function of Breasts
It apparently comes as a complete surprise to some people that the primary function of breasts is feeding:
“In the fall of 1993, one of the undergraduate students in my 'Women and Culture' course was totally flabbergasted to discover that the biological function of women’s breasts was for feeding children. With obvious shock and disgust evident in her voice she asked, 'You mean women’s breasts are like a cow’s udder?' That a young woman could reach college without ever having even heard of women using their breasts to feed their children is a sad commentary on American culture.” Katherine Dettwyler as quoted in The Breastfeeding Action Committee of Edmonton (BACE) report about Breastfeeding at Municipal Pools in Canada. From 007b.
chriscurnow.com has consistently argued that breasts belong to the women whose bodies they are part of. We men have no right to regard them as our property. chiscurnow.com believes the way that women have been made to feel about their bodies and their breasts in particular is a great shame on our society and we men who are mostly responsible for it. We believe that all women should be able to feel good about and pround of their bodies and their breasts and be free from stares, whistles, demeaning and belittling comments and demands for them to "show us your tits."
However, we were challenged we recently came across this site which argues that the sole purpose of breasts is for "breastfeeding our babies" and that breasts have no sexual function whatsoever.
We have some sympathy for this point of view but we cannot agree with it completely. Our bodies (both men's and women's) are sexy in appropriate circumstances. I can see a woman walking down the street confident in her body and feel nice having experienced the sight. The experience has a sexual component. That doesn't mean that I have permission to whistle her, pinch her bottom or stare at her breasts. It does mean that I can smile at her and walk on.
Similarly, my four daughters each tell me of experiences where they have just seen a "hot guy". Other women I know tell me of similar experiences without using the same language.
For me, the sight of a breast or the shape of a breast is often an important part of the experience. Like many men I know, the size of a woman's breasts is not important. Sure a woman with large breasts might bounce by and I might think "wow". A moment later I might be moved to a warm feeling by the sight of a gentle curve in a t-shirt.
I don't think I would like to live in a world where that was taken away. I think breasts have a sexual function just as our hands, mouths, feet etc do. We need to treat women with respect. We need to stop treating them as if we can do what we like with those we regard as pretty or sexy and disregard the rest. We need to stop treating them as if they were made soley for our pleasure.
If we did stop doing these things, maybe we would be able to experience joy together and maybe women would let us appreciate them and the sight of them - and we say it again "with respect".
Posted by chriscurnow at 1:42 PM | Comments (0)
Finally - GPRS working on our Powerbook
Time for more celebrations, we've just solved a technology bug that has been bothering us for 18 months now.
When chriscurnow.com bought our G4 Powerbook about 2 years ago, we lost IR connectivity to our then Nokia phone. So we thought it was about time to go GPRS anyway. Our phone contract was due for renewal so we upgraded to a GRPS enabled bluetooth Sony Ericsson phone.
Problem was we just couldn't get any internet services to work with our Powerbook. When we sat down and read the November 2003 Australian Macworld (amazingly not online) article, we worked out how to get the right settings. We were pretty excited when we found out we could connect OK. But then disspointed when we found we could not get any data through. Try browsing - nothing. Try downloading email. It just timed out.
Want to guess how helpful Optus technical support was? Enough said.
We even tried calling Bleeding Edge on the Jon Faine program, but it was outside his area of expertise. Following Bleeding Edge's advice we tried posting to several Mac support sites and forums but althoug we got lot's of helpful suggestions, nothing worked.
At some stage we found a link to Ross Barkman's site but installing his scripts didn't make any difference.
Strange thing was we could download email to the phone (painfully slow as it was) but not to the Powerbook. Alas, other priorities took over and we just forgot about it.
That was until about a week ago when we couldn't get any WAP services on our phone at all. So we decided to give Optus technical support another go. You won't believe this but we actually got someone helpful on the other end of the line. Someone who tried quite a few things with us including swapping our SIM card to another GPRS phone and eventually got WAP working again. He was going to help us get it working on the Powerbook, but "she who must be obeyed" announced at that very moment that "dinner was ready." So we had to hang up and said we would call back later.
Alas, when we called back the apparition had disappeared and the answer to why we couldn't get any internet services on our Powerbook through our mobile phone was basically "Sorry, I don't know." The one partly helpful thing this person told us was to check out Ross Barkman's site although he was obviously reading it from a note because he had never heard of it himself.
Having been imboldened to look at the various settings on our phone from our earlier call, we had a look at the "yesinfo Internet" data account and noticed that there was no DNS address. So we tried putting in Ross' suggested DNS address for Optus Australia - and guess what? It worked
Now we can sit in cafe's and check our email and browse the net. It's not broadband speed but it's better than the 9600 we used to get through the old IR connection without GPRS.
DNS - it's really obvious when you think about it, but we didn't for such a long time.
Posted by chriscurnow at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)
May 9, 2005
The failed hero must die
Tony Blair pulled off an historic victory last week. Even before the election, he became the first labour leader in British history to complete a second term. Last week he became the first to win a third term. In the process he secured a majority a third larger than Margaret Thatcher's 1987 victory and three times John Major's of 1992.
You wouldn't think so by the reaction of the commentators or his own party.
Like many leaders who taste success, Tony Blair has fallen victim to the vicious retribution of those who will never forgive him for failing to be the hero they fantasised he was. Blair could never be immortal. He could never be infallable. But the great fantasy was that he had these characteristics. In theoretical terms this is a classic example of Wilfred Bion's basic assumption dependancy which we see in operation almost everywhere we see a leader experiencing success.
It goes like this. The leader leads the group/organisation/corporation/party/country out from the wilderness seemingly taking all before them. The followers then lose all their own competence and become, in their minds and actions, completely dependent on the leader. They fall into fantasy that the leader is immortal and infallable. The leader is now in a no-win situation. They can't keep producing extraordinary victories forever. Eventually they will do something ordinary rather than spectactular. Think the CEO who presides over 5% company growth after previously producing 10. Think the football team that dominates the competition for a number of years but fails to win every grand final.
The followers turn on the leader and demand his head. The leader has left them to be responsible for their own destiny. They now have to find their own competence. They now have to make their own decisions. No, this will not do. They must destroy this leader who has failed to live up to their fantasy and go in search of the next mythical hero who will save them.
Will we ever learn?
Posted by chriscurnow at 8:53 PM | Comments (0)
May 8, 2005
Equality in sexual misconduct?
chriscurnow.com began life with an opinion on the then sexual misconduct scandals in Australia's two main football codes.
It is sad that as we celebrate our first birthday, another case has taken over the headlines, talback shows and letters to the editor. This time though, the roles are reveresed. Melbourne woman, Karren Ellis, was this week jailed for a minimum of six months after having her earlier 22 month suspended sentence overturned on appeal. Ellis, a physical education teacher had repeated unprotected sex with a fifteen year old male student.
This case has had many of us searching our consciences and prejudices (eg see Lelie Canolds article. The original trial judge gave Ellis a wholly suspended sentence after she pleaded guilty to the offences.
However one of the appeal judges, Justice Frank Callaway, found the original sentence was "so lenient that it can be explained only by an unconscious sympathy with a female offender or a belief that no real harm had been done to the victim".
Victims groups complained that the original sentence reflected a double standard where female offenders were treated more leniently.
The case has been compared to tennis coach, Gavin Hopper, jailed for having sex with a fifteen year old girl while he was coaching at one of Melbourne's private schools. Hopper refused to admit guilt and his defence lawyer subjected the ex student to a torrid and lurid cross-examination.
So, are the two cases comparable. Is it just the gender of the perpertrator that is different?
My first reaction to the suspended sentence handed down to Ellis was that it was fair enough. She had already been punished enormously. She would never teach again. Whe would be placed on the sex offenders register where she would have to notify police every time she left the state and every time she had children other than her own in her care. And her relationship with her husband and children must have been seriously damaged, She would be a pariah in her peer group.
However the recent judgement has led me to think a lot about this case and my prejudices. The more I think about this, the more seriously I regard Ellis's crime.
Firstly though, it is important to point out I believe the two cases are very different, and the gender of the perpertrator is a large part of the reason for the difference. I don't suggest that the gender makes the crime less grave, but I suggest it makes it a different crime.
Cerainly both Ellis and Hopper are guilty of committing a grave and reckless breach of trust and duty of care. This they share in common.
In the Hopper case, the victime brought the action some ten years after the event. She went to the police as a married woman partly on the urging of her husband because she had been so traumatised by what had happened to her.
On the contrary, In the Ellis case, the boy maintains to this day that he wasn't scarred by the experience and that neither of them did anything wrong. That, in fact, is the core of the problem.
Lets' go back a few steps though. Ellis was charged with and pleaded guilty to sexual penetration of a minor. Now I have only read what is available in the papers, but I am guessing that she did not actually penetrate the boy. Quite the opposite in fact. So starting from a purely physical point of view, the acts of a man having sex with a woman and a woman having sex with a boy are very different. Yet we treat them as the same at law, using the former as the definition of the offense.
Emotionally they are very different as well. From all the evidence, Hopper had to let the girl believe that love was on offer for her to give him what he wanted. In the end, when she found out that she had given in to him on the promise of a lie, she was heartbroken. We can only guess at the full range of emotion she experienced but enough to feel her devastation.
The boy in the Ellis case needed no encouragement other than the possibility that he might have a conquest. Again, we don't know all the details of the case but we could imagine that the last thing on his mind was a long term relationship. From all accounts his approach has been that "it was good while it lasted". All he wanted was sex. Sex with a a very attractive, ver sexy teacher was about as good as it gets. Something to brag about.
The more I think about it, condoning and by her actions, encouraging and promoting such a callous (albeit common male) approach to life and relationships is Ellis's singe most significant crime. As a person with responsibility to teach the young people in her care she was teaching this boy that consequences don't matter. Unprotected sex doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the woman (/girl) gets pregnant. Sexually transmitted disease is just something you read about but doesn't happen to you. The consequences for significant others don't matter. The consequences for Ellis's husband and children don't matter. All that matters is getting to "lay" the sexiest girl you can find - as many times and in as daring a way as you can until you get sick of her and move on to someone else.
Ellis attneded court this week alone. Her husband, who has previously supported her wasn't there. None of her children were there. The boy wasn't there. By all accounts she had no friends present and was not wearing the wedding ring she had worn to all previous appearances.
It's a sad case, as was the Hopper one, but I believe Ellis must be held to account for such reckless abandonment of responsibility and by her actions encouraging and rewarding reckless and life destroying behaviour - not just for her own and the boy's immediate families, but for future relationships the boy will enter.
This case has nothing to do with equality before the law. It has to do with a crime that deserrves punishment without comparison to other cases.
Posted by chriscurnow at 9:19 PM | Comments (1)
May 4, 2005
chriscurnow.com One Year Old today
Well celebrations all around at the den.
chriscurnow.com posted our first entry one year ago today.
Over the last year we have had difficulty deciding exactly what we are. However, we have stayed loosely true to the theme "A search for enduring purpose and meaning in work."
Technology has crept in more than I would like it to have - but hey I like technology.
Writing about Rebecca Twigley's dress at the Australian Football League's Brownlow presentation sent the Google searches through the roof - all for the wrong reasons.
We had a fairly long hiatus from about October through to March where not much was posted. I just love writing and I found it really hard when I just didn't have time to write. But such is life.
In all this is post # 121 in a year. I thought I would do a lot more than that. But it is hard work. I guess you notice we can't make up our mind whether we are "we" or "I". I've been reading Bleeding Edge too much and I just fall into the habit. I really like "we" but it feels like I am just stealing Bleeding Edge's style.
It's been a great ride and I don't intend to stop anytime soon. Let's just wait and see what happens.
Love
Chris
>Posted by chriscurnow at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)
May 3, 2005
Blame it on the Tiger
Our apologies to everyone who tried to log on to chriscurnow,com over the last few days and was re-directed to the site of 4cast.com.au.
Simple explanation:
There was a technical difficulty which we have now resolved.
Slightly longer explanation:
In our excitement at receiving 'Tiger' (aka Mac OS 10.4) on Friday we installed it on our Server, then went to Sydney for a few days. Unfortunately we did not check that we (or your) could still access all the web sites that run on our server.
If you tried to log in, you would have been redirected to a site for one of our other enterprises. Tiger rewrote our Apache config file and our redirections all go lost.
OK. OK. if you know Apache, you know we have been lazy. If you don't know Apache, then disregard the last sentence.
Anyway, hopefully we are all up and running again.
Posted by chriscurnow at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)