Tony Abbott's two cents' worth
Tony Abbott, the Australian federal Health Minister, last week gave a speech to a conference on The Journalist and Islam, organised by Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at NSW Parliament House last week where he explained his opinion as to what made the Anglosphere (his words) great:
The Anglosphere has not maintained its economic, technological and military preponderance by pretending that there's nothing to learn from other cultures. English-speaking countries have not become beacons of hope and freedom by building walls against the world. We are always open to new ideas and better ways of doing things. We never assume that others have nothing to teach. To the extent that our political and ethical values are not potentially universal, we think that they're not values at all, just prejudices. This is the real explanation for the strength and resilience of our culture.
Where I part company with him is where he wonders "who faces the greater cultural shock: Australians who notice a few women wearing headscarves, or migrants from Muslim countries adjusting to almost complete sexual freedom, gender equality, cultural diversity and commercial laissez faire." No one forced them onto Australia's shores at gunpoint... Hell, here in China when I have to put up with the selfishness, poor manners, spitting, disregard for traffic lights and common rules, I'm constantly reminded that I'm a guest of the country.
3 comments:
I must say I prefer the old site. At least then the blog wasn't limited to one long narrow column and you could adjust the location of the images.
You can still adjust the location of the images, only if you want wording to go down one side, you need to upload in small. The problem with the wide screen of TM 1.0 is that some (large font, big resolution) users had to scroll horizontally to view. This format is viewable by the universe.
There. I've given you another 100px of width, condensed some line space and bunched in the blockquote. I dare not go farther than that though, but it is much better.
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