Dan Djurdjevic

Some of you might recall from my essay " My unlikely relationship with the jian " the story of how my father bought me a hunting knife when I was 7 years old - and how I lost it.  In fact, it wasn't "lost" so much as stolen.  Now, after almost exactly 41 years, I have it back.  Almost.  Anyway, here's the story: You might remember that my father and I entered a rather smoky little specialist blade shop somewhere in downtown Belgrade in December 1972 where he bought me a lovely bone-handled hunting knife.  It seemed like a large Bowie in my child-sized hands.  And it was love at first sight. I took that knife home with me to Papua New Guinea.  Back then we were living in the tiny hamlet of Kavieng on the northern and western tip of New Ireland, just 100 km south of the equator.  It was a hot, sticky, remote and totally undeveloped corner of the world where  remnants of World War II  were still "fresh" - at least in a decomposing, ox...

Yes, I know you'll think otherwise.  You'll think: "Dan's lost the plot." But it turns out research data overwhelming supports the view that once you don't have to worry about money (ie. you're not wondering where the next meal is coming from or whether the gas bill and rent are going to be paid) and once you are doing a task that is even partially intellectual or conceptual, money isn't what motivates us . If you don't believe me, watch this video featuring animations imposed on Dan Pink's talk: It seems the science is irrefutable: money doesn't motivate us beyond simple mechanical tasks or the sense of financial urgency.  Instead we are motivated by three different factors: Autonomy Mastery Purpose This explains a LOT - particularly why micromanagers are so bad at "managing" people.  They ignore the fact that no amount of money takes the place of having a sense of autonomy, mastery and purpose in our work lives. ...

If you've been wondering where I've been for last month or so, I have been working at a somewhat furious pace in the background on one of my long-sought after goals.  And now I've finally achieved it: After 6 years of toil and struggle, my first martial textbook, " Essential Jo " has finally been published! The book is intended as a complete instructional manual on practical, as well as sophisticated and elegant, techniques using the jo.  For those who don't know, the jo is the Japanese 4-foot staff, originally taught with the ken (sword) in the samurai arts. As far as I can tell, Essential Jo is the most comprehensive text on the subject to date, offering a course of study from white through to black belt in the "Way of the Jo" (jodo). The book features over 900 professional black and white photographs accompanied by clear, detailed textual explanations. While it is intended primarily for students with experience in weapons arts, part...

So you're sick of the ice bucket challenge eh? I mean, you've already heard the stats: so few people get ALS - so why are we raising a disproportionate amount of money on this illness when there are far more "worthy" ones - at least in terms of human suffering. Heck - clean water supply is a bigger issue isn't it? Yet here are people wasting clean water - wasting it - on some stupid challenge to raise money for some piddling little condition that almost no one suffers. I mean, you heard it on TV right? And now we hear that ALSA is trying to  claim intellectual property  over the whole ice bucket thingy - despite having nothing to do with it initially.  What gall! And now you hear about  fraud  - that's right  fraud in ALSA .  Some 73% of the money isn't going towards researching this condition! Except that these arguments have more holes than a colander through which you can pour iced water... First, there is  no fraud .  I'...

I understand religion.  But I don't understand the whole "Rapture" movement that exists in the US. Now it seems they've remade the Kirk Cameron "classic" on this very subject (based on the  novel which is part of a series ). I'm talking about the new Nicholas Cage movie "Left Behind". Here's my problem: Without entering into the whole "argument from evil/suffering" thing, it's abundantly true that the "end of the world" comes every day for millions of people [well, hundreds of thousands, as Michael points out below], whether by tsunami, earthquake, war, famine, disease, murder accident etc. From a Christian perspective, this doesn't matter in the long run because believers go to Heaven. If this is so (and I'll assume here that it is), why would God engineer a special "End of Days" where believers get treated specially - just on this one day ? Is some pilot really going to be "rapt...

Watching the video "Cardboard Stories: Homeless in Orlando" (see below) made me think about those who assume: "The poor have only themselves to blame; they don't deserve help from the State." I think these people are cloaking their callousness with a kind of "fiscal pragmatism": one that successfully ignores the fact that we are talking about real people  - not some numbers on a statistical chart; one that is based on appallingly misconceived, bigoted and ignorant generalisations about the causes of poverty. In the US you can see exactly what such a simplistic mindset produces: a poverty where even those who have jobs can be homeless; where some people are forced to give up their kids in order to save them. And it seems that we in Australia are hell-bent on heading in the same direction.  We can see this with our own " work for the dole " expansion, Medicare co-payments, cuts to social services, harsher qualifying criteria etc. It...

There are some things about which a man must speak or risk being tarred with the brush of callous - or complicit - indifference. ****************** Initially this advertised Facebook post (which came up on my feed) seemed reminiscent of the countries that boasted how they'd turned away the (middle class and higher) Jewish escapees from Europe in 1939 .  Then I remembered: the boats that have been coming to Australia aren't full of "real refugees". And we know this without giving them due process - without having even heard them. You see, these people are boarding rickety boats from stable, peaceful places like Sri Lanka (or, in the most recent case, from a UN refugee camp in India). Then they're risking life and limb to cross vast oceans in those rickety boats - just to "jump the queue" in immigration. I mean that's what people naturally do - right? I'm surprised this hasn't happened throughout Australia's history! Why have...