With the recent departure of their senior coach, it has been revealed that former Fremantle coach Ross Lyon is a “front and centre” contender for the top role at the Yeshivah Centre. Following years of club turmoil and poor performance, the Yeshivah Centre engaged KPMG to undertake a comprehensive review of operations, and in an unusual move also requested a forensic examination of the club’s game plan over the last forty years. As one director…
Breaking news at the Yeshivah Centre: switching to a new legal structure (that is largely similar to the previous one but splits members into two overlapping groups), and then giving everyone the vote does not instantly result in a well-functioning democracy. And in other breaking news, gravity causes objects to fall to the ground. If we look back through history, the journey from feudalism or monarchy to democracy is usually accompanied by revolution and civil…
A powerful and prominent family, and the religious institution they run. That was more than enough to pique my interest, and after rapidly working our way through three seasons of the outstanding Netflix series Greenleaf, it reinforced so much I already know about family business, succession, and intergenerational transition. When telling people about this series, I delay mentioning the setting – a African-American mega-church in Memphis. While that aspect adds a wonderful dimension, the intersecting…
Another NFL season is down to just two teams, and while some pundits marvel at the new generation of outstanding QBs and the associated focus on offense, we should be reminded that some things never change (and I don’t mean the Patriots appearance in the AFC Championship game): winning playoff games depends on good old fashioned things like controlling the line of scrimmage and the clock. This preview shouldn’t be all about Brady, but he…
In a piece that draws on the biblical story of the splitting of the sea, David discusses the challenge of belief in God in the face of the misadventures of people who purport to act in His name. [Times of Israel]
(contains spoilers) It should come as no surprise that two innovators – Netflix and the Black Mirror team – have combined to produce something so special that we might look back on Bandersnatch as a key moment in the emerging genre of ‘interactive movie‘. The idea of handing the audience/viewer control over how the story plays out has been around for decades. Usually, this takes the shape of giving viewers a choice of a few…
During the month of Elul, our minds turn to Rosh Hashanah, and we reflect on the year which is drawing to a close. We have many different units for measuring time – seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years – and each serves a different purpose. To paraphrase Marc Levy, if you think a hundredth of a second is a short amount of time, ask the person who won the Olympic silver medal in the…
I stumbled across a wonderful article that deals with the intersection of two of my favourite topics: intergenerational issues and the impact of social media on society. It analyses the starkly different ways that Facebook is used by Baby Boomers, as opposed to Millenials. It comes from a web site called The Cheat Sheet, which is “dedicated to providing audiences the information they want in an approachable, entertaining way”. But looking at the content and the…
Another Superbowl, and like a bad rash, those Patriots just won’t go away. OK, that was a little cruel, but I think many people are waiting for this dynasty to end, and even predicting its downfall, yet time and again the Pats find ways to win, especially when it really matters. And that’s what goodgreat teams do. Having attended last year’s Superbowl, I was awestruck witnessing the most amazing comeback ever. Games like this affect…
I’m sick and tired at the increasing frequency that big issues are politicised, and the regular straw-man arguments that often serve to reinterpret opinions as extreme and thus polarise us further. Most of us sit in the 80% of grey space in the middle, rather than the 10% at the extremes. Yet many of us are too easily caught up in those extremes, and have lost the ability to conduct nuanced debate in that grey…