Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

December began for me with the ambivalence resulting from seeing too many traffic accidents almost every week in our city. It is a sad reminder that people are careless with their own lives. It is also a sad reminder that the irresponsible actions of careless or drunk drivers can lead to the deaths of innocent men, women, and child. The reminder we need to take heed of is that with so many drivers without proper education of traffic rules on the road anything can go wrong. We also prepare ourselves as Christians to celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ. We prepare ourselves both mentally and physically. Mentally we prepare ourselves to rejoice in the birth of our saviour as man to live among us. Physically we slow down or wind down in our activities or take a break from what we do every day of the year. Christmas is a time to celebrate, sing, praise, and dance to the new born King two thousand years ago in the Holy Land. It is also a time to say thank you to God who guided us on our jo...

As this week’s political drama unfolded we asked ourselves if Shakespeare’s play Julius Caeser had a broader appeal to democracies outside of the Greek-Roman empires. Indeed, the answer lies in our interpretations of the thematic concerns of the play as well as the associations we make from the characterization, plot, and dialogic encounters in the play. Shakespeare’s intention in Julius Caeser is to present a genuine piece of Roman history to the English audience. “Roman history offered some of the most impressive themes available to the Renaissance, an era when political lessons were ardently sought in antiquity—themes such as despotism and republicanism, strong rule good and bad, stable and unstable realm, scrupulous and unscrupulous motives, the relations between rules and subjects (particularly the populace), and so on,” says Arthur Humphreys, an eminent Shakespearean scholar. So what are the political lessons that we can learn from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser? What ass...

In this year’s Media Awards, the judges dropped several categories of awards. The main reason is that in those categories only one entry or no entries at all were submitted. This does say a lot about the organizations and media companies’ obligation to those hard working media personnel such as journalists, broadcasters, and TV reporters, programmers, and producers. For a start we don’t have a crowded media industry as illustrated by two dailies, one weekly, two TV stations, and a handful of radio stations. Nominating media personals and programs from these media organizations should be an important responsibility of a responsible media industry. The people who work so hard and with tireless commitment to achieve excellence in their respective media should be rewarded and encouraged to set the standard for excellence. It is also fulfilling to see some of the students I had a part in their formative education at UPNG receive award in this year’s Media Awards night. Congratulations to t...

The government has done well as a responsible government in this year’s budgetary allocation in investing in the human resource capital of the country. The education sector received the highest budgetary allocation this year, which in itself is a political statement of the government’s medium term development policy. By allocating the highest funding to our education system the government has reinvested the earnings from the country’s natural resources and from the taxes it collects from its citizens. The government has also considered the legal education of our people to be of utmost importance. Its budgetary allocation for the construction of a new law school at the University of Papua New Guinea is major investment in the education of our legal experts. With the construction of a new law school the government is well assured in producing a steady supply of graduates who can meet the expectations of the government and people of Papua New Guinea. This new School of Law will need add...

Sometimes I think leaders need to sit down and read a good book on how to lead. In many of our work places leaders perform below the expected moral level. There are different explanations for their poor performances. It could also be that they struggle with understanding themselves as leaders who lead through service, moral intelligence, and with clear achievable goals. It could be that their appointment in the first place was anything, but rigged with fraud, nepotism, and misjudgment of their true character. A leader is someone who must understand the importance of team work and must maintain an attitude of respect for every member of the team. A leader is someone who consolidates the productive spirit of the team rather than someone who divides and rule. A leader works with the team, not against the team in a company or organization. In their book Moral Intelligence: Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success, Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel explain what an effective leader...

The kind of person I am now is because of the decisions and actions I took in the past. The kind of person I want to be in future depends on the decisions and actions I make now. If I make the right decisions and took the appropriate action now then the outcome will be as I had visualized it. That is the kind of lesson, personal development experts like Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles. I have followed Jack Canfield’s success principles the very day I bought this book in a bookshop in Christchurch, New Zealand, 5 years ago. I had shared one of the success principles in this column some time back in the beginning of the year. Since these principles have changed my life I would like to share at least one principle from time to time. This week I would like to share part of Success Principle Number 1: Take 100% responsibility for your life. A friend of mine said to me one day that I needed to take control of my life instead of trying to please other people. I am successfu...

May 2011, the University of the South Pacific will be launching its publishing arm that will be known as the USP Press. The goal of the Press is to publish high quality research and writing on issues related to the Pacific Islands, or the islands commonly known as Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.  Toward this end, the University wishes to announce an international competition seeking manuscripts in the following categories: USP Press Literature Prize ($3000) will be awarded to the overall winner from the following categories. The winner in each category will receive $1,000.00 Fiction ($1,000) Poetry ($1,000) Drama or Screenplay ($1,000) USP Press Non Fiction Prize ($3,000) will be awarded to the overall winner from the following categories. The winner in each category will receive $1,000.00. History, Auto/Biography ($1,000) Sciences ($1,000) Social Sciences/Humanities ($1000) Best Children’s Book ($2,000) The competition is open to all na...