July 14 Post. Cottesloe beachside sleep, why it's good to thank your kids, tyrannical Edwardian liberals, the Iran v Saudi competition
Hello everyone. In this post:
week of July 14 and why I love the Cottesloe Beach Hotel in Perth, even though the single elevator is broken and the shower floods the whole bathroom.
my essay (apparently controversial) about why we should thank our kids for making us a better person. What do you think?
a mini-rant about left-leaning liberals and the social chaos (think: San Fran) that is caused by their pathological propensity to avoid conflict with their own tribe, inspired by an insightful article by FT columnist Janan Ganesh.
my review of Black Wave, a book by Kim Ghattas, that documents the rivalry between power-hungry zealots in Iran and Saudi Arabia, starting in 1979, that has turbo-charged the global radicalization of Islam and destroyed the lives of millions.
Week of July 14, 2024
I was back in POM for a few days, and then in PERth. Qantas (QF) to POM, Virgin Australia (VA) to PER and CX back to TPE. The QF flights were late and crew was grumpy. The VA flight was also late but crew was bubbly. Funny how being immersed in an optimistic environment matters in every context. The CX flights were on a full B777 to HKG and an empty A350 to TPE.
The big PNG-related news of the week was of the Petroleum Minister being charged with domestic assault (a second time, apparently), this time by a Sydney court. He's out on bail and denies the charges.
In Perth I stayed at my favorite hotel, the cheerful yet dilapidated Cottesloe Ocean Beach Hotel (OBH), built in 1935 in what is described as an "Inter-War Functionalist Style" (i.e., concrete-ugly with grudging charm). I love falling asleep with the sound of the ocean surf, just across the street. The single hotel elevator wasn't working, the shower door failed to stop water from leaking all over the bathroom, but the sleep and in-room coffee were both great.
The owner of OBH has been fighting with local council for years to tear down the property and build a modern, taller hotel. As is the case in most affluent neighborhoods, local councils tend to be xenophobic to anything that might result in higher density and people from outside their tribe living in their back yard. This frame of mind has turned Perth into a suburban sprawl of only 2 million people, but stretched out over 160 kilometers of coastline. Massive amounts of state funding go towards providing subsidized infrastructure, water and other services for almost everyone to live the dream. It's impossible to provide good public transport in this type of a dream set-up, so you need a car. Rush hour traffic and commute times are worse than in Taipei, Hong Kong or Singapore, but not quite Jakartesque.
Anyway, Cottesloe is nice. Regardless of time of year, I'll go for an early morning dip in the cold ocean and for a beach-side run. I went on two 10k runs on this trip, both at my new pace of under 6 min/km.
So you've thanked your spouse for making you a better person, how about your kids?
I wrote this essay three months ago, but never published it. I truly believe my kids have made me a better person, and that it's important for me to acknowledge them. But one of my early readers viscerally disagreed with me, for reasons I have yet to comprehend. What do you think? Read the essay here.
Liberal elites and their damn(ing) aversion to conflict
FT columnist Janan Ganesh finally put to words my biggest frustration with the US Democratic party, their pathological avoidance of conflict within their tribe. This essay does a great job flagging one of the biggest flaws of the left-leaning kumbaya jet-set. There seems to be a growing recognition that enough-is-enough, with popular book titles such as "The Courage to be Disliked", "The Art of Saying No" and "Woke, Inc.", but it might take a Republican win of the next US election before "leaders" of left-leaning parties in the G7 get the memo, or are ousted. Check out these excerpts:
If you have an FT subscription, you can read the article here.
Book review: Black Wave, by Kim Ghattas. Score: 8.5/10
Black Wave chronicles the cold-war between Iran and Saudi Arabia that started in the late 1970s and continues to this day. I enjoyed the book. Read my review of the book here.
Finally, a few photos…
Cottesloe beach, looking North
Cottesloe beach, right across the street from the Ocean Beach Hotel
CX A350 for my HKG-TPE segment. My favorite plane, my favorite airline.
Until mañana,
Stefan