Sideswipe: January 19: Good graffiti

Good graffiti. Photo / Supplied

Diversity rules

Duncan Davies writes: "Someone said I should send this through to you ... not really sure why but here we go. About two months ago I gave up work. It's an interesting transition from organising life around obligations to an employer to scheduling life around what I want to do. It is unadulterated selfishness.

It's also been a time to reflect on my working life. It sure has been a privilege to be employed for a long time. But that privilege is extended to the richness of experiences I have had in working with and meeting so many different people.

Right now Donald Trump would have denied me that experience. I have worked alongside Muslims and Christians, agnostics and people who believed in the tooth fairy. Gays, lesbians, straights. Intelligent and the illiterate, Mongrel Mob, Black Power, Rotarians and Masons. Jews and Palestinians.

The privileged whites and the poor and desperate. And the list goes on. All were unique and brought to planet earth their own version of reality. They contributed to a huge richness and if I had been inclined to bigotry and prejudice I would have easily narrowed that list right down and more the loser would I have been.

It is the hardest of the tasks to look beyond what one sees and look to find the person. That is why prejudice is so simple and so easy that it attracts those that don't think and don't want to think, is focused on the superficial and attracts the superficial. It is the home of the ignorant.

The Donald Trumps of the world use prejudice and fear as their currency of power. Scrape away that veneer and they have nothing to offer. Recent history is peppered with leaders who used the same blunt tool, Hitler, Rwanda, Bosnia, Palestine and Israel, Syria and Turkey. Others too many to mention.

So my reflection of the life of work leads me to this; there are far greater wins through tolerance and understanding than there will ever be from intolerance and prejudice. That doesn't mean to say that I have agreed with everyone. Far from it.

Just communicate the power of diversity and its strength and stay clear of those that support any action that denigrates anyone else simply because of who they are."

Paris Hilton. Photo / Supplied

Fake picture that went viral #2. Many believed that Paris Hilton wore a tank top to a party with: "Stop Being Poor" scrawled across it, but the picture is photoshopped. In the original photo, taken at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in 2005, her shirt reads: "Stop Being Desperate."