A rock and a hard place

News that the embattled Bishop of the Murray, Ross Davies, is seeking $1 million in order to leave his job (The Sunday Mail..November 30) will come as no surprise. Though most will be horrified. It is a surprise (because it is news) but no surprise (because it is part of a litany of woes) that Archdeacon Michel Whiting has quit his post as Vicar General. One wonders why he took it in the first place.
I have a modicum of sympathy with the Bishop, he is after all slightly younger than myself and still has to think about proper provision for his family.Many would have thought that you just cut your losses and go back to being a parish priest, though I imagine he wants to join the Pope of Glenalta, who probably can't afford to pay him and Bp Ross most likely has no intention of staying in the Anglican Church.
Survivors of sexual abuse, none of whom I imagine has received $1 million, will be deeply hurt if the Church pays out that sort of money to one of its own, who some regard as part of the problem.

Pause for thought

The Australian opened its commentary about the Mumbai bombings with the chilling thought "nuclear armed India blamed nuclear armed Pakistan for its part...."
Chilling pause for thought!

Goodness gracious me!

I am interested (as always) in the reporting of the Mumbai terrorist attack. In the scheme of things it seems to me quite serious, one wondered how long it would take the hideous 'terrorists' to realise that there are an awful lot of soft targets around the world. And India must be one of them.
I guess the net effect of this will be that rich Westerners will stop travelling to India. Which is what happened in Bali, n'est-ce pas?
Who this causes suffering to is obvious.Not Osama, probably not the West...since we may just ahve mild disappointment at not going to India...but hundreds of low paid Indians will just not get the benefits of tourism, or trade or what ever. What a ridiculous waste.

Yesterday's news

Yesterday I sat down to read the Advertiser and read it more thoroughly than I normally can. After my allotted time I noticed that I had been reading the paper from, the day before. Funny and sad thing was, that it hadn't actually made any difference!!

30 years later

Had lunch yesterday with friend S, who I hadn't seen (we worked out) for over 30 years. It is an interesting experience, on the one hand there is much to talk about, and on the other there is nothing because it is all sort of behind us.
I get the impression that he is making the transition into the last journey that I sensed in myself some years ago. My first comment to him (maybe a mistake) Gee you look like your dad! Which he did, but it rather reminds us that we are now the older generation (both in our late 50s!!!)
It was pleasant enough, we connected about a year ago on Facebook, he now lives overseas and so our contact has been slight.
I cannot make my mind up whether this encounter was profound or slight!

Stepping out

Get Up notes that over 100 laws were passed by the Senate last night to remove discrimination against same-sex couples. It is worth thinking what these 'discriminations' might be. Some are horrendous, like people being denied equity with regard to superannuation because they happen to have lived with a same, rather than different, sex partner. So, when your partner dies if you are married or have been in a defacto relationship superannuation consideration involve workign out what your entitlement to that might be. It would seem inequitable that people who have supported each other, perhaps bought property together, shared common goals and so on should be denied equity without costly litigation.
More emotional has been an understanding who 'next of kin' might be. Numerous stories abound of same-sex partners being denied any say in funeral arrangements, often cut out completely by families who have been antipathetic to the deceased person's lifetstyle.
What ever we may personally feel about people's lifestyle choices, we have no right to discriminate against what are essentially personal and/or private decisions.
The Attorney, Robert McLelland, has reasserted that same-sex marriage is not on the books (here) . This is to be expected, if not a bit lamentable. In time it will come I suspect.
In the meantime any steps forward are to be welcomed.

Not surprisingly-tough versus right

No surprise that Malcolm Turnbull gave Kevin Rudd the thumbs down at the National Press Club today. What fascinated me was that while admitting he had taken many 'right' decisions, his strongest critique was that he had not taken 'hard' decisions. There was an implication that it is easy to take right decisions but only 'real men' can make hard decisions. I
I sort of understand this, but I actually wonder if it's merely populist nonsense, that appeals to a pseudo macho ethic that some push-poller is promoting as the latest differential to be exploited .
Does the Liberal party assume that the electorate prefers someone who does what is hard to someone who does what is right? (The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive).
They may be correct, but that doesn't mean that this makes for good government.
Howard was 'hard' about immigration, sectors of the electorate loved this. But in my opinion it was poor policy, opportunism of the worst sort. It caused Australia to be perceived as racist in the eyes of the world, it was expensive and divisive. But hard....yes it was hard!
Hard is, of itself, not a value. We should be asking questions like is this policy good and right? These are the values; 'hard' is simply a description of how easily the policy can be implemented.

Counting the score

As amusing as it might be to score the government on its first year, it only serves to add to the general paranoia that ministers must feel. Is that a good thing? Probably not. It is rather, as I say, cruelly entertaining.
Governments need to be scrutinised rather than rated, but we see inevitably that Rudd is rated 8/10, Gillard 9/10, Garrett 6/10 (and dubbed the 'Minister for Nothing' )(The Weekend Oz). What does it mean? Nothing really, it is one person's impression and is akin to the 30 second grab, a not too sophisticated analysis of  complex issues; designed not so much to illuminate as to provoke discussion and not necessarily constructive discussion.
People will probably split along party lines (listen to Matt and Dave and the Two Chrises if you don't believe me...but I am sure you do), but this sort of stuff serves to seek short term results for what are obviously long term issues.
I personally think that there is much to be said for fixed governmental terms in a stable democracy like our own, so that although we can be amused by short term ratings we can actually appreciate that governments aren't going to have to pander to the need to amuse the fickle electorate when there is a long term job to be done.

Facing the Book

The other day there was a special Facebook  event, called a "Day without Facebook".
It is an interesting concept, what is of particular interest to me is that our youngest daughter was the one who was keenest on it. She explained to me the reasons for ti as she had discovered them...that Facebook collects information about its users, that it then uses it to target advertise.....so she will always have lots of things about High School Musical and the Jonas Bros. To my mind this is not so invidious but she understood something of its significance...what we don't know can in fact be rather suspicious, may in fact be malicious and is almost certainly something more than we bargained for.
I rather think this is the nature of the world we live in, and has ever been so, it is called propaganda. It is not necessarily a bad thing. But we are right to be suspicious.
Dear old S did, I think, have a day without Facebook,  she spent it on My Space instead!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

this is worth thinking about-with regard to local violence

MEDIA RELEASE: FROM THE ANGLICAN ARCHBISHOP OF ADELAIDE
JEFFREY DRIVER
13 November 2008
Archbishop’s plea: avoid racial stereotypes
The Archbishop of Adelaide has issued a plea that the tragic killing of a teenager on an Adelaide city street should not result in the racial stereotyping of the Sudanese community in Adelaide.
Archbishop Jeffrey Driver said that appalling as such events were, particularly among the young,
people needed to remember that tragic events of violence sadly occurred across all groupings in society and none were immune.
“Having said that, we also need to recognise the special needs of the Sudanese who have come to us from appalling and often traumatic circumstances”, the Archbishop said.
“The Southern Sudan was engaged in war for more than twenty years. About two million people were killed. Barely a family was exempt from grief. Many young people grew up in refugee camps. I have travelled in the Southern Sudan and have seen something of the effects of the war in terms of poverty, dislocation and trauma.
“We need to ensure that there is long term support for these members of our community, who have come from so much difficulty and who have their own vitality and contribution to bring to Australia”.

'Tis the season

I seem faintly ahead of myself this year, maybe the fact that circumstances of the last few weeks have caused an ongoing sorting out of stuff (still a long way to go). I even wondered if we should put the Christmas Tree up this weekend...Advent not yet begun...I was reminded that Fr Christmas did arrive in Adelaide last weekend...but we'll leave it for a couple of weeks.
So here is my annual blog about the jacaranda, since I saw a wonderful specimen yesterday, which sends the thrill of the late Spring surging through my veins.
Reminding that exams are happening (T was feeling glum last night and I couldn't cheer him up....Ahh well they're NOT all over he said....still a week to go! I allowed him the indulgence of feeling sorry for himself)
Any way the order is almost ready for the Carol Service, there is a deep sense that if we don't do this or that now, then in four weeks time it will be too late!

Lest we forget!

One of the delightful things I have been doing in the last few weeks is mentoring a year 7 student in aspects of English language for an hour or so each week.
He is working on a poetry project and has decided to look at war.
In talking to him about it, and what some of the themes are, it is interesting to note that in a naive sort of way he understands the futility of young people being sent off to fight political battles in which they have little or no direct interest. And that people get caught up in such fracas as 'collateral damage' to other men's (usually men) decisions.
If the First and Second wars and those following have taught us nothing else, hopefully there will be a lasting reminder...as there should be on this 90th Anniversary of the Armistice ...that war is not a solution.

Great admiration

I have only the greatest admiration for the relatives of British victims of the Bali bombers who urge Indonesia to not execute them (here).
I am becoming more and more convinced that as logical as it might seem, those of us who oppose the death penalty should oppose it!
Even for those who like the insanely laughing Amrosi and Imam Samudra seem prime candidates.
The issue about the death penalty should be separated from particular cases. That way madness lies.
If it is wrong (and I believe it is) then it is wrong for Himmler, for Milosovic and for Amrosi.
Surely we can adopt a more moral stand than this.

Rather good

The Rieualisation

Congratulations to Emma Ayres on ABC FM this morning when interviewing Andre Rieu.

That she could do it without throwing up is amazing in itself.

While I generally feel that people should be allowed to do what they want, the real problem is what happens when this impacts on others. Almost everything we do impacts on others.

What Rieu does, it seems to me, is to diminish Classical Music by turning it into Muzak...such a point was made by Maestro Tognetti on the Music Show last week. He does not play music, he flattens it out into 'easy listening'.

That program is wildly catholic in its music; presenter and composer Andrew Ford refuses to be locked into genre politics (see fulsome praise here http://stephenclarks.blogspot.com/2006/02/do-yourself-favour.html)

He once made the comment...who says music has to be 'easy' to listen to...as an art form it should really demand something of us.

Rieu's crime, it seems to me, is to make powerful music meaningless. It is an artistic travesty.

You can argue that people should be allowed to listen to garbage if they want.

But that impacts on others because it makes our culture weak when we think music is just meaningless.

Confirmation

Candidates and sponsors with the Bishop and the Priest!

Jeff takes a picture of me taking a picture of him

Jess and her friends and their personal....not trainer....but chaplain

The terrible triplets