How to save money!

One of the ways I save money is through indecision. I have been thinking for some months about buying the Amazon ereader Kindle You download books (paying for them) and then can store up to 1500 on your kindle. They are just becoming available for Australian use, which involves a wireless connectivity (see a good review here)

Then there's the iphone. I am not great fan of cell phones, but have been impressed by the youngest S Clark's ability to use it for almost everything (other than tidying her room). I can only afford one...and I also need to rememebr that I went to turn the desktop on two days ago and it didn't turn on. The time is coming to replace.

Soooooo...not being able to decide I just don't do it.

Hopefully by then the KindleDX (next model) will be better and cheaper.

De rigueur

It is difficult to turn the news on and not be struck by the fact that we are obsessing once again about refugees.

I was even interested to hear John Hepworth rattling on to a recent meeting of Forward in Faith (FiF) in England, FiF is a reactionary organization within the Anglican Communion principally opposed to the ordination of women priests and bishops.

Hepworth is not a member of the Anglican Communion, but leader of the TAC, a rag-tag group of former Anglicans. He is talking to these "Fathers" (for such they were) shortly after the Vatican has told the Anglican Church that it will set up an "ordinariate" for Anglicans which will allow the disaffected to become members of the Roman Catholic Church whilst looking ostensibly Anglican.

There are certain ironies about this. While some FiF members are absolutely delighted to be allowed to be Anglicans in the Roman Church, many...perhaps most .....of them have practised being more Roman than the Romans whilst Anglicans. We used to joke to Romans that if you actually wanted to see how Mass should be celebrated well, then go to your local Anglican Church if they happened to be Anglo-Catholic in persuasion.

Anyway, the point of this blog! Is that Hepworth's little peroration (audio of 3 different continuing Bishops including Hepworth here) is highly infused with the language of refugees.

His imagery is that the Vatican has issued refugee visas to Anglicans, and he insists that such visas will be operational for quite a long period...he suggests 300 years.

What of course he also neglects to mention is that it has taken the Curia 300 years to get round to issuing them in the first place.

Ahhhh! Interesting times....for some!

Oh the intrigue!

Most people will not be in the slightest bit bothered about the latest round of gamesmanship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church.
This week Mr Ratzinger announced he would appoint an 'ordinariate' (you have to love the language) for disaffected Anglicans who want to become RC but who don't really want to stop being Anglican... well maybe that's what it said... quite a lot of these people are "closet Romans" who for various reasons have lacked the opportunity/gumption/clout/guts to leave the Ecclesia Anglicana and become Roman Catholics. Not the least of the reasons for doing this might be that Anglican clergy are often, even usually, married. So if you want to become (or remain) a priest this presents a minor difficulty. I say 'minor' because in the end nothing defeats the bureaucracy of the Roman Church...even its owns rules (Ask Henry VIII)
So there are a wide range of people who might be interested in this proposition
1. Those who have already separated themselves. The so-called Continuing Anglican Churches for example. They appear to have been wetting themselves to get back into the flock. Their current leader actually resides in my parish (I have blogged of him here). "Archbishop" Hepworth happens to have been a Roman Catholic priest who became an Anglican and then who left and joined the splinter Church. He claims to lead a worldwide group of 400,000 disaffected Anglicans.
This in itself is an interesting figure, I would be interested to see how they arrive at such a figure. And particularly interested to see them substantiated in some properly audited way.
I have my doubts!
Some of the members of that church have colourful pasts, and are perhaps a little fractious and argumentative (aren't we all). I wonder if the Romish Church knows it all! I suspect they know more than they let on.
2. Disaffected Roman Catholics There was a titillating suggestion that a whole host of Roman Catholics who would have been priests may now try to enter through the Anglican Ordinariate. This would be amsuing!
3. What of the loyal Catholics? I remember a dear RC colleague telling me of how many fine male friends she had who would have made wonderful priests, and who felt saddened when Anglicans who were married were able to do what they were forbidden to do because they were loyal to the Holy See.
4. What of the complicated marriages? As one whose marriage fell on hard times what would the Roman Church make of people like me. I could (indeed do) function as a celibate person. Though technically married, surely separated Anglicans (continuing or otherwise) would be eligible to join this ordinariate as long as they didn't marry again.
Or what of those whose may have been divorced and remarried, perhaps even had their marriages 'annulled' by a schismatic continuing Church and then got married again. There are probably some of those.
I can actually think of three lots of former Anglicasn who became RC, all of their marital (and other) relationships appear to have been stressed. Even become irregular and dysfunctional
I just hope the Vatican knows what it is letting itself in for.

Tasing the Opposition

Having grown up with a British Police Force who in those days had the proud boast that they did not carry guns, one wonders about the present Taser debate. One wonders even more why the SA Opposition Leader, Isabel Redmond, is doing anything more than attention-seeking when she is offering to be Tasered herself (here) in order (presumably) to show that it's OK!

There is no doubt that we have a real problem about what to do with armed criminals.

Is it too simplistic to say: Get rid of guns!!! Make it illegal to own them, or use them unless you are licensed, trained, and using them in a full-controlled environment.

Is it all too-simplistic to say the same thing abotu knives also?

In the current hysterical discussion in which the hyperbolic "Gang of 49" language is being used we should all be aware that it is bad to make public policy in the heat of the moment.

The Taser (and there are a number of variants) has a basic problem...and that is that you use it like a gun.

It does nothing to diminish gun violence, and may even provoke it, if we say that you point a gun at someone who is pointing a gun at you.

Most of us here are deeply disturbed by what happens in the US. Less guns seems better than more.

This is a bit of a ramble...but you get the point!

The Christmas creep

I can already feel the creep of Christmas (only 2 months to go on Sunday). In trying to organise the next few weeks you suddenly discover that everything is interrupted by these end of year things. You can't seem to get a clear week because of weddings, partings....anything! And then once you get passesd December 3 or 4 it's all downhill from there.

These are a few of the most tedious things

In my semi-obsessive way I have a sort of weekly routine. I try to fit in bits of talk-radio into my daily tasks. Judging by conversations I have with people many others do the same, because they hear the things that I do.

But some of it is so irritating.

Like,I tire of hearing the Federal Opposition Manager of Business, Chris Pyne on Mondays saying things like...of I am a Federal Member I can't possibly comment on State politics.... Seems to me he is happy to promote things he agrees with but then when he is obviously in disagreement (as he was today with the Regional Royalties issue...saying it would be foolish for a Labor government despite the local Libs promoting it as a vote buyer ooops winner) When challenged about this inconsistency he trots out his mantra....I can't possibly comment on State politics.

And then of course there is the Honourable Alexander...his Monday ADVERTISER column (here) is developing an air of predictability...along the lines of how provocative can I be...last week it was Obama should give back the Nobel prize.

Today it is: how awful that Australian soldiers should die in the theatres of war to which his government was only too pleased to send them. He admits in the course of his article that many will disagree. I think he is correct. Particularly objectionable is the simplistic critique that perhaps some of the young Afghanis should stay in Afghanistan and fight the Taliban instead of fleeing.

This may be populist, but it is hardly credible analysis. But it will get him attention I suppose.

Equally tedious is the PM's seeming retreat to the Howardist position on refugees...I make no apologies for being firm. Today's cartoon in the same paper has him driving the Refugee yacht with a secret super-keel and the observation...when they will admit that this was really invented by Howard!

Go ahead and smack me

A new corporal punishment debate is started by news (no-doubt jumbled) that one woman has been chatted to by police about smacking her kid with a wooden spoon.

It just seems to me that a wooden spoon is a quite nasty weapon, particularly because it is conveniently to hand. And also because I know that I am one of those people who can too easily go from a tap-to a slap-to a thump.

I determined early on in my time as a parent that I needed to discipline myself to not strike my children. I did not always manage this, and it always said more about my behaviour than theirs.

The locus of evil

I am always faintly bemused by the polemic of SA Attorney-General Michael Atkinson who this week declaimed that some members of the so called Gang of 49 were evil, beyond rehabilitation and better off behind bars. He has been more or less backed up by Premier Rann..(here)...ahhh "law and order" what better policy issue when the Opposition seem to be gaining a bit of ground.

My question to the Attorney is whether 'evil' is an appropriate legal descriptor. It seems to me it is not. It may be theological (and Atkinson is a sort-of Anglican) or it may be emotive but it is surely not useful when talking about what certain criminals are doing or what should be done about then.

It must also make prison reformers fume when a Labor Attorney declares that prison cannot at least attempt to rehabilitate the young offender. The offensive language, too, of other State Ministers who suggest that criminals should be racked, packed and stacked...or what ever...helps us to realise that the attitude to prison policy in this state is not exactly what you would call 'progressive'. Indeed it seems positively Victorian.

Poor old Brendan

This is the wonderful dilemma of sport. How far do you excuse poor behaviour because of brilliant sportsmanship?

Brendan Fevola's drunken night out at the BrownNose Medals is becoming an increasing debacle. Why should we be surprised? Now we are told what was a drunken binge was also an occasion of sexual assault. I ask again...Why should we be surprised?

We will wait with baited breath...but imagine we will be disappointed if we think that desperate sports clubs will sacrifice their never assuaged appetite for success on the altar of decency. Or am I just an old prude...or prune...or both?

Crime wave

It is alarming that in these high-tech times we still cannot stop a gang of marauding criminals from wreaking havoc in the suburbs.

(see here)

They just don't get it.

I am one (apparently of the few) who thought that the attempt to resurrect "Hey Hey It's Saturday" was a big mistake. It just seemed to me as I looked at it that it was like going back a decade (or more).

I was not surprised in the five minutes I watched of it to see the now-infamous Jackson Jibe.
Half a dozen white guys all 'blacked up' like minstrels taking off the Jackson famil. It reminded us that what might be Ok for six medical students to do in 1989 was not Ok in 2009.

Although the news.com.au machine has been at odds to malign H. Connick Jr (for having blacked up, too, a decade ago) the reality is that we have (PTL) moved on. Connick has moved on. The world has moved on.

This is what is wrong with trying to resurrect HHYIS...we have all moved on!

Liberal leadership

Good on Malcolm for calling out the idiots who say that Liberals should stand for nothing. In saying that they should stand for something, he will discover whether they do.

And we will discover whether he does.

Alpha versus sigma

Someone once said to me about a person with whom I have some dealings "Ah well I suppose he's not bad for an alpha male!" She was right, but any alpha male is pretty difficult to take.

It is what gives some amusement to politics I suppose.

Self-proclaimed alpha leader Turnbull handing out fiats to his party cohorts to make sure that another alpha protege Mr Dutton gets a safe seat.

And oh to be Barnaby Joyce who is so alpha-assured that he can tell them all to go and get nicked.

I still predict that Malcolm will tire of this!

trivializing natural disasters

Quite a lot of Christians, usually Pentecostals, claim to know the mind of God. They (in particular) attribute natural disasters to punishment by God of particular sins. So some, in what seems to me an act of the grossest unkindness, attributed the disasters that beset New Orleans to alleged immorality...usually they want to name sodomy and homosexuality as the particular reasons that God apparently wants to wreak havoc on people.

This seems to me to be most cruel, simplistic, and really.....well infantile nonsense.

The Lord himself is at pains to point out that God does not make equations of particular sins, particular people or particular circumstance. (see for example John 9 which would seem to be about disabusing the faithful of the idea that God is in the business of punishing people for particular wrongdoing....a common Hebrew scripture idea). More than this, it actually seems to em to be a total travesty of the God who loves the world so much that he allows redemption through suffering.

When ever we are tempted to say that suffering can be relieved by getting God to wave a magic wand, or by getting people to do the right thing so that they won't be punished we are forgetting that our lived experience is that suffering would seem to be universal.

The question is not why does it happen......but what do we do when it does.

I hope these stupid Penties stop telling us that they have some inroad into the mind of God, and realise that the cross proclaims that in the midst of suffering there is life

beating up the premier

I still don't get this! Who beat up the Premier and why?

On Matt and Dave on Friday some whacko rang up and said they could fully understand why someone had thumped the Premier. Good on Matt and Natasha S-D (who was guesting) who reminded the dim-wit that no matter how much you could understand it there was absolutely no justification.

The Advertiser story on Saturday gave no clue as to what this was all about!!

family in space

I have endured the joy and agony of one daughter in China and another in Spain (or is it France?) almost too much to work out what the various time differences are.

The real problem is not what the time differential is but what do you do if you have tsunami or earthquake.

In the back of my mind there is always the question of how might I access enough bucks to make a rescue dash.

And yet I also know that it's great that they encounter risk. When the Spanish daughter was little I used to make her climb the granite boulders on the eponymous island off the coast of Victor Harbor. This much to her mother's chagrin! Yesterday I prayed like mad that the God who loves her, and his Mother will be watching carefully over her.

Once, when I was rescuing her from a big mistake of the 16 year old kind, I wrote her a letter saying how awful it was to see the most beautiful thing I had ever known lying helpless on the ground. I trust her strength, God's love, the holy Guardian Angels and the Mother of Jesus (a lot of BIG guns) to look after the most beautiful thing in the world.