Tress’ parents arrived yesterdy morning. We’ve had a wonderful 2 days with them so far. Tomorrow, we’d be driving up to Canberra for a getaway, staying for a few days. U Marloney and A Hooi are coming with us. It should be fun.

So 16 Sept has come and gone and so has 23 Sept. Anwar and his UMNO Version 2.0 (aka Keadilan) as well as his BN Version 2.0 (aka Pakatan Rakyat), is starting to act just like the current supposedly dying regime. Anwar is a good public speaker, even charismatic. He is a gifted politician. He charms and networks well. But can he really make Malaysia better?

Malaysia can become better. However, It wont happen under Anwar. I never liked or trusted him. Under his watch, Malaysia became even more racist and bigotted. Malays’ “special rights” were was elevated and given a sacred status. Islam became a national agenda and mass movements to Islamise day-to-day aspects of life kicked in and became woven into Malaysian fabric. Because of Anwar, Malaysia is so much more Islamised and bigotted today.

This is the same Anwar who now promises pluralism and equal treatment. Really? He promised heaps before. He’s a politician. There’re close to 20 million Malays who have become so addicted and dependent on Government handouts and special treatment. How would Anwar wean them off without eroding his political base? Do you trust him to deliver a more equitable Malaysia? I dont.

Already, he has been proven to be heavy on promises and rhetoric and very light on, where actual results are concerned. There is absolutely no sign that the government will change hands soon – just more talk everyday. If he becomes PM, there will be more of the same – ie, promises of an equitable country and justice and pluralism and all that but the country will remain racist and bigotted for a long time, even under Anwar – especially under Anwar, who once championed these very racist and bigotted causes.

We were at Doulos in Geelong last Sunday – it was her final voyage to Australia, and will be decommissioned in 2010.

It’s a beautifully sunny day. Although, being Melbourne the changes came qucikly and while it rained for a bit earlier, and then got windy before becoming cloudy, it is now sunny again but the wind has continued to blow. Tress is away on a dental appointment and I’m just pottering around the house, also getting some food ready for the usual Saturday night do in Alex’s later tonight.

Tress’ parents will now be visiting on their own. Uncle Mak and his wife have for some reason, changed their minds about coming. I guess they are more comfortable in familiar surroundings. I think they dont travel much and the thought of travelling down under for 2 weeks is too big a trip for them. Ah well, too bad for them. It does mean easier logistics for us but I would have cherished their visit.

China is at it again – the contaminated milk fiasco is a bit sick. I suppose it will take a while for them to get over ther profit at all cost mentality. If they want to take over the role of economic leader, they must be more responsible. At the moment, they are just reprehensible. Great as the nation was in putting on a good show during the Olympics, the mentality of profit at all cost still prevails and that is not going to make them genuine world leaders just yet.

The financial market woes seem to have ebbed a bit but who knows. I hope it really has calmed down and we can look to more serene days ahead. I have always thought the hynger for growth at all cost is untenable but I’m just a layman, so who knows.

I’ve been wondering for a while now, why Australia is so hell bent on destroying its own economy. The desire to do the right thing is admirable. If however doing the right thing is going to cost us heaps then we should think about whether doing the right thing alone is enough.

Doing the right thing must produce the desired outcome. If it doesn’t, we really must reconsider.

We have generally decent neighbours. No one does anything to destroy the area we live in. Last weekend, while I was having a cup of coffee Tress and I noticed a big kelpie stopping in front of our house, on our nature strip. It arched its back and lowered its behind. It promptly left some souvenirs. I rushed out of the house and sure enough, its owner was just a stone’s throw away walking in the park. I went up to him and told him what his dog had just done. He apologised, came up to our nature strip and bagged the goodies. Our neighbourhood is alright. People generally do the right thing.

Imagine living in a neighbourhood where people throw rubbish all over the streets. Dogs happily crapped wherever without their owners picking up after them. If I did the right thing by paying someone to clean up, it would be silly of me. My action alone would not clean the place up. My neighbours would have to agree not to mess the place up. The whole neighbourhood must agree to keep the place clean and tidy. Only then would my efforts be worth the while.

What good would it do if we impose a prohibitively expensive emission trading scheme but everyone else go on polluting? Australia would force its economy to be handicapped by additional costs without any benefits whatsoever. We can do the right thing but if the bigger polluters like America, China and India go on their own polluting ways we’d have incurred the additional costs for nothing.

I think Ross Garnaut has just owned up to that (and a few other points such as global warming isnt caused by human) and Kevin Rudd should re-think. Penny Wong should too, and not insist on acting unilaterally without corresponding commitment from other countries.

Tress’ parents will be here in just under 3 weeks. We haven’t sorted out the accommodation for everyone yet. Her parents will hopefully be staying with us but they have also invited a couple and Tress and I are reluctant to host them. We have only 1 shower and I suspect like our other Malaysian guests, they will likely shower twice a day without feeling the need to clean and dry out the shower. Tress would end up doing it and doing it 4 times a day for her parents would be plenty, I reckon. Anyway, if they choose to stay with us, we’d be happy to host them I guess. We’d just have to grin and bear it.

I suppose being Malaysians can mean being insensitive to the amount of work it takes to keep a house in order. I generalise of course. There are many Malaysians who are hands on and don’t rely on live in help. Many do however and after a while these people forget houses don’t magically stay clean. Meals take hours to plan, prepare and serve. Dishes must be washed, dried and put away. Children don’t automatically get cared for. Contrary to Homer Simpson’s belief, the internet alone doesn’t bring up children. Someone has to cook to feed them (or work to pay for their fast food diet), wash and iron their clothes and attend to their growth and development needs such as education and sports. These too, take time. Unlike in Malaysia, there are no maids to cook and wash so parents here shoulder these tasks themselves and they are pretty tiring stuff.

Lately (in the past year or so) Tress has been doing the lion’s share of cooking and laundry. I still cook on weekends but the weekday feeds have been prepared by her. On weekends, I vacuum and clean the toilets while she does some weeding and the bigger laundry loads. I also used to do heaps of ironing but in the past couple of months our weekends have been taken over by a number of activities and I have either piled up my ironing or taken them to the local Laundromat.

On most Saturdays my routine involves making some fruit and vegetable juice, vacuuming, dropping off the dry cleaning, going for tennis with kiddo, dropping kiddo off for math class and picking her up after, grocery shopping, cooking and going for a dinner party at Alex’s at night. My day would start say 7.30am and would end by say, 11.30pm. There’s no time to just put my feet up and do nothing. Lately, Saturdays have also been filled with church stuff – meetings, working bee sessions and this past weekend, organising our church’s participation in a Right to Life anti-abortion march.

The march on Saturday was a first for both Alex and I. He brought Johannes and Julian along. We met up at Blackburn station for the 9.45 into the city. We arrived at the Treasury Gardens just after 10.30 and there was already a large crowd gathered. Some Right To Life folks were handing out placards and I picked one which was bright pink and it said “Pro Women Pro Life”. The Burgers and Seaton’s also showed up. We started to march up Collins Street, turned right at Elizabeth Street and turned back towards Spring Street on Bourke. Johannes and Julian got a bit restless on Bourke and we had to pacify them with promises of a MacD lunch after the event. The march finished up on the steps of the state parliament building on Spring Street. Across the road, a smaller group from the Pro Choice camp had gathered and was very loud. There were maybe a couple of thousands on our side and maybe less than 150 on their side but they were screaming away. We took the kids to lunch after as promised, and we had a couple of beers ourselves, including one at Melbourne Central, in the English pub which has a Guinness on tap.

We got home around 3pm, and Alex stayed for a couple more Guinness and left close to 5pm.

We had a dinner at Hog’s Breath in Chadstone later that night with some friends after which we adjourned to one of their homes in Chadstone. When we finished at about 10.30 I had been yawning repeatedly.

Such is our typical Saturday. The march could have been replaced by some other activities or a combination of activities and I’d feel like I have had no time to just put my feet up.

My ideal Saturday would have been to sleep in and wake up by 9am, saunter into a the Coffee Club café near our home and have a big mug of steaming hot coffee with the Saturday papers. Maybe get home around 11.00, clean the house for a couple of hours, then go out to buy some fresh food to cook at home, including a bottle of very nice red. I’d pick out a nice DVD on the way home. I want to then come home, cook dinner, open up the bottle of red, put my feet up to watch the DVD and slowly work my way through the bottle. Maybe go to sleep by 10pm.

I don’t know why that should be an ideal Saturday. It has no interaction with any friends or relatives. There can be no ideal weekends without friends or relatives. Maybe I’m just pining for that which isn’t as valuable as that which I already have. That would be just typical of me. I can be that big a fool sometimes.

In less than 3 weeks Tress’ parents would be here. I shouldn’t pine for a relaxing time for me. I should look forward to what is truly peaceful – spending time with loved ones. Even if that feels tiring.

 

Several days ago in the tram someone swore, rather loudly, on the phone. It was at night and most people were on their way home from the office. No children were in sight. Yet, almost everyone turned to that man and looked momentarily before turning away. It was a clear message to that person that such behaviour was not acceptable. This, in a society which is increasingly tolerant of swearing in public.

I confess I love watching Gordon Ramsay on television. He swore like a seasoned sailor. I enjoy watching cook shows so I tend to look past the swearing, telling myself that is a fact of life. It was however, a big issue with Melbourne and most people were dismayed he was allowed to be screened during prime time.

Swearing in public is still frowned upon by most people, and well it should be. If you are young perhaps you get more leeway. If you are a fully grown adult, it becomes less acceptable. Unless of course, you are in places like the docks, the construction sites, or say, the fish market (where I spent over 5 years and picked up the nasty habit for a while). I still do, unfortunately. But I try to use as little of it as possible.

I have issues with Jeremiah, a speaker who speaks in our church regularly. He was there again last Sunday and he said a number of things which troubled me, as he usually did. I thought he was alluding to Michael Guglielmucci and the criticisms which have been made against him. These are some of the points I had problems with:

 

1. I don’t understand the statement regarding facts versus truth. I would have thought our faith is based on truth which is built on facts. The birth, life, deeds, death and resurrection of Jesus are facts. They form the truth of our salvation. Our obedience of God’s clear instructions for our lives as stated in the Bible, are also facts. These form the truth of our ongoing relationship with God. I don’t know therefore what instances Jeremiah has in mind which suggests truth can be established or affirmed notwithstanding or regardless of facts. If truth is to be claimed independent of facts, we lose objectivity and truth becomes a malleable matter. If we insist on something being the truth in the face of clearly contrary facts, what do we do with those facts? I understand there will be truths we accept in the absence of facts. I cannot understand however, how we can assert truth in the face of facts which tend to disprove. Josh McDowell in his book “Evidence Which Demands a Verdict” demonstrates how our faith in the truth of the resurrection of Jesus is based on facts.

 

1. Jeremiah made a reference to medical reports. I take it he meant medical reports which tend to disprove occurrence of healings. If he meant we can assert healing occurred notwithstanding medical reports to the contrary, I’m afraid I think Jeremiah is wrong. Maybe I’m being simplistic but I would have thought the question of whether healing took place is a factual one easily established or refuted by evidence – often simple and straight forward medical reports. How is possible to assert healing took place when there is contrary medical reports? He also made a reference to negative media reports which tend to spread fear. I don think by and large there is a conspiracy in the general media to disprove occurrence of healing. Media don’t tend to do that.

 

1. There is also a reference to the rebellion of the 10 spies who weren’t sure about Canaan. He suggested the negative reports of Canaan were a reflection of the “natural state” they were in. The doubt and negative thoughts were said to be a result of this “natural state”. In my simple mind, it was simply disobedience. God’s very clear instruction was that they should enter Canaan and take the land. The 10 spies disobeyed. It was as simple as that. This is an important point because Jeremiah was (I think) making the point that we should not be in our “natural state” as otherwise we would allow negative thoughts to come in which would prevent us from claiming what God has promised. I think that passage about the spies wasn’t the appropriate one to back this up. He needs to find some other source to support the idea that our negative thoughts is a result of us being in our natural state (as opposed to supernatural state).

 

1. He said the church has been in decline since the time of Acts and he though the reason for this was because we have restricted God from pouring out His blessings, being influenced by our negative thoughts and lack of faith etc etc. Really? The reformation wasn’t a revival? The church of England during the 18^th century wasn’t a revival? America in the 1900s? Or South East Asia in the 50s or China recently? Havent the churches there been experiencing a revival? Were there negative thoughts preventing God from pouring out His blessings then?

 

I don’t know…