Month: October 2012

Kerr


Will Kerr be responsible for bringing down two Labor governments?

· Sir John Kerr re Whitlam in 1975

· Kerr Street, Fitzroy re Gillard in 2012

You are my Solskjaer. My only Solskjaer.


26 May 1999 will forever remain etched in my mind. More than 13 years later, memories of that day still tingles my spine.

There I was at Nou Camp, Barcelona.

Sheringham had just scored the equaliser and I just had beer splashed all over me from maybe half a dozen rows above me. Some of us had to check around to find out who it was who scored.

We were still celebrating when Beckham took another corner, Sheringham again got to it first and nodded it to Solskjaer to guided it up the inside roof of the net.

Who put the ball in the Germans‘ net? Ole Gunnar Solskjaer!

He was one of Old Trafford‘s most loved legends. His four goal sub appearance against Forest in a 12 minute spell, was also something I’d remember for a long time. Fergie said that was possible because while on the bench Solskjare was always studying match progress and analysing the pattern of play. That trait is probably what is setting him up as a successful manager.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has now been touted as a manager for Bolton. He has already achieved success in Norway. Always a well liked figure, who knows – one day this Old Traffor legend may return to pace the sidelines. He wont be dishing any hairdryer treatments though – it would more likely be a deathly stare of a baby-faced assassin.

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Sexist, Liar and Screwtape


Like I was saying earlier in a previous entry, my evenings are very free now. My mind is unoccupied mostly and last night I had some music on – streamed through iTunes on my ipad onto Apple TV – and I read a book. Tress was reading her ipad too, in the same lounge room. I was reading a very old book by Alistair McGrath, titled “Doubt”. I thought he was an absolute star with a super svelte performance which creamed Richard Dawkins and having used his texts before, this tiny sliver of a book looked like easy read and it was.

Later on however, I had the Sky news on and the grotesque spectre involving Peter Slipper, Speaker of the Australian Parliament was on full display. How the Prime Minister could train her shots at Tony Abbott with wild allegations of maltreatment of women but at the same time refused to act against the Speaker who had displayed full frontal assault (so to speak) on women, is just hypocrisy and thick skinned blood mindedness of the nth degree.

It turned out Slipper resigned later that night and spared the country the ignominy of a truly misogynist representative of the legislature, and Julia Gillard demonstrated in full splendour once again, her pathetic sense of judgment.

I picked up my book again later that night, after flushing the effects of witnessing the vulgar Gillard-Slipper saga with a half decent bottle of red. “Doubt” had texts dealing with unbelief of the theological kind but my mind was on my disbelief of nearly equal proportions, at the continuing ungodly lies of our current Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

“The Big Issue”


Not the publication hawked in train stations in the city, but the big question in my mind…

For a number of years now, I have been frequenting these sites:

The Sydney Institute

www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au

Quadrant Online

www.quadrant.org.au

Phillip Jensen

www.phillipjensen.com

Andrew Bolt (Blog)

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/

Christianity Today

www.christianitytoday.com

Centre for public Christianity (“CPX”)

www.publicchristianity.org

Does this make me a Christian conservative who cannot be objective?

When I found myself being taken aback – shocked even – but otherwise generally not angered or raged, when Alan Jones said what he said (that the PM Julia Gillard’s father died of shame of her lies), was it because I have been immersing myself in such an environment?

I am 47 years old, a Christian, a lawyer who works primarily on financial services matters, comes into work every day in a business environment and have to this day, been spared of a need to resort to government help in the form of welfare or any other means.

I believe in an order of society, where rule of law is based on a legal system which is an outcome of public debate between competing values. I believe these values ought to reflect what the community wants.

The community at large, that is. Not just narrow de facto carve outs like journalists, politicians or special interest groups.

I also believe the community needs to be given the freedom to decide for itself, without the undue influence of academics, journalists and other groups who purport to be liberated know-better types.

That is a risky thing to said however because of my next statement, which is this: The community needs nevertheless, to turn to a God who loves them and wants to the very best for them, but on His terms.

That would appear to allow an exception to my earlier statement and I am suggesting Christians are somehow a liberated know-better group who is more acceptable than the academics, journalists and other groups who purport to also be liberated and know better – which is why the debate between Christians and atheists becomes important.

What Alan Jones and others of his ilk says which resonates with me, traces its roots to that thread. Christianity teaches an order to things where authority is key.

Yet what this group often fails to address is the real needs of large sections of the community, for care and support. There are single mothers, disabled men, homeless youth, and unemployed parents, who did not choose to be where they are and did not have a choice to be in a different state to that which they find themselves. They have not acted irresponsibly and do not want to remain where they are. They want opportunities to pick themselves up, find work, discharge their responsibilities and be contributors not recipients of help.

Unfortunately a debate of ideas and values are often undergirded by a competition for limited resources. Financial and labour capital resources are finite and competition for them depends on who can best make use of them, to produce the maximum outputs. Presumably this is of greater priority. How this balances with the need to look after labour capital is I’m sure an area many have spent their lives looking into.

Somehow – whatever the intricacies of the theories, arguments and empirical historical data – the intuition for me is you fix the system in terms of financial capital and apply the principles of the Scriptures in terms of labour capital. On this credo is my inclination toward the conservative and away from the liberals (lower cap “l”) based. Fixing the system for labour capital will simply lead to financial capital flowing elsewhere.

It is a vexed area, full of complexities and minefields. I am simply trying to work out why I am not worked up over a patently stupid and heartless comment, and wonder if I need to be reading more from sources other than those sites and works associated with them.

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Longer days… for now


Late on Friday last week I rang a couple of tradesmen and got one to come over on Sat. We had wanted to rearrange our home layout a bit and we needed the tv and cable points moved to a different part of the house. One of the tradesmen I rang was happy to come on Sat afternoon.

We went about our usual Sat morning routine of coffee, dry cleaning and groceries but it was very grey and a bit cold – too chilly in fact for this time of the year. I had to remind Tress we are already in mid-spring and it should be warming up already. Instead, it hovered around 8-9 deg all morning and it was raining too, which was a bit of a mood dampener.

Late morning, we busy-bodied ourselves and walked to the house behind our street, which was being sold and a largish crowd had turned up. The little jedi came along. The bidding activities were healthy and the property eventually got sold, and as soon as we got home the tradie rang and we got ready for him. For the rest of the arvo we rearranged the home.

That night we went to lower Templestowe for a dinner at someone’s home. The other guests were a surprise – the church pastor and his family – and it became a very subdued one as a result for me. I was surprised the pastor accepted an invitation to a dinner party on a Saturday night, but I guess each has his own priorities and own way of working.

We got home relatively early because the daylight saving switchover was happening between Sat night and Sunday morning. It’s that time of the year where we lose an hour. The early morning light will be no more for a number of weeks. I had been leaving home in the morning when it was starting to brighten up but this morning it was back to very dark. The flip side of course, is it stays light till later and last night dogs and their owners were still frolicking in the oval park across the street till past 7 and soon, it would be past 8 before it turns dark.

We talked to kiddo on skype last night and caught up on what she needed from us when we trek up again this weekend. She looked and sounded well so I hope she’s travelling well.

I had carried Sheanne in church in the morning, which for a little while, reminded me of when kiddo was just a little girl. Just like daylight savings and varying lengths of days, carrying Sheanne and talking to Kiddo said the same things to me.

The ebbs and flows of times and events will continue in their cycles. These cycles began well before I came into being and well before I was given a consciousness of these things, and they will likely continue well after I ceased having consciousness of these and other things and well after I cease to be. While I have those moments I will cherish them.

As I looked at Sheanne I saw a future full of potential for love and blessings. I appreciated how she wandered a few pews away from her parents and had come to Tress and I, with a balloon in her hands, and nodded when I asked if she wanted me to carry her. That was a moment I cherished because soon, she will grow and have other relationships which would blossom her more. While she was in my hands, other than cherishing how a little girl of 2 ½ years of age found it in her to walk to a 47 year old grump to share a few moments, I thought of how I can make her continue her blossom when at some point soon, we no longer have those touch points.

When I spoke with kiddo later that night, I was thinking of little Sheanne earlier in the day. I thought and wondered if Sheanne would grow up to become like kiddo. I wondered if her parents would be as proud of her (as I was of kiddo last night), when she grew up, went to Uni and talked to her parents – probably over some holographic phone of some sort – 16 or 17 years from now. I feel really blessed yesterday, not just with kiddo and Tress surrounding me, but in being in a unique position where I see my daughter in the here and now, and I have touch points with Sheanne and her parents, who have so many parallels with Tress and I back in the early to mid-90’s. It is a unique blessing to be at this point. I wonder what I should be doing about it. Probably before the days get dark quickly again…

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59th Street Bridge State of Mind


My world appears to have become a lot simpler. I’d crawl out of bed each morning, get to the gym, go to work, come home, walk the little jedi, and spend the evening with Tress either at home with a very simple meal or (once or twice a week) go out with some friends.

I don’t know if life is meant to be this way and I don’t know if I will continue to enjoy the serenity it has brought me thus far.

I don’t know what it is which has made us feeling like we have to be doing something meaningful or something which makes us more purposeful, every waking hour of every day.

I guess as always balance – the sweet spot of equilibrium – is a difficult state to achieve. I know I am enjoying the peace and quiet now, away from things which stir me and create frustrations. Kind of feeling groovy and asking the lamp post what it’s doing…

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President Obama, what happened?


Advancing Against Al Qaeda
Advancing Against Al Qaeda (Photo credit: Third Way)

I think a big story is brewing. It concerns Obama’s attempt to cover up his mistakes which caused the death of the diplomat in Libya.

The attack on the US embassy in Libya is now believed to be an Al Qaeda attack. It was a planned attack. The embassy knew Al Qaeda was operating there at least weeks before the attack, and a week before the attack, specifically requested urgent help. The British had withdrawn its ambassador weeks before that, also knowing of an imminent Al Qaeda attack. The US had similar intelligence as the British and could have done something to protect its diplomats and staff, and had weeks to do it.

The attack, which killed the top US diplomat in Libya, wasn’t a retaliation of that stupid movie degrading Mohammed. Obama probably knew that.

Yet, repeatedly, he attributed blame on that movie. Not his own lack of response to the plea for help from his “friend”, who was killed as a result. Some are calling the Libya Al Qaeda incident Obama’s Jimmy Carter moment…

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China 63 years on… they’re in Melbourne now


Officially, the communist party of China has been in power for 63 years. Today is the anniversary of the declaration of the People’s Republic of China under communist rule. It happened back in 1949, on 1 October.

I stumbled on a book, many years ago, written by Mao’s personal doctor (a Doctor Li). He told of the decadent mindlessness in Mao’s personal life, against a backdrop of disastrous rule which included peasant idiocies like producing backyard steel industries in that catastrophic great “leap forward” which was in fact a descent into the abyss for millions of Chinese.

That book fired up my interest in Mao and his circle and I read many other books on China after that, covering the lives of a number of people including Chao Enlai, Jiang Qing and of course, Deng Xiaoping. Collectively, they create the impression that China continues (or continued) to be ruled by emperors, starting with Mao, then Jiang Qing, followed by Deng. Chao was crucial in ensuring that in the unbelievable operatic world between the latter half of Mao’s rule and the early days of Jiang’s wrecking paranoia, some semblance of order and good government, at least to the outside world, held true.

Since Deng’s ascension China has been focused on what it does very well – making money. So the country has gotten past its tragic past on the back of the “red back” that is the RMB. In spite of its age, this 63 year old ogre continues to ring the till for many so it continues to be tolerated.

I’m not sure though about the depth of sentiments on the part of the Sino nouveau riche as we continue to see Chinese migrants flooding into Melbourne. Leaving aside their attitude towards money, I feel I can deal with the new demographics, generally, except they tend to wreck sections of the local eateries. Needing businesses to run in support of their migrant visa requirements, we see establishments changing hands in large numbers, with new ubiquitous Chinese owners behind the cash registers. Most of these places end up serving atrocious food because the new owners haven’t got a clue how to run their shops. Often the money pinching tendencies see really shonky quality stuff being dished out.

One gets the clear impression that the new owners cared little for the product or service they were delivering, and were concerned only with preserving their investments while satisfying their visa conditions. They probably don’t know what it takes to create value for their acquisitions.

This short term outlook to their investments is really quite consistent with expert opinion of what is plaguing Chinese businesses. All they care about is making the next buck easily and quickly, perish the thought of building something or creating long term value. What sustainability?

Unfortunately, the communist regime in China lasted 63 years not through a belief in creating a lasting community, but through brute power and force of coercion. Take this away in the environment of paper thin margin of a lot of the businesses being bought up by the migrants and I’m afraid we are looking at the very distinct possibility of messy outcomes and for us who live and make our homes here, wrecked communities. I hope the 63 year old ogre would see middle aged Chinese come here to retire and spend their dollars as consumers, not as investors who buy up local businesses only to ruin them.

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Potential


20121001-114118.jpg

Silly season


It’s the first day of the last quarter. It was a busy weekend for sports on TV. Both my teams lost. The Hawks lost a close Grand Final to the Swans, and Man Utd lost at home to Spurs for the first time in over 20 years. The Storm did win the rugby league prize but rugby league isn’t quite the code we care much about here.

It’s now the silly season for TV sports. Only the races get the attention now, before willow and leather appear late Nov/early Dec.

It’s also the silly season for yours truly, where nothing is happening. For a while at least. Possibly a long while. For the foreseeable future, it is work and nothing else. That may seem like fun and bliss but I hope I learn to enjoy that.