Not The Crucible

www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855437512.html

Opinion > Letters >
May 31, 2004

Diocesan line on Trinity not accepted by all within

www.smh.com.au/text/2004/05/29/ (text index of Saturday SMH May 29, 2004)

Letters
www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/28/1085641713065.html

Throwing the book at us
The Reverend Nigel Fortescue, Anglican Church, Naremburn, May 28

Meanwhile, as some people tear each other (metaphorically) apart:
www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/28/1085641713056.html
Doctor who could fix a broken heart
Louis Bernstein, Doctor, 1930-2004
May 29, 2004
Louis Bernstein, one of the giants of Australian cardiology, has died at 73 in his beloved Royal Prince Alfred Hospital ...
Although his wit and warmth are what those close to him will remember best, his enduring legacy will be to those Australians with healed hearts, who will enjoy longer and happier lives, because of Lou Bernstein's pioneering leadership in cardiac medicine.

The Diebold Variations

Some wonderful work here, commenting graphically on the worries over using the Diebold electronic voting machines in the next USA elections
homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm

The Lord moves in mysterious ways

And God said unto Fred: go to the Senate
By Malcolm Brown and Sean Nicholls
May 11, 2004
http://smh.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/10/1084041337172.html

The Business of Prophecy
Yea, and the Lord saw the prophet Fred, and saw that his heart was sound and his mind was pure of any thought and the Lord saw too, that the Prophet Harradine was old and decrepit and his face was that of the ballsack of an ass. And the Lord saw that the prophet Gibson had not yet returned from the wasteland of the west, where his begetting was as that of a rabbit and that plastic dangly souvenir crap had him in its grasp.

And the Lord waited until the Prophet Fred was alone, and the Lord's words echoed off the porcelain tiles and the Lord said, "Fred, the prophet Harradine is old, and his face is as the ballsack of a farm animal, and his words are dry and dusty as of the dust of the road" and the prophet Fred said, "Uugh, Lord, UUUGH, your perception is clear and your words are the words of the Lord."

And the Lord thought that the mortal clay of man, fashioned into the shape of Fred, was perhaps not the greatest material that the Lord had ever had to work with, and the Lord waited and the Lord spoke again.

"Fred. FRED! Verily thou art the prophet of a loving God who talks for clarity as doth the elf from the Lord of the Rings an entertainment most popular amongst the elusive 14-23 age bracket that we wish to touch."

"Sorry, communicate with."

And the prophet Fred said that he had not seen that one as he had heard that it was Godless and filled with the lies of a pernicious and an evil Satan.

And the Lord said,

"Fred, the prophet Harradine is old, and stooped, and no longer inspires the people in his garb of sack cloth and ashes, and his face now resembles the wrinkled scrotum of an animal that lacks for a high protection sunscreen. His words are dry and dusty and are the words of an accountant of taxation and not the words of a soldier of righteousness."

"Fred. The Prophet Gibson has not yet returned to the country of Australia with his family of true believers to lead the land to the peace and joy of truly gritty and "in your face" MTV love where the V stands for violence and MT is just mighty. Verily, as the prophet Gandalf said, Fred, 'it shall not pass,' until my words are heeded."

And the prophet Fred saw that the Lord was right, and he raised up his eyes and he forgot his present business and he realised that he had allowed his business to interfere with the business of the Lord. And his hosannas echoed off the tiles as he raised his arms on high to the Lord. And his hosannas were mighty.

And the Lord said. "Fred. The prophet Harradine is as the ballsack of an ass, and the prophet Gibson is a seller of gimcrack and flapdoodle, in all of Australia, Fred, you are the last honest man."

And the prophet Fred was flattered and cheered and his heart was lifted and his seat was raised from his earthly throne. And the Lord said that Fred should calm down because Fred was just earthly clay and by "only" he meant "only available" and Fred was chastened and sat back down and the Lord was pleased.

And the Lord said.

"Fred, the prophet Harradine cannot live forever, as much perhaps as I would like him to. His face is wrinkled and is as the skin on the nads of a donkey, yet his iron claw holds firm the testicles of the Australian Upper House, and his legislating is as legislating that we have not seen since the Dark Ages. And indeed the Upper House shall be as dark as the space under an altar boy's cassock after the passing the prophet Harradine."

And the prophet Fred was moved that the Lord was talking to him as a man speaks, and the prophet Fred was taken up with his own thoughts, and thought deeply, in the porcelain room. And the Lord said.

"Fred, FRED! Calm down. Fred. I have chosen you, Fred, to be my soldier. Fred, I want you to stand firm and stand for a seat in the Upper House. Take my words Fred, and legislate as would the prophet Harradine. Your apprenticeship is done with. No longer should your small but doughty army march to stamp out sex shops and saucy videos, no longer must you pretend to be sick and wear your pyjamas to Parliament. You will be as the prophet Harradine of the flinty eye to whom all love excepting for the love of the Lord is alien."

And the Prophet Fred gasped. And the Lord said,

"Your army Fred, shall be the army of the Upper House where you shall rain down your wisdom upon the teeming mass of godless man. You shall become as the mouth of the Lord and the world shall love you, and fear you and thy word shall be law. And the law shall be the law of the Lord."

And the prophet Fred was moved with love for the Lord, and gasped as he felt the love of the Lord pass through him and he raised up has arms and he cried "Alleluia" as did he cry "Hosanna" and also "Kum by Yah" and his soul was lifted and his heart was glad, and the still waters were still no more.

And the Lord too was glad. And the Lord left to go back to heaven to tidy up for the arrival of the prophet Harradine, and the prophet Fred started ringing hack journalists, and the prophet Gibson continued right on doing whatever it is that the prophet Gibson does, For the will of the Lord is the will of the Lord.

Verily,

Here endeth the lesson.

Alex Rieneck

via Hello Cruel World, at Eau de Nil

Reply

Thanks for the invitation. Just testing an entry

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear - Dune

Counter Argument

Spending petrol-tax & other funds raised from motorists entirely on roads is like spending all the excise paid by an alcoholic on improving the supply of beer, wine & spirits, or nicer barstools & glasses.

Cold War Casualties - a long sad story

[Following a discussion on ABC 702 Sydney of Dr Coral Bell's book about the Cold War.]

A very interesting discussion with Dr Bell. The world didn't suffer a M.A.D.-style nuclear war, thank goodness.

But surely you should count in:
firstly, some proportion of the Korean & Vietnam war deaths (incl some in French part), since those wars were lengthened & intensified by Cold War involvment.
We tend to remember the US & Australian dead, but there were millions of North & South Vietnamese, plus 'collateral damage' in nearby countries.

Then some of the Cambodian Holocaust ("Killing Fields") victims, since the country was laid open to Pol Pot's victory by being sideswiped during the Vietnam engagment.

One could also put some of the USSR/CCCP dead from the late 1940's onward, as the excuse was usually that they were supporting The Enemy. Even excluding Stalin's Terror from earlier, this would be quite a few.

Add in all the thousands and thousands of both The Disappeared in 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' dictatorships around the world, whether Europe, Latin America, Africa or other places (some quite close to us), and those starved & worked to death in camps, I think(?) mostly in 'left-wing' countries (apart from USSR/CCCP).

These regimes were propped up by one or the other side, many were simply the usual "strongman" dictators that infest human history, but they used the rhetoric of one side or the other to get support.

There would also be a huge number of poorly-known deaths from the "brushfire wars", Angola etc. - the almost-invisible sort of things still going in Africa & beyond, like the Contra terrorist/freedom fighters supported by Reagan's administration.

Again, one side would appeal to the USSR or China as fighting the oppressive government and the other would then appeal to the US to oppose the left-wing guerillas (or vice-versa), even tho' examination could show neither side was anything much more than fighting for power in the dirtiest of ways.

Yet again, like terrorism & reaction against it today, the cannon-fodder troops could be recruited by ideology or religion as well as force, whether or not this coincided with the leaders' true beliefs.

In all this, I am not even touching on the other "collateral damage"; those who died not directly through fighting or state terror, but through disease or injury or starvation caused by sanctions against their country, or the dedication of funds in their country to arms & supporting oppression or kleptocracies in the name of ideology rather than improving the lot of their population, or the destruction of infrastructure in either battles or guerilla wars.

I wonder if adding these up you'd get to 100 million (100,000,000), the figure she mentioned if the Cold War got hot -- which would also kill more over the years following, and devastate the natural world.

Alas, these casualties seem to be continuing quite unabated, as the heralded "Peace Dividend" is sucked back into armaments, rather than advancement, and "other people" are again painted black or white like chess pieces to be shuffled around the board instead of fellow humans to be dealt with on their merits. And the world beyond humans? Just a battlefield & mine for resources, instead of a living & beautiful home.

I miss Barbara Tuchman's incisive analysis, shown in work like her "March of Folly" - a book I'd highly recommend for today's world, as well as of course Coral Bell's :)

Chris M

Björk = Betula verrucosa = a birch