Dear Australia, please stop being Rupert Murdoch’s bitch
If you’ve bought into the hysteria over Australia’s “economy in crisis” and/or believe Tony Abbott when he talks about our “budget emergency”, you need to click through and read Mr Denmore’s latest post. Follow the links if you doubt any of his assertions, and ask yourself if you’ve been allowing an offshore tyrant to tell you what to think.
[NB: there’s a lot about the ALP I don’t like, but for all of its flaws, it’s the only federal party making any attempt to work with Actual Facts and Credible Policy right now. If you get your news from mainstream outlets, you probably don’t believe me, which begs the question: why are facts and policy struggling to find oxygen in Australia? I think it’s because: 1. Rupert Murdoch and friends have vested interests and too much power; and 2. it takes brainless hysteria and xenophobic conservatism to keep the average Australian interested. Or, to put it another way, you’d have to be ADD to vote for the LNP.]
Intimacy with strangers
Randy Murray on getting a haircut and a shave:
While being touched by random stranger may be unwelcome, there’s an entire class of intimate strangers who are trained, licensed, and given permission to touch.
And:
I think that I’ll retire my clippers for a while and make a regular trip to the barber. I no longer see it as a chore. It’s a treat, something special to help me look good and feel good.
I feel similarly “licensed” when invited/allowed/paid to photograph people. Although it doesn’t involve physical contact, there’s a certain intimacy to it. A great deal of intimacy in many cases.
And I always aim for a review like Randy’s. “It’s a treat, something special to help me look good and feel good.”
Given how much difficulty I had persuading my own son to allow me to take this photo, I don’t think “child headshot specialist” is likely to appear in my marketing materials anytime soon.
Then again, there was a slide nearby. And swings. And… a slide.
My desk is rarely this tidy, but I do try to leave it looking semi-respectable on Friday afternoons.
Meanwhile, energy drink is rarely absent from my desk – it’s part of how I’m coping with my achalasia. Not that many people seem to believe me.
Marijuana is supposed to help, too. Hopefully a surgical fix will be organised before I need to hit the streets for a dealer…
1 May = Wednesday = small group night = the first of a “this is my life” mini-series.
Also, the first night our electronic Bibles outnumbered our paper ones.
Thankfully, plenty of paper remained on-hand for spill removal.
Speaking of sleep, I believe this was Miss 1’s first night out of the cot. Given this is Mr 3’s bed, we’d better start looking at bunks…
It takes her a while to wake up after a long night keeping watch over us. And/or barking at bats.
Fear and creativity for Christian educators
This post on The Christian School Journal is pretty inspiring. If you’re a Christian involved in education, I predict it will help you feel less worried about the road ahead, and more enthusiastic about putting your creativity to work as an innovator in your area.
Here’s an excerpt, but it’s worth reading in full:
How should we respond as Christian educators? With courage not fear, with optimism not pessimism, with excitement, not dread; with a vision for the future, not with a nostalgic longing for the past. We should respond with creativity, vigor and innovation, not with the mechanical and routinized habits that have become so comfortable but are increasingly arcane and irrelevant for our students.
photographer | developer | writer
