The organisation I work for, TEAR Australia, is responding to the situation in Burma after the cyclone.
One of TEAR’s Project Officers recently did an interview with The Age newspaper in Melbourne. It’s an eye-opening account of what’s happening in the country.
It’s been a long time between drinks… Here are some vids I took at a skate park in inner city Melbourne the other day.
Apparently the guys in it are some of the top skaters and roller-bladers in Australia.
This is go’n-out to the brotha’s and the sista’s in the big C - S & Z - you know who you are : )
Enjoy!
(You’ll need Quicktime to view the movies.)
I haven’t written a thing in 8 months. Even Keven07’s victory couldn’t squeeze blood from the stone. And then this happened. Australia has reversed a previous deal, made under the Howard government, to sell uranium to India. Why is this important? India hasn’t signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But that’s not the reason it squeezed these words out of me. Rather, it was seeing the reversal of a goverment policy which was born out of greed and moral anaesthesia. This is a victory worth the type.
Last night I attended the opening night of an exhibition at the Wyndham Cultural Centre entitled “A Time for Everything”. It was organised by some friends from a relating church in Melbourne, and featured some stunning works of art inspired by the Biblical passage in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
I contributed four pieces, three poems and an audio-visual item, which you can see here. The evening went really well, there was music and dancing, and all those attending were very positive about the experience. I was amazed once again, by the number of complete strangers I meet who prove the theory of six degrees of separation (or in this case, one degree).
Ecclesiastes 3
A Time for Everything
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Check out theses flags that communicate a disturbing picture of the world we live in:
More here: http://larph.blogspot.com/2007/02/world.html
How would you like to change the world?
Have a look at: Change.org to see what others are saying, and add your own thoughts.
Change.org is a social network for hundreds of social causes and over 1 million nonprofit organizations.
From the website:
“Today as citizens of the world, we face a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and civil rights to global warming and economic inequality. For each of these issues, whether local or global in scope, there are millions of people who care passionately about working toward a solution but have no way of connecting with each other to advance a common goal.”
There is a US Christian peace activist, Father John Dear, visiting Melbourne in March. He is going to be speaking at a few events which looked interesting so I thought I would pass it on:
John Dear is one of the leading voices for peace in the USA. A priest, pastor, peacemaker, retreat leader, and author, he served for years as the director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organisation in the USA. He has given thousands of lectures on peace across the US John is involved in three events in Melbourne over the two days:
For further details about these events including venues, prices and how to register visit www.paceebene.org.au/johndearinmelb or contact Simon on 0402 857 915.
A friend put me on to this amazing website: desiringgod.org - and specifically, a very challenging sermon entitled “Don’t Waste Your Life“, which John Piper delivered to a group of university students in 2003, just after the Bam earthquake killed thousands in Iran.
The “un-wasted life”, according to Piper, is “a life that puts the infinite value of Christ on display for the world to see”.
This message is delivered with passion and with brutal honesty from a man who has spent his life trying to make it count for Christ. I encourage you to listen to the audio version and share it. There’s also a transcript available.
This post is a little late, but prior to Christmas ‘06, I ‘finished’ work on a new website that is designed to help people with ethical giving. Instead of celebrating with gifts that people might not really need, you can choose to buy, say, a goat - or even a toilet - as part of a development project in a country like Afghanistan, Cambodia, or Tanzania. Your friend gets a card (printed or electronic) and the gift goes to someone who really needs it.
One of my goals for this project was to build accessibility into the design from the start. There is a one significant step to go - the font sizes are currently in pixels and I need to change that to em’s. Other than that, I think we did pretty well - even the videos on the website are accessible (to a degree). The vids were made accessible using Quicktime Pro, and a great piece of free software called MAGpie.
On my to-do list (apart from the font size thing) , is allowing the access keys to be customised (‘customized’ for my American friends) on a per-user basis, as access keys - even when based on a ‘standard’ - are now becoming more of a hindrance than a help, as they conflict with shortcut keys used by web browsers and operating systems, and vary widely between websites.
Several interuptions from various service providers created some fun hic-cups over the busy Christmas season, but the site itself performed well. The website received some great press, including an online plug in Marie Clare, and a spot on Channel Nine’s ‘Today’ show (read text, watch video).
Check out: www.usefulgifts.org the next time you need to buy something for the person that has everything!
My brother is a rock star, yes it’s true, and his band, ‘The Grand Sons’, are launching their very first EP on the 19th of January! So if you live in Sydney, get out to see them!
8:00 PM, Candy’s Apartment, Kings Cross, Sydney, Cost : $12
