The news is quickening… It’s looking more and more like a chair sniffer for Premier in 2014. Remember, in 2008 Colin Barnett was about to announce his retirement from parliament when he was persuaded to stay and take the Liberal leadership, following the revelations about then leader Buswell’s disgusting behaviour towards women. The only reason, I can see, for Barnett keeping and then subsequently reinstating Buswell to Treasurer, must have been a deal to inure and rehabilitate him in readiness for a handover in 2014. With his record of inappropriate behaviour towards women (that has made news overseas, much like Silvio Berlusconi), and cheating on his wife with his public and sordid affair with Adele Carles, why else would you keep such a liability and lightening rod in such a high profile position.
It’s screaming out at us… It’s going to happen.
Premier Buswell has a noisy ring to it, doesn’t it?
Just got through watching the award-winning HBO documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, looking at sexual abuse of children. The film examines the abuse of power in the Catholic Church system via the story of four men who fought to expose the priest, Father Lawrence Murphy who abused them during the mid 1960s. Fr. Murphy taught at the St. John School for the Deaf in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1950 until 1974 when he was moved to St. Anne’s Church, Boulder Junction in the north of Wisconsin, following repeated allegations from students and a priest, Fr. Walsh, who visited the school in 1963. However, Murphy was not removed from contact with children and continued to abuse boys in Boulder Junction and other parishes, schools, and a juvenile correction facility, for the next 24 years. During his time at the St. John School, Murphy was believed to have molested as many as 200 boys.
The film peels back the layers of secrecy, obfuscation and deception that characterised the church’s response to allegations in this case and that of another charismatic priest in Ireland, Fr. Tony Walsh, a member of the popular “The Singing Priests”, who was revealed as Ireland’s most notorious pedophile in 2010. However, it was also revealed that the church had been aware of his activities for more than 20 years but took no practical action to protect children. What the film-makers reveal is that, far from these cases being isolated, there are thousands of similar stories all over the world, and that secrecy and cover-up has been the policy of the church for centuries.
There have been several good films that have exposed this issue in recent years, including Deliver Us From Evil (2006) and Twist of Faith (2004).
Perhaps what’s different about this film, is that the film-makers follow each case through the upward hierarchy of the Church before pointing the finger directly at then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who in 2001 took over responsibility for the personal review of all child sexual abuse cases involving Catholic clergy, world-wide. In 2005, he became Pope Benedict XVI. Now I think I have a clearer idea of one of the main reasons why he had to resign his office. Prominent human rights lawyer Sir Geoffrey Robertson QC, says it could be argued that the man’s degree of negligence over the child abuse scandals “involves him in a crime against humanity”.
World renowned film reviewer, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a very personal review, saying, “To someone who was raised and educated in the Catholic school system, as I was, a film like this inspires shock and outrage.” He also wrote that the film “is calm and steady, founded largely on the testimony of Murphy’s victims.”
I came away after seeing this with such a feeling of outrage that I think it’s time to call the Catholic Church what it is, a systematically evil organisation. There are a lot of good people trying to do good work in the name of this church but I think the stench of the management of this global corporation has infected them all. If this were any other non-religious organisation, the leadership would probably be in prison and the business would almost certainly have been forced into liquidation. Imagine the good that would come from the distribution of the sale of the hundreds of billions in assets, owned by this extraordinarily wealthy exemplar for the man who walked in a simple cloth and owned nothing, Jesus (I think people might be shocked by the staggering quantity of properties, you didn’t know were owned and rented out by the Roman Catholic Church and its various holding trusts world-wide).
At the very least, the church needs to stop the legal stonewalling of the kind that rendered the recent Irish Child Abuse Commission, so ineffectual that not a single criminal priest was charged as a result.
It’s one thing for a secular corporation to use every legal and P.R. tactic they can, in an adversarial legal system, to delay or avoid justice; that’s expected of such amoral entities. However, for The Roman Catholic Church to use such amoral tactics in support of accused clergy, flies in the face of their avowed moral role in society. The Church needs to accept that the welfare of victims of sex-abuse by clergy, comes before that of the perpetrators, and that they are liable for compensation that is going to cost tens of billions. If authorities need a non-confrontational model for the adjudication and distribution of settlements to victims, perhaps they could look at the Danish Public Health Service Complaints Board for inspiration.
The people who protected these criminal clergy, like Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law (who resigned in 2002, after church documents were revealed which suggested he had covered up sexual abuse committed by priests in his archdiocese) need to be ‘hung out to dry’ when their heinous actions are exposed, rather than promoted to palaces in the Vatican as was Law.
Church records also need to be opened to allow for the discovery of criminal priests and brothers so they can be prosecuted, giving victims some justice and closure.
It’s time to end this!
I’d welcome your comments on this very tough subject.
Who are my favourite directors? For me, the first is Stanley Kubrick… I’m in awe of his body of work. I’ve seen 11 of his 12 features and three of them I revisit every couple of years: Barry Lyndon (1975, a sublimely beautifully framed, clinical and evenly paced wonder); A Clockwork Orange (1971, a film to which I introduced an unsuspecting friend in 1991, at a 20th anniversary screening… He came out reeling); and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, a film that still intrigues and perplexes me). My least favourite was the last, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), but I’d still gladly sit through any of the 11 again.
Equal second: David Lean. His great films were outnumbered by his ordinary, but in 2 films: Lawrence of Arabia (1962, my all-time favourite film) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), there are such memorable scenes that they elevate him near the top. Add to that, his wonderful adaptation of Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations (1946) and his final film, A Passage to India (1984, which famed critic, Roger Ebert described as “one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen”), and it’s easy to see why Lean is a favourite.
Ask me in 10 years and I reckon one of them might be replaced, possibly by the Coen Brothers or Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino. I’m really looking forward to what those guys come up with.
Labor Shocker!
:: Posted 18 May 2019, by Zak de Courcy ::
I’m bloody angry because this was the most important election in our lifetime and you wouldn’t have bloody known it. The Labor party didn’t hammer that home. This was the election that Labor should never have even come close to losing and if they do, and I think they have, they’ve got some very serious soul searching to do and some serious arsekicking to do.
This was the worst Labor campaign I’ve seen in 25 years…
Vote For A Future!
:: Posted 18 May 2019, by Zak de Courcy ::
I firmly believe that there are many Liberal MPs who will be privately relieved if a Shorten Labor government is elected. I believe that many of them would be glad to be rid of the albatross of Abbott’s legacy of Climate Change denial; energy policy civil wars; denigration of people on income support; attacks on wage earners via cruel cuts to penalty rates; barely concealed racism; and unsustainable welfare subsidies for the relatively wealthy, like Negative Gearing and Franking Credits.
If I hadn’t heard a Liberal senator say something akin to that to me 40 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. My friend the Liberal senator, provided me with the proof that politicians quite often say one thing while firmly believing the opposite.
Help relieve the tortured souls of fair minded Liberal MPs who have a social conscience and are not Peter Dutton, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and their like, and…
Vale Bob Hawke
:: Posted 17 May 2019, by Zak de Courcy ::
Yesterday, Australia lost one of its giants, Bob Hawke, our country’s 23rd prime minister. He served in that office from 1983 to 1991, an eight year span that enchanted, at times transfixed, and ultimately transformed this country.
It’s hard in 2019 to convey how omnipresent Bob Hawke was in the life of Australia from the late 1960s right through to the 1990s. No one before or since has had such a profound impact on this country. In 1970 he was the most popular and respected person in the country and by 1984 he had also become the most popular prime minister in history with sustained approval at an astonishing 75%. No one has come close since.
I don’t have any great insight into his life but I would like to relate my brief impression of him…
Australia Days…
:: Posted 11 January 2017, by Zak de Courcy ::
I know that there is significant and understandable disquiet with the current Australia Day, January 26, a celebration day that might feel like it’s been around forever but hasn’t…
Of course indigenous Australians are reminded every year that their country (or rather, the colony of New South Wales) was annexed by Governor Arthur Phillip for Britain on that colonisation date….
Vale Gough Whitlam
:: Posted 21 October 2014, by Zak de Courcy ::
Gough Whitlam was the giant of Australian life who I admired the most. More than that, for a short period of 4 years (1981-85), he allowed me to be his friend. He must have known I was in awe of him (which, don’t worry his large ego didn’t mind) but he had a knack of making me feel his equal even though he was 40 years older than I and so far ahead of my fledgling 24 year-old knowledge. Even though our conversations were very eclectic, ranging across politics, history, art, music, the cosmos and our lives, he allowed me to feel that I wasn’t out of my depth except when he’d occasionally pepper his sentences with classical Greek and Latin which would remind me just how broad the gulf really was.
Run Mr. Rabbit!
:: Posted 26 June 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Tony Abbott’s body language at tonight’s press conference (where unusually, he answered questions) suggested that he’s worried that he’s got a fight on his hands. I think he hoped some of the independents would desert Labor by supporting a no-confidence motion tomorrow to hasten the election and bring forward his Liberal Party’s resumption of their ‘right to rule’.
It seems the cat’s out of the bag… he knows he doesn’t have the numbers.
Letterman telling it like it is.
Yea, I know… where was I…
I remember when Gasland came out and it was said by industry types in Australia, that coal seam gas would be extracted in a different and much safer way than that depicted in the film. Well guess what, that was just spin… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politics | Gotta Life | International Politics |
Clive Palmer’s a Funny Bloke:
:: Posted 14 May 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
I know Clive Palmer’s new/resurrected United Australia Party (UAP) (now Palmer United Party) is a joke but it worries me that a couple of people in Australia might buy his TV ad. line, that both the Liberal Party and Labor Party are “all run by lobbyists”…
… his self-financed Palmer United Party is in fact just such a lobby group serving the interests of only one person… Clive Palmer…
It seems that my last post has generated a bit of heat on Facebook with comments suggesting that in 1967, when the bulk of churches stood against interracial marriage, they were simply reflecting a society with similar attitudes. The argument follows that the churches are doing the same now… Jeffrey John, the Anglican dean of St Albans in the UK, recently accused the church of pursuing a “morally contemptible” policy on same-sex marriage… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politics | International Politics | Religion |
≈ Leave a comment ::
It seems that the last great Civil Rights issue is in the balance and once again, just like they did with interracial marriage in 1967, the churches stand on the side of prejudice (with a very few exceptions like the 1 million strong, United Church of Christ).
Yesterday’s farce of a leadership challenge, did nothing to resolve the issue. The push by Regional Australia Minister, and stalwart Gillard supporter, Simon Crean to bring the issue to a head, would only have succeeded had the Prime Minister resigned. Clearly, his discussion with Julia Gillard, the night before he moved, was the proverbial tap on the shoulder from a loyal and respected colleague that tells a leader, the time is up. Julia is not a leader, it seems, who will go quietly into the night, with her dignity intact. She is a leader who appears ready to defend her castle until every bit of it, the Labor Party included, is destroyed… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
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Time to Go, Julia!
:: Posted 20 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
With the level of backgrounding seemingly exploding in Canberra at the moment, you’d think that the move must be on to replace Julia Gillard. The trouble is, the Prime Minister must also surely know, that a leadership challenge now would be absolutely fatal for Labor’s electoral chances and to force her colleagues into that position would be unforgivable… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
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Who Said This about Climate Change?
:: Posted 13 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
“First, let’s get this straight. You cannot cut emissions without a cost. To replace dirty coal fired power stations with cleaner gas fired ones, or renewables like wind, let alone nuclear power or even coal fired power with carbon capture and storage, is all going to cost money.”… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
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It’s Time! or It’s Over!
:: Posted 11 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
The weekend election in WA has brought the fate of federal Labor into sharp focus. Although the swing in the primary vote against Mark McGowan’s State ALP team was a little over 2%, with the collapse in the Green vote, the 2-party preferred swing of almost 7%, produced a bitter result for Labor… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politics | WA Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
The Sunday Screening Session…..
Gallipoli (1981)
:: Posted 28 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Since I last saw this movie many years ago, I’d forgotten that it starts out as a boy’s own adventure featuring a very young, very Australian and not so weird Mel Gibson…
The outback scenes that open the film are spectacularly shot with the heat, dust and desolation radiating off the screen…
The final freeze-frame… had me uncomfortably riveted to my seat with tears streaming, the first time round. Seeing it again, all these years later had exactly the same impact… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
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The Sunday Screening Session…..
No Country For Old Men (2007)
:: Posted 21 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Universally praised and hailed as a filmmakers masterpiece, this movie also attracted an avalanche of awards. Joel and Ethan Coen share the record of four Oscar nominations for the same film with…
When Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles on a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck loaded with heroin, and two million dollars in irresistible cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence…
I’m embarrassed that it has taken me this long to see this movie… I think I can now appreciate the virtuosity of its construction… It’s a filmmakers tour de force… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
In 1967 he joined the Chicago Sun-Times as their film critic and had worked continuously since (with a short break in 2006/7 for cancer treatment). He gained a formidable reputation and was the first critic awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
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The Sunday Screening Session…..
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return Of The Jedi (1983)
:: Posted 31 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
This week’s selection was a no-brainer, as a happy coincidence of events made the choice very easy. Today is the 30th birthday of all-round-good-bloke and son in law, Morgan, who shares a birthday with the final chapter of one of his favourite film franchises, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return Of The Jedi….
In the epic conclusion of the saga, the Empire prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star…
…this was the first time I’d watched Jedi in isolation and also in glorious 1080p HD. How would the movie stand up without its usual crutches, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back…
The Blu-ray DTS sound track is stonkingly brilliant and that’s with no ifs, buts or maybes… this has been a wholly satisfying return to one of my favourite movie sagas and one I’m really looking forward to completing… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
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The Sunday Screening Session…..
Platoon (1986)
:: Posted 24 March 2013, by zakback ::
After a very brief introduction and without fanfare or warning, the audience descends into an impenetrable jungle. The camera at eye level draws us into a patrol alongside… Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), who is confronted by the claustrophobic thick lush brush, with rough fronds brushing and irritating his fresh face… “Somebody once wrote: ‘Hell is the impossibility of reason.’ That’s what this place feels like: Hell.” So says the bewildered Taylor…
Where Apocalypse Now is epic in its bombast and artifice, Platoon is intimate but a lot more confronting… Francois Truffaut is often quoted as saying, “There is no such thing as an anti-war film”… I think Platoon goes a long way towards refuting Truffaut… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
My Favourite Directors:
:: Posted 20 March 2013, by zakback ::
Who are my favourite directors?
For me, the first is Kubrick… I’m in awe of his body of work. I’ve seen 11 of his 12 features, and three of them I revisit every couple of years: Barry Lyndon (1975, a sublimely beautifully framed, clinical and evenly paced wonder… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
The Sunday Screening Session…..
Gallipoli (1981)
:: Posted 28 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Since I last saw this movie many years ago, I’d forgotten that it starts out as a boy’s own adventure featuring a very young, very Australian and not so weird Mel Gibson…
The outback scenes that open the film are spectacularly shot with the heat, dust and desolation radiating off the screen…
The final freeze-frame… had me uncomfortably riveted to my seat with tears streaming, the first time round. Seeing it again, all these years later had exactly the same impact… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
The Sunday Screening Session…..
No Country For Old Men (2007)
:: Posted 21 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Universally praised and hailed as a filmmakers masterpiece, this movie also attracted an avalanche of awards. Joel and Ethan Coen share the record of four Oscar nominations for the same film with…
When Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles on a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck loaded with heroin, and two million dollars in irresistible cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence…
I’m embarrassed that it has taken me this long to see this movie… I think I can now appreciate the virtuosity of its construction… It’s a filmmakers tour de force… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
– ≈≈ –
The Sunday Screening Session…..
Platoon (1986)
:: Posted 24 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
After a very brief introduction and without fanfare or warning, the audience descends into an impenetrable jungle. The camera at eye level draws us into a patrol alongside… Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), who is confronted by the claustrophobic thick lush brush, with rough fronds brushing and irritating his fresh face… “Somebody once wrote: ‘Hell is the impossibility of reason.’ That’s what this place feels like: Hell.” So says the bewildered Taylor…
Where Apocalypse Now is epic in its bombast and artifice, Platoon is intimate but a lot more confronting… Francois Truffaut is often quoted as saying, “There is no such thing as an anti-war film”… I think Platoon goes a long way towards refuting Truffaut… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
– ≈≈ –
The Sunday Screening Session…..
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return Of The Jedi (1983)
:: Posted 31 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
This week’s selection was a no-brainer, as a happy coincidence of events made the choice very easy. Today is the 30th birthday of all-round-good-bloke and son in law, Morgan, who shares a birthday with the final chapter of one of his favourite film franchises, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return Of The Jedi….
In the epic conclusion of the saga, the Empire prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star…
…this was the first time I’d watched Jedi in isolation and also in glorious 1080p HD. How would the movie stand up without its usual crutches, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back…
The Blu-ray DTS sound track is stonkingly brilliant and that’s with no ifs, buts or maybes… this has been a wholly satisfying return to one of my favourite movie sagas and one I’m really looking forward to completing… iRate:: 4½ out of 5. Read the full review →
:: Posted in Film ≈ Leave a comment ::
An Aussie Flag…
:: Posted 12 January 2017, by Zak de Courcy ::
I’ve seen many crap suggestions for a new post-rule-Britannia Aussie flag design, mostly featuring Kangaroos and/or the Southern Cross. The kangaroo is a beaut looking animal but unlike the Canadian Maple Leaf, which has a simple and beautiful symmetry, the roo is all gangly arms, legs and tail which makes it an awkward fit in a national flag.
So… I’ve had a go at my own crap designs…..
Australia Days…
:: Posted 11 January 2017, by Zak de Courcy ::
I know that there is significant and understandable disquiet with the current Australia Day, January 26, a celebration day that might feel like it’s been around forever but hasn’t…
Of course indigenous Australians are reminded every year that their country (or rather, the colony of New South Wales) was annexed by Governor Arthur Phillip for Britain on that colonisation date….
Young Man in a Hurry!
:: Posted 30 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
As I was approaching home after my morning stroll I met an angry young man (probably about 18) in a hurry, heading towards me in an old Hyundai with a cranking and much younger audio system… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Gotta Life ≈ Leave a comment ::
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Bullying, not bullying!
:: Posted 19 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Bullying is repeated and sustained verbal, physical, social or psychological behaviour by an individual or group, aimed at another individual with the intention of belittling, intimidating or controlling that individual…
Bullying… is not, an incident!…
It annoys me when such a wholly despicable thing as bullying is lumped together with good old bad behavior…
Crap Coverage App:
:: Posted 20 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
Crap cellphone coverage!!! There’s an App for that. For all those Vodafone users who complain noisily about suffering frequently from crap coverage and drop-outs… here’s the app for you… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Gotta Life ≈ Leave a comment ::
In its 4th week, the record breaking US government shutdown is affecting millions of people who rely on the government for their survival, seems far from a resolution, and for what? This shutdown was instigated by Trump when the Democrats refused to cave to his ludicrous demand for $5.7B to build his Mexican wall, which he promised Mexico would pay for. Apart from the fact that this money would only build a fraction of his wall, most observers question whether it would be effective at all…
When the real push from the Democrats and the media comes, don’t expect Trump to put his nation first and consider the consequences of his actions, do expect him to chuck everything, including the kitchen sink to defend himself…
They say you can be judged by the company you keep. President Barack Obama has chosen to take a stand for the criminals that Bradley Manning bravely exposed and to stay silent while this whistleblower is persecuted for causing embarrassment and discomfort to his administration…
Letterman telling it like it is.
Yea, I know… where was I…
I remember when Gasland came out and it was said by industry types in Australia, that coal seam gas would be extracted in a different and much safer way than that depicted in the film. Well guess what, that was just spin… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politcs | Gotta Life | International Politics |
Blows your mind eh. It’s obscene the amount of latitude, deference and aspirational support we give to this evil aspect of Capitalism. How is this level of outrageous greed possible when more than a billion humans live on less than $2 a day and at least another billion live in grinding poverty. It’s hard to imagine that any of the 1% have any ethical values when you know just how obese their wallets are… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
A few days ago, the Louisiana legislature rejected Senate Bill 26 which sought to repeal the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act which allows for creationism to be taught as valid science in schools. Two previous attempts at repeal in 2011 and 2012 also failed…
As a high school student in 2011, Zack Kopplin started the repeal campaign with the support of 78 Nobel laureate scientists…
Indoctrinating kids with creationism disguised as legitimate science is the kind of blatant distortion of truth, dressed up as fact that was a hallmark of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. That’s why it makes me so f***ing angry… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics | Religion | Science |
≈ Leave a comment ::
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Ted Cruz and the New Crusaders:
:: Posted 5 May 2013, by Zak de Courcy :: Ted Cruz, the 42 year old Texas Senator and a likely 2016 GOP candidate for president, recently addressed the Republican Party’s Silver Elephant Dinner in South Carolina. According to Politico, “He brought the crowd to its feet by denouncing the administration for cracking down on proselytizing in the armed forces.”…
It beggars belief that Americans just don’t get why they are so despised in the middle-east, but someone like Senator Ted Cruz goes a long way to illustrating why… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics | Religion |
≈ Leave a comment ::
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It’s a Cruel World, Margaret Thatcher:
:: Posted 14 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
I know it’s customary to subordinate feelings of ill-will towards the deceased and apply the dictum ‘If you’ve got nothing nice to say, just say nothing’, but having obeyed for several days, I found the flood of memories about Margaret Thatcher too strong… Thatcher also trashed the legacy of Clement Attlee, the architect of Post-War Britain. Where there had been a settled consensus regarding the shared underpinning of society within the Welfare State, Thatcher proclaimed “there is no such thing as society”. She coldly advanced the notion that we are all alone as she promoted individualism, competition and greed… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
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More on Same-Sex Marriage and the Church:
:: Posted 10 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy :: It seems that my last post has generated a bit of heat on Facebook with comments suggesting that in 1967, when the bulk of churches stood against interracial marriage, they were simply reflecting a society with similar attitudes. The argument follows that the churches are doing the same now…
The Last Civil Right?
Same Sex Marriage:
:: Posted 08 April 2013, by Zak de Courcy :: It seems that the last great Civil Rights issue is in the balance and once again, just like they did with interracial marriage in 1967, the churches stand on the side of prejudice (with a very few exceptions like the 1 million strong, United Church of Christ).
Washington’s Political Sclerosis:
:: Posted 08 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
I was reading a recent Washington Post report about the redoubtable Sth. Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s threat to ‘put a hold’ on the confirmation of nominees, Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel and CIA Chief, John Brennan. At first glance, I wondered… Are you a right-wing lunatic hiding beneath a relatively moderate Republican skin?… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics ≈ Leave a comment ::
A few days ago, the Louisiana legislature rejected Senate Bill 26 which sought to repeal the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act which allows for creationism to be taught as valid science in schools. Two previous attempts at repeal in 2011 and 2012 also failed…
As a high school student in 2011, Zack Kopplin started the repeal campaign with the support of 78 Nobel laureate scientists…
Indoctrinating kids with creationism disguised as legitimate science is the kind of blatant distortion of truth, dressed up as fact that was a hallmark of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. That’s why it makes me so f***ing angry… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics | Religion | Science | ≈ Leave a comment ::
Ted Cruz, the 42 year old Texas Senator and a likely 2016 GOP candidate for president, recently addressed the Republican Party’s Silver Elephant Dinner in South Carolina. According to Politico, “He brought the crowd to its feet by denouncing the administration for cracking down on proselytizing in the armed forces.”…
It beggars belief that Americans just don’t get why they are so despised in the middle-east, but someone like Senator Ted Cruz goes a long way to illustrating why… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics | Religion | ≈ Leave a comment ::
If anyone ever wondered just how rich churches are in this age of rising disbelief… Check this out. The financial books at New York’s Trinity Church have been revealed in court documents arising from a bitter parish legal dispute over, you guessed it, money. This Episcopal church … holds property valued at a whopping $2 billion… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Religion ≈ Leave a comment ::
It seems that my last post has generated a bit of heat on Facebook with comments suggesting that in 1967, when the bulk of churches stood against interracial marriage, they were simply reflecting a society with similar attitudes. The argument follows that the churches are doing the same now… Jeffrey John, the Anglican dean of St Albans in the UK, recently accused the church of pursuing a “morally contemptible” policy on same-sex marriage… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Australian Politcs | International Politics | Religion | ≈ Leave a comment ::
It seems that the last great Civil Rights issue is in the balance and once again, just like they did with interracial marriage in 1967, the churches stand on the side of prejudice (with a very few exceptions like the 1 million strong, United Church of Christ).
Higgs bosun Particle Confirmed:
:: Posted 14 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
On this birthday of the greatest scientist of the 20th Century, Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955), it’s amazing to watch as the mechanics behind the Universe are slowly revealed. CERN Physicists working at the $US10 billion Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, believe they have confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson particle… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Religion | Science ≈ Leave a comment ::
A few days ago, the Louisiana legislature rejected Senate Bill 26 which sought to repeal the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act which allows for creationism to be taught as valid science in schools. Two previous attempts at repeal in 2011 and 2012 also failed…
As a high school student in 2011, Zack Kopplin started the repeal campaign with the support of 78 Nobel laureate scientists…
Indoctrinating kids with creationism disguised as legitimate science is the kind of blatant distortion of truth, dressed up as fact that was a hallmark of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. That’s why it makes me so f***ing angry… Continue reading →
:: Posted in International Politics | Religion | Science | ≈ Leave a comment ::
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Higgs bosun Particle Confirmed:
:: Posted 14 March 2013, by Zak de Courcy ::
On this birthday of the greatest scientist of the 20th Century, Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955), it’s amazing to watch as the mechanics behind the Universe are slowly revealed. CERN Physicists working at the $US10 billion Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, believe they have confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson particle… Continue reading →
:: Posted in Religion | Science ≈ Leave a comment ::
Zak From Downunder 