All work no play makes you a dull comrade.
You are visiting aynclouters blog.
There is a fork in the road, you can choose the Commissar or the Princess.
Yes, I chose the princess (sorry analyst :D) :

The Traditional Princess
You are generous, graceful, and practical with both
feet planted firmly on the ground. You tend to
be a little on the old-fashioned side. You
value home, hearth, and family life and love to
be of service to others.
Role Models: Snow White, Maid Marian
You are most likely to: Discover a hidden talent
for spinning straw into gold.

What Kind of Princess are You? - Beautiful Artwork (Original Music is BACK!!!)

Year one of Bachelor of Theology is complete w00t!
5HD and 3 DI yeah!
Now I have to start reading Plato's Republic to prepare for next semester's unit on philosophy.

One noticeable thing about our perception about American culture is the annual rite of the Christmas tree. Movies, sitcoms, the simpsons (tm), southpark(tm) and the great American novel all ensure that the ROW know all about the ritual of the great fir, the decorating and the lighting of the same.

In our house, we have a tiny fir in a pot that continually grows larger and larger in its pot. Over the years it has gone from less than a foot high to now three foot high. The pots get bigger also. Sadly the size precludes huge numbers of decorations and christmas lights get hung on the wall behind the tree. Prior to bonsai christmas we had a plastic tree rescued from a white elephant stall. Sadly over the years more and more pieces went missing or broke.

However, some people go and get a real tree which creates problems: Oh Christmas Tree.
Make sure you read the comments to find out the solution to the problem. Women rule!

The Christmas craziness has started. Exhausting days at work and sore feet at the end of the day. Customers are very grateful for the quality products they are buying, and that makes it worthwhile. I decided to go with a small Christmas Card producer from Brisbane, a 'young family man' and did not produce my own card designs this year. It worked 'whew': customers are appreciating the unique designs, rather than the catalog designs, card embossing and verses I have mixed and matched over the past 14 years or so... Another milestone: in-laws celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary currently... Ten months to go for me and mine.... commitment means always starting afresh and choosing to stay, rather than walk away. The world can pull in so many different ways in obsessions, addictions, distractions and escapes. Constancy is an interesting concept, there is always another day, another year where I find myself saying 'I do' to all my life with my partner brings.

Away from all the Christmas hype; as I try to contemplate on what the birth of the Chfrist child really means, I found this reflection worthy of note: Tis a gift to be simple aka God under the bed.

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The UN has handed promotion over to The World Aids Campaign This change in the way that World AIDS Day is organised has caused some confusion among HIV & AIDS organisations. Some have chosen to adopt “Stop AIDS; Keep the Promise” as their theme for World AIDS Day 2005.

Others have, for the first time, picked their own topic for the events they’re holding this year on 1st December. In New Zealand the old slogan “condoms save lives” has resurfaced, the NZ Foundation’s poster for World AIDS Day this year features three “rings” - a popular round sweet with a hole in the middle, a traditional round flotation buoy and a condom - with the word “lifesavers” beneath. The idea of the “lifesavers” theme is to increase visibility and awareness of condoms over the summer months when sexual activity is high. Abstinence and faithfulness to one partner also make great sense to moi.

Don't be confused, the most important thing is that you follow its basic principals by raising awareness and understanding where you live and by remembering the millions living with HIV or suffering because of AIDS.

There's a new section over at the Agonist.

Faith and Spirituality, SP and I are gonna try and dialogue about matters that neither of us really understand.

We both agree that there is an emptiness in the world and we attempt to discuss what can fill it.

more Europe from the young travellers.

Europe, October 2005, as snapped by Son&GF

Pakistan and Kashmir
harsh lands even harsher now
the Tsunami tragedy and disaster almost pales in significance compared to:
death toll rapidly approaching 80,000
over 1600 schools destroyed (approx 140 destroyed in Tsunami)
widespread disease outbreaks accentuated by increasing cold weather
failure of western / first world countries to increase financial and in kind donations of aid.
(no sexed up videos of tidal waves approaching hotels on sandy beaches does not stir the public imagination)

Australia is increasing its aid little by little, whilst Clinton and Bush (snr) get the International Rescue Committee's Freedom Award for Tsunami and Katrina.

Meanwhile The Agonist has been blogrolled at Informed Comment by Juan Cole w00t.

Ramblings on a spring evening:

Driving home from work today I had a real privilege to listen to the dramatised diary and an interview with a young doctor who spent some time on the Ugandan border with Mediciens San Frontiers (French for Doctors Without Borders).

Her tales of her sense of helplessness when she encountered malaria, parasitic infections and nutritional disorders as well as coping with a corrupt political system at the local level was invigorating.

Inspirational and enlightening it is important to realise that even sending people to assist those in disaster areas does not necessarily improve their lot. However to have tried and failed is better than not having tried at all.

I had the humbling experience of sitting with a Moslem couple the day after Ramadan ended, they had been fasting from 3.30am to 7.30pm until daylight saving began 4 days before the end of Ramadan. Makes lenten practice almost laughable. I was also moved to learn of the disrespect and abuse they receive from some of their neighbours. Their stoic acceptance of evil and inhumanity in our neighbourhood was challenging.

France is rocked by sectarian and class warfare at present, it is possible that it can occur locally in my area going by the treatment of Moslems by some white aussies.

Whilst hunger and tragedy occur and re-occur in Africa and Pakistan, to name just two, Avian Flu provides an easy cop out for people to lose concentration. mea culpa.

DID
YOU
EVER
WONDER

and using Pink Floyd too :)

hattip dr.

He agreed with me!

My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?

I have known many people who have been encouraged and influenced by the biographies of the military, of politicians and sports-people.

My personal favourites who inspire me tend to be people who have influenced people at a grass-roots level. Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Jean Vanier, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, CS Lewis all spring to mind.

Today I shed a tear(actually several) in honour of the memory of Rosa Parks.

Sulla Jones at the Agonist posted the wapo story, at wapo I found this list of blogs via technorati linking to the wapo story about Rosa.

Gentle readers,
the deed is done
all first year assignments
have been handed into respective lecturers
and so the wait begins
to discover what
my results
will
be...

Spring has sprung, showers have brought out many flowers and not too many snails seem to be around this year!

Current Addiction remains H5N1, aka avian flu, bird flu...

Have grabbed 3 SF novels from the local library, DVD's of Steeleye Span and Concert for George and intend to walk a little if the hayfever and asthma settle down.

and so to bed... g'nite.

Agonist Bulletin Board is having corruption woes,
meanwhile Avian Flu is still flapping around Vietnam and more recently Indonesia,
keep in touch with the latest developments: http://www.curevents.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40

New Orleans crisis shames Americans
By Matt Wells BBC News, Los Angeles

Matt tries to get a handle on what slowed the response.
fav line: The truth was simple and apparent to all. If journalists were there with cameras beaming the suffering live across America, where were the officers and troops?

remember:
Give me your tired , your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, well it aint so bros, it aint so. If you aint got no mo or no mo-car you aint nobody, you just get forgotten.

It's a national humiliation over in the land of the free, the poor have been overlooked, this is a challengin read from pbs: POLITICS AFTER KATRINA. So will the US national consciousness finally realise that people are people and poor blacks are not "three-fifths of a human being?" as Jesse Jackson said on Saturday. We can but hope.

Nature is a great leveler and hopefully out of this suffering and maelstrom a new day for the Ameican Black People will arise. A new 'preferential option' is possible.

What is particularly eerie after watching for years thin, ravaged human bodies on the television is the large physical size of the distressed down in Southern Louisiana.

In early 2001 the USA warned its citizens that the three most likely major disasters were hurricane, earthquake and act of terrorism. I sure hope we are not going to have a hat-trick.

Well, Friday afternoon August 26th arrived, a lovely late winter sunny afternoon. I'm given a lift by a friend to the ACT Legislative Assembly for the Australian Citizenship Ceremony where I hand in my letter of invitation. I am asked to prove my identity by showing my UK passport and given a form to change my electoral status from UK citizen to Australian. I am escorted down to Row C. Row's A, B and C have Bibles on the seats, a pledge of allegiance, order of ceremony and the words to Advance Australia Fair. The seats in the row behind me do not have Bibles.

Two seats to my right is a lady from Malaysia. Behind me a gentleman from Thailand, next to him a woman from California. A petite woman sits down next to me and we exchange pleasantries. She is from the Karen, her parents fled Burma in the 1960's and she was born and grew up in a camp in Thailand. She met her Aussie husband there. A guy from the USA sits down on my left. Most of the people around me have lived in Australia from 4 to 6 years, much laughter erupts when I admit to having lived here for 40 years, and that I am becoming an Australian out of financial expediency to assist with university study costs.

The ceremony begins, the politicians make all the usual spiel about how great we all are adding to the tapestry of Australian life. Citizens from the UK are particularly noted as contributing especially to building Australia over the past 60 years. My chest swells with pride.
Suddenly I find myself on my feet with the other occupants of rows A, B, and C pledging our oath to God of allegiance to Australia. Changes to the oath make interesting reading.

Then we sit down and row D make their pledge without reference to God. So it looks like 25% of new Aussies do not wish to involve a deity in their citizenship ceremony.
Then we have to sign our electoral papers, they are collected and we sing the first two verses of Advance Australia Fair.

Then I tumble outside and walk back to work, an errant Englishman no more.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, OY OY OY!

72 hours to go, until I take the oath of allegiance to the Queen of Australia and become a citizen fully of Australia.

This will then mean that I have to watch sport for at least 30 hours a week, drink a slab of beer twice a week, lose any sense of respect for fellow human beings and use bloody in every sentence.

just joking