Baggas’ Blog

• Watching SBS world news - there is no better news program on free or pay TV. #
• Doing something I’ve never done before - putting new strings on a bass #

Local shots 11

Originally uploaded by baggas

This is in one of the better parks in Rockingham, with plenty for the kids to do - but I have no idea what the point is of these totem pole things. Is it some weird new age thing? Do they hold occult fertility rituals or sacrifices here in the dead of the night? Certainly doesn’t look indigenous to here.. strange.

Speaking of parks, keep your eye on this blog for some upcoming video of “The Best Playground I Have Ever Seen” and it’s right here in WA. I’ll post it up here over the next few days.

Anyway I’m off to dance around the totem poles.. :p

• Just had my Thunderbird bass guitar arrive that I picked up cheap on eBay. Can’t wait to get it home and plug in #
• John Edwards has finally come out and endorsed Obama. Surely this should be close to game over now for the Democratic nomination? #

Came across a video similar to this one on cnn.com today and thought I’d go on The Google and see if I could find a YouTube version to post for y’all. This is not exactly the same but it’s essentially the same basic story - classic Bushims! Ain’t the internets a wonderful thing!

• I’ve finally achieved my century of eBay feedback - currently 104 not out with a blue star, though I really need to stay away from eBay… #
• looking at the Federal budget - our family loses a fair bit on this one. First time I can remember actually being worse off after a budget #

Local shots 10

Originally uploaded by baggas

This one’s from last week - Shoalwater Bay. My friend used to live a street back from this beach so we spent a lot of time down there as kids. I particularly remember one episode where we got freaked out by an angry seal when we tried to swim to Seal Island. We ended up turning around and going back to shore. Good times.

Time to update after a busy few days.

We spent the weekend down south in Manjimup visiting Jen’s brother. Stayed in a farm stay cottage which was nice for the kids, getting to feed and play with all the animals - donkeys, ponies, sheep, cattle, birds, an alpaca and others. Did a bit of four wheel driving in the Karri forrest down there and overall just had a good relaxing time. On the way back I trusted the GPS to take us the shortest route however this was not necessarily the quickest - we wound up driving along the “Blackwood River tourist drive” which was an incredibly beautiful winding drive along the river through hilly forest and farmland… but very slow. Lesson for the future : if the GPS says go one way and my judgement says go another, trust myself instead of the computer (assuming of course I have a fair idea of where I am and where I’m going).

The last few days have been busy with work and other things. Yesterday I got my car serviced and went to Perth to do a few bits and pieces. Sure glad I don’t live in Mandurah - the drive from Perth to Mandurah is just that little bit too long for my liking.

The other thing which may or may not be happening is that there is a chance I may be going over to Myanmar (Burma) soon to help in the relief efforts in the aftermath of the horrendous cyclone. Of course this is dependant on whether their government decides to issue visas for foreign workers to come and help. But my name is on the list with an organisation who are hoping to send a medical team in so we will see what happens. I would have mixed feelings about going and leaving Jen and the three kids including baby Mia, so it would necessarily be a fairly short trip but hopefully I would be able to do some good for people. For this sort of thing it’s Jen making much more of a sacrifice than I would be, by allowing me to go. So please pray for both of us, and the entire sitatuation over there.

Anyway for the time being there’s work to be done here and patients waiting to be seen, so I’d better get on with it.

Just waiting for my last patient to show up and then we’re heading off down south for a couple of days. Jen’s brother moved down to Manjimup earlier this year so we’re going down to visit them. We’ll be staying in a cottage on a “farmstay” type place which should be good for the kids - well the boys at least - even though this is Mia’s first holiday I doubt she’ll appreciate it that much. Look forward to getting the wood fire going for those cold nights. A cottage on a farm, wood fire, nice bottle of red - can’t wait to get going

Local shots 9

Originally uploaded by baggas

Penguin island on a gloomy autumn day.

Local shots 8

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Boring looking photo I know, but significant to me. This is the Safety Bay Scout Hall, where in grade 4 in 1984 I was part of the first ever class of students at Maranatha Christian School - we had a combined class of grade 4 - 7 students and around 40 kids total in the school.

Now I’m parked outside the current, much huger, Maranatha College waiting to collect my grade 2 son. I noticed the other day in the office here that they still have a few plaques with my name on up on the wall. Scary how fast time flies. Life is too short…

Just got some depressing news - one of my good friends from university (who was my age) passed away last month. I hadn’t heard anything about it until another friend who just arrived back in town after a couple of years dropped me an email. Even now, the only information I know is what I can glean from comments on his facebook page, which is very sketchy. We hadn’t seen much of each other in the last couple of years living busy doctors’ lives at opposite ends of the city, but even so I will miss him very much - he was a good mate. Wish I had’ve known sooner so I could have attended the funeral but my prayers and thoughts are with his family. We’ll miss you, Dean…

I need to get a batch of photos printed over the next few days. Usually if it’s just a few photos that need printing I’ll use our printer at home, which puts out pretty nice looking prints, but if it’s a bigger size batch I prefer taking them to a shop to get them done. I’ve used Harvey Norman printing a bit in the past because it’s nice and close to us, but the last time I went there the prints were awful quality.

SO, I’ll ask for advice… anyone have any tips on where is the best place to get digital photos printed, preferably in the Rockingham area (though other tips are welcome too)?? And if so, how do you get them done - glossy or matte? Do you use their “image correction” features or just print them as is? What’s your experiences on pricing and waiting times? … thanks

Local shots 7

Originally uploaded by baggas.

You could call it a beach, or you could call it a sea weed depository … either way Safety Bay is a nice spot.

Now let’s see if this works - the flickr blog posting is a bit inconsistent - the photos I send from my phone always make it to flickr, but don’t seem to then make it to blog every time. It’s a bit hit and miss - so here goes…

[yep - the photo made it to flickr but not to the blog. Although it’s then easy to send it on using one click from the flickr website but it’s a shame the mobile posting is not so reliable…]

Coffee in a can - Five Senses Coffee - Premium Coffee Roasters in Australia

If there’s a product that is wacky, strange, weird, or downright scary, you can trust the Japanese to come up with it.  And this product is scary indeed - canned coffee. The thought of it makes me shudder… but check out the above blog from 5 senses nonetheless - if for no other reason than to laugh at the hilarious photo of Dean!

And if you seriously want to explore more of the bizarro world of coffee in cans - then check out this blog for the full story about the life and super powers of ‘Boss Black’, or try cannedcoffee.com. Very disturbing.

Local shots 6

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Whenever my drug pushers disappoint and do not bring me lunch, I like to visit this joint up the road - Perth Noodle Wok. Always very tasty. Today’s meal - Phad Thai noodle box - and it was very nice indeed

Local shots 5

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Coffee, crossaint, ocean, and trees - a perfect breakfast before work… along with a good book of course!

Had a little case in theatre this morning so I’ve half an hour to kill before my clinic starts.

Local shots 4

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Sunset over the park near our home tonight. The photo just doesn’t do justice to how spectacular this was…

Of course using a mobile phone camera doesn’t help. 

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Originally uploaded by baggas.

I’ve never spent a huge amount of time here, but for some reason this park has always appealed to me..

Any locals want to tell us where it is??

Worship Guitar Guy - cool blog this. well presented with some useful posts. Just wish he would update it a little more consistently than he does. But for church guitarists, it’s definitely one worth checking out.

Local Shots 2

Originally uploaded by baggas.

My favourite shop in the local area. No prizes for guessing why

The kids know this as the “orange guitar shop”

One thing you could say about the Howard government is that they were generally positively disposed to single income families and stay at home mums. Unfortunately our new, left(ish) Labor government does not seem to share the same priorities - they are all about trying to encourage mothers to get back into the workforce as soon as possible by focussing on child care and tax structures for double income families. I don’t have a problem with mothers going back to work if they want or need to but I do believe that those mothers (or fathers) who desire to remain at home with their children during those early years should be encouraged and supported in that choice. Sadly it seems the philosophy Rudd government is quite different. [Howard’s high earners to face cuts - National - theage.com.au]

Old style music

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Visited my dad tonight who had just been given a massive pile of old LPs by his brother, who was doing a big clean up. Amongst it all there were a few gems and I managed to grab a heap, some of which you can see in the picture. Mostly it’s 70’s stuff - Bowie, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Iggy Pop, Deep Purple, Led Zep and many others. I also inherited a Yamaha turntable so I can play them - it just needs a new stylus. Was funny showing the boys how we used to listen to music in the ‘olden days’ when I was a kid, before CDs were invented. Strange how the world has changed so much in such a short space of time…

Local Shots 1

Originally uploaded by baggas.

I’d prety much forgotten about remote posting via flickr until I notced ob1 doing it the last few days. Nothing like some fresh photos to keep things interesting.

So here begins a series of random photos of my world as I’m around the traps. To start with, the focal point of Rockingham, where I have spent many many days since I was a kid - Rockingham beach.

We watched a couple of movies over the weekend, both of which I quite enjoyed, although for different reasons. I’ll just mention them briefly and you can check them out if you want.

Into the Wild was the first one. This is a true story of a young guy named Chris who, upon college graduation, decides to leave his troubled family life behind and disappear, living life as a “supertramp.” Ultimately he finishes up living a solitary existence in an abandoned bus in the wilds of Alaska, but on the way we share in his journeys across America and the people and places he encounters. As the story progresses we learn more of the back story of his home life that led to him doing this, and also of the anguish of those he left behind. This is a brilliant movie - one of the best I’ve seen in a long while. Amazing scenery combined with fantastic performances as the odd-ball characters that Chris encounters along the way. It is a classic road movie but with an emotional intensity and depth few road movies can match. Nevertheless it’s added further fuel to my burning desire to get out and travel again, particularly to America - I just can’t wait to get back over there!

The icing on the cake of this already excellent movie is the wonderful soundtrack by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder - a bunch of original acoustic folky songs that fit perfectly with this film. I got this soundtrack (from iTunes ironically) last year before my last trip to Africa and have been looking forward to seeing the movie ever since.

Briefly, the other movie we watched was Run, Fatboy, Run! This is an English take on a romantic comedy formula you’ve probably seen at least half a dozen times before. You know, the one where the slightly screwed up nice guy who goes for regular visits with his child meets the new boyfriend of the child’s mum, who he is still carrying a torch for. The new guy is always “perfect” on paper - wealthy, good looking, great job, apparently good with kids. And then the rest of the movie shows how the dad works at keeping his kid, regaining the love of the mother, and generally proving that he’s at heart a better man than Mr Perfect. Run fatboy, run takes that tested formula and delivers it in the manner of the standard British comedy, set in London with a range of colourful supporting characters. Simon Pegg does a good job as Dennis, the main character, and he’s well supported by a good cast including Hank Azaria who plays the American interloper Mr Perfect (”Whit”). Interestingly, this movie was directed by David Schwimmer (who I assume is the same guy as Ross from Friends?), yet it still retains that British film-making feel. It’s a predictable movie, but still worth watching for a bit of fun.

Doctor Who to boost church popularity - yet another news story about how a church is trying to tap into modern culture to boost flagging attendance among the ‘youth’ - these stories always make the church leaders seem like out of touch old fuddy duddies sitting in a room somewhere.

Interesting choice though - I haven’t seen much of the recent Dr Who (although I used to love it as a kid) but it strikes me as being one of the least spiritual/theistic sci-fi series out there. Apparently (according to the comments) Richard Dawkins will be featuring on the series soon so that says a lot. Better to use Star Wars, or Star Trek, or the new Battlestar Galactica  - which is deeply infused with religious elements, and is a brilliantly conceived and produced show.

Online refrigeration

Originally uploaded by baggas.

I know you can do an awful lot of things on the net these days but keeping things cold? Now that’s impressive! :))

Hiring babies

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Now if you ever need to hire a baby you know who t call.

Saw this the other day

Heard an interesting statistic yesterday - apparently only around 1% of those who have the iTunes software installed actually purchase music from he iTunes online store. The inference being that most of the rest of people are filling their iPods with illegally downloaded content. I doubt this is the case. Certainly  proportion of people will be using downloaded tracks, ad most probably it is much more than 1%, however I’d still say the vast majority of those 99% of non iTunes store users are not. Rather these people are the millions upon millions of people who have bought or been given an iPod, and simply use iTunes to transfer their CD collection to it. Mums and dads and teens and kids - most iPod owners probably wouldn’t know where to find music on the undernet if they wanted to. As I commented in another post, I rarely buy stuff from the iTunes store, but I do still buy a lot of CDs, which I always immediately rip to MP3 and load into iTunes. I think most people are in the same boat, using iTunes simply as a way of getting their music onto their iPods, rather than as a way of getting new music. It would be interesting to see a statistic of how many people actually use the full capacity of their iPods - my guess is a lot would not.

Interestingly though, even though only 1% of iTunes software users shop through the store, it has still become the number one music retailer in the US, surpassing Wal-Mart. I would imagine we will begin to see that 1% figure start to rise a little bit, in view of that.

Out of Ur : The Passion of the Heist

Lot of buzz at the moment about the newly released video game Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV), which looks like it will be the biggest game release of all time, and probably one of the biggest media releases ever, with sales in the same league as the takings of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. And the reviews of the game have been extremely positive, some even going as far as to compare it favourably with The Godfather. And I’m not immune to this - I must confess I’ve been tempted to get the game for my Xbox360 and give it a go myself, despite never being much of a hard core gamer and definitely not having the time to do so.

Now those two words “confess” and “tempted” should be read in a biblical sense, well at least if according to this article and some of the comments. In it, the writer confesses his previous forays into the GTA series playing the GTA : Vice City game :

I had no problem preaching on Sunday morning (in real life, of course) and selling drugs from the back of an ice cream truck (in Vice City, of course) on Sunday afternoon.

It’s all reasonably tongue in cheek but he does try and raise the question seriously as to whether playing these sort of games is an appropriate activity for Christians, and whether the church should respond in some kind of fashion similar to the response to the Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter, both of which have spawned a panopoly of Christian books (in my opinion a massively overblown response). He also raises the question as to whether all this virtual killing and vice is a sin in the same way that Jesus equates having anger or lust in your mind with the real thing in Matthew 5:21-30.

Interesting questions, which I guess parallel in some ways the broader argument in society about whether violent video games lead to violent behaviours (an argument I’ve never found especially convincing). The replies in the blog comments are also quite fascinating. Several commenters conclude that playing games like this is most definitely a serious sin, and one even suggests we should pray for those who play GTA IV. But another commenter makes a cutting remark about Christians making a fuss about a violent video game whilst being unconcerned about a war in Iraq which has killed over 500, 000 real people (particularly aimed at the American church I think).

As for me I’m still in limbo on the subject. Is this sort of thing a sin? maybe. But I don’t think killing pretend people in a computer game is a direct equivalent of Jesus’ comments in Matthew 5 :

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgement. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement. ” Matt 5:21-22 (ESV) [+/-]Matthew 5:21-22 [21]"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' [22]But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. (ESV)
.

Maybe this partly applies here, but I think the main issue in Jesus’ comment here is the breaking of relationships - being angry with your brother (whether a literal family member or a fellow Christian or simply a fellow human). Pretending to kill a purely fictional character in a computer game is much less serious - actually if that’s a sin then deriving pleasure from a violent movie or book is possibly worse, since these have depictions of actual people rather than virtual ones.

I’d be interested to hear what others think. But in my mind at least the jury is still out. Will I play the game? maybe… But I’ll confess it’s not a feeling of guilt or conscience stopping me, but simply my lack of time and having too many other priorities.

Well I’m back to working slightly longer days this week after doing half days for the school holidays. For the second half of the holidays it didn’t seem all that slack though as I still had babies being born almost every day which meant early mornings and late nights and other hospital visits in between. This week has been a little quieter on the baby front although I’ve got my second one on the way today (no idea what time she will deliver though) and work here in the surgery is reasonably sedate. I do have a smallish pile of paperwork to get through but rather than doing that I’ve been putting my time to us catching up with some episodes of the Amazing vlog show on YouTube. This is an almost daily video blog produced by Mr Internet and his compadres. The episodes are well produced, funny at times, and interesting. At least I found them interesting but I know most of the guys who are doing it so maybe if you have no idea who they are you might not be so enthralled.

Anyway here’s the first episode - I’ll leave it up to you to check out the rest if you want…

Craig linked to this list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of all time and as a guitarist I had to check it out. In general it’s a pretty good list. I agree with most of them and have a big chunk of them in my collection already but it’s perhaps pointed out a few gaps I need to fill. But seriously, number 40? Steely Dan? Who’s idea was that?

Anyway, here’s the top 10…

1. Jimmy Page - Stairway to Heaven (of course)
2. Eddie Van Halen - Eruption (can’t argue)
3. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
4. Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd) - Comfortably Numb (nice)
5. Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower (yeh baby!)
6. Slash (Guns n’ Roses) - November Rain (sweet)
7. Kirk Hammet (Metallica) - One (good choice)
8. Don Felder / Joe Walsh (The Eagles) - Hotel California (classic)
9. Randy Rhoads - Crazy Train
10. Eric Clapton - Crossroads (would be a crime if EC didn’t make the top 10)

Just got a postcard from Germany from a patient. She had an attack of severe arthritis in her knee a week before they were due to travel to Europe, and 2 days before I injected it with cortisone. Well the injection worked and now she is enjoying her trip. Stuff like that makes me feel good about this job, and it was nice of her to let me know

Ever become aware of a stupid habit you have when someone mentions it in themselves? This happened to me this morning in church where Mark mentioned the habit he has of packing far too many books whenever he goes travelling, even if it’s just for the weekend. I too am seriously guilty of this - I pack 4 or 5 books in my suitcase if I’m going away, only to get maybe one or two of them read.

But what’s worse, no matter where I am, I’m always drawn to look in bookshops and wind up bringing back several more books in addition to the ones I took with me. The last 3 times I visited Uganda I brought back at least 4 or 5 books each time (with the justification that ‘you just can’t buy these books back home’) - one of which was a massive 3kg textbook that I ended up having to pack in my luggage the other 3/4 of the way around the world through another 3 countries! Crazy. I can see one attraction of Cambodia (where ob1 was) perhaps being that there is less likely to be a big English language press there and hence less books to tempt me.

The other stupid thing I do is that I am too ambitious in my choice of reading material for travelling. Rather than picking something quick and light, I have a tendency towards choosing books of serious literary or theological cred, only to find that airplanes, airports and even hotels (especially when the kids are around) are not the best settings to try and tackle these sort of tomes.

So, my take home lessons for travelling readers (or reading travellers) are :

1. Choose fairly easy to read, (relatively) lightweight books.
2. Only take 1 or 2 books maximum. If you run out, you can always buy more along the way.
3. If you’re like me, factor in the fact that you almost certainly will acquire more books in your travels, and accordingly allow room in your luggage for that eventuality.
4. Guidebooks can be useful but I’ve found photocopying the relevant sections to be worthwhile. If you know you are only going to be in a couple of cities in a country, then copy those pages and leave the other 90% of the book at home. That way when you move on from that country you can simply leave your photocopied pages in the rubbish.
5. Taking novels set in the country you are visiting is a good way to prepare yourself for your visit, and might also lead you to reading some books you might otherwise have not considered (for example I’ve read a few excellent novels set in Uganda that I probably would never have read otherwise)
6. Consider books in digital format…. I haven’t done this travelling but a few years back I went through a phase of reading PDF books on my Palm Pilot whilst doing long quiet ICU shifts. I read the entire Dune and Wheel of Time series in that way.  Great for saving luggage space but for me this idea has one huge drawback - it violates my whole “books as furniture” principle - just like I prefer a physical copy of my music rather than a purely digital one, I like having books to hold and put on a shelf. There’s just something about holding a book in your hands and turning those pages that a digital reader can’t replicate. This is perhaps why, although I have 19 different bible versions on my PDA phone, I still do virtually all of my Bible reading in physical Bibles (preferably leather ones that sit nicely on my lap but I’m getting way off topic now…)

Anyway if anyone have any other tips they want to add to the list I’d love to hear them. All this talk, and following ob1’s blog of his travels over the last week has got me a bit “travel sick” (I doubt that’s the correct term but I’m using it in the sense of the opposite of “homesickness” wherein I’m actually seriously missing being in airports and on planes and in strange countries - Jen would say I’m crazy). I’ve got no plans to go back to Uganda this year, since we have a newborn baby and wouldn’t want to leave Jen and 3 kids for 3 weeks or so - plus I haven’t heard at all from them if they are actually doing a Watoto medical team this year.. but if another opportunity was to present itself for I’d be seriously tempted to jump at it…

Excellent ‘blogalogue’ series here at Beliefnet, between skeptical religious scholar Bart Ehrman and Anglican Bishop N T Wright on the problem of pain and suffering and it’s relationship to the claims of Christianity. Ehrman describes how his struggles with this issue ultimately wrecked his Christian faith. He comes from a Christian background, he knows his stuff, and he raises questions that we should take very seriously indeed. Pat answers just won’t do.

EHRMAN : Suffering increasingly became a problem for me and my faith. How can one explain all the pain and misery in the world if God—the creator and redeemer of all—is sovereign over it, exercising his will both on the grand scheme and in the daily workings of our lives? Why, I asked, is there such rampant starvation in the world? … If God is concerned to answer my little prayers about my daily life, why didn’t he answer my and others’ big prayers when millions were being slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, when a mudslide killed 30,000 Columbians in their sleep, in a matter of minutes, when disasters of all kinds caused by humans and by nature happened in the world?

He even provides a pretty good answer to the question himself, but for him it was ultimately still not strong enough for him to retain his belief in God.

EHRMAN : God himself is deeply concerned with suffering and intimately involved with it. The Christian message, for me, at the time, was that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God to us humans, and that in Jesus we can see how God deals with the world and relates to it. He relates to it, I thought, not by conquering it but by suffering for it. Jesus was not set on a throne in Jerusalem to rule over the Kingdom of God. He was crucified by the Romans, suffering a painful, excruciating, and humiliating death for us. What is God like? He is a God who suffers. The way he deals with suffering is by suffering both for us and alongside us.

Fortunately we have one of the best theologians/scholar/pastors in the world today to try and address these questions, and Wright does a good job - although I (like Ehrman) found his first post was not entirely convincing, in his second entry Tom really starts to approach the heart of the matter :

WRIGHT : If one believes, not merely as an intellectual assent to doctrine but as a living relationship with God through Jesus Christ, then the dark mystery of suffering can be seen within the context of his suffering, and be transformed by it.

Of course, for its fullness this necessarily generates, as I said, the life of the church in and through which evil is then addressed. Part of the ‘transformation’ is that Jesus’ followers go to work as healers, reconcilers, and so on. That’s why the last two chapters of my book are a small attempt to say that the work of believing people in addressing the urgent needs of the world is actually a part of the biblical answer – if you can call it an ‘answer’ – to the problem.

The beginining of God’s answer to the problems of pain and suffering in the world is Jesus’ own sufferings and subsequent resurrection (which, as Wright points out is the climax of the OT story of Abraham and Israel). But the continuation of God’s solution is through the church - we need to be God’s means of reaching out and addressing the pain and suffering of the world.

But then Ehrman goes on to raise another tricky, and most appropriate, question. What about all the instances in the Old Testament where people’s suffering is blamed on their sin - ie. suffering as punishment? And what about all those instances where God himself, or God’s chosen people, inflict mass casualities (eg Noah’s flood, Joshua’s invasion of Caanan)? Very good questions - ones I personally would struggle to answer (and unfortunately Wright doesn’t really address this stuff in much detail in his reply). A strong come back from Ehrman, and yet again he raises a point about Jesus that I would agree with ( for an agnostic he seems to have some good theological insights, just a shame he doesn’t believe them) - The Kingdom of God is not manifest in Jesus only in his sufferings..

EHRMAN : … the Kingdom is manifest in Jesus’ life and work: in the kingdom there will be no disease, no demons, and no death. Jesus manifests this kingdom in the meantime: he heals the sick, he casts out demons, and he raises the dead. This was not a message about some vague power of God breaking in at some period thousands of years hence. It was God breaking in now

The ministry of Jesus in the gospels gives us a good example how we, as part of his Kingdom, should be working in the world - feeding the hungry, healing the sick, remembering the forgotten. Ehrman touches on this point in the following quote :

EHRMAN : Even if we cannot, in the end, know the reasons for suffering, we can at the least have appropriate responses to it. We ourselves can feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked; we can work to solve problems of poverty; we can give money to agencies finding cures for cancer and AIDS; we can volunteer more often locally; we can give more to international relief efforts. We can, in fact, fulfill the urgent demands implicit in Matthew’s account of the judgment between the sheep and the goats, for “as you have done this to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.”

But ultimately Ehrman’s view is that the Kingdom never did come, and presumably never will. Wright begs to differ, and brings it back to what is the central issue in much of his work - the resurrection.

WRIGHT : But the real dividing line, still – and you still haven’t addressed it – comes with the resurrection. I do think, and I think the early Christians thought, and I think the evangelists (yes, in their different ways) thought, that the kingdom did come through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Not ‘come’ fully, of course; but, in the usual language, it was radically inaugurated … For the early Christians, God’s new world – the world where God’s writ runs – had already begun, and they were living in it by the power of the Spirit. Things did change. The early Christians did make a difference. Yes, of course, earthquakes and tsunamis still happen. The NT writers knew that as well as we did, and they went on saying that Jesus was already Lord, not simply that he would become that one day. They weren’t mostly offering, either, an analysis of ‘why evil/suffering happens,’ but they were implementing Jesus’ kingdom-work of challenging evil/suffering in the power of God – not in a sudden all-powerful theocracy, banishing every evil at a stroke, but in their continuing work on the model of Jesus himself and his parables.

All up a great series of posts. Ehrman provides some challenging questions an Wright coming back with some excellent (although perhaps not decisive) answers. Although my heart sides with Wright, I think I’d have to call this debate a draw. If you’d like to read through the posts (and it’s well worth doing) you can start here and just click the right arrowed links at the top of the page to follow them through.

[thanks to Ben Witherington for the link to this debate]

Here’s the latest video of our baby Mia - now nearly eight weeks old. My how she’s grown!

As I mentioned yesterday, I had to rebuild my PC this week, which included a clean install of Vista and all my other software. So here’s my list of some essential programs for Windows. Anyone have any other suggestions they would add to this list?

• Mozilla Firefox
• Mozilla Thunderbird (email)
• Office
• Google Picasa (photos)
• Exact Audio Copy (CD ripper) with LAME (MP3 encoder)
• Tag & Rename (MP3 tagger)
• iTunes & Quicktime

This next one is not essential, but I wanted to test out a game on the new PC and ended up downloading Trackmania Nations Forever. This has to be one of the best free games in history - basically it’s a racing game with a range of extreme tracks and online racing - all for free. I enjoyed the previous version of this game but it wouldn’t run on Vista so it’s nice to have an updated version that works. If you like racing games or just want something to help you waste a few minutes then definitely download this game. Here’s a YouTube trailer for it…

Time for a blog update as it’s been a while…

4:43pm on ANZAC Day and Jen and the boys are working on cooking up a huge batch of Anzac biscuits - suddenly I have a big appetite for them That’s about all we do in our family to commemorate Anzac day, although every year I consider taking Owen along to the dawn service.

Speaking of Owen he’s now playing the Star Wars theme on the piano - about the only song he knows. Wish I could work out how to get him more enthusiastic about practising the stuff he’s supposed to.

Work has been busy again this week - although I’ve been working short days in the surgery while the kids are on school holidays, the baby business has got busy again in the last 2 weeks. March worked out to be an extremely quiet month for me in terms of obstetrics, which was most providential as that was when Mia was born. But this week I’ve had 5 deliveries so it’s fully back up to speed. Plus I’m on-call for this weekend, which I’m not too pleased about since I’ve been on for almost every public holiday this year. So far no calls though - hopefully it will stay that way.

A big part of yesterday was spend rebuilding my desktop PC, which died on Wednesday night. I think I must have shortcircuited the motherboard whilst tidying up the mass of cables behind the computer. Anyway it’s not such a bad thing - I’ve now got a new motherboard with a new much faster Core 2 Duo processor and a clean install of Vista which is ticking along nicely so far. I was tempted to take this opportunity to switch over to a Mac desktop (either iMac or Mac Pro) but couldn’t justify the expense right now so that dream will have to wait a little while.

Anyway that’s enough for now. I’ve uploaded our latest set of camping photos onto Flickr and will work on getting a new video of Mia up over the weekend (recently got a new Sony HD video camera so have been busy filming her over the last few days…)

Well in it’s own way the book I’ve just read attempts to answer this classic question. War is a force that gives us meaning is written by Chris Hedges, a long serving war correspondent for the New York Times. He draws on his own experiences in multiple conflicts including Iraq, Palestine and the Balkans as well as a range of literature through Homer and Shakespeare through to the present day to discuss the devestating allure of war and it’s addictive qualities for both individuals and societies. Hedges peels back the layers of myth and misinformation surrounding war, and exposes the complicity of journalists in perpetuating these myths, and that of the public in going along with it. War has little to do with heroism and it truth the vast majority of people would act in quite unheroic, selfish and often savage ways if thrust into that sort of environment. No-one escapes an experience of war unscathed - all bear the psychological scars of the victim or perpetrator (or often both). Hedges ultimately concludes that the only antidote to war is that of love, but the overall balance of this book is a pessimistic one, and love comes across as a weak flower standing in the onslaught of the hurricane of war.

This is a brilliant book - full of anecdotes and thus a flowing, easy read - and yet at the same time a harrowing, difficult read in view of the confronting nature of it’s topic. The sort of book it would do good for all of us to digest. It will be hard to look at the glamorous news stories or even those old war docos in the same light again. I’m not a journo but I would imagine this should be required reading for them - to examine their motives and their potential to succumb to the addictive naroctic nature of war. Hedges mentions the fate and admissions of several of his colleagues who almost seem driven towards death -  an idea struck home to me last night when I heard a Reuter’s cameraman had been killed in Palestine yesterday.

Once in a while a book comes along that really makes you sit up and take notice and might even change the way you think - this is one of those sort of books. Read it.

[Hat tip to Fred aka the Slacktivist for suggesting this book on his blog, which is one of my favourites - check it out]

A bittersweet look at ten years of MP3s

Excellent article here looking back on ten years since the first MP3 players were produced. The author mentions some of the good things about digital music, but also some of the things he misses such as borrowing and lending music, shopping for used music, album liner notes and artwork, and (my favourite) music as furniture.

I can relate to many of his points. I jumped on the MP3 bandwagon fairly early, using my dialup connection in the heyday of Napster to download hundreds of tracks. It was slow but fun in a way, and challenging -like trying to find that elusive final song you were missing from an album, or the rare album that few people had. And although it was anonymous there was still the pleasure of finding a user with similar music tastes and a huge collection of songs - even better if they had a fast internet connection to leech from. And there was the built in chat box that added at least a little bit of human interaction into the process. None of the P2P software I’ve used since has been quite the same, although I did use one called DC++ a few years back that came close. But by then we had broadband, which took some of that challenge out of the whole thing and gave us the ability to flood our hard drives with vast quantities of files that we were unlikely to ever seriously listen to. And after a while the whole downloading thing just lost it’s shine. Now we have bit-torrent which is easy and fast, but no fun.

Going back to the points in the article above I guess I’ve come the full circle as well. I now purchase more CDs than I ever have before. Admittedly it’s partly because I have more income than before, but it’s also because I like to have the CDs in my hand, reading the notes, looking to see what track is coming up next, and sitting on my shelf as a reminder of what I have and what I like, instead of being tucked away on a hard drive. I totally get the whole “music as furniture” appeal - a bit chunk of the wall in the room I’m sitting in is full of CDs (as you can see in the photo, taken from the couch I’m sitting on with my iSight camera). A related concept is the “books as furniture” one - few things make a room or house more inviting and appealing than shelves and shelves of books. If you’ve been to my house you’ll know I’m definitely a big adherent to this.

I love my iPod and having a collection of digital music at my fingertips, but it’s still just not the same as having something physical to hold, to collect, and to enjoy as part of the overall experience of the music. I’ve bought a few albums over iTunes but probably at least half of those I’ve then gone on to purchase the physical CD. Nowadays I don’t bother as much with the iTunes store unless I’m in a real hurry to get something or if I just want an individual track for some reason (like this Reindeer song I sang at our Christmas carols event last year). I did get one album on iTunes last month - Luka Bloom’s Before Sleep Comes (which is a brilliant mellow acoustic album) but I liked it so much I’ll definitely be getting the CD. I rarely acquire music now by less legitimate means, but even then it will usually now lead to a purchase. For example I’ve had the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack languishing on my hard drive for years (I think I actually got it when I traded some MP3 CDs with a friend rather than downloading it myself) - never listened to it until a month or so ago, and when I finally did I immediately went out and bought the CD at the next opportunity.

So from my perspective at least the music industry need not fear the death of the CD just yet. For all it’s benefits digital music is still just not quite the same.