Baggas’ Blog

Everytime I check this blog lately there’s been an increasing amount of spam again. It’s not a huge hassle to delete it but it does cause a couple of problems with legitimate comments - either they are not being noticed by me or I am accidentally deleting some with the spam. So my apologies if that has happened. Please don’t let it put you off commenting as I still love hearing what people have to say. Thanks.

The Beloved Disciple?

Traditionally the character of the “beloved disciple” in the gospel of John has been identified with the apostle John the son of Zebedee, who was held to be the author of the gospel. In more recent times this has been a less popular theory and a range of alternatives have been proposed (such as the Da Vinci Code’s suggestion of Mary Magdalene).

Ben Witherington, in the above linked blog post, has an interesting idea - that the Beloved Disciple may be in fact be Lazarus of Bethany, the guy who Jesus raised from the dead. Ben’s article presents a quite plausible argument to advance this idea, and is a fascinating read. Identifying Lazarus as the Beloved Disciple really makes sense of the gospel material about this character. Check it out.

The biggest church in Perth is Riverview Church, in Burswood, just near the Swan River (hence the name) five minutes from the city centre. I’ve been there a number of times over the years for different events and have always found it to be an excellent well organised high quality experience. They have a heart for God and a culture of exellence. You may have seen their pastor Phil Baker on their early morning Sunday TV program or you may have read his blog.

Their latest foray into church expansion/church planting is interesting, however. They are running a multi-campus approach with video feeds of the main message preached at Burswood (not sure if they have a live worship band at each campus or if that is via video also). To date they have set up satellite campuses to the north and south of Perth, but their next “campus” plant is a truly audacious one - still on the West Coast, but in California, rather than Western Australia. You can read about it on Phil’s blog here, or at this site : Down Under is Coming Over.

Good luck to them - I sincerely hope this venture is a success but I have my doubts. Now I usually pride myself on being quite technological and open to new ideas but maybe this proves I’m a bit more 20th century than I like to think. Going to church on Sunday in order to watch a message on a big screen rather than to hear a real live speaker just doesn’t seem quite right, although I could perhaps get used to it… but if the worship was simulcast that would be even worse - I can’t imagine worshipping along with a band on a video screen. Additionally the inter-continental aspect of it is a bit of a stretch also. The good thing about attending church in your own town or city is that the preacher can preach a culturally relevant and appropriate message which can hook in many ways into local places, people, and issues. It’s nice to be able to relate to what the speaker is talking about, even if it’s just a story about what happened to them down at the local shops. And although there’s no denying that a Californian audience will get a lot of value out of a message by a great speaker like Phil Baker, you must lose some of that local connection. Additionally, the video model of church denies you the chance to have any real interaction with the preacher, both during and after the service. I hope that this is a success for them but I have my reservations

I’m not totally against the multi-campus concept though. I saw this working well in Uganda at the Kampala Pentecostal Church that we visited. They have a 14,000 plus congregation spread amongst five campuses around the city. Although a pentecostal church it is a typical evangelical style, but with an African flavour. Their model is to have a live band and preacher at all of the services. At each service the same message is preached though, and the entire church follows the same theme. They have bands which rotate through the various campuses to maintain the same high quality of worship music, and the pastors similarly rotate around. This model seemed to work really well, maintaining the benefits of a large centralised organisation and administration whilst providing for local level worship, ministry, and care. Although divided between five sites there is still a strong sense of the unity of the church. A model multi-site church, as far as I could see.

Back at work today after the Australia Day long weekend. And what a weekend it was! Scorching hot weather with temperatures in the 40s, and thunderstorms at night. We spent part of each day in the pool, in between a number of relaxing social engagements - a breakfast, dinner, lunch, and a nice evening picnic down on the bank of the Swan River. I think it’s a bit cooler today but still fancy a jump in the pool the minute I get home this afternoon.

I think the 2007 Australian Federal election is shaping up to be the closest contest in years. Prime Minister John Howard has spent the last couple of days dominating the news cycle with his savy cabinet reshuffle and big anouncement on water policy. But not to be deterred, new Labor opposition leader Kevin Rudd has hit back with an extended election style prime time TV advertisement in which he begins to discuss his vision for Australia. I must admit, I thought it wasn’t a bad effort. I’m not usually a Labor supporter but I am fairly impressed with Rudd and think if he continues in the steady fashion he has begun, he will have a real shot at this election.

I’ll refrain from the temptation to post yet another YouTube video on this blog, but if you didn’t see it, you can watch Rudd’s video here : YouTube - Kevin Rudd Australia Day ad

I’m going to try and resist the urge not to fill my blog with too many of these YouTube videos, but this clip of Rowan Atkinson is just too funny [via Phil Baker.net] Thus far I have held back from exploring YouTube too much, as I imagine you could waste a lot of hours there. Anyway, here begins the sermon…

[youtube]fTzXJMU1sLc&eurl[/youtube]

One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in the blogosphere over the last 12 months has been the advent of YouTube, and the consequent abundance of video files being embedded in blog posts.

Well I thought it was about time I tried it out for myself so I did a bit of filming while we were down at the beach having dinner today, added a title and some music, and (rather slowly) uploaded it to YouTube. So below is the end-product - a view from the foreshore park of my home town, Rockingham, Western Australia, where I grew up and still live and work. As the camera pans around you’ll get to see Luke, and Owen, and also a glimpse of Jenni if you’re observant. Enjoy…

US politics is getting more interesting, with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton outing themselves as Democratic contenders for the Presidency in 2008. At this stage I’d say I like the look of Obama (who has a cool name Barack Hussein Obama that rhymes with the US’s nemeses Iraq, Hussein (as in Saddam), and Osama (as in Bin Laden). But Hillary will be hard to beat. Will be very enthralling to watch. My personal favourite would be an Al Gore ticket with Obama as his running mate, grooming him for another run at the Presidency when he’s a bit older, but we’ll have to say if Gore decides to take time out from saving the environment to have another go at the top job.

Now I’m probably not legitimately qualified to be critical of the Left Behind series of religious novels, since I haven’t read a single page. I’ve heard they can be semi-entertaining in a comic book kind of way, yet all I hear of their theology and it’s ramifications is quite disturbing. But someone is is qualified to comment is the Slacktivist, a well educated American Christian blogger and writer, who is slowly working his way through the first book on his blog, in addition to his other insightful and sensible comments on US politics and other subjects. Following his blog is like getting the Left Behind novel in serialised form - I’m able to follow the story while at the same time Slacktivist mercilessly demolishes it - his criticisms are not just theological, but also ethical, logical, and above all literary. He has a large following and gets plenty of comments, the majority of which agree with him, so I’m not sure how the Left Behind fans would find his site. For me, I’ve found it very entertaining (quite humorous at times), thought-provoking and illuminating, and will continue to keep a regular eye on it.

On a related issue, the book I’m currently reading by Ben Witherington III (who also has an interesting blog) called The Problem with Evangelical Theology systematically debunks the theology behind Left Behind. His arguments are relatively easy to follow and make a lot of sense, despite the depth he goes into in his detailed analysis of scripture. A little denser (and perhaps more unsettling) is when he takes on some more theological heavyweights in his criticisms of the theology of Calvin, Luther, and Augustine. Once again his arguments are logical and seem to make sense, but I feel out of my depth in making any judgement as to who’s right about these things. As a layperson dipping fingers into the deep well of theology, it’s important to remain humble and not just blindly accept whatever I read. However much I wish otherwise, I just am not well enough educated or qualified to make these sort of judgements (and will probably never be). All I can do is say to myself what feels right and logical and scriptural and say what system seems best to me, whilst acknowledging that I don’t know for sure. For example Witherington’s views on perseverance and apostasy are quite challenging and confronting and his exegetical reasoning seems to make sense - but I am not in a position to confidently conclude whether I believe him or not. The sensible reaction for me is to ask myself not “Is he right or wrong” but “what if he is right? what ramifications does that have for the way in which I conduct my life?” and thinking in that way is both sobering and worthwhile. Some might say it’s dangerous ground for a layperson to go exploring in matters of theology, but I think as long as I maintain a healthy level of “epistemological humility” and realisation of my own limitations, it can be a valuable enterprise.

I don’t post a lot of jokes here but this one just hit my inbox and I thought it wasn’t bad so enjoy :

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on his computer. They had been going at it for days, and God was tired of hearing all of the bickering.

Finally God said, “Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job.”

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent e-mail. They sent out e-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports. They made cards. They did every known job. But ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured and, of course, the electricity went off.

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed. The electricity finally flickered back on and each of them restarted their computers.

Satan started searching frantically, screaming “It’s gone! It’s all gone! I lost everything when the power went out!”

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours. Satan observed this and became irate.

“Wait! He cheated, how did he do it?”

God shrugged and said, “Jesus saves.”

Make late abortions easier, says sex lobbyist [thewest.com.au]

I usually refrain from commenting on the topic of abortion, since it is a complicated and divisive issue, in which there are not always black and white answers, but this story from today’s West Australian newspaper bothered me somewhat.

They are reporting the statistics of a jump in the number of late term abortions in WA in 2005, to 49 from 38 the previous year. In WA we have appropriately strict laws which make access to termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks tightly controlled. In general it is limited to major foetal abnormalities or severe maternal medical conditions. In 2005 there were 45 for foetal abnormalities and 4 for maternal conditions. So all we can infer from these statistics is that there was a higher number of terminations for foetal abnormalities in 2005. Whether this is a one off result or the beginning of a trend it is too early to say, but it certainly does not reflect any broad societal change.

So those statistics on their own did not disturb me particularly - it seems that the current system is working and these late abortions are only occurring for serious problems for which there is some justification. What bothered me was how the spokesperson for Family Planning WA Dr Alison Creagh has jumped on these stats to use them to advance her own particular agenda, in which a late term abortion could be justified by “such things as thinking I really don’t want to have a child. It’s not the right time for my schooling/work/finances/relationship.” This is a completely unrelated issue. Aborting a healthy fully developed baby, only weeks away from being able to survive outside the womb, for such frivolous reasons, is very different from the difficult decision to terminate a pregancy in which a severely malformed child would not survive anyway or where the mother’s life is at risk. It bothers me that Dr Creagh is taking stats drawn from these complicated and heart rending situations and using it to inappropriately push her pro-choice, abortion of convenience, agenda.

The Moon Goes Metric -  just came across this story on Google News. NASA and other international space agencies have come to an agreement that the metric system of measurements will be used for future missions to the moon. Thank God for that! I’ll be glad when the last vestiges of the imperial system are finally gone from the earth and everyone uses the sensible, logical metric system. It’s annoying that as an obstetrician looking after babies of women in their 20s and younger, who have never known the old system, I still have to convert the weight of almost every single baby into pounds. I hope I’m not having to do that in another 10 years time.

Interestingly there are now only three backward countries in the world not using the metric system - Burma, Liberia, and the USA!

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that “Hello - X Specialist Centre. Can I put you on hold please?” should be a rhetorical question. So many times I get asked by receptionsists if I’m willing to be put on hold without them even giving me the chance to give an answer. In this case the answer would have been “No, I’m not. This is Dr B and I need to arrange an urgent appointment for my patient” … but I wasn’t given the opportunity to even open my mouth before the lousy on hold music came on. Looks like this specialist centre just lost a potential customer.

Big news in the tech world at the moment, with the coolest geek in the world Steve Jobs, delivering his highly anticipated annual Macworld keynote speech yesterday.

The biggest new announcement was that of the iPhone - this cool device combines the features of a widescreen iPod, smart-phone, and mobile internet. You can check out the details at the Apple Website. Now I like te look of this gadget, it’s beautifully styled, and the user interface looks elegant and intuitive, like all Apple products. As an iPod lover, I particularly like the look of the iPod functionality, which is a big advance on the current generation iPods. The widescreen looks great and I could believe this would be a device that you might actually watch shows on (if Apple ever gets it’s act together and makes TV content available outside the USA!) - if nothing else, watching the demos on the Apple site makes me want to check out The Office, a show I haven’t really watched before (the little clip they show is pretty funny).

Father Roderick from SQPN has a good review of the Macworld announcements on his latest Daily Breakfast podcast, and I heartily agree with his comments, including his reservations about the iPhone and Apple TV (Apple’s new media server device). The biggest problems are :

1. The storage capacity is way too small - only 4 or 8 Gigabytes. To be taken seriously as an iPod replacement, particularly if you want to store and watch a lot of video, the capacity needs to be greatly enlarged - I would say a minimum of 20 Gig, and hopefully up to 80 Gig or beyond. With 8 Gig capacity this is still not the killer “one gadget to replace all others” that we’ve been hoping for.
2. The iPhone will not be available in the US for at least 6 months, and not available in other parts of the world like Australia until 2008! I’m getting tired of this constant lag in the release of products behind the US. In the 21st century there is no excuse for this sort of thing. It simply shows a lack of effort and a lack of care on the part of the big companies like Apple - people outside the USA are treated like second class citizens…. However this delay may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as hopefully by the time this product is released here Apple may have got around to a second generation iPhone, with much better storage capacity, thus I won’t give in to the temptation to get the first generation product but will be forced to wait for the better next one.
3. They haven’t released an updated iPod. The widescreen Video capabilities and new software of the iPod component of the iPhone look so cool - why couldn’t they have released a stand-alone 120Gig widescreen video iPod at the same time? The technology is already there.
4. The Apple TV product is underwhelming in it’s functionality. As Fr Roderick says, you can do more in terms of media serving using a Microsoft Xbox-360. I use a great program called TVersity to stream media from my PC to my Xbox 360 which works well in streaming a large range of media formats. Apple have some catching up to do here.

Overall though, it’s exciting news for gadget freaks. I just think it will probably be another year or two before this stuff starts to reach it’s potential. Until then, I’ll still keep carrying around the combination of my trusty Treo 650 phone and 60Gb Video iPod. The hope of the “one gadget to rule them all” is still a little way off, but it’s getting closer…

It’s apology time again. I’ve been pretty slack on the blogging front of late, in fact ever since I returned from Africa. A combination of Christmas, New Year’s, Owen’s eye problems and health scare, and work being insane has led to the blog taking a back seat. I can totally identify with ob1’s comments of last week.

This week at work has been psychotically busy. Partly it’s because I have extended my work hours by one hour a day (to help pay off the debts from our recent Africa trip and hopefully then set us up financially to plan for future trips… I can’t wait to go back), but partly it’s work itself. Many of my patients seem to be having health crises or urgent problems that need sorting out, other doctors here seem to be asking my advice a lot more all of a sudden, and my hospital obstetrics has been very busy the last 2 weeks as well. In the last 2 weeks I’ve had 13 babies born into my care!

Today is a little more settled again. Not sure if it’s the usual bunch of no-shows but I seem to have a lot more free time on my hands this morning. But I’m not complaining - it’s a nice change from the chaos of the last few days.

Feminists take note. As of today we are now 2 heartbeats away from a female US president. Democrat Nancy Pelosi has taken up the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives, the first woman to hold this job. This makes her second in the Presidential line of succession, behind VP Dick Cheney. So if Bush and Cheney were both killed off, she would have the job. Now wouldn’t that make Hillary mad!

ABC News: Stay-Awake Pill May Get Wider Approval

This story is related to the USA, but I still found it particularly interesting. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering widening the indications for the prescription of the drug Modafinil, which was previously limited for us in Narcolepsy (at least officially).

Now I’m surprised this drug hasn’t got more wider press in recent years, considering it’s potential uses. Modafinil is a tablet that helps maintain wakefulness and alertness for prolonged periods, yet without any rebound tiredness the next day, and without any major serious side effects. It is not a stimulant like caffeine or amphetamines. Longer term side effects or physiological addiction have not been reported to date. So it’s a pretty safe drug that enables people to remain awake and alert and productive longer - you can begin to imagine the possibilities. Shift-workers, truck-drivers, sleep deprived parents, stressed out cramming students, or just regular people who want to make better use of the 24 hours God has given them each day. I believe the US military has used this drug for soldiers in the field.

The doctors quoted in the above article do raise some legitimate concerns about ethical concerns with this drug, the potential for mis-use and “cultural addiction” but it seems to me to be only a matter of time before the drug becomes more widely available, even in spite of this.

Now’s the time for me to come clean. I have tried this drug a couple of times and I like it. Unlike overdosing on caffeine it has no discernible effect on the body. You don’t feel “wired” or anything. You simply just don’t feel tired. The times I tried it I was awake and alert, busy and productive well past midnight. The only side effect I noticed was that around 2am I began to experience a mild headache - nothing too severe. Eventually when I did decide to go to bed I was able to fall asleep with no trouble, and I woke up the next day after only a few hours sleep feeling normal. There was no rebound tiredness or jet lag in the days that followed. I’m the sort of person who gets frustrated if it gets to 10:30 or 11 at night and I feel tired and unable to keep doing things, and I’m also the kind of person who tries to do many more things than I can fit within my week, so this medication has immense appeal in terms of having a more productive life. I don’t think you would want to take it everyday, or for extended periods, as the long term data is just not there, but for intermittent use I don’t see a problem with this tablet. The biggest difficulties at present (particularly here in Australia) would be high cost and limited availablity.

It will be interesting the observe what happens with this drug over the next few years.

Thought I’d post some brief thoughts on the movie Happy Feet, which we went and saw yesterday. For those who aren’t aware, it’s an animated musical about penguins. For those who have seen the brilliant March of the Penguins documentary this will be quite familiar, especially the early sequences. I would have to say this is one of the best animated pictures I have ever seen. This movie has the whole package - brilliant animation, a good plot, catchy musical numbers, and a level of depth unprecedented in the CGI genre. In fact I’d actually say this is more of an adult movie than a kids film. Our kids were fine with it - Owen (5) paid attention for the whole duration (nearly 2 hours), and Luke (3) wandered a bit, and both came away trying on some pretty cool tap dancing moves. But for most kids, especially younger ones, this movie is a bit long and perhaps a bit serious. On a serious note this movie explored a number of themes including parenthood, acceptance/tolerance, religious fundamentalism, the generation gap, and an enviromental narrative with enough punch to give Al Gore a run for his money. Also for the adults there is a brilliant pop soundtrack ranging from the Beatles and Elvis through Queen to Prince and beyond. As I said this is one of the best CGI movies ever - not only entertaining but it grabs you on a deeper level than most. Definitely one to see.