One for the China Fetishists out there

In the course of picking out a china pattern around the time of our wedding, we were impressed by the freshness and energy of a lot of the Wedgwood designs, and disappointed in the stodginess of most Royal Doulton. The RD website conveys some of this, and is also horribly written -

"If you want durable porcelain for casual use with a touch of class, Royal Doulton's Gloucester is the perfect blend of functionality and craftsmanship."

or

"Rosenbourg is true class, made to order in England"

or

"Minton's classy modern interpretation of an English hall tapestry is so versatile in design and richly decorated it can make an occasion of any meal."

RD did have one lovely OTT Baroque pattern though, called Riverton, which I suppose is the counterpart to Wedgwood's Astbury - though the latter costs twice as much (at 594 pounds per dinner plate!)

Of the Wedgwood, two of my favourite patterns were a new one called Laurel, and Vera Wang's Champagne Duchess. During the wedding gift process we have acquired some charming occassional pieces from the Jasper Conran Chinoiserie series.

But for our "set", we asked to be given, and delightedly received, plates and bowls from Wedgwood's Jasper Conran Platinum white series - so here's how our dinner table looked yesterday;

Death of a Churchman - Ted Pearsons

The Very Rev. Edward Ross Pearsons O.A.M., (known as "Ted" to all), died on Friday of last week, aged 71. Ted was a central agent in the survival and regrowth of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, in the face of the formation of the Uniting Church in the 1970s; preserving the continuing church involved a great many legal and other struggles in which he engaged unflaggingly. He was the Clerk of the General Assembly of Victoria for many years, and also served as Moderator of PCV and Moderator-General of the PCA. I shall miss Ted's cheerily whistled hymn-tunes echoing around the staircase of the Assembly Hall, in which we both worked. His funeral will be held at Scots Church Melbourne at 10am on Wednesday 7 May.

News


Inter Alia, the following event occured on the 2nd of February this year at South Yarra Presbyterian Church:




At the back of our wedding order of service, Deb and I included a verse from Psalm 126 - "The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." To my delight, our minister, John Stasse, preached his sermon on this verse too.

a personal note -

I just got a call from an agency which deals with adoption issues, to tell me that my natural father died about two weeks ago. I’m so glad he made contact with me recently – we wrote two letters each, and exchanged photos. But I’m sorry that we never met.

It was my birth mother who told the Agency that he had died, so that they could let me know. This was extremely kind of her - I should write to her.

While “islamisation” can still seem a remote possibility here - it is a terrifying reality in Malaysia - as Tuesday night’s Foreign Correspondent, of all things, on ABC TV, demonstrated. Islam, where it can get the upper hand, denies equal justice to non-muslims - this is what many of us are starting to worry about. And it can start by getting the upper hand in local areas.

We must defend the integrity of our institutions, and not allow the slightest accomodation of islamic law by the organs of the state - even at council level. I remember being told at high school that the Nazi’s exploited the freedom allowed them by the Weimar Republic, in order to destroy it. Our freedom should not leave us defenceless.

We claim to right to assess Islam for ourselves, and to reach the conclusion that it cannot reconcile itself to the principle of the separation of church and state, or of equal justice for all citizens regardless of religion or sex. Therefore it is a threat to our liberty, which will oppose at a political level. Whatever you may call us.

As I wrote last week, people who are concerned about this should be running for council in areas of high muslim population, in order to stand up for equal rights for the non-muslim residents who remain in those areas (though obviously you’d have to express yourself shrewdly and carefully).

This is a wonderful country - we retain sovereignty and liberty, at least for now. I’m delighted that we are “20 years behind Europe” when it comes to dhimmitude. May we never catch up.

Do Australians have the stomach to preserve and strengthen our institutions so that the process of islamisation gets no more of a toehold here? We may end up with the privilege of preserving british-derived liberties long after large parts of Britain (Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, and sections of London) have lost them.

Who fancies running for council in the cities of Moreland or Darebin in Melbourne? Or around Lakemba? We need to assert that these areas must remain acessible and comfortable for the Australian mainstream. We don’t do ghettos.

I just got this off my chest somewhere else -

You don’t know much about politics if you think that Labor and the Coalition are tweedledum and tweedledee. The hallmarks of this rotten Labor State government are;

- Jobs for the Boys and (even more so) the Girls; Spring St is burgeoning with party hacks “working” as ministerial advisors, and a massive expansion in the bureaucracy, and worst of all plum judicial appointments for inexperienced mates and matettes;

- an abominable Racial and Religious Tolerance Act that has skewered our liberties;

- Green capture of crucial policy areas such as urban planning and energy policy (stupid windfarms);

- a post-Trotskyite attitude to political power that says “we can do what we want to whom we want” without due process or proper limits to authority e.g. the OPI star chamber approach to the Armed Offenders Squad officers;

- and general complacency when it comes to the business climate.

None of these would have been visited on us by a Kennett or Doyle government.

a statement from a prominent Melbourne religious leader

"I dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden. Again, I don't believe that even September 11 - from the beginning, I don't believe that it has done by any Muslim at all, or any other activities. London, as I said just a few seconds ago, never done yet - no-one proven that any Muslim has a hand in it. But ... "

Sheikh Mohammed Omran, a Melbourne Iman, and head of the al-Sunnah Wal-Jamaah association, on Lateline last night - read the full transcript here . Or watch one of the video files of the interview available on the Lateline website - the Sheik cuts an entertainingly improbable, almost muppet-like figure.

The Weekend Austalian's editorial on the Pope said most of what I'd like to say myself, so here it is -

A giant of faith and freedom on the world stage

02apr05

POPE John Paul II has been a great figure of the 20th century, an authentic giant of history who will be remembered as long as human beings value liberty or care about religion. John Paul II has been the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church. But he has been much more than that. By the force of his extraordinary personality, the clarity of his message and his immense courage he has been a figure of vast consequence who shook the foundations of the world. While very few have agreed with every single thing he said or did, his influence on the world has been overwhelmingly positive.

John Paul II has loved God, but he has also loved human beings and regarded each human being as sacred and imbued with innate dignity, and above all deserving of freedom. His remarkable personality was forged in the crucible of the two monstrous ideologies of 20th-century Europe - Nazism and communism. He detested both, he resisted both, he understood both.

What an optimistic and resilient spirit it must have taken to begin studying for the Catholic priesthood in Poland in 1942. But no sooner was the Nazi nightmare over for Poland than the communist nightmare began. It is probably for his role in the downfall of communism that John Paul II will be most obviously remembered. Poland became at one moment the pivot of Europe, and for a time the pivot of history. It was John Paul II's instinctive and sustained support for the Polish trade union movement, Solidarity, and its exuberant and brave leader, Lech Walesa, that was critical in leading to the downfall of communism in Poland. And this in turn had a mesmerising effect on the rest of Eastern Europe. The iron curtain of Stalin's tyranny and despair, which had hung across expanding swaths of Europe since 1917, was torn back as much by the Pope as by any other individual. Indeed, with Ronald Reagan and Lech Walesa, the Pope formed an astonishing triumvirate, allied in the common cause of human freedom and human dignity.

In many ways John Paul II has been the first wholly modern Pope. Nazism and communism were quintessentially expressions of a deformed modernism and this the Pope understood profoundly. His adroit leadership during the fall of the Polish communist government answered forever Stalin's sneering question: "How many battalions has the Pope?" The Cold War seems a long way away now, but it is right to pause to remember the radical evil that communism, the true ideological twin of Nazism, represented and the immense historical project involved in its consignment to the dustbin of history.

This is not the only political challenge the Pope has had to manage in his long reign. He has always been the friend of freedom, denouncing apartheid, opposing dictatorships and yet doing so in a way which would not increase the persecution of innocent people. But of course the Pope has not seen himself primarily as a political figure. Nor would it be fair to evaluate him as such. He has been, in his own words, a sign of contradiction, a great paradox of a leader. For his kingdom was not of this world. He has always believed in the importance of this world because of its relationship to the higher order of the spiritual world. In that sense, the Pope has been two separate leaders, an astute political figure central to the power equations of his time, and a deeply contemplative and intellectual spiritual leader, whose criterion of judgment was eternity.

Much of Western opinion, while it has admired the Pope's valiant stand for political freedom, found his spirituality baffling and his moral teaching incomprehensible or downright offensive. It is fair to say that in the majority of theological and moral utterances he has made, the Pope has been condemned by majority Western opinion. But from the Pope's point of view, it has not been necessary to have the numbers. It has been much more important to be speaking the truth. No one doubts the huge physical courage of the Pope, who survived a would-be assassin's bullet in May 1981, an attempt widely believed to be the work of the Soviet KGB. It surely was another aspect of that courage to stand so trenchantly against every tenet of received opinion in the Western world.

The Pope has preached discipline, restraint and submission to legitimate authority in spiritual matters. This was never a contradiction of his insistence of human freedom in the political order. For even his view of the spiritual life has been based on the centrality of human freedom, the freedom of the human conscience to choose what is right. It is not the place of a church leader to give in to social fashion. The Western world is awash with self-indulgence and the pursuit of instant gratification. It hardly needed a church leader to tell it that this was all OK. Instead John Paul II has taken the much harder road of trying to remind the West of God, and the obligations of morality. Even those who have no religious belief can recognise that there is a benefit to society to have such a message delivered uncompromisingly by an authoritative leader.

In the Third World, the Pope's approach has been much more popular, although part of the paradox of his magnetic personality is that he is personally popular even in nations whose people overwhelmingly rejected his moral teachings. It is right to say the Pope has been conservative theologically and socially. Many people within the Catholic Church have not agreed with his teachings on birth control or sexual morality generally. But it is also worth noting that these are the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. It is unlikely that the Pope's successor will change these teachings. And at the end of the day, people are free to be Catholics or not. John Paul II's clarity has presented people with sharp choices, and moral choices of any consequence are always uncomfortable.

But whatever judgments people make about individual positions the Pope has taken, few could fail to be moved by the courage and grandeur of his life story, or the poetry and generosity of his personality. More than any pope in history, he travelled the world, not only to teach, but in large measure simply to express a human solidarity with ordinary people the world over. When he first became Pope, at age 58, his great physical and intellectual vigour made him a naturally glamorous figure.

An actor as a young man (in underground theatre), John Paul II has always been a natural with a crowd. He loves to be with people, in large numbers and small. Despite his conservatism, his views have never been predictable along a Left-Right axis. He has fiercely opposed capital punishment, and opposed both the Gulf Wars. He has been the champion of ecumenism, becoming the first pope to visit the Rome synagogue, and apologising for the history of Christian anti-Semitism. He has energetically pursued inter-faith dialogue with all of the world's religions, understanding that in the end the religious impulse is directed to the same God.

John Paul II has been a controversial figure and the controversies will rage for many years to come. Politically, theologically, socially -- his influence has been pervasive. And he has produced a rich lode of writings for followers and critics and the merely curious to explore. But few civilised people anywhere today will feel anything but saddened at the deterioration of one of the greatest figures of our time.

One thing after another is making it clear that we have put our state government into the hands of people who just don't get fundemental principles like the limited power of government, or respect for the constition. I am increasingly in agreement with an argument which I first saw in The Spectator (in connection with the Blair government) that this is what comes of the people who went through a Trotskyite phase in the 1970s or '80s now having made it into real power. They still see things in terms of power first and foremost. Conventions, subtleties, respect for subcultures that have their own standards and beliefs, all of these things are beyond them. And it is their very obsession with power that has finally attained it for them - normal people have other objects and usually don't get heavily into politics - and the normal people will find themselves increasingly put upon.

There was a ludicrous story in the Age yesterday that a branch of the state government was going to try to enforce sexual politics brainwashing sessions on AFL clubs and players - and that they have the support of the league's very PC head, Andrew Demetriou.

A scornful independent report on the Bracks Government's 2030 planning policy relased this week described it as a literally fantastic vision - entirely unconnected with reality.

And one of the fresh delights of today is a speech by a retiring Victorian Supreme Court Justice, John D Phillips, reprinted in The Age. He writes, regarding his court -

This court is not some part of the public service and it must never be seen as such. Established as a court of plenary jurisdiction and with supervisory jurisdiction over all other courts and tribunals, this court is the third arm of government, co-equal in concept with Parliament and the executive. Its role, inter alia, is to control and to limit those other arms according to law and to that end to stand between those other arms and the citizen. Hence the emphasis on the court's independence, especially from the executive.

Yet within the Department of Justice this court is now identified and dealt with - would you believe - as "Business Unit 19" within a section labelled "courts and tribunals", a section which indiscriminately includes all three tiers of the court structure and VCAT.

There may be something in the air - there are fresh negative stories about this rotten government nearly every day. Are the Liberals positioning themselves to capitalise on it all?

From time to time I brood that the media have not been giving enough coverage to the existence and operation of Victoria's laws which attempt to enforce Racial and Religious Tolerance. But I've concluded that the mainstream is not greatly interested in the topic.

I do wonder, though, how we ever managed for all those years without laws against "Hate Speech", and other "Hate Crimes"... These notions have been cooked up by a cozy cabal of legal and social-science academics, the sinecured sentimentalists who staff the multicultural and anti-discrimination industries, and the duffers we have installed in Spring Street. I am yet to be convinced that they are any improvement on the old, and much-breached, ideal of "good manners" (contravention of which did not put you in danger of prison). I prefer laws enacted by goverments to be wise and limited regulations responding to genuine social reality.

"Hate Speech" laws are an infamous deployment of State Power by one side in the Culture Wars, which are being fought between factions of the limited section of the population which has ideological commitments, or at least some interest in ideas. (This is why the debate has not really caught on in the mainstream media, but is raging on the internet.) "Hate Speech" laws will never be used evenhandedly, but always in the interest of one side and their fellow-travellers against the other. The attempt to prove that religious "vilification" has really occured will always be a subjective shambles - one that we should spare our hard-working judges.

For a positive Christian perspective on this shonky law, see Professor Gary Bouma's article in Online Opinion.

a comment from today's Age, concerning Bracks' reshuffle -

Ms Delahunty had also proved a political liability for the Government, with industry players criticising her for poor communication skills and grasp of policy detail.

It says a lot for eminent ABC journalists, doesn't it?

A response by my church, the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, to recent developments in "Religious Tolerance"
Friday, 17th December 2004, just a week before Christians celebrate of the birth of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, will go down as sad day for Christians in Victoria, for on this day under the Labor Government's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, religious freedom has been seriously jeopardised.
In March 2002, two months after the Act became law, a Pentecostal group, Catch the Fire Ministries (CTFM), ran a seminar to explain Islam as they understood it, and to help Christians reach out in love to minister among the growing Muslim community in Melbourne. Evidence during the hearing suggested the Islamic Council of Victoria was instrumental in three Muslim converts of Anglo-Australian ancestry attending. With the backing of the council these three converts lodged a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Commission against two pastors and the CTFM.
In support of his determination, Justice Higgins declared, "Pastor Scot (the seminar leader), throughout the seminar, made fun of Muslim beliefs and conduct. It was done, not in the context of a serious discussion of Muslims' religious beliefs; it was presented in a way which is essentially hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their god, Allah, the prophet Mohammed and in general religious beliefs and practices."
If it is true that Pastor Scot has made fun of Muslims' beliefs and conduct, then we agree that such action is truly reprehensible and an embarrassment to every fair-minded Christian. But if, and we will need to see the full text of Justice Higgins determination to be sure on this point, the Act has led the judge to fault Pastor Scot on his selection of quotes from the Koran, Hadith and the writings of Muslim scholars generally, then this raises two important issues.
First, are judges now required to make theological judgements under the Act and just how well qualified are they to do so? Making judgements about which version of Islam is truly authentic ("mainstream") is a big call for a judge in a secular court to have to make, and certainly a judgement open to question.
Secondly, and more specifically, are we to assume that Christians quoting and commenting on Islamic texts in ways the Muslims object to, will be penalised?
This ability to critique another person's position is integral to a free and democratic society. Senator Grant Chapman from South Australia has recently well observed: "it is the role of teachers in every religion to demonstrate why their faith is worthy of adoption, and this may involve showing why - in their opinion - other religions may be less truthful, or even in error." For Christians, a matter of deep offence is the way in which the Koran has distorted the biblical account of the life of Jesus, and indeed Jewish history as recorded in the Old Testament.
If Islam and its writings are now to be placed in some privileged position whereby they cannot be criticised, this indeed is a rare privilege, a privilege often denied to Christianity by its cultured despisers in the West. If so, then it is a serious indictment of the Act.
It was a great mistake for the Government to lump religious vilification in with racial vilification. Apart from a very few small groupings such as Jews and Sikhs, race and religion in the modern world are not the same thing. Race for any person is a given, not so religion. Both Islam and Christianity are missionary religions, counting adherents among an ever expanding number of races and people groups, and this situation will not change. Islam is strengthening its position in Australia, but so too is Christianity, at least in its conservative and evangelical expression.
Australia must remain open to all who love liberty and truth and so the prospect of making a good life. We affirm in this context that Muslims should have liberty to make disciples for "their god, Allah (and) the prophet Mohammed", as we too, should have a similar liberty to make disciples for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the light of all of the above, we therefore call upon the Premier and the Victorian Government to rescind the anti vilification legislation, before further damage is done to the Victorian social fabric. We want to assure the Labor Government of Victoria and the State Liberal opposition of our continued strong opposition to this Act.

In considering the Prince's "What is wrong with everyone nowadays?" memo, Roger Scruton writes in this week's Spectator about a favourite philosopher of mine -

In an essay written over a century ago the philosopher F.H. Bradley reflected on "my station and its duties", and said that the human being becomes what he truly is only by realising his freedom in society, and each act of self-realisation involves creating and adopting a social station. Whether you are rich or poor, smooth or rough, leisured or banausic, you become what you are through the circles of influence and affection that distinguish you. Unhappiness comes from being discontented with your station, while lacking the means to change it. And for all of us there comes a point when we settle in a social position which we have neither the power nor the will to change. It is from this sense of our social station that our duties emerge, Bradley argues. There is no single set of obligations, no "duty for duty's sake", that applies to all mankind. Each of us is encumbered by the duties of his station and happiness comes through fulfilling them. However humble your position, it comes to you marked with the distinction between right and wrong — a right way of occupying your station and a wrong way. Your duties may take the form of a professional ethic, of a specific role like that of doctor or teacher, of an office like that of prime minister. They might even take the onerous hereditary form of those imposed on Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales — duties which he takes extremely seriously.

Bradley argues that individuals are made by the communities in which they come into being.

None of the reviews of the new Bridget Jones film that I've read have mentioned that it includes another fight between Hugh Grant and Colin Firth's characters, which is almost as funny as that in the original. In general the new film's humour is broader, and settles sometimes for easier laughs - but most fans of the first one will enjoy it.

good line I just heard on a panel game on BBC 7 -

"Brighton is a town that looks as if it has been helping the police with their enquiries"

a gag that could be adapted to refer to St. Kilda for local use

oops

Sikhs and Hindus in east London were upset when they received cards celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid from the Labour MP Oona King. Her office said it had not had time to check the religion of all voters with Muslim-sounding names.

(from the London Daily Telegraph, sourced from a story in the UK Independent)

I liked President Bush's speech on announcing that Condaleeza Rice is to be the new US Secretary of State - in fact I found this section somewhat moving -

Meeting all of these objectives will require wise and skillful leadership at the Department of State, and Condi Rice is the right person for that challenge. She's a recognized expert in international affairs, a distinguished teacher and academic leader, and a public servant with years of White House experience. She displays a commitment to excellence in every aspect of her life, from shaping our strategy in the war on terror, to coordinating national security policy across the government, to performing classical music on stage. Above all, Dr. Rice has a deep, abiding belief in the value and power of liberty, because she has seen freedom denied and freedom reborn.

As a girl in the segregated South, Dr. Rice saw the promise of America violated by racial discrimination and by the violence that comes from hate. But she was taught by her mother, Angelina, and her father, the Reverend John Rice, that human dignity is the gift of God, and that the ideals of America would overcome oppression. That early wisdom has guided her through life, and that truth has guided our nation to a better day.

I know that the Reverend and Mrs. Rice would be filled with pride to see the daughter they raised in Birmingham, Alabama, chosen for the office first held by Thomas Jefferson. Something tells me, however, they would not be surprised.

"human dignity is the gift of God" - this sounds like whatever exactly it was that Cardinal Pell was saying the other day, that seemed to get people so upset - about the desirability of "democracy founded on the transcendent dignity of the human."

"I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins again. Someone has got to stay behind."

The great Tom Wolfe, interviewed by the UK's Guardian

New Opposition Leader Speaks Out

I just wanted to be the first person to give this sort of headline to Justice Michael Kirby's new foray into activism -

Those who wanted to abolish the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) were living in a fantasy world, High Court Justice Michael Kirby said today.

Justice Kirby, a former deputy president of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, made the comments in a speech at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission Centenary Convention in Melbourne today.

Hitting out at opponents of Australia's present industrial relations system, Justice Kirby said some wished to see the IRC "closed down lock, stock and barrel" or "converted into a mediatory body with no legal powers of arbitration or intervention".

"Persons of such views tend to live in a remote world of fantasy, inflaming themselves by their rhetoric into more and more unreal passions, usually engaging in serious dialogue only with people of like persuasion," Justice Kirby said.

[from The Age]

To suspend judgement slightly, I suppose Kirby might be talking about elements even more radical than the Government...