Electricity

The cleanest (and cheapest) energy is the energy that you don't use!
Reading energymatters.com.au Fred found that the average consumption of electricity by households in Australia is 8MegaWatts!
Our consumption here adds up to 1.46MegaWatts (precisely!) Apart from a deep freeze, and air conditioner, (both missing in this house) I don't know what people use the stuff for...


In the meantime, (while waiting for our generating capacity to be nearly doubled), we are trying to understand how the feed in tariff that is being introduced in NSW will work. Seems we will have to change our meter. (even though Fred reads the inputs and outputs from the new one that went in after the first panels.)


We don't hold out much hope of actually being paid money for the electricity we will put into the grid. (to run our neighbours' air conditioners.)

It would have been nice, but then again we didn't put in the system to make money. Just to make a point. (very expensively)

The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of immeasurable value,

"...the musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of immeasurable value, greater even than that of any other art...The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with very great care.” This is a quote from the second Vatican Council. Found in the Irish Times for yesterday.

Arminta Wallace writes of the burgeoning of choral works over the (pre) christmas season and the crowds that go to concerts and lessons and carols (and other) services. She is focussing on Milltown Parish church in Dublin which boasts a professional choir. I am thinking that St Philips is fortunate to attract almost professional singers and musicians to its many choral events and times, as well as our two actual professional musicians.

"Meanwhile, for choir and congregation alike, the Christmas Eve Mass is an annual musical and spiritual high point. “There’s always a beautiful atmosphere at that Mass,” she says. “It’s magical. I always feel there’s a sense of expectancy – but also a quiet, almost contemplative feeling as well as the joy at the coming of Jesus. That’s my personal feeling about Christmas Eve, anyway, and I suppose I would try and capture that in the music for the service.” .....

But sacred choral music is also part of the tradition. As we tune in to Christmas music this year, in whatever form and at whatever level we can, maybe – if we listen carefully – its other-worldly beauty might give us some clues as to how the human species can face, with dignity and compassion, a future which seems at best uncertain. It will undoubtedly – if we listen carefully – give us plenty of food for spiritual thought.

it's an article worth the reading...
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1224/1224261230623.html

Christmas greetings

A Christmas letter to download. (180 and 140KBs)
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/AnchellChristmas2009a.pdf
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/AnchellChristmas2009b.pdf

I greet you this day. If you are celebrating this christmastide, I would be glad of a greeting at lindafrd_AT_pcug.org.au (replace the _AT_ with the usual.

Christmas starts today, and we celebrate until 6th January (epiphany) with the arrival of the kings at Bethlehem. Perhaps this year I should be making the French gateau de rois with the little crowns on top and the treasure (trinket) within!

The cost of Copenhagen

George Monbiot might be one of the "new believers", but I listen to him.
see his Guardian column this week after Copenhagen. (it is at http://tinyurl.com/yep8gdt}

He concludes by saying:

   "So what happens now? That depends on the other non-player at Copenhagen: you. For the past few years good people have shaken their heads and tutted and wondered why someone doesn't do something. Yet the number taking action has been pathetic. Demonstrations that should have brought millions on to the streets have struggled to mobilise a few thousand. As a result, the political cost of the failure at Copenhagen is zero."

I have always felt that on this issue I can take my own direct action. "The cleanest energy is the bit you don't use." (as well as the solar generation we put into the grid. But I don't go to the demonstrations. <sigh> There is more I should be doing. (when it gets cooler?)

When the song of the angels is stilled

Goshen College Advent Calendar (http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions) has this poem quoted by Odelet Nance.

This poem by theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman reminds us to share the music in the heart and our blessings.

“When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost, to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among brothers,
to make music in the heart.”

[http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/2009/dec-18-music-in-the-heart/]

Hark da Herald Kittehs Sing

can't resist this one! A special for christmas.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

and the Michelago fire (mentioned in yesterday's blog) is now being "mopped up" having gone further east and being for Burra a wakeup call. Everyone that I talked to has tested their pumps and fire procedures. It was a high cost for Tinderry people.

Michelago fire

Just a personal note. There is a fire going east of Michelago that we saw as smoke to the south of us early this afternoon. It is now in the Tinderry Nature Reserve and in the bushland. One house has been lost. We are very aware of the community down there but also heard (just on the ABC TV 7pm news) that a wind change might come through the night that might threaten Burra Valley. Not nice to hear of your very own community in those bulletins! Friends a little further to the south are in more danger. But to put minds at rest; our new fire pump is attached to the tank which has quite a lot of water in it and the pump does  work! My own little bag is packed; Fred's isn't.... the southern side of the house is probably the safest and although it might be the change of weather that might bring the fire (embers might well be a problem) at least the weather is forecast to change! We hope for a down pour tonight; especially on the fire as it is now. (Fred had pumped up water this afternoon to have a bit more room in the lower tanks for rainfall.... now we might need those tanks full for fire fighting!  :-)  I don't think you can win either way!  

A history lesson

from Uri Avnery

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1260658441

photos of Middle East trip

Christine and Geoff's photos of the (dis)organised trip I was on in
September, are on line at:
http://www.geoffandchris.com./Us/Middle_East_Photos.html.

a few picks:
me on camel:
http://www.geoffandchris.com./Us/Middle_East_Photos.html#11
Bethlehem, Aida Refugee camp. (mural http://www.geoffandchris.com./Us/Middle_East_Photos.html#84) There is also a huge key on the gate. It is a reminder of the key that so many carried away as they fled their homes. Will they ever return? (The young children can; They have a book of photos taken by grandchildren after hearing their grandparents' stories of home. ("Dreams of Home", created by the children of the Lajee Center with Rich Wiles.) see also:http://www.lajee.org/english/main.cfm their web site.

my photos are at:
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Tourist.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Political.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Pilgrim.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Pilgrim2.html

love and marriage (Indian)

Brian's blog at http://www.nottoomuch.com/ alerted me to the Nationa Council of Churches in India Roundtable discussion on sexuality. I had heard about it but not seen the text. http://www.nccindia.in/news/pressrelease/n_144.htm Two paragraphs stand out for me.

After those two, the third paragraph recognises that our sexualities can be very different. It is good to see both ideas in almost the same breath. To my mind, this Delhi message gives the best "argument" for allowing marriage to apply to same sex couples. Why some christian lobbyists disagree is beyond me.

"We affirm that sexuality is a divine gift, and hence God intends us to celebrate this divine gift in committed, consensual, and monogamous relationships. It is in such celebrations of our sexuality that we grow into the fullness of our humanity, and experience God in a special way.

We believe that our negative attitudes towards sexuality and our body-denying spirituality stem from our distorted understanding of God’s purpose for us. The embodied God who embraced flesh in Jesus Christ is the ground for us to love our bodies and to celebrate life and sexuality without abuse and misuse.  So God invites us to experience sexual fulfillment in our committed relationships of justice-love with the commitment to be vulnerable, compassionate, and responsible.

We recognize that there are people with different sexual orientations. The very faith affirmation that the whole human community is created in the image of God irrespective of our sexual orientations makes it imperative on us to reject systemic and personal attitudes of homophobia and discrimination against sexual minorities. We consider the Delhi High Court verdict to "decriminalize consensual sexual acts of adults in private" upholding the fundamental constitutional and human rights to privacy and the life of dignity and non-discrimination of all citizens as a positive step."

Israel annexing East Jerusalem

A European Union report on East Jerusalem is at:

http://australiansforpalestine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/EU-Report-Nov2009-1.pdf

it concludes after discussing the effects on Christians in Old Jerusalem with this phrase:

about Jerusalem's "iconic significance as a place where civilizations meet rather than clash."


The meeting of civilizations (well, the three faiths of the book) was what I experienced in my meanderings around the old city.

I found this report very disturbing, but really saying everything that we had been told and that was "under the surface" in Jerusalem.

http://australiansforpalestine.com/breaking-news-israel-annexing-east-jerusalem-says-eu

The only strange comment I saw was about Israel letting in an influx of tourists onto the Dome of the Rock (Haram al-Sharif); without any control by Islamic authorities. That was not the experience that Fred and I had 12 years ago, being unable to get in then. This year the various holidays confused things and meant that no one from our group was able to enter. My suspicion of the tramway is still there.

The Guardian also has a report at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/07/israel-palestine-eu-report-jerusalem

James Hansen on Copenhagen

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/outspoken-us-climate-scientist.html

"This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill. On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."

Swiss referendum

A Comment on this web site about the Swiss referendum has this quote from Goebbels. I have often railed against "democracy" since it sometimes seems to pander to our worst side. (campaigns that seek to minimise hits to the hip pocket nerve as well as campaigning to keep our borders secure against the hordes.)

While I am fiercely protective of our system of democracy, I accept that it is not a perfect system at all.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1260035333

By the way, the Swiss referendum should give pause to those who have been tempted to think that the system of referendums is preferable to the Parliamentary system. A referendum opens the gates to the vilest demagogues, the pupils of Joseph Goebbels, who once wrote: "We must appeal again to the most primitive instincts of the masses."