craigsrant.com

Ok. This is not a rant.  It is a reflection, but “craig’s reflection” doesn’t sound as catchy and doesn’t fit as well on the t-shirt (please call Manuel on the toll free number 1800-765-987 for inquiries…).  Today, after a few trips interstate (on planes, people, planes! and the nervousness was at a minimum) I again took leave of my fam and made my way into Rod Laver Arena (where else to have a pseudo religious day of mourning?) and took up my seat as one of the 2 Church of Christ reps.

By nature, I am a talker.  Preaching was always my fave thing about local church ministry and I guess you would call it my “pastor’s love language”.  So I have nothing against talking.  I have mixed feelings about the mix of State and Church that has to come about for a Day of Mourning.  I am, however, a big fan in three things when it comes to important events: symbols and silence and shared songs.

The most powerful aspects today were the silences and the symbols and the shared songs.  Did you see the SES reps walking down the aisle Hand in hand? Brave, but fragile.  Fearless, but needing each other.  That was powerful. The school kids coming forward in uniform ushered by a parent(?) or teacher.  CFA, police, army, salvos…all coming forward and laying flowers at the wreath all spoke messages of pain, solidarity, endurance and selflessness.  It was sad and inspiring all at the same time.  These heroes needed to be acknowledged, as did the other heroes who just lived their lives and fought the best they knew how to the end.

The symbolic silences were few and far between.  There should have been more montages of survivors, of devastation, of ordinary heroes thrown into extraordinary circumstances, of hope.  I remember being in St Andrew’s in Sydney after Port Arthur, and 30 odd kids walked the aisle and laid roses at the steps of the altar.  Silence and symbol putting the unreality of the death toll sensitively into our hearts.

The shared experiences/songs were amazing - from the anthem to the heart strings that were pulled at the first strains of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and the awesomeness of “I am Australian” and “Touch” right at the end (one lady called out at the end of “I am Australian”: sing it again! I wanted to yell out Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! ).  In those moments the many words that were presented to us were forgiven by the words we could sing and express our sense of hope and our sense of loss. 

It might be insensitive of me, but we came to share.  Not to hear almost a dozen messages…and the most apt of those were the G-G’s, Rudd and Turnbulls.  And the Mayor of Murrundindi.  That’s who we needed to hear from.  And maybe one religious leader…

It is hard to have the courage to be quiet at times like these.  But, in my opinion, words (as almost everyone reminded us) were inadequate.  Words we all knew and evoked in us a communal response were needed.  We need symbols, images, silence, shared songs/experiences.  When those were prominent, it was a powerful “service”.

I’d be interested in what you all thought…

I hate summer colds.  They are repulsive and confusing: am I sweating because I have a temp? Or is it because it is 30 odd degrees? Or am I playing Tiger woods Wii too vigorously? (BTW, not a temp, I’m at a balmy 96.9 F…I just can’t be bothered converting it, sorry…).  And there is a tremendous lack of comfort food in summer.  No one eats soups in summer, or casseroles or shepherd’s pie.  Grasping a mug of hot green tea is almost as unpleasant.  And fruit? Who can fill up adequately on fruit?  Impossible. So, I am cranky at this cold, and partially because it is a sneaky summer cold.  One minute I was fine, the next not.  This cold has breached the Geneva convention on colds - “a cold should give it’s intended victim 24 hrs of mild symptoms, thereby alerting the victim to the impending attack and giving them a chance to dose up on whatever folk cures and old wives tails they believe will work.” (Article VIII)

So, I am taking this cold to the ICC (International Cold Court) and charging it with breaching Article VIII and producing far too much mucus. I may also charge it with escalating into a dry rasping cough.

Oh, that’s right, something more important is going on!

We’re in a worldwide recession, and the K-Rudd has come out with his second stimulus package. Now, before I go on, let me declare a conflict of interest here.  I am one of the many who will gain from this package.  Although, that won’t be true if I happen to lose my job or have my hours reduced!

I do like it though (the package, not the thought of un or underemployment).  The building of 20,000 units of public housing is desperately needed.  Looked at your local Primary School lately?  Most of them could do with new facilities.  The insulation initative is good (but could have been better - what about a solar panel or two for every house) and the increase of rebates for solar and for renters trying to make “their” homes environmentally sustainable is a good idea too.  They are steps in the right direction, regardless of whether they have gone far enough.

And I don’t think that you can fault a stimulus package that has an emphasis on nation building.  There are two major problems that I can see with it, however:

a) There is no “saftey net” for those individuals who will make up the jump from 4.5% to 7% unemployment.  That means, I suspect, that come the May budget more packaging and more stimulating will go on (am I sounding like a spam e-mail yet???).

b) For the nation building to occur, the basically incompetent State Governments around this nation will suddenly have to become efficient.  For goodness sakes, some of them can’t even guarantee power supplies, assume that national power grids will work when heatwaves hit more than one State at a time, and whose premier (when asked about the power usage) suggests that “workers stay at home”…I mean, if I had more energy myself at the moment I could work up to a perfectly good rant on why we don’t need State Governments - we’d save billions and have trains that ran when it got above 30 degrees…sheesh…I think my temp has spiked again (yep, 97.7 F)…enough for now.

Oh, and one last thing…if I hear one more time that this is “just another example of the ALP putting us into deficit”, I may scream.  If this were a Coalition government, a Facist one or run by Jehovah Witnesses in a power sharing arrangement with Mormons, we’d still have a deficit.  Go blame the Americans before you blame the K-Rudd.