About the flag, one thing at least is clear. Ausflag director, Brendan Jones has never tried changing the carpet in an Anglican church.
The changing of the colours
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Lance Lawton
More than words
While waters have flooded Queensland, some Australians with less on their minds have flooded cinemas and other venues. And in a week when public leaders have been exposed to rather more scrutiny than normal on the small screen, it’s strangely timely that the new film “The King’s Speech” has made its mark on the big one. This is a film about public leadership in alarming times, about capturing the trust of a nation or community, about leaders overcoming their frailties or being overcome by them. But it’s also about human friendship, whether between person and person or even between leader and nation.
While some watched this gripping drama featuring first class British actors, the nation watched the same drama featuring real life Australian leaders. Both versions spoke the same message: Leadership is about relationship much more than words. We don’t really want perfect leaders; we wouldn’t trust them. We’ll allow them to be frail if we have just enough opportunities to see that frailty won’t paralyse them when it most matters. We’ll let them be tough-minded, so long as once in a while their hearts touch ours. If their humanity can capture our hearts, they may just have our minds as well
Such has been the Bligh-Gillard story in the dawn of 2011.
Leading flick
A number of friends have raved on Twitter, Facebook and blogs about the new movie “The King’s Speech“, describing it as a must see. As a self-confessed film dork who bombs out on every movie-related trivia question, I wondered what the fuss was about. But having just returned from watching it with a family member, I wonder no more. It really is a must see! (And that from one who cinematically is essentially brain-dead.)
Anyone who finds themselves in leadership, feeling totally inadequate and/or wanting to run away, anyone close to such a person, and certainly anyone who in some sense mentors leaders, simply has to see this. The film well and truly “got to” me on all of those levels and more, at the end – not that I wasn’t gripped well before that.
For those who happen to be followers of Jesus, echoes of many human leaders in the Bible itself, and down through Christian history, leap out of many scenes. Open your Bible .. start with Moses .. swing over to Jeremiah, Samuel, Solomon, Peter .. close the Bible, and keep going. This would be a fabulous flick for a nervous leader and their new mentor to watch together.
Oh, and it even kindles a few sparks of Aussie pride (of the good kind) too. Perhaps a timely antidote to ashes melancholy …
God-talk on Facebook
Some thoughts by one recent Facebook returnee …
Facebook has without question become one of the key places where the world hangs out. (e.g. a recent newspaper article reports that a third of the Australian population now has a Facebook account). So whatever misgivings one may have about Facebook (and I certainly have some), my personal conclusion is that Christians generally, and leaders especially, should be here for the Kingdom’s sake.
But questions remain, and here is but one of them. From a Kingdom point of view, what is the most helpful approach to open discussions (such as occur frequently on one of my friends’ wall) between members of the Christian community, where folks who may not call themselves Christians are listening in and sometimes participating? Is this the right or best place to discuss especially matters of serious contention between believers? (NB: I’m asking this openly, with no assumed ‘right’ answer!)
It’s not that there needs to be a problem with spiritual seekers seeing that Christians have disagreements. And indeed, thinking in terms of Paul’s engagement with the Athenians (Acts 17, second half), there’s something potentially very exciting about taking the Gospel and it’s ramifications into the public ‘marketplace’ of ideas.
But one question that arises is the risk of misunderstanding in this very detached medium, where it’s no simple matter to convey all the nuances of meaning. e.g. To a listener who doesn’t know the wider context or the range of what’s assumed among Christians, a positive comment based on an orthodox understanding of the Bible could well read as hopelessly bigoted or arrogant.
Or to look at it another way, if we’d at least think twice before passionately debating it in a café, should we debate it on Facebook?
My purpose is definitely not to draw lines in the sand. But I hope this may generate some thoughtful reflection.
No backyard
Clarkey pulling up stumps on T20? Makes good sense, I reckon. I did the same thing 10 years ago, when we moved to a house without a backyard.
A grinch for New Year!
Raining on others’ parades is not normally my style. But the $256,000 budget for the fireworks over the ‘G rates at least a casual question. Impressive? Spine-tingling? Jaw-dropping? City exalting? Undoubtedly, and much more.
But just so we can say “the biggest ever”? The same was trumpeted last year. So are we to expect a still grander pyrotechnic largesse for 2012? And that’s not to mention the legendary rivalry with the harbour city to our north. Heaven forbid that their’s might be more impressive, wowing and glorifying than ours! (Even if they do have the bridge, and a seven-figure budget.)
And if the show-me-yours-and-I’ll-raise-you passion really takes hold, what then? Are the citizenries of the two state capitals now unwitting participants in a perpetual Olympics-style bidding war for an annual 30 minutes’ luminescent supremacy?
Let’s just hope the trains can get us home.
Very touching
There’s a lot to like about Myki, and many travellers who’ve been willing to persevere with some of its early foibles have been rewarded with a (mostly) functional and certainly convenient tool. However for public confidence, a thorough review by a new incoming government is essential.
If I were to name one feature most critical to Myki’s longterm viability, it would be the touch-off. Touching on is rarely a problem; touching off is another matter. Two practical examples will suffice …
- Tram confusion: Travellers must remember to touch off on trains and buses but not on trams – unless travelling entirely in Zone 2 (requiring intimate knowledge of zone boundaries);
- Sports crush: Picture the scene of mayhem at Richmond station on the day of a major fixture at the ‘G in sport-obsessed Melbourne. A surging mass of adrenalin-pumped fans, one exit tunnel, ten Myki readers if that … (Dare I say more?)
Relativity in sport
As erstwhile founding father of the Anti-Football League, Keith Dunstan (Opinion, 29/12) is well placed to comment on some of the excesses of Australian sporting fandom. However he, like Guy Thevenet (Letters, 29/12), might do well to recognise that the true thinking behind some of the more flowery commentary on Australia’s Ashes performance is far more varied than meets the eye.
To be sure there are some Australian sports fans – too many probably, for whom life itself is worth living, or not, according to the colour of the medal or which captain finally holds aloft the trophy. The sooner they get over it, the better for us all. But many who share their vocabulary do not share their myopic passions. We join in the collective banter, the language of the herd, not because the scoreboard ultimately matters but because our sense of mutual belonging matters profoundly.
Sport is one of the great levellers of our culture. There are probably few subjects that so quickly and painlessly make friends out of strangers, regardless of estate. Ignore the language. It’s just sport.
Call the vet!
Forget burning the bails. Is there a vet in the house?
When truth leaks no one stays dry
The first flush of WikiLeaking has awoken the world. But in the scramble to untangle the cables, response to the leaker has been anything but nuanced. The most talkative will canonise Julian Assange if the most powerful don’t lynch him first.
On the balance of probability however, history will judge him neither the Messiah nor an especially naughty boy. In human affairs the truth is rarely if ever that simple. For instance, words or phrases like “democracy”, “freedom of speech” or “public accountability” look grand on placards and make fine seasoning in speeches. But who among democracy’s most passionate soldiers would not be on the phone to their lawyer like a rat up a drainpipe, if one of their own ill-judged deeds or utterances were made known in the wrong circles? Accountability is at its best when farthest from home.
Two realities must be held together in this age of unshackled information. Anyone who imagines that inconvenient truths can be kept hidden forever, is a fool. But when truth leaks no one stays dry.