Dr Peter White's Blog

Thoughts and comments from Dr Peter White -- political, philosophical, spiritual, musical and more

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Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

I am retired from the Uni. of Queensland, and have numerous interests inside and outside of the uni. I play classical, bluegrass, country and folk guitar (hows that for a mix?) I am a member of the Australian Labor Party and am currently branch secretary of the Mt Coot-tha branch. I'm also involved in developing virtual reality builds and websites. Never bored!

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Leaving the "Bah Humbug" era...

This Christmas season has been a particularly good one. With a change of government in Oz, we seemed to have a change of heart in the body politic, one that is working to be more compassionate and understanding. And not before time.

The church that I go to has a very active social action arm called Project Micah, which has grown from a very small unit in the parish to one of statewide significance. This year they stated that the number of families which approached them for help this Christmas was 600, double from last year's number. It is numbers like this which appear from time to time in scanty press reports that lead one to believe that the neo-con approach to government and social justice over the past eleven years has been a dismal failure, with more and more people and families falling below the survival line.

So this Christmas my partner and I have concentrated more on the spiritual meaning of this season, rather than that proposed and hyped by the masters of mammon. We have found it extremely refreshing.

In the year to come, I hope that the statistics of Project Micah will show a marked drop in the number of families and people needing assistance. I hope that we as a nation can put our considerable creative and dynamic energies into dealing with our environmental issues. I hope that as the world economy destabilises and shrinks -- as all the pundits say it will -- that we here will work in a spirit of cooperation and good will to ensure that we all survive, and in fact, prosper both physically and spiritually.

Merry Christmas and a happy and successful 2008 to all.

P B White

Saturday, December 01, 2007

The king is dead, long live the king!

At long last, the people of Oz grew weary of the dry, economic rationalist, neo-con government that ruled the land for 11.5 years, and voted them out last week.

We sat and watched the election count on television, and saw that the conservatives were not only thrown out of office, but were decimated to boot, with even the prime minister losing his seat.

It was not before time.

Now the new slightly left of centre government under Kevin Rudd has serious challenges ahead of it: first to redress the many wrongs of the previous administration; to redevelop the nation in a forward thinking way rather than looking backwards; and to maintain a reasonable life style in a world rapidly emptying of resources, particularly oil and water.

I pray they govern wisely and with compassion.

More later
P B White