Single Frame Stories Week 17 "Easy"

Single Frame Stories, is telling a story in a single frame.

Each Saturday (or Sunday) we’ll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

This week, the prompt is "Easy"

I get a letter:-

Dear Shockwave, 
Please take this ring to Mordor, as I've twisted my ankle. 
It should be easy.
PS It's perfectly safe
PPS Take a sword.

 “There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

Holy Redundant Rebooted

 

The Holy Redundant Campaign has kicked off again due to the recent vote by the Church of England over the ordination of woman bishops.eg In case you hadn't heard they said "No Thanks".

This of course was big news, it also highlighted that the Church has reserved seats in the House of Lords, and these seats an now confirmed as men only.

 Could this happen in any other first world country?  Don't think so.  Past time for the Lords Spiritual to go.

There is a new petition to remove the Bishops from the Lords

You can also email your local MP from the Holy Redundant website. Personally I think it's better to not to send an email from a website, but to use the same arguments and sent it personally. 


My Lords temporal, today is the day to rise up against the regiment of Lords spiritual and proclaim the values of enlightenment, compassion and common sense. Polly Toynbee

Single Frame Stories Week 16 "Humility"

Single Frame Stories, is telling a story in a single frame.

Each Saturday we’ll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

This week, the prompt is "Humility"

I'm a small speck of dust, in the infinity of the Universe.

This is a part of the Hubble Space Telescopes "Deep Field". The entire picture shows over 3000 Galaxies, do you think that's a lot? It isn't, not even close..


I'm an atheist, quite often we (as a group) are called arrogant, usually by those who believe they have a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe. We usually say prove it. That's it..you have a GOD....The Creator of the Entire Universe on your side, your best friend forever, and we just ask for proof

The universe is 13 billion years old, 83 Billion light years across, it contains at least 2000 galaxies for each human being alive right now. Each galaxy containing billion and billions of stars, and this was created just for Christians to look at.

Think about it....your god..created all this just for YOU! 

I think that's just silly,  especially for a god who is only capable of appearing in a piece toast on occasion .

We are born, we live, and we die, game over, sorry.

I used to believe in reincarnation, karma, spirit guides, and the collective unconscious, but I never found any good evidence for it. The more I learn, the more I see how good humans are at fooling themselves.

Indeed, this is what our conscious mind does best, the best book I read on this is from Prof Bruce Hood, the Self Illusion . Our sense of our self, is just part of the processing of our minds, strange how it works, but the delusion is so complete, most people will do anything to avoid this realization, indeed I suspect we are built this way.

So we are over intelligent risen apes, that know to much, die far to young, and we should be using our time to build a better world for ourselves and our descendants. Too many people on this planet are obsessed with the immortality fable, and this may be the reason we will go extinct.

  (I also can't believe I hit the publish button 3 days early  :-(  )

“No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. ” - Alexander Pope

Single Frame Stories Week 15 "Critique"

Single Frame Stories, is telling a story in a single frame.

Each Saturday we’ll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

This week, the prompt is "Critique"

At the Gallery I asked "What do you think of my artwork?" and "What future do you think I have in art?"  They were quite a tough crowd.




“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” ― Aristotle

NSW Police allege Catholic Church cover up child abuse

Australian TV station the ABC has Current affairs show called Lateline, and tonight Lateline has a story  (internationally viewable) on NSW Detective Peter Fox and his battles with the Catholic church. Also his call for a Royal Commission to do a wide ranging investigation of the Church.

From the Transcript :-

PETER FOX, NSW POLICE (Sept. 2012): I've been on the police force for 34 years. I'm not a kid that just joined yesterday. I've been involved in investigating the clergy for about 20 of those. There are very good reasons, let me tell you, that we need a Royal Commission.

SUZANNE SMITH: To understand the enormity of the abuse in this one small area of NSW, you need only to look at the statistics for the Newcastle-Maitland Diocese:

Newcastle-Maitland has 400 known victims of child sexual abuse by clergy.

11 clergy have been charged and convicted since 1995.

Six catholic teachers have been convicted.

Three priests on trial at the moment.

For the first time ever a priest was charged this year with concealing the crimes of another.

12 priests involved in substantial compensation claims.

And, it had the highest known compensation payout to a victim, the amount of $3 million.

And today, two police strike forces are investigating whether Church officials were involved in covering up crimes.

Not all the clergy are fully cooperating with police

Explosive stuff...

Didn't we see the exact same issues with the Catholic Church in Victoria a month or so ago?

 He has also written an open letter to the State Premier Barry O'Farrell to highlight the problems the police are facing.

Don't forget, it was this current Pope that decided that Child abuse investigations are to be kept inside the church. You can read the 2001 letter here

EDIT 9/11/2012
UPDATE

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell on Friday announced a special commission of inquiry into police investigations of alleged paedophile priests in the Hunter region.

Not good enough...we need an investigation into the Catholic Church on an Australia wide basis.

The Vatican, and its vast network of dioceses, has in the past decade alone been forced to admit complicity in a huge racket of child rape and child torture, mainly but by no means exclusively homosexual, in which known pederasts and sadists were shielded from the law and reassigned to parishes where the pickings of the innocent and defenseless were often richer. In Ireland alone — once an unquestioning disciple of Holy Mother Church — it is now estimated that the unmolested children of religious schools were probably the minority. -Hitchens

Say goodbye to UK NHS

Britain has had a universal healthcare system since 1948, and whatever  faults it has, it serves most of the people well enough.

It's now on the verge of being privatised, you know... Americanised..and we know how well that works. If you have ever taken a trip to the USA you will probably notice that you have to pay much extra for health Insurance. 

For a run down of how this has happened I suggest reading this blogpost by Marcus Chown. Then to keep up with what is happening on a daily basis Eoin Clarke has it covered.

Recently Channel 4 did an in depth investigation on the sell off of the NHS, and this can be watched if your in the UK here

How could this happen you ask, could there be some sort of conflict of interest with sitting members in the Government? Funny you ask that. Seems lots have some sort of interest in Heath Care. Social Investigations have a story on that as well.

More blatant corruption...unbelievable.


  "This underlines what the government is actually about, it's nothing at all to do with restoring the economy, it's about smashing the public sector..." John Lister

Single Frame Stories Week 14 "A Shot in the Dark"

Single Frame Stories, is telling a story in a single frame.

Each Saturday we’ll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

This week, the prompt is "A Shot in the Dark"... I think A Shop in the Dark would be so much easier... 

I shot my heart into the dark, I didn't need it any more, I was told it landed in a park, somewhere over in Gor.


“When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.”  ― Ursula K. Le Guin

Comic: Capital City Darkness

Unfortunately, It's a bit late for Halloween, and too many of the pictures are a bit dark  :-(  I was trying to add a bit of drama with the camera angles.... hmmmm.

 

 Everyone's quick to blame the alien. - Aeschylus