(Thanks for your patience with me while I took a break from publishing my recreational whinges.  I was still whinging…just in other ways.  I’m back now!)

Pastor Terry Jones (left) says he will go ahead with a protest on April 22 (AFP: Paul J Richards)

Recreational Whinge: Recently there has been terrible violence in Afganistan in response to the idiotic and hateful act of Pastor Terry Jones in Florida when he burned a Koran, and continues to threaten to lead an anti-Islam protest outside the biggest mosque in the US.  Read the news story here.

Recreational Whinge: Here in Australia, we’re in the middle of an election period with all the typical debates, promises and mudslinging that you might expect…and a fair amount of atrocious behaviour you might not expect.  (Disrespectful Human Behaviour Choices!)

If there’s one statement I’m more angered / saddened by than any other it is this…”Let’s wait and see what other countries agree to do about the environment before we commit ourselves to an emissions trading scheme.  Why should we have one if countries like the USA, China and India aren’t running one?”

Oh come on!

Australia is the number two emitter of CO2 on the planet after the USA.  Don’t we have a responsibility to act now and be a role model on the planet?!

I recognise and appreciate that there are economic complexities involved.  We are smart enough to overcome these.

Waiting to see what other countries do before we act is more than just irresponsible.  It’s also downright dumb!

The Positive Spin: There have been some great articles and research papers published recently demonstrating how Australia could take the lead in energy generation for the planet, particularly using solar power.  We have a HUGE amount of space in the Outback which is mostly uninhabitable but could be effectively used to create incredibly large solar energy farms.  The energy harnessed could then be shared to the rest of the world through a series of power lines through Southeast Asia and then around the world.

Yes, this would be a massive undertaking!

But it could also mean putting an end, once and for all, to our reliance on fossil fuels!

Here is a great link if you would like to read just a bit more:

http://www.desertec-australia.org/content/australiacsppotential.html

WE CAN DO THIS! We simply need our politicians to agree and commit to it for our sake in Australia and for the planet!

WRITE TO YOUR FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES AND ALL OF THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES IN THE ELECTION AND DEMAND THEIR ATTENTION TO THIS!

Recreational Whinge: A friend was telling me last night that he went to the football (Australian Rules Football) over the weekend and during the between-period break, there’s a part of the stadium area where kids and others can pass and kick around a football.  All good sporting atmosphere fun, right?

Well, some jerk (a 20 something adult) comes up to two kids kicking the football around, tackles one of them, takes the ball and kicks it out of the stadium, then walks back to his mates laughing about it.  Meanwhile the kids have stunned looks on their faces wondering what just happened and why.

Recreational Whinge: This past week, the Australian Senator Steve Fielding (from the Family First party…that’s a RW for another day!) stated in the Senate that he was concerned some women would choose to get pregnant, receive parental leave benefits from their employers (as part of new government legislation granting these rights) and then have a late term abortion and keep the money.

Does he really believe the rubbish that comes out of his mouth?  Is it possible he’s had a serious trauma to his head recently?

Recreational Whinge: There was a news report recently about some hooligans who late at night decided to jump start some bulldozers, put one in a lake and use the rest to demolish an historic gazeebo and destroy some beautiful park lands.  Could alcohol have been involved?  You can read about their stupid vandalism here.

What could possbily have been going through these young guy’s minds to think that their prank which destroys really expensive equipment and historic structures is fun?  I will never accept that the alcohol made them do it if in fact that’s an excuse they might base their defense on.

How fun will it be when they get sent the bill for their stupidity?

Recreational Whinge: For more than a hundred years in Australia, religious instruction has been given to primary school students.  Recently a trial has been underway to offer a secular ethics class as an alternative for those who don’t want religious instruction.  And the churches are furious about it!

And I’m furious about that!

There was a fantastic programme on SBS Insight last week that I feel you need to check out.  You can read the overview and transcript of the episode or watch it online if you prefer.

Here’s the link to see the arguments presented and the fears of teaching our children ethics (without religion) that the religious representatives demonstrated to us.

I was amazed to find that they’re concerned about “competition” with their religious instruction courses.

They are fearful that children will learn to think for themselves, make their own decisions and determine their own moral code without being TOLD WHAT TO BELIEVE BY THE CHURCH, SYNAGOGUE or MOSQUE!

Isn’t about time we removed all religious influence in our government and the decisions governments make about our education?

Yes, I’m an atheist.  I just can’t understand how we can refer to the beliefs of people centuries ago in various cultures who believed in numerous gods and we call that “mythology” but once we were told somewhere along the line that there was only one god that remarkably that wasn’t mythology anymore but fact.  What?

Religion today is simply a small number of people telling the rest of us what to believe so they can control us.  It’s so easy to see how this has happened throughout the past few thousand years of our human development and yet so many people obviously want to be controlled and told what to believe in and how to act.

It just seems completely ridiculous to me that we require religious instruction in our schools when we are a secular country.  But I guess, maybe we’re not really secular after all?

My recreational whinge for today = teach ethics in schools, not religion.  Save religion for more appropriate spaces such as places of worship…or better yet, mythology class!

The Positive Spin: At least there are programmes like SBS’s Insight which are brave enough to put this issue out there to get the rest of us engaged in the conversation!  And sometimes these opportunities can create a really positive and powerful shift in societal thinking.  I have faith that our society will come to its senses.

And the more young people who attend ethics classes instead of religious instruction, the more intelligent, independent, free and successful our society will become.  I know my thoughts here are not going to be popular with many and some may think that I’m not being fair.  But I am being honest about how I feel and I’m grateful for the freedoms I have to express these thoughts and which have the opportunity to inspire others to think more critically for themselves.

Recreational Whinge: When you hear stories of stupidity in action, such as when Rep. Hank Johnson stated in a US congressional hearing that he thought the island of Guam would capsize if too many people went there, it makes you wonder if stupidity is a virus that has swept around the world infecting countless millions of people in all stations in life.

Here’s Hank showing us how serious this affliction can be:

The Recreational Whinge: There are so many issues and crisis situations impacting our planet and society and I can get really frustrated, angry and sad when I think about them and what appears to be a crisis of leadership in responding to them.

There’s a great book by David Orr called, Down to the Wire in which he states that the toxicity we find in the planet has a direct relationship to the toxicity of human relationships.

Recreational Whinge: Recently I needed to have an award created for a special event and I had researched quite a bit online to find the right type of crystal award instead of a plastic or plain glass one.  I actually spent hours researching the product, but unfortunately I didn’t spend much time researching the company I would order through.  The product was more important to me at the time.

Unfortunately, the product I wanted was being manufactured and sold by a company I would soon find out had no idea how to provide award-winning service!

Recreational Whinge: Australians have this very unique way of saying something bitchy about someone.  They frequently start off by saying, “Jill… She’s really lovely, but what a bitch!”  Or it might go something like, “Jack is such an annoying prat.  I mean, he’s a really lovely guy, but he can annoy the heck out of me!”

So, which is it?  Lovely or something else?