Went to see Sydney saint miracle

The front verandah.

I went to see the Tannous family house where they say their son should be Australia’s second saint, after the recent go ahead for Mary MacKillop. You can read the background here and here. The home has a welcoming atmosphere and inside, where the oil on the walls is immediately apparent, there is a peaceful, calm atmosphere. Outside there’s a pleasant grotto where the rosary is said every Fri night at 8pm.

Outside.

I was there on a quiet day, as the house was officially “closed” on Wednesdays, but since a few had turned up, affable Catholic priest
Fr Michael Melhen did a tour for about 10 of us around the corridor and Mike’s bedroom. He sincerely believes that Mike is a messenger from God, who is showing us – via the rose-scented oil and other signs — the link between life and death.

The grotto.

There is more than just rose-scented oil oozing from the walls. It’s a full-on spiritual central – Fr Michael pointed out – using a torch in the corridor – that Mike has done oil drawings on the walls of a chalice (“emphasising the importance of going to Mass”), a ship of salvation, candles, and other religious symbols. And it’s not just Mike — the Virgin Mary had been busy too, appearing four times in the corridor where we were standing in the past few months. And a statue of Mary in Mike’s bedroom regularly weeps tears of oil. Continue reading Went to see Sydney saint miracle

UN Human Rights Day

Professor Colleen Hayward at UN talk.

Went to the United Nations (WA branch) Human Rights Day recently and the guest speaker was Professor Colleen Hayward* on “The UN and Indigenous Peoples – Our Rights and Getting the Wrongs of the Past Righted’’.

Professor Hayward is a senior Aboriginal woman of the Noongar nation in the south-west of Western Australia and is Head of Centre of Kurongkurl Katitjin at Edith Cowan University.

She said the UN’s ideas on rights for all indigenous people are relevant to and could be used by Aboriginal people here as leverage to gain more recognition for past wrongs and getting those fixed.

Continue reading UN Human Rights Day

Visit to Perth

Kings Park, from War Memorial.

I visited Perth recently and paid homage to the statue of ACDC singer Bon Scott, which is near the Fish Markets in Freo. Also, Kings Park for lunch and a visit to the War Memorial.

Govt-wise, Perth is the only State with Liberals (conservatives) in power, and they have all the top former-Howard people there (all top guns, I’ve heard).

Bon Scott statue, Freo

Also, chit chat about the UK and how that’s going. Apparently when Lehman collapsed last year, for six weeks the HM Treasury peeps spent 24/7 at the office, sleeping under their desks and sending people out to buy underwear.

The Queen was FURIOUS and called in the Governor of the Bank of England (first time she’d ever had an audience with him) for a “please explain” meeting on why the ‘brightest minds in the country” had stuffed everything up.
Then she visited the London School of Economics and they showed her diagrams of how everything had gone bad. Theories of “herd” behaviour and “irrational” behaviour had been ignored. Instead, finance people had gone for their own “incentives” and ignored the bigger, global picture. Just looking out for themselves. Also, with derivatives maturing in 5, 10, 15 years, more shocks could be ahead.

Continue reading Visit to Perth

Same Sex marriage rally

Protesters march in George St (Sydney's main street).
Protesters march along George Street (Sydney's main street).

Went to the Same Sex Marriage rally at Sydney Town Hall. One of the speakers, Katrina,  said she’d been warned that the Salt Shakers were there – who hate gay marriage – and they were taking photos to allegedly try and misrepresent the crowd as being smaller than it was. [You can see from the photos on their website that every family is heteronormative. There’s always someone out of the norm, though, that’s life. They must straitjacket all of their family members and friends, trying to squeeze and mask the quirks so they can fit a “normal” definition. I agree with their Cronulla riots analysis, though.]

Just ignore their propaganda, as there was a great turn-up, despite it being stilfing hot. A few speakers, then we marched off to Bathurst St and back in a big square to Town Hall. The police closed off the main street of Sydney, George St, for the march, and the traffic was held up but most motorists were tooting their horns in support, rather than getting stroppy. It was a great atmosphere.

Continue reading Same Sex marriage rally