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Oh baby, baby, it's a wild world...

The words to the immortal Cat Steven's song have been on my mind lately as I sit down to peruse the world news. Earthquakes, tsunamis, climate change, war and refugees, unemployment and general disquiet can make the world seem a scary place. Down here in the ‘lucky country’ we can sometimes be tempted to turn away from the chaos of the wild world and deny what we don’t want to be true. The problems of the world are across vast oceans and we like to keep it that way.Case in point: the Christmas Island Detention Centre, four hours flight from Perth.

We stash those who ask us for refuge out on a far away island, at arms length, despite the inflated cost of providing basic services at such a distance. The Uniting Church thinks that it would be better for everyone involved if we could process these so called ‘boat people’ onshore as we do for those who arrive by plane. The President of the Church, Alistair Macrae went with a delegation of church leaders to see for himself what services were like. You can read his impressions of the Christmas Island detention centre in his reflection Far away on Christmas Island.

So often when we open our eyes to the rest of the world, what we see can be frightening but also immeasurably enriching. This March, we’ll be bringing you just a few stories from that wild world.

Far away on Christmas Island

Thursday, 04 March 2010 08:35
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By Rev. Alistair Macrae

From L to R: Rosemary Hudson Miller, Associate General Secretary (Justice & Mission) for the Uniting Church Synod of WA and Chair of CARAD —Coalition for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees, the Rev. Alistair Macrae, President of the Uniting Church in Australia, the Most Rev. Roger Herft, Archbishop of the Anglican Diocese of Perth outside Construction Camp, the part of the Christmas Island Detention Centre where families and children are housed.I’ve just returned from a trip to Christmas Island to see first hand how asylum seekers arriving by boat first experience Australia. The spike in boat arrivals in Australia in the past 6 months represents the tiny tip of the massive worldwide refugee crisis. Countries in other parts of the world are looking askance at what they regard as a mean-spirited Australian response to the crisis. Compared with many other countries we are simply not carrying our share of the load.

Our delegation of church leaders wanted to explore how churches and other religious communities in Australia might join with voluntary and not-for-profit groups and compassionate locals to help humanize the strange and artificial world of Christmas Island Detention Centre for those on the inside.

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Animals in Utero

Tuesday, 02 March 2010 11:01
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A joint project between the National Geographic Channel and Channel 4 has used advanced high definition cameras to capture animals and embryos during pregnancy and birth. They used infrared and 4-D scanning techniques, as well as realistic computer-generated models. We thought this was sufficiently incredible to pass onto you to enjoy the magic that is conception, gestation and birth.

 

cubeme.com/blog/2009/12/23/in-utero-images-glimpse-animals-inside-the-womb/

 

Book review: Eating Animals

Tuesday, 02 March 2010 08:34
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Eating Animals
Jonathan Safran Foer
Hamish Hamilton rrp $32.95

By Amy Goodhew

I didn’t want to read this book. I was happy, blissfully ignorant in fact, reveling in the occasional bacon binge and guilt free meat lovers pizza. I enjoyed Safran Foer’s earlier work ‘Everything is Illuminated’ so I clicked on a link when I read that his latest work had turned Natalie Portman vegan. What she had to say about the book was powerful and frankly - I was spooked. What did this book say that was so powerful about what we eat?

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Rethinking eating animals.

Tuesday, 23 February 2010 14:48
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By Amy Goodhew

FACT: Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change.

FACT: Australia has one of the highest incidences of pet ownership in the world with 63% of the 7.5 million households in Australia pet owners.

FACT: When fishing for tuna, 145 other species are regularly killed including manta ray, sharks, albatrosses, gulls, common dolphin, humpback whale and many, many others.

What do these facts have in common? They all relate to our complex and contradictory relationships with animals and food.

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Fair Threads

Thursday, 18 February 2010 08:39
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Thinking globally and acting locally is something we’re become more familiar with. More and more of us are thinking a little harder about where we spend our money. Rather than buying the apples that are snap frozen, impregnated with pesticides, sand imported from who knows where - we buy local, fresh and organic. It’s sinking in that it’s better not to leave all the appliances running when not actually in the house, that we don’t need to drive when we could walk. What once was radical now seems just sensible. This way of thinking is extending to how we dress. People would prefer not to wear clothes put together by exploited and poorly paid people and the fashion industry is responding. Natalie Shymko looks at the growing industry of ethical fashion.

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