Australia

Sixteen and a half years ago I visited Australia and it so happens that I have seen with my own eyes the beautiful part of that country that is now burning.

I was there in August, 1992 which was a newsworthy time that sticks in the mind of many when I mention two things that happened while I was there. The first was "Squidgygate," where personal intimate recordings of Princess Diana, where she is called by a beau "Squidgy" were smeared all over the press. The recordings were made several years prior (by some innocent neighbors who just happened to pick up the cell phone signals, I mean, duh, yeah, right, just so happens) but interestingly they were released while I was in Australia. I had bought a platypus plush toy and thus named it Squidgy. To this day I wonder about people's cruelty to one another.

A few days after Squidgygate was announced Hurricane Andrew ripped into southern Florida in the USA. I watched grainy pictures of the news coverage as I was still in Australia, but about to leave. Hurricane Andrew remains one of the most destructive hurricanes in USA history.

My nature tour of Australia had taken me to Perth on the west coast and then Melbourne on the south. While in Melbourne we took a bus (coach) to visit Healesville Sanctuary, and tour the surrounding areas. I remember beautiful scenery of hills, meadows with well fed black Angus cattle, forests, a lovely bucolic scenery. At Healesville Sanctuary I was startled and cautious to encounter face to face an emu that had apparently escaped confinement. They can deliver quite a dangerous kick to the groin so I was justifiably cautious. Healesville was very nice with koala, kangaroos and wallabies all lolling around in ease and comfort. People on a small paddock near where I live now keep one or two emu among their goats. I understand that they are good to eat and have researched recipes.

If you look at Google maps, Australia, Healesville, you will see that it is just down the road from Maryville, one of the villages that has burned to the ground in the firestorm.

Another thing I recall of that day in the area is that I saw from the coach a huge double rainbow. I do believe that was my first clear sighting of a double rainbow, though I saw several at my previous home since then.

Being driven out of one's home and burned alive is a terrible, terrible thing.

It is even worse when the routine risks of nature, as fire most certainly is, is exacerbated by those with at least immaturity and at worse a murderous rage who set some of the fires to stoke more fear and destruction. I hope that all who are guilty are identified and prosecuted, and that all who suffer and mourn are comforted in the Lord.

More Innocent Times

I'm listening to the debate about the publishing of Princess Diana's death pictures. I have two thoughts about this. One is that of course people should not be so crass and mean. The other is that, however, society has already sunk so low (think child porn) that it almost doesn't matter. I'm not saying that "anything goes" but I'm thinking that the only way to inoculate from the scum who mask themselves as human and who take pleasure in embarrassing and painful pictures of people and their loved ones, is just not to care.

Jesus had his skin ripped off of him and was nailed naked to a cross to die. The martyrs that followed him had many terrible things done to them. And today there are many people who were victims of childhood or adult sexual abuse.

I remind people who have been sexually abused that while we don't dwell on those thoughts, that of course many of the Catholic martyrs who were virgins were raped and abused before they were roasted or otherwise killed. The Catholic Church has remained steadfast in their understanding that those who die in Jesus Christ are born renewed. Those martyrs were considered virgins and remain virgins, even if their bodies had been raped. I'm not minimizing at all the abuse that anyone has undergone - to the contrary, I am doing more to honor it than most secular therapists will, who wish to keep those who have been harmed in a mind set of being flawed and profaned. They are not flawed, they have been terribly hurt, yes, but their mind set can be restored to feeling the holiness of the temples of their bodies again.

So now I feel almost like, go ahead, print the picture of Princess Diana. Where she is now she is so far from caring about the pictures. And her sons. bless their hearts, are fine strong young men, and I think that they can condemn how crass people are today, yet detach themselves from feeling that any further damage is done to her.

Oh dear, the innocent days are so far gone that it's impossible for anyone under 40 to recall first hand. I wonder if we can go back to times when Bucky Dent posed, in a swimsuit, for "Playgirl" magazine in 1983? I don't remember seeing that pin up but I can imagine that it is much more innocent than the filth and garbage spewed throughout our so called "society" and "culture" today. (By the way, total coincidence, I know another Bucky who made it to be his business where he should not have been. God will "shine a mirror" onto that moment and not find it funny or justifiable!)