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Chatterpillar - Metamorphosis come on!!

 
Big Cat lives in Sydney (Nthn). Originally he was a news writer. Then he focused on entertainment. Now his articles are on good news. This is about transformation. Metamorphosis come on!! Spiritually.

Contentions (Philosophy) - Chatterpillar

Enthusiastic participation in life the 'Celestine Prophecy' way

September 27th 2006 02:09
Ancient Mayan ruins

Just started a good self-help book called "The Celestine Prophecy" by James Redfield, who has a back-up website called www.celestinevision.com.

I'm appreciating it as an "adventurised" self-help book. The usual "shoulds" in boring old didactic style self-help books are replaced in the cut and thrust of an adventure story.

The reader is led in a quest set in South America to discover a series of insights attributed to the Ancient Mayan culture.

Struggle and danger is brought to the quest by opponents - government authorities in league with radically conservative church leaders, all keen to have the insights suppressed.

The first insight is to use the coincidences that occur in life as a kind of paper chase, looking to act in whatever direction the coincidence seems to be pointing.

Certain elements of establishment church are offended because the insight puts each person at centre stage in their own lives. But there are individual priests keen to have the truth told.

The writer seeks to stir readers in the same way as the book's main characters are stirred - to be enthusiastic participants in the evolution of their own lives and those of others, with whom contact comes from acting on the "coincidences".

I googled to see what some critics said about the book. Most of them obsessed about the author's lack of literary prowess. To me the message of the book nullified the urge to keep score of spelling errors and finer literary deficiencies. I discounted the critics as ill-informed as to this purpose.

Any other readers of 'The Celestine Prophecy' out there?
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Lazy giving does not work! Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pushes NGOs, in a confidence boost for disillusioned donors.

September 12th 2006 03:56
Microsoft-type best practice being introduced in the aid industry could force NGOs to be more accountable in the way they compete for and use funds. A news report in the aid/development website Dev-zone.org gives this hope, summarising from an in-depth article in the latest issue of The Boston Review.

Highlights from the Boston Review article authored by Ford Foundation economics professor A V Banerjee:

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation are showing strong commitment to using empirical evidence to form their aid-use decisions.

Empirical evidence to date shows best value is in aid projects defined for objectives and readied for benchmark performance analysis, in a way approaching how corporations seeking equity finance lay out in share prospectus documents.

Prior-established objectives can avert the adverse outcomes that come when aid organisations think they can use donated monies in any way they see fit.

"Lazy giving does not work!"

The full report in The Boston Review

The news is important if disillusioned public donors in the developed nations are to regain confidence in NGOs' use of donated funds. Like the $379.9 million that ordinary Australians gave after the 2006 Boxing Day tsunamis, as reported last post: "Judges' death sentences heartless to Aussies, who have given $ millions to Indonesians".

The dent in confidence was most evident after the 27 May 2006 Yogyakarta (Java) earthquake which demolished more Indonesian dwellings than the 2004 tsunami. Donations failed to meet NGOs' hopes, yet the homes of about 2.7 million Indonesians were affected (source).

Alternative reference

Confidence was no doubt dented by reports like Xinhua's 12 July 2006 "Many Aceh tsunami survivors still living in tents" (link).

Australian in-depth analysis of the performance in aid delivery appears in the aid association ACFID report following its 4 Aug 06 seminar "The Tsunami: reflecting on our efforts" - doc download.

Use of donated aid for reconstruction in Aceh has proved particularly difficult. The May 2006 issue of "Engineers Australia" magazine gives some insight in "Difficulties with project delivery in Aceh" - viewable here.
Ends
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Bloggers - let's keep ALL the bastards honest

September 4th 2006 21:58

As Australia's press commemorates the passing of the Democrats founder Don Chipp, famous for campaigning on "let's keep the bastards honest" - let's look at how we bloggers can help keep ALL the bastards honest. Not just politicians but the press and everyone else, even pedophiles!

News commentators love their jibes against political leaders. But in clamouring for what's sensational, reporters and editors actually deprive us of balanced journalism, whenever they leave out facts pertinent to a subject which might get in the way of a good story.

Take for example last weekend's interest in the Opposition Leader's call in the New South Wales Parliament for the Labor Government to introduce US-style Megan's Law, to make public the address and other details of convicted sex offenders of children.

For a report giving all the cons as well as pros to the idea, it was necessary to google to Queensland for the Townsville Bulletin. Local NSW press left out certain facts favourable to the position taken by NSW Police Minister Mr Scully against making the police registry public.

Neither ABC's Friday night 7:30 Stateline report nor Sydney Morning Herald's report the next day gave a vital statistic: How many people are on the child sex offenders register in NSW? Answer, 2,400 according to the Townsville Bulletin report. But releases from prison are swelling the number all the time. And it would be helpful to know that people stay on the register for 10 or more years. So a reduction in the number registered can't come until aging pedophiles die off.

With the number approaching 3,000 - that seems to imply a lot of NSW men behaving themselves under police surveillance compared to the few that make sensational reports for the press. The old editors' cry - why let the facts get in the way of a good story. Better not to give facts that might dampen the public clamour: "Lock up all the pedophiles! Throw away the key!!"

What's the public cost of keeping a convicted pedophile in protective custody in prison. At least $80,000 each a year, I believe. That's more than $100,000 loss per head per annum to the community including each one's loss of earnings, times 3,000 if NSW prisons are to hold onto all those currently being let out on the police register.

What happens when a state's police register of offenders is made public like on the internet, as NSW Parliament's Opposition Leader Peter Debnam wants tried here? No mention in the Sydney Morning Herald's report. But thanks to Queensland reporter Peter Jean and the Townsville Bulletin editor, we learn an important statistic. From the experience of US states adopting the Megans Law approach, the average proportion who disappear from the register and go underground when their details are made public is 30 percent. How much harder would that make it for NSW police to case manage them?

And what happens to a pedophile's self-control when he has to go underground to make himself safe from society's more rabid, self-righteous defenders who try to burn his house? We need police (not public) coersion to keep these creeps agreeable to being watched carefully.

The Townsville Bulletin gave its readers the assessment of perhaps the nation's most tireless agitator for reforms that better control pedophiles:

"Hetty Johnston, the founder of anti-child abuse group Bravehearts, said Megan's law-style legislation in the United States and the United Kingdom had not worked because child abusers had either gone underground or offended away from where they lived.

"Ms Johnston said all parents should assume there might be a pedophile in their neighbourhood and teach their children appropriate protective behaviour.

"We all have to go about our lives with that understanding – that there could be offender living in your street," she said.

For the whole report - Pedophile [public] register 'won't work'


The blog community' capacity to debate matters can be good for bringing balance too. Have a look at this in Legal Herald
Public register pros and cons
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Seriously seeking, Susan

August 31st 2006 22:43
Ahhhhh! That bird is annoying. It's only 5am. Probably the same kind calling for a mate that they talked about on TV - annoying the whole of Sydney this spring.
That's right.
Hello, you're back again


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Meeting at the Town Hall steps

August 17th 2006 01:57
Hey, Big Cat, fancy seeing you here. Meeting someone?
G'day Lil Siss. Yep. But not for another half hour.
Why are you here so early?
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