How can Julia Gillard, the Prime Ministers Department staff and all her senior advisors not understand the role of the High Court? How elsecan you explain her recent comments. I am gobsmacked that in the middle of a crisis of confidence in her leadership she fails to grasp a fundamental feature of our system of government!



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Location:Jannali, NSW Australia

Monkey Mind

For years, and I mean a couple of millennia, Buddhism and yoga, have said that a key to having a more tranquil mind is to be attentive to what is happening at the moment. There are a lot of ways this advice has been expressed to the extent that it has entered popular culture- "be in the moment", "be present" etc. This idea encourages people to, for example, think only of eating when you are eating and not what your co-worker said which upset you twelve hours earlier or about how you will pay your credit card at the end of the month.

Easy to say, hard to do. All of us carry around an internal monologue in which we hum tunes, debate grievances from years past, worry or generally ruminate over issues about family, money, personal injustices or fantasies of wealth and success or the defeat of enemies. Really, I have no idea what goes on in the mind of another person but based on what people have revealed in conversation or written in novels, most people seem to have active minds which jump from topic to issue, issue to fantasy, fantasy to memory, memory to topic and around and around and around.

This ceaseless activity of the mind can involve for some a deep pit of depression or just plain unhappiness. Unresolved ambition, jealousy and toxic relationships can burden moment to moment thinking with sour poisonous thoughts. One of the current trends in Psychotherapy is Mindfulness Therapy. It appears to borrow from the mediation and mental health advice in Buddhism and Yoga in that people are asked to direct and redirect their mind away from the problems with which they are suffering and pay attention to what they are doing in a deliberate and calculating manner.

There is more to it than can be summarized here but the convergence of the ideas of Eastern Philosophy with Psychology is, for me, exciting. The recently successful book "The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy ( Segal, Williams & Teasdale) and the pioneering work of Jon Kabat-Zinn seem to be pointing in a direction indicated by many philosophers from Buddha to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

For people wanting to do work in this area of personal development the way ahead is a lot harder than popping a pill. Being attentive to personal discipline of your own mind is a difficult thing to learn. When we are overstimulated, tired, stressed and worried we don't sleep well, we access coffee, alcohol and, just when we need to "get our head together", we are least able to do so. It is a sort of "pulling yourself up by your own bootstrap" problem.

The problem of implementing the "Mindfulness" therapy is a bit reminiscent of Zen "Beginners Mind". Following a teacher, therapist or a guru may be the answer. Still there is hope and with the help of good direction from an experienced therapist some people may be helped towards a happier life.

I'll let you know how I get on.




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Location:Sydney, Australia

The significance of death

Osama Bin Laden is dead and many people are rejoicing.
I am disturbed that so many find pleasure in the death of any person. Don't get me wrong. I understand that Bin Laden claimed he helped plan the deaths of thousands of people and the events of 9/11 have changed the world for the worse. Many people who lost relatives or were maimed by his actions would feel some satisfaction in Bin Laden suffering a violent death. Their prolonged pain has caused an injury to the normal feelings they would have about death.

But why do so many people cheer Bun Laden death as they would the victory of their football team. Surely only a small percentage have suffered directly by his actions. As a group Americians are "united" by Bin Laden's death, according to Barrack Obama. That is at the heart of why there is so much rejoicing. The group reinforces itself and self-identifies by such action.
Strange then that the same celebration is conjoined with the phrase "God bless America".
There are no prayers for the soul of Bin Laden offered by professed Christians who follow the Messiah who said "I give you one commandment love one another".
Religion truly sits lightly on the military loving culture of America. The glory of battle, the clash of weapons and the defeat of enemies is the true religion of America.Christ did say you will know them by what they do when he was asked how you could identify his true followers.
I do not mourn Bin Laden. He was the product of his culture. An iron age culture brought him into being and he and people like him resist modern life.Rational and compassionate living are the only answer to violent madness.
Humanity still has a lot of social and personal evolution to go through before we can live in peace.

Orderly Society

We all value an orderly society except in exceptional circumstances. In Egypt disorder has currently been chosen by the people as the only lever they possess to force a change in government.
Shops, buildings and vehicles are being burnt and people are combating police because the regime in power has outlived the patience of the people.
Violence, secret police and corruption have been used to keep the people under control but as is said there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
The 'idea' in Egypt is that the regime is vulnerable and now the people feel they are able to topple their tormentors.
After a week or more of chaos there appears to be no way back. Mubarak may be able to leap from the fire but that seems unlikely.
Let's hope for a pluralist democracy with universal suffrage. Or is that too much if a European ideal. What will the people of Egypt see as their desired future?
We can watch and see history unfold.

Location:Supreme Court of New South Wales

It Begins With a Test

This week in Parliament is a contest between Abbott trying to gain an advantage over Labor by characterizing the Gillard Government as breaking an electoral promise and Gillard allowing Abbott to adopt the position of being the bully. Just so long as the Labor Government doesn't lose the initiative on policy formation Abbott will be shown up as a bully and Gillard a leader.
This will be a long grinding test where Abbott will have to keep shifting his focus and Gillard will have to keep "moving forward" or lose. He will be handicapped by both his manner and the need to keep refueling on issues of integrity and competence. Gillard will have to deal with the competing interests of the Independents who will be like cats; self-centered and unco-operative.
Stay tuned...



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Location:Sydney

Those awful Boat People are coming still - A long term psychosis

Why are we afraid of boat people really? Long sea journeys, routine law enforcement & prohibitive expense mean that we will never have the same problem with illegal immigration as Italy, Germany, Spain or England. Yet the hot, urgent fear of "boat people" motivates Australia to detain people for long periods, impose off-shore processing and cause significant mental trauma. The response is out of proportion to any real danger.

Risks to public health and infiltration by terrorists can be controlled by routine screening. Really we can exclude most people coming here as potential terrorists. How many middle class family groups seeking refuge are likely to be intent on doing harm?

However, out of a strange cultural quirk Australians react to migration with apprehension and, in the case of boat people, fear. White Australia policies dating back before Federation have been a feature of public policy in our country. As a result that successive governments spend inordinate amounts of money on imprisoning people who are fleeing persecution or economic hardship in harsh conditions for long periods of time in remote locations far from sources of support of advice.

How can we turn around public opinion which grows out of a deep cultural peculiarity? We need leadership from all our political parties. Will Julia Gillard be able to meet this challenge or is she going to be like Howard, like Abbott?

James Pope

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Location:Sydney

I remember seeing the moon landing with a group of fellow 11 year olds in a crowded school room but it didn't happen the way I recall it or so I am told. We were not where I think we were, I wasn't with the people I remember were with me and we didn't see what I recall seeing.


My memory is vivid through regular exercise and reinforced by numerous viewings of TV footage of Armstrong & Aldrin but the memory I have is irrecoverably polluted by other peoples depictions of the event.

My memory is a sham. It is an artifact formed out subsequent expression and the art of others.

Every day in the courts in Australia and throughout the "Western" world judges and magistrates assess the relative merits of witnesses and choose a version of the incidents in question according to who is credible. It is vital function of the judicial officer but it is in function, in many ways, like a real time book reviewer assessing the merits of  different fictional accounts but people are jailed or loose fortunes as a consequence.

The unspoken truth is that little or no allowance is made by all too many judical officers for the different personality traits which can affect the way a witness presents in court. Some people are argumentative by nature and seem to ne uncooperative in the witness box. Other witnesses are uncomfortable with authority or intimidated by the educated vocabulary of the court and do not give their evidence in a convincing manner. Still others have English as a second language or have such a limited vocabulary as native English speakers that they are so clumsy in expression that they are incapable if accurately express what they saw.

Nevertheless, the courts plug on with the responses by individual judicial officers to the variability of witness presentation being wildly unpredictable.

Western justice systems are sophisticated but in need of "upgrading" to allow for contemporary understanding of memory and expression.

James Pope