A Hope Filled Look at New Year’s Resolutions

Posted: 1 February 2016

Well we are currently in crunch time for New Year’s Resolutions. The number of you keeping your resolution is shrinking week by week. It was already at 75% just one week into this year, it was at 64% by the end of January, and as low as 46% by the end of June. The statistics are part of a newly released study out of the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology which indicates that while a total of 62% of us actually make resolutions usually or infrequently, only 8% of that number are successful in achieving the goal they had set for themselves at the start of the year. With such a small success rate perhaps it is little wonder that 38% of us don’t even both making a resolution at all.

While it can be easy then to scoff at New Year’s Resolutions and dismiss them as only for those who want to lose weight, make money or find love, the choice of goals are often a part of the problem. One other study of New Year’s Resolutions out of Australia found that of those who failed, 35% admitted it was because the goal was too unrealistic, 33% didn’t keep track of progress, 23% forgot about it and 9% said they made too many resolutions. It’s easy enough to say that we want to lose weight but we probably need to instead consider pledging to cut back on the daily soft drink or the nightly bowl of ice cream. If we want to have more money we’ll probably need to create a workable budget instead of buying a greater number of lottery tickets. Read the rest of this entry »

No food…but plenty of condoms

Posted: 25 July 2012

I opened the newspaper this week to read the headline that Australia will be doubling an aspect of its foreign aid to $50 million to assist the poor women of the world. What a wonderful idea. Perhaps the aid will be going towards vital medication to women in Sub-Saharan Africa; perhaps food and vitamins to women in South Asia; or perhaps it will pay for education and training in more effective farming methods? No. The money will go completely towards ‘family planning’. And not just our $50 million, add to that half a billion dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a total amount from worldwide governments and the private sector of $2.6 billion. This amount was committed during the recently held family planning summit in London. So that is $2.6 billion for condoms, contraceptive pills and IUDs (small devices placed in the uterus which release a chemical to prevent pregnancy). Add to this an army of frontline health workers to go into these far flung places and educate women about how to best stop having children. This is family planning that has as its aim the destruction of the family.

The money will go to sustain the current contraceptive use by 260 million women in 69 of the world’s poorest nations. It will further ‘help’ another 222 million women who want to use contraception but do not have access to it. I wonder who spoke to these 222 million women? It is no secret that much foreign aid has for years been dependent on women signing up to family planning programs. If you have five hungry children and your next ration pack is dependent on having a device stuck up your uterus, it may not leave a great deal of choice. As we all know a mother will sacrifice everything for her children, and in this case her very dignity as a woman. Too often it is truckloads of contraceptives that make it across war-torn and famine-ridden borders instead of truckloads of food, water and medicines. Read the rest of this entry »

What is the point of suffering?

Posted: 5 November 2011

Anyone out there had any sufferings cross their path lately? Perhaps it’s something transitory like recently losing a job. Perhaps it’s something long term like caring for someone with a disability. Maybe it’s the anxious wait to meet the right person or the heartache of dealing with marriage problems. Then of course there are the sufferings that most of us will never have to encounter such as starvation or a lack of clean drinking water. Suffering is a strange thing, it surrounds us and all of us will meet it in some shape at various points through our lives, yet most people have no idea about how to respond to it.

I recall once being down about something and a friend said to me in all sincerity “just remember that there is always someone worse off than you”. I am sure many of you have given or received similar advice. And at face value the logic is true, I am not living on a dollar-a-day in a third world country; I have a car and a house and people who love me. Surely I would be better to consider the trials of others before getting all worked up about my own sufferings? Read the rest of this entry »

Smoking and ‘Safe Sex’ – The Great Hypocrisy

Posted: 22 September 2011

Last month, the Federal Government unveiled draft legislation to introduce plain packaging laws for cigarettes. Health minister Nicola Roxon was unequivocal in her determination to put the final nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry.

Showing off the new compulsory olive green packaging with the vivid images of clogged arteries, cancerous gums and gangrene-infected feet, the minister declared, “We are going to ensure that in Australia there are no remaining avenues for tobacco companies to market and promote their products, particularly to young people. Gone are the days when people can pretend that cigarettes are glamorous.”

I have never smoked, have never had any desire to smoke and nothing frustrates me more than walking down the street and breathing in the secondhand smoke of the person puffing away in front of me, but this latest legislation push does cause me to wonder about the haphazard approach that federal policy takes to the health of its citizens. Read the rest of this entry »