Harmatt Lindeman playing Bach with a round bow from the 1930s. Amazing control.

1. Have moved the laptop to Debian unstable, using the sidux scripts. Things are still looking ugly and I am having to learn KDE but they are more stable than fedora.
2. Finally got Google analytics working.
3. Rebuilding the links here.
4. Removed flashplayer — which is broken for 64-bit linux at present, and installed gnash. This will ruin youtube at present: have installed flashblock. Which is not a disaster
5. Installed the one essential tool for firefox — zotero — which keeps my bibliographies and plays nicely with open office
6.

This is from the obituary of Karen Woo, Doctor, Aid worker, and now martyred by the Taliban. We need to keep her family, and the families of the other nine killed in this incident, in our thoughts and prayers.

The journey north was never going to be risk-free. The violence has now spread to the area, with the fighters of the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar carrying out attacks on government officials, foreigners and each other.

Dr Woo and her colleagues had been asked by elders in Nuristan for medical aid. It was, she maintained, a duty for them to go. “We know there may be problems, but these people need help and it seems right that we should try to give that help… we are not involved in politics: we are medics.”

The Badakhshan police chief said: “Before their travel, we warned them not to tour near jungles in Nuristan, but they said they were doctors and no one was going to hurt them.”

via The death of my friend Karen – Asia, World – The Independent.

The Taliban were concerned that they were Christian and trying to convert the locals. The fools. They neither understand that it is the duty of any doctor to treat whoever is bought to them — regardless of race or creed. Nor do they understand that the Christian base of Western Ethics mean that she was motivated to help the suffering.

And the Taliban do not understand a lesson the Soviets did learn: to make such a woman a martyr is to make these issues not go away. There is a saying in the Reformed tradition: the blood of the martyrs fertilises the church. Her work will continue.

I’m a solo Dad. My oldest daughter found herself pregnant. I praise the Almighty she lives in another country because she was not able to cope, was placed in a home for solo Mums, learnt life skills, had a really caring boyfriend (she is now married to) and had the support of their family.

I backed her in laws. They are now doing OK. In Canada, the socail welfare system is PC and bossy, but still functions.

But in NZ she would have got a state house and been shoved into the underclass. We bow overmuch to the family. And we do not have the resources we need.

But, right now, we have children in danger; what about them? We can’t remove all at-risk children, as some suggest, because there just ain’t enough places to remove them to.

As usual, we blame Child Youth and Family (me included) but this time I spoke, off the record, to some social workers.

They’re buggered, to put it mildly. Many of them have 30 families on their caseload, some really violent. Social workers are regularly threatened. How can they protect children in this environment? We need more social workers for starters.

Maori social workers confirm it’s mostly Maori mothers and children in danger, with some being severely sexually abused.

If the Government can find money to restore old wharf sheds, it can find money to pay social workers more and recruit teams – trusted people to help CYF supervise at-risk families. Don’t take the babies away – help the mums and boot out the boyfriends.

This week, I attended a reunion at Porirua’s He Huarahi Tamariki, founded years ago by Susan Baragwanath as a school for teenage mums and dads.

I caught up with Helen, who was a struggling school student with two kids when she was cover girl for the 2001 North & South story I wrote on teenage pregnancies.

She’s still with her partner, completing her science masters and begins her PhD next year.

Short term DPB + education + adult supervision = happy ending.

via Deborah Coddington : Time to wake up to reality of child-bashing shame – Government – NZ Herald News.

Child abuse occurs in a context. People are poor, the girls who get pregnant are generally vulnerable to men who like being exploitative. Dads are generally not on the scene — and this is a consequence of decades of family court work alienating decent dads that no one man can do anything about — and this means that the girl does not get her Dad telling the young mongrel not to come around again. Doing his job. Protecting his daughter.

We can alter the context by insisting on education and adult supervision. It is not complicated to say, but it requires a confidence to act in the interests of children, and not in the interests of the multiculti ideology of this day.

And we now lack that final ingredient.

Went to one of the historic churches this morning.

The text for this Sunday was on faith: the point was made that it ix not just beleiving: it is acting. For faith drives out fear.

Mark 4:35-413

5On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Ministries & Programs — GAMC.

Great articulation.
watch?v=CJ315MmV7KM

I could talk about Jesus approval of Marriage. And wine, But the verse that intrigues me is … my time has not yet come.

Yesterday I went to talk to one of my son’s teachers. I was told that he was quite able, which is pleasing, and how to help him. I want to encourage him to study hard and do well at high school — the core universities in New Zealand no longer have open entry courses — but there is a line between encouragement, support and pushing.

Because pressure can backfir.

John 2:1-12

1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.12After this he went down

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Ministries & Programs — GAMC.

In the following verse jesus and his disciples and mother… go to Capernaum.  He remains in a relationship with his mother. Was she encouraging? Did she go further, or did she lose her balance on this issue?

We heard the news this morning. This is the first death in action for some time in the NZ Army: but in a country of 4 million, people will know his family

Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell, from Feilding, was the first Kiwi combat soldier to be killed in a decade when his patrol was ambushed in Bamiyan Province overnight.

Two of his fellow soldiers and a local interpreter with the patrol were also injured in the attack.

Choking back tears as he spoke at a press conference at Linton Army base near Palmerston North this afternoon, his father Mark said: “This day is a very sad day for two families – the O’Donnells and the army.

“Ever since he was a boy being held by his grandmother at aged four he wanted to be in the army.

“He was very proud of the work that he and the soldiers did there.

“He absolutely loved being a soldier. He loved working with other soldiers.

via ‘He absolutely loved being a soldier’ – father – National – NZ Herald News.

My condolences to his family. In the rising of the sun, we will remember them.