Maverick with a cause

Kosher Sex in THE City

2007-02-11T09:44:00.000-08:00

London Baby...

May and I headed for London this weekend to meet up with her friend Bruce (who is South African, despite the awkward Aussie connotations of his name) and to celebrate the GREAT Nathan Rose's 23rd Birthday... yes, the man is OLD... practically on the shelf!!

Anyway, we had a lovely time on Friday night at a little Italian packed restaurant in Balham, where we had a little too much red wine. The food was awesome, the restaurant filled with atmosphere, and the company- well, we can't have everything can we ;-p kidding, the company was great too...

After dinner we headed for 'The Bedford', which is supposedly a very historically significant pud, but I cannot for the life of me remember why! Then off to another 'club' which had fish tanks for decoration in an attempt to be classy, but all illusions of that were shattered when they played only BAD 80's music... then we headed home!

Next day started early than expected with Nathan's arrival from Oxford! It was great to see the man in the flesh again, totally thriving!! We decided (yes, we are ALL total nerds) to celebrate his birthday by visiting the museums! We went tot he Imperial War museum first, too have a look at the Holocaust exhibition which Richard recommended as research for our Exhibition... and heck...

Two hours in the Holocaust exhibition wasn't evan enough. I was totally raw. It terrifies me to think that we are capable of doing such things to each other. And I mean 'we', as in human beings. Anyone who stood up against the system was jeopardising their life, so would you in the same circumstances, have opposed the Nazi's?? We keep quiet everyday when things go on around us that we know are wrong, but would something such as the Nazi's slow and deliberate propaganda campaign not such us in....?

At what point would you stand up and say, HEY, THAT IS JUST NOT OKAY? When they passed laws to make all Jews wear a star of David to Identify themselves? or maybe when they posted guards outside Jewish owned businesses to intimidate people and stop them buying from them... or possibly when they herded the Jews like cattle and sent them to live in the ghettos where thousands starve to death or caught disease? When exactly would you put your life on the line and say to an SS guard with a gun that loading hundreds of men, women and children, onto trains and sending them off to death camps was unacceptable?

k, onto less heavy stuff! (Despite my postings on this sight, most of my life is spent having fun and enjoying life, NOT weighed down by the depressing reality of human nature.)

We walked along the South Bank of the Thames and checked out where the brothels used to be with the old goal, the Clink, conveniently located right next to them. We then had lunch at this tiny little sandwich cafe along route and then walked up to Westminster, enjoying the sights of St. Paul's and the London eye along the way. London is lovely and to quote Ryan R.... "I have emotional oneness with that city." Nate and Bruce are both an endless source of interesting information which made the experience evan more enjoyable. Nothing better that spending a day in the greatest city on earth with good friends

We ended up at St Paul's for Even Song which was held beneath the dome- wow! Then, in order to make our cultural experience complete, decided to take part in the Tate Modern's latest exhibition, which involves going down 5 different slides of varying heights, the highest being the one from the 5th to the ground floor- and they call this art?? Well, maybe not, but it was fun!

Sadly we then had to say good bye to Nathan as he headed home for Oxford and then went back to Bruce's where he cooked us an amazing Prawn & Lime stirfry. Ladies- guard your heart against that man, cause dinner was out of this world!

Anyway, there was no sex to be had anywhere, kosher or otherwise, but at least I kept your attention for the entire blog post ;-p

it still exists..

2007-02-08T04:28:00.000-08:00

Next time you bite into a chocolate bar…

There are 27 million people living in slavery today, and its so much worse now than its even been.

In the Ivory Cost, which produces half of the world’s coco, the UN has uncovered numerous farms on which slave labour exists. Watchdog agencies based in the area, suspect that approximately 90% of the coco farms in Cote d’lovoire use slave labour. Young boys, from rural neighbouring countries such as Mali, are kidnapped from their villages or seduced with promises of a better life. They are loaded like cattle into trucks and driven hundreds of kilometres across the country until they don’t know where they are. When they arrive at the farm it is customary for them to be beaten regularly for the first few weeks in order to “smoothen” them, ie. Break their spirit so they do not rebel. Then they are then put to work. They are expected to work as long as there is day light. They are not given a rest, they are not given water. If they try to escape, they are beaten, if they do not work hard enough, they are beaten, if they ask for money for the work they have done, they are beaten. Certain farms have institutionalised beatings and set specific times in the day for beatings to take place.

These beatings are so severe that the slaves cannot work for a few days after whilst they recover. When their wounds start to heal, they are back to work and forced to work extra to make up for their ‘time off’.

After he was freed from slavery by an NGO, one boy was asked if he knew what the purpose of his work had been. He said no. When he was told that he had been farming an ingredient used to make chocolate, a luxury food product enjoyed by people all over the world, he was again asked, what he would say to the people who ate chocolate.

“If I had to say something, it would not be nice words. They enjoyed something I suffered to make. I worked hard for them but saw no benefit. They are eating my flesh”

So what can be done about it? Fair trade is an organisation which recognised the important role that consumers could play to improve the situation for producers. By buying direct from farmers at better prices, and thereby ensuring that labour and conditions are of a decent basic standard, buying Fairtrade really is the only ethical choice. We have to make it clear to the multinationals, that slavery is too high a price to pay for cheap goods!

However, even if this wasn’t an option, would you honestly be able to sleep at night knowing that your money has paid for children north of us to be worked to death?

Think about it!

Richard for Cannonisation

2007-02-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

I write this post in the hopes that somewhere, someone will decide to make my project manager, Richard, a SAINT!! The man is incredible. Not only does he have endless patience, but he is frequently able to refocus the meetings despite the the best efforts of May and I to distract EVERYONE!!

Allow me to set the scene: This morning starting out with our second preliminary content meeting to 'finalise', the copy content of our exhibition. The ppl responsible for content are May, Cliff and myself. Cliff, also being our ultimate 'boss' as the founder of the ministry, but Richard running the meeting as the exhibition manager.

Cliff, God bless him, is a man with an incredible amount of passion and charisma, as well as a wealth of knowledge. He is also the visionary behind the Spirit of Wilberforce, and as such, he certainly has very specific ideas of what he would like from the exhibition. He is also, much to the amusement of May and I, incredibly distractable, and is easily baited into giving wonderfully in depth history lesson and personal anecdotes about the subject matter. We do this often, and most of the time, totally motivated by a bona fide interest in the subject and occasionally, because the meeting is totally boring and his stories are always entertaining...

Well, after many such detours on the way to putting together suitable content for our exhibition (the subject matter which, I should add, is some of the most emotionally draining things I've ever dealt with), I noticed a book on the shelf in the Family Matters Institute room, called "Kosher Sex."- So I managed not to laugh... very sad things being discussed at the time like how Wilberforce threw away any possibility of becoming PM when he continued to advocated the abolition of slavery when it wasn't prudent to do so... I did however, feel obliged to share this information with May, via a note which said...

Kosher Sex??? Is that like sex without whipped cream or something?? You know- no dairy and meat together.

After reading the note, May's face went bright red as I watched her try desperately to control her laughter but slowly breathing. She could not however, control the tears which began to well up in her eyes. Cliff, who was still talking about the tragedy of the lives ruined, and was touched to note how much the subject matter had moved May emotionally...

She did however manage to compose herself long enough to scribble a note back to me which read,

No, I think they mean no eating oysters before hand!

I unfortunately, not being as composed as May, burst out laughing just as Cliff reached the climax of his heart wrenching story. Richard and Cliff were aghast as May and myself both descended into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Explaining to our boss and senior boss, the the reason that we couldn't conduct ourselves in a reasonable manner was because I had seen a book with the word "SEX" in the title, made us look about as professional as a hippy would behind the counter at McDonald's.

Anyway, I see myself as a grace grower and I supect I may have gone above and beyond today, as Richard, instead of getting angry or ill tempered suggested we all take a break to go for a walk around the grounds to look at the snowdrop flowers, in order to compose ourselves...

... the man deseves a medal

"nobody puts baby in a corner..."

2007-02-02T15:40:00.000-08:00

So, I just realised, probably a bit late, that I am a grown up. University is finished, I've left home, I'm no longer on my father's medical aid... I'm all grow'd up! COST!

The thing that interests me though, is that those romatic ideals of youth have not left me, in fact, if anything, they've grown expinentially.

I still believe that I can change the world for the better. I do believe that there's a better way. I know that this isn't all it's supposed to be...At this point, I'm begining to sould like a cheezy 80's live aid song, which seems pretty pathetic when its my
mantra, but i'm not embarrassed!

Why is it that zeal and 'radical' attitudes are excusible in the young, but frowned upon if you continue to hold them when you get into the real world. Maybe its my lack of wisdom that makes me think the impossible is within reach. A line from a movie I recently watched really sat well with me. One character says to the other, "No one our age has ever tried anything like that before." the first man in turn replied, "That's great because we're too young to realise we can't do it." By theway, the characters eventually achieved late into life what they set out in their youth to do! Inspiring...

So, what it is that will continue to drive us in the summer and autum of our lives, the seeds planted in our youth? What will inspire us to run with purseverance to the finish line? For me, I pray that every day, my walk with God, takes me further into his purpose. He sees eternity, and when we live in that purpose, our actions will echoe into our children's children's lives. I pray for one thing, that when my kids ask me what I did to make the world a better place, that I will have an answer for them!

Job 31:13

2007-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

"If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants
when they had a grievance against me,

what will I do when God confronts me?
What will I answer when called to account?

Did not he who made me in the womb make them?
Did not the same one form us both within our mothers? "

Clifford, the man responsible for founding the ministry I work for, spoke to us about this passage this moring. He was talking in the context of the Spirit of Wilberforce project, which aims to, in part draw attention to the faith which motivated the abolitionists to fight to pass a law to make illegal the slave trade in the British Empire 200yrs ago this year. Its incredible to think that the abolitionists started the fight to end slavery when 2/3 of the British ecconomy relied on this inhumane trade.

Over 12 million men and women were kidnapped in West Africa and packed like cargo into ships to be sailed across the atlantic, and sold into slavery the other side to farm sugar in the Carribean. The conditions on board the ship were awful, Equiano, in his auto-biography describes how people were packed like cargo so that there was barely enough room to breathe, and not sufficient to roll over. When slaves became sick, due to mulnutritian, and diease, which spread so easily in these crampd conditions, they were thrown overboard to drown. The ship owners would then collect £30 insurance on those slaves, less than the insurance on a horse.

1 and a half million slaves died at sea. No prayers were ever said over them. No one ever mourned their deaths.

After an incredible conversion experience, William Wilberforce decided upon to main purposes for his life

1) To reform manners. (By this he meant, societal morals, values or social mores)
2) The abolition of Slavery

It is important to recognize what an incredible task the second was. With most of the British economy based on slavery, as well as most parliamentarians having business interests in slave ships, the task was humanly impossible. Wilberforce brought the Bill to abolish slavery before parliament on a number of occasions over twenty years and each time it was turned down.

Wilberforce and his fellow abolitionists, known now as the Clapham Group, decided to employ different tactics. They recognized the importance of public opinion and set about lobbying for public support in England. They did this by boycotting sugar that had been grown on the farms in the Caribbean which had slaves. He also took a petition around the country which was signed by over 1 million people, urging parliament to abolish the slave trade.

Finally, on the 25 March 1807, the act bringing about the abolition of the slave Trade was finally passed by parliament, making it illegal for British ships to trade slaves. It was only in 1833, just one week before Wilberforce died, that the abolition of Slavery was passed.

To find out more about the abolition of slavery as well as information about the types of slavery that exists today please visit Anti-Slavery Internartional and Set All Free

Greetings from Narnia!

2007-01-24T03:39:00.000-08:00

I begin by dedicating this site to the most joyfilled person I have ever met. My dear ex-digsie, Vikky. I swore blind I would never have a blog, but by her inspiration, here one is.

I sincerly hope not to bore anyone unfortunate enough to stumble onto this site and therefore will probably take many liberties with my story telling. I intend for this to be an entertaining rather than and informative blog, and to this end implore all readers to recognise that its not the story, but how you tell it that matters. ;-)

Stay tuned!