A New Year

2018 is one of those significant years in my life. I celebrate my 65th birthday which still marks a watershed moment for many as the era of  “retirement”, grandchildren and far less clubbing. I am considering a change in my workload and a simpler lifestyle. The “grandchildren” are borrowed from friends and clubbing has been  added to the agenda thanks to sharing a house as well as lots of time and friendship with a much younger housemate.

This year is the 70^th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights with an opportunity for everyone to contribute to a global campaign of awareness and solidarity.

The Calendar Storyboard

Despite the digital frontier I hold on to some  classic practices including  physical calendars. As a child I  learnt o check the days from the calendar my parents had in the living room. We grew up in a traditional Catholic Family where the Columban Calendar was the norm. As well as providing useful information on holidays and  saint days it served as a mini gallery of the European masters in our humble house.

In recent years I have attempted to be a little more frugal by recycling calendars where the year was a repeat. The 2007 calendar is a match for 2018 but I only had one in my set from the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters   Having space for 7 calendars can be a challenge but if you spread them between bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, study  and hallway you can create a pretty  colourful set of wall hangings.

Cinema

During the month I managed to get along to two cinema events:

I am Not Your Negro A powerful documentary about race

Cherbourg Women  Trailer A moving public viewing with Cherbourg Elders at Bunyapa Park in West End

Photography

Public art is more than decor. It educates, challenges, inspires, and amazes us. One of my commitments for 2018 is to share the art works I see in my daily travel.  This piece is in the foyer of the Mater Mother’s Hospital South Brisbane.

Churches are  a great source of inspiration for photography. I celebrated Christmas  with the Byzantine Catholic Community on January 7th

Invasion Day is an annual pilgrimage of justice and solidarity with the First peoples of the land.

Politics

Some pretty  vigorous discussion happened on my Facebook wall when I posted the following comment:

Australia unveils plan to become one of world’s top 10 arms exporters

PM spruiks jobs for local manufacturers but Tim Costello of World Vision has previously attacked policy as ‘exporting death and profiting from bloodshed’

THEGUARDIAN.COM

 You can follow the discussion here.

Social Media

Although I have cancelled my Linkedin account I still get requests so if you sent a request please note this account is inactive.

Feature addition of the month was a new item to my Manhood Mates and Masculinity page.

There are a couple of clips from Invasion Day on my Youtube Channel and plenty of news on my Twitter account.

 January Odd Spot

Thanks to  Catholicism there is never a shortage of “odd spots” to lift the eyebrows.  This month the Catholic Leader takes the cake with a new year item, What Brisbane Catholics are reading this summer. Now you might wonder why not “What Brisbane Catholics are eating this summer” or “What Brisbane Catholics are drinking this summer”. However, the books won and 6 lucky contestants got a guernsey.  To their credit they gave four possies to women and only two to blokes. All  were “professional” Catholics and no one from an Indigenous or Non English speaking background.

The item itself was interesting with a broad range of texts and the usual suspects from the enclosed religious whose library probably doesn’t run beyond spiritual reading.   The story didn’t make the Twitter feed of the CL but it did make the Facebook feed.  The FB feed only attracted 9 likes and three shares. What is interesting is that not one of those interactions thought to add their reading selection to the conversation.

So, my summer reading in fact, part of my daily reading for the year: Classic Catholic with good wine.