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Info on the regions

02/05/2013 § Leave a comment

The Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment released a new report a couple of days ago — the Regional Economic Activity Report. Let me recommend it — it’s a useful, easy-to-read summary of, well, of economic activity in the regions. A lot of the information can be found elsewhere if you know where to look, but this puts it all into one tidy, 82-page package. People are interested in how their cities and regions are doing — I often get questions about local economies — so I expect this will be a good resource.

Canterbury gets a couple of extra pages for the earthquake impacts. Very sobering to see tourism and education series just plummet.

Here’s one graph I felt like sharing. It appealed to me, thinking about the New Zealand economy like a Fibonacci sequence:

NZ as sum of regions, MBIE Regional Economic Activity Report

NZ as sum of regions, MBIE Regional Economic Activity Report

Dear Mr Staples:

28/03/2013 § 1 Comment

I have been following with interest the recent news regarding an email you received. Yesterday, I received my own email from EQC — delivered to the correct address — to the effect that you were demanding full payment from EQC in return for building services rendered. In return, you have pledged not to pursue your interest in a certain spreadsheet any further.

It occurred to me that you might have access to information that I would find valuable and useful. I have had several assessors come through my house, making comments and jotting down notes. However, no one has given me a complete record of the work to be done and the estimated costs. Now that I have opted out of the Fletcher programme — due to their complete inflexibility — I am being asked to buy a ‘pig in a poke’: an unspecified repair job to an unknown value. It would be very nice to know something about said pig.

It also occurred to me that you are having trouble with the authorities. EQC has now laid a police complaint. The situation described in the email that I received from EQC did sound a bit like blackmail: ‘Do as I say and I won’t show anyone this little spreadsheet.’ (Wasn’t that the plot of a Tom Cruise film?) But then, certain allegations made about you earlier in the week sounded a lot like libel, so I fear my understanding of legal nuances is not equal to the situation.

I would suggest that we may have what economists call a double coincidence of wants. I would like to propose a possible arrangement between us. If you could see fit to send me just one row of a certain spreadsheet — I can advise you the row — I would happily contribute to any legal defence fund that may be required to extract you from the current difficulties. At a pro-rata amount of $100 per household affected, your fund could be over $8 million. From my perspective, it would be money well spent.

Yours sincerely,

Asymmetric information, EQC edition

26/03/2013 § 7 Comments

It turns out that EQC knows exactly what it’s doing. It knows exactly what damage has been done to our properties, what the engineers’ assessments are, and a whole lot more. And all the data is available in a handy spreadsheet. You and I just don’t get to see it.

Information is power. In this case, power over people’s house and lives.

Three thoughts:

  • This is the problem with the public agency insurance model. Is it an insurance company? Is it a government department? It’s neither and both. They are screwing down the claims as much as they can, like a private company, but they get to set their own rules, like a government department. And us, the consumers/citizens? High and dry, baby.
  • One of the clients of the man who incorrectly received the spreadsheet, Bryan Staples, was paid only $30,000 when EQC knew there was $55,000 to $59,000 of damage. How is a homeowner, a non-expert in building matters, supposed to know how much damage has been done and what it’s worth? EQC is using its expert information, rather than dealing with claimants in an honest and open manner. Last year, another state-owned insurer, ACC, had bonuses for cutting people off. That is, bureaucrats were paid to screw down claims. Is this happening in Christchurch?
  • I’m not so concerned about fraud — I think Eric Crampton’s right about that. I’m more angry that EQC has produced a handy guide that only insiders get to see. An enterprising individual could go around the city with inside knowledge of houses and assessments and figure out which houses are underpriced and overpriced. Or, some variation on the ‘nice little house, shame about the earthquake damage’ could push prices down artificially.

The story isn’t about someone accidentally sending the wrong email. The story is the spreadsheet and the secrecy. And the damage being done to the people of Christchurch.

Shocked, shocked! that there is fraud here

21/03/2013 § Leave a comment

So the Right Honourable Winston Peters is alleging widespread fraud in Christchurch, and challenged the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee to come clean about what he knows. The Serious Fraud Office has already said that they stymied fraudsters last year, saving the country millions of dollars (tens of? hundreds of?).

Fraud was always going to happen. It happens at the best of times — employees walking off with money, false invoices, work not done, etc. Recovery after an earthquake is not the best of times, so the potential was higher than baseline.

And, of course, there’s all that money. As Willie Sutton may or may not have pointed out, you rob banks because ‘that’s where the money is’. Same principle applies to Christchurch.

There are essentially two ways to combat aberrant behaviour: social pressure and good contracts. A high level of trust and goodwill — social capital, if you will, although I know it’s a contested term — and people will tend to behave as they should. Not everyone, not all the time, but it’ll get you most of the way there.

Good contracts can substitute. Well-defined goods and services, clear provisions for variations or re-negotiation, good measurement and monitoring processes, and you’re away.

But here’s the thing: earthquake recovery is exactly the sort of situation in which good contracts are hard to write. As we’ve found out, it isn’t as simple as ‘return the house to its pre-quake condition’. Which cracks do you fix? What’s the tolerance for a sloping floor or a wall out of plumb? What quality of finish and materials is specified? The permutations are endless.

What to do? Well, you can try to make better contracts. That takes time for negotiation, which is time you aren’t spending on the rebuild. You can have looser contracts but stricter monitoring and enforcement. This could work if you can specify what the results should be — which could be easier than being precise about a process. Or you could try to rely on social capital, but that capital is going to be diluted by all the new people coming in to help the rebuild. Any time and effort you spend on fraud controls, though, take away from the actual rebuild.

All of that means that the control processes won’t be perfect. There will be fraud. Get used to it.

But…the cost of dealing with fraud can be shared out in different ways. There are different costs: money, time, effort, anxiety. The EQC and Cera have, as bureaucracies do, privileged process over people. They have focused on screwing down the process to make fraud difficult, but that makes it harder for honest people, too. To save money, they have increased the cost in time and anxiety for Christchurch people.

Think of it another way: type I and type II errors. The rebuild is focused on type I, false positives. They want to make sure that all rebuild work is exactly as it should be, to reduce the incidence of paying for stuff that didn’t happen. But the two types of errors are inversely related. When you focus on the type I, you increase the incidence of type II, false negatives. You increase the amount of time chasing down fraud that isn’t there.

Oh, and incidentally, you burn through what social capital you have. As a result, you increase your need for strict processes and contracts. It’s a vicious spiral.

Of course there’s fraud in Christchurch. But the solution isn’t to treat everyone like a crook. That’s just imposing more costs on the people of Christchurch to avoid a little embarrassment in Parliament.

Mau-mauing the EQC flak-catchers

04/03/2013 § 4 Comments

In ‘Mau-mauing the flak-catchers’, Tom Wolfe describes how young urban entrepreneurs in San Francisco could get money out of the bureaucracy by mau-mauing — going down to City Hall and being so wild, so ghetto, that they would fund whatever youth group or outreach programme was being proposed as the solution.

Institutions evolve, however, and the bureaucracy developed a new appendage — the flak-catcher. This was the guy who would front for the bureaucracy, but not really:

‘Now I’m here to try to answer any questions I can,’ he says, ‘but you have to understand that I’m only speaking as an individual, and so naturally none of my comments are binding, but I’ll answer any questions I can, and if I can’t answer them, I’ll do what I can to get the answers for you.’
And then it dawns on you, and you wonder why it took so long for you to realize it. This man is the flak catcher. His job is to catch the flak for the No. 1 man.

The bars on the windows and razor wire that EQC has put on display is just the latest evolution. Sure, yeah, a few people have gone off at the flunkies behind the desk, and the police have spoken to a few people. But this is New Zealand, man. Chick pulls a knife on a plane and stabs the pilot, and still the local gate at the airport has less security than The Warehouse.

But EQC wants you to know that they are under siege. That’s the reason for the display.

Two things, though.

One — always, always, it is important to remember that EQC has not fulfilled the insurance policy that we all paid for. We paid money for many years in order to have full restitution within a year in the case of an earthquake. Two years after February, two and a half years after September, and still the earthquakes are costing the citizens and property owners of Christchurch. EQC did not sort things out and did not make people whole and never will.

Two — the spokesperson for EQC said something about not taking frustrations out on individuals, but on the organisation. This was the bureaucratic version of ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game’. It is the fundamental tension in the modern age — individual versus collective. Who is responsible for the behaviour of the the bureaucrat? Is it the organisation, the agency called EQC who sets the rule and create the guidelines and makes the decisions? Or is it the person, the actual individual who applies the rules, guidelines, and decisions? And how, exactly, is a homeowner with shoddy workmanship or a property owner contesting the land classification supposed to challenge the organisation without making actual people uncomfortable?

EQC is hiding behind its front-line staff, who are flak-catching for the failures of the organisation. But this is an evolutionary game. EQC has just adapted — and these are serious adaptations by local standards. Next, watch as the mau-mauing turns pro.

Thoughts on National’s change of heart

28/01/2013 § 2 Comments

Blogging is often just mouthing off in public. Informed, well constructed mouthing off, to be sure. Which means that the accuracy is about that of all forms of mouthing off — hit or miss.

So it is with pleasure that I report that the Government finally agrees with me.

Two years ago, I explained that Government policy was divided in two. Austerity for most of the country, and a generous, insurance-funded rebuild for Christchurch. The two parts fitted together. Although the economy wasn’t strong, the Government could back its zero budgets because of this other pot of money.

It was like a trust-fund kid, ‘living off’ the meagre wages from an internship, except that the car and apartment were provided by the family.

It wasn’t a bad plan, really. The financial position of the Government was strongly dependent on how the rest of the world reacted, which suggested a cautious approach.

However, it relied on getting the rebuild going. By forming Cera and making Brownlee the Minister for Saving Christchurch, the Government set the rebuild to one side, as something running in parallel to all the other functions. This approach masked the importance of the rebuild spending for the rest of the economy. The two parts of the economic plan — austerity plus rebuild — had to run in tandem.

But as I pointed out, it wasn’t working. Each quarter, the numbers suggest that Christchurch is providing a small boost, but nothing like what was needed. We had austerity without the trust fund. We discovered that living within our means in a worldwide recession isn’t that much fun after all.

Friday, the Government announced a few measures. The 10,000 to 14,000 apprentices is clever — injecting money into the economy while addressing jobs and the rebuild all at once. But the main thing was Key’s comment that they were knocking it off with the zero budget thing. That was the signal that the Government is looking beyond austerity and thinking about what it might really take to build a strong economy.

And that’s a good thing. Nice to see them coming around to my way of thinking.

A Brash idea for Christchurch

22/01/2013 § Leave a comment

Don Brash gave the nation his ideas for improving the Christchurch rebuild. I’m not entirely clear why he has received any news coverage. Brash, you will recall, was pushed out of the leadership of not one but two political parties. The last election — they got 1% — suggests he may not have much of a following.

Brash’s idea is that the government should take a relaxed approach to labour laws for the rebuild:

The Government should turn a blind eye to illegal migrants working in Christchurch’s rebuild because the city needs all hands on deck, former high-profile politician Don Brash says.

Generally, I’m not too worried about ‘illegal migrants’. I’ve worked in California. Undocumented workers get vilified there, but they are absolutely vital to the economy. We need these workers but can’t admit it.

But that doesn’t make Brash’s comments sensible. Of all the problems Christchurch has, enough labour isn’t the main one. In economics speak, construction labour is not the binding constraint preventing a faster rebuild. Brash is looking to solve the wrong problem. Promoting illegal migrant workers wouldn’t speed things up.

I’ve just been down in the South Island and met up with friends from Christchurch, including business owners. They shared lots of horror stories. If I had to pick two things to sort out, it would be housing and insurance payments.

Lack of housing — The supply of housing is tight for all the residents plus all the temporary rebuild workers. Adding more migrants would, of course, only make the situation worse.

This lack shows up a few ways. First, potential workers are staying away.  The Otago Daily Times reported that Dunedin workers are choosing not to shift to Christchurch, for example. The cost of living — especially rent — is too expensive.

Secondly, the city actually needs a surplus of housing where people can live while their own houses are being fixed. It isn’t a lot — an extra 5% or so of housing stock would do it — but that’s some 8,000 houses or flats that need building. Some interesting background is in this Market Economics report. Offsetting Behaviour has been tracking some of the housing problems and potential fixes — here is a sample.

Insurance woes — I don’t know the ins and outs of what the insurance companies and EQC are dealing with, but it’s pretty clear that (a) they are being difficult, (b) they are trying to hold onto their money as long as they can, and (c) more money flowing more easily into Christchurch would help the rebuild.

Here are some of the stories I heard over the summer holiday. Insurers have paid out money and then demanded it back. Assessors have visited properties over and over again without coming to a decision about whether to repair or rebuild. People have been told to vacate their properties, and then left in rental accommodation for over a year. The insurance money runs out, and they are left out of pocket.

The point of this sort of insurance is that when an asset is damaged, you swap one bit of wealth (the damaged asset) for another (the insurance payout). Instead, people are relying on income to pay for the damage, which puts a crimp in the Christchurch economy. Plus, the associated uncertainty leads people to save rather than spend or invest. That’s not a good way to get the economy moving.

The number of construction workers isn’t the problem. There is nowhere to house them and no money to pay them with. But maybe Dr Brash already knows that, and that’s why he suggests using undocumented workers for the task.

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Time: Droid and Android depose Apple's iPhone | iPhone News Updated - 0 views

    While the global spread of Apple's iPhone is still increasing, it would appear the touch-screen smartphone is losing its gloss in existing markets. Specifically, the tech gurus over at Time magazine have just released their Top 10 Gadgets of 2009 list, and the iPhone has been deposed by Motorola's Droid handset.
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Home/ Crown Capital Eco Management/ Energy Tips: Maintaining Furnaces and Boilers
Maggie Rodolf

Energy Tips: Maintaining Furnaces and Boilers - 1 views

crown capital management environmental reviews energy tips maintaining furnaces and boilers

started by Maggie Rodolf on 17 Sep 13
  • Maggie Rodolf

    Heating and cooling account for about 55 percent of the energy used in a typical U.S. home, the largest energy expense for most households. Furnaces and boilers, the two most common ways to heat homes, should be inspected and adjusted on an annual basis to maintain efficiency and safety.

    According to the U.S. Department of Energy, prior to the heating season, the following maintenance for furnaces and boilers should be provided by a heating system professional:
    * Check the condition of your vent connection pipe and chimney. Parts of the venting system may have deteriorated over time. Chimney problems can be expensive to repair and may help justify installing new heating equipment that will not use the existing chimney.
    * Check the physical integrity of the heat exchanger. Leaky boiler heat exchangers leak water and are easy to spot. Furnace heat exchangers mix combustion gases with house air when they leak-an important safety reason to have them inspected.
    * Adjust the controls on the boiler or furnace to provide optimum water and air temperature settings for both efficiency and comfort.
    * If you're considering replacing or retrofitting your existing heating system, have the technician perform a combustion-efficiency test.

    What can you do?
    Furnace filters should be replaced according to the manufacturer's recommendations. A clogged filter will cause the furnace to work harder, reducing efficiency and comfort.

    Standard filters should be replaced monthly. High performance pleated filters may last up to three months or longer, depending on the system, filter, and conditions.

    Regular preventive maintenance will help ensure that your heating system operates safely and efficiently, and it will likely save you money and heartache. Check with utilities or heating contractors about tune-ups and maintenance and repair plans.

    The Department of Energy offers information on furnaces and boilers, including tips on maintenance and retrofitting or replacing your current furnace or boiler with a more efficient unit.

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Guitar World - April-14 - Kiss

Guitar World - April-14 - Kiss

Sale price $5.99 Regular price $9.99

Guitar World - April-14 - A Look Back at 40 Years of Kiss

In the April-14 issue of Guitar World magazine, guitarist Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons celebrate their upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, with a pair of revealing interviews about their 40 years in Kiss. Also, Stanley and Simmons rate Kiss guitarists past and present: from Ace to Tommy Thayer.

In addition, we make the case for 15 artists still waiting to be admitted into the Hall of Fame, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dimebag Darrell, Ted Nugent, and Soundgarden.

Later on, read about how a new generation of acoustic guitar fingerstylists is blazing a daring style of percussive, alternate-tuned shred. Then, try it out for yourself! Guitar World presents an instructional guide to the inspired techniques of percussive acoustic guitar playing.

Finally, The Scorpions wrap up their nearly 50-year run with a new Unplugged release, and a farewell album of songs from their Eighties heyday.

PLUS: The best gear of the New Year - Guitar World picks the greatest guitars, amps, effects and accessories from the 2014 NAMM show.

5 Songs with Tabs for Guitar & Bass

  • Daryl Kellie - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
  • Kiss - "Black Diamond"
  • Lamb of God - "Now You've Got Something to Die For"
  • Daft Punk - "Get Lucky"
  • Arctic Monkeys- "Do I Wanna Know?"

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Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category

“Well, when one’s lost, I suppose it’s good advice to stay where you are until someone finds you.” ~Lewis Carroll

Foto by Iliana

Foto by Iliana

                   The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. ~Mary Shelley

winter solstice 2014

5:30 p.m. December 21, 2014, Doral, Florida. It is the first day of winter; it looks like this in my part of the world. Mesmerizing skies. Lost in them I find tremendous comfort and peace.

Mom continues to battle the illness that has taken away quality of life. Dad and I, by her side, battling also. We are thankful, however, each day we wake up and have another day to enjoy her company–another day for hugs, kisses and tears. Dad and I cherish these days more than anything.

I’d like to wish all of you a blessed winter season.

~The White Rabbit


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26 January 2013

Techie-dummy gets it right

I finally figured out the problem btw my Yahoo email account and Firefox.

I've been faithfully downloading Firefox updates. However, I wasn't installing them. I thought this was being done automatically. Apparently not.

Basically, Yahoo email was constantly changing while my browser was still a dinosaur.

I got Firefox up-to-date and now everything is fine. Even the sign-in bar for HancAquam has re-appeared!

Please resist the temptation to mock my lack of techie awareness. . .when it comes to computer stuff, I believe in magic.

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All over the place this weekend!

Weird weekend for me liturgy-wise. . .

Memorial Mass at Dominic's at noon today.

Confessions and Vigil Mass for an Mens' Emmaus Retreat in Ponchatoula at 7.00pm

Sunday Mass at St Dominic's at 8.00am

Sunday Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary at 6.00pm.

Starting Monday, Fr. John Dominic Sims (our new parochial vicar) and I will be going over to Our Lady of the Rosary for the 7.00am daily Mass.  Their pastor is on a leave of absence.

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24 January 2013

Knowing ain't loving

2nd Week OT (R)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

Why does Jesus command the unclean spirits to be silent about his true identity? You'd think that given his mission to spread the Good News of God's freely given mercy to sinners he'd take all the help he could get. As Mark makes painfully clear, the disciples are not among the Lord's brightest and best—not yet anyway—so they can't be much help at this point. The crowds following him around the countryside (threatening to crush him death) are chasing him b/c they think he's just a healing prophet or an exorcist. The only ones who know much of anything at all about who and what he is are the demons! And Jesus won't allow them to break his cover. Why not? Well, would you want a legion of unclean spirits testifying on your behalf if your worst enemies were accusing you with blasphemy? Sure, the demons know who and what Jesus is, but they cannot serve as witnesses to his mission and ministry. To be a witness for Christ, one must be capable of repenting of one's sins; receiving God's mercy, and following His law of love. This means that knowledge about Christ is not the same thing as following Christ. Knowing about love is not the same as loving.

The idea that we are made holy by acquiring holy knowledge is an ancient heresy. In the first century of the Church, groups of Christians, the Gnostics, began to teach and practice a gospel not taught and practiced by the apostles. Gnosticism (from gnosis) is a broad descriptive term used to cover hundreds of competing sects that taught that salvation was a matter of knowing the right prayers, the right rituals, and the secret names of helpful divine beings. For the Gnostics, ignorance was damnation, so acquiring occult knowledge meant salvation. In other words, for them, knowing about Christ was sufficient to get a seat at the heavenly table. Following Christ to a bloody Cross was just an allegory or a mystical ritual. Set beside the real gospel of Jesus Christ—repentance, suffering, persecution, and the necessity of sacrificial love—it's pretty easy to see why Gnosticism was particularly popular among the wealthy and the well-educated, among the cultural elites of the early Church. It provided all the benefits of being a Christian w/o any of the painful, sticky, embarrassing, low-brow grubbing that the apostolic faith seemed to preach. Needless to say, like the unclean spirits, the Gnostics were not capable of providing credible testimony to the truth of the Gospel.

This brings us to the inevitable question: are we/you capable of providing credible testimony to the truth of the Gospel? If you have sinned, have you received God's mercy? If so, have you told anyone about it? If you have suffered, have you received God's healing? If so, have you told anyone about it? If you have sacrificed in love b/c Christ lovingly sacrificed for you, have you told anyone about it? If you have sinned, suffered, and sacrificed and reaped the graces that come with repentance, prayer, and God's love, and you've not told anyone about it, why haven't you? Jesus silences the demons, not you. The Church silenced the Gnostics, not you. Christ tells his disciples many times that it will be as witnesses to his life and work that they will bring many into the family. Of course, knowledge about Christ will be necessary along the way, but what most lost souls need to hear is that being lost is not a permanent feature of their lives. In fact, being lost, being w/o Christ is an unnatural way for a sinner to live. How best to tell others about the Good News? Follow Christ. Publicly. Daily. Out loud. Visibly. And w/o apology, embarrassment, or hesitation. Christ did not silence his faithful people nor will he silence us. With spirits immaculately clean, go, and give the Good News a public witness!

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23 January 2013

Silence is not the right answer

2nd Week OT (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

When given the chance to speak out in defense of their most deeply held convictions, the Pharisees choose instead to play games with a man's life. Jesus calls the man with the damaged hand up before the assembly and asks, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” This is a clever question b/c it forces the Pharisees to consider the consequences of obeying the Law beyond just the repair of a man's hand. In effect, Jesus is asking, “Is it legal for me to save a man' life on the Sabbath, or should I let him die?” To the Pharisees' way of thinking, if saving a life on the Sabbath is a form of work. . .well, they'll have to think about that and get back us. I can't tell you how they answered Jesus' question b/c after he asked it, “they remained silent.” They remain silent while a rabbi violates the Sabbath in the synagogue! What's more important to them: honoring God's Law, or playing gotcha games with an ideological opponent? Jesus knows their hearts, “Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart,” Jesus heals the man. God' love is God's law, so silence cannot be the right answer to the question of sin.

For most tough questions, silence is almost always the right choice, the prudent choice, but not always. I was once told by a wise and learned friar, “Br. Philip, prudence is the art of knowing when to keep your big mouth shut.” Well, I've never been particularly good at art, or keeping my big mouth shut. I'm not built intellectually to let a challenge go unanswered. However, even with my tendency to imprudence, I recognize the genius of the way Jesus sets up the Pharisees. They have two choices in answering his challenge: 1) admit or deny that the Sabbath Law forbids life-saving work; or 2) remain silent. The first choice either exposes them as heartless, legalistic religious robots; or opens the door for reckless disobedience. Not good P.R. either way. The second choice (silence) leaves them looking slightly foolish but at least they have plausible deniability if someone accuses them of being heartless, legalistic, or reckless. Unfortunately for them, their silence angers the Lord and verifies for us that their hearts have grown hard in following the Law. What this tells us is that there is something more fundamental and vastly more important than the Law: God's infinite love for His creation. Christ is that love given human flesh. He is the promise of God sent to save our lives, the Law fulfilled.

Neither the Law nor the law can save us; that is, neither the Law of Moses nor the law of man can reach to heaven and heal the wound between God and His creation. However, when a civil law reflects or embodies God's law of love, the edges of the wound can be drawn closer together, if not closed completely. Conversely, if a civil law violates the law of love, the edges of the wound are spread farther apart and infected by sin. When challenged to defend one of their most cherished laws, the Pharisees remain silent. Why? For nothing more than political advantage over an enemy. Their silence is complicity, participation in the violation. When we are challenged to defend God's law of love, our silence—fear, cowardice, or political calculation—is complicity, participation in the legal vandalism of divine love. Man-made law is just when it reflects and embodies God's law of love. However, when civil law demands that we sin, to violate God's law of love, our resounding NO! to that demand ought to shake the earth and rattle some teeth. The Pharisees missed their chance to stand up for their deeply held convictions, selling their integrity for a chance to kill one inconvenient enemy. If we will not stand up for God's law of love, then we become our own enemy for sake of convenience.

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No such thing as naked being

One of the fundamental metaphysical insights of the Catholic faith is that creation is good, all creatures are good insofar as they exist. This goodness is called ontological goodness and is distinguished from moral goodness

Below is an excerpt from an article by Alice von Hildebrand:

Genesis informs us that when God completed creation, He saw that “it was very good.” Surprisingly enough, these luminous words can easily be misread or misinterpreted.

God is clearly telling us that every single being to which He has freely granted “to be” is not only benefiting from the nobility of existence, but moreover that all these beings not only “are” but moreover have qualities and perfections which, according to a huge scale, reflect God’s infinite beauty. A star-studded key awakens in us a feeling of awe, but the most modest insect hidden in the grass, also speaks of God’s glory.

There is no such a thing as “naked” being. Pure being is an abstraction. Let me repeat: All existing beings have qualities and perfections the scale of which is immense – from the awesome greatness and beauty of a star-studded sky to the modest perfection of a gnat. All of them reflect the greatness and glory of God: “Heaven and earth are filled with His Glory.”

Please, do your growth in holiness a favor and read the whole thing!

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22 January 2013

We are not servants of the Law (or the State)!

NB.  Here's a homily preached in Rome (2010) on today's readings.
2nd Week OT (T): Readings
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

By necessity—for the sake of good order and the flourishing of justice—our lives are shaped and guided by laws both natural and man-made. There are limits set by the natural order that define us as human. We cannot violate these limits and remain rational animals. No amount of government intervention, no number of rules or regulations, no army or police force can require us to set ourselves against the laws of nature. Even the attempt is unnatural. The laws we make as social creatures often have less to do with our natural means and ends than they do with our need to express what we perceive to be right and wrong behavior in the community. Sometimes, perhaps more than we are willing to admit, man-made law fails to conform to the natural law, and we are confronted with the possibility of protesting with acts of civil disobedience. A recent example of this emerged in the U.S. With the publication of the Manhattan Declaration. A group of leading Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Orthodox church leaders signed this statement , callinig on Christians in the U.S. to stand against the culture of death and prepare themselves for civil disobedience against attempts to further violate the dignity of the human person by the government expansion of abortion rights, euthanasia, genetic manipulation, and the invention of same-sex marriage. These leaders ask Christians to be ready and willing to fight a war against the legal notion that the Pharisees assume when they accuse Jesus' disciples of violating the Sabbath: man serves the law. Jesus' retort sets the bar higher: no, the law serves man.

Few of us get out of bed in the morning thinking of ways to commit criminal acts. It's safe to say that most of us never give it much thought at all. We are law-abiding citizens here in Italy and in our own countries. We do not seek out opportunities to cause trouble nor do we do out of our way to look for unjust laws. So long as we are left alone to study, pray, enjoy our basic freedoms, and flourish as children of God, we are happy to go along with whatever parliament or Congress orders. As governments grow bolder and bolder in their attempts to infringe on basic human rights through legislation that violates the natural law, our peace with the legal status quo grows more and more uneasy. It may not be inevitable that we find ourselves in jail for civil disobedience but it seems that the chances grow with every time parliament meets. How do we respond?

Yesterday, in the U.S., Americans remembered Martin Luther King. In 1963, from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, he reminded the Church of her successful witness and current failure: “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . .Small in number, they were big in commitment. . .By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. . .Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.” Jesus says to the Pharisees, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”

Being just is easy in the absence of challenge. Doing justice in the face of government sanctioned oppression—especially the oppression of our religious freedoms—is difficult at best, impossible if we surrender. Our fight will not be against local politicians but with a universal lie: man serves the law. When the time comes, remember Jesus standing in the field, teaching the Pharisees: “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” And if he is lord even of the Sabbath, how much more is he our Lord as well?

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Day of Penance for Abortion’s Violence Against Human Dignity

NB.  I'm teaching most of today at the seminary, so no preaching for me today. . .however, I couldn't let today go by w/o saying or writing something!  So, here's a homily from Jan 22, 2008 for this sad day. . .

Day of Penance for Abortion’s Violence Against Human Dignity (GIRM 373)
Isa 32.15-18 and Matt 5.1-12 (Votive Lectionary nos. 887 and 891)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

It doesn’t take long growing up on a farm to figure out the meaning of the gospel adage: you reap what you sow. We planted melon seeds and melons grew. We planted squash seeds and squash grew. Come harvest time we reaped melons and squash. The connection between planting seed and harvesting the fruit of the seed’s plant is almost too obvious to have a name. “Natural consequence” might work. Or perhaps something less philosophical like “biological process.” Regardless of what we decide to name the connection, the connection is significant not only for planning a useful garden—imagine planting spinach seeds and getting corn two months later!—but it is also significant for us as creatures who live and grow in the image and likeness of our Creator. The seed we sow in the private plots of our own hearts and the seed we sow in the public ground of the “Common Good” will grow to fruition for harvest and that harvest will make its way back to our plates. On this day of penance for abortion’s violations of human dignity, we must ask: are we eating our own condemnation?

We could spend most of today talking the coming financial disaster of Baby Boomer retirement and the lack of younger workers to pay into Social Security. We could talk about how the low birth-rate among the Boomers turned Gen-X into Generation-Narcissist, and Gen-Y into Generation-Entitlement. We could point out that the “freedom of choice” to procure legal abortions and the use of contraceptives have “freed” sex from its reproductive end and given us at least three generations of Americans that are at once obsessed with sex and neurotic about sex to the point of needing professional medical treatment. And we could spend some time talking about how legal abortion has functioned in our national moral calculus as an agent of human degradation, one focused tightly on racial minorities and the poor. This is where we are. Where are we going to be?

The Beatitudes teach us that there is a pattern to justice and peace that begins right where we are. Where we are always results in where we will be. Just look at the text. Blessed ARE they who mourn, for they WILL BE comforted. Blessed ARE the clean of heart, for they WILL see God. All the way through the teaching, Jesus makes the practical, moral connection between where we are with where we will be. Blessed are, blessed are, blessed are. . .will inherit, will be shown mercy, will be satisfied. This is the moral parallel to our sown seed/predictable harvest image.

Fortunately, as moral creatures, we are graced with intelligence and good sense. We are free to change where we are and therefore free to alter where we will be. Isaiah says it plainly, “Justice will bring about peace; right will produce calm and security.” So long as we sow the seeds of narcissism, entitlement, self-righteousness, material convenience, and violence against children and the unborn, we can expect to harvest nothing less than an aggressive contempt for life, an aversion to sexual responsibility and care, and a culture so soaked through with death that it stinks up the heavens. So long as we deny the justice of the most basic human right—the right to live—to our future, we have no future. There is Nothing beyond narcissism; Nothing beyond entitlement; Nothing beyond violence but more violence. We will not be shown mercy; we will not be comforted; we will not be called children of God, nor, for that matter, will we see God.
Our ministry today is penance. And preaching. Who out there doesn’t know that Christ’s peace follows God’s justice? No desert will become an orchard and no orchard a forest if we cannot quench the conflagration that consumes our yet to be born future. There is no soil rich enough to produce a harvest without seed.

* GIRM #373: “In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22…shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. The Mass 'For Peace and Justice' (no. 21 of the "Masses for Various Needs") should be celebrated with violet vestments.”

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21 January 2013

To fast, to mourn, to praise

St. Agnes
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

All the commentaries agree: John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are jealous. They have to fast but Jesus' disciples do not. Emboldened by their envy, the fasting disciples ask the Lord, “Why don't your disciples fast?” You see, it's a competition for them. A race to righteousness. Who can fast the longest? Pray the loudest? Give more alms? Apparently, to enter this religious competition, you must be skinny, hoarse, and broke. To win it, you must be the skinniest, the hoarsest, and the most broke. Now, we could shake our heads in pity at such nonsense, or we could give these guys the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are asking a serious question about the connection btw the spiritual practice of fasting and one's growth in righteousness. How are Jesus' disciples managing to grow in righteousness w/o fasting? Jesus' response seems confused: “I'm still with them. They'll fast when I'm gone.” Why does his absence/presence make any difference in the effectiveness of his disciples' fasting? Jesus gives us a clue: he's the bridegroom, thus making the Church his bride. So long as the bride and groom are together, the feast goes on and fasting can wait its turn.

Jesus knows—and now the disciples know—that he won't be with them for much longer. The groom will leave his new bride a widow. So, the time for fasting is fast approaching. What does it say about the nature and purpose of Christian fasting then that it must wait for the death of Jesus to begin? What do we do when someone we love dies? We mourn, we grieve. Their absence from our lives hurts, and we mark this pain by adding to it the pangs of hunger, of longing and desire. The hungrier we are at the end of our mourning, the more eager we are to celebrate the bounty of the next feast. Since the next feast for us is the Feast of Heaven, we fast here on earth to mark, to mourn the death of Jesus just as his earliest disciples did. But we also eat and drink to celebrate his resurrection from the tomb and ascension into heaven. One day we feast, another day we fast. So we might say that our growth in holiness toward perfection is a life-long cycle of feasting and fasting, marking, as Christ himself did, his time among us and his all-too-soon passing away. Think of the Eucharist: we fast before feasting, mourning for a little while before rejoicing that he is among us once again!

Fasting—tempering our appetites—is a discipline, a disciple's routine for teaching, for training the heart and mind to remember, to recall over and over again what it means to be humble before the loving-care of a loving God. Constant feasting can feed pride: I have enough, more than enough, and I want more b/c I deserve it. Constant fasting can feed pride as well, the pride of false humility: I am deprived, more than deprived; I am so small, inferior, insignificant that I don't warrant God's attention. We can discipline our appetites to the point where we are no longer seeking and receiving from God all that He wills to give us. How can you grow without being fed? How can you participate in the mission of Christ if you cannot believe that you have been made worthy to receive your inheritance? Long practice and many wise men and women have taught the Church the wisdom of fasting and feasting, never just one or the other, but both together, always together. And whether you are feasting or fasting, make certain that at the center of your mourning or your celebrating is gratitude. Feasting without thanksgiving is just eating. Fasting without praising God for His blessings is just dieting.

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20 January 2013

But are YOU ready?

2nd Sunday OT 2013
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
St. Dominic Church, NOLA

The Wedding Feast at Cana! A fairly straight-forward miracle story set in a little town outside Nazareth. This wedding party would do New Orleans proud. There's food, wine, guests, wine, dancing, singing, and wine. All they need is Bingo and a cash bar for this to be an exemplary Catholic wedding party. Of course, the wedding at Cana isn't a Catholic wedding. How do we know? The host runs out of wine. Fortunately, for the wedding guests, both Mary and Jesus are on hand. Mary approaches her son, and says, “They have no wine.” Jesus responds, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?” Every time I read this, I cringe. Being a good southern boy, if I called my mama “woman,” I'd regret it. . .after I woke up. Bravely, Jesus continues, “My hour has not yet come.” How is this an excuse not to help the host with his wine shortage? Well, it's not an excuse. But it is a good reason. Jesus' “hour” is the hour of his death. The second he reveals his power as the Christ, the countdown clock starts ticking. Is he prepared to reveal himself and start his long, painful walk to the Cross? Are his disciples ready to follow? Are you?

We know the rest of the story. Jesus changes six jars of water into wine. The head waiter is impressed and compliments the groom for serving his best wine last. About this miracle, John writes, “Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory. . .” Changing water into wine is just the beginning, the first among many signs that reveal the glory of Christ. Though this story seems straightforward enough, there are a few odd moments that deserve attention. If his hour had not yet come, why did he perform a sign that would start his clock ticking? A clue to answering this question comes in the last bit of the reading. John writes that Jesus performs this sign to reveal his glory and b/c of the sign “his disciples began to believe in him.” If his disciples “began to believe in him,” then we have to think that they didn't believe in him before he performed this miracle. Setting aside for a moment how you can be a disciple and not believe in your teacher, what does it say about the disciples that it takes a miracle to get their attention? Just how hardhearted are they? How closed minded do you have to be not to believe in a teacher you've freely chosen to follow? Maybe they believed him but were not ready to follow him to the Cross?

Here's a question for you: how do you prove that you really believe something? For example, if you say that you believe in God, how do I know that you believe in God? If belief is just a matter of saying or thinking, “I believe X,” then I have to believe that you believe. But what if belief required more than just a matter-of-fact assertion? What if belief required both a matter-of-fact assertion about belief AND a demonstration of belief? In other words, when you say to me, “I believe in God,” my response would have to be, “Oh really? Show me.” What would you do? How do we act out a belief? I know this seems like a weird question to ask, but it's a question that Christians have been asking one another for centuries. During the Roman persecutions of the Church, Christians identified themselves by refusing to offer incense to the statues of the Emperor. Christians serving in the Roman legions were tortured and executed for treason b/c they would not pledge themselves to Caesar. Martyrdom is possible today in Nigeria, the Sudan, China, North Korea just by going to Mass. In the E.U., you can lose your job, your children, and your business for living the Christian faith. What if belief required you to sacrifice everything, up to and including your life?

Jesus knew all too well where he was headed. And he knew what would happen to those who freely chose to follow him. He never made a secret of the consequences of believing in him and acting on that belief. He goes out of his way to detail the ugliness that awaits his followers. It's almost as if he wants to discourage people from becoming disciples! Maybe this is why he seems to reply to Mary so rudely, “My hour has not yet come.” Maybe his love for the disciples causes him to hesitate before showing them a sign of his glory as the Christ. Deep down, he wants to spare them the trials of living righteously in a world in rebellion against his Father's rule. Showing them a sign of his glory—like changing water to wine—means moving their hearts and minds from being devoted to him as a holy teacher to following him as their Savior. That's a big move, a Huge Move! A move that will eventually lead all of them to martyrdom in blood and fire. Mary seems to understand her son's hesitation, so she doesn't push him to reveal himself. Instead, she leaves the decision to him, saying to the servers only, “Do whatever he tells you.” And b/c he knows that the mission of the Christ is to die for the sins of the many, he tells them to bring him some water so that he might begin his ministry of signs in Cana.

Are the disciples ready to follow Christ to the Cross? Are we ready to follow him? That move from being devoted to Jesus as a holy teacher to following him as a Savior is a big move, a huge move. It's the difference btw being a hardworking student of a great teacher and being a fellow-worker in ministry eager to share both his glory and his tribulations. I think most of us are ready to say that we're ready to follow Christ. In theory, the whole scenario looks good, even healthy: repentance, forgiveness, penance, love, mercy, hope, good works, all tied together in the sacraments and supported by a vibrant religious culture. The disciples don't have this kind of external support. They are Jewish heretics. Their religious culture sees them as cultish, separated from family and friends, unclean. Thus they are nearly overwhelmed when the ascended Christ sends the Holy Spirit among them at Pentecost, flooding each one of them with His passionate fire for spreading the Word. In their darkest hour, they are given Divine Love, unmediated by law or prophets, undiluted by age or tradition. We are given this same Love: the Spirit to believe, trust, love, show mercy, do good works, to repent, and grow in righteousness. Like the disciples, we too come to believe and believe in word and deed.

Our challenge as faithful followers of Christ becomes clearer and clearer every day. It's not our mission to defeat the world with holiness. The world is already defeated. It's not our mission to save the world with prayer. The world is already saved. It's not our mission to bring justice and peace among the nations through our good works. That's done too. Our mission is to live our lives as witnesses to all that has already been done by Christ. Live holy lives b/c the world is defeated. Live prayerful lives b/c the world is saved. Live lives doing good deeds b/c Christ's justice and peace lives already in us. We live lives of holiness and prayer, and doing good works not to change the world but to show the world all that has already been done for it. Christ gives one sign after another that shows his glory and the glory of the Father among us. All we can do is point to that glory with word and deed, and urge the world, “Do whatever he tells you.” That's enough to get us close to the Cross. But to get all the way to the Cross, we must be ready and willing to sacrifice. . .everything. To show the world the glory of Christ, we must believe—word and deed—and be ready to die for love.

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Children's & Middle Grade · Fantasy

J is for… Jadis

Final post of the day, for the wonderful Part Time Monster!

Part Time Monster

JJadis. Her Imperial Majesty Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islands. The White Witch. C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a twentieth-century fairy tale that’s made its way into the popular subconscious, and despite the book’s brevity and the clear Christian allegory it contains, that fairy tale is remarkably twisty. The idea of Jadis, the villainness of the piece, taps into several very old concepts indeed.

In Lewis’s allegory, Jadis plays the role of the devil to Aslan’s Christ. A magical being who must play by universal rules, who began as the Emperor/God’s subordinate and then attempts to usurp him. Mr. Beaver calls her the “Emperor’s hangman” with the pride to think herself a queen. She has allies in all the creeping, crawling, nightmarish beasts of Narnia’s shadows, and carries out a plan to kill Aslan that was really the lion’s plan all…

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The Military

Submission + - DARPA's AlphaDog begins real world testing (

MrSeb writes: "DARPA has released the first video of its robot Legged Squad Support System (LS3) walking untethered and in the wild. Watch in awe as a robotic quadruped scales a rocky, forested hill while carrying a heavy load on its back. The last time we saw LS3 (aka AlphaDog), back in September, it was tethered to external hydraulics. This made it impressively quiet, but obviously it couldn’t go outside. In the last few months, those hydraulics have been squeezed onto AlphaDog’s chassis, and an on-board petrol-driven motor powers the whole thing. What now follows is an 18-month testing period where AlphaDog's performance will be verified, culminating in an actual field exercise with some US Marines."
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DARPA's AlphaDog begins real world testing

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Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada


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When a New Manager Takes Charge (HBR Classic)

magazine article
PDF Hardcopy Black & White

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Publication Date: January 01, 2007

This article was originally published in May-June 1985 and was republished in January 2007 as an HBR Classic.When some managers take over a new job, they hit the ground running. They learn the ropes, get along with their bosses and subordinates, gain credibility, and ultimately master the situation. Others, however, don't do so well. What accounts for the difference? In this article, first published in 1985, Harvard Business School professor John J. Gabarro relates the findings of two sets of field studies he conducted, covering 14 management successions. The first set was a three-year study of four newly assigned division presidents; the second consisted of 10 historical case studies. The project comprised American and European organizations with sales varying from $1.2 million to $3 billion. It included turnarounds, normal situations, failures, and triumphs. According to the author, the taking-charge process follows five predictable stages: taking hold, immersion, reshaping, consolidation, and refinement. These phases are characterized by a series of alternating periods of intense learning (immersion and refinement) and action (taking hold, reshaping, and consolidation). The study's results put to rest the myth of the all-purpose general manager who can be dropped into any situation and emerge triumphant. Understanding a situation and effecting change do not occur overnight, says Gabarro, and human variables such as managerial styles and effective working relationships make a difference.

Product #: R0701K-PDF-ENG

Pages: 17

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Educators: Register as a Premium Educator at hbsp.harvard.edu , plan a course, and save your students up to 50% with your academic discount.

Students: Tell your instructors about the savings at hbsp.harvard.edu.


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Search Medical Centers

Medical Tourism to Singapore

Search Singapore for
The small state of Singapore is is well-known for its very stringent laws and regulations particularly in the areas involving cleanliness. These regulations are carried over to Singapore's ultra-high quality levels in healthcare and world-class facilities, making it an ideal destination for medical travelers looking for modern infrastructure, a clean and structured environment, and English-speaking medical professionals.

Singapore's Healthcare System

In 2014, the Bloomberg ranked Singapore as the most efficient health system in the world. Hospitals and medical centers in Singapore are mostly government or public facilities, while a few are privately owned like the Raffles and Parkway hospitals. All Singaporean hospitals offer 'top-of-the-line' healthcare services and facilities. They are serviced by English-speaking and internationally trained medical practitioners and staff.

International Hospital Accreditations

Most hospitals and specialty centers in Singapore cater to medical tourists, and practically all of them offer ultra-high quality healthcare. Most major hospitals in Singapore have international accreditation from the Joint Commission International (JCI), ISO or OHSAS. In 2014, Singapore had 21 JCI-accredited hospitals and medical centers.

Local Hospital Accreditations

Singaporean health facilities receive local accreditation from the Singapore Health Promotion Board, the Singapore Laboratory Accreditation System (SINGLAS), the Singapore Accreditation Council (SAC) and the Singaporean Ministry of Health.

The Health Sciences Authority of Singapore and the Singapore Accreditation Council control and regulate the certification of medical devices and other health products.

Physicians Accreditations

Medical practitioners' standards and practices are regulated by the Singapore Medical Council, Singapore Nursing Board, Singapore Dental Board, Pharmacy Board and the Laboratory Board.

Common Treatments done in Singapore by Medical Tourists

Singaporean hospitals and healthcare facilities offer a wide array of procedures and services for medical travelers, which include but are not limited to the following:

Cost of Medical Treatment in Singapore

The following are cost comparisons between Medical procedures in Singapore and equivalent procedures in the United States: [sources 1, 2, 3]
Cardiac Surgery
Procedure US Hospitals Singapore Average Savings
Heart Bypass $55,000 - $130,000 $13,000 - $18,500 70-80%
Heart Valve Replacement $130,000 - $160,000 $12,000 - 13,000 90-92%
Coronary Angioplasty $42,000 - $57,000 $11,500 - $13,000 70-77%
Coronary Angiography $5,500 - $6,000 $1,300 - $1,500 70-75%
Orthopedic Surgery
Procedure US Hospitals Singapore Average Savings
Hip Replacement $24,000 - $43,000 $12,000 - $16,000 50-65%
Hip Resurfacing $45,000 - $50,000 $13,000 - $15,000 70-75%
Knee Replacement $38,000 - $42,000 $12,000 - $13,500 65-70%
Spinal Fusion $60,000 - $63,000 $8,000 - $10,000 80-85%
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Procedure US Hospitals Singapore Average Savings
Face Lift (Rhytidectomy) $19,000 - $21,000 $6,500 - $7,500 60-65%
Breast Augmentation/Reduction (Mammoplasty) $9,000 - $11,000 $7,000 - $9,000 18-20%
Liposuction (Lipoplasty) $14,000 - $16,000 $4,500 - $5,500 60-65%
Nose Surgery (Rhinoplasty) $6,500 - $7,500 $3,500 - $4,500 40-46%
Tummy Tuck (Abdominoplasty) $8,000 - $9,000 $6,000 - $6,500 25-40%
Eyelid Surgery $6,500 - $7,500 $3,500 - $4,000 45-50%
Eye / Ophthalmology
Procedure US Hospitals Singapore Average Savings
LASIK Eye Surgery $2,000 - $2,500 $1,500 - $2,000 20-25%
General and Cosmetic Dentistry
Procedure US Hospitals Singapore Average Savings
Root Canal $800 - $1200 $350 - $900 25-60%
Other procedures
Procedure US Hospitals Singapore Average Savings
Stem Cell Transplant $200,000 - $250,000 $72,000 - $90,000 60-65%
Hysterectomy $19,000 - $21,000 $5,500 - $6,500 70-75%

Malpractice and Liability Laws in Singapore

Doctors in Singapore are required to have suitable medical malpractice insurance, but these are not as expensive as compared to the US. The costs are recovered through payments for medical procedures and treatments as shouldered by patients.

  • Quality healthcare system

    The WHO ranked the quality of healthcare in Singapore as 6th in the world.
  • Modern and developed country

    Singapore is a highly urbanized, orderly and spotless country so medical tourists can avoid the chaotic environment which is typical to some Asian countries.
  • JCI accreditations

    There are several JCI-certified hospitals and healthcare facilities in Singapore.
  • English is widely spoken

    English is one of Singapore's official languages and is spoken by all doctors and medical staff.

  • More expensive then other Asian countries

    Medical procedures and treatments done in Singapore are more expensive compared to other Asian medical tourism destinations such as Thailand, India, Philippines and Malaysia.
  • Climate

    The climate in Singapore is hot and humid. This may cause a measure of discomfort to most Westerners, particularly during the post-procedure and recovery stages.
  • Living costs

    Prices of goods, transportation and accommodation in Singapore are more expensive than most Asian countries
  • Inconvenient flight from Europe/North America

    For US, Canadian and European medical tourists, travel times to Singapore are very long

Traveling to Singapore

Non-stop or single-stop flights are available from various destinations to Singapore through the flagship Singapore Airlines and other international airlines.
Average estimated travel time in hours
From/To Singapore
New York City 18
Los Angeles 16
Australia (Sydney) 7
Indonesia (Jakarta) 2
Philippines (Manila) 3.5
UAE (Dubai) 7
Toronto 21
Vancouver 18
United Kingdom 14

Singapore Entry and Exit Requirements

As a general requirement for entry and exit to Singapore, all foreign visitors are required to have the following items: passport/travel document with a minimum validity of 6 months; a return or onward ticket; entry requirements for the visitor's next destination; sufficient funds that would support their stay and purpose in Singapore; and required applicable Visa or visit pass as described below.

Visiting nationals from the UK, Australia, Canada, USA and EU countries do not require a Visa upon entry and will be issued a Social Visit Pass upon arrival, provided that they comply with the general requirements as described above. The visit pass is valid for 30 days upon arrival. Other countries listed in Singapore's Assessment Level I and Level II countries are required to have either a Business Visa or a Social Visit Visa prior to entry to Singapore.

Should there be a need for an extension in stay, or if the required pre-procedure and post-procedure duration requirements extend beyond 30 days, the medical traveler should arrange for an extension pass (valid up to 90 days) from the Embassy of the Republic of Singapore or the Consulate-General of Singapore before leaving the United States or Canada. If the need for extension is determined while already in Singapore, special permits can be arranged and obtained from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore.

Statistics of Medical Tourism in Singapore

Singapore attracts hundreds of thousands of medical tourists per year, according to exit surveys conducted on tourists by the Singapore Tourism Board. Singapore's international patients are mostly from Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, UAE and China.

Who is already here?

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Allergy Induced Asthma

by Lee Wyatt
(last updated August 23, 2013)

If you think that you may have allergy induced asthma, but aren't ready to visit the doctor's yet, you really need to be aware of what the symptoms are. By being able to positively identify these symptoms you can easily tell whether you have a severe case of allergies, or if you may have allergy induced asthma. Remember, the only person that can really tell you whether you have this kind of asthma is a doctor, so if you have a few of the symptoms make an appointment with your physician to have the proper tests conducted.

  • Sneezing. When dealing with allergy induced asthma, periodic sneezing isn't really that much of an issue. Instead, what you need to be aware of is the longer bouts of sneezing where you can't really do a whole lot else.
  • Wheezing. Wheezing when you breath, particularly after you have been around common allergens, is often a symptom of this particular type of asthma. Often this particular symptom will also appear with a rattling sound in your chest as well.
  • Nasal stuffiness. Anyone that has ever been around something that makes them sneeze too much, or that has had a cold can attest to what nasal stuffiness feels like. When by itself, or with the sneezing symptom, does not by themselves indicate a possible case of allergy induced asthma. Instead, if this crops up in conjunction with any of the breathing issues, then you may have something to worry about.
  • Itchy, watery, or burning eyes. This is a common ailment of anyone that has ever had allergies or hay fever. In fact, if you have ever cut an onion then you have an idea of what to look out for. Again, this could be simply a symptom of hay fever or seasonal allergies, it can also be a symptom of asthma when it is found in conjunction with any of the breathing issues.
  • Coughing. Coughing has long been a traditional symptom of asthma, and when it is found in conjunction with a couple of these other symptoms, you can be pretty sure that you need to have a test done. Keep in mind, this isn't going to be a simple cough, but rather a long series of coughs that make it extremely difficult to do anything, or a series of coughs that simply won't quit easily.
  • Itchy mouth or throat. If you feel a tickling in the back of your throat or mouth, and it starts to turn into an itchy feeling, then you may want to look into whether you have allergies. If you have this feeling at the same time as some of the breathing issues then you really need to have a couple of tests performed.
  • Tightness of the chest. Perhaps one of the most common, and traditional, symptoms of possible asthma and an asthma attack is a feeling of tightness in the chest. Keep in mind though that this feeling of tightness has best been described as though the person afflicted has steel bands or cables wrapped around their chest, and are unable to breath at all.
  • Runny nose. Just as with nasal stuffiness, this is something that you can experience quite easily if you are subject to colds, hay fever, or seasonal allergies. While this by itself is not a symptom of asthma, it is definitely one if it has a tendency to appear at around the same time that any of the traditional asthma symptoms show up.
  • Difficulty breathing. Often times simply having a bit of difficulty breathing, particularly when being exposed to something like pollen, allergens, or even pet dander, can be a rather simple indication that you have asthma. Difficulty breathing is one of the more traditional symptoms of asthma, and something that you should be on the look out for.

Author Bio

Lee Wyatt

Contributor of numerous Tips.Net articles, Lee Wyatt is quickly becoming a regular "Jack of all trades." He is currently an independent contractor specializing in writing and editing. Contact him today for all of your writing and editing needs! Click here to contact. ...

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Hold Fast the Gospel

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;) – Hebrews 10:23

A true church in her holiness and testimony is very terrible to sinners. The ungodly care not a rush about a mock church, nor about sham Christians; but a really earnest Christian makes the ungodly abashed.

Let us be very earnest to maintain the faith once delivered to the saints. Let us not give up this doctrine or that, at the dictates of policy or fashion; but whatsoever Jesus saith unto us, let us receive it as the word of life. Great injury may be done to a church ere it knows it, if it shall tolerate error here and there; for false doctrine, like the little leaven, soon leavens the whole lump. If the church be taught of the Spirit to know the voice of the Good Shepherd, a stranger it will not follow; for it knows not the voice of strangers. This is part of the education which Christ gives to His people: “All thy people shall be taught of the Lord.” They shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free. May we, as a church, hold fast the things which we have learned and have been taught of God; and may we be preserved from the philosophies and refinings of these last days. If we give up the things which are verily believed among us we shall lose our power, and the enemy alone will be pleased; but if we maintain them, the maintenance of the old faith, by the Spirit of God, shall make us strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Wrap the colors round you, ye standard bearers, in the day of danger, and die sooner than give them up. Life is little compared with God’s lovingkindness, and that is the sure heritage of the brave defender of the faith.~ C.H. Spurgeon

Fight for the Glory of His Name

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might…Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. -Ephesians 6:10,13

When an army folds up its colors the fight is over. Little is being done in military circles when the banners are put away; the troops are on furlough, or are resting in barracks. An army with banners is exercising, or marching, or fighting; probably it is in the middle of a campaign, it is marshaled for offense and defense, and there will be rough work before long. It is to be feared that some churches have hung up their flags to rot in state, or have encased them in dull propriety…The reason for a church being a church lies in its mutual edification and in the conversion of sinners; and if these two ends are not really answered by a church, it is a mere name, a hindrance, an evil, a nuisance; like the salt which has lost its savor, it is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghill. May we all in our church fellowship be active in the energy of the Spirit of God. May none of us be dead members of the living body, mere impediments to the royal host, baggage to be dragged rather than warriors pushing on in the war. May we, every one of us, be soldiers filled with vigor to the fullness of our manhood, by the eternal power of the Holy Spirit; and may we be resolved that any portion of the church which does not uplift its banner of service shall not long number us among its adherents. Be it ours to determine that whether others will or will not serve God and extend the kingdom of His dear Son, we will, in His name and strength, contend even to the death. Unsheath your swords, ye soldiers of the cross; arise from your slumbers, ye careless ones, gird on your swords and prepare for the war. The Lord has redeemed you by His blood, not that you might sleep, but that you might fight for the glory of His name.~ C.H. Spurgeon

Preserved Blameless

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1 Thessalonians 5:23

The apostle prophesied for these believers, that which he would have us seek after–that we may be preserved, blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ…God grant that in that last great day we may stand free from all charge, that none in the whole universe may dare to challenge our claim to be the redeemed of the Lord. We have sins and infirmities to mourn over, but these are not the kind of faults which would prove us to be out of Christ; we shall be clear of hypocrisy, deceit, hatred, and delight in sin; for these things would be fatal charges. Despite our failings, the Holy Spirit can work in us a character spotless before men; so that, like Daniel, we shall furnish no occasion for accusing tongues, except in the matter of our religion. Multitudes of godly men and women have exhibited lives so transparent, so consistent throughout, that none could gainsay them. The Lord will be able to say of many a believer, as He did of Job, when Satan stood before Him, “Hast thou considered My servant, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?” This is what my reader must look for at the Lord’s hands. This is the triumph of the saints–to continue to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, maintaining our integrity as before the living God. May we never turn aside into crooked ways, and give cause to the adversary to blaspheme. Of the true believer it is written, “He keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” May it be so written concerning us!

Friend just beginning in the divine life, the Lord can give you an irreproachable character. Even though in your past life you may have gone far into sin, the Lord can altogether deliver you from the power of former habits, and make you an example of virtue. He can not only make you moral, but He can make you abhor every false way and follow after all that is saintly. Do not doubt it. The chief of sinners need not be a whit behind the purest of the saints. Believe for this, and according to your faith shall it be unto you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Love One Another Fervently

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart – 1Peter 1:22

(W)henever it can be said of an assembly, “the Lord is there,” unity will be created and fostered. Show me a church that quarrels, a church that is split up into cliques, a church that is divided with personal ambitions, contrary doctrines and opposing schemes, and I am sure that the Lord is not there. Where there are envyings, jealousies, suspicions, backbitings, and dislikes, I know that the Holy Dove, who hates confusion, has taken His flight. God is love, and He will only dwell where love reigns. He is the God of peace, and will not endure strife. The children of God should be knit together. It would indeed be a shameful sight should children of His family fall out, and chide, and fight. Saints who dwell with God love each other “with a pure heart, fervently.” Some professors act as if they hated each other: I may not say, “with a pure heart,” but I will say, “fervently.” Where God is present the church is edified in love, and grows up, like a building fitly framed together, to be a holy temple in the Lord. Oh, for more of this unity!…What happy times we have in preaching the word of the Lord, when God’s own presence is realized! His paths drop fatness. What joyous seasons we have frequently enjoyed at the communion table!..When we have gathered in the Lord’s presence we have sung-

“No beams of cedar or of fir
Can with thy courts on earth compare;
And here we wait, until Thy love
Raise us to nobler seats above.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

Abide with Us, We Pray Thee!

Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. -Acts 20:28

Brethren, we as a church have grown to great numbers, and we are not deficient either in gifts or in graces, or in work for our Lord; but let me solemnly remind you always that our chief, our only strength, must always lie in this-“the Lord is there.” If the Lord should depart from us, as He has gone from churches which are now apostate, what an abyss opens before us! If He should take His Holy Spirit from us, even as the glory departed from the temple at Jerusalem, then our ruin would become a thing to mention with dread, a case to be quoted for a warning to future generations. O Lord, our God, take not Thy flight! Abide with us, we pray Thee! Our only hope lies in Thy making the place of Thy feet glorious among us.

If the Lord be among us, the consequences will bethe conservation of true doctrine. The true God is not with a lie: He will not give His countenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than according to His word, abide not under His blessing; but are in great danger of His curse. If any man speak another gospel (which is not another, but there be some that trouble us), God is not with him, and any transient prosperity which he may enjoy, will be blown away as the chaff. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread…and therefore they are sound in the faith, reverent towards Holy Scripture, and zealous for the honor of Christ! Trust-deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society; but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith, or secure honesty; and to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon. No subscription to articles can keep out the unscrupulous. Wolves leap into the fold however carefully you watch the door…Truth must be written on the heart as well as in the book. If the Lord be among His people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, but because divine truth is the life of their souls. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The Soul is Precious

For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you have been ransomed from the worthless way of life handed down to you by your ancestors -1Peter 1:18

You may tell how serious it is to lose the soul, from its intrinsic value. The soul is a thing worth ten thousand worlds; in fact, a thing which worlds on worlds heaped together, like sand upon the sea shore, could not buy. It is more precious than if the ocean had each drop of itself turned into a golden globe, for all that wealth could not buy a soul. Consider! The soul is made in the image of its Maker; “God made man,” it is said, “in His own image.” The soul is an everlasting thing like God; God has gifted it with immortality; and hence it is precious. To lose it, then, how fearful! Consider how precious a soul must be, when both God and the devil are after it. You never heard that the devil was after a kingdom, did you? No, he is not so foolish; he knows it would not be worth his winning; he is never after that; but he is always after souls. You never heard that God was seeking after a crown, did you! No, He thinketh little of dominions; but He is after souls every day; His Holy Spirit is seeking His children; and Christ came to save souls. Do you think that which hell craves for, and that which God seeks for, is not precious?

The soul is precious again, we know, by the price Christ paid for it. “Not with silver and gold,” but with His own flesh and blood did He redeem it. Ah! it must be precious, if He gave His heart’s core to purchase it. What must it be to lose your soul?..Oh! sirs, because the soul is capable of heaven, its loss is a dreadful and terrific thing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The Grace of God

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. – John 1:16

Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons – Acts 10:34

Poverty is no virtue; wealth is no sin. On the other hand, wealth is not morally good, and poverty is not morally evil. A man may be a good man and a rich man; it is quite certain that very frequently good men are poor men. Virtue is a plant which depends not upon the atmosphere which surrounds it, but upon the hand which waters it, and upon the grace which sustains it. We draw no support for grace from our circumstances whether they be good or evil. Our circumstances may sometimes militate against the gracious work in our breast, but it is quite certain that no position in life is a sustaining cause of the life of grace in the soul. That must always be maintained by divine power, which can work as well in poverty as in riches; for we see some of the finest specimens of the full development of Christianity in those who are the very meanest in temporal circumstances; far outshining those whom we should have imagined, from their position in society, would have had many things to assist their virtues and sustain their graces. Grace is a plant which draws no nourishment from the wilderness in which it grows; it finds nothing to feed upon in the heart of man; all it lives upon it receives supernaturally. It sends all its roots upwards, none downwards; it draws no support from poverty, and none from riches. Gold cannot sustain grace; on the other hand, rags cannot make it flourish. Grace is a plant which derives the whole of its support from God the Holy Spirit, and is, therefore, entirely independent of the circumstances of man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon


text:
1 Year of #WorkThatsFresh

by HEY WTF Records

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  • Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

     $3 USD

It's hard to believe that releasing this compilation marks a year since the start of HEY WTF. That year has flown by- there have been a lot of amazingly exciting moments, plenty of frustrating challenges, and some major changes. What we're presenting you today is a 7-track (plus some bonuses) compilation that's a snapshot of where we are now. In our early months we released just about any genre of music, but HEY WTF now proudly stands as a label dedicated to furthering beats music and its movement.

Enjoy this summary of the HEY WTF sound we've been developing. We're so grateful to have an amazing family of producers who're dedicated to growing together- we truly love you all (Lawnmowher, Mike, ewonee, Dataka, Jake, Beat Gates, Brian, and all the other artists who keep joining us). At the same time, Rae, Sara, Rachel and I look forward to growing as a label and doing everything we can to support and spread this amazing music.

We believe that beats music is important- it's a unique genre of music in its ability to pay respectful homage, its versatility to creative listeners, and its unwavering down-to-earth culture. Please spread this music to your friends and families. This is #WorkThatsFresh.

-Ryan Lucht, Head/Founder

released September 7, 2013

All tracks written and produced by their respective artists, except Track 2 produced by Suff Daddy.
Publishing: HEY WTF Publishing (BMI).
Additional Mastering on Track 6 by Ryan Lucht.

Cover Design by Ryan Lucht for HEY WTF Records.

all rights reserved

feeds for this album, this artist

HEY WTF Records Boston, Massachusetts

Beats label and movement based in Boston, reaching worldwide. #WorkThatsFresh

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text:
Bakelite beauty (1948 GEC telephone)

1948 GEC bakelite telephone 332AT

Not so mobile phone, with talk but no text

Recently I went hunting amongst the trash and treasure of my father’s garage for this bakelite beauty. I was hoping it was still there after all this time.

When we were kids Dad had a lot of old theatre props under the house which we used to play with. The hoard of old telephones was my favourite.

‘Aha!’ I had found one of them. And not a bad example either.

From memory, there used to several bakelite phones under our old house including an in-house switchboard type – the kind that a secretary would use for transferring calls within a business.

I’d like to think that this one was Grandpa and Grandma’s telephone, from their house in Rockdale (Sydney), or perhaps all the telephones in the stash were from Grandpa’s sports goods business in Clarence Street, Sydney?

Who knows? In any case, this telephone is over sixty five years old and a vintage beauty.

1948 GEC bakelite telephone 332AT

‘A dead ringer’ *

1948 GEC 332AT telephone

– black bakelite case, combination handset with ‘spit cup’, chrome dial, dual metal plungers, original single thick rayon-sheathed black cord, base directory drawer replaced with blanking plate.

‘This tray caused some problems, as anything in it that was not perfectly flat could jam up under the bells…It became standard practice when reconditioning phones to replace the drawer with a blanking plate. Phones without a tray could also be damaged by people trying to prise open the blanking plate, thinking it was the front to a stuck drawer.’ (Bob’s Old Phones)

Yup, that’s what must have happened to this one. Have to confess, I tried to force it open myself. It’s too tempting.

The telephone has the following markings:

Base label: (Black and gold)

Ink stamp on base:

P.M.G.  48    3 32 AT

S1 / 52

ie. Post Master General (Australia) 1948 (believed to be the year of commission)

332 model = a standard CB / auto exchange telephone

A = automatic exchange type, T = table instrument

Handset imprint: 164  50

ie. 164 model, 1950 year of manufacture

1948 GEC bakelite telephone 332AT

Letters … but no buttons

Notes and sources

* ‘a dead ringer’ – is usually an Australian phrase meaning that someone looks exactly like someone else

eg. Bob is a dead ringer for Joe. (Bob looks exactly like Joe, could be mistaken for Joe)

‘1949 GEC Bakelite Telephone 300 Series STUNNING’ (item number: 131149957796), eBay (website), eBay Inc., http://www.ebay.com.au, viewed 12 April 2014

‘BRITISH POST OFFICE 300 SERIES TELEPHONE’, Bob’s Old Phones (website), Bob Estreich, http://www.telephonecollecting.org, viewed 12 April 2014

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A convict in the tree

Parramatta Female Factory Precinct, Cumberland Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

A majestic old tree sheltering convict and colonial buildings, Parramatta, Sydney

A little while back I found some convict bricks in my veggie patch. It got me thinking about the ‘Australian Royalty’ – that is, the convicts – in my family tree.

Of my convict ancestors the one that strikes my heart the most is Catherine Hughes, my great great great great grandmother (4 x great). Something about her sad plight touches me. I wanted to know more about her life on Australian soil and to retrace her footsteps.

Convict bricks showing arrow head mark and layers of clay

Convict bricks found in our veggie patch

Mrs Catherine Dixon was a thirty year old widow when she arrived at Port Jackson / Sydney, on the female convict transport the Henry Wellesley (2), with her four small children in tow. Thomas was 11 years old, Edward was 9 or 10, Sarah 6, and little Catherine barely 3 years old.

I can imagine Catherine, a tiny 5 foot 2 1/2 inches with brown hair, grey eyes and ‘ruddy complexion’ – a mix of my family’s physical traits. On her Convict Indent she is also described:

Lost a front tooth right side of upper jaw. Small scar upper part of nose. 3 blue dots on back of left hand. 2 scars on forefinger of left hand. Large scar inside right thumb.

[Record courtesy of M McCowage, email]

From all of that, it sounds like life was tough for Catherine!

On dry land

Catherine and the children all survived the sea journey from Woolwich, England of 5 months and 2 days! (Can you imagine that!) The ship arrived on a Friday, 22 December 1837, but because of ‘the boisterous state of the weather’ it was late in the evening before it could enter Sydney Cove and the family could step foot on solid ground.

[National Library of Australia, Trove Australia (newspapers on-line), ‘Ship News.’, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), 23 December 1837, p. 2, viewed 7 February, 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2214604 ]

Catherine was assigned as a servant to M Sparke of Sydney, probably right off the ship at Sydney Cove. Her six year old daughter most likely also went with her as a servant. (Catherine was listed as assigned in the General Muster of 31st December 1837, 9 days later).

[Ancestry.com, NSW & Tas, Australia Convict Musters, 1806-1849 (database on-line). Original data: Home Office: Settlers and Convicts, NSW & Tas; (The National Archives Microfilm Publication HO10, Pieces 5, 19-20, 32-51); The National Archives of the UK, Kew.]

Inmate of the Female Factory

But something went wrong and some time in 1838 Catherine and her daughter aged 6 years old were returned from service to the Female Factory in Parramatta.

Parramatta Female Factory Precinct, Cumberland Hospital, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia

Family on the inside

This was a place for female convicts who were either unassigned, sick or invalid or pregnant, or who were under sentence for a crime committed in the colony.

So why was Catherine at the Female Factory? And what happened to her children Thomas, Edward, Sarah and little Catherine?

I’ll do some more digging under the family tree and let you know.

Photos of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct

The historic precinct is located within the grounds of Cumberland Hospital East Campus in North Parramatta, Sydney (New South Wales, Australia).

The hospital site is open but the buildings are in use and not accessible. Closest access is from the Fleet Street entrance of Cumberland Hospital.

Photos taken 11 August 2013

Convicts series

For other posts in my Convict series click on the ‘convicts’ tag below.

More information and sources

Parramatta Female Factory Precinct (website), Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Association, http://www.parragirls.org.au/, viewed 4 April 2014

Parramatta Female Factory“, Free Settler or Felon? (website), Jen Willetts, http://www.jenwilletts.com/female_factory_parramatta.htm, viewed 4 April 2014

1 Comment

Convicts in the garden?

When we moved to our land three years ago we set about cleaning up the disused garden.

And I found the MOST exciting, the most lost-for-words-eye-blink discovery:

I was removing the bricks that lined the old veggie beds and stacking them in a pile when I noticed that some I picked up looked very old and worn, handmade, with lumps and bumps.

Old bricks found in veggie garden

Garden surprise!

I’m not an expert but I recognised their age straight away. And when I had a closer look I found the magic frog mark of Australian royalty … the convict broad arrow mark.

Convict bricks with arrow head markings

Convict bricks with arrow head markings

Convict broad arrow mark?

Australian convict bricks are marked in a number of ways, with diamond shapes, hearts, trowel imprints, even thumb marks. But the most well-known mark is the broad arrow – the same shape that was printed on convict uniforms.

When I say ‘convict’ in Australia we mean from 1788 to the 1850s, the (mostly) British criminals transported to the penal colonies down under.

Convicts made bricks either as part of government work gangs or when assigned as servants to a land owner. It was forced labour as part of their penal sentence.

Given that I’m a little bit of a history buff, finding these bricks in my veggie patch made my eyes mist over!

Our house is a modern one but we do have some history on our place – the fence alone is ancient! And I’ve dug up bits of older metal and crockery here and there.

Convict bricks showing arrow head mark and layers of clay

Old mud pies! Love the layers.

But the convict period represents the first 70 years of European settlement in Australia. I know that’s not very old by European standards but it would be the equivalent of finding the foundations of a Roman villa? … Rare, anyway!

So this pile of just a few bricks – some convict bricks, also other colonial? or Victorian and Australian Federation bricks? – is quite a find in my Aussie books!

I don’t think the bricks are original to the site. They may have been brought in as a lot of second-hand bricks to make the veggie beds. But where did they come from?

Looks like I need to do some more ‘digging’!  ♦

If you can identify the other brick types here I would love to hear your thoughts.

Old bricks with convict and other markings

Old bricks with convict and other markings

Convicts series

Re-posted from my Daytripper Sippers blog

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First post: Grandpa’s inkwell desk set

Grandpa sat at his desk in the front room of the family house in Rockdale, Sydney, writing letters and attending to his business records there.

He was an apprentice watchmaker, turned instrument maker during WWII, but later he had his own sporting goods company.

Inkwell set "FRANK. A. WEEKS PAT. / PARAGON 505"

Grandpa’s desk set

Believed to be Grandpa as a young man. [courtesy of V Harris]

Believed to be Grandpa as a young man [courtesy of V Harris]

I have only a few memories as a child of Grandpa. He died about a month before I turned five. I remember him as being tall and thin with a long face, long ears with thick lobes, and ‘the family nose’. He was a kindly man and was very athletic.

I have the rope quoits he made and a small wooden puzzle box, with a tiny ball bearing inside, that always fascinated me when I was young. (It is very clever with small wooden blocks you must slide across to trap the ball. A later post!)

One of the wonderful things found in my dad’s house was this inkwell desk set and two lidded ink bottles that belonged to Grandpa (identified by my brother).

I also have some of Grandpa’s ledgers, pads of blank invoices, and his pocket notebook with his business contacts and supply details.

Grandpa’s house was closed up when my aunt migrated to England in 1972 so it appeals to me that Dad valued these things enough to save them.

Small ink bottles from Grandpa's desk

Small ink bottles from Grandpa’s desk

The two clear glass ink bottles have soft metal rims and hinges, tinged with green (brass or copper?). The ink bottles have no manufacturer’s stamp or markings on the base. The bases are completely smooth suggesting they are machine-made. This would date them from some time after the 1920s.

I don’t think the ink bottles belong to the desk set.

Inkwell set "FRANK. A. WEEKS PAT. / PARAGON 505"

Grandpa’s desk set

The glass inkwell desk set has the markings:

(inside the left well)

(and inside the right well)

It possibly matches a US patent granted for 14 years from 1920 (see Googleapis.com).

I like that the right ink well still has some dried black ink in it! A nice link back to the days of Grandpa’s business.  ♦

BOTTLE BASICS’, Bottlebooks.com, Digger Odell Publications, 2003, viewed 14 March 2014

” ‘UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. FRANK A. WEEKS’, OF PLAINFIELD; NEW JERSEY. DESIGN FOR AN INKSTAND. 55,968″, Googleapis.compatentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/USD55968.pdf, viewed 14 March 2014

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