Sunday's Fun Religious News from Australia

One of the fun things about being over here is that, despite Australia's secular image and self-identity, there is still an awful lot of religion in the local news. Today, while waiting for fish and chips at the shop across the road, I happened across four fun religion stories in the Sunday Telegraph:

ITEM!!!

Labor Leader Kevin Rudd spoke last week to religious leaders, burnishing his Christian credentials:

Last week, Rudd addressed the Australian Christian Lobby, and he was a prominent member of the Federal Parliamentary prayer group.

He has previously declared the Christian faith, along with a commitment to social justice, to be one of the guiding principles of his life.

"For me the Christian faith is an undergirding (sic) principle,'' he said.

Today, he is being accused of hypocrisy after admitting to getting plastered and hitting up strip clubs in New York.

ITEM!!!

Assemblies of God to begin advertising during Australian Idol (link not available).

ITEM!!!

Australia's friendly skies are not so friendly, if you're Jewish:

Sydney executive David Moses has lodged a complaint with [QANTAS], alleging the [flight attendant] repeatedly made derogatory comments about Jews, even after discovering that Mr Moses was Jewish.

[...]

He said the steward had complained to him about an elderly French passenger who had become agitated over the provision of a wheelchair for her husband on arrival.

Mr Moses said the attendant had turned to him and said "Jews''.

When he asked what she meant, she had replied: "That's what you get when you deal with Jews.''

[...]

After he told the steward "I am Jewish'', Mr Moses said she responded: "Well, you better go and tell her that she's letting your team down.''

But, of course, I've saved the best for last:

ITEM!!!

University of Western Sydney cafeteria defines "halal" inclusively, to include bacon:

A CATERING company has apologised to Muslim university students after trying to sell them "halal bacon and egg rolls".

University of Western Sydney students had been suspicious for months about the authenticity of food labelled "halal'' at campus canteens.

Their concerns were unexpectedly proved correct when in-house catering company UWSConnect offered "halal bacon and egg rolls'' at the Bankstown campus.

Down Under

I arrived in Australia yesterday, and am slowly getting myself up and running. A few notes:

• You apparently don't get contemporary in-flight entertainment on United flights to Australia. The fare for my trip included some movie with Richard Gere as a 20-something; Wall Street; Shrek (the original); and some movie with Sandra Bullock crying a lot and hugging two young girls. Fortunately, I chose to read Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country and was enormously entertained instead.
  
• Australian customs and immigration is far more assertive and aggressive even than American customs. Dogs running up and down the waiting lines, really intense questioning about fruits, veggies, etc. It was not a speedy process.
• The flight attendant on the short hop from Sydney to Canberra was 6'5" and named Kylie. Somehow, this seemed appropriate.
• Apparently, Australian magpies will play the role of the American rooster in this adventure. They sing at 6AM, with a call that sounds not unlike R2D2 short-circuiting.
• Regrettably, the housing stock in Australia appears to have been designed by the same folks who designed California's--that is, under the impression that it never gets cold here. So my room loses heat at an incredible rate at night. And it is not warm here either; temps top out around 50-55 degrees during the bright sunny day, but dip below freezing at night. I'm going to have to buy some additional blankets this evening, I think.

It's been a good trip so far. I've got a bank account, internet access, and I've set up my spacious though partially magenta room. Roomies K. and A. seem very congenial and outgoing. Today, I'm off to acquire a cell phone and to introduce myself to the fine folks at Australian National University. I'll post more about Canberra and those adventures later.

San Millan de la Cogolla -- June 2, 2007

Here are a few pictures from around San Millan de la Cogolla, in the Rioja region. San Millan is famous as the "birthplace of the Spanish language," if memory serves because one of the first monks in Spain to write in the vernacular lived in one of the area's two monasteries, in around the eleventh century or so.

The first pictures were taken at Yuso, one of the two monasteries (the other, Suso, was closed). The latter were taken on the way back to our hotel in Haro, when we stopped off at a berm of wild poppies, which are everywhere in Spain in early June.

Burgos Cathedral -- June 1, 2007

I learned a thing or two about my patron saint today...

This picture shows the main entrance to Burgos Cathedral, one of the greatest in Spain. We hit it on the first day of our trip, some three hours after I arrived in Madrid from New York on an overnight flight. Mercifully, L. did all of the driving up from Madrid (two hours) so I was able to sleep in the car and actually enjoy the cathedral. Even on a trip that included the grand Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, this cathedral was a high point, especially its exquisite treasury of medieval art.

Much as you can't get very far around Florence without running into all kinds of statues of Saint Sebastian getting shot full of arrows, you can't get far around Burgos without running into paintings of Saint Jerome (a.k.a. San Jeronimo). Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), Saint Jerome didn't meet with a grisly death, so instead he's usually depicted looking tormented, reading and/or translating the Bible, in the vicinity of a skull (symbol of meditation). For his labors, he is now patron saint of archivists, librarians, and students. So it's somewhat appropriate, given my impending journey, to devote this post to the many terrific depictions of Saint Jerome that fill Burgos Cathedral:


As cool as St. Jerome is, however, he can't hold a candle to the best piece of art in the treasury. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to present...

Disco Jesus!


I mean, is there really any doubt that this version of Jesus is not just bringing light and truth, but bringing it?

Santillana del Mar -- June 3, 2007

Santillana del Mar is a small town in the north of Spain which is, its name to the contrary, not located on the ocean. It's an extremely well preserved medeival town, near the famous (and closed to the public) Altamira Caves, which means it gets quite a bit of tourist traffic during the day. It empties out at night, however, which is when we experimented with night photography:

For some reason, the black and white ones always turn out the best at night. I think it's because they capture the two-headed nightwalkers that the color shots just can't...