Would You Accept A Gift From This Woman?

For many people, the subject of charitable giving is a rather touchy one. We saw the ire of the general public squared at both Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Prime Minister Julia Gillard when they announced their matching $1 million gifts to the Queensland Flood Appeal. Surely, this was a paltry sum compared to what was given for overseas disasters, such as the Boxing Day Tsunami. Doesn’t charity begin at home?

For charity organisations, they each scramble for a slice of the limited charity dollar, taking any opportunity they can to stick their hands out for their cause. I recall a television report a couple of years ago that told how Australians waste millions of dollars each year on food they don’t eat, clothes they don’t wear, books they don’t read, etc. The high profile CEO of a high profile charity indignantly remarked that if Australians couldn’t spend their money properly, then we should give it to his charity to ensure that it is spent properly. How to win friends and influence people…

Then there is the super wealthy who many people believe should share their vast fortunes with those less fortunate. Multi-millionaire Jamie McIntyre in the days when he wasn’t so well off researched the financial habits of the mega-rich and found that the vast majority donated a percentage of their income to charitable causes. Today, he teaches the Biblical principle of tithing as a fundamental of wealth creation.

Which brings me to Oprah. Oprah Winfrey is one of the wealthiest women on the planet, with a personal fortune of $US2.7 billion and earnings of $US315 million in 2010 alone. She is also very famous for her philanthropy. Between 1998 and 2007, she gave $US230 million to her Oprah Winfrey Foundation for distribution to over 170 projects throughout the world. She also established the Angel Network, a charity for Oprah’s viewers to partner with her in these many projects.

Oprah’s most famous acts of giving have come on her own program. In 2004, she gave away a car to all 286 members of her hand-picked audience in a gesture valued at $US7.8 million. Her annual “favourite things” episode is one of the most sought after tickets in the world because every member of the audience gets all ten products that Oprah lists on her top ten favourite items of the year. Recently, all 302 members of her studio audience received airline tickets to Australia for a recording of some shows down under. While here, Oprah gave away $1 million worth of computer gear to a needy school, $250,000 to a cancer sufferer and his family, 6000 pearl necklaces, and 6000 diamond pendants. For these acts of kindness and charity, Oprah is lauded and revered the world over.

So is there anything wrong with this picture? Let’s face it, Oprah is a woman with serious clout. One word from Oprah can take an author from struggle street to the top of the best sellers list overnight. A product endorsement from her means serious dollars for the manufacturer in question. Company chiefs know that giving Oprah an item for each member of the studio audience is a small seed that grows to a rich harvest in a short space of time. Oprah’s acclaim grows with each gift, the audience are thrilled, and the company chiefs count the cash. Everyone is happy.

Well, not always. The car giveaway in 2004 generated unprecedented publicity for the Oprah Winfrey Show, its host, and General Motors. Nothing like it had ever been seen before on US television. The hand-picked studio audience were all worthy recipients on the grounds of poverty, need, or good works done for others. The recipients wept with joy, the television audience rode the wave of emotion, the cash cow at General Motors mooed, and Oprah basked in the glory of it all. Lost in all the publicity was the $7,000 tax bill the US government imposed on the recipients that caused many of them to have to return the car because they didn’t have the means to pay. Oprah inexplicably refused to come to the party to pay the shortfall, as did General Motors. The stark reality of trash consumerism raised its ugly head, and nobody noticed as the adulation continued unabated.

So is Oprah the philanthropist she makes out to be? She publicly gives away stuff that doesn’t belong to her and reaps the benefit of an enhanced reputation through greater fame, higher ratings, and increased bargaining power. The companies who supply the goodies achieve prominent product placement, an Oprah endorsement, and a substantial boost to sales. The marketing and PR people on both sides do the rest, and the audience again is most satisfied. Purely a commercial transaction.

But it must be said in Oprah’s defense that she does not make the claim that she gives the products out of her own resource. The manufacturer is appropriately credited as supplying the goods, with Oprah acting as the conduit between the seller and the consumer, a connection that otherwise might not have been made. It is a classic win-win situation.

There is no doubt that Oprah Winfrey is a giver. She has gone to great lengths to document her charitable acts either as the primary giver or as the go-between. For some people, Oprah’s publicising her donations is distasteful in the extreme. This is curiously at odds with the desire of the community to see the mega-rich give more. However distasteful one may find Oprah’s public show of giving, one has to consider whether or not her ambassadorship for philanthropy inspires similar behaviour in others. The Bible tells us that the giver’s reward is in heaven if they give on the quiet, but have already received their reward if they make a show of it. As an ex-Baptist, Oprah doesn’t appear too concerned with heavenly rewards. Still, true religion is looking after widows and orphans, and Oprah can teach us all plenty on the subject.



Breaking The Unbreakable?

In a week dominated by wall to wall coverage of the flood crisis in Queensland, one could not help but feel for those who lost loved ones, homes, possessions, and livelihoods due to this epic natural disaster. It was, for me, a bit much seeing such widespread devastation on the television, then stepping outside my front door to see more of the same live in person. I had reached, for want of a better term, saturation point, and struggled to look for other news items not related to the flood crisis.

A most interesting but obscure report came from the West Australian’s Alana Buckley-Carr who reported the outcome of a case in the Family Court of Western Australia. Hers was the only account of this case that concluded late last year.  She raises an interesting question about the extent that the law can inject itself into our lives and circumstances.  The case is tragic in its circumstances on a number of levels and is not an impossible occurrence in our own or our friend’s families.

The case in question involved an elderly couple, pseudonymously named Charles and Beryl to protect their identities.  Charles, 86, and Beryl, 88,  were married for nearly 40 years and was a devoted couple. Both Charles and Beryl had children from previous marriages, and each parent in later life appointed their birth children to act as enduring powers of attorney. In December 2008, Beryl suffered a severe and incapacitating stroke requiring admission to a care facility for ongoing care and rehabilitation. Charles would visit his wife in this facility three times a week and he was satisfied that Beryl’s Department of Veterans Affairs pension was covering her accommodation and care expenses. Beryl’s daughters, her enduring powers of attorney, believed that their mother’s level of care and privacy could be higher and sought $300,000 from Charles to pay for the bond for admittance to a higher standard care facility. The money, they claimed, could be sourced by the sale of the $1.3 million matrimonial home, which was purchased by Charles in 1962, prior to the marriage. Charles, however, still lived there and did not wish to move.  The resulting impasse between their respective powers of attorney resulted in the matter being heard in the Family Court of Western Australia. The court ruled that Charles and Beryl be legally separated and that Charles pay Beryl $600,000.

On the surface, this verdict appears to be an incredible injustice where a loving couple that had no intention of separating has had their relationship status decreed by the court to be that of separated. It appears to endorse what many would claim is a cash grab on the part of some relatives who are seeking to sure up their inheritance.  Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that greed causes much division in families where estates are concerned. Sadly, some dissension starts before the testator leaves the earth. Whatever the motives are behind this case, nobody can dispute that it is very sad and not the way that either Charles or Beryl would have envisioned occurring.

Even for a black and white fundamentalist that some would say I am, this is a Biblically complex case. The presiding magistrate, Susan Duncanson, was always going to be on the prickly side of this pineapple no matter how she ruled. Let’s face it, the Family Court doesn’t have a job that wins it a lot of friends. After reading the formal judgement, I commend her on her attempt to rule with both compassion and consideration for all parties.

At the centre of the case was the question of whether the Family Court had jurisdiction to intervene in the financial arrangements of Charles and Beryl.  The Family Law Act 1975 is an extensive document that empowers the court to do just that. Clearly, at some point mediation was required to break the stalemate that had occurred between the parties and their powers of attorney.  The Public Advocate of Western Australia states that enduring powers of attorney must in the case of conflict with other stakeholders ensure“that all efforts be made to resolve the issues in the best interests of the donor and with as little disruption as possible to his or her lifestyle.” When one party is seeking the sale of the matrimonial home to free up funds to pay for health care and accommodation and the other is seeking to prevent the health costs that comes with involuntarily selling and moving from half a century of memories, each fulfilling their requirements as a power of attorney, there is very little option but to petition the court for a ruling.

From a Biblical viewpoint, there are some who would say that one shouldn’t go to court if at all possible. However, appointing an arbitrator is not an unbiblical thing.  Moses sat in judgement of the cases that people brought to him to settle their disputes, as did David. Solomon was also a dab hand as a child custody ombudsman. It is of course preferred that the mediator be a godly person, but that is not always possible.

Then there is the bits about honouring fathers and mothers, bearing the infirmities of the weak, and doing justice to the afflicted and needy that also create a stalemate in their fulfillment by the respective parties.

As for the big question, can the court legally separate two people who had no intention to part and who are still in regular contact? We need to remember that laws come from two sources, from God to man and from man to man. God’s standard is for enduring covenant relationship and a hatred of divorce. Let the Biblically literate shout “What God has joined together let no man put asunder!” But… we are not talking about divorce. We are talking about separation, and in the context of a law made by man to man.  The covenant relationship is still intact. God joined them together in holy matrimony, and before God they have not been severed. Functioning as a married couple has become extremely difficult due to the health care requirements of Beryl, but legally they are still hitched.

It is this point, however, that the court drew upon to legally separate Charles and Beryl. The Full Court of the Family Court in 1976 defined separation in part as “one or other of the spouses form the intention to sever or not to resume the marital relationship and act on that intention, or alternatively act as if the marital relationship has been severed.” Whilst they did not agree to separate, health reasons have caused Charles and Beryl to live in separate places, live separate lives for four days out of seven, and to interact differently on a number of levels than they did previously.  In a way, Beryl’s stroke has severed the marital relationship although the covenant remains. All that remained was for the court to arrive at an appropriate decision regarding the financial value of martimonial assets and intangible contributions to arrive at a settlement figure.

Once again, this was a sad and tragic case that some, including myself in the beginning, have speculated wrongly on. In reading the judgement, I was able to see some of the legal framework that supported the decision. I could see that the magistrate had a colossal task in cutting through the fat to get to the meat of the case. Digging below the surface revealed a different picture than that which appeared at the outset.  For me there only remains one unanswered question… how does an aged care facility justify a $300,000 bond? I’ll try to answer that another day…

Not So Straight Shooting

Exodus 20:16 "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

It goes without saying that the Arizona shooting was a shocking tragedy. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head at point blank range by a lone gunman intent on causing as much harm as possible. Six people died and 14 were injured before the heroic efforts of ordinary citizens brought the carnage to a halt. Jared Loughnane was arrested and charged with numerous US federal and state crimes including murder and manslaughter. Justice will no doubt follow its due process with hopefully an appropriate outcome at its conclusion. Meanwhile, we will pray for the speedy recovery of all who survived this shocking outrage.

Now I am not a journalist, nor am I a trained wordsmith in any way. At best, I can be described as a two bit blogger whose influence is really rather limited in the grand scheme of things. What I am, though, is a news consumer. I read news and analysis online and in print, I watch television news from here and abroad, and I listen to the odd radio newscast as well. As one who readily consumes news, I think I am a more than reasonable judge of the quality of reporting, both excellent and not so excellent. Sadly, I feel the Arizona shooting reporting left a lot to be desired.

Thinking back as far as primary school, I can recall my teacher telling the class that writing a composition is a matter of telling the reader the answer to a number of basic questions – who, what, when, where, how, and why. For the journalist, this should be second nature. Ask the questions, dig a little deeper, ask them again, and get to the heart of the story recording and reporting only the facts. Where there is no answer forthcoming at the time, report that lack of information and keep asking the questions until there is an answer. Instead, what we got from many sources was a mixture of fact and speculation with intent to blame.

The Arizona shooting story should have been factual and apolitical, but some journalists took it upon themselves to point the finger of blame at… Sarah Palin. How on earth did they draw that conclusion? By not asking the basic questions, using presumption to build a framework for a questionable conclusion, then working backwards to fill in the gaps with or without evidence to support. Just like this – a crazed shooter who guns down a Democrat congresswoman at a civic rally must logically be ideologically and politically opposed the victim, therefore can only be a radical conservative. All the radical conservatives are collected together under the banner of the Tea Party movement, which happens to have Sarah Palin as a figurehead. Conveniently, it had been noted that Sarah Palin had used crosshairs on an electoral map to target particular seats that were winnable in the 2010 mid term elections. Lo and behold, the state of Arizona was lined up in the scope in what these journalists would have you believe is an incitement to violence, evidenced by one of Palin’s followers accomplishing the mission. All of this reported as fact with only the electoral map as concrete evidence. Nauseating stuff…

I was appalled at the narrow mindedness of these journalists. There were other far more plausible possibilities that absolutely nobody discussed. Nobody speculated that the Jewish congresswoman could have been shot by a supremacist. Nobody asserted that this crime could have been a copycat of the assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province days before. Even the basic random slaying by a nutcase was barely touched upon. Instead, it fell to Sarah Palin.

Meanwhile, responsible journalists were doing the right thing in determining the facts about not only the event itself, but the accused gunman Jared Loughnane. They trawled his various websites and spoke to those who knew him to build a picture of who this young man was and what his motivations may have been. The picture that emerged was that of a mentally unstable and irrational person who had some significant political obsessions and more than a little angst. Nothing could be found of any link with Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement, his online writings revealed that his political leanings were not aligned with conservative views, and he had had limited association with Congresswoman Giffords in the past. All of these facts were not enough to slow the “Blame Palin” juggernaut that was reported all over the world.

Those journalists accusing Palin are saying that the crosshair target motif (above) used by Sarah Palin was irresponsible and it would be fair to say that it was unwise. Others are saying that the vitriol and minacity of certain groups (read conservatives) is raising the stakes to bring violence to the fore in politics. Those voices are indeed loud but I question their partisanship on the issue. It seems that only conservatives are accused of this sort of conduct. While censuring fingers point at Sarah Palin and her electoral map, memories are conveniently erased concerning the Democratic Party’s bullseye electoral map (below), targeting the states that Senator John Kerry had to win to take the White House in 2004. Nobody declared that map to be irresponsible. In the same way, nobody accused President Obama of inciting violence when he said that Democrats would bring a gun to the fight with Republicans.

As for Sarah Palin, she has been hung as an effigy, threatened with gang rape, and had her children held up as objects of scorn and derision, yet her protests were brushed off as freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The same journalists making such a fuss now failed to give attention to this very issue when it was at its most virulent during the 2008 Presidential campaign. The meticulous detail of reporting one side of politics with an unhealthy cynicism versus a softly, softly approach to reporting the other leaves the casual news consumer with the impression that all the ratbags are only on one side. The reality is that there are ratbags on both sides of politics, and some of them work in the media.

How Do You Socialise Your Children?

It logically follows that as one’s children approach school age, people begin to ask questions about your choice of school. Our oldest, Eddie, is entering his prep year and as such, the questions have been coming with increased frequency. I always find their reaction to our response rather uncomfortable. For some reason, our decision to homeschool puts us on dubious ground in their eyes.

The first reaction is always about “socialisation” and the concern that our children will be unable to cope with life in modern society because of our “cutting them off” from the outside world. “They need to interact with kids their own age in order to be socialised.” Collins English Dictionary defines socialisation as: 1. the modification from infancy of an individual's behaviour to conform with the demands of social life; and 2. the act of socialising or the state of being socialised. The first definition is interesting in that it implies a guiding hand from an older person from the outset. The school system is the only place where a child exclusively interacts with peers their own age. Higher education and the workplace have a mix of ages of the participants from same age and younger to significantly older. Are we to believe that children interacting only with others of their own age and maturity level prepares them fully to deal with the range of ages of people in the outside world? Socialisation is not age level dependent. The best way for a child to learn to talk to adults is for the child to interact with adults. The best way for a child to learn to interact with other children is to put them in that setting with other children, older, younger, and same age. It’s the act of socialising not pigeon-holing that is the key.

Research is now beginning to comprehensively disprove the myth that homeschooled kids are not adequately socialised. Although the body of research is to date small, the early results are giving substantial support to that which so many homeschooling parents already know is true but could only argue anecdotally. The Canadian study entitled “Fifteen Years Later: Home Educated Canadian Adults” (van Pelt, Allison, & Allison: 2009) followed up home-schooled students whose parents participated in a comprehensive study on home education in 1994. The study compared home-schoolers who are now adults with their peers. The study found:

• Young adults who had been home educated had a higher academic education than similarly aged Canadians, particularly with respect to post-secondary education, where greater proportions of home education graduates had attained Bachelors’ and graduate degrees.
• Home-educated adults were more likely to be engaged in health sector or social support occupations, such as education or religion, and more likely to be occupied in trades or performing arts than were the general population. They were less likely to be engaged in sales, or in processing and manufacturing.
• The majority (74%) reported attending religious services at least once a week, compared with 13% of the population. Religious observance in the home was even more frequent with 84% participating in religious activities at home at least once a week.
• The majority of respondents (69%) participated in organised activities at least once a week, compared with 48% of the comparable population. Home education graduates were most frequently (82%) involved in religiously-related groups, compared with only 13% of young Canadian adults in general. They were also more active in sports-related groups (48% compared with 36%). They were more active in cultural groups, educational groups, and political parties, but somewhat less active in unions or professional associations. They were also twice as likely to have voted in a federal election, and much more likely to have voted in a provincial election.
• Income for the past year ranged from nothing to $160,000, with a median of $20,000 and a mean of $27,534. In comparison, 15- to 34-year-olds in the general population reported a median income of $18,335 and a mean of $22,117.
• The home-educated adults were more likely to be married than was the comparable population of the same age. They were less likely to have children early, but tended to have larger than average families when they did have children.

The Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating 2004 also reveals that their small sample of young adults surveyed showed that those who were home educated volunteer at significantly higher rates (82% vs 54%) than those educated in public school. 46% of these were in leadership positions.

Clearly, homeschooled children are turning out to be well balanced individuals who are making a significant contribution to society across a broad field of endeavour. To me it makes perfect sense that this would happen. Proverbs 22:6 tells us to “train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” It is the role of the parent to socialise the child, not the role of same aged peers or teachers. Humans are the only creatures who turn their offspring over to others to prepare them for life in the wild. By controlling and mixing their interaction with others, a parent sets the child up for life.

The decision we have made to homeschool was not arrived at lightly. We have challenges to overcome for sure, but we made our decision with the best interests of our children at the forefront. There are factors at play that are unique to our circumstances so I am not being as arrogant to say that our way is the only way. If you think public school is the way to go for you, then I am not going to try to talk you out of it. I would hope that you would extend to us homeschooling types the same courtesy.