Suicide is a problem we do not discuss so it makes it harder to solve.
Two successful Hollywood actresses died by suicide on April 30 in the early seventies: Inger Stevens (pictured below) in 1970 and Gia Scala (pictured above) in 1972 at 38 years of age.
Two stars.
Popular.
But lonely.
Stevens co-starred opposite Bing Crosby, Harry Belafonte, Walter Matthau, Clint Eastwood, Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum and Henry Fonda. She won a Golden Globe and was nominated for two Emmys.
She was 35 when she died in an ambulance from a barbiturate overdose.
She was a star but said, “Sometimes I get so lonely I could scream.”
She wanted to quit Hollywood and work full-time looking after retarded kids
I call on you as a man to use the weapons of your voice, your standing and your integrity to reject both:
A. the demonisation of men in Victoria.
and
B. the modern persecution and ridiculing of your own profession so that your profession can survive and flourish again.
I also call on you to follow the lead of one of your very best priests and, in conjunction with The Dean, ring the bells of your cathedral nine times every day, for however many days you and The Dean want, for the nine people in Australia a day who take their own lives, 75% of whom are men. Please involve me. As a witness? As voice? As a photographer?
I offer you these four both modern and ancient Latin words, adapted from Vergil and inspired by a recent homily of yours, under a creative commons licence in an attempt at reciprocation for you own generosity in putting your own image out under a creative commons licence.
“Arma virumque me cano.” (I sing of weapons and myself as a man.)
I dont urge you “to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them” because ending these oceans of troubles for priests and men would almost certainly be beyond your capacities as an individual human being.
But it is not beyond your reach and, IMHO, certainly within your responsibilities, for you to denounce modern evils which monstrously hurt men, including me, and your own male priests in particular.
In closely observing the recent, consistently brilliant priestly work of Hugh Kempster and David Farrer, I have seen how both very different men put themselves, indeed put just about the whole of their being, right into the centre of many other people’s lives including mine, to truly live well themselves by living in The Word far more fully than most people can.
The huge challenge for you as an Archbishop is to be even better at your job than those men have been at theirs.
Your job is much bigger and therefore IMHO harder to do really well than theirs.
I am calling on you to show considerable courage.
If you do, I will support and acknowledge that courage as best I can.
If you cant even try, then the wise individual who I am lead to understand told you that you are only doing 50% of your job, might have been right. Or even a little generous.
Archbishop, can you take any of what I have raised here with you for discussion at Lambeth later this month and elsewhere into the future?
Jordan De Goey, I salute you as a freedom fighter.
In your stand against relentless public persecution of athletes by the media you are practising freedom of speech. When you talk about unfair media reporting, you are right to warn that “This will end in tragedy if no one speaks up.” (Nine people die of suicide every day in Australia and 75% of them are male. It is an issue that does need to be addressed. Public bullying like what is happening to you might not be a danger to your life because you have a good support group, but not everyone is as well supported as you are.)
You have shown great courage in speaking up when many people are criticizing you for being a young adult human being.
I met you at a Christian charity dinner earlier this month. I told you how I had succeeded in making former Collingwood defender Jack Frost a symbol of freedom in Indonesia, through a photo of mine of Frosty wearing his number 45. In Indonesia this number is strongly associated with 1945, the year when fascist freedom was defeated by Australia and Australia’s allies and when Indonesia proclaimed national independence after centuries of colonialism. I urged Jack to hang on to that number and when Jack went to play for Brisbane he still wore number 45.
I told you at the dinner that, if I got the chance, I would like to help you become a great symbol of both freedom and discipline. As I recall you really liked that idea.
This previous weekend’s events in Bali, Indonesia, and the strength you have shown in speaking up against persecution convince me that I was right. The pile-on of people criticising you for being publicly exposed as a human being is a gutless mob. You are the one showing honesty and courage.
May I take photos of you in footy action in your footy gear to make that dream of mine of making you a symbol of discipline and freedom come true?
The Christian group at that dinner have tried to shut down my attempts to talk with Collingwood people like you. They might not care about the importance of free speech like I do.
If that’s the case, so be it.
I’m with you, Jordy.
Geoff Fox, 11 a.m., 20th June, 2022, Melbourne, Down Under
PS Remy Jackson (pictured below) who was in the controversial footage of De Goey has rejected the over-reaction.
According to the latest news reports, freedom fighter and libertarian politician from England, Ingram Spencer, is on suicide watch in a Melbourne prison.
Australia’s unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda, is a song about suicide.
I create the following imaginative new version of Waltzing Matilda both for Ingram as an honest attempt at empathy for what he is suffering and for a wonderful Christian singer, who has made my own personal distress about what I know of Ingram’s plight a little easier to bear by caring deeply about Ingram’s situation.
With thanks (but absolutely no sycophantic apologies) to Banjo Paterson.
For me the primary question that needs to be answered here and now is:
“What sort of Australia do Australians want Australia to be?”
“Banjo” Paterson, who wrote the words for Waltzing Matilda in 1895, died on this day in 1941 as a result of a heart attack.
Waltzing Matilda tells the story of a swagman – a poor homeless man travelling on foot carrying his possessions in a “swag” slung over his back. This itinerant bloke commits suicide to escape arrest after he was caught by the authorities with a stolen sheep on a rich man’s property.
This song is famous for being Australia’s “unofficial national anthem.”
When it was one of four songs in a plebiscite to choose the official national song, I was one of the 28% who voted for it.
“Waltzing Matilda” is probably based on an incident at Combo Waterhole.
I visited the place when I was much younger and met one of the locals who confirmed for me that I was in fact at the place where “the swaggy took his jump.”
At that time the National Safety Council had placed a sign there with detailed instructions on how to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation.
How does it come to pass that the story of a homeless man who kills himself still represents the soul of Australia for very many Australians?
FREEDOM, DEMOKRASI AND CIVILISED HUMANITY 