Healthy news? Or perhaps a load of hot air?

[Sara]

I was driving into work this morning listening to the radio. Audrey, you will all be pleased to hear, is still running, albeit she is possibly being held together by the inches of dirt and grime that has laid thick after 2 years of being washed naturally by the sky. Audrey can tune into only a few channels, which with the switch over to digital will soon be diminished to none. These days she is tuned into the grown up station of news and discussions. Lately, the news has been of little interest to me – swine flu, economic crisis, bank bonuses, MP’s expenses scandal, Afghan and Iraq wars, oh and a bit of cricket news thrown in for good measure. But today the news caught my attention. Here were the top headlines (in no particular order):

1) Bolt beats world record in 9.58 seconds
2) Afghanistan is getting ready for elections tomorrow
3) Upcoming general elections and the MPs scandal
4) High income commission

It was the latter 3 that really caught my attention. The Afghans are going to the polls tomorrow, with fears of bullying, threats and intimidation towards people who vote especially in the south. This is bringing the fairness and validity of the elections into question. It made me wonder about the voting system of the future. The Baha’i administrative system is not based on someone standing for election and campaigning, but each individual voting member to vote for a group of people whom they believe to be the best candidates for the job. Whether these people who are voted for want the role or not is immaterial. You cast your ballot in a prayerful attitude, with a purity of motive, a freedom of spirit and sanctity of heart, seeking divine assistance and confirmation – to vote for the most capable citizens deemed to have:

• unquestioned loyalty
• selfless devotion
• well-trained mind
• recognized ability
• mature experience

A somewhat utopian and perhaps alien idea right now in Afghanistan, but an alternative nevertheless. This trail of thought brought me to the next news item – where some bloke ‘in the know’ was being interviewed about what he thought would happen at the next general election, and who would be part of the next government – (irrespective of the party in power). He commented that few of the front bench ministers (on either side) would be there because many have been caught up in the expenses scandal so may not stand for re-election or perhaps not be voted for by their constituents. What caught my attention the most was the following comment by the interviewee:

‘...you can’t have a government made up of independent candidates...’

I felt like ringing in and asking him to validate such a statement. Why can a government not be made up of solely independent candidates? Why must they belong to a party? Is it really impossible for a government to run ‘party-less’?

Finally the last news item that got a lot of coverage was COMPASS (an organisation), requesting a High Income Commission to be made – essentially asking the government to force companies to set a maximum ratio between its lowest and its highest paid employees. There were a number of suggestions this group were making including heavy taxes on bonuses. This news item gave me hope, that finally we were recognising some of the problems and trying to find possible solutions. Of course I did wonder if all that this news item did was to demonstrate we were in the same place medical science was 100 years ago with tuberculosis, with politics and social-conscious issues. We have identified it is ‘bad air’ that is the cause, but our solution to build a sanatorium and ensure our patient has plenty of fresh air, is not altogether well thought out or by any stretch of the imagination the final solution.

Meanwhile, I was happy to hear that Bolt won gold and beat his own record. It’s good to aim to achieve the seemingly impossible. Perhaps we can all learn from him, work hard and achieve the seemingly utopic impossibility.

Or perhaps it is me who has my head buried in the sanatoriums of yesteryear.