Chris Betcher

You may (or may not) have noticed that I barely spend any time on Facebook these days. Today is the first time I've logged in for quite a while, and although I have definitely missed hearing what some of you have been up to and keeping up with your goings-on, I have to say I have really not missed "the Facebook experience". I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Facebook... I know there can be some great stuff happening there, but I was increasingly finding Facebook as a huge time suck that was stealing more and more hours of my life for very little real return. I, probably like you, have spent far too much of my life liking and commenting on other people's posts, watching inane videos, or observing some of humanity's ugliest sides in many of the discussion threads. I was becoming more and more disenchanted with the whole Facebook experience, so I just decided to stop using it. If you've read my blog you will know that I've got to this ...

On TV tonight I saw an ad from some group that calls themselves the " Marriage Alliance ". I looked at their website which seems to be a thinly veiled attempt to be open minded when really all they want to do is oppose same sex marriage and maintain the unfair status quo... Their site poses a number of open questions about marriage, and while they purport to being just trying to encourage a healthy discussion about the value of marriage in general, it's pretty obvious what their agenda is. They are clearly in opposition to same sex marriage. So, since they asked, here are my answers to the questions on their website... Should children have the right to know their biological history? Yes. As an adopted child myself, I should have the right to know my history if I choose to. Some choose to and some do not. But what's your point?  So what if a child of a same sex couple knows their biological history and where they came from?  You thin...

It's always good to celebrate creative successes. This is one of those times. When I first met my partner Linda she had started working on the novel she always wanted to write. That was six years ago, and the novel has certainly had its stops and starts over that time. Writing is not always an easy thing to do, and there were times when life just got in the way and it became difficult for her to keep moving that cursor to the right. However, I'm pleased to say that over the last few months she's really pushed herself to finish writing the manuscript, and over the last few weeks it's been through seemingly endless revisions and edits, fine tuning of words and sentences, and onto the final processes of typesetting and preparation for publication. I'm proud to say that Linda's first novel is now finished, published and available. The novel, eloves me, eloves me not , is a contemporary love story in which 39 year old Kayte Wexford realises that she still hasn't ...

My daughter Kate loves to sing. She discovered this ability a few years ago when she came home from school and announced that she wanted to try out for a solo part in a local performing arts concert. Although we always thought she had a nice voice that could carry a tune, we had totally missed the fact that she was actually quite talented vocally and so her intention to sing solo at this concert was a bit of a surprise. Long story short, she has discovered her voice and is working hard at developing it further. She's done workshops and music camps and is now working with a singing coach. She really does love to sing. She was recently selected to be part of the Talent Advancement Program (TAP), a program for kids with musical talent aged 13 to 18. For the 23 kids selected to be part of TAP, it's a pretty special group to be take part of. They get to learn and grow by actually performing in front of people. Tomorrow, they are all performing at the Sydney Royal Easter Sh...

As a parent, it's a fine line we walk sometimes in knowing where the boundaries are for your kids. We want to protect them from danger and shield them from hurt. At the same time, we need to allow them to experience the world and learn to interact with it in meaningful ways. This paradox of safety versus experience is a tricky balance to get right, but I'm convinced that we are probably the most overprotective generation of parents in history. A recent post here listed a number of tongue-in-cheek example of how much we seem to overreact to things that would have been much less of a drama a few years ago. How many of you went out playing all day when you were a kid, and the only rule was to be home by dark? No "Call me when you get there to let me know you arrived ok"... just "Bye dear, have fun playing!" This video from the TED Talks series, called " 5 Dangerous Things you should let your Children do " makes a similar observation that maybe w...

One of the runaway success stories of Australian television is a subversive comedy show called The Chaser's War on Everything . This very funny show takes constant potshots at every conceivable social and political norm, often drawing attention to the many stupid and inconsistent things we do. During 2007 the show aired every Wednesday night on ABC TV, and was also podcast via www.abc.net.au/chaser My son Alex is a huge fan of the Chaser, and one of his favourite sketches was one in which the show's host, Chris Taylor, rants about how annoying those waiters are that interrupt your meal to ask you if you'd like any cracked pepper. The sketch goes on to look at a variety of interesting situations in which a pepper-toting waiter might interrupt to offer his wares... if you've not seen it, here is the clip... [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/n1rxixtXt8A" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /] So the other da...

Yeah, I know this is a little self indulgent, so skip this post if that sort of thing bothers you. I just wanted to share this video of my daughter's singing... She started to blurt out these beautiful songs a couple of years ago and what you see in this video is basically just raw talent. Although she takes some singing lessons now, when this short video was shot (she was only 10) she was singing pretty much on nothing more than her own natural ability. I think I have a right to be fairly proud of her... [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/3bwqY77yAqw#GU5U2spHI_4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]