Electioneering

I wonder if Helen and Labour will go through Ashburton on their electioneering campaign. If so they should borrow that town’s motto “whatever it takes”. Labour’s policy of writing off interest on student loans is desperate, vote for me I will pay you money PLEASE. But I would say that given I am one of the many NZders going overseas to pay off my loan. Degrees are already devalued without making them effectively free. What is stopping me from enrolling in Dentistry getting $100,000 not going to class and then investing it in a brothel (which thanks to Labour are now legal!!). GARRR what are you doing Helen? It is my money and it is bad enough it already goes to paying for sex-changes for prisoners and genocide of the unborn now you are trying to give free money to everyone that wants to study Hip-Hop 101. I agree with this guy.

Actualality

Wow, it feels weird to have an actual job with actual money (rather than peanuts at B.P especially with the exchange rate of peanuts to the New Zealand dollar.), and get this I don’t even need a name badge!!! (and I get to wear pants with pockets in them). That is right I am relieving at my mum’s school for three weeks. It is good to get teaching experience and get paid and not have big brother watching me. It is a steep learning curve but this is good. On another note I have decided I will go through with the court case against B.P for my addiction to peanuts (peanuts = the real “P”).

Arts Festival

Hey everyone, the Christchurch Arts Festival is looking for voulnteers to hang out and watch movies :). Whats more you get free tickets to Applaud 2005. I want to do it so txt me call me or post a comment in the next few days. Check out the website.
Laters

Hollywood Tripe

I have recently noticed that a large number of period movies (mostly medieval) seem to have the characters taking modern views (political and religious) that people during these areas would not have shared at all. There is a name for this and I really should know it being a Historian but I have completely forgotten.
Anyway my friend sent me this as an email:

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Let’s say you were setting out to make a parody of contemporary Hollywood’s inability to make a film on any historical subject except through the prism of its own droning self-congratulatory predictable pieties, and let’s say you’d picked as the topic for this parody the Crusades — you remember, long wars back in the day, Muslims vs Christians. What would this parody look like?
Well, for a start, this Crusade wouldn’t be between Muslims and Christians, it would be between the ‘fanatics on both sides’ and enlightened progressive types who just want to live together celebrating their multicultural diversity. When I say ‘fanatics on both sides’, whoa, don’t worry: showing the fanatics on the Muslim side might be injurious to one’s long-term health and there’s no Oscar for Best Fatwa. So in practice we’d focus on the fanatics on the Christian side — rich white racists, sort of like early Bush voters — and the hero opposing them would be a maverick Crusader, a brave secular progressive with the cojones to stand up to them. Sort of like Sir Ridley Scott, but younger and better backlit, though just as mystifyingly knighted. He’d have a beard, though not too full a beard, but not too neat and groomed and effete either. In fact, we’d spend quite a bit of money grooming it into its ungroomed look.
He has to be a knight, of course, otherwise he wouldn’t get access to the posh totty wandering round the mediaeval banqueting suites or get to object when the by-the-book Crusaders propose slaughtering all the Muslims. But he’s not really cool with the whole knight club scene. His place is with the people. Wherever he goes, the extras love him. On his own land, he pitches in to help dig the irrigation channels, working side by side with minimum-wage non-speaking members of both Christian Equity and Islamic Equity. And, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s the only commander on the Christian side who isn’t an incompetent boob, he’d gladly go back to his old job of...hmm, let’s see: boyband lead singer? London motorcycle courier? Demi Moore’s new beau? Second-year Gwent Polytechnic sociology student? No, I’ve got it. We’ll make him a blacksmith. Young, gifted and blacksmith, that’s our boy — off to the Holy Land to clean out the Augean stables. Mr Blacksmith Goes to Jerusalem.
How about the girl? I’m sorry, I mean of course ‘strong independent woman’. She’s the people’s princess, kohl-rimmed eyes and all. She looks as babelicious as the hero, but with less facial hair. She thinks nothing of riding out into the desert, dropping her veil and shagging like a minx.
Oh, and who do we get for Saladin? We need someone cool, measured, wise — not like these religious-right moral-majority nuts on the Christian side. Someone tall, dark and handsome. Hey, how about Osama bin Laden? Oh, okay, if we’ve been faxing the cave for two months and he still won’t play ball, let’s make do with Ghassan Massoud, who’s a close enough Osama bin Ladalike, at least in the long shots.
And, while we’re at it, for the full supporting knights get some of those high-toned Brit types — Sir Jeremy Irons, Sir David Thewlis, Sir Liam Neeson, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Norman Wisdom (check availability) — but just give ’em a couple of lines every 20 minutes or so, in between battle scenes. They can say things like ‘I put no stock in religion’ in a worldly drawl.
Thus does Sir Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven proceed, from one birdbrained ahistorical cliché to another, until at last Balian of Ibelin (the impeccably dishevelled Orlando Bloom) comes face to face with Saladin and threatens to destroy Jerusalem’s holy sites, all of them, mosque and sepulchre alike — ‘Your holy places, ours, everything that drives men mad.’ Hold that thought, because certainly nobody held it in 1187 — and in the false tinkle of that line you hear everything that’s wrong with this movie. I doubt you could have found one bloke on either side who’d utter such a formulation — in its smug assumptions about ‘organised religion’, it’s a Hollywood dinner-party thought. Likewise, ‘I put no stock in religion.’ Eight centuries ago, ‘religion’ wasn’t something you had the option of putting stock in. It was what you were, Christian or Muslim, believer or infidel. Scott has Jeremy Irons shrug it off as if he were saying, ‘I’m not really into movies.’
The problem with Kingdom of Heaven is not that it’s hostile to Christianity or sympathetic to Islam but that it has such little feeling for either faith, save as a pretext for war and killing and ‘driving men mad’. What’s really mad is that this film made it to general release without anybody in the process saying, ‘Er, Ridley, I think you’re missing the point here.’ And, without religion, what’s left? A boring story punctuated by expensively dull carnage. If Jeremy Irons puts no stock in religion, Ridley Scott’s mistake is to put no religion in his stock footage.The Spectator, May 14th 2005 - Mark Steyn.


I find it fairly interesting, I although I have not seen the movie. I had similar views of the movie King Arthur; it portrays King Arthur as a half Roman, half British commander of a group of Samarian (modern day Ukraine) knights. King Arthur is a Christian; all of his knights are pagans and openly question his faith. Asking why he prays and whether his God listens – after a while it becomes apparent that the god that Arthur prays to is powerless if not non existent. The other characters who share the Christian faith are either:
a) Power hunger megalomaniacs
b) Cowardly bureaucrats
c) Cruel slave-holders/ evil overlords.
It is not until Arthur gives up the utopian (sic) view and cause that he is fighting for (Roman Christian faith) and embraces a “realistic” cause (the ever clichéd “freedom”) that of his pagan brothers in arms that he has any success. Arthur forsakes his useless and irrelevant god and embraces the paganism of his knights becoming King of England in a pagan ceremony complete with druids, flowers and stone henge like monuments.
Is this in any way realistic? Or is this just taking Hollywood’s secular humanism/ anti-Christian/ atheism and applying it to a time period when religion was anything but irrelevant?

Aid

I saw this interview today. I found it quite interesting because I did a course on “Sustainable development” at varsity (contrary to popular belief I did attend varsity). I am a little sceptical of governmental aid, don’t get me wrong, aid is great in theory but some aid is not effective if not harmful. Here I need to make a distinction between governmental and non-governmental aid. Governmental aid is aid given by one government to another – the money goes to the government of the receiving nation to distribute, as they will. This distribution is done often to the people that support the government and can be distributed on religious, ethnic, tribal or political lines.
Non-governmental aid is done by organisations (eg World Vision and Oxfam) that are not affiliated with any government and the benefits of development go straight to the people who need the aid regardless of ethnicity, religion, tribal or political affiliation. Governmental aid is subject to limits, many governments will only be given aid when they fall in line with the political and social views of the giver nation. Although this is good in encouraging “democratic” policies in developing nations it also means that if a government does not fit in to the “democratic” worldview then their citizens do not receive the limited benefits of governmental aid (if there are any). Another disadvantage is that developing nations become dependent on aid from developed nations, to the point that they never become self-sufficient, this is beneficial to the developed nations as they (the developing nations) pose potential market competition if they ever become self-sufficient. So the developed nations attempt to keep these countries in this position of dependence. I am not bagging the motives behind the aid (although some are dubious) but rather the practice of governmental aid. Non-governmental aid on the other hand is fantastic. Organisations like Oxfam, World Vision and Trade Aid attempt to encourage micro-enterprise and self-sufficiency. Encouraging people to donate goats or piggeries (Swedish or otherwise :) ) that will actually help a family and community to become self-sufficient. Their efforts are of benefit to whole communities and I think what they are doing is wonderful and transforming communities in developing nations. To use an overused cliché analogy if I may- Governmental aid is like giving a man (or woman) a fish and non-governmental aid is teaching a man (or woman) to fish.
To explain my phraseology (Actual word) I use the term “developed” and “developing” reluctantly. Why? Because these terms are loaded with connotations of suggesting “development” (whatever that means) is some how of value in and of its self and that all countries should seek to become “developed”. The term “west” and “east” (or “north” and “south” where north=America + Europe and south= everywhere else) are misleading also. The terms “first world” and “third world” are also redundant given that the “second world” (communism) only includes a handful of nations.

Le Tour

I am hooked – The Tour de France is on at the moment and I am actually interested in it.
When I was young I thought cycling was real cool, it was my favorite Olympic sport and I thought the time trials where cool how the guys slip-streamed each other. I use to watch it then go and ride around the cul-de-sac where I live and pretend I was an Olympic cyclist.
Slipstreaming – means that each cyclist is right on the wheel of the cyclist in front of him- this reduces the amount of wind resistance you face and reduces the amount of energy by 33%. The cyclists rotate each having a turn at “pulling the train” – that is being at the front to conserve energy.
Last year I read both Lance Armstrong’s books. I started to become more interested in the spectacle that is the Tour de France. The Tour is a series of stages (21 in all) over three weeks around France. There are four types of stage – flat, mountain, individual time trial and team time trial. There are four different jerseys that cyclists compete for.
GREEN JERSEY - Sprints
Flatland stages: 35, 30, 26, 24, 22, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points are awarded to the first 25 riders across the finish.
Medium-mountain stages: 25, 22, 20, 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points are awarded to the first 20 riders across the finish.
High-mountain stages: 20, 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points are awarded to the first 15 riders across the finish.
Time-trials: 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points are awarded to the top 10 finishers of the stage.
For every intermediate sprint, (through out each stage) the first three riders to the line receive 6, 4 and 2 points respectively.
POLKA-DOT JERSEY - HOW IT WORKS
The Tour de France's best-climber ranking is determined by the accumulation of mountain points throughout the race. The breakdown is as follows:
Climbs rated Beyond Category: 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points for the first 10 riders to the summit.
Climbs rated Category 1: 15, 13, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points for the first 8 riders to the summit.
Climbs rated Category 2: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 for the first 6 riders to the summit.
Climbs rated Category 3: 4, 3, 2 and 1 points for the first 4 riders to the summit.
Climbs rated Category 4: 3, 2 and 1 points for the first 3 riders to the summit.
The Yellow Jersey-Overall

The yellow jersey is given to the rider with the best overall time. To win the Tour these days you need to be good in the mountains and time trials because these are the stages that open up the biggest time gap. Sprinters normally finish within about 10 sec of the main group but climbers can finish up to 20 minutes ahead of other racers.

The White Jersey –Overall Young Rider
Goes to who is under 25 years old with the best overall time.

The reason I find it interesting is the strategies involved, teams ride to help one cyclist win – that might be the green, yellow, pokka dot or white jersey. At the end all the prize money does not go to the individual but to the team which is then split 9 ways. The athletes are amazing to compete for three weeks at a high level, to bike hundreds of km a lot of it over mountains. Some of the stages finish at towns with ski fields – imagine biking to Mt Hutt!!
I was watching the 2nd stage the other day, a short (sic) stage (180km) that ended in a sprint finish. Four cyclists broke away from the main group early and stayed at the front most the race. The peloton (French for main group or something) let them go because they knew they could catch them at the end. So they got about 4 minutes ahead of the main group. This is where I saw three of the weirdest things I have seen in a sport
(a) Four guys trying to get to the top of a hill the quickest on bikes. Here is how it went – David Canada drops off the back off the other three guys and then powers over to the opposite side of the road – to prevent guys from getting in his slip-stream. Thomas Voekler and Calzanti drop then try to chase him with Calzanti at the front and Thomas riding the slip-stream to conserve energy. Thomas then powered up to David and got in his slip-stream again conserving energy and the motored past David for the points.
(b) I guy crashed and he had to catch up with the peloton so what happened next? He got a new bike – during the race – and this is legal.
He got into the slip-stream of the cars following the peloton!! And this is legal – given this guy didn’t really have a chance of winning. The drivers of the support cars of other teams actually slowed down to allow him to get the slip stream. Why? Because they expect everyone to do the same it is an unwritten rule of cycling. Then the guy is riding beside his team car holding the car with his left hand his bike with his right. The driver is driving with his left and fixing the guys bake brake with this right hand!! And this is legal!!
(c) Then the sprint finish – Teams get trains – a line of about four riders with the best sprinter at the back the next best in front of him- and “lead out” there sprinters and get to the front- the trains then leave the last to guys – the lead off and the sprinter to head for the line. What ensues is a complete mess of arms, legs and wheels as guys hurtle towards the line at ludicrous speed with no consideration of life and limb.

Confused

I’m confused, I have the most amazing opportunity of my life and I don’t know what to do.
The opportunity: I (provided I pass my course which finishes in two weeks) will be a qualified English Language teacher.
The problem: Where do I go to teach English?
I would like to link to a previous post and carry on some of my thoughts. God continues to challenge me about my understanding of him. God is NOT a good luck charm.
Anyway back to the point, I have a choice to make (assuming you believe in free will J), but I don’t want to make the choice myself I want God to be involved in the whole process. I have talked to and prayed with some of the leaders of my church about the whole situation. I have been struggling with the idea of God’s will (any thoughts would be useful please) Does God have a specific place he wants me to go? or is the choice less important and the going faithfully (anywhere) the key?
At the moment I am very keen to do a YWAM DTS (Youth With A Mission, Discipleship Training School- for those that are not fluent in Cristianese) before I go teaching and it would be practical to do the DTS in the general area of where I am going to be teaching. My favored plans at this stage are South America, China, and Eastern Europe I will go through the pros and cons of each as I see them. There are plenty of English teaching jobs in all of these areas.
South America- I think this is the one I am leaning towards at the moment. There are plenty of DTS’ in America (North and South) – all the ones in the South obviously have a tendency to be in Spanish- I slight deterrent, given all the Spanish I know consists of what I learnt from Asterix and Obelix books – OLE!! But if/when I learn Spanish I can travel through out most of the continent (except Brazil where they speak Portuguese- Asterix and Obelix did not go to Portugal so I don’t know any Portuguese). The DTS’ in North America while in English (except the ones in Canadian- Nice Jorb!!) are more expensive though.
YWAM is very active in South America and so are some other Christian organizations that I am interested in working with in the long term like World Vision.
Summary-
:) lots of DTS’
:)organizations involved in area
:( I cant speak Spanish OLE 0r Portuguese
Eastern Europe – There are lots of DTS’ through out Europe, many in English, in cost between South and North America. They also speak a different languages in Eastern Europe, hence the need for English teachersJ, – Polish won’t help me much in Latvia. Many of the Eastern European languages also use the Cyrillian alphabet – which means I would have to learn to read and write again.
Summary-
:) Lots of DTS’ in English
:( Languages to learn
:( Oh yeah it is COLD
China- There are no DTS’ in China, however there are DTS’ close to China (Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) that are in English. Chinese is a scary language and I will have to learn to read and write again. I don’t really like Asian climates – from my experience playing basketball in 35+ degrees, 90% humidity outside at lunch time in Thailand.
Summary
:) Lots of Jobs
:)DTS’ in English
:( The language freaks me out
:( The climate
:( The whole repressive communist government thing

I am not really afraid of the prospect of leaving my family and friends and going to a different country where I don’t know how to say anything (OLE). I see it as an adventure a challenge and I am looking forward to the experience. I am just confused over the process any thoughts would be appreciated as would prayers. The time frame at this stage is fairly loose because I need to save money for the DTS which does not come cheap.