Losing is such a shame – when you’re from North Korea

The North Korean football team started the World Cup on such a high note – going down 2-1 to Brazil – that the nation’s cultural apparatchiks decided it would be good for moral if the next game was televised live. North Korean history in the making… but things didn’t go quite to plan. The North Koreans fought valiantly in the first half – but then Portugal put their feet to the North Korean team’s throat – and smashed them 7-0. This was unacceptable. And made Kim Jong Il feel very ronery.

It turns out, by the way, that the North Korean fans who made their way to South Africa were in fact Chinese ring-ins who were paid to be there.

When these players, and their poor coach (who became the fall-guy during the tournament, as players were instructed to blame him for the results – I guess the North Korean administration learned something from the English, Argentinians and most importantly – the French).

Since returning to the Peoples’ Republic of Korea the players and coach have been put through a rigorous process of public shaming at the hands of the nation’s administration. The coach copped the worst of it:

“The team’s coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers’ Party of Korea.

The coach was punished for “betraying” Kim Jong-un – one of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il’s sons and heir apparent.”

August 1, 2010

Julia and the Big Red A(y)

Julia Gillard is in line (depending on the rest of the election campaign) to be our first elected female prime minister. As far as I can tell the only people more excited than the red heads and the females in the electorate are the atheists – because Gillard is out and proud. She’s not definitely the first atheist PM (as far as the internet is concerned Bob Hawke was an atheist, though he told Denton he’s an agnostic not an atheist). She could well be the first. And I thought there had been a pretty muted response from the Christian community – there were even a couple of great articles (one from John Dickson in the Herald, one from Greg Clarke on the ABC website, and one from Michael Jensen on sydneyanglicans.net) suggesting that it didn’t matter.

But the scaremongering has kicked in in the last few days – and more and more Christians I’m speaking to are expressing concern about the idea that Julia, an atheist, might be running the country. I don’t think that the disendorsed Liberal Candidate from Sydney, David Barker, speaks for all Christians when he says this – but he taps into a scary undercurrent in Christian thinking:

“I’m not anti-Muslim. I believe every one should have their own beliefs,” he said.

“But I don’t know if we want at this stage in Australian politics a Muslim in the Parliament and an atheist running the Government.”

Why don’t the atheists deserve a place in a democratically elected parliament? Shouldn’t the parliament be representative of the electorate. This means 10%, roughly speaking, of our politicians should be atheists. The fact that one rises to the top of their party is a testament to their ability and the faith their colleagues have in their ability to do the job.

I’m wondering at what point people think her atheism will impact her ability to govern. Or her ability to act as the leader of the nation. We don’t have the “Christian heritage” the U.S claims as they ban atheists from holding certain positions in public office. There’s nothing in the Bible that suggests the leaders of our nations should be God fearers (we’re not Israel – despite some people trying to insist that the Old Testament should apply to our legislative body today). The New Testament affirms the government of the day as a government chosen by God – and the Roman empire was perhaps the most anti-Christian regime of all time.

I don’t care that Gillard is an atheist. I care more that she sounds like a character out of Kath and Kim. I’ll weigh up my votes on policy alone. Some of those policy positions may be reached as a basis of the application of my faith. That’s my right as a voter. Even if my vote (which won’t go to Labor at this stage) counts for nothing (or just for one) and Labor retain power I’m not going to sleep poorly knowing that an atheist resides in the lodge. At least she’s open about her beliefs rather than claiming to be a lapsed Anglican – one wonders how much time John Howard has spent in church since losing power.

I think John Dickson’s advice for Christian voters is pretty awesome.

“Christians should be willing to change voting patterns after Christian reflection on particular policies. A believer who cannot imagine voting for the ”other side” has either determined that only one party aligns with the will of God or, more likely, is more attached to their cultural context than to the wisdom of scripture…

…So, what principles guide the Christian vote? First, a Christian vote is a vote for others. It is basic to the Christian outlook that life is to be devoted to the good of others before ourselves. In the political realm, Christians should use whatever influence they have to contribute to others, to ”consider others better” than themselves.”

If Christians are worried about Gillard’s moral compass (using the tired old chestnut that atheists can’t be moral) they should perhaps remember two things – all people, atheist or otherwise, are made in God’s image. I assume that includes some sort of moral compass coexisting with the sinful nature, all people (including Christians) have the capacity to act immorally, and all governments (atheist or otherwise) are provided by God. Even the ones that oppress Christians. We should cherish the opportunity we have to have a say in who rules us – but a vote based on scaremongering, or a “Christian Values Chart” like the one Simone rightly loathes, is a wasted vote.

August 1, 2010

Monkey Business

This is possibly the funniest combination of headline and lede I’ve ever read in a news article. I have to ask “why?” The answer is apparently something to do with evolution and the modeling human behaviour on monkey behaviour.


Monkeys hate flying squirrels, report monkey-annoyance experts

Japanese macaques will completely flip out in when presented with a flying squirrels, a new study in monkey-antagonism has found. The research could pave the way for advanced methods of enraging monkeys.

The story is a bit of a let down after that. I didn’t know we were looking for methods to enrage monkeys though. So I’ve learned something new today. Have you?

July 31, 2010

My Judgment Day service for Atheists – prices starting at $5

Hemant “The Friendly Atheist” Mehta questioned the ethics of atheists offering post-rapture pet care (featured here previously, there’s also a post-rapture greeting card service). I didn’t think anybody would pay money for that service – but I misunderestimated the psyche of the American survivalist.

Most atheists in the thread (and I agree) believe the practice is ethical – it is not based on trickery, but rather the application of probability based on one’s presuppositions about the existence of God.

I don’t want to let the atheists languish in this position of being the only people offering post-rapture services. So I am launching the “Lazarus Scheme” based on Luke 16 (see below for some key bits).

The Offer

For a paltry sum of $5 I will try my darndest to put in a good word for any willing atheists at judgment day. For just $10 I will even memorise a list of your five best good deeds and I will, if the opportunity arises, put them forward in your defence.

Payment Methods

I will accept direct debit payments, and potentially PayPal – but at this stage, payment should be arranged by making email contact (using the email link in the header of this page). I will email you a receipt that will double as a certificate of participation.

Disclaimer:

Let me say, right from the bat, that I have some theological misgivings about this offer – because I don’t think that when the time comes I’ll be able to perform my offered duty, nor do I think it will actually effect the outcome of proceedings on judgment day. I am a protestant (Presbyterian) theological student, I hope to have been a minister of religion for some time by the time judgment day comes around – and if we apply Pascal’s wager and assume that perhaps the Catholics, Muslims, or any other “good works” based belief is correct (just for a moment) then it is likely that I will have chalked up some merit points (in my own tradition these good works count for nothing – in fact, the apostle calls them what could be appropriately translated as used menstrual rags).

I offer no guarantees on this service whatsoever – in fact, I encourage you not to take up the offer. Actively. If, however, you choose to proceed, my conscience is clean because I believe I have abrogated any notion that my efforts will be successful. You may wish to proceed on the basis of balancing probabilities and covering as many bases as possible. Who am I to say no at that point?

Getting a pass from God at judgment day depends on choosing Jesus now.

Bible:

Here’s the key part of Luke 16, a parable Jesus told about two men and their post-death futures. Lazarus had been a God-honouring beggar, while the other man, a rich man, had sat inside his property ignoring the poor man on his doorstep. It’s a parable, which means it’s not a literal picture of stuff that happens, but a story with a theological moral:

22“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[a] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.

30” ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ “

July 31, 2010

Self fulfilling business strategy

I’ve often thought that the ideal business “strategy” (though highly illegal) would be buying the only panel beating workshop in a small town and paying a could of delinquents to go on a latenight rampage with baseball bats, or even getting somebody in the town’s transport department to keep issuing grannies their drivers license.

But I’ve got nothing on this Brazillian TV host, and former cop, whose crime show was lacking interesting murders. The solution is not to delve into the historical archives, or to cover the myriad kidnappings and violent crimes throughout South America… no. The answer is to start hiring hit men and then sending camera crews along to the scene.

He got caught because his crews kept arriving before the police. Brilliant idiot. He made the news in Australia because he just died in hospital while awaiting trial.

July 30, 2010

How to tell the internet to shut up

Comments are what makes the social internet go round – but they also are a classic example of the signal v noise aspect of effective communication. Annoyingly long comment threads obscure much goodness. You can, though I don’t recommend it, block comments from almost every site you visit around the world wide web, by installing this code snippet in your browser.

It comes with a warning:

Warning:

The stylesheet blindly hides blocks with IDs like “comments”, which could have unexpected side effects. (I’m told it hides the “discussion” section of Bugzilla installations, for example.) Disable shutup.css if you think you might be missing important page content.

Unlike the guy who wrote this plug-in – I like and value your comments, and would appreciate more of them…

July 30, 2010

Mug shot: a field guide to coffee

You might think you know your coffees inside and out – but this little poster has a bunch of coffee drinks I’ve never heard of…

I found it here.

July 29, 2010

World’s most expensive beer: just nuts

This is the world’s most expensive beer. It comes stuffed in a squirrel. A taxidermied squirrel. Which is important.

It’s called “The End of History”…

This 55% beer should be drank in small servings whilst exuding an endearing pseudo vigilance and reverence for Mr Stoat. This is to be enjoyed with a weather eye on the horizon for inflatable alcohol industry Nazis, judgemental washed up neo-prohibitionists or any grandiloquent, ostentatious foxes.

The End of History: The name derives from the famous work of philosopher Francis Fukuyama, this is to beer what democracy is to history. Fukuyama defined history as the evolution of the political system and traced this through the ages until we got the Western Democratic paradigm. For Fukuyama this was the end point of man’s political evolution and consequently the end of history. The beer is the last high abv beer we are going to brew, the end point of our research into how far the can push the boundaries of extreme brewing, the end of beer.

Unfortunately it’s sold out. It was just 500 pounds a bottle… but no animals were harmed (by the brewers) in its production…

“Only 12 bottles have been made and each comes with its own certificate and is presented in a stuffed stoat or grey squirrel. The striking packaging was created by a very talented taxidermist and all the animals used were road kill. This release is a limited run of 11 bottles, 7 stoats and 4 grey squirrels. Each ones comes with its own certificate of authenticity.”

July 29, 2010

Shirt of the Day: make a pig of yourself

The magical mystery animal. The pig. It’s all good.

July 29, 2010

Confessions: #2 sometimes I fake literary conversance

Making references to great literary works is a surefire way to impress educated people. Sometimes I do it even if I haven’t read the book – I find knowing a book’s opening and a little about the protagonist is enough to get by. Great literature often opens with a great, and memorable opening. It’s often possible to fake a workable knowledge of the classics just by paying attention to how other people use them.

For instance, this week, in Ben’s quiz, I made a “call me Ishmael” joke even though I’ve never actually read Moby Dick.

Do you have anything to confess?

July 29, 2010

Confessions: #1 penvy

As a trained, former professional, writer I can, at times, feel a little superior when reading other people’s writing. Stuff like “Oh. That idiot used the wrong there!” is a bit passe. It’s more issues of style and vocab that I start to develop my own personal writing hubris. And then I read stuff written by truly brilliant writers and crawl back into my hole. Or, I sit there stunned and try to deconstruct their work thinking “I could totally do that”… worse still are cases of “penvy” wishing that I had penned that exquisite sentence, or paragraph (it rarely applies to a whole novel – sustained great writing is difficult it’s more a flash of brilliance amongst sustained goodness).

Check out some of these essays from magazines compiled by Wired founding editor, and blogger, Kevin Kelly as the best of what’s around. Including this heartstopper from David Foster Wallace about the metaphysical, almost religious, experience of watching Roger Federer play tennis at his peak…

Look how he sets the scene for a match he’s describing (the Wimbeldon Final in 2006 between Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal).

“Plus it’s in the cathedral of Centre Court. And the men’s final is always on the fortnight’s second Sunday, the symbolism of which Wimbledon emphasizes by always omitting play on the first Sunday. And the spattery gale that has knocked over parking signs and everted umbrellas all morning suddenly quits an hour before match time, the sun emerging just as Centre Court’s tarp is rolled back and the net posts driven home.”

And this peerless description of Federer’s game:

A top athlete’s beauty is next to impossible to describe directly. Or to evoke. Federer’s forehand is a great liquid whip, his backhand a one-hander that he can drive flat, load with topspin, or slice — the slice with such snap that the ball turns shapes in the air and skids on the grass to maybe ankle height. His serve has world-class pace and a degree of placement and variety no one else comes close to; the service motion is lithe and uneccentric, distinctive (on TV) only in a certain eel-like all-body snap at the moment of impact. His anticipation and court sense are otherworldly, and his footwork is the best in the game — as a child, he was also a soccer prodigy. All this is true, and yet none of it really explains anything or evokes the experience of watching this man play. Of witnessing, firsthand, the beauty and genius of his game. You more have to come at the aesthetic stuff obliquely, to talk around it, or — as Aquinas did with his own ineffable subject — to try to define it in terms of what it is not.

That’s pretty high-brow. Rants can also give me a bit of penvy – like this rant about Twitter from McSweeneys. This is a massive sentence.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by brevity, over-connectedness, emotionally starving for attention, dragging themselves through virtual communities at 3 am, surrounded by stale pizza and neglected dreams, looking for angry meaning, any meaning, same hat wearing hipsters burning for shared and skeptical approval from the holographic projected dynamo in the technology of the era, who weak connections and recession wounded and directionless, sat up, micro-conversing in the supernatural darkness of Wi-Fi-enabled cafes, floating across the tops of cities, contemplating techno, who bared their brains to the black void of new media and the thought leaders and so called experts who passed through community colleges with radiant, prank playing eyes, hallucinating Seattle- and Tarantino-like settings among pop scholars of war and change, who dropped out in favor of following a creative muse, publishing zines and obscene artworks on the windows of the internet, who cowered in unshaven rooms, in ironic superman underwear burning their money in wastebaskets from the 1980s and listening to Nirvana through paper thin walls, who got busted in their grungy beards riding the Metro through Shinjuku station, who ate digital in painted hotels or drank Elmer’s glue in secret alleyways, death or purgatoried their torsos with tattoos taking the place of dreams, that turned into nightmares, because there are no dreams in the New Immediacy, incomparably blind to reality, inventing the new reality, through hollow creations fed through illuminated screens.

July 29, 2010

Online Greek Bible

Who needs fancy (and expensive) bible software when you can google “Greek New Testament” and come up with an absolutely gold site like greekbible.com in the first page of results. It parses every word with a hover and click.

Brilliant.

It does require an internet connection though…

July 29, 2010

Banning social media a band-aid solution

The Penrith Panthers have joined a bunch of other major sporting teams (including Manchester United) in banning their players from having a presence on popular social networks Twitter and Facebook. I can’t see, from a branding point of view, how this is a good thing for the club – surely having the players use these mediums productively, for the benefit of fans, would be a more beneficial long term strategy.

There is, of course, the danger of players being people. Being a bit too human. Airing dirty laundry. Or, doing what LeBron James just famously did in the U.S – using the medium to generate buzz around their playing future and leveraging up their salary and status. I can see why clubs would want to stop that sort of behaviour.

But the Panthers say they are doing this to “protect the players” essentially from themselves. Here’s what the Panthers have said about the policy (from FoxSports):

“We don’t want our players using these social networking websites. They are an invasion of privacy. They can be dangerous.”

Well, not really, they’re not an invasion of privacy but a forum where you can voluntarily make parts of your life unprivate. Nobody is questioning the capacity for these platforms to be misused. But dangerous? Not really.

Brisbane seem to have a more measured (and reasonable) approach:

“The Broncos have added a clause to their code of conduct that states any player posting a detrimental comment on Facebook or Twitter could be fined or suspended.”

My former employers had a policy along similar lines – with instructions not to engage in narky online flamewars (a paraphrase) we were to participate in online discussion in good humour, while recognising privacy and confidentiality concerns.

The FoxSports story, I think, hits the nail on the head when it comes to the motives of these moves:

“NRL clubs are deeply concerned about what players post in their status bar and whether their party photos are a “bad look”.”

It’s ultimately not about player safety – but about managing the NRL’s brand. And at this point I think the heavy handed “no go” social media policy is treating symptoms of the problem rather than its root cause. If players weren’t doing anything (in public, or private) that could be posted online in an embarrassing way – then there wouldn’t be a problem. Keeping the players off Facebook doesn’t stop photos being put up, nor does it stop those photos being sent to a journalist.

The real key to not damaging your brand via social networks is to not be doing stuff that would damage your brand. That’s where clubs should be directing their energy and attention.

There’s a further danger, which this story picks up, of players not present on Facebook being impersonated by people with less than optimal intentions. Apparently it’s happening with superstar Jarryd Hayne right now – and previously it has been an issue on Twitter for people like Kanye West (who apparently joined up just to avoid being impersonated). You can read his expletive laden all-caps tirade at Twitter impersonators from last May here at TechCrunch (I can’t find it on his actual blog)…

“THE PEOPLE AT TWITTER KNOW I DON’T HAVE A #%$@@# TWITTER SO FOR THEM TO ALLOW SOMEONE TO POSE AS ME AND ACCUMULATE OVER A MILLION NAMES IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND DECEITFUL TO THERE FAITHFUL USERS. REPEAT… THE HEADS OF TWITTER KNEW I DIDN’T HAVE A TWITTER AND THEY HAVE TO KNOW WHICH ACCOUNTS HAVE HIGH ACTIVITY ON THEM… IT MAKES ME QUESTION WHAT OTHER SO CALLED CELEBRITY TWITTERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL OR FAKE. HEY TWITTER, TAKE THE SO CALLED KANYE WEST TWITTER DOWN NOW …. WHY? … BECAUSE MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS LOUD!!!!!!!!!”

July 29, 2010

Apologetics inside the church

Kim Dale is a Pressy minister in Queensland, he does a fair bit of thinking on apologetics, and in particular the issue of worldviews. He was essentially converted through apologetic dialogue with a Christian. He’s our guest lecturer today. These are my notes – unless indicated they are rough or direct quotes from Kim.

Apologetics: The written and spoken defense of the Gospel where there is opposition, and it’s done in love.

This definition prevents apologetics just being “argument” for argument’s sake. There may be times when it might seem like that.

On Walk Up Evangelism: One of the drawbacks is that you don’t actually want to get engaged for a long time – we need to think about the relationship between apologetics and evangelism. There’s an organic relationship between apologetics and evangelism.

We have to be ready and prepared to give answers – but we need to be doing that in a loving way.

Francis Schaeffer, in The Mark of the Christian calls love “the final apologetic” – if we aren’t demonstrating love then we may get really frustrated in the attempt of sharing the Gospel. Schaeffer says we need to be able to give the message of the gospel and be prepared to actually give it when the situation arrives. Schaeffer uses John 17.

Apologetics needs to take place, where possible, in a community of Christians – there needs to be some exposure to the nature of Christian relationships and Christian people in order to see the genuineness of Christian love. That’s part of the deal of apologetics. Sometimes it may seem artificial to get people involved. Even if it seems that way at first they need to see the genuine love of God – which is often beyond us as individuals.

There can be situations where we don’t want to bring anybody to our churches – because of the presence of hypocrisy – where all our arguments will, as a general rule, fail on the basis of love.

There might be times where what you’re going to do, so far as apologetics is concerned, is just show love. Rather than rehashing old arguments. Getting to know people and where they’re coming from is a good move. We can get overly defensive or offensive when it comes to the gospel.

Where do we do it?

Normally we would think of apologetics as something we do outside the church, with non-believers. But we have to defend the gospel in the church. It has an important place inside the church. The overwhelming amount of information available in modern culture can be overpowering. We have to expose ourselves to this information, and it can be enjoyable. But we have to be prepared to take a break.

The religious and philosophical scheme is so diverse that it’s inevitable that the church is effected on the inside by what is happening on the outside. We need to defend the faith from the pulpit – people within the life of the church will doubtless call on you to make such a defense.

We’re to be “on guard,” but it’s not just defense – we need to be prepared to correct or destroy ideas (in love) to dismantle and break down harmful ideas both within and without. There’s “knowledge” that sets itself up against God. And that has to be dealt with. Sometimes these moves should be in public (and we see books published addressing anti-God arguments). There is an offensive strategy that we need to embrace.

Part of apologetics is clarifying other people’s thinking for them – asking “how can you make the judgment?” and “on what basis?” Get people to question basic assumptions.

Areas where having thought about apologetics have helped Kim.

  1. Going through the membership vows – and the person says “I believe that, but I also believe in reincarnation”… where do you go from there?
  2. Some people wanting to become members said “we used to belong to the Presbyterian Church, my wife taught Sunday School”… and in going through things like the divinity of Christ and they say “yes, in the same way that I’m divine too, as a son of God.” Where do you go if they’re not going to change on those positions. You explain the faith, and you deal with the consequences.
  3. When receiving an email after a sermon that said “when you were preaching there was a halo around you and three angels standing behind you” and then went on with a bunch of numerology stuff…
  4. “God can’t act until we pray” said from the pulpit when doing prayer in the morning.

What if he’d said “yes” to all of those – you need to make sense and be doctrinally consistent. That’s the necessity of apologetics inside the church. We need to have some interactions with the other ideas that are out there.

How do you deal with people when you know they have odd ideas?

Try to get to know them, outside of the Sunday morning context, get them in a situation where they’re learning (eg a Growth Group), it can, for individuals, take a tragedy or difficulty and you being there pastorally.

July 28, 2010

Wrap text with style with CSS Wrap Text

CSS text wrapper is a cool little webapp that generates shaped text frames for your website. You can customise them. This might prove useful if you’re doing something like a Christmas card and want to make a bunch of little baubles or something… or if your landing page has pictures. Check it out. Here are some samples.

July 28, 2010