So hey the travel advisor against trips to Mexico has been lifted. That means that we can all keep rehearsing our important Spanish phrases like, “Donde esta el bano.” So how did it feel to be swept up in panic that was Swine Flu? Did you enjoy your springtime fear fix or was it a bad trip for you?
I knew it!
This will be very helpful for the marriage preparation stuff I am doing this summer...
Ryan commented on a few conversations that he had regarding the idea that people who faced tragedy or poverty got what they deserved due to their lack of faith in God.
Comments I made on that post elicited a few questions and I will try to support my comments here rather than derail Ryan’s thread.
Leisure travel is by nature a function of wealth and an exercise in subjugating a place and people. Poor people cannot afford to travel for purposes of leisure. Poor people also are locked into service ‘industry’ (that keeps them poor) through several capitalist mechanisms. The first of which is the system of transnational capital practiced by the IMF and WMF whereby local countries provide free trade zones where foreign companies can come and set up shop without having to pay much of any kind of tax back to the host country. These companies use cheap local labour to extract significant profits while putting very little back into the local economy. Most importantly they locate and fix the indigenous population in place – drawing them to employment in these FTZs. The wages people receive are not enough to support them and they often must work many jobs to survive and they remain in poverty.
Here is a recap of the questions presented in Ryan’s post…
are you suggesting that tourism is evil because it encourages people to migrate to coastal regions where they could be killed by a tsunami? should we perhaps move these hotels inland provided they are not near a fault line or a volcano? or is it evil and selfish because it removes them from their subsistence way of life? is it evil to travel because you might indirectly influence someone to change their current vocation from one of farming to one in the service industry? should we barricade western culture from other cultures in order not influence them?
Answer to the first question:
Tourism is not intrinsically evil but the practice of tourism has significantly subjugating consequences one of which is that due to tourism there were generally more people in the areas affected by the Tsunami than there would have been otherwise. We also know that in the aftermath of the Tsunami wealthy foreigners were significantly advantaged in accessing help – but this is just obvious. We know that the poor suffered more than the wealthy did in this tragedy…
Answer to question two:
As I have already stated the damaging effect of the leisure travel/tourism are evident without them being in the direct path of an impending disaster. Moving the location of the hotels only transplants the problems.
Answer to three and four:
Like I said earlier, the economic systems that drive the tourism industry lock people in place and reduce the options available to them in order to provide for their families. This is what is so insidious since on the surface it seems that people are making a decision between subsistence and service industry employment. But let us not forget that it was not the locals decision to have foreigners come and lounge on their beaches and traipse around on their ancient ruins. And local peoples do not have the power to kick transnationals out of the country.
Answer to last question:
There are aspects of western culture and values that have created significant problems globally. There are other aspects that have the potential to provide significant opportunity to improve the well-being of people around the world. Barricading western culture from the rest of the world is not only impossible but just silly. Cultural exchange is valuable when reciprocity is mutually available and balanced. But when the cultural values of one dominate another problems exist (Unless it is somehow possible to prove that Western culture is just that much more superior to other cultures – in which case subjugate all you want!). Western cultural values hold a place of privilege and authority in the world. As such it is important to address aspects that might be damaging.
Finally, (to try to connect this back to Ryan’s post) when western ideological perspectives and consequences are endorsed through faulty logic couched as Christian values – then repentance is needed. If western Christians think that their advantaged position is somehow an endorsement by the Almighty - they are getting it wrong. If they think that poor heathen people get what they deserve when disaster strikes – they are getting it wrong. If westerners can’t recognize that their practices bear significantly harmful consequences, both overtly and covertly, they are getting it wrong.
I think that there are ways to enjoy the marvels of God’s creation in different countries. I’d be glad to entertain ideas from any of you who bother to read this as to how this might be possible…
A.K.A. Benny Hinn does the playoffs!
Seeing as the prophesy discerned for round one of the playoffs proved more or less correct (My sincere sympathy to my Flames loving readers). We here at the pickle have decided to press on with the word which cometh from on high and predict the next round outcomes – using the tried and true method that most prophet employ the ubiquitous proof text.
Boston and Carolina
According to 1 Kings 19:11 “the Lord was not in the wind” on the other hand in 2 Kings 2:24 “two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths”. Obviously, this can only mean that Carolina has blown their last gust and just think if two bears can wipe out 40 youth a whole team of them should be able to handle John Torterella – oh shucks those guys are out of the playoffs…
Bruins in 5
Detroit and Anaheim
Friends Leviticus 23:40 makes this very clear. “On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice…for seven days.” Many might look at this passage as the inauguration of one of Israel’s feasts – they would only see half of the meaning. The number seven is important here as is the reference to palms since it seems that Pronger and the gang from the city of palms are destined to rejoice over the Red Wings in Seven Games… Who’s mounting up with wings now Osgood? See its in the name right there the goalie thinks he’s good and he’s not. Don’t you know pride cometh before a game seven loss…
Vancouver and Chicago
Now follow along with this. We know that the Black Hawks were named after a revered First Nations group – in fact they bear a ‘likeness’ of one of these valiant warriors upon their jersey. However, as we all know the Canucks have drawn from Haida First Nations imagery in their logo as well. So how to tell the difference? Well once again obscure historical passages that once only served to put you to sleep in those night time devotions is useful in delivering predictions…
Consider 1Chronicles 12:1&2 Here is clearly says that, “…the men who came to David…were among the warriors who helped him in battle;” (and we all know that David was the winner in battle) Who were these men? Well, “they were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed (an obvious illusion to scoring ability from the left or right wing); they were kinsmen of Saul” An of course we all know that Jonathan (as in Jonathan Toews) was Saul’s premier kinsman. So there you have it…
A dandy little verse that proves that the NUCKS will face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…and lose in 6.
Pittsburgh and Washington
Obviously Jericho the great walled and fortified city of giants can only refer to Washington. And as most of you plainly know instructions about how this city can be defeated are pretty clearly spelled out in Joshua Chapter 6. Circling the city means that the ‘cycle’ will be critical to success against Ovechkin and his pals but it will take seven games to declare the winner and by the looks of things that game might have a few extra overtime periods. But take a closer look at verse 2: “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.” I’ll admit I myself was surprised by this but it seems that not only will Pittsburgh win the series but they will take over the Whitehouse as well. In a move reminiscent of the time when Canada burned the Whitehouse in 1812 – it seems that Sidney Crosby is poised to become president of the United States as well. Some one better tell Barack to hang a red sash out the oval office window…
Prevent something from happening again.
If you can really prevent it from ever happening again – you’ve actually eradicated it.
In that case it there is no need to prevent it.
You only actually prevent it till the next time it happens.
So prevention never really works.
Example:
Dwight Shrute,
That being said, if a pirate does enter a hospital missing a leg, under no circumstances should he be given a wooden peg leg, because that just enables him to get back on his feet. He'll be raping and pillaging in no time.
What can we say so far? Your brain does not contain memories – it MAKES memories. The best theories of memory suggest that memory is an association of neurons firing in relatively the same way as when the original event occurred. The deal is that in order to pull up that vivid memory of your first kiss you gotta reconstruct the event – you rebuild it. By definition then the thing you remember is not the actual original event but your reconstruction of it which means of course that it is different (even if in small ways) than the original. Now this happens to be a fairly accurate process – one that we rely on pretty heavily (sometimes too heavily). That first kiss was with Charlene for me! It is not very likely that I will ever tell you Julianna was the first female with whom I passionately shared saliva. This good and keeps my relationship with Char pretty much locked up!
But what about the study that showed people two cars in an accident then they asked the observers this question: How fast were the vehicles going when they ______? (in the blank they substituted the words: crash. collided, bumped, hit, smashed). What they found was that the observers reported the cars as travelling up to 10 mph faster with the most graphic words like smashed than they did with words like bumped. People rebuilt the memory to accommodate the question they were asked. What does that tell us? That things can be (and often are) moulded to accommodate the conditions of a pre-existing state.
So you are historian right? You write down what you remember about a battle, a voyage, an encounter, a personality. What can we say about your account? Well since it was made up (constructed) we can tell you that it is not completely accurate with the original. We can also be confident that what you wrote is deeply affected by the conditions, biases and influences that you held at the time of writing it down. We seem to be pretty comfortable with this situation since we use it all the time.
I think it should makes us stop and think about what we mean when we say that something is reliable. Is BBC News actually more reliable than CNN or CBC? It can’t actually be more reliable since we know that each piece of reporting has taken an event and processed it through the neurons in their brain and reconstructed the event for us to read.
But what about Scripture? Does the idea that the Holy Spirit inspired scripture mean that a new level of reliability is achieved? Does that mean that the writers brains became putty in the hands of the Holy Spirit? Does it change the way we read and use Scripture if we say that human neurons functioned as they normally do in writing these texts? Interesting questions to be sure…
Let me know when your autobiography is ready to go to print…
Unchanged…
Update: Pride cometh before a fall – so president’s trophy winners look out apparently the “s’s” in your name also stand for shut out and swept.
Ducks in 4
Unchanged: Even though you’ll notice the Rangers are up in this series. At times a team must go through their own period of captivity before they can regain the promised land – in this case the next round
Capitals in seven
Unchanged: Red Wings in 5
Unchanged: remember that a mighty wind was used to part the Red Sea…
Hurricanes in 7
Update: Apparently the Canucks have been reading this blog and mended their ways. Evidence: Miracle of miracles - The Ol’ Deacon Sundin scored a goal. I say prop up his stick in the middle of the room and light candles around it – its an icon. I know its cheap idolatry but the way they are playing any amount of luck might just keep Luongo the blessed between the pipes
Vancouver in 5
Unchanged. Pittsburg in 6
Unchanged: Did I not tell thee to be aware of the Mennonites. Calgary you bunch of Zwinglians.
Black Hawks - in 5
at least I am doing a fair but better than the monkey…
The actions of league vice-president Colin Campbell are curiously frustrating at best and the marked trappings of game rigging at worst. Sure coaches and GM’s were ‘warned’ that end of game shenanigans that were intended to ‘send a message’ to the other team were not going to be tolerated. Fair warning. So what!
I’m sorta with PJ Stock on this one. The game of hockey has changed but not necessarily in a good way. Increasing the regulation of the game has led to general lack of respectability in the game. Let’s try to understand the effectiveness of the league’s rules on the overall outcomes of the games. Penalty minutes have increased significantly overall. So too has the greasy chippy and pansy bottomed play of divers and hackers and cheap-shotters. It has begun to take on some of the unseemly aspects of Brazilian or Argentinean soccer tom-foolery. The game used be shaped by notions of respect which kept players in their respective roles.
If the regulatory effort has been to increase the opportunity for skill players like Ovechkin, Crosby, or Malkin to strut their stuff the playoffs at least have been a pretty poor showcase. If the these penalties and suspensions are intended to make the game more palatable to the a more PC audience – consider the ecstatic cheers of Blues fans every time one of their boys pounded Vancouver. If the motivation of these measures is to bring the game in line with other sports like basketball, baseball, or bowling (which up until recently received a greater TV market share than hockey in the USA) then we have another glaring problem: Hockey is not baseball, basketball or bowling – it is conceptually different.
Removing Lucic, Carcillo, et al. for one game is stupid. If this type of activity is really problematic send them off for the series or the entire playoffs – instead of forcing a team to make line-up changes in order to compensate for the ‘message’ the league wants to send. If Lucic is suspended why isn’t every other head shot being penalized similarly. Those of you who might try to argue that Lucic’s shot is somehow different than any other glove or stick to the head in behind the net scrum should consider that the only way one can make that qualitative difference is to impose highly subjective standards of judgement. LaPierre got it right when he said that the shot was a normal part of the game and he should know he’s handed out his fair share of similar shots.
What bothers me the most is that the game I loved as a younger person does not actually exist any longer. By saying that I am not appealing to the notion that a game should remain fixed in some nostalgic time frame. Changes need to be made – but ones that return the game to its original spirit. Hockey has always been a tough game – remember that it started outside on ICE! Efforts to extract that quality of the game should be discouraged. Hockey has always been an inventive game – both personally and corporately. It is this spirit of innovation that should be explored. Consider the difference that bigger ice surface would make to the game. It remains to be seen what creative coaches and players could do to make the game exciting. Instead while there is arguably more parity (a good thing) in the league there is also far more uniformity in style of play. And the outcomes of games are being decided on power plays which means that referees are determining the outcome of games.
In the end we are left with an impoverished game available to whimsical subjectivity that serves only to frustrate players and fans.
