Tonight, I should have been doing homework, in which I am quite behind, or at the very least trying to finalise the ordering of my senate votes. It's the first time I will ever vote in a federal election and I want to maximise my vote's implications. Parties I am considering giving my vote to include the Greens, the Australian Sex Party, the Secular Party, the Socialist Alliance, and Labor. The order of these (or in the case of the Secular party and the Socialist Alliance, whether they are preferenced near the top at all) is something that is still a bit of a puzzle for me, but I have to say, for maximum impact, my vote will probably go to the Greens, despite my misgivings about some of their policy...I have much stronger misgivings about Tony Abbott's insanity and Julia Gilard's right-wing pandering.
Unfortunately, I did none of these, instead giving into my love of all things children and inviting a friend over to watch 'Power Rangers: Dino Thunder' with me. While it was enjoyable as usual, we decided to go on a quest to try and locate a copy of the original power rangers. This proved to be extremely difficult as the original series was recorded on VHS not DVD, and alas, we failed in our search...for now. But we have a plan to continue looking, and we decided to tide ourselves over with the second disk of 'Dino Thunder' where Tommy (the original green ranger) as an adult becomes the new black ranger. What a twist!
After my friend left, I promised to save the rest of the watching until later, and have now been watching 'Another Cinderella Story' which is a crap musical version of the original version with the new Disney girl. She is in almost all of their movies, including 'Princess Protection Program', the last Disney live action movie I saw before this one. You may be asking yourselves, "why does she watch these awful films?" The answer: I don't know. I just can't get enough of that dodgy Disney magic. sigh.
Anyways, I've got time to waste and Disney to watch...
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Umpires: They Are Never Right
I am a football lover. I love the game, and used to play the game, until I broke my nose. Now I watch the game. By football of course I am speaking of Australian rules (as if there's any other kind). I love fotty more than any of my other friends, and consequently know a lot about the game. Various other friends of mine have passing interest in fottball or in soccer, but mainly the name of the game is Video for my friends, thus I have no one to vent my football anger to.
One of the things I hate at the football is fighting. Football is an agressive game, it is one of the few games that actually requires strategy and a range of different skills while still allowing tackling and bumping. Sometimes this combination makes the crowd think that they are equally as tough as the fottballers, which leads to swearing, snide remarks and sometimes fighting. The most common supporters to start fights are Collingwood supporters, but I guess when you have the biggest supporter base you also have the biggest annoying supporter base.
The other week though, the supporter was an Adelaide Crow, at the showdown, who was understandably upset that his team, the clear favourites, where not performing to standard. In his anger, he grabbed the flag of an elderly port power supporter and snapped it over his leg. Completely out of the blue. The man was furious and tried to run at the man, but my father and another man held him back and called security, who promptly threw the crows supporter out of the grounds.
It irritates me that these people give a bad reputation to all footy supporters. I am very level headed, and the only time I lose my cool is when the umpires make a dangerous mistake. This happened in the most recent game I attended, Port Power V Hawthorn. As a supporter who sits on the less popular attacking wing (for some reason one wing at Aami is heavily favoured over the other) I had a clear view of a violent fight which broke out between what seemed to me to be Cyril Rioli of Hawthorn and Paul Stewart of Port Adelaide.
Now when I say, 'a fight broke out' it implies reciprocity, but this fight was more awful as it was only Cyril Rioli holding Stewart on the ground and punching him repeatedly in the stomach as he tried to get away. None of the umpires noticed this, even after the crowd near us began screaming and pointing to draw attention. Even then, in the time that it took between Cyril Rioli's first hit and the umpires' subsequent noticing of the fight, Hawthorn had take the ball from centre half forward and moved gradually forward to score a goal (around 1.5 mins). The umpires only noticed after several players had joined the fight, with Port players attempting to pull off Rioli and Hawthawn players attempting to pull of Port Players. None of the initial fight was seen by umpires or caught on camera.
Later in the fight, it is my understanding that Cyril Rioli hit Nick Salter, which resulted in him being offered a one match ban. One match. Because the umpires didn't notice the start of the fight and the cameras didn't catch it. What a disgrace. About 5 years ago, Port Power player Byron Pickett scored a SIX MATCH BAN for a dangerous bump, a bump that was perfectly within the rules, but which was deemed 'dangerous.' Cyril Rioli, for beating another player, got one match, because the umpires weren't paying attention, and the AFL didn't wish to draw attention to the incident.
I have a great deal of respect for the umpires, but out of six, ONE should have noticed the fight. After noticing the fight, the goal should have been discounted. There were many other poor umpiring decisions, including the failure to pay a mark OR call a head high bump, when a Port player marked the ball and then was forced to drop it after a Hawthorn player collided dangerously with his head.
It's things like this, more than anything, that make me feel disgust at the AFL system. If they won't protect the players, football will quickly become a violent, violent game, and what we love about it, will become what we hate about it.
One of the things I hate at the football is fighting. Football is an agressive game, it is one of the few games that actually requires strategy and a range of different skills while still allowing tackling and bumping. Sometimes this combination makes the crowd think that they are equally as tough as the fottballers, which leads to swearing, snide remarks and sometimes fighting. The most common supporters to start fights are Collingwood supporters, but I guess when you have the biggest supporter base you also have the biggest annoying supporter base.
The other week though, the supporter was an Adelaide Crow, at the showdown, who was understandably upset that his team, the clear favourites, where not performing to standard. In his anger, he grabbed the flag of an elderly port power supporter and snapped it over his leg. Completely out of the blue. The man was furious and tried to run at the man, but my father and another man held him back and called security, who promptly threw the crows supporter out of the grounds.
It irritates me that these people give a bad reputation to all footy supporters. I am very level headed, and the only time I lose my cool is when the umpires make a dangerous mistake. This happened in the most recent game I attended, Port Power V Hawthorn. As a supporter who sits on the less popular attacking wing (for some reason one wing at Aami is heavily favoured over the other) I had a clear view of a violent fight which broke out between what seemed to me to be Cyril Rioli of Hawthorn and Paul Stewart of Port Adelaide.
Now when I say, 'a fight broke out' it implies reciprocity, but this fight was more awful as it was only Cyril Rioli holding Stewart on the ground and punching him repeatedly in the stomach as he tried to get away. None of the umpires noticed this, even after the crowd near us began screaming and pointing to draw attention. Even then, in the time that it took between Cyril Rioli's first hit and the umpires' subsequent noticing of the fight, Hawthorn had take the ball from centre half forward and moved gradually forward to score a goal (around 1.5 mins). The umpires only noticed after several players had joined the fight, with Port players attempting to pull off Rioli and Hawthawn players attempting to pull of Port Players. None of the initial fight was seen by umpires or caught on camera.
Later in the fight, it is my understanding that Cyril Rioli hit Nick Salter, which resulted in him being offered a one match ban. One match. Because the umpires didn't notice the start of the fight and the cameras didn't catch it. What a disgrace. About 5 years ago, Port Power player Byron Pickett scored a SIX MATCH BAN for a dangerous bump, a bump that was perfectly within the rules, but which was deemed 'dangerous.' Cyril Rioli, for beating another player, got one match, because the umpires weren't paying attention, and the AFL didn't wish to draw attention to the incident.
I have a great deal of respect for the umpires, but out of six, ONE should have noticed the fight. After noticing the fight, the goal should have been discounted. There were many other poor umpiring decisions, including the failure to pay a mark OR call a head high bump, when a Port player marked the ball and then was forced to drop it after a Hawthorn player collided dangerously with his head.
It's things like this, more than anything, that make me feel disgust at the AFL system. If they won't protect the players, football will quickly become a violent, violent game, and what we love about it, will become what we hate about it.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
It's Not Rational...It's Mystical
There are times when I am especially glad that I am an atheist and as such do not hold any religious bias, aside from an obvious bias against all religions. Studying a science must be next to impossible for those of a religious background, with knowledge and customs from childhood conflicting so strongly with later knowledge and research at academic institutions - and by this I refer to universities and non-religious high schools. Once, a friend of mine was telling an acquaintance of mine about a feild trip they had gone on for Geology, involving looking at fossils. She had been explaining how interesting and informative fossils were (each to their own, right?) when the acquaintence snorted and said "Fossils were only put in the Earth by the Devil to trick us."
Wow.
You always kind of think "surely not?" and yet time and again, evidence is dismissed. I feel very lucky that I had no such influences and pressures on my childhood, although I do know of a contingent of people that became involved in religion in their teens, which seems even more bizarre as by this age people are obviously old enough to have recieved alternate scientific explanations. I can always understand why older people 'find God' as studies have shown that people become more religious-like when they are forced to contemplate death, but teens? That never made sense to me.
Here's something else that doesn't make a heap of sense. Last week on Wednesday I attended a Psychology lecture regarding intercultural psychology, and let us just say that I don't have enough pages to write the problems with this lecture. Many people walked out due to the culturally insesitive nature of the lecture (ironically enough), others were horrified at the clear lack of scientific theory.
Thelecture was based on Jewish psychology, delivered by an Israeli professor, which initially promised to be quite interesting despite the fact that the lecturer's voice quite cutely reminded me of Eurovision song contest. Alas, it was not to be. She began by listing off four pscyhologists, Freud, Addler, and two others whom I don't really remember because Freud was definately the focus, due to his relatively undeserved fame. These psychologists were mentioned because they were all jewish (personally if Frued were in any way related to my religion I would be glossing over it, not highlighting it, but there you go).
After expaining this, she commented on the dominance of Freud's ideas in western society (what?!) and how very recently an Israeli psychologist had come up with an alternative (alternative to what? Freud stopped being taken seriously about 50 years ago!). This psychologist, Something-berg, suggested that in Israel, the alternative theory, 'Tsum Tsim' or 'Contraction' was based on collaboration, rather than the competition that capatilist western societies were based on. She continued to outline that instead of the competitiona and fighting advocated by western society, Israel had a community focus.
Tsum Tsim is based on the Holy Bible, which of course, she informed us, was the source of all absolute truths (or something bizarre like that) and in Israel, the more you read the bible, the more you will enjoy life. Tsum Tsim is revolutionary, because the only way for everyone to reach heaven is for everyone to pray for each other, because only by praying for each other will the Israeli people be rewarded, praying for yourself does not work (or something along those lines).
After a whole heap of Westerner bashing and religious babble, she began to talk about differenced in cultural perception, which are accounted for in Tsum Tsim, which says that many things in life are not rational...they're mystical, and therefore cannot be dealt with by traditional psychological methods due to their spiritual nature. She went on to give an example.
"If I told you that a man heard the angel Gabrielle's voice every night before he went to sleep, what would you say?"
I'd say he had some symptoms of schizophrenia. She followed up with this:
"Now what if I told you that, according to Judaism, we believe that when you go to sleep, angel Gabrielle is on one shoulder, and angel Michael is on the other. Would you say he is crazy?"
Possibly. No, probably.
"No, he is simply very religious. It is not the way westerners understand."
Here's a note: Western countries have religion, and if they here god talking to them, they still are considered potentially schizophrenic. There is no 'Get out of psych ward free' card for religious people. Here in the western world, we know that people who show signs of schizophrenia can be dangerous to others as well as to themselves.
This atrocious lecture managed to have everyone in the lecture theatre slightly amazed, largely horrified and in the end, trying to muffle their laughter. In one lecture, Psychology managed to strip from itself the little standing it had with other sciences, undoing years of entirely empirical research to try and be taken seriously as a scientific discipline.
Well done University, that was the most hilarious lecture in my life, and it makes me damn glad that I'm not religious, so that there is nothing blinding me from the truth, so that I can always make an educated decision based on fact, not feeling when it comes to other people's health.
But hey, maybe I'm just not mystical enough to suceed in life...
I've got to get myself a unicorn.
Wow.
You always kind of think "surely not?" and yet time and again, evidence is dismissed. I feel very lucky that I had no such influences and pressures on my childhood, although I do know of a contingent of people that became involved in religion in their teens, which seems even more bizarre as by this age people are obviously old enough to have recieved alternate scientific explanations. I can always understand why older people 'find God' as studies have shown that people become more religious-like when they are forced to contemplate death, but teens? That never made sense to me.
Here's something else that doesn't make a heap of sense. Last week on Wednesday I attended a Psychology lecture regarding intercultural psychology, and let us just say that I don't have enough pages to write the problems with this lecture. Many people walked out due to the culturally insesitive nature of the lecture (ironically enough), others were horrified at the clear lack of scientific theory.
Thelecture was based on Jewish psychology, delivered by an Israeli professor, which initially promised to be quite interesting despite the fact that the lecturer's voice quite cutely reminded me of Eurovision song contest. Alas, it was not to be. She began by listing off four pscyhologists, Freud, Addler, and two others whom I don't really remember because Freud was definately the focus, due to his relatively undeserved fame. These psychologists were mentioned because they were all jewish (personally if Frued were in any way related to my religion I would be glossing over it, not highlighting it, but there you go).
After expaining this, she commented on the dominance of Freud's ideas in western society (what?!) and how very recently an Israeli psychologist had come up with an alternative (alternative to what? Freud stopped being taken seriously about 50 years ago!). This psychologist, Something-berg, suggested that in Israel, the alternative theory, 'Tsum Tsim' or 'Contraction' was based on collaboration, rather than the competition that capatilist western societies were based on. She continued to outline that instead of the competitiona and fighting advocated by western society, Israel had a community focus.
Tsum Tsim is based on the Holy Bible, which of course, she informed us, was the source of all absolute truths (or something bizarre like that) and in Israel, the more you read the bible, the more you will enjoy life. Tsum Tsim is revolutionary, because the only way for everyone to reach heaven is for everyone to pray for each other, because only by praying for each other will the Israeli people be rewarded, praying for yourself does not work (or something along those lines).
After a whole heap of Westerner bashing and religious babble, she began to talk about differenced in cultural perception, which are accounted for in Tsum Tsim, which says that many things in life are not rational...they're mystical, and therefore cannot be dealt with by traditional psychological methods due to their spiritual nature. She went on to give an example.
"If I told you that a man heard the angel Gabrielle's voice every night before he went to sleep, what would you say?"
I'd say he had some symptoms of schizophrenia. She followed up with this:
"Now what if I told you that, according to Judaism, we believe that when you go to sleep, angel Gabrielle is on one shoulder, and angel Michael is on the other. Would you say he is crazy?"
Possibly. No, probably.
"No, he is simply very religious. It is not the way westerners understand."
Here's a note: Western countries have religion, and if they here god talking to them, they still are considered potentially schizophrenic. There is no 'Get out of psych ward free' card for religious people. Here in the western world, we know that people who show signs of schizophrenia can be dangerous to others as well as to themselves.
This atrocious lecture managed to have everyone in the lecture theatre slightly amazed, largely horrified and in the end, trying to muffle their laughter. In one lecture, Psychology managed to strip from itself the little standing it had with other sciences, undoing years of entirely empirical research to try and be taken seriously as a scientific discipline.
Well done University, that was the most hilarious lecture in my life, and it makes me damn glad that I'm not religious, so that there is nothing blinding me from the truth, so that I can always make an educated decision based on fact, not feeling when it comes to other people's health.
But hey, maybe I'm just not mystical enough to suceed in life...
I've got to get myself a unicorn.
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