September 21, 2005
September 16, 2005
Shades of Green
No prizes for guessing who I'll be voting for...
Because we take climate change seriously, and are committed to doing something about it.
Because we believe in education, not debt.
Because we are committed to seeing Te Reo and tikanga Maori taught in all schools.
Because we are campaigning for an end to child poverty.
Because we seek to eliminate discrimination against queer people.
Because we are taking positive steps to foster tolerance and diversity.
Because we stand for fair trade, not free trade.
Because we will uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Because we are creating sustainable transport alternatives.
Because we will ensure that there is more and better aid, more debt relief, and more commitment to Human Rights.
For these reasons and so many more, I’m proud to be Green.
I just hope it comes out in the wash…
Green adventure
Green creature
Green music
Green life
Green wilderness
Green art
Green food
I've just been giving out Green beer coasters in pubs. It's kinda tragic to think that people might be swayed by a beer coaster, or a bright green train... but all the other parties seem to be acting just as desperate, and I think we had more fun in our cute train than they did in their boring vans...
Apparently it's ok to leave all this on my blog as long as it's posted before midnight, so, with moments to spare,
PARTY VOTE GREEN!!!
Happy Voting Aotearoa NZ
September 15, 2005
Skill
This is very cool. Today’s word du jour is an·a·mor·pho·sis. And it has nothing to do with the E*******. Except perhaps my favourite - the Politicians Meeting Their End.
(Link via Eroica's World)
September 12, 2005
Strategic voting
I know I banned election comments, but I'm allowed to break my own rules...
Matt McCarten has some stellar advice for any wavering Labour-Green
voters in The Herald on Sunday (11 Sept):
As I say to Green supporters who are thinking of voting Labour, if Labour gers 44 percent of the party vote and the Greens get 5 percent … that equals 49 percent. That means that with Anderton they can govern. But if Labour gets 44.1 per cent and the Greens 4.9 per cent, that equals 44.1 per cent. Let me spell it out clearer: If the Greens go under 5 per cent they get no seats in parliament at all and Brash becomes Prime Minister. So if you’re a soft Green or an independent and want a Labour-Green government, you should give your party vote to the Greens.
September 10, 2005
casting out depression
The downside to working for God is that you get all sorts of scary mail. Yesterday we received lots of pamphlets advertising a seminar about depression. I glanced at them and “that's good, that the church is acknowledging and thinking about these things...” I put one in my pocket to read later.
Well, it’s later, and I’ve read the pamphlet. It lists the causes of depression and mood disorders as
a) Chemical Imbalance - solution = the right medication
Ok, so far so good.
b) Emotional Wounding - solution = effective ministry
Sure, ok, if the person is Christian and wants to be ministered to.
c) Evil Spirits - solution = competent deliverance
Say what now?
Talk of Evil Spirits scares me. Maybe because I have had people try to drive them out of me on several occasions. Or perhaps because I'm still possessed by evil and I’m so delusional that I just can't see the truth.
Well being the obsessive surfer that I am, I checked out the Dr's website, to see what else he had to say about depression:
In my opinion, the church should be a healing community. It should be rescuing men and women from Satan's kingdom and bringing them into an environment where they can be healed from the bondage and wounds that have accumulated while in Darkness.
Eeeeep.
And Google found this article:
One of his patients told him during an office visit that she had difficulty concentrating, as the voices she was hearing were disturbing her. Mullen says he didn't know what to do so he stalled for time by making notes in his chart and muttered to himself "God, I don't know what's going on here. If this woman is hearing from evil spirits, in the name of Jesus, could you please shut them up so I can finish this interview." Unexpectedly, he says, the woman told him that for the first time in 20 years, the voices went away. He was as surprised as she was. That, he says, is when he realized that people may be tormented by the voice of demons and that the "authority of Christ" drove them away."
…
Mullen did say he doesn't personally deal with Satanic harassment, but does recommend a book to those patients being harassed and he will refer them to counsellors who can offer deliverance or exorcism. The book he recommends is The Bondage Breaker by Neil Anderson (Harvest House, 1997) which, he says, is an extremely effective tool for people to understand demonic bondage and to expel Satan from one's life. The book is so powerful, he says, that Satan will oppose attempts to read it.
He recalls one patient who tried to buy the book but every time he went near it he felt a tight band surrounding (his) body and arms. Another patient reported that she was beaten by her husband when she tried to read the book in bed.
Ok, now I’m scared. Satan made this guy beat up his wife? Because he (Satan) felt threatened by a book? What, was this depressed woman a key player in his plan for Armageddon?
It’s times like these that I feel very reluctant to own up to being a Christian, if it lumps me in the same category as people like this.
*
To alleviate any depression that may have been caused by reading this, I suggest checking out Chronic Babe. Eleanor sent me the link, and I’ve really enjoyed some of the articles.
Or, if you're not chronic, check out the spoof National billboards. My current faves are:
You can make one yourself - send me the link.
September 05, 2005
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
Anne Rice asks, “Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?”
My dad has a CD of “Louisiana Party Music” that I have always loved listening too. It’s so sassy, offbeat, and loaded with attitude.
And the food... yum... jambalaya, gumbo, onion blossoms, mmmm... even the names are delicious. There used to be a great Cajun restaurant in Rotorua, they made the best garlic bread I’ve ever tasted.
Just a few weeks ago, watching a movie set in Louisiana I thought again that I’d love to go there one day. Maybe I will go there, some day, but New Orleans will never be the same again.
No, I don’t know what it means to lose this amazing city... but I feel as though, from a distance, I had a faint sense of what Anne Rice writes about:
The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy. Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.
Meanwhile, Jordan Flaherty writes:
In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going... I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge...
...One cameraman told me "as someone who's been here in this camp for two days, the only information I can give you is this: get out by nightfall. You don't want to be here at night."
While the rich escaped New Orleans, those with nowhere to go and no way to get there were left behind. Adding salt to the wound, the local and national media have spent the last week demonizing those left behind. As someone that loves New Orleans and the people in it, this is the part of this tragedy that hurts me the most, and it hurts me deeply.
No sane person should classify someone who takes food from indefinitely closed stores in a desperate, starving city as a "looter," but that's just what the media did over and over again. Sheriffs and politicians talked of having troops protect stores instead of perform rescue operations.
September 04, 2005
Sunday
It’s quite unnerving to keep hearing my name in the context of United Future, but at least it’s spelled differently. And FM seems nice enough, if a little misguided. She’s so young and bright and enthusiastic about changing the world, and when at the Amnesty candidates meeting on Foreign affairs I almost got persuaded to vote for her. But when it comes to conscience issues... she's in the Vic Christian Union, which means that she's towards the opposite end of the spectrum of Christianity to me.
I am so sick of the election already. I’ve stuck a vote green sticker on my car, posted this entry, and now I declare my input into the election debate officially over.
Any commenters who mention the E word on this blog will be severely punished.
*
Our cat has developed an annoying habit of standing on people’s faces during the night. I kid you not, she puts a front paw on each cheek, hind paws on forehead or throat, and tail whacking against an ear. You think that’s amusing? It’s not at 4am trust me. Sure I can kick her out but then she yowls like you wouldn’t believe.
She just loves being on top of things, whether it’s the bookshelf, an open door, the printer... she keeps on pushing the buttons, printing scans of nothing. Then she jumps on top of the desk and knocks everything to the floor.
*
What is it about the brain, what triggers it at any moment to suddenly throw up some random information from the past? What makes the mind suddenly dredge up a song from that cartoon movie you went to with your first boyfriend (you held hands, and later, during a game of truth and dare, he kisses you on the cheek). And now you spend the whole morning trying to remember the lyrics to one of the verses. Crazy.
*
I’ve been watching some really really bad TV lately. Because it’s there. And because I’m tired, and I don’t feel like doing much else.
The Will has got to be amongst the worst of reality TV. Don’t the contestants realise how gross they make themselves look? *shudder* And yet I just can’t turn away. Call it morbid fascination.
CSI and House are over for the season (and CSI Miami just isn't the same show), so there’s even less worth watching. It’s not all doom and gloom though. I can’t wait for Monday’s to roll around, bring Desperate Housewives (Susan is so hot). And NZ Idol is all good clean fun (Jackie is so hot) but I just can’t believe Keshia is gone! *sob*
*
It’s funny how you can hear a phrase so many times, and not really think about its components, about its precise meaning.
Grief-stricken: The way it contains the word stricken.
strike ( P ) Pronunciation Key (strk)
v. struck, (strk) struck, or strick·en (strkn) strik·ing, strikes
v. tr.
1. To hit sharply, as with the hand, the fist, or a weapon.
2. To penetrate or pierce: was struck in the leg by a bullet.
3. To collide with or crash into.
That’s it exactly.
Sometimes it stings like being slapped when you were expecting a caress.
Sometimes it pierces you, sudden as lightening.
Sometimes you come around a corner and collide with it, and for the rest of the day you carry bruises.