Posts by Chris Waugh
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Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Sacha,
Indeed. Here I am in a properly Third World country wondering just what it is we let go so wrong back home.
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Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Lilith __,
Abraham is prepared to kill his son, and he is held up as an example of piety.
Yes, but remember that they were childless until at an impossibly old age they were promised a son whose descendants would be as countless as grains of sand, then, in a moment of weakness, his wife persuaded him to take her maidservant as a concubine and Ishmael was born (who is the one, I believe, who Muslims claim was the son he was ordered to sacrifice), then eventually the promised son was born to Sara, and stopped him and provided an alternative sacrifice just before the knife was plunged in, the whole point being to test Abraham's faith and total obedience. Not saying it's a nice story, but...
For this any many other reasons, I find the Old Testament scary and horrible and impossible to reconcile with the New Testament.
Best answer I ever heard to that was the "progressive revelation of God". God reveals himself bit by bit as our understanding evolves. Adam and Eve only knew 'eat all the fruits and seeds you want, just not the fruit of these two trees', and they blew it. Abraham and Job knew only unquestioning faith and total obedience no matter how shite the situation or ridiculous the divine order. Moses was given a more complete, although still Mediaevally harsh law. Jesus fulfilled that. Who knows where we'll be led now that we have science?
Again, not saying it's nice, or good or even true. Certainly not saying it's rational. That's one thing our species is most certainly not, rational.
What I find interesting, though, is how Westerners generally approach the a/theism debate from a very Western Judaeochristian point of view, even confirmed atheists. The counterpoint that seems obvious to my sinocentric self, especially when dealing with those naive theists who have honestly never considered the possibility of morality without God, is to bundle up the generally rather atheistic ancient Chinese philosophers and throw them into the mix. [oops, daughter woke up a bit early, better make this quick]. Confucius didn't bother much with God or gods except to say "Follow the rights that the Zhou practiced!". Laozi got a bit metaphysical, but started off his book by stating outright there is no way to define the true Dao. Could think of more examples, but have a baby to take care of...
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I, too, am really old-fashioned, and fortunate to be in a city where old-fashioned book buying is well supported (provided you're happy to limit your reading to simplified Chinese editions that haven't made the CCP unhappy, of course, but that still leaves plenty of room). There's a market not far away that has a couple of book stalls selling most books for 5 yuan (NZ$1!) each and some even cheaper - they would seem to be mostly old editions, print overruns, and stuff that fell of the back of trucks. A bit further away in another direction at a place whose name means Sweet Water Garden is a huge market where a lot of publishers have stalls jam packed with their entire catalogue. On Saturday I like to take the Beijing News around to a restaurant for lunch and sit down and read the book section. Many trees have died to keep me happy.
I have become very much reliant on birthday and Christmas parcels from my mum to keep me in English-language reading material. Sometimes I like to think we're building the biggest collection of New Zealand literature in Beijing, but I don't know what's on anybody else's bookshelves here.
Unfortunately all that talk of actually respecting IPR does actually seem to be translating into difficulty finding quality CDs and DVDs and actually what you want on Baidu MP3 search (not that there's ever been much on Baidu MP3 for people whose tastes go beyond Mandopop).
In case anybody's curious, Paper Republic is good for keeping up to date with Chinese literature in translation, and Neocha is good for seeing what creative young Chinese who aren't much bothered with the sensitivities of the authorities are getting up to, including in music. Neocha used to have a music player called 'Next' which was pretty interesting, but being stuck on a relatively tight data limit in Beijing and 20 hours/month out in the village means I didn't use it as much as I would've liked, and now I can't find it.
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The Commission’s rationale that removing the logos of unregistered parties would simplify the information provided to voters on the voting paper is unconvincing.
Extremely unconvincing. Surely the commission should be encouraging the use of logos by both parties (registered or otherwise) and independent candidates for electorates as an aid to those of weaker literacy skills? Not everybody deals well with words, and a little picture or pattern associated with a party or candidate could work wonders for many trying to decipher the forms. After all, we do want maximum participation, don't we?
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Capture: Howling at the Moon, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Mt Albert is Mt Vic’s consort, and thrusts up over Newtown/Berhampore, kinda behind the zoo,
Indeed. About hereish. The two green rectangles are the hockey stadium I spent a lot of time at during high school. Friends of mine were in the 1st XI. Not that any of that is in anyway relevant to the discussion...
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Capture: A Foray into Portraiture, in reply to Joe Wylie,
The hat on my head was bought from the gift shop of the NZ Army Museum in Waiouru (it's not as clear as I first thought, but of the three black smudges on the hat, the largest is a sillhouete of a Kiwi, and the two smaller ones are the letters NZ, all reversed because I was taking a photo of a mirror image), so there may be a connection with those giggle hats. 'Tis a pity it's green, in some ways, as wearing green hats in China has some unfortunate connotations, but on the plus side it does make for some funny jokes... in the privacy of one's home, for those versed enough in Chinese slang.
Incidentally, is my memory really bad, or was our timing in Feb 2010 really unfortunate, or has the caf in the NZ Army Museum in Waiouru turned really useless? I remember many a good stopover there from my childhood, both exploring the museum and getting sustenance (although some place closer to the forbidding entrance to the Desert Road called the Sahara Cafe (in my memory (or Oasis, perhaps?)) seems to have done more feeding us kids than the museum) but last time I was there I was a bit embarassed in that I had to explain to my better half that even though we could hardly find a crumb in any of the pie warmers or a bottle of L&P in the fridges, there would actually be food available in the centre of the North Island. As it turned out, my parents, based in Hamilton at the time, knew a brilliant cafe in Taihape. Still leaves me wondering about the Army Museum.
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Might as well contribute a self-portrait of a kind... got back home in desperate need of the loo, on the way back out realised how ridiculous I look in my avoiding the sun get-up.
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Magic with that moon. It's too early up my way, but also a bit too smogged up to give much hope... With a bit of luck we may get something more than a sickly red super-ish in a better life moon.
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Capture: A Foray into Portraiture, in reply to Lilith __,
Ah, thanks for that. Wikipedia says:
The majority of swallowtail species and greatest diversity in form and lifestyle are found in the tropics between 20°N and 20°S,[3]: particularly Southeast Asia, and between 20°N and 40°N in East Asia.
I'm sitting very close to '40°N in East Asia', which would seem to make some species or another of swallowtail butterfly quite a likely candidate.
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I'm amazed by how invisible the poor blighter is in the photo, because it stood out like a neon sign when I was down in the garden marking essays (to avoid the racket of the neighbours' renovating), but then again, I think this may be the first butterfly I have ever seen in Beijing. Considering I've lived in this city for more or less a decade, and in urban China for a bit over a dozen years, seeing a butterfly for the first time is both really depressing and cause for hope. Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the first butterfly I've seen in urban China ever. Moths I've seen plenty of around here. Maybe it's something to do with the drab, dusty, gray/sand colour that dominates this part of the world. My first thought was that this one looks a little monarchical, but not quite, maybe duchal or baronial or something... entomology is far from my forte.
