Illogical nonsense on the Turin Shroud

I see there's now a claim the Turin Shroud may be geniune after all.   The story doesn't quite bear out the headline - the scientists have only concluded that they don't actually know what might have caused the images of a crucified man to appear on the cloth.

That is not quite the same as saying, we don't know, therefore God did it.

But here's the thing:  even if God did do it, is this really such a good advert for God?

If there is a Supreme Being has the power to perform miracles, shouldn't this Supreme Being do some useful ones?

I mean, if this Being has that sort of power, shouldn't this Supreme Being perform a miracle and, to take a topical example,  prevent this sort of child abuse rather than just make some strange marks on a bit of cloth?

It seems to me that anyone who venerates the Turin Shroud as some sort of sign from God has seriously got their wires crossed.

If it is a "sign" from God, its a very dubious one.

Things to Worry About

1. North Korea.  These people have just lost their beloved Leader, one of only about three people north of the 38th Parallel with a weight problem.  These people are crazed with hunger and now with a weird collective grief.  Sort of like the Princess Diana thing, only instead of Elton John they have nukes. 
2. Europe. These people are crazed with debt problems and with, in the jargon of the financial markets, 'kicking the can down the road'.  They've now got the fiscal equivalent of stubbed toes and they're running out of road. The thing about debt and deficits is that at some point you have to start the long slow paying back.  New Zealand learned this 25years ago - slowly and painfully, and our political discourse is still scarred by the decisions made at that time.  The EU can only get worse, and it will be worse for a long time. And they also have the baby boomers tipping over into retirement - at least NZ didn't have that imminent problem in the 1984-92 period.  
3.  Ditto the US. They're now going into presidential election year which means the chances of anyone saying or doing anything sensible for the next 12 months is pretty minimal.

Cheerful sod, aren't I?  Well, as far as New Zealand's prospects are concerned, I am quite optimistic - over the medium term, anyway.  I've written about this here and here will be a third installment in the New Year. 

I'm not convinced 2012 is going to be all that great.  But the combination of diversification of markets, with New Zealand now being geared to the part of the world that is just beginning to grow; New Zealanders' newfound interest in savings - for the first time in a very long time;  a political system which is not gridlocked and which is, however imperfectly, dealing with the country's problems instead of ignoring them and/or just blaming them on 'the 1990s'; and a very transparent set of government finances, means the medium term outlook for New Zealand is quite positive.

We're not going to boom - and it would not be a good thing if we were - and a country of 4.5 million people, spread over a comparatively large and difficult land mass, will always be vulnerable.

But for the first time in my lifetime - and I'm 47 - I'm looking a decade ahead and seeing solid reasons for optimism.

25 Days In November

Will be spending much of the next four weeks writing about the election, along with covering whatever form the global economy's ongoing impersonation of a hormonal emotionally incontinent 14-year-old takes this particular cycle.

Oh, and tax.  There's bound to be some tax stuff in there. Yummy yummy tax.

The twitter feed is probably the best short form way to keep up with things, as the entire news industry is now being twatted.

I may not be making much sense by the end of the month. Wibble.

What's wrong with daylight saving

I've never been a huge fan of 'daylight saving' - a silly term for basically buggering about with the clocks. (yes I know 'Buggering About With The Clocks Time' instead of 'Daylight Saving Time' is a bit convoluted.  It has the greater virtue, though, of accuracy).

No, it isn't that it fades the curtains, as someone famously grizzled when it was first introduced. 

Nor is it, totally, due to memories of having to get the cows up early, something I wrote about once before.

Daylight saving, I have decided, is discriminatory.

There is no particular reason why the clocks are shifted back when we switch into 'NZ Summer Time' (don't make me laugh) to take advantage of the longer daylight hours.

Is there any particular reason why it is assumed people will need the extra daylight hours at the end of the day?

Why not in the morning?

This is where the discrimination comes in: daylight saving is Nightist. It penalises those of us who are 'morning people' or 'larks' and favours those who are 'night people' or 'owls'.  (We should probably find an NZ bird equivalent of this. 'Moreporks' is an obvious replacement for owls, but I'm not sure about morning. Tuis, maybe.)

Someone should do a study on this.  I harbour dark suspicions that those of us who are morning bods (yep, I'm one) are not as productive during NZ Summer Time.

This has got to have an impact on GDP.

We will never catch Australia by 2025 if we're going to penalise some of our most productive citizens in this way.

And besides, those of us who are morning bods don't get to stay as late at the summer barbecues.

It's just not fair.

The 1981 Tour: The Protests, the Rage, the Moustaches

“That’s a bit too bloody corny,” I thought last night, watching the two lovers across the 1981 Tour divide embrace in Onslow Road, next to a group of protesters overturning a Holden Kingswood.

The scene – the climax of Rage, a drama about the ’81 protests – was reaching a bit too hard for some sort of symbolic reconciliation and redemption.

 

He, a protest leader from conservative provincial New Zealand who had been radicalised at University:  she a Maori cop who had been working undercover with the protest movement and had, despite herself, fallen in love.

Staging their first honest kiss next to that up-ended Kingswood - which was one of the most memorable photo-images from that bitterly divided year – seemed a bit too cute.

But despite my natural cynicism, I found myself choking up.

There is what might look like a similarly stagy bid for a feel good ending, with Julius Nuyere, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM)  later that year, saying how the New Zealand protests gave black Africans hope.

The speech looks a bit contrived, but the co-writer of the programme, journalist Tom Scott, was at that CHOGM meeting and, at the time, reported Nuyere saying pretty much what he says in the film.

‘Rage’ is very well done.  There’s a couple of liberties taken  - I don’t think the Clean’s ‘Boodle Boodle Boodle’ came out until after the tour, for example  - but these are minor.

The small touches are neatly done and they give the drama depth.  It is all too easy, when writing history of large events like this, to turn every dialogue into a speech and to paint all the action in large brush strokes.

This is mostly avoided.  The characters are real, not sloganeering archetypes.

One small example: Ginette McDonald, who has only a minor role as a middle aged, middle class, woman caught up in the protests. 

The mark of a great actor is being able to capture a character with a few lines and a look, and McDonald is a great actor.  Here, she conveys not only a character but a whole sub-stratum of New Zealand who were opposed to the Tour, not because of radicalism or any great bolshiness, but due to a  slightly bewildered but determined decency.

If you missed ‘Rage’ last night, get hold of it.  Its very very good.