FIFA World Cup and miscellanies

FIFA World Cup

Adopting a team
At first I thought I could display a German flag as I write this. Since there’s only THIRTY-TWO teams playing in each World Cup every four year, many of the world’s inhabitants are not lucky enough to have a team and unsurprisingly adopt a team. Although I weep at Germany’s loss, I am still happy that my adopted team could still get a humble third place unlike most of my friends’ adopted England which lost to Germany.  But I don’t 100%appreciate the decline of World Cup-related statuses since English team was defeated. That wasn’t too much of an unexpected thing as time is needed for those England fan friends of mine to recover.

Predictions
May I express my jealousy at the amazing predictions of Paul the octopus? The reasons should be obvious. The question is rhetorical – in case it is unnoticed. Lastly, if I hypothetically come to possess a octopus I wonder how I can convince others that it is NOT a pet.

Border Patrol

I am talking about the TV programme about how Australian Customs protect the airports and the territorial waters. Obviously Australia is a country without land borders and “land” element is always lacking.

So, I have come up with two ideas: (1) make the Tasmania independent and build a bridge across complete with toll gates manned by officers; (2) (this one is more exciting) buy a piece of China right next to North Korea and make it a State of Australia – it will come with bonuses such a demilitarised zone, barbed wires, visiting UN officials, defectors, nuke test,…. You name it. These should make the programme far more interesting than air travellers – smugglers and those who cannot fill a form – getting into trouble.

Local affairs comment on Arrowtown

Firstly, let’s see the Arrowtown’s geographic location, http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?q=arrowtown&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Arrowtown&gl=nz&ei=KEI4TLClGoLUtQPztIRT&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q8gEwAA , and what Wikipedia have to say about this tiny town,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowtown

If you are accessing the internet from New Zealand these days, you would find ads with that orange bogeyman-like creature reminding that local elections are around the corner. After stumbling across Arrowtown which I noticed to be like the Kingdom of Far Far Away (from Shrek movies), I felt compelled to put forward some suggestions to Arrowtownites:

(1) Call your mayor as Lord Farquhar (2) adopt a stylised ‘A’ as the town logo (3) ban motor vehicles and make people travel in horse-drawn carriages (4) replace the bitumen roads with cobbled stone roads and (5) build a castle (charging the tourists an appropriate amount should raise funds for this)

fruity

Finally a week - hectic one - is over! :) An interesting addition to my ‘fruit’ repertoire. Here it is: a cubic watermelon. 

Google confirmed that there indeed are such watermelons, as a friend of mine said so. The cubic fruit still ‘wows’ me. I wonder what if every fruit comes in standardised sizes (much like sheets of paper or batteries) and shaped as cubes like this water melon. I reckon it would perhaps make my life easier when it comes to storing fruit and carrying them from supermarket to home. A cube obviously is less likely to ‘roll around and away from you’ than a boring old round(ish) fruit.

Lest we forget....

This aptly-worded phrase, or variant(s) - as we all know - concludes the ANZAC day dawn services, and is inscribed on Allied war memorials around the globe.  Yes, indeed we ought to always remember fallen troops whom we honour every ANZAC day, or Remembrance Sunday, or Veterans day.

Rather coincidentally, a friend of mine posted this youtube video of Akon's "Freedom". Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW_3Nl2vVsA

While on the close inspection of the lyrics one can justifiably argue that the song is written from the point of view of a disenfranchised American, the images mostly from Africa glaringly tell everyone why they should always remember those we will honour tomorrow. Unfortunately yet factually, those images come from corners of the world  where despotic rule is as literally and figuratively endemic as poverty and warlords. If not for the soldiers who fought in the two World Wars against those who intended to dominate the world by their diktat,
we could had been wanting freedom the mentioned parts of the world do not have. 
Acknowlegdments
Picture of the Allied Memorial in Yangon, Myanmar, http://www.goldenpagodatravel.com/images/warcemetry1.jpg

Mang, K. - who posted the youtube link above on his facebook page.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/freedom-lyrics-akon.html

Revisting my flag proposal

This was the flag of the future I envisioned for New Zealand while  Hon. John Key was busy, doodling a silver fern.

Remembering that red ensign version of current New Zealand flag is recommended to fly on occasions of Maori significance, I realised my flag should reflect the Maori-Pakeha bicultural identity.

So, I suggest the koru becomes red or background of the koru becomes red. I am not in favour of flying red ensign on land since it is customary to fly one on private vessels. Hopefully, my suggestions and union jack in the canton would be sufficiently red for a historically bicultural New Zealand.

secular/religious holidays

In the Western world, these days there is a tendency to make almost everything Christian by history and tradition secular -and presumably "inclusive". Remembering a half-hearted coverage of this matter on TVNZ Breakfast a few days ago, it may be timely for this topic given Easter is this weekend.

Around Christmas and Easter, it is quite customary for the media to sandwich/pepper a few religious-themed articles and present the commercial side of those holidays from advertisements of specials to Santa Clause/Easter bunny decorations in colourful, attractive styles, while fuelling a low-level argument over whether the original religious baggage of the holiday should be dropped altogether or not.  Consciously or otherwise, many people also very unsurprisingly try to secularise the greetings such as "Happy Easter/Christmas" by replacing with ubiquitous "Holiday". In reference to this , a blogger who identifies himself as a Buddhist monk said, "...if you can't join others in their celebrations, even if the theology behind it does not correspond with yours, then I think you lack mudita." (Mudita is a Buddhist (Pali and Sanskrit: मुदित) word meaning rejoicing in others' joy.)

Although the author said it to make a point on a Christmas greeting, everyone, who opposes state observance of any religious holiday - be it Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, Wesak or some other - on the grounds that s/he does not share the faith, should ponder on the above quote.

Happy Easter to my readers!

Acknowledgment:
http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2008/12/happy-christmas.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudita

A note from soliloquies..

Good Morning Everyone!

Well, whether you are here in morning or at night, I am here to tell you that I am much delighted to be invited as one of your authors for this particular blog. I have read through most of the posts on here and am overly confident that your current author has some marvellous skill in delivering opinion in a textual medium.

You're probably not going see my posts too often on here, as I have my own little journalling medium ( http://hdsoliloquies.blogspot.com/ ) , but nevertheless I always have access to contribute to any and every scope that his blog encompasses.

See you around

H

Places I deem lovely

Partly due to: tourism adverts, random wikipedia-searching on different places, and my flag collection, I have some places that in my terminology are simply "lovely". Allow me to become a travel guide book-ish for a moment.

ASEAN: My country of origin is a member of this regional bloc. The abbreviation sounds creative. I sincerely wish it will become like what EU has become. Its flag is well-suited to a common identity of the region.

Christmas Island and Cocos Islands: They are lovely for they are part of geographical Southeast Asia and thus potential members of ASEAN. Plus their flags are colourful and unconventional - what a great mix.

Guernsey: One of the channel islands. I don't know why specifically but it's my favorite amongst what are known as the Crown Dependencies.

United States: I used to imagine myself as a head of a diplomatic mission presenting credentials to the US president in Washington DC. (As noted in my earlier post, I think I should make this imagination realisable for "it's never too late to change".) Besides Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" is one of my favorite songs.

Cayman Islands: The name itself is cute and pleasant. Appearing to be very beachy, as of now I do agree with the opinion that these islands are the "paradise". I kind of wish I was even born there...