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Thursday, August 21, 2008
2:00:56 PM PDT
Are you a good sport?
The Stanford Daily
Opinions
Thursday August 21, 2008
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Stu's Views: It's not about the medals - Three points on the Olympics
August 21, 2008
By Stuart Baimel
....Despite my enjoyment of the Olympics, the intensity of the coverage in the American media has been exhausting and I will be glad when it is all over. Not only is it detracting from the presidential election, but it’s also detracting from preseason coverage of college football, which is surely the most important annual event in sports.-
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My parents are sport fanatics! My Grandfather, on my mother side, with my Great-Uncle were the first to be named "Walter Camp's All-American"in football on the West Coast in America. So from the age of five, I was in competive sports until I became a missionary in April,1972. During my teen-age years, my life was in turmoil! The only escape for me, I thought was sports. So I practiced and practiced basketball until I received few athletic scholarships included West Point but I decided to attend the University of California at Berkeley, in 1970.
The Vietnam War was going on, and Berkeley was the hot-bed of radical resistance. It also was one of the top academic schools in the United States. So for me, it was quite a change coming from very staid background. During that time, I began taking drugs and reading from mystical books,but they never satisfied my soul I was on the honor roll and was voted first-team all-Northern California freshman in basketball, Captain and Most Valuable Player in 1971 and still hold the freshmen rebound record of 17.3 per game but still my life was empty without the Lord! I felt pressures on many sides to really put out all my time and energy towards becoming a basketball star in college and pressing toward a professional career. On the other hand, deep within my heart.
I felt that there was something wrong with all this!I felt caught between two worlds,one with the teachings of Jesus and His commandment to love thy neighbor,while in the other world, I was told to gain a near-manical desire to win and to physically punish my opponent in a defeat!
Sports really foster the spirit of competition. It's the spirit of the world‚ the "me first" spirit--do what's best for yourself, win no matter who you have to hurt or step on in order to get ahead of the next guy. That's the spirit of the world, which is just the opposite of what Jesus wants to teach people--to love your neighbor as yourself.
Of course, some form of sports is fine. It's good exercise and can be good fun. But things in the world are so different, and when athletes get to the professional level where they're being paid to win, it gets extremely competitive. It becomes almost a life-and-death spirit. For example, the soccer players in the World Cup practically ran themselves to exhaustion, suffered injuries and bruises, and still kept playing, because they wanted to win no matter what it cost them physically.
It's a spiritual thing. It's the spirit of competition and pride, proving you're better than the other guy. They do it by sheer brawn, by their own strength, which really feeds their pride. It's their idea of success. Winning means success in the world, so to win is a very big motivator. It just seems to be sort of an instinct with men especially to want to compete and to win. When they watch the World Cup or other sports events, it's almost like an extension of those human desires to compete and win. That's why some people get so into it, because they can relate to that drive to compete. The physical exertion, and then finally the goal, is exhilarating for some people.
But the world just loves it! See how this competitive sports thing has been the final stages of every great civilization and empire. What young men does the media glorify and glamorize the most? Is it the athletes? No, they’re about second. Is it the scholars? No they’re probably about third. But the ones it builds memorials for and commemorates on special days and glamorizes as the greatest heroes of all time are its most murderous war-mongering soldiers.
Ted Rudow III,MA
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Sunday, August 17, 2008
10:45:30 AM PDT
Beijing 2008
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Beijing 2008: A brilliantly colored window to understanding?
By Ivy Lee - Special to The Bee
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Story appeared in CALIFORNIA FORUM section, Page E3
The coming-out party is over.
Sitting in front of the TV, I forgot for the moment the cacophony arising from various quarters to condemn China for the "broken" promises it made to win its Olympic bid in 2001.
Forgotten momentarily was the media coverage that revolved for weeks around Beijing's smoggy skies. China does have a problem with environmental degradation. Whether seven years of hard work could reverse the pollution accumulated in its headlong rush to industrialize is questionable.
But China has the hubris to promise, and judged it must be on those terms.
So the media flooded the public with images of the murky soup Beijing calls sky, while the fact the Chinese government has planted thousands of trees and permanently closed or relocated many polluting factories was mentioned as an afterthought. Doubt greeted China's efforts to seed the clouds in the hope that rain would clear the air. The impact of such media coverage was abundantly illustrated in the four U.S. cyclists who sported masks when deplaning in Beijing, apparently unwilling to chance a sniff of the poisonous mix even indoors.
A few days before the cyclists landed, the Climate Group, a tax-exempt organization in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, issued a little- noticed press release to report that China "has a strong and comprehensive low-carbon policy framework in place." The country "is overtaking more developed economies in ... creating green-collar jobs and leading development of critical low-carbon technologies."
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Despite strict statements made by the Chinese government that it will not tolerate evangelism during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, many Christian athletes are planning to share theroles God has played in their lives. Section 51 of the Olympic Charter states, no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.
Unfortunately,the Olympics become a worship of man, the worship of his body. The Olympics is a sports fair, a flesh fair, flesh peddler.The worship of the body! It's very sexual too, as you notice, all these things are very sexy. Sports glorifies sex, but at the same time belittles it and pretends to dislike it. The ultimate manifestation of all of these is War!--His physical prowess, his mechanical ingenuity, his tactical genius and his indomitable spirit. See how this competitive sports thing has been the final stages of every great civilisation and empire!
Ted Rudow III,MA
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Saturday, August 16, 2008
10:10:47 AM PDT
Hunger
WEEKEND August
16
2008
9:07 am
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Hunger another battle for U.S. forces in Afghanistan
Editor,
Things aren’t going well for the West in Afghanistan. Besides having to fight the Taliban, which recently blew a hole in a prison there and set 1,100 prisoners free, including 400 of their own fighters, the Western powers are having to take on an even more determined foe: Hunger.
The price of food has skyrocketed, and many poor Afghanis can hardly afford to eat. Many are out of work and have no money, and those who do have a little money are already spending up to 70 percent of it on food, so there’s a lot of malnutrition and hunger. Six million people, nearly a fifth of the country, receive some sort of food aid, and the ranks of the hungry are growing all the time, to the point that officials are worried that people might rise up and loot the markets.
Afghanistan receives a lot of foreign aid, of course, but a lot of that is aid to foreign aid workers and projects that benefit foreign companies.
I’m sure the aid workers who go there are sincere for the most part and really have a heart for the Afghani people, but the countries that send them often count their salaries as foreign aid to Afghanistan, and when those countries want to build something to fill the great need there, they’ll buy the materials in their own country from their own companies and ship them to Afghanistan via their own planes; again calling it foreign aid. It does help the poor Afghanis somewhat, but it’d sure help them a lot more if the funds were invested locally.
Ted Rudow III,MA
Menlo Park
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
4:35:59 PM PDT
Puppeteer
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/14/18526473.php
Vision:) I see a puppeteer dressed in a long, black, hooded cape. I can't see his face clearly because of the big hood which is casting a shadow on his face. I get the impression I'm not supposed to see his face right now. He's handling several marionettes all at once, and he's making them dance. The puppeteer's looking down on them, and although I can't see his face, I have the impression that he's smirking. He's talking in a sinister tone, saying, "Ahhhh, that's it! You're right in place now! You move here, and you move over there. Up and down--dance, dance, dance to my tune! You must dance, dance to my music! That's it, dance, dance to my tune! Uh, uh, uh--no, no--you mustn't try to remove those strings, for they are what hold you up. If you cut them, you'll only find yourself tangled in a mess of broken strings as you collapse and fall to the ground. "Dance, marionettes, dance! Don't try to do it alone, for I'm at the controls, and only I can bring order out of the complexity of all these strings. Dance, marionettes, dance! I'll move you here, and I'll move you there. I'm connecting you all firmly to my hand piece, where I can control you, manipulate you, and monitor your movements.
"See? As long as you dance to my tunes, your strings and wires will stay untangled.Down below I see the marionettes dancing on top of a world map. Each marionette represents a country or an area of the world. There's Hong Kong, Japan, the U.S., Europe, and others. The puppeteer has his strings firmly attached to each one, and he's manipulating them quite well. Him that will discern, let him discern. The sands of time are falling; the hourglass is running. The stage is set. The curtain is soon to go up as the next scene is about to begin, and the Wicked One is about to be revealed! His stagehands are setting the props in place. They're adjusting the lights and setting the stage, as the Wicked One prepares backstage. Some of the marionettes have been in the hands of the puppeteer for a long time, and are more tried and proven. All their parts move freely about in response to the touch of the puppeteer's own hand.
It's a demonstration of his power to the nations, that should they try to kick and break free from his manipulation, it will only result in instability, and they will soon find themselves in a tangled state and at risk of plunging to the ground in total collapse, just as the marionette who would try to cut his ties. Through selfish lust and the deceitfulness of riches, the marionettes grow dependent on the strings of the puppeteer. But should they decide to cut their strings, to break loose from the control and manipulation of the dark puppeteer, My lifeline remains steady and firm, reaching out to hold them and support them, so that they will not stumble and totter and crumble in ruin. Marvel not at the great rebound of the mighty nation [the U.S.], and be not fooled by a false sense of security, for what is seen is only temporary. For those who lurk behind the scenes, those who sit in high places, know in their hearts the meaning of this apparent quick comeback--that it is only for a time. For this was only a show of force of the Wicked One, a demonstration to those in high standing of who is really the boss. Even the big money boys are as pawns in the hands of the puppeteer. This great fluctuation serves as a reminder to all that the puppeteer alone holds the controls.
The puppeteer's total power works by fear. The purpose of the great plunge and the mighty rebound of the great nation was to strike fear into the hearts of those who sit in high places, else they be lifted up beyond reason. In these days of extremities, as the pendulum swings from extreme low to extreme high, the puppeteer sends a strong signal that it is indeed he who holds the bag and manipulates the strings, and all must yield to his gestures and signals, else they will be tangled up and put out of commission. These days of extreme swings serve their purpose and motivate these who sit in high places. These events serve as a cue, a signal to man their stations, curtain time, for the scene is about to begin. And all the world will worship the Wicked One for a time, as they marvel at his agility and his ability to keep the marionettes moving and flowing and dancing in apparent sync and coordination.
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
9:46:05 AM PDT
Russia:Bully?
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Robert Kagan: War in Georgia is just Putin's first step
By Robert Kagan -
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Story appeared in section,
The details of who did what to precipitate Russia's war against Georgia are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama.
The events of the past week will be remembered that way, too. This war did not begin because of a miscalculation by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. It is a war that Moscow has been attempting to provoke for some time. The man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century" has re-established a virtual czarist rule in Russia and is trying to restore the country to its once-dominant role in Eurasia and the world. Armed with wealth from oil and gas; holding a near-monopoly over the energy supply to Europe; with a million soldiers, thousands of nuclear warheads and the world's third-largest military budget, Vladimir Putin believes that now is the time to make his move.
Georgia's unhappy fate is that it borders a new geopolitical fault line that runs along the western and southwestern frontiers of Russia.....
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Russia:Bully?
The U.S. is just used to having things its own way, and its leaders don't like people and nations who won't let them do what they want, when they want to do it, so they do all they can to paint them as the bad guys, since they consider themselves the good guys! And most of the mainstream media go right along with them, repeating the same government line and pumping out the same propaganda. Well, no one likes a bully. He may be feared, but he's not popular on the school grounds, much less in international affairs. The U.S. has become the sort of bully that it used to accuse the Russians of being, trying to bully Russia and picking on other nations when it can get away with it's usually weak little nations that can hardly fight back, like Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ted Rudow III,MA
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9:35:44 AM PDT
California too dependent on borrowing money
Wednesday August
13
2008
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California too dependent on borrowing money
Editor,
In California, they had it all figured out where the rich could stay rich and feed the poor on borrowed money, now $15 billion in the hole. They kept borrowing money and selling bonds that borrowed more money. Well, people will trust you for so long, and then quit trusting your ability to ever pay it back. So if you keep living on borrowed money, there comes a day when you have to pay it back when those bonds begin to come due.
These debts began to come due with all their big high interest rates and they didn't have the money to pay them back. She’d been living on borrowed money all the time and wasn’t even raising enough money for her current expenses, much less to pay back her debts. So if California goes bankrupt and defaults on all these debts, all these bonds are worth nothing. All these people who put their money in the bank can’t get it back because the bank goes bust because the money’s gone, and it’s all just on paper.
Ted Rudow III,MA
Menlo Park
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
9:30:45 AM PDT
Dubious foreign aid
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Dubious foreign aid
Dear Editor: Things aren't going well for the West in Afghanistan. Besides having to fight the Taliban - who recently blew a hole in a prison there and set 1,100 prisoners free, including 400 of their own fighters - the Western powers are having to take on an even more determined foe: Hunger.
The price of food has skyrocketed, and many poor Afghans can hardly afford to eat. Many are out of work and have no money, and those who do have a little money are already spending up to 70 percent of it on food, so there's a lot of malnutrition and hunger. Six million people, nearly a fifth of the country, receive some sort of food aid, and the ranks of the hungry are growing all the time, to the point that officials are worried that people might rise up and loot the markets.
Afghanistan receives a lot of foreign aid, of course, but a lot of that is aid to foreign aid workers and projects that benefit foreign companies. I'm sure the aid workers who go there are sincere for the most part and really have a heart for the Afghan people, but the countries that send them often count their salaries as foreign aid to Afghanistan, and when those countries want to build something to fill the great need there, they'll buy the materials in their own country from their own companies and ship them to Afghanistan via their own planes - again calling it foreign aid.
It does help the poor Afghans somewhat, but it'd sure help them a lot more if the funds were invested locally.
Ted Rudow III,MA
Written by tedr77
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Friday, August 8, 2008
5:33:51 PM PDT
SacBee
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Editorial: As Games begin, politics recedes
IN BEIJING, AS IN OTHER OLYMPICS, WORLD WILL FOCUS ON THE ATHLETES?
Friday, August 8, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A16
Leading up to the third Summer Olympics to be held in Asia – the others were 1964 in Tokyo and 1988 in Seoul – the world has been aswirl in the politics of the 2008 Beijing games.U.S. swimmer Amanda Beard took part in a naked protest against the international fur trade as part of a publicity campaign run by the animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. American cyclists walked off the plane wearing masks, protesting Beijing smog.Activists are using the limelight of the Olympics to oppose China's policies in the Tibet and Xinjiang regions and in Sudan's Darfur region. President Bush used a pre-Olympics speech to declare that only respect for human rights would allow China to realize its full potential. -
Friday, August 8, 2008 said:
Worship?
Despite strict statements made by the Chinese government that it will not tolerate evangelism during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, many Christian athletes are planning to share the roles God has played in their lives. Section 51 of the Olympic Charter states, no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas. Unfortunately, the Olympics become a worship of man, the worship of his body. The Olympics is a sports fair, a flesh fair, flesh peddler.The worship of the body. So sex is included as a part, but in some ways a very minor part. Sports glorifies sex, but at the same time belittles it and pretends to dislike it. The ultimate manifestation of all of these is War!--His physical prowess, his mechanical ingenuity, his tactical genius and his indomitable spirit. See how this competitive sports thing has been the final stages of every great civilisation and empire.
Ted Rudow III,MA
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4:09:11 PM PDT
"Blessed are the warmakers?"
 Home About Us Advertise Archives Forum Classifieds ePaper Live TV Contact us  Search Daily Star Sections Middle East Lebanon Middle East News Politics Business Editorial Opinion Lebanon Examiner Supplements  Reader's Feedback Published on 09/08/2008 Readers' Letters and Opinionsletters@dailystar.com.lbThe Daily Star is pleased to provide a forum for debate on a range of subjects, from local cultural activities to international politics. Dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of letters fall into the editor's mailbox daily. In order to keep the letters timely, The Daily Star generally produces a special letters section. When the influx of letters is particularly large, extra space is made available accordingly. If you would like to submit a letter for publication, please remember to include your full name (first and last) and address, including city. The Daily Star only publishes letters under 400 words, and these are subject to editing. The Daily Star will not acknowledge unsolicited submissions.Michael Young The US is also the most war-mongering nation on Earth. It's as if they've taken the Lord's advice, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9), and reversed it for their national motto: "Blessed are the warmakers, for they shall be called the children of God, because they stomp every nation they figure is an enemy of God."
It's really pitiful that so many American Christians support the most un-Christian thing imaginable - war - under the illusion that it's God's will and God's way. They're stuck way back in the Old Testament era, thinking that the US is a modern Israel, performing God's will in the world and smiting His enemies, when the reality is that the US is like the great heathen empires of old, smashing and burning, looting and destroying nations and people just so it can have its own way, not God's!
So many US Christians put their allegiance to the state above their loyalty and obedience to the Lord, above His Word, above reason, and certainly above justice, truth and love. They get their nationalism and their Christianity mixed up and they think that serving their country, even when it's engaged in an unjust war, is the same as serving the Lord and fighting the battles of the Lord. They engage in carnal warfare, knowing so little about the spiritual warfare or the ways of the Spirit.
Ted Rudow III,MA
California, United States
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Thursday, August 7, 2008
10:06:08 AM PDT
gods of gold?
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/07/18523663.php
In ancient times, the medium of exchange was almost always precious metals such as gold, silver, nickel, brass or copper, etc., mined and minted into coins by the various governments, with the imprint of those governments and their rulers and the designation of the coin's value according to what the government said it was worth. As a government became more and more decadent and corrupt and dishonest, its money became more dishonest, until the people found that the coins were no longer being made of pure gold and silver but filled with other less valuable metals: The gold coins became more brass and copper than gold, and the silver coins became more nickel, zinc or lead, etc.
In recent history America was even making pennies out of aluminum when copper was scarce.--And of course paper coinage is quite a modern invention in fairly recent history, which came in with the invention of paper and printing press. Nevertheless, for the past few years the world has continued to drift dreamily along, still believing in the power and value of the American dollar, supposedly backed by the power, worth and word of the American government. So that, since America went off both the gold and silver standard and no longer has to exchange either for her dollars, the world has continued to drift dreamily along on pure faith in the paper tiger of America, the Green Paper Pig, the dollar, and that it's worth what its government says it is worth! When actually the dollar is really worthless and without any intrinsic value whatsoever with no backing or redeemability in coinage of actual value such as gold and silver!
If you think that past generations and cultures were foolish for worshipping gods of gold and silver and wood and stone, give a second thought to modern man who has been worshipping gods made only of paper, and very thin paper at that, for a good many years now! But he's now beginning to lose faith in his paper gods, these worthless currencies, and they're beginning to fall! They'll soon be worth so little they'll be cast away as worthless, and only things, services, goods, products and materials of actual value and usefulness will be considered of any worth.
Ted Rudow III,MA
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