| — | Henry Hitchings on the future of punctuation. So very true. |
| — | A guest lecturer in Environmental Economics on lawns |
Some banter regarding Canadian flanker:
He’s in everything isn’t he, Adam Kleeberger?
He looks a good handy player, doesn’t he?
Well He’s played some 7’s so he’s got some skills and a little bit of speed but man, how’s that for facial hair?!
He’s got a decent beard, hasn’t he?
Some would say he’s got it all!
I’m just watching the Canada vs. Tonga game. Canada are looking very schmick. It’s a shame that we have to wait four years until a World Cup to see how some of these improving teams measure up against teams we’re more familiar with.
This got me thinking, there should be a Pacific Cup. Like, a competition featuring:
Some of these teams are beginning to look very competitive and I’d like to see them playing some more rugby. Plus, the promise of regular game-time in the international team may help stem some of the talent drain of these players to Europe and, even more seriously, to other national teams such as Australia or New Zealand. This kind of competition could be huge for world rugby.
Asked if he considered replacing Elsom as captain, Deans said: ”Let’s concentrate on this Test match.”
Ever since I found out as a kid that I was colourblind in some way (I always thought I was red-green colourblind but the wikipedia article on colourblindness is confusing me), I was always ambushed with questions in art and science classes like, “What colour does this red t-shirt look to you?”.
I lost count of the amount of times that I condescendingly explained to people that even if their “red” and my “red” are not the same thing, the fact that each of us identifies that colour as such means that their question is stupid. But this excerpt from the wiki article on unsolved problems in philosophy explains it [almost] perfectly:
“assume two people (“Fred” and “George” for the sake of convenience) see colors differently. That is, when Fred sees the sky, his mind interprets this light signal as blue. He calls the sky “blue.” However, when George sees the sky, his mind assigns [what Fred would perceive as] green to that light frequency. If Fred were able to step into George’s mind, he would be amazed that George saw green skies. However, George has learned to associate the word “blue” with what his mind sees as green, and so he calls the sky “blue”, because for him the color green has the name “blue.” The question is whether blue must be blue for all people, or whether the perception of that particular color is assigned by the mind.”
The greater section of the article is actually quite interesting but I just thought I’d post this bit because I love it.
In case anyone’s still reading and interested, the issue with colourblindness is not that a colour looks different to me than it does to you, it’s that two colours that seem distinctly different to someone with “normal” vision are difficult to distinguish between for someone who’s colourblind. To give an example, some golfers can play with highlighter-orange coloured golf balls. I, however, would never be able to find one on the green grass unless I literally stepped on it. Instead, I use white or highlighter-yellow balls.
I’ve been holding on to this article about NRL player Shaun Metcalf for a couple months now, always planning on writing a tumblr post about it.
Just have a look at the article, okay.
At some point, the NRL or at least the people of Australian need to say “Enough is Enough”. We all think it’s funny when another NRL/AFL player is caught urinating in public or drink-driving, but some law-breaking should not be tolerated.
In 2005 (I think) Shaun Metcalf, as a young man of 17, and one of his team mates of the time (also a teenager, I gather from other sources) lured his pregnant 15-year-old girlfriend of the time into a park one night and proceeded to kick this girl in the stomach with the intention of causing a miscarriage before fleeing. It just so happens that they were unsuccessful and that the girlfriend gave birth to her baby some time later.
For this violent and malicious crime, Metcalf served an 18-month term, the last 13 of which were served in home detention. Personally, I think that this is a severely inadequate sentence for a 17-year-old. Perhaps it would have been more if the girlfriend’s injuries had been more severe or if a miscarriage was actually caused, but either way the intent was there so the punishment should reflect that.
Metcalf is now, as of 2011, on a 2-year contract with the NZ Warriors NRL team (though it doesn’t look like he’s played for them yet). Metcalf is now not only playing professional sport, but Australia has lifted the travel ban initially imposed on Metcalf since he was convicted of a violent crime. Going past the questions of adequate sentencing, what really bothers me is that this case received barely any media attention. The tone of the linked article is sympathetic towards Metcalf! If Shaun were to become a successful NRL player, he would undoubtedly be looked up to by young people.
To me it seems like there is so much wrong with this case. I can’t be alone in this. To me it seems like the NRL, if not the Australian government, should step in and stop people like this from traveling to our country and playing sport at a professional level.
Have we become that desensitised to violent crimes committed by our professional sportsmen?
