Journals
Monday,May 28 2007, 05:43:14 AMEndura to help cross the finishline
Endura sports nutrients to help me run the marathon.
Friday,May 11 2007, 12:38:18 PMPax Britannia a comparative history by Tim Tufuga
The Pax Britannia a comparative history by Tim Tufuga. Current mood: contemplative Category: Blogging May 2007 A history lesson from Pax Britannia As a Polynesian man I have sought to retrace my origins throughout the South Pacific and in thus to find my true cultural identity within this cosmos. My origins as it were can be considered evolutionary and somewhat transitory. I have lived in a period information technology which is instantaneous and comprehensive. The age of the internet has revolutionised our cognisiant understanding of the world. More importantly, the internet has demystified the mysteries of purported cultural superiority by the presumably more advanced civilised people amongst us. As a Polynesian man, the cultural sense of shock and awe has been a reality for the naive uninitiated to the technologically superior visiting explorers in tall ships, armed with the ball and musket, with a strange religion, and clothed in unusual costumes. The colour of the pale and moribund skinned man astonished the brown skinned Polynesian man and made him think that these creatures were not human at all but were aliens from 'out of space' and, hence, they called them 'Papailagi' or 'Palagi', meaning they who had 'burst from the heavens'. 'Papa', meaning 'explode, thrust, or burst', and 'lagi', meaning 'heavens, sky, or beyond the horizon'. You are a Palagi, or a whiteman, for a modern day translation. I have realised that coupled with my scholarly background as a post-graduate university reader, I had realised that the internet has opened up an amazing window to a third dimension, and beyond, in time and history. I have been able to revise my forgotten education by simple google references by a word or phrase and hey presto information links appears. In an age of disinformation and misinformation which is part of intel warfare or psywarfare, the internet is easy to manipulate. The viruses and trojans, are difficult to firewall and to find appropriate anti-viruses to eradicate these cybernet viruses/trojans etc. With perseverence and computer acuity and a Norton anti-virus package etc, these viruses and trojans may be firewalled and kept at bay for at least until your security system is still fully operational. In the meantime, I have been considering the present situation throughout world events and how the events of today is being etched into the annals of history for tomorrow. A moment in time has been recorded recently with perhaps the last visit of Her Majesty, the Queen of England, Queen elizabeth the second, to the United States of America. Then again perhaps not. The last monarch to rule the United States of America was a Hanoverian English Monarch, King George III. This was in 1776. No taxes without representation would be a good enough slogan to declare a war of independence that would commit the then thirteen colonies of America to fight for their Independence. A lesson in history would be learnt by other Colonialists throughout the British Realm, which would include New Zealand. In 1840 a missionary named James Busby drafted the treaty of Waitangi, a document ensuring no treason would be committed by the indigenous chieftains and that a pre-emptive clause would ensure a smoothe imperial acquisition of colonial land and prperty would be made with the full understanding of the learned co-signatories. The insult was sealed in writing. The cheftain hone Heke would be the first Ngai Puhi chief to sign the treaty and he would also become the first New Zealdn republican when he felled the British flagpole in Russell, in 1843. So what made the English so successful as imperialists? It must be based upon their proximity, in geography and history. The English unlike the continental imperialists who seemed to be less succesful as diplomatic nice people, the English were always frowned upon by the French and Germans throughout European history. The English were even more detested by the Spanish, Portugese and Dutch, throughout the new world where there would be sporadic skirmishes throughout European exploration history. What makes the English more passionate may be seen throughout their own history and in particular with the royal families throughout English history. In a glance, thanks to the Christian monks who served as the only clerical scholars at the time, the history of Europeans were documented by Christian scholars. Therefore, we could perhaps begin with Dark Ages when the Romans departed from Britain and the Picts and Barbarians were able to dismantle the Pax Romana for a time being. The last Roman legionnaire departed the British Isles in 408AD. The Anglo-Saxons were a throw back mob from the Anglese tribe, in Germany, and from another neghbouring Germanic tribe of Saxony. The Anglo-Saxons had established kinship ties with England after they had driven the Celts and the Picts north to Caledonia (Scotland) and to Hibernia (Ireland). The last of the most famous of the Saxon Kings would be Harold the second 'King Harry', who would fall in battle now famously recalled as the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The First of the French Kings would be known as William the Conquerer from Normandy. The French would reign through their Norman rulers who were not eve considered as equals by King Henry I of France. William the Conquerer was just a Duke in France although he was a King of England then after defeating the Danes, sent from the King of Denmark, and the remaining recalcitrant English, in 1072, with the treaty of Abernathy, the Norman King William would also be the king of Scotland as well. The most important episode in English civil history was the documentation of the first ever English Census, the Doomsday Book, detailing the entire English inventory of lands and stocks and more importantly the landholders aristocracy was all quantified and ennumerated in the first ever Public account. http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/index.html In short, the Doomsday book was indeed an ominous document for the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and clerics, for they would be comprehensively replaced by French monks/clerics, and Norman nobleman. The subsequent Plantagenet Kings are all French in origin, 14 in all, this would also include Henry II the first of the Angevin Kings, and legacy of the Plantegenet reigns would culminate with the Hundred Years war between the French and English it would really be considered a feud between French Englishmen, as Plantagenet Monarchs, claiming French royal fealty as much as French noblemen trying to resist English purported usurpation of France. The Anglo Saxons were simply erased from the Norman nobility in Angevin/Plantegenet England. The history of Germanised England (Anglo-Saxon England, from an aristocratic and noblemen perspective, can only be considered as, sociologically, a historic anathema and a historic misnomer. The last Angevin King, was King John, who had been best remembered for the Magna Carta, ratified, in 1215, establishing the first set of the English common laws. The war of the roses would create the feud between the House of Lancaster and the House of York for the English crown. The war of the Roses feud would finally cease with the first Tudor King Henry VII and his more famous son, King Henry VIII, the harminously settled Tudor House, would launch the age of exploration to the new world for the English. The English would combine their monarchical linkages with Scotland through the House of Stuarts whilst maintaining their linkages with France. The most notable events would be the parliamentary revolt with the de-throning of a Stuart King Charles the first and with his execution by Oliver Cromwell. Sectarianism would become prominent with King William of Orange being considered very prominent as a Stuart monarch. The last Stuart monarch was Queen Anne whose final legacy of the Stuart reign would ensure that all future English monarchs will remain protestants only, through the Act of Settlement, 1701. The next monarch of England would therefore become a protestant monarch, from Germany, from the House of Hanover, King George the first. The Hanover period would re-establish the German-English legacy which had been absent since 1066, with the death of the last Anglo Saxon King, King Harry. The Hanover period of English history would be noted with King George III reign even with the loss of the thirteen colonies and since George IV the most famous Queen Victoria's reign, and the establishment of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line, with Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert, the son of Ernst, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family claims the English throne from 1840 onwards through this Hanovorian monarch's marriage to another German Prince. Meanwhile, Queen Victoria remains the last Hanoverian monarch. Queen Victoria's son, King Edward VII, remains the only Saxe-Coburg and Gotha monarch, the rest of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family changes the family name to the house of Windsor. The first Windsor monarch was King George V, in 1917, during world war one. The present monarch of England, Queen Elizabeth II, is from the house of Windsor. Her Majesty, the Queen, is the third Windsor monarch and remains the monarch of Australia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Canada, Papua New Guinea, and other colonial legacies from waning Pax Britannia. In 2007, the German-French origins of English monarchical history seems very well illustrated through the abovementioned history of England at a glance. From a Polynesian man's perspective, the English have certainly become very demystified with the aid of the internet, scholarly books of learning from the rich tapestry of accessible sources of intellectual learning any where people who have a thirst of intellectual enlightenment. I have been fortunate to be privy to the most crucially historical significant reading so as to enlighten me and to stave off my cultural ignorance. It, therefore, stands to reason, that the English have, throughout documented history, they have exuded an auro of stiff upper lip aloofness, that seperates them from their purported lesser equals throughout the new world, this seemingly charismatic character trait of the English snobbishness has impressed the unattuned savages in Antipodes, this is only until they, the purported savages, have acquired the same degree of cultural enlightnment so as to demystify themselves from technological, cultural and intellectual superiority from the 'Papailagi'. Then, in the end, they, the Papailagi, are just people, just as vulnerable, equally as imperfect, as bellicose savages fighting for ascendency with their fa'amatai titles, vying for property and land resources, to launch 'taua', for power resource acquisitions, from one family to the next, from village to the next, and from one island to the next. The English themselves are frowned upon by the French and the Germans for the mere fact that their aristocratic dukedoms and continental noblemen, have made up the English royal families, since the Dark Ages; and, most significantly, since the Anglo-Saxon monarchy through to the Norman conquest, in 1066; to the present German tribal monarchs of the Hanoverian monarchs who had ascended the English throne through King George the first, in 1703, till the present day Saxe-Coburg and Gotha now known as the Windsors, which are still German in origin. The Windsors will now also have to acknowledge its Greek ties as well. http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page128.asp Ah, to think of my amorphous family heritage which may be considered as equally as aristocratic as well from a Samoan perspective, I do not feel inferior to these Englishmen and certainly these Europeans at all. The same could be said of the New Zealand Maori who could be considered as similar to the English according to the Germans and the French perceptions of the English, as much as the Samoans and the Tongans would also think less of the Maori as their infant progenitors from ancient 'waka' on deepsea migrations from Western Polynesia to Eastern Polynesia, then, finally, north to Hawai'i, and then south to New Zealand. The older Polynesians would be guilty of cultural disdain of their more younger Polynesian bretherens. In Samoa there is no Valhalla, like 'Havaiki', the spiritual homeland of their ancestors, because to demystify their ancient polytheist religious ancient homeland is in actual fact a real place, it is simply called 'Savai'i', the biggest island in Samoa. The Savai'i Islanders are simply flattered with this veneration of their island. Even in Hawai'i the Hawaiians would sing a karakia, a wake prayer, for their deceased spirits to ascend back to Havaiki. The Polynesian spiritual homeland for most Eastern Polynesians is Western Polynesia where the more ancient Polynesian cultures of Samoa and Tonga still survive and flourish today. Once again, like I have demystified the hsitory of the English royal family so too is the enigmatic mystery of my cultural heritage is also demyrtified with my return to my late mother's island and back to her village to re-discover my Samoan history. It is just as interesting as reading English history but perhaps not as well documented unfortunately. Now the question is this, are the English truly Ango-saxons at all? Or, are they really a bunch of Norms pretending to be Anglo-Saxons? Well, not if the Stuarts can help it, no French Catholics allowed back into the English royalty. Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, made sure of this, in 1701. Ia manuia tatou mo lenei fo'i taimi. Soifua. Tim Tufuga Crestmead, Logan City, Queensland. (Named after a Hanoverian monarch Queen Victoria, no doubt) in Australia
Sunday,May 6 2007, 01:12:06 PMReligion in Logan City, so what year is it anyway?
Religion in Logan City, tell me what year is is anyway?
When we ask the question? Does God exist. I simply reply. You tell me, what year is it anyway?
Religious conformity often leads to subtle forms of religious and cultural oppression. To consign certain individuals to the levels of social pariahship is often a problematic situation faced by many individuals existing within our community. In Crestmead, a microcosmic suburb within the southern division of Logan City, within South East Queensland, it is made up an ecclectic assortment of pluralist cultural groups co-existing within a community which identifies itself as being truly multicultural.
Within Logan City's definition of cultural plurality we find the racial cultural conformity measures through which people often pigeonholed into stereotypical cultural types. o simplify this discussion I will refer sepecifically to a geo-religious locality in Crestmead and the Marsden environment. Meanwhile, when we can find religious conformity manifested into proving cultural inalienable truths, we become confused with the conception of true cultural identity within our own community. In Karl Pooper's 'Open Society' we can view the tolerance of people within a liberal democratic society through a sociological incrementalist process of cultural evolution aft identified within a free and liberally democratic society. The idea of true freedom as perceived as an incrementalist verisimilitude of a social utopian or an ideal society is premised with the idea that we can do what we want within the confines of reasonableness, justice, and respect of laws, regulations and values and a respect and tolerance of ourselves, our neighbour, as we would like to treat our own kin and family members. This idea promulgated by the Popperist school of thought within his Open Society has been exemplified with religious tolerance within our community. It is the epitome of the ultimate free and liberal man. Simply put, the liberal man may be considered as the liberated man, he is one who enjoys the freedom to worship his own God in his own right without being felt oppressed, suppressed, and, therefore, be denied by their community. In this Jungian definition of community cohesion religion becomes an instrument as a social institution through which we are able to belong, to network, and to feel connected with ones own community. In Third Avenue, in Marsden, Logan City, there is a Buddhist Temple, a Mormon Church, a Catholic Church, a Mosque, a Hungarian Pentacostal Church, a Seventh Adventist Church, and, finally, there is an Assembly of God Church using the Burrowes Primary School Hall for their worship services. Within proximity of Third Avenue, there is Second Avenue, where you will find an Apostolic Church. On Green Road, in Crerstmead, there is a Jehovah's Witness Church. There are more churches along Browns Plains too many to mention. The nearest Synogogue is in Margerate Street, in Brisbane CBD. There is a Serbian Church, in South Brisbane as well, but there is plenty of Serbs in Brisbane. The idea of religious co-existence in Brisbane and Logan City has allowed many people to accept the Australian constitutional right to worship freely without oppression and discrimination. The acceptance and respect of religious worship within Australia is enshrined within its constitution, as much as it is also enshrined within the axioms of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Charter of which Austraila is a ratifying member. In Beenleigh, there is a strong Lutheran Fellowship due to its German history within the area, as well has having franchises of all the abovementioned religious denomination. From an intellectual approach to sociological religious institutions arising and co-existing within a modern liberal society we can find the peculiarities associated with community cultural and even racial traditions being played out through community interactions, conflicts, intolerances, bigotry and prejudices arising from their religious institutions. Moreover, commuity awareness and religious worship has been considered as an evolutionary process in terms of community networking, assimilation, and conformity all of which would be considered as incrementalist and certainly evolutionary. Moreover, rather than applying a Marxian dialectual process to explicate the synthesis of cultural and religious changes throughout society and throughout the community we may apply the liberal thoughts of Karl Popper in this instcne to understand the evolutionary process of man confronting the problems of conformity and commnity rejections of non-conformity. Religious worship has presented the most polemical cultural issue which can create the most soul wrenching ontological question of our faith, out ideas of God and even our cultural values which may question man's ability to conceive the measurement of time and to document events associated with recorded time throughout history. The recording of time has become such a religious experience that all we need to do is to look at history and realise how easily refutable religions are simply by comparing time and its recording throughout civilisations, racial and cultural groups throughout the world. I have referred to Karl Popper as an intellectual guide to hopefully refute the history of religion through its recollection process through global calenders. We have tried to understand man's uncanny ability to formulate religious institutions that would conform to a Karl Popper's evolutionary theory of problem situations arising from pluralist co-existence and tolerance and the intolerances that obvious arises from the clash of religious belief systems even within a single stretch of road, as in this instance, Third Avenue, within Marsden, the next suburb north of Crestmead. The tentative theories promulgated of religious tolerance as premised with the absolute irrefutable religious truths paraded through religious doctrinal philosophies can be best be described as the crux of the problem of cultural misunderstanding and obvious religious clashes leading to conflicts within the community. The most salient of these clashes would arise through the age old conception of sectarianism amongst Judeo-Christians with the Papists in conflict with protestants, it is more of an Northern Irish thing than something as relevant to Australian society, but, institutional sectarianism does exist. The process of Popperist evolutionary theory does refute the marxian dialectual progression or the Hegelian formula on one account and that is the presumption that all, purported truths are in face value verisimilitudes or that they appear to be irrefutable truths. Religious doctrinal truths presents a particula problem for this very fact. They make very poor verisimilitudes and that they are easily refuted with the Popperist error elimination and a synthesis process that is based upon deductive reasoning. When we co-exist within a community that has a amorphous collections of religious denominations and institutions within proximity we have an overt clash in religious truths being sorely tested.
In the Briz 31 television program there is a time slot allocated for the Islamic people. Watching their debates on Charles Darwin's Origin of Species book has become a particular metiphysical and, in thus, an ontological challenge for all people to consider. The outcome of the debate on Islamic television would be considered an easily falsified argument as documented by the psuedo-intellectual presenting their Islamic argument on television. It is unfortunate that the programme would only make a mockery of the Islamic faith and their purported undeniable truths about mankind's evolution from Adam and Eve and not from Homo Erectus to HomoSapiens, or even further back to Apelike humanoids. The idea that Charles Darwin's timeless evolutionary writings would be challenged and refuted by Islamic scholars is truly brave indeed. The truth is that the Islamic Scholar in this particular instance would cite evidence from verisimilitude sources, atomistically dissectingcertain expressions and errors of logic in order to denial the theory of Darwinist theory in its entirety. It is likened to a proof reader selecting a typo error then failing the entire dissertertion of a scholar due to poor expression, syntax, or a grammatical error. The proofs of evidence of the correctness of Darwinist epistemological thought process is acceptable when applying the falsity tests as formulated by Karl Popper's evolutionary deductive reasoning. Then apply the test to religion and cultural values in its own right within our community then we can see that the clashes of culture do test our resolve to accept an Open Society with its truly closed minds. An example
I would like to draw your attention to is the concept of time and how culture and religion has influnced the passage of time, its documentation and how time can in its own right be culturally and religiously interpreted very differently from one racial cultural group to another. I had asked the question? What year is it? An according to one source it is 1428. Another it is the year 5767, and yet another 1928, then it is 2134, in another this is 4705, finally, the most popular year is 2007. The first calender year is the Islamic Hijrah Calender, therefore, according to the followers of Islam, this is the year 1428; the second year mentioned is from the Jewish calender which states that this is the year 5767; the 1928 is from the Hindu calender, or the Saka Indian calender introduced in 1957 to solve the problem of India having up to seven known calenders; according to the Tibetan Buddhist Calender, this is the year 2134, but, in the Buddhist Nirvana movement, in India, this is 2544; the Bengali calender (one of the seven Indian Calenders) states that this is the year 1414. In China, it is 4705, and, in Feburary 7th, 2007, it will be Chinese New Year, for 4706, or the year of the Rat. In January 26th, 2009, however, it will 4707, in China. The most popular calender is Roman in origin and not Christian at all, it has been sanctified as a christian calender by the papacy, it is the Gregorian Calender introduced to the Europeans by Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, (Last Julian year in the Vatican city), therefore, it states that this year, is the year 2007. The changes made in 1582, to the European calender had traced its origins, as mentioned above, not to the Judeo-Christian faith, but, rather, to the pre-Christian period of Julius Caesar and the inception of the Pax Romana throughout all of Europe with the original Roman calender then known as the Julian Calender. The English were amongst the last to accept the Gregorian calender in 1752 nearly two hundred years after the rest of Europe were already using the Gregorian system.
The Jews had kept to their pre-Anno Domini periods with their calender recording the passage of the Jewish people from the Old Testament through their Torah, and by recording their eccleciastic periods through their own calender to conform to their faith. The year 5767, therefore, can trace the Jewish people, and their faith, to the Pre-Christian period, and beyond the Roman period, in Jewish history. More importantly, the Jewish calender would dare to challenge the Papacy and its right to consider their faith, and especially, their Julian calender, as being remotely Judeo-Christian in origin. The inception of the Anno Domini has been considered as a verisimilitude fact so as to gloss over the Roman religious pantheon of their polytheist Gods, as manifested within the months within the Julian Calender, now re-invented as the Gregorian calender, so as to assimilate the Roman calender into the latest re-invention of the Pax Romana, now considered as the Papist world.
To consider culture and religion as being preconditioned to reveal inalienable and timeless truths seems most certainly subjective and culturally specific. The belief that we can challenge scientific proofs of evidence on the contrary seems to accept the Popperist formula of falsifying man's theoretical aspirations to realise the onotological and metaphysical meaning to life and why we exist in the first place. Why bother to try to reason this one out? When we can simply glance back and realise the most basic errors and flaws of human evolutions we can simply begin with time and how on earth did we manage to record it accurately throughout history.
So once again what year is it in Third Avenue?
Why ask me, I'm an atheist!!!
Tim Tufuga
Crestmead, Logan City, Australia.
Thursday,May 3 2007, 07:37:48 AMBrisbane half marathon pics and photos in.
Photos and results are finally in.
Well this is my run with a partial fracture on my left ankle and I was recovering from my left knee injury over a month ago.
Glory to Sparta I say!!!
I came in 193 from 830 runners in Brisbane. In my age group I came 62/157, I was the oldest in my category. http://www.intraining.com.au http://www.sportingimages.com.au and log onto Tim Tufuga for all triathlon and marathon pics. Gold Coast Marathon 42.2km next to conquer.
Then the Noosa triathlon, and then Ironman series 2008.
Ia manuia Tatou!!! Tim Tufuga