the lesser of two weevils

just sitting sermonising at my folks house and my dad came in and chatted to me about this amazingly hectic book he is reading about four of the people who saved jewish people during the second world war – i’ve booked it after him [avenue of the righteous – peter hellman] cos it sounds like the kind of book everyone should read

the one huge debate that raged during that time apparently was whether or not you kill a child if they are making a noise when the germans are nearby looking for people – easy enuff decision right? of course not… until it becomes a question of if this kid keeps making a noise then twenty people die… which probably still seems like an easy question, altho i would imagine it becomes a lot more complicated when you are hiding jews and the germans are outside your door – the good of the many over the good of the one

i’m not going to make a call either way cos i don’t think it’s possible to really know the answer until you are placed in that kind of situation and hopefully you and i never will be – but to try get your mind into that situation…

this has come up a lot cos me and tbV are halfway thru watching 24 series 7 and this series in particular a bunch of the characters are questioning jack bauer’s past and some of the things he did to get the results that he did and during the series he has changed the one-for-the-sake-of-the-many stance he has had while some of the others have changed their do-the-right-thing-in-the-current-situation-regardless-of-the-greater-consequences point of view and are starting to ‘get’ jack a little more… very interesting watching and possibly as i said the kind of choices we may never be faced with – unless you are a president or world leader… (or maybe even a local policeperson i imagine)

personally i have never subscribed to the ‘lesser of two evils’ point of view cos i intrinsically believe that you will never be put in a position where you are forced to do the wrong thing… but lately i have been giving it a lot more thort and wondering what if…

hopefully you nor i will ever get there…

it is here less

so it’s finally over

i remember when it was announced that south africa would be hosting the soccer world cup and countdowns of four years or more and then 300 days and finally a few weeks and then it was tomorrow…

we missed a large portion of the group games due to being on a namibia namrocking trip but we got to watch the opening ceremony and game in a restaurant called amazink in kayamandi township [where i used to live before i got married] with a completely diverse crowd with such spirit and life which was a complete vibe

we missed south africa/uruguay (namibia) but got back in time to watch a heartbreakingly close SA/french game which at half time looked headed towards the 4-0 we needed to progress – then my buddy dunc took me to watch netherlands/cameroon live at the cape town stadium, after watching slovakia take italy out at a packed quay 4 complete with orange saturated vibe in the afternoon before the game

and then tbV, Reegs, Muscle-John and myself did the fan walk which was a complete crazy exciting buzz (yes, and vibe|) and watched netherlands take out uruguay at on broadway

and finally back to amazink for the final with some okes from enGAGE for what i thort was a pretty awful game of soccer and reffing (and the third worst one i watched after france/uruguay and brazil/portugal) and afterwards really thort they should have given the cup to germany or just maybe kept it til the next cup – way too much acting on both sides, some questionable reffing decisions (netherlands missed out on two corners at least) and yellow carding and apart from a few exciting moments and a decent goal from spain, a pretty boring affair after some really quality games leading up to it

south africa proved we can host and did an incredible job which i think the whole world is pretty much agreed on

and so far no sounds of the feared xenophobia so hoping and praying that the hoping and praying has paid off – so much good in terms of unity, bringing people together and nation spirit has happened it would be tragic to lose that now

so well done south africa – brilliant job and bafana bafana you did us proud (agonising equalising goal from mexico on that first nite)

but, having enjoyed it quite a lot, and enjoyed hanging with people, i am relieved and ready for it to be done now

too much worship not directed at or near God – too much focus away from the things in life that count – way too much distraction

“it’s life Jim, but not as we know it” [dr bones, star trek]

aaaaaand….break.