Your partner in life is having an affair. Your children ignore you. The last time you went to a parents' evening, your son's teacher had difficulty remembering who he was. Your friends have discovered that misery can be catching and avoid your company. Your cat looks at you with undisguised contempt.
But all is not lost. Soon you will be able to send a text to Ed Balls, the Government's secretary of state for relationships, and expect an instant hi-tech response from a caring agency. There, on the little screen of your mobile, will be advice about sex, marriage or parenting. "eat fmly meals 2gether + no nagging bout hmewrk!", it might say, or "Sx isnt everything! Humours gr8 bt NOT whn shes undrssing!!"...
"A lot of nights on American Idol, the most heart-rending performers aren't the ones on the stage. They're the ones in the seats, in the shadows, invisible except when the camera flits past their paunches and jowls, their crow's feet and their tears of hope;
... they are the parents...
Drama rests on contrast. The Idol parents are the incarnation of dreams not fully lived. Their children are the promise of dreams that could be wildly realized.
Sometimes as I watch the Idol parents, I wonder what their grand dreams were when they were their children's age. I wonder if they fantasized about fame for themselves, or at least about being declared the very best at what they do.
At what point did they concede that glory was beyond their grasp, that their place from now on was in the audience?"
The Chicago Tribune
This is not because of a lack of compassion. Instead, the politics of disaster play differently in Asia than in the West, whether the focus is Burma's cyclone, China's deadly earthquake or the looming recurrence of famine in North Korea. Coverage of human suffering is not nearly as extensive here, and governments do not face the emotional public campaigns to help other nations' victims that are mounted in the United States and Europe. Asian leaders treat humanitarian disaster as a cause to pursue statecraft and diplomacy as usual, rather than as a moment to show the public that they care.
The reluctance of Burma's Asian neighbors to support intervention makes that course impractical. Instead, regional realpolitik -- and its acceptance of extreme human misery as a price to be paid for stability -- allows the junta to get away with murder committed in the name of national sovereignty.
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We are living in a dangerous world, and that will remain true for the indefinite future. Yet to a surprising extent, political debate in this country fails to reflect this. In consequence, our efforts to secure our own future are doubly impeded. We underestimate the urgency of the need to take crucial steps to improve our long-term prospects. We overestimate our influence on global problems. (and perhaps this is true, of Australia too)
A starting point for taking on the responsibility of the work of Christian apologetics is recognizing the role that living out a disciplined Christian life plays.
I remember well in the early days of my Christian faith talking to a Hindu. He was questioning the strident claims of the followers of Christ as being something supernatural. He absolutely insisted "conversion was nothing more than a decision to lead a more ethical life and that in most cases it was not any different to those claims of other 'ethical' religions." So far, his argument was not anything new.
But then he said something that I have never forgotten, and often reflect upon: "If this conversion is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians that I know?" His question is a troublesome one. After all, no Buddhist claims a supernatural life but frequently lives a more consistent one. The same pertains to many of other faiths. Yet, how often the so-called Christian, even while proclaiming some of the loftiest truths one could ever express, lives a life bereft of that beauty and character. [Ravi Zacharias]
The two realists, as able as anyone to read the trends, must have spoken privately about their shrinking options. And on Tuesday night, as Hillary's double-digit lead in Indiana dwindled to very small single digits, there must have come a time when one of them said, "We've lost this thing."
What were those moments like? What kept them going between themselves? Did they encourage one another, or was there an unspoken pact not to voice the unspeakable? Was there blame when Bill had one of his unwise moments? Did their shared past, of success and scandal, enter into it, or were they absorbed in this moment?
In answering those questions, there you would find the movie. It would be more introspective than audiences would probably prefer, and less sensational. Smarter, too. There would be a limited budget, because you wouldn't need a stadium filled with thousands of people so much as you'd need lots of lonely hotel rooms after midnight. The climaxes would come as one old comrade after another abandoned them for the Obama camp. There would be a desperate, clinging love that had survived all the years, because it was based on shared experience and memories and goals, not so much any longer on passion.
It would be a sad story, but a true one, and it might contain more truth than political movies are conventionally allowed to have. It might, like "Bulworth," say forbidden things. And issues would not be at issue: The campaign was not about political positions, but about sheer desire. Hillary wanted to win, and she ran and ran and ran until there was a kind of heroism to it. Futile heroism after a point, but that's where the story lies.
With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence. But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.Given the rules, she would be out if her teammates assisted her (and a replacement runner, would reduce it to a single). What happened next was:
members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.I'm sure we could find many more stories like this, the Sydney Morning Herald occasionally prints a few in "The Fitz Files" (in the sports section).
Firstly, governments need to stop paying lip service to the idea that wellbeing is defined by economic prosperity. Of course, successive waves of politicians make noises along these lines, but as soon as they realise the motivational power of money, they tend to revert to type. Yet we are now inundated with studies that have shown that the accumulation of either money or stuff simply doesn't deliver the sense of wellbeing for which we all long. Despite this, though, we continue with the mantra of economic growth to the almost complete exclusion of any other narrative. Justin Thacker, Beyond the pleasure principle... on Social Efficacy