Discover who are the champions of rugby. The history, the legends and buy New Zealands Rugby Champions products at the online stores. See the champions of rugby get fit for rugby. Check back here often for sports training tips. 2015 Rugby World Cup Updates and Rugby world cup PS3 and xbox game screenshots. Bring on the new champions of rugby!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
GET A ROOM! Got a Room? The Rugby World Cup Is Closer Than You Think!
If you are one of the lucky wealthy enough to travel between the event stadiums be forewarned that the pencil plane flights between Nth and Sth Island can be hairy! But make your peace and enjoy the champion rollercoaster ride into windy Wellington! If you haven´t already, or if you know anyone looking Get a Room for the Sth Africa vs Wales RWC 2011 weekend, please forward this post if you know of someone, we cannot go (were in Buenos Aires) and need to sell it! Good waves and Go the All Blacks!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Did You Know?
Did you know?
That Rugby Football was believed to have originated in 1823 when William Webb Ellis took the football in his hands and ran with it to the goal post, of course you did.
That in Asia, the ASIAD Rugby tournament was supposed to have originated in the mid nineties. The twentieth ASIAD Rugby Football tournament that was to be staged from the 18th to 25th of November in Sri Lanka now stands postponed due to participating teams, particularly, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan expressing concerns over the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka.
That the United States are the world's reigning rugby champions - when it comes to the Olympics, anyway. The US rugby team took the gold medal when the game was last played at the Olympics back in 1924. Rugby was dropped from the tournament after that, but there's a growing campaign to make it an Olympic sport again.
That Rugby Football was believed to have originated in 1823 when William Webb Ellis took the football in his hands and ran with it to the goal post, of course you did.
That in Asia, the ASIAD Rugby tournament was supposed to have originated in the mid nineties. The twentieth ASIAD Rugby Football tournament that was to be staged from the 18th to 25th of November in Sri Lanka now stands postponed due to participating teams, particularly, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan expressing concerns over the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka.
That the United States are the world's reigning rugby champions - when it comes to the Olympics, anyway. The US rugby team took the gold medal when the game was last played at the Olympics back in 1924. Rugby was dropped from the tournament after that, but there's a growing campaign to make it an Olympic sport again.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Cannabilism and the Champions of Rugby
Cannibalism and Rugby - "I believe that when man evolves to a civilization higher than the mechanized but still primitive one he has now, the eating of human flesh will be sanctioned. For then man will have thrown off all of his superstitions and irrational taboos." (Diego Rivera)
"One calls 'barbarism' whatever he is not accustomed to." (Montaigne, On Cannibalism)
"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." (New Testament, John 6:53-55)
Cannibalism (more precisely, anthropophagy) is an age-old tradition that, judging by a constant stream of flabbergasted news reports, is far from extinct. Much-debated indications exist that our Neanderthal, Proto-Neolithic, and Neolithic (Stone Age) predecessors were cannibals. Similarly contested claims were made with regards to the 12th century advanced Anasazi culture in the southwestern United States and the Minoans in Crete (today's Greece). The Britannica Encyclopedia (2005 edition) recounts how the "Binderwurs of central India ate their sick and aged in the belief that the act was pleasing to their goddess, Kali." Cannibalism may also have been common among followers of the Shaktism cults in India. Other sources attribute cannibalism to the 16th century Imbangala in today's Angola and Congo, the Fang in Cameroon, the Mangbetu in Central Africa, the Ache in Paraguay, the Tonkawa in today's Texas, the Calusa in current day Florida, the Caddo and Iroquois confederacies of Indians in North America, the Cree in Canada, the Witoto, natives of Colombia and Peru, the Carib in the Lesser Antilles (whose distorted name - Canib - gave rise to the word "cannibalism"), to Maori tribes in today's New Zealand, and to various peoples in Sumatra (like the Batak). The Wikipedia numbers among the practitioners of cannibalism the ancient Chinese, the Korowai tribe of southeastern Papua, the Fore tribe in New Guinea (and many other tribes in Melanesia), the Aztecs, the people of Yucatan, the Purchas from Popayan, Colombia, the denizens of the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, and the natives of the captaincy of Sergipe in Brazil. From Congo and Central Africa to Germany and from Mexico to New Zealand, cannibalism is enjoying a morbid revival of interest, if not of practice. A veritable torrent of sensational tomes and movies adds to our ambivalent fascination with man-eaters.
Cannibalism is not a monolithic affair. It can be divided thus:
I. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh post-mortem For example, when the corpses of prisoners of war are devoured by their captors. This used to be a common exercise among island tribes (e.g., in Fiji, the Andaman and Cook islands) and is still the case in godforsaken battle zones such as Congo (formerly Zaire), or among the defeated Japanese soldiers in World War II. Similarly, human organs and fetuses as well as mummies are still being gobbled up - mainly in Africa and Asia - for remedial and medicinal purposes and in order to enhance one's libido and vigor. On numerous occasions the organs of dead companions, colleagues, family, or neighbors were reluctantly ingested by isolated survivors of horrid accidents (the Uruguay rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes, the boat people fleeing Asia), denizens of besieged cities (e.g., during the siege of Leningrad), members of exploratory expeditions gone astray (the Donner Party in Sierra Nevada, California and John Franklin's Polar expedition), famine-stricken populations (Ukraine in the 1930s, China in the 1960s), and the like. Finally, in various pre-nation-state and tribal societies, members of the family were encouraged to eat specific parts of their dead relatives as a sign of respect or in order to partake of the deceased's wisdom, courage, or other positive traits (endocannibalism).
II. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh from a live source For example, when prisoners of war are butchered for the express purpose of being eaten by their victorious enemies. A notorious and rare representative of this category of cannibalism is the punitive ritual of being eaten alive. The kings of the tribes of the Cook Islands were thought to embody the gods. They punished dissent by dissecting their screaming and conscious adversaries and consuming their flesh piecemeal, eyeballs first. The Sawney Bean family in Scotland, during the reign of King James I, survived for decades on the remains (and personal belongings) of victims of their murderous sprees. Real-life serial killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, Sascha Spesiwtsew, Fritz Haarmann, Issei Sagawa, and Ed Gein, lured, abducted, and massacred countless people and then consumed their flesh and preserved the inedible parts as trophies. These lurid deeds inspired a slew of books and films, most notably The Silence of the Lambs with Hannibal (Lecter) the Cannibal as its protagonist. III. Consensual consumption of human flesh from live and dead human bodies Armin Meiwes, the "Master Butcher (Der Metzgermeister)", arranged over the Internet to meet Bernd Jurgen Brandes on March 2001. Meiwes amputated the penis of his guest and they both ate it. He then proceeded to kill Brandes (with the latter's consent recorded on video), and snack on what remained of him. Sexual cannibalism is a paraphilia and an extreme - and thankfully, rare - form of fetishism. The Aztecs willingly volunteered to serve as human sacrifices (and to be tucked into afterwards). They firmly believed that they were offerings, chosen by the gods themselves, thus being rendered immortal. Dutiful sons and daughters in China made their amputated organs and sliced tissues (mainly the liver) available to their sick parents (practices known as Ko Ku and Ko Kan). Such donation were considered remedial. Princess Miao Chuang who surrendered her severed hands to her ailing father was henceforth deified. Non-consensual cannibalism is murder, pure and simple. The attendant act of cannibalism, though aesthetically and ethically reprehensible, cannot aggravate this supreme assault on all that we hold sacred. But consensual cannibalism is a lot trickier. Modern medicine, for instance, has blurred the already thin line between right and wrong. What is the ethical difference between consensual, post-mortem, organ harvesting and consensual, post-mortem cannibalism? Why is stem cell harvesting (from aborted fetuses) morally superior to consensual post-mortem cannibalism? When members of a plane-wrecked rugby team, stranded on an inaccessible, snow-piled, mountain range resort to eating each other in order to survive, we turn a blind eye to their repeated acts of cannibalism - but we condemn the very same deed in the harshest terms if it takes place between two consenting, and even eager adults in Germany. Surely, we don't treat murder, pedophilia, and incest the same way! As the Auxiliary Bishop of Montevideo said after the crash: "... Eating someone who has died in order to survive is incorporating their substance, and it is quite possible to compare this with a graft. Flesh survives when assimilated by someone in extreme need, just as it does when an eye or heart of a dead man is grafted onto a living man..." (Read, P.P. 1974. Alive. Avon, New York) Complex ethical issues are involved in the apparently straightforward practice of consensual cannibalism. Consensual, in vivo, cannibalism (a-la Messrs. Meiwes and Brandes) resembles suicide. The cannibal is merely the instrument of voluntary self-destruction. Questions:
I. The Sanctity of Life Historically, cannibalism preceded, followed, or precipitated an act of murder or extreme deprivation (such as torture). It habitually clashed with the principle of the sanctity of life. Once allowed, even under the strictest guidelines, cannibalism tended to debase and devalue human life and foster homicide, propelling its practitioners down a slippery ethical slope towards bloodlust and orgiastic massacres.
II. The Afterlife Moreover, in life, the human body and form are considered by most religions (and philosophers) to be the abode of the soul, the divine spark that animates us all. The post-mortem integrity of this shrine is widely thought to guarantee a faster, unhindered access to the afterlife, to immortality, and eventual reincarnation (or karmic cycle in eastern religions). For this reason, to this very day, orthodox Jews refuse to subject their relatives to a post-mortem autopsy and organ harvesting. Fijians and Cook Islanders used to consume their enemies' carcasses in order to prevent their souls from joining hostile ancestors in heaven.
III. Chastening Reminders Cannibalism is a chilling reminder of our humble origins in the animal kingdom. To the cannibal, we are no better and no more than cattle or sheep. Cannibalism confronts us with the irreversibility of our death and its finality. Surely, we cannot survive our demise with our cadaver mutilated and gutted and our skeletal bones scattered, gnawed, and chewed on?
IV. Medical Reasons Infrequently, cannibalism results in prion diseases of the nervous system, such as kuru. The same paternalism that gave rise to the banning of drug abuse, the outlawing of suicide, and the Prohibition of alcoholic drinks in the 1920s - seeks to shelter us from the pernicious medical outcomes of cannibalism and to protect others who might become our victims.
V. The Fear of Being Objectified Being treated as an object (being objectified) is the most torturous form of abuse. People go to great lengths to seek empathy and to be perceived by others as three dimensional entities with emotions, needs, priorities, wishes, and preferences. The cannibal reduces others by treating them as so much meat. Many cannibal serial killers transformed the organs of their victims into trophies. The Cook Islanders sought to humiliate their enemies by eating, digesting, and then defecating them - having absorbed their mana (prowess, life force) in the process.
VI. The Argument from Nature Cannibalism is often castigated as "unnatural". Animals, goes the myth, don't prey on their own kind. Alas, like so many other romantic lores, this is untrue. Most species - including our closest relatives, the chimpanzees - do cannibalize. Cannibalism in nature is widespread and serves diverse purposes such as population control (chickens, salamanders, toads), food and protein security in conditions of scarcity (hippopotamuses, scorpions, certain types of dinosaurs), threat avoidance (rabbits, mice, rats, and hamsters), and the propagation of genetic material through exclusive mating (Red-back spider and many mantids). Moreover, humans are a part of nature. Our deeds and misdeeds are natural by definition. Seeking to tame nature is a natural act. Seeking to establish hierarchies and subdue or relinquish our enemies are natural propensities. By avoiding cannibalism we seek to transcend nature. Refraining from cannibalism is the unnatural act.
VII. The Argument from Progress It is a circular syllogism involving a tautology and goes like this: Cannibalism is barbaric. Cannibals are, therefore, barbarians. Progress entails the abolition of this practice. The premises - both explicit and implicit - are axiomatic and, therefore, shaky. What makes cannibalism barbarian? And why is progress a desirable outcome? There is a prescriptive fallacy involved, as well: Because we do not eat the bodies of dead people - we ought not to eat them.
VIII. Arguments from Religious Ethics The major monotheistic religions are curiously mute when it comes to cannibalism. Human sacrifice is denounced numerous times in the Old Testament - but man-eating goes virtually unmentioned. The Eucharist in Christianity - when the believers consume the actual body and blood of Jesus - is an act of undisguised cannibalism: "That the consequence of Transubstantiation, as a conversion of the total substance, is the transition of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is the express doctrine of the Church ...." (Catholic Encyclopedia) "CANON lI.-If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species Only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema. CANON VIII.-lf any one saith, that Christ, given in the Eucharist, is eaten spiritually only, and not also sacramentally and really; let him be anathema." (The Council of Trent, The Thirteenth Session - The canons and decrees of the sacred and oecumenical Council of Trent, Ed. and trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), 75-91.) Still, most systems of morality and ethics impute to Man a privileged position in the scheme of things (having been created in the "image of God"). Men and women are supposed to transcend their animal roots and inhibit their baser instincts (an idea incorporated into Freud's tripartite model of the human psyche). The anthropocentric chauvinistic view is that it is permissible to kill all other animals in order to consume their flesh. Man, in this respect, is sui generis. Yet, it is impossible to rigorously derive a prohibition to eat human flesh from any known moral system. As Richard Routley-Silvan observes in his essay "In Defence of Cannibalism", that something is innately repugnant does not make it morally prohibited. Moreover, that we find cannibalism nauseating is probably the outcome of upbringing and conditioning rather than anything innate. According to Greek mythology, Man was created from the ashes of the Titans, the children of Uranus and Gaea, whom Zeus struck with thunderbolts for murdering his son, Zagreus, and then devouring his body. Mankind, therefore, is directly descendant from the Titans, who may well have been the first cannibals.
"One calls 'barbarism' whatever he is not accustomed to." (Montaigne, On Cannibalism)
"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." (New Testament, John 6:53-55)
Cannibalism (more precisely, anthropophagy) is an age-old tradition that, judging by a constant stream of flabbergasted news reports, is far from extinct. Much-debated indications exist that our Neanderthal, Proto-Neolithic, and Neolithic (Stone Age) predecessors were cannibals. Similarly contested claims were made with regards to the 12th century advanced Anasazi culture in the southwestern United States and the Minoans in Crete (today's Greece). The Britannica Encyclopedia (2005 edition) recounts how the "Binderwurs of central India ate their sick and aged in the belief that the act was pleasing to their goddess, Kali." Cannibalism may also have been common among followers of the Shaktism cults in India. Other sources attribute cannibalism to the 16th century Imbangala in today's Angola and Congo, the Fang in Cameroon, the Mangbetu in Central Africa, the Ache in Paraguay, the Tonkawa in today's Texas, the Calusa in current day Florida, the Caddo and Iroquois confederacies of Indians in North America, the Cree in Canada, the Witoto, natives of Colombia and Peru, the Carib in the Lesser Antilles (whose distorted name - Canib - gave rise to the word "cannibalism"), to Maori tribes in today's New Zealand, and to various peoples in Sumatra (like the Batak). The Wikipedia numbers among the practitioners of cannibalism the ancient Chinese, the Korowai tribe of southeastern Papua, the Fore tribe in New Guinea (and many other tribes in Melanesia), the Aztecs, the people of Yucatan, the Purchas from Popayan, Colombia, the denizens of the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, and the natives of the captaincy of Sergipe in Brazil. From Congo and Central Africa to Germany and from Mexico to New Zealand, cannibalism is enjoying a morbid revival of interest, if not of practice. A veritable torrent of sensational tomes and movies adds to our ambivalent fascination with man-eaters.
Cannibalism is not a monolithic affair. It can be divided thus:
I. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh post-mortem For example, when the corpses of prisoners of war are devoured by their captors. This used to be a common exercise among island tribes (e.g., in Fiji, the Andaman and Cook islands) and is still the case in godforsaken battle zones such as Congo (formerly Zaire), or among the defeated Japanese soldiers in World War II. Similarly, human organs and fetuses as well as mummies are still being gobbled up - mainly in Africa and Asia - for remedial and medicinal purposes and in order to enhance one's libido and vigor. On numerous occasions the organs of dead companions, colleagues, family, or neighbors were reluctantly ingested by isolated survivors of horrid accidents (the Uruguay rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes, the boat people fleeing Asia), denizens of besieged cities (e.g., during the siege of Leningrad), members of exploratory expeditions gone astray (the Donner Party in Sierra Nevada, California and John Franklin's Polar expedition), famine-stricken populations (Ukraine in the 1930s, China in the 1960s), and the like. Finally, in various pre-nation-state and tribal societies, members of the family were encouraged to eat specific parts of their dead relatives as a sign of respect or in order to partake of the deceased's wisdom, courage, or other positive traits (endocannibalism).
II. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh from a live source For example, when prisoners of war are butchered for the express purpose of being eaten by their victorious enemies. A notorious and rare representative of this category of cannibalism is the punitive ritual of being eaten alive. The kings of the tribes of the Cook Islands were thought to embody the gods. They punished dissent by dissecting their screaming and conscious adversaries and consuming their flesh piecemeal, eyeballs first. The Sawney Bean family in Scotland, during the reign of King James I, survived for decades on the remains (and personal belongings) of victims of their murderous sprees. Real-life serial killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, Sascha Spesiwtsew, Fritz Haarmann, Issei Sagawa, and Ed Gein, lured, abducted, and massacred countless people and then consumed their flesh and preserved the inedible parts as trophies. These lurid deeds inspired a slew of books and films, most notably The Silence of the Lambs with Hannibal (Lecter) the Cannibal as its protagonist. III. Consensual consumption of human flesh from live and dead human bodies Armin Meiwes, the "Master Butcher (Der Metzgermeister)", arranged over the Internet to meet Bernd Jurgen Brandes on March 2001. Meiwes amputated the penis of his guest and they both ate it. He then proceeded to kill Brandes (with the latter's consent recorded on video), and snack on what remained of him. Sexual cannibalism is a paraphilia and an extreme - and thankfully, rare - form of fetishism. The Aztecs willingly volunteered to serve as human sacrifices (and to be tucked into afterwards). They firmly believed that they were offerings, chosen by the gods themselves, thus being rendered immortal. Dutiful sons and daughters in China made their amputated organs and sliced tissues (mainly the liver) available to their sick parents (practices known as Ko Ku and Ko Kan). Such donation were considered remedial. Princess Miao Chuang who surrendered her severed hands to her ailing father was henceforth deified. Non-consensual cannibalism is murder, pure and simple. The attendant act of cannibalism, though aesthetically and ethically reprehensible, cannot aggravate this supreme assault on all that we hold sacred. But consensual cannibalism is a lot trickier. Modern medicine, for instance, has blurred the already thin line between right and wrong. What is the ethical difference between consensual, post-mortem, organ harvesting and consensual, post-mortem cannibalism? Why is stem cell harvesting (from aborted fetuses) morally superior to consensual post-mortem cannibalism? When members of a plane-wrecked rugby team, stranded on an inaccessible, snow-piled, mountain range resort to eating each other in order to survive, we turn a blind eye to their repeated acts of cannibalism - but we condemn the very same deed in the harshest terms if it takes place between two consenting, and even eager adults in Germany. Surely, we don't treat murder, pedophilia, and incest the same way! As the Auxiliary Bishop of Montevideo said after the crash: "... Eating someone who has died in order to survive is incorporating their substance, and it is quite possible to compare this with a graft. Flesh survives when assimilated by someone in extreme need, just as it does when an eye or heart of a dead man is grafted onto a living man..." (Read, P.P. 1974. Alive. Avon, New York) Complex ethical issues are involved in the apparently straightforward practice of consensual cannibalism. Consensual, in vivo, cannibalism (a-la Messrs. Meiwes and Brandes) resembles suicide. The cannibal is merely the instrument of voluntary self-destruction. Questions:
- Why would we treat it different to the way we treat any other form of suicide pact? Consensual cannibalism is not the equivalent of drug abuse because it has no social costs. Unlike junkies, the cannibal and his meal are unlikely to harm others.
- What gives society the right to intervene, therefore? If we own our bodies and, thus, have the right to smoke, drink, have an abortion, commit suicide, and will our organs to science after we die - why don't we possess the inalienable right to will our delectable tissues to a discerning cannibal post-mortem (or to victims of famine in Africa)?
- When does our right to dispose of our organs in any way we see fit crystallize? Is it when we die? Or after we are dead? If so, what is the meaning and legal validity of a living will? And why can't we make a living will and bequeath our cadaverous selves to the nearest cannibal?
- Do dead people have rights and can they claim and invoke them while they are still alive?
- Is the live person the same as his dead body, does he "own" it, does the state have any rights in it?
- Does the corpse still retain its previous occupant's "personhood"? Are cadavers still human, in any sense of the word?
cannibalism/champions of rugby - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.
I. The Sanctity of Life Historically, cannibalism preceded, followed, or precipitated an act of murder or extreme deprivation (such as torture). It habitually clashed with the principle of the sanctity of life. Once allowed, even under the strictest guidelines, cannibalism tended to debase and devalue human life and foster homicide, propelling its practitioners down a slippery ethical slope towards bloodlust and orgiastic massacres.
II. The Afterlife Moreover, in life, the human body and form are considered by most religions (and philosophers) to be the abode of the soul, the divine spark that animates us all. The post-mortem integrity of this shrine is widely thought to guarantee a faster, unhindered access to the afterlife, to immortality, and eventual reincarnation (or karmic cycle in eastern religions). For this reason, to this very day, orthodox Jews refuse to subject their relatives to a post-mortem autopsy and organ harvesting. Fijians and Cook Islanders used to consume their enemies' carcasses in order to prevent their souls from joining hostile ancestors in heaven.
III. Chastening Reminders Cannibalism is a chilling reminder of our humble origins in the animal kingdom. To the cannibal, we are no better and no more than cattle or sheep. Cannibalism confronts us with the irreversibility of our death and its finality. Surely, we cannot survive our demise with our cadaver mutilated and gutted and our skeletal bones scattered, gnawed, and chewed on?
IV. Medical Reasons Infrequently, cannibalism results in prion diseases of the nervous system, such as kuru. The same paternalism that gave rise to the banning of drug abuse, the outlawing of suicide, and the Prohibition of alcoholic drinks in the 1920s - seeks to shelter us from the pernicious medical outcomes of cannibalism and to protect others who might become our victims.
V. The Fear of Being Objectified Being treated as an object (being objectified) is the most torturous form of abuse. People go to great lengths to seek empathy and to be perceived by others as three dimensional entities with emotions, needs, priorities, wishes, and preferences. The cannibal reduces others by treating them as so much meat. Many cannibal serial killers transformed the organs of their victims into trophies. The Cook Islanders sought to humiliate their enemies by eating, digesting, and then defecating them - having absorbed their mana (prowess, life force) in the process.
VI. The Argument from Nature Cannibalism is often castigated as "unnatural". Animals, goes the myth, don't prey on their own kind. Alas, like so many other romantic lores, this is untrue. Most species - including our closest relatives, the chimpanzees - do cannibalize. Cannibalism in nature is widespread and serves diverse purposes such as population control (chickens, salamanders, toads), food and protein security in conditions of scarcity (hippopotamuses, scorpions, certain types of dinosaurs), threat avoidance (rabbits, mice, rats, and hamsters), and the propagation of genetic material through exclusive mating (Red-back spider and many mantids). Moreover, humans are a part of nature. Our deeds and misdeeds are natural by definition. Seeking to tame nature is a natural act. Seeking to establish hierarchies and subdue or relinquish our enemies are natural propensities. By avoiding cannibalism we seek to transcend nature. Refraining from cannibalism is the unnatural act.
VII. The Argument from Progress It is a circular syllogism involving a tautology and goes like this: Cannibalism is barbaric. Cannibals are, therefore, barbarians. Progress entails the abolition of this practice. The premises - both explicit and implicit - are axiomatic and, therefore, shaky. What makes cannibalism barbarian? And why is progress a desirable outcome? There is a prescriptive fallacy involved, as well: Because we do not eat the bodies of dead people - we ought not to eat them.
VIII. Arguments from Religious Ethics The major monotheistic religions are curiously mute when it comes to cannibalism. Human sacrifice is denounced numerous times in the Old Testament - but man-eating goes virtually unmentioned. The Eucharist in Christianity - when the believers consume the actual body and blood of Jesus - is an act of undisguised cannibalism: "That the consequence of Transubstantiation, as a conversion of the total substance, is the transition of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is the express doctrine of the Church ...." (Catholic Encyclopedia) "CANON lI.-If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species Only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema. CANON VIII.-lf any one saith, that Christ, given in the Eucharist, is eaten spiritually only, and not also sacramentally and really; let him be anathema." (The Council of Trent, The Thirteenth Session - The canons and decrees of the sacred and oecumenical Council of Trent, Ed. and trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), 75-91.) Still, most systems of morality and ethics impute to Man a privileged position in the scheme of things (having been created in the "image of God"). Men and women are supposed to transcend their animal roots and inhibit their baser instincts (an idea incorporated into Freud's tripartite model of the human psyche). The anthropocentric chauvinistic view is that it is permissible to kill all other animals in order to consume their flesh. Man, in this respect, is sui generis. Yet, it is impossible to rigorously derive a prohibition to eat human flesh from any known moral system. As Richard Routley-Silvan observes in his essay "In Defence of Cannibalism", that something is innately repugnant does not make it morally prohibited. Moreover, that we find cannibalism nauseating is probably the outcome of upbringing and conditioning rather than anything innate. According to Greek mythology, Man was created from the ashes of the Titans, the children of Uranus and Gaea, whom Zeus struck with thunderbolts for murdering his son, Zagreus, and then devouring his body. Mankind, therefore, is directly descendant from the Titans, who may well have been the first cannibals.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Rugby World Cup 2011 Accommodation -See the best moments between champions of rugby Wales vs Sth Africa
LAST ONE LEFT! Be Quick! First in gets it.
If it´s GONE!!! LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE STILL LOOKING, I KNOW PEOPLE IN WELLINGTON CITY WHO MAY CONSIDER RENTING THEIR HOMES. Having lived for some years in Wellington I know how annoying it can be finding accommodation during big events such as, well anything. There are only 400, 000 inhabitants including the greater Wellington area so accommodation shortages are not uncommon here. Feel free to mail me at info@globaljet.me with RWC in the subject line
About the Hotel Top 10 Reasons to stay at Aitken on Mulgrave:
http://www.wellingtoncityhotel.co.nz/index.htm
This reserve/purchase link is not in anyway affiliated with the hotel, it has been added to my blog for ease and security of a one only transaction. The hotel has no additional vacancies for these dates and once I have transferred the room this post will be removed. If I don´t take it down you will know there is at least one empty hotel room in Wellington..
Aitken on Mulgrave
- I have one hotel room left with full kitchen & queen-size bed
3 nights:
If it´s GONE!!! LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE STILL LOOKING, I KNOW PEOPLE IN WELLINGTON CITY WHO MAY CONSIDER RENTING THEIR HOMES. Having lived for some years in Wellington I know how annoying it can be finding accommodation during big events such as, well anything. There are only 400, 000 inhabitants including the greater Wellington area so accommodation shortages are not uncommon here. Feel free to mail me at info@globaljet.me with RWC in the subject line
About the Hotel Top 10 Reasons to stay at Aitken on Mulgrave:
http://www.wellingtoncityhotel.co.nz/index.htm
This reserve/purchase link is not in anyway affiliated with the hotel, it has been added to my blog for ease and security of a one only transaction. The hotel has no additional vacancies for these dates and once I have transferred the room this post will be removed. If I don´t take it down you will know there is at least one empty hotel room in Wellington..
Aitken on Mulgrave
9th-10th & 11th on the week-end of the Wales vs South Africa match 11th Sept.- Walk to the stadium (5 mins.)
- $989NZD
Bookings made via http://globaljetholiday.blogspot.com will recieve a USD$100 off voucher usable with final booking confirmation.
Bookings made via http://globaljetholiday.blogspot.com will recieve a USD$100 off voucher usable with final booking confirmation.
Questions? please mail to Raymond at info@globaljet.me with RWC in subjectline.
A bit about the neighbourhood. Thordon is one of the older parts of Wellington city and borders the CBD (central business district,) the prime minister´s residence is about 5 minutes walk from the hotel and the lovely botanic gardens are 10-15 minutes walk up the hill, through the "village." Once in the gardens you can easily lose an hour or two wandering the trails and discovering the different sculptures, if you can find the Henry Moore work you have done well and have possibly built up a healthy glow.
At the top you have an excellent view of the whole harbour and downtown area and can catch the old cable car down onto Lambton Quay, at the bottom I can unreservedly reccommend going upstairs into "concrete" which is on the left as soon as you exit the cable car for quality food and a beer or sample Andrew´s excellent wine stock, say hi from me.
For those of you that are a bit more sporty, directly behind the hotel is part of the Wellington town belt, there are numerous tracks up there but the climb is steep! I can also reccommend taking a city bus around the bays to view the numerous beaches and perhaps walking up mount Victoria to the lookout area for a different view of the city. If you are arriving on the 9th I can suggest enquiring about "Wild About Wellington" a boutique style tour run by Jennifer is is truely wild about Wellington, from memory the tour includes the brewery and chocolate factory but better do your own due dilligence on this, Jennifer is tops though and you will be well entertained and informed.
To give you an idea of the type of people to expect in Wellington, when we were there in February I was showing my girl one of the older neighbourhoods and snapping some photos when an older gentleman asked if we would care to take photos from upstairs in his house for a different aspect, whilst perhaps not typical it certainly isn´t unusual and even the Jonah Lomu type city labourers will say "gidday." Enjoy!
Price hikes for Rugby World Cup - tell us your stories
It’s basic supply and demand – large numbers of people require accommodation, especially in Auckland where the final, third place playoff, semi finals, two quarter finals and crucial All Blacks vs France matches are being played. No doubt it’s not limited to Auckland or to the accommodation industry.
The best ways to avoid such expensive prices are to stay with friends or family, stay further away from the venue, or even try some kind of house exchange programme. If these aren't options and the nearest park bench won't do, let your feet do the talking by refusing to pay such exorbitant prices.
There is a risk involved, but if no one pays the expensive rates being charged then accommodation providers will be forced to lower their prices or be left with empty rooms. You never know, New Zealand might do the unthinkable and win the Rugby World Cup, so you could be partying all night anyway!
Tell us about your experiences with paying inflated prices for anything during the Rugby World Cup period. Do you agree with the accommodation providers that raise their prices? Or do you think they give New Zealand a bad name?
Scott Donaldson
Friday, July 1, 2011
Afrikaans not popular
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Well it seems the bros from the cape are a silent lot and are keeping their game faces on until the last minute so I ´m going to stop with the Afrikaans lingo posts it´s just too much extra work and those boys are too shy to comment. Maybe I will put one in occassionally we see how it goes.
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