Free Speech

I found this really interesting article about the calling off of an opera production because of the potential reaction, while I was reading the news today. It brings up some really interesting opinions on free speech and freedom of artistic expression. Here's a quick quote:

"When the concern over possible protests leads to self-censorship, then the democratic culture of free speech becomes endangered."

Here's the link if you'd like to read further:
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/09/26/ap3047072.html

Violence leads to.... more violence

I wasn't planning on writing a political entry today, but the reaction to the executions of the three Christians in Indonesia made me change my mind. When will we finally learn that violence only leads to more violence?
We need to put down our weapons and treat our enemies with the compassion and love that Jesus taught us, and I say this directly to the Christians who are leading violent riots in Indonesia. Killing more people will not revenge the deaths, it only makes us just as guilty.
Stop the violence, continue protests at a national level and to the already concerned international community, and seek a peaceful solution to this cycle of violence.

Forced Democracy?

What rights does an external government have to influence whether or not another government is a democracy? This question was brought to mind today in seeing the overthrow of the government in Thailand, the violent protests in Hungary, and the looming conflict in Mexico.
As an illustration, to me it seems that the USA believes they are fully entitled to interfere in the politics of whichever country they please, essentially practicing the modern form of imperialism. Take for example the elections in Ukraine in 2004. When allegations of fraud surfaced, the US and other western countries were very, very involved in ensuring that the elections were examined, and a new election done. This almost certainly had to do with the fact that the pro-western candidate (Yushchenko) lost to the pro-russian candidate (Yanukovych) in the runoff election (Note that Yushchenko won the preliminary election but in accordance with Ukrainian law, because no candidate had 50% of the vote, a runoff election was held). By no means do I intend to say that a just result was not achieved as I consider that the original runoff election was indeed fraudulent and that Yushchenko was the rightful winner. However, I do intend to compare this with the involvement of the western nations, or rather lack of involvement, in the 2006 elections in Mexico. Despite an almost equivalent situation, there was negligible political involvement of western powers in ensuring that the election held was indeed fair. The difference: the conservative candidate Felipe Calderón defeated the central-leftist Lopez Obrador.
What it seems to me is rather than influencing other governments to become democracies, powerful countries use this as a guise to encourage the rise of foreign governments that are economically beneficial for them.
What right then do governments have to interfere in the political structure of another country? Is there a just reason for invading a country to change its political structure, and if so how can one make that judgment? Furthermore, how can the country that would thus do the changing be monitored and kept in check? Can change caused by outside forces be sustainable in the long term, or must the change come from within the country?
Sorry, this one ended off with more questions than answers, but I have a feeling it's to be continued... Comments!

Pope's Comments

Alright, so I'm thinking I'm going to turn this blog a little bit more political and I'm looking for a lot of feedback from you guys out there, so let me know what you think. I'm always game for a debate.
Might as well start off with a real kicker: the Pope's comments about Islam. Personally I don't find anything overly offensive in his comments. For reference, his full speech can be found here:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14848884/

I agree that there are branches of Islam in the present day that do not "spread the word by the sword", however there are undoubtedly branches that do. To verify this, one only has to look at the threats in response to the Pope's comments, such as:
"We shall break the cross and spill the wine. ... God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome. ... God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen," (ref: http://kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5421604 )
Furthermore, comparisons to Hitler are totally unjustified. This has nothing to do with the superiority of one race to another considering neither Christianity nor Islam (in my understanding) are confined to a race. If anything it is the opposite, showing the rascism of the people who made the comparisons in their continued prejudice of Germans.
Perhaps the most ironic statement I have read so far is the reaction of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5356820.stm It is pure rhetorical BS that he would consider what the Pope said to be a call to a crusade. Very, very clearly the Pope is saying that violence is not the answer and that religion above all must turn from violence and use reason. Khamenei distortion of the Pope's words for his own political purposes is made clear a little later when he mentions George Bush and the (impending) conflict between Iran and the US.
In addition to threats, does anyone else find the physical reaction even a little bit ironic? I mean the Pope uses an ancient quote that says that Islam is violent and in response five churches are firebombed, and a nun shot four times in the back.
In conclusion, I think that, for the purpose of political niceties, the Pope ought to use a bit more discretion in writing his next speech. I also think it was very honourable of him to apologize. However, I have trouble disagreeing with his comments (for at least a portion of the population) given the violent reaction that ensued.
Comments please!

The Race

Today we had our first official race of the season, the Borregos 10k. It was a 10k road race on the streets around the university, for the most part pretty flat, but we went over a couple overpasses. We went out pretty fast, 3:20s for the first two kilometers but then cooled the heels a bit. I came in around 34:30, second in my category, and about tenth overall I think. I was pretty happy because after running a 17:30 first 5k I picked it up to run a negative split of sub 17 on the homestretch. I got called up to the podium for getting second in my category, and received a trophy with a borrego on it, which is a ram. Martell, one of my teammates got first in our category. He's from the states, so we thought it was kind of funny that the two foreigners picked up the 1, 2 spots.
Afterwards the team was chilling out figuring out where to go eat, and a kid ran up to me and asked me to sign his shirt, ha ha. That was pretty cool.

Free-style Running!!!

The combination of being out of training for a few days with an IT band injury and having an economy exam to procrastinate for has led me to the discovery of one of the best little known sports I have ever seen... Free running! This is not for the weak of heart, but I suggest we start a free-style running group immediately... er, that is as soon as the IT band heals.
For the uninitiated, as I was just yesterday, check out some of this link to find out what exactly is free running.

http://www.guzer.com/videos/free_running_video2.php

OK, upon further research I found out it's official name is Parkour, although it's often called free running or also russian climbing. Google it!

Running & Studying

This weekend has been pretty brutal because I have four exams next week and a huge paper due. The good news is that I escaped studying this morning to go for a 9k run with some other distance runners at Chipinque. Afterwards Sigi treated us to agua fresca and barbacoa tacos. He also gave me his heart-rate monitor, which has been quite interesting. I found out that my resting heart-rate is 44bpm, not 50 like I thought. At the end of the 9k loop we do at Chipinque there is a 2k uphill on the road, to reach the start of the trail. We hammered the uphill pretty hard this morning and I finished with a pulse-rate of 198bpm. I thought that was pretty cool too.