Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. (René Descartes, mathematician and philosopher,1599-1650)

Friday 22 October 2010

MIDA Step in Media Evolution, ID Card and '666 Mark of the Beast,' Misleading NZ Travel Heading, Cakaudrove Prevaricates

WEEKEND READING.  ♦ Allen Lockington column ♦ Does the Government Accept Criticism? ♦ The Weakness of Australian Policy ♦ Media Freedom and Racism in NZ, I and II, ♦ Some Lessons from Mauritius

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS. Fiji will switch back to daylight saving time from this Sunday 24th tober at 2am. This means members of the public will be required to switch their clocks one hour ahead from 2am to 3am. It is expected to end in March 2011, a date is yet to be confirmed. --  2010 No:1568/MOI. Fiji will then be on the same time as NZ that commenced its daylight savings two weeks ago, and be two hours (instead of the present three hours) ahead of EST in Sydney.

MEDIA AUTHORITY NEARLY READY. Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) chairman Prof Subramani  expects the Authroithy to befully operational within the next month. The secretary's position has been advertised and office space obtained. Subramani said MIDA will be proactive in working with the media, and constructively help support the development of quality media services, as well as interpret the provisions in the media decree.

Commenting on overseas negativities he said many people had not read the Decree carefully enough and have misconceptions about it. He says the Decree provides for media guidelines that were previously not present and should be looked at as a stage in the evolution of the media industry in Fiji.

ID CARDS AND CHIP 666. Some not very well informed people in Fiji are frightening their fellow citizens by linking the proposed ID card to a microchip Chip 666 that will be inserted under the skin (666 is the Mark of the Beast/Devil).  The Chip 666 story has its origins among small "wacko" pseudo-Christian religious sects in the USA, some of which claim the Obama government plans to insert the chip while pretending people are getting a standard health injection. Google "Chip 666" to check them out. The email circulating in Fiji warns "the Bible predicted it will come and  now it is here.  Let's  pray that our loved ones, friends and work colleagues do not fall from eternal glory with Jesus Christ by planting this chip into their bodies. Please circulate and pass on to all you know (leave no one out) so you may not be answerable if your friends do not make it to HEAVEN…GOD BLESS!!!" 

"FIJI OUT OF FAVOUR WITH KIWI TRAVELLERS."
There's apparently been a minor dip in recent NZ tourist arrivals in Fiji. There's nothing strange or significant about that. There are alway short term swings in tourism. It's a seasonal business affected by many factors. But as one Fijian reader wrote:"Surely they could have use a different headline that didn’t imply a negative connotation for Fiji? Click here.

"I am now never ... surprised at the insidious propaganda of the MSM these days. The great masses of the unthinking hoi poloi swallow everything hook line and sinker, and are completely unaware that they are subtly controlled by vested interests whose agendas are completely beyond their ken. And, using the contaminated information gleaned from a corrupt Fourth Estate, vote your politicians into power in a so-called democracy. Free media? I don’t think so! Democracy? Think again.

"The irony is that most New Zealanders feel sorry that Fiji does not have what they would construe as free and fair elections, and that we are ruled by a “dictator”, when, if they stopped to think about it, they are just as much to be pitied , or more so than the Fijian electorate, because they don’t understand that their system is as bad as ours! Even worse because of the insidiousness of the system."

CAKAUDROVE STILL PREVARICATES. Although the Cakaudrove Provincial Council and the Tui Cakau Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu have generally endorsed the changes being ingtroduced by Government, they have still not endorsed the People’s Charter for Change, Peace and Progress: Government's primary document on the way forward on which the Roadmap and Strategic Framework for Change are based. 

The Tui Cakau  persuaded the Council to defer a decision on the Charter until some issues that he declined to specify were clarified with the PM. They appear to be related to changes since the Abrogation of the 1997 Constitution and the Public Emergency Regulations. “I need to hear the views of my chiefs first and at the same time I have to tell them what I think is best for us,” Ratu Naiqama said. He said this was not an easy decision to make because the lives of his people are paramount. He did, however, say that as a chief he needed to follow the protocols that come with it which meant that his views would have to be endorsed by the other chiefs of the province.

We shall have to wait to see what all this means but I am less confident of a genuine reconciliation than I was yesterday when the Tui Cakau was reported as saying he "agreed with the changes imposed by the Government for the betterment of the country" and urged his people "to forget the past and ... work together to make Fiji a better place to live in."

1 comment:

Chipping in said...

Re: Chip 666.

There is an alternative explanation to the widely held opinion about receiving the mark of the beast on the right hand or forehead.

A lot of us equate the mark on the right hand with some kind of computer chip. What we fail to realise is that the book of Revelation, which contains the passage about this mark, is written mostly in symbols.

The right hand symbolises work or labour and the forehead, our intellect or mind.

Therefore it has to do with what we believe in the mind and what we do with the hand.

Those with the "mark of the beast" will be identifiable by their beliefs and actions, not by a chip under the skin.

Ditto for those without it.

What clouds our understanding of this issue is our tendency to focus on just this section of Revelation 13:16-17 and ignore what the rest of the Bible says.

If we are this selective with Bible verses we can use the Bible to "justify" almost anything.