Australia and India celebrate

January 26, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
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It’s Australia Day but it appears that we’re not the only ones being patriotic today.

I didn’t realise until I read this news article from BBC News that today is India’s Republic Day, celebrating the end of British rule in India back in 1950.

India obtained its independence on the 15th of August, 1947, but the Constitution of India only came into effect only on January the 26th, 1950. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the first president of India following January the 26th, 1950.

I’m sure that there’ll be plenty of celebrations across India. The Indian people are very proud of their nation and they love a big occasion.

The main celebrations for the day will include a visit to India Gate in the nation’s capital, New Delhi. You can click on the photo in this post for a closer look at me at India Gate in February 2003 during my first visit to India. I’m the one in red surrounded by the media pack who were interviewing me following a bicycle ride from Agra to Delhi. You can see India Gate itself in the top left corner of the photo.

It’s been almost two years since my last visit to India. I dreamt about being in India again last night. I’d love to hop on a plane and head back there sometime but I have no idea when or if that might happen. I’ve mentioned to a few people that it’d be great to be in Delhi for the Commonwealth Games in 2010.

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Why do you blog?

January 25, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
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Want to win an iPod Shuffle?

If you’re a blogger and you’d be prepared to answer a short survey about why you blog, you can go into the running to win an iPod Shuffle.

Just follow this link to fill out the survey.

I’d also be keen to see you add a few details about why you blog to the comments section of this post. Tell me why you started blogging and what keeps you going. What’s the most rewarding part of blogging for you? Do you find blogging difficult at times? (Don’t feel you need to answer all those questions.)

Thanks to Michael at Odd Socks for pointing me to the survey.

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A funny thing happened ….

January 24, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
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Each Wednesday I’m joined by Louise Kelman during my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM.

Lou is a comedy performer who, together with her sister Suzanne, wrote a book titled Big Purple Undies. After its huge success they wrote a show based around the book and toured it very succesfully through the US.

As well as looking at a number of weird but true news stories, we tend to chat about anything and nothing at the same time.

You can click here and our very random chat from this morning.

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The spirituality of Tai Chi

January 24, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
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It might look like the slow motion section of a martial arts movie but Tai Chi continues to be embraced by people across a range of ages throughout the world. I’m sure that most of us have seen people going through the motions out in parks at one time or another.

Being what’s described as a ‘soft’ martial art, Tai Chi is practiced by many older people to help with balance and to keep themselves mobile and healthy. But there’s another side to Tai Chi – a spiritual side.

Does Tai Chi help not only with our physical balance but with our spiritual balance? Is the kind of spirituality it promotes healthy or something we should avoid? Can Tai Chi be practiced without the spiritual element, purely for better health?

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

Today Ross tried to answer some of the questions about Tai Chi and you can listen to our conversation by clicking here.

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Throwing it all away

January 24, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
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We seem to live in such a disposable society.

When we got our current computer at home some years back we got a scanner and a printer to go with it. The printer worked well for quite some time but developed a couple of minor issues more recently. Nothing we couldn’t work around but annoying at times.

The scanner’s still OK but it can be a little noisy and occasionally temperamental.

We recently ran out of coloured ink for the printer and so Pauline was looking to get a replacement cartridge. The strange thing was she found that with a current cash back offer, it would be cheaper to buy a brand new combined printer and scanner unit complete with ink than to buy a colour cartridge for our old printer.

So the choice was between buying a colour cartridge for a printer that doesn’t work as well as it could and spending less money to replace both the printer and scanner with a brand new unit.

I suppose you know which option we took.

It really doesn’t make any sense does it? The new unit has the advantage of newer technology and it certainly takes up less space than the two previous units.

So many devices these days have dropped in price so much that it’s cheaper to replace items than to have a technician fix even the simplest of faults.

Have you found similar circumstances? Is it a good thing? What are the downsides to our throw away mentality?

By the way, we will be finding a new home for the old items so that they don’t end up clogging up landfill sites.

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