First female PM in Oz?

 So, it seems that Australia now has its first female prime minister.

It's been a pretty exciting last couple of years - both Queensland and New South Wales now have female premiers as well.

The interesting thing though is the fact that (if I remember correctly), not one of the female leaders were actually elected per se, they were simply appointed after the man in the job quit/stepped down. This theory is now moot since I've been told that Anna Bligh was actually elected :) (And yes, I realise that when Australia votes, it's for the party, not the person. But the leader of the party when it got elected was a man, not a woman.) I'm not quite sure what that means, other than, hmm...it's interesting.

Would be curious to see what difference a female PM would have on the country!

The ridiculous price we pay for entertainment

Just read in the news today that the stars of Big Bang Theory are asking for a 285% increase in their paychecks. So if they get their way, they'd be getting about well, $250,000 per episode.

$250,000!?!?

That's about how much I'd possibly earn in several years, and that's not even including the fact that I still have to pay rent, food, petrol, tax and all!

Don't get me wrong, Big Bang Theory is one of my favourite sitcoms. I love the show and I would like to see the actors getting paid for their services. But $250,000 per 30 minute episode? Surely that's a bit much.

Yes, I can see that they probably don't just work 30 minutes to produce an episode, but surely they don't put in, oh, say five years worth of work for it!

And even if they didn't get the pay increase, their current rate of $65,000 per episode has got to be pretty darn good too.


That's per episode folks, not a year. I think they make about 13 episodes per season/year? You do the math.

It's a really strange statement it makes about the state of our world today, that we put so much value in entertainment that those in the industry are one of the most highest paid professionals in the world.

Even a doctor, who saves lives, don't get paid that much in a year. And they're actually making a difference in the world.

I have nothing against actors. In fact, I admire their talent and will not hesitate to admit that I'm an ardent consumer of the entertainment industry. But I simply cannot understand or fathom why we would place so much value on what is ultimately meaningless drivel and yet turn a blind eye to the people who contribute so much more to our survival - farmers, medical professionals, teachers and the like.

If I didn't know better, I'd say that our society has become so consumer-driven that we'd pay people big bucks simply so that we can earn even bigger bucks. Oh wait, that's exactly what the TV stations are doing with their TV stars, in the hopes of earning a fortune from companies who will place ads in the shows, in the hopes of earning a fortune from us.

Church personalities?

Seems that some British academics have discovered that church actually attracts a certain demographic of psychological types.

According to the National Church Life Survey (NCLS), "They wondered whether the strong presence of certain psychological characteristics among churchgoers could mean that those with differing psychological types may sometimes feel alienated."

Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, they discovered that there is an extremely high percentage of church attenders whose psychological types are:

S - sensing
F - feeling
J - judging

(there is an almost equal number of E and I types).

In NCLS' media release:

They said the over-representation of preference for “sensing” characterised a community concerned with continuity, with traditions, with stability, and with a God grounded in divine changelessness. “Here is a community concerned with guarding what has been handed down by previous generations.

“A community shaped by such a pronounced preference for sensing may, however, be quite alien to individuals who view the world through the lens of intuition.”

The researchers said the over-representation of preference for judging characterised a community concerned with organisation, with discipline, with structure and with a God who welcomes a regular pattern of worship (whatever that pattern might be).

“Here is a community concerned with valuing regular commitment, advanced planning and respect for guidelines (implicit as well as explicit). Such a community may tend to reject spontaneity and flexibility. A community shaped by such a pronounced preference for judging may, however, be quite alien to individuals who view the world through the lens of perceiving.”

The over-representation of preference for feeling characterised a community concerned with human values, with interpersonal relationships and with a loving and caring God. “Here is a community concerned with peace and with harmony. Such a community may tend to project a feminine profile, given the significantly higher levels of preference for feeling reported among women than among men in many national population studies.

“A community shaped by a preference for feeling may, however, be quite alien to individuals who view the world through the lens of thinking.”

***

I'd always thought that the church attracts a certain personality type, but to have it confirmed by academics is rather interesting to me, perhaps more so because my psychological type doesn't actually match that of the majority.

Perhaps that explains why I get frustrated sometimes and why I cannot understand why people cannot see things the way I do?

And perhaps the reason why churches cannot seem to reach out to everybody in the community is because we lack the understanding on how to reach out to certain personality types that are foreign to our own?

What about Jesus? Does He appeal only to certain personality types, or is it simply a church/organised religion thing?

Enough

While editing an article for work a few days back, I came across this verse from the Bible:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised" (Job 1:21).

I've been thinking a lot about shopping, owning...well, material possessions, lately, thanks largely to this book by John Naish:

It's an interesting book. I don't completely agree with what Naish has to say, largely because he believes our drive to consume more, work more, want more options, become more technologically dependent, etc., stems from our Neanderthal roots.

But despite the strong evolutionary emphasis, both the book and the verse got me wondering, "Just how attached am I to my material possessions?"

I'd like to believe that I'm not that attached, that I really can live without whatever material goods I've got in my life. After all, going on holidays have proven to me that I really can survive with only a few items of clothing and without whatever I've got at home.

But if that's true, then why do I sometimes feel an innate need to go shopping and buy more? If I am not attached to the stuff that I've got, why do I want to get more of the same (or not so same) stuff?

Because ultimately, it's all just...stuff, isn't it? Why do we fill our lives with so much stuff? So much so that we transform our garages into stuff-holding rooms and perhaps even hire storage areas just to hold more of our stuff. Stuff that we may not even know we've got, or even need to have.

Sure, some of it makes a lives better or entertains us, but do we need to have that much stuff that we don't even have time to use all the stuff?

And if we don't actually purchase all that stuff, will we feel willing and able to give the money used to obtain those stuff to the poor?

Perhaps it's time to rethink all the stuff in our lives or even our need to introduce more stuff into our lives because after all, just as we've entered naked into this world, we will depart naked, without our stuff.

How attached are you to your stuff?