Gridiron Gang

Every now and again you watch a movie that challenges the status quo. Check out “Gridiron Gang”, based on a true story of juvenile probation officer Sean Porter, who takes a group of youth that society has given up on and gives them a second chance.

The movie starts with some sobering statistics 75% of youth who are released from jail end up back in jail, or killed in drive by shootings. After the “programme” which was basically playing football and being part of a team, the stats are turned around. Many including a so called Christian School wrote off these young men and said they didn’t deserve the chance to play.

Sounds a little like NZ? Ok without the drive by shootings, but similar rates of reoffending exist. We hear the same sort of things, those offending deserve to be in jail, “how dear they have under floor heating in jail, they don’t deserve it”, “lock ‘m up and throw away the key”, I am sure you’ve heard it all and more.

It’s amazing how we accept a Justice system that is not working. Surely our response should be to give hope, to believe in those who have got into trouble, and give them a second chance. If Justice is about restoration, then we need to be a part of it. Weather its working with those in jail, or just those who we connect with everyday at work and school, we need to give people, a second, third, forth, etc…. chance. What made a difference was someone who gave the youth time, and believed in them, and helped them to work towards a common purpose. It wasn’t the game that saved the youth; it was the purpose they found in it.

So get down to the video shop, and get it out, if it doesn’t speak to you, check your heart rate to make sure you are not dead.

Darren

Errrr Rewind...

I'd actually like to add a disclaimer to the last post- I am set in an 'anti nuclear' mindset, i fundametally dont think nuclear is a good thing. However some comments were really general. So yes, like everything, nuclear has its good and bad- there have been major oil spills killing wildlife and air pollution kills plenty of people each year but we still use fossil fuels. I do however think that Nuclear is so powerfull and out of our control when it does go wrong, it can kill tens of thousands of people in a second and then for generations to come. A bit like Agent Orange used in the war. Ha, i feel better now!

Peace out Greenies:)

All Shook up

Nuclear power (or nuclear anything) is a bit foreign to us Kiwis. Even the mare talk of the stuff creates a bit of rif-raf. On Monday an earthquake shook Japan, doing a lot of damage, including infrastructure and sadly, loss of life. As Jim Rice states in this article, it also woke us up to dangers of Nuclear matter. The biggest plant and probably one of the most sophisticated, managed to create an environmental disaster, with over 300 gallons of nuclear goo spilling.

This highlights, nuclear power or weaponry etc is not fool proof, or natural disaster proof. What can go wrong, will go wrong. We cant just hope for the best and make sure there is a safety kit on every wall in the plant. It just wont be enough, it wont save us. The risks are too great when it comes to Nuclear stuff.

(there is also a link to the article "Is Nuclear the Answer?" in the above article)

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Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.
- Frederick Douglass

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