Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Monday, September 23, 2019
Pulse (2001)
I recently watched a long, unedited clip of footage captured by a CBS news cameraman who was caught beneath the WTC when the North Tower came down in 2001.
I have such vivid memories of that day that I find it hard to comprehend that it is now a generation away.
I was on the phone to colleague working from home with the news on in the background when the second plane hit. Shortly afterwards another colleague seated beside me was on the phone to her mother who was fleeing north along Broadway on a bus, describing people jumping from the windows.
There appears to be a sort of fixed nowness to these moments.
But a viewing this week of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001) has reminded me just how distant 9-11 really is.
One can watch the footage and reflect on the absence of smartphones and their cameras. But Kurosawa’s movie is set in a time and place where the online world was literally a very different realm altogether.
Japan was perhaps always a little behind in this respect. On my first visit in 2010 I struggled to get online in hotels requiring cables and adaptors and there was almost no easy access to wifi out on the streets. Some knowledge of Kanji (or above-average ability at guess-work) seemed to be prerequisite for logging on to any ISP, just as it was for taking out cash from an ATM in Kyoto.
Watching these young Japanese students wrestle with dial-up and obscure chat rooms and bulletin boards has reminded me of the innate mood of social isolation that was an unavoidable part of the ‘anonymous’ digital experience throughout the 90s. This Internet is almost completely different to the one we have now. For one thing, it was optional. And there was no clear distinction between the dark and bright webs; it was all a bit crepuscular.
The supernatural contents of this ultimately apocalyptic movie are an open-ended metaphor for real-life loneliness and deadening effect of urban routines. The after-life is finite, one character speculates, and now these surplus lost souls are leaking back into our world via our devices. The affected young people first find a floppy disk which leads them to a place online called the Forbidden Room where limbo is awaiting its moment of infiltration.
"On the Internet nobody knows if you are (really) alive"...
I cannot say I fully understood this film on a rational level, but it has left me suitably disturbed.
One of the most unnerving questions it transmits as an aside is this. If death could be cured by a pill, how would you choose to lead your eternal life?
RIP Fredy 'Tito' Sierra...
The ex-vocalist and composer of Grupo Rana, Fredy 'Tito' Sierra has passed away.
We had a highly memorable evening watching them perform live at El Manhattan (now known as the front bit of the Bodegona) back in '89 when the group had only recently formed.
He wrote both this track and Aventurero.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Non-Networking
It's clear that La Antigua's plastic bag ban has gone all que sera sera, like pretty much everything else in this country. Rolling it out to national level by 2021 when it is clearly failing at the local is just the sort of vacuous virtue-signalling nonsense we are now being forced to swallow. (See recent post on antibiotics). The sort of thing that congressmen with cocaine labs in their back yards would come up with. Anyway, how about some recycling options?
However....this idea recently trialled at a transgender conference is something I could really get behind. Would-be pedestrians in town would be obliged to visit El Castillo or La Mariposa to purchase little round red, yellow or green stickers to be worn conspicuously on the forehead or gorra.
This would come in especially handy at La Bodegona.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
True-Doh
Writing on The Spectator's blog this week, Brendan O'Neill suggested we should forgive Justin Trudeau for his costume choices nearly two decades ago, whilst noting that "If you live by the sword of wokeness, you might die by it too."
Back in the 90s we both worked alongside an organisation in London that held an annual Christmas fancy dress party. I'm sure that whoever is the guardian of the photo library these days could make any number of fairly distinguished people get down on their knees and grovel.
I remember one Egyptian-themed evening (who would even DARE such a thing today?) in which there were pharaohs a-plenty yet one participant rather more memorably showed up with a tea-towel on his head, shoe polish on his face and sporting a plastic AK-47.
Luby went as Cleopatra; of course. It makes you wonder if there is a specific shade of whiteness one has to have been born with whereby certain creative uses of makeup are likely to be considered the equivalent of a thought crime. (There's definitely a whiteness tipping point beyond which people should be discouraged from dancing to reggaeton.)
Retribution came rather more swiftly for several of the beautifully be-robed viziers that night in Battersea Park who, upon exiting the yellow, pyramid-like tent around 4am, were immediately set upon by the sort of social justice warriors then referred to as yobbos.
In the specific case of Trudeau, I perhaps have a bigger issue with the clip of him going full Black Pitaya as a Jamaican singer than the dusky turbaned personage that the media has fixated on.
It must be kind of hard to hold an Aladdin-themed bash without unwittingly exploring cultural stereotypes. The characters originated in an authentically middle-eastern narrative, but generations of westerners have been repeatedly exposed to treatments bearing all the hallmarks of what Edward Said characterised as Orientalism.
Here in La Antigua last weekend ladino kids in folkloric get-up paraded with placards demanding an end to ethnic discrimination. How long before the cultural appropriation cops are taking names?
Wokeness, like evangelical protestantism, is a banana skin waiting to be stepped on.
Back in the 90s we both worked alongside an organisation in London that held an annual Christmas fancy dress party. I'm sure that whoever is the guardian of the photo library these days could make any number of fairly distinguished people get down on their knees and grovel.
I remember one Egyptian-themed evening (who would even DARE such a thing today?) in which there were pharaohs a-plenty yet one participant rather more memorably showed up with a tea-towel on his head, shoe polish on his face and sporting a plastic AK-47.
Luby went as Cleopatra; of course. It makes you wonder if there is a specific shade of whiteness one has to have been born with whereby certain creative uses of makeup are likely to be considered the equivalent of a thought crime. (There's definitely a whiteness tipping point beyond which people should be discouraged from dancing to reggaeton.)
Retribution came rather more swiftly for several of the beautifully be-robed viziers that night in Battersea Park who, upon exiting the yellow, pyramid-like tent around 4am, were immediately set upon by the sort of social justice warriors then referred to as yobbos.
In the specific case of Trudeau, I perhaps have a bigger issue with the clip of him going full Black Pitaya as a Jamaican singer than the dusky turbaned personage that the media has fixated on.
It must be kind of hard to hold an Aladdin-themed bash without unwittingly exploring cultural stereotypes. The characters originated in an authentically middle-eastern narrative, but generations of westerners have been repeatedly exposed to treatments bearing all the hallmarks of what Edward Said characterised as Orientalism.
Here in La Antigua last weekend ladino kids in folkloric get-up paraded with placards demanding an end to ethnic discrimination. How long before the cultural appropriation cops are taking names?
Wokeness, like evangelical protestantism, is a banana skin waiting to be stepped on.
Dust Bowl
During several non-consecutive evenings this week, outside has looked like this on night vision. Invisible to the naked eye however.
We’ve both had the dreaded lurgies with copious quantities of coughing and spluttering, but the respiratory problems have persisted a bit longer than usual.
Could this gunk in the air be responsible? Is it emanating from eructos de volcán or perhaps alternatively from that annual migration of Saharan sand across the pond?
Gazing into the abyss
Watching The Capture has led me to reflect a bit more on CCTV and the nature of the so-called surveillance society.
Last year we had security cameras installed across our properties in La Antigua. This followed a break in at one of them and an incident where someone accused me of a committing a crime right outside my front door. The case went well enough for me and less well for my accuser, as I was out of the country at the time.
However, my lawyer pointed out that in a sense I had got lucky and that CCTV would prevent that kind of nonsense in the future. And he was right, because the cameras outside another house definitely thwarted something of a similar nature just three months after they were installed.
I have always tended to be a little blasé about the risks of living in Guatemala. I grew up in an area of London where one could park one’s vintage Aston Martin beside the pavement outside and expect it to still be there, intact, the following morning. And the locals, while a bit eccentric, tended not to be outright loons.
It has taken 18 months of security cam footage to wake me up to just how much sick shit goes on in this country and to realise that the live feeds are not really making me feel much safer.
In Guatemala surveillance of any sort will quickly remind you of that notable observation by Nietzsche: “When you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
There has been stuff so grim that I’d hesitate to report it here in a public medium. That a woman getting down from a car, defecating and then consuming her own excrement for the amusement of the driver is not one of those unspeakables may give you a sense of how bad it sometimes gets.
There are individuals who seem blissfully unaware of the cameras and others who appear to play up to them.
The horror, when it occurs, is matched by a sense of helplessness, for over the years I have also learned that it is never safe to get involved in other people’s business in a village such as this.
The cops are rarely the ideal recourse. Indeed one of the more amusing clips in our collection is an all-night orgy which took place in a PNC patrol car right outside our principal residence.
There have been some genuinely heartwarming moments as well, yet these are somehow less memorable.
The cameras have also played a role in souring relations with the local COCOPRE (residents group) of which we were active participants until the requests to see specific clips from our feeds started getting out of hand. When one newcomer to the gatherings mentioned the possibility of getting his mates at military intelligence involved, that's enough, I concluded.
Last year we had security cameras installed across our properties in La Antigua. This followed a break in at one of them and an incident where someone accused me of a committing a crime right outside my front door. The case went well enough for me and less well for my accuser, as I was out of the country at the time.
However, my lawyer pointed out that in a sense I had got lucky and that CCTV would prevent that kind of nonsense in the future. And he was right, because the cameras outside another house definitely thwarted something of a similar nature just three months after they were installed.
I have always tended to be a little blasé about the risks of living in Guatemala. I grew up in an area of London where one could park one’s vintage Aston Martin beside the pavement outside and expect it to still be there, intact, the following morning. And the locals, while a bit eccentric, tended not to be outright loons.
It has taken 18 months of security cam footage to wake me up to just how much sick shit goes on in this country and to realise that the live feeds are not really making me feel much safer.
In Guatemala surveillance of any sort will quickly remind you of that notable observation by Nietzsche: “When you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
There has been stuff so grim that I’d hesitate to report it here in a public medium. That a woman getting down from a car, defecating and then consuming her own excrement for the amusement of the driver is not one of those unspeakables may give you a sense of how bad it sometimes gets.
There are individuals who seem blissfully unaware of the cameras and others who appear to play up to them.
The horror, when it occurs, is matched by a sense of helplessness, for over the years I have also learned that it is never safe to get involved in other people’s business in a village such as this.
The cops are rarely the ideal recourse. Indeed one of the more amusing clips in our collection is an all-night orgy which took place in a PNC patrol car right outside our principal residence.
There have been some genuinely heartwarming moments as well, yet these are somehow less memorable.
The cameras have also played a role in souring relations with the local COCOPRE (residents group) of which we were active participants until the requests to see specific clips from our feeds started getting out of hand. When one newcomer to the gatherings mentioned the possibility of getting his mates at military intelligence involved, that's enough, I concluded.
Prescription Only
Guatemala's new law designed to stop people purchasing antibiotics without a prescription — coming into effect this week — is problematic on so many levels for me.
The country has no real equivalent to the National Health Service in the UK, so any dictat that prevents people of limited means from accessing these medicines, especially in an emergency, without a prior visit to a doctor is bound to result in unnecessary additional suffering, if not fatalities.
Once my mother passed eighty she tended to suffer from recurring bacterial infections. She had private medical insurance and was hospitalised each time this happened. This was absurd, but she would have been in a real pickle if she didn't have an easy option.
The law here seems to have a blanket effect. Yet like almost all laws here (viz plastic bags) it is bound not to be enforced with anything like fairness or consistency.
What of really handy treatments for people (women in particular) with occasional urinary tract infections such as one-shot fosfomycin?
After the first receta surely they should be allowed to repeat on their own discretion? Or maybe certain medications should be excluded from the provision?
And then what of people with pets? When Osli was nearing the end his skin cancer resulted in infections which I was treating regularly with amoxycilin. A vet would have had him put him down immediately. Part of the problem was the way the original outbreak was handled with an operation. (Clavi used to suffer from regular urinary tract infections until I discovered the curative powers of apple cider vinegar.)
But cats and dogs are always picking up minor infections and transporting them to and from the vet is sometimes more irksome than the equivalent effort for humans.
Pharmacists can surely be trained to function as gatekeepers, excluding those who'd self-heal a sniffle with penicillin.
And just how is one to stockpile for the zombie apocalypse...!
The country has no real equivalent to the National Health Service in the UK, so any dictat that prevents people of limited means from accessing these medicines, especially in an emergency, without a prior visit to a doctor is bound to result in unnecessary additional suffering, if not fatalities.
Once my mother passed eighty she tended to suffer from recurring bacterial infections. She had private medical insurance and was hospitalised each time this happened. This was absurd, but she would have been in a real pickle if she didn't have an easy option.
The law here seems to have a blanket effect. Yet like almost all laws here (viz plastic bags) it is bound not to be enforced with anything like fairness or consistency.
What of really handy treatments for people (women in particular) with occasional urinary tract infections such as one-shot fosfomycin?
After the first receta surely they should be allowed to repeat on their own discretion? Or maybe certain medications should be excluded from the provision?
And then what of people with pets? When Osli was nearing the end his skin cancer resulted in infections which I was treating regularly with amoxycilin. A vet would have had him put him down immediately. Part of the problem was the way the original outbreak was handled with an operation. (Clavi used to suffer from regular urinary tract infections until I discovered the curative powers of apple cider vinegar.)
But cats and dogs are always picking up minor infections and transporting them to and from the vet is sometimes more irksome than the equivalent effort for humans.
Pharmacists can surely be trained to function as gatekeepers, excluding those who'd self-heal a sniffle with penicillin.
And just how is one to stockpile for the zombie apocalypse...!
Friday, September 20, 2019
Amidst all the wrecks...
One of our oldest friends here in La Antigua has a successful, long-established business on the Calle del Arco. I’ll leave readers to guess which one based on what I am about to say.
He once explained to us the principle of all long-thriving negocios here: you have to be selling something pretty unique, something that the local would-be copycats cannot easily duplicate.
Trends come and go in this town, almost all distinguished by the arrival and subsequent besieging of the first movers. Cyber cafés, spas, coffee shops etc. The general effect is of a xerox machine out of control. A phenomenon that economists tend to refer to the as the overgrazing of the commons.
Outright clones like Pollo Granjero are a common enough phenomenon, yet few have the longevity.
The other day we were reflecting on how many of the businesses that were here when we met have kept going all these years.
Almost all the survivors have been offering something sui generis, have built a brand resistant to mimicry, or have always been the sort of businesses that never really had to turn an actual profit.
There really aren’t that many on our list. Back then there was no Bodegona, no Frida’s, no Monoloco, no La Casbah...no Macdonalds or Burger King even.
There were however certain establishments which even then gave the impression of having been around almost eternally, with the clear intention to remain unmoved on the same spot forever — Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, La Fonda de la Calle Real, Doña Maria Gordillo, Cafe Ana, La Mariposa, La Canche. Doña Luisa perhaps embodies the perfect package of brand, location and offering.
Then there are those like Quesos y Vino, La Cenicienta and El Sereno which have evolved, changed premises, expanded, though one can still almost guarantee dining utterly alone at the latter. Others like La Hamburguesa Gigante that have persisted only as a disembodied name.
Welten has changed too, but in ways that make me think that I am observing it today as if from a self-propelled deep submergence vehicle drifting through a deep ocean wreck.
He once explained to us the principle of all long-thriving negocios here: you have to be selling something pretty unique, something that the local would-be copycats cannot easily duplicate.
Trends come and go in this town, almost all distinguished by the arrival and subsequent besieging of the first movers. Cyber cafés, spas, coffee shops etc. The general effect is of a xerox machine out of control. A phenomenon that economists tend to refer to the as the overgrazing of the commons.
Outright clones like Pollo Granjero are a common enough phenomenon, yet few have the longevity.
The other day we were reflecting on how many of the businesses that were here when we met have kept going all these years.
Almost all the survivors have been offering something sui generis, have built a brand resistant to mimicry, or have always been the sort of businesses that never really had to turn an actual profit.
There really aren’t that many on our list. Back then there was no Bodegona, no Frida’s, no Monoloco, no La Casbah...no Macdonalds or Burger King even.
There were however certain establishments which even then gave the impression of having been around almost eternally, with the clear intention to remain unmoved on the same spot forever — Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, La Fonda de la Calle Real, Doña Maria Gordillo, Cafe Ana, La Mariposa, La Canche. Doña Luisa perhaps embodies the perfect package of brand, location and offering.
Then there are those like Quesos y Vino, La Cenicienta and El Sereno which have evolved, changed premises, expanded, though one can still almost guarantee dining utterly alone at the latter. Others like La Hamburguesa Gigante that have persisted only as a disembodied name.
Welten has changed too, but in ways that make me think that I am observing it today as if from a self-propelled deep submergence vehicle drifting through a deep ocean wreck.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Rojo (2018)
Benjamin Naishtat's Rojo is a study in creeping ominousness, which looks at the lesser parochial evils that form the foundations of the greater evil of dictatorship.
Set in a made-up small town in Argentina in 1975, just before the Junta took power, the narrative tracks a cluster of incidents in the life of lawyer Claudio, played by Dario Grandinetti as a self-styled person of provincial substance whose moral compass is starting to spin.
Its most unsettling moment is an altercation in a restaurant right at the start and although it does its job in keeping the viewer rattled throughout, we also had the impression that the movie is never better than its opening sequences and that all its thematically-interwoven jitters never quite deliver as a whole.
There’s a Chilean TV detective that livens things up and I wish I had all the cultural references at my fingertips to know how seriously this character ought to be taken. One suspects there's an in joke going down here.
Set in a made-up small town in Argentina in 1975, just before the Junta took power, the narrative tracks a cluster of incidents in the life of lawyer Claudio, played by Dario Grandinetti as a self-styled person of provincial substance whose moral compass is starting to spin.
Its most unsettling moment is an altercation in a restaurant right at the start and although it does its job in keeping the viewer rattled throughout, we also had the impression that the movie is never better than its opening sequences and that all its thematically-interwoven jitters never quite deliver as a whole.
There’s a Chilean TV detective that livens things up and I wish I had all the cultural references at my fingertips to know how seriously this character ought to be taken. One suspects there's an in joke going down here.
Monday, September 09, 2019
The Quake/Skjelvet (2018)
Sequel to 2015's The Wave (tsunami in the fijords), The Quake takes the nordic noir approach to the build up to an apocalyptic-level seismic event in Oslo.
The effects — set to a honking Hans Zimmer-like score — are generally excellent, with some of the best downwardly-mobile grand piano action since Laurel and Hardy.
Kristoffer Joner plays geologist Kristian, a Cassandra-esque figure who gets a lot more advanced warning than anyone ever had with a major quake, yet still fails to put it to good use.
Overall V found the film's take on the subject a bit '2012'.
Being Norwegian, it delivers its silliness with such a straight face, that you are not quite sure if it wants to be taken in full seriousness.
The effects — set to a honking Hans Zimmer-like score — are generally excellent, with some of the best downwardly-mobile grand piano action since Laurel and Hardy.
Kristoffer Joner plays geologist Kristian, a Cassandra-esque figure who gets a lot more advanced warning than anyone ever had with a major quake, yet still fails to put it to good use.
Overall V found the film's take on the subject a bit '2012'.
Being Norwegian, it delivers its silliness with such a straight face, that you are not quite sure if it wants to be taken in full seriousness.
Friday, September 06, 2019
The Dead Don't Die (2019)
Iggy Pop's coffee-craving zombie is perhaps the only necessary bit of attention-grabbing casting in Jim Jarmusch's largely un-necessary addition to the genre, overpopulated as it is with underused stars and plot-lines.
Think George Romero remade by David Lynch. This is not that movie. Instead it's a rather lame, struggling-to-be-funny parody of what David Lynch would have done with the dusk of the dead.
Our own interest flatlined in direct proportion to the number of reanimated corpses on the street.
Think George Romero remade by David Lynch. This is not that movie. Instead it's a rather lame, struggling-to-be-funny parody of what David Lynch would have done with the dusk of the dead.
Our own interest flatlined in direct proportion to the number of reanimated corpses on the street.
Thursday, September 05, 2019
Extraordinary Levies
These transition periods between Municipal administrations in La Antigua are kind of fun to observe, at a distance.
There is a sudden air of financial urgency. Laws that have not been strictly enforced - especially those involving large-ish fines - are suddenly applied with a visible degree of jobsworthy zealotry.
No helmet? Pay up! Your burger bar acting like an antro? Start coughing. Behind with your IUSI? Hmmmm. Etc.
There is a sudden air of financial urgency. Laws that have not been strictly enforced - especially those involving large-ish fines - are suddenly applied with a visible degree of jobsworthy zealotry.
No helmet? Pay up! Your burger bar acting like an antro? Start coughing. Behind with your IUSI? Hmmmm. Etc.
A Game of Chicken
The Sun’s front cover today features Corbyn as a big chicken; in all truth, a bit of a cock.
Yet I think Blair has really helped Magic Gramps by pointing out in advance — before all of yesterday's big noise — just how dumb it would have been to take the bait.
I did enjoy Corbyn's Snow White and the apple analogy. It's a shame none of the tabloids did a mock-up of that.
Once again I think the pre-campaign polls could be deceptive. The Tories will almost inevitably lose seats in Scotland and the south-east and may find it hard to remove Labour MPs in the north with the Brexit bunch breathing down their necks.
And right now Boris’s personal popularity premium — even with his hardcore adulators — must be reaching third season Mourinho levels.
If Labour and the Lid Dems act smartly, I can definitely see the current opposition getting themselves into a position where a coalition might be feasible. This would be a win-win because I cannot see the Lib Dems making the same mistake and not putting some dampeners on their governmental partners this time around.
Yet I think Blair has really helped Magic Gramps by pointing out in advance — before all of yesterday's big noise — just how dumb it would have been to take the bait.
I did enjoy Corbyn's Snow White and the apple analogy. It's a shame none of the tabloids did a mock-up of that.
Once again I think the pre-campaign polls could be deceptive. The Tories will almost inevitably lose seats in Scotland and the south-east and may find it hard to remove Labour MPs in the north with the Brexit bunch breathing down their necks.
And right now Boris’s personal popularity premium — even with his hardcore adulators — must be reaching third season Mourinho levels.
If Labour and the Lid Dems act smartly, I can definitely see the current opposition getting themselves into a position where a coalition might be feasible. This would be a win-win because I cannot see the Lib Dems making the same mistake and not putting some dampeners on their governmental partners this time around.
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
All Hail the Rebel Alliance!
The Astoria Hotel, Leningrad 1985. Blurry photo by largely unamused Soviet waiter.
I had something of an Afro in those days.
It seems that Eddy Vaizey, front left, will have lost the Conservative whip today. We all knew he'd come good in the end. (His father was a Labour Peer.)
He finds himself in good company - the 'father of the house', the former chancellor, Churchill's grandson and my father's much-appreciated local MP for Newbury, Richard Benyon.
(Carlsberg, probably - in fact definitely - the best lager in the USSR.)
I had something of an Afro in those days.
It seems that Eddy Vaizey, front left, will have lost the Conservative whip today. We all knew he'd come good in the end. (His father was a Labour Peer.)
He finds himself in good company - the 'father of the house', the former chancellor, Churchill's grandson and my father's much-appreciated local MP for Newbury, Richard Benyon.
(Carlsberg, probably - in fact definitely - the best lager in the USSR.)
'Our House is burning'
Jeremy Corbyn's excursion into the Amazon during this morning's crucial Brexit debate was irrelevant, borderline nonsensical, and so typical of his inability to knuckle down on the essence of the current contention.
Westminster may yearn for sovereignty, but that does not include sovereignty over Brazil. Bolsonaro is surely Brazil's problem. (At least until the world finds a way to respond institutionally to globalised capitalism and the worldwide environmental challenges. G7 aint it.)
It's worth pointing out that the Amazon forest's contribution to global oxygen production is around 6% gross, net levels closer to nil. All that biodiversity consumes the stuff as well. Macron's 20% figure is fake news and an excuse for Gallic grandstanding, if not outright meddling. His motives were possibly quite cynical, but along the way he has set off the more naive protestor instincts of Magic Grandpa.
When coverage of the fires came to my own attention, some time before the matter was taken up by CR7, Macron, the Beeb et al, the crux of the issue was the impact on indigenous reserves.
Brazil has reduced deforestation considerably over the last few years, but Bolsonaro's policies signal a possible up-tick for 2019 and a re-opening of the oldest wound in South America: the conflict between the modernising state and the patchwork of less modern, pre-Hispanic societies it would like to subsume. (Remember The Mission?). This is indeed a complex matter for careful consideration...by Brazilians.
By the time the media outside the region had hold of this story it had been re-worked to significantly bother their own educated metropolitan elites. "Lungs of the Earth' and all that. The indigenes had vanished into the intellectual underbrush.
A part of Brazil (Peru etc.) that is almost the size of Australia somehow now belongs to all of us, minus the knuckle-draggers of course.
Westminster may yearn for sovereignty, but that does not include sovereignty over Brazil. Bolsonaro is surely Brazil's problem. (At least until the world finds a way to respond institutionally to globalised capitalism and the worldwide environmental challenges. G7 aint it.)
It's worth pointing out that the Amazon forest's contribution to global oxygen production is around 6% gross, net levels closer to nil. All that biodiversity consumes the stuff as well. Macron's 20% figure is fake news and an excuse for Gallic grandstanding, if not outright meddling. His motives were possibly quite cynical, but along the way he has set off the more naive protestor instincts of Magic Grandpa.
When coverage of the fires came to my own attention, some time before the matter was taken up by CR7, Macron, the Beeb et al, the crux of the issue was the impact on indigenous reserves.
Brazil has reduced deforestation considerably over the last few years, but Bolsonaro's policies signal a possible up-tick for 2019 and a re-opening of the oldest wound in South America: the conflict between the modernising state and the patchwork of less modern, pre-Hispanic societies it would like to subsume. (Remember The Mission?). This is indeed a complex matter for careful consideration...by Brazilians.
By the time the media outside the region had hold of this story it had been re-worked to significantly bother their own educated metropolitan elites. "Lungs of the Earth' and all that. The indigenes had vanished into the intellectual underbrush.
A part of Brazil (Peru etc.) that is almost the size of Australia somehow now belongs to all of us, minus the knuckle-draggers of course.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
It's on US
The somewhat ludicrous Beto O'Rourke is blaming his own nation for Guatemala's present dryness. Now, one can wholeheartedly blame the US for a lot of things down here, but this particular bit of finger pointing is actually rather lame. Liberal self-flagellation in fact.
As of 2017, of worldwide carbon emissions, the US accounted for 13.7%. The UK? A mere 1%. China on the other hand has now attained 29.3% (more than the whole of 'the west') and India's 6.6% needs to be understood in terms of a fourfold increase over thirty years.
Meanwhile, the highest emissions per capita are in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Stopping this catastrophe is going to involve a while load of condoms as well as little Swedish girls taking the boat rather than the plane.
And the Mayab tended to suffer from near-apocalyptic droughts long before the greatest nation on earth even existed.
As of 2017, of worldwide carbon emissions, the US accounted for 13.7%. The UK? A mere 1%. China on the other hand has now attained 29.3% (more than the whole of 'the west') and India's 6.6% needs to be understood in terms of a fourfold increase over thirty years.
Meanwhile, the highest emissions per capita are in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Stopping this catastrophe is going to involve a while load of condoms as well as little Swedish girls taking the boat rather than the plane.
And the Mayab tended to suffer from near-apocalyptic droughts long before the greatest nation on earth even existed.
Holiday (2018)
Isabella Eklöf's debut film is extraordinary. Can't quite see why it is only scoring 5.6 on IMDB. Critical reviews from the festival circuit were almost all positive, though an extended rape scene (comparable it would seem to the one Gaspar Noé shot for Irréversible) was cut from the version we saw.
I'm not sure it was strictly necessary. The edits between scenes with implied information withholdings work especially well. And this does seem to be as much as chilling exposé of toxic femininity as its gender inverse.
Victoria Carmen Sonne's performance as Sascha is on-the-nose. I've come across a trope-tastic trophy wife here in LAG, with whom - on first acquaintance - I was struck by the most profound, direct, eye-to-eye experience of 'lights are on, but nobody's home'...ever.
Narcisismo perdido; cascarón de carnaval; painted and hollow. Sascha is right there, and yet she isn't.
I'm not sure it was strictly necessary. The edits between scenes with implied information withholdings work especially well. And this does seem to be as much as chilling exposé of toxic femininity as its gender inverse.
Victoria Carmen Sonne's performance as Sascha is on-the-nose. I've come across a trope-tastic trophy wife here in LAG, with whom - on first acquaintance - I was struck by the most profound, direct, eye-to-eye experience of 'lights are on, but nobody's home'...ever.
Narcisismo perdido; cascarón de carnaval; painted and hollow. Sascha is right there, and yet she isn't.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)