>Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva: “This is a crisis that was caused by people, white with blue eyes. And before the crisis they looked as if they knew everything about economics. Once again the great part of the poor in the world that were still not yet [getting] their share of development that was caused by globalisation, they were the first ones to suffer. Since I am not acquainted with any black bankers, I can only say that this part of humanity that is the major victim of the world crisis, these people should pay for the crisis? I cannot accept that. If the G20 becomes a meeting just to set another meeting, we’ll be discredited and the crisis can deepen.” The Independent
Let’s say a president said “XXX was caused by black people”. Whoa! Hello race war! To me this isn’t about race or the colour of the skin. It’s about power and extreme capitalist ideology, and yes, the crisis is the fault of Western bankers and Western politicians – but the traits of greed, corruption and ignorance are definitely colour blind.
One of the comments to the article concludes: “Politicians created the bloody regulatory environment, banks abused it and foreign governments of the developing World milked it.”
The yellow parts are uninhabitable desert. The brown parts are uninhabitable due to floods, drought or extreme weather.
If the planet warms by 4 °C – as it might by 2099 – it will change beyond all recognition, says Gaia Vince in an article in New Scientist. The article closes with the quote of Nobel prizewinning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen: “I would like to be optimistic that we’ll survive, but I’ve got no good reason to be. In order to be safe, we would have to reduce our carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2015. We are currently putting in 3 per cent more each year.”
Reducing emissions by 70 per cent in six years? That will never happen. Never. Mankind is simply too dumb. People will definitely be forced to migrate in order to survive. It will require “a wholesale relocation of the world’s population according to the geography of resources”, meaning moving people where the water is. In the northern hemisphere they’ll end up in Scandinavia, Siberia and Canada. In the southern hemisphere, “Patagonia, Tasmania and the far north of Australia, New Zealand and perhaps newly ice-free parts of the western Antarctic coast”. Like a friend of mine just said: “Soon you’ll be begging us to let you move to Sweden”…
You might also want to read A survey of the the sea: Troubled waters, a series of nine articles in The Economist. Start with the first one, Troubled waters, and read on. “It is clear, in any event, that man must change his ways. Humans could afford to treat the sea as an infinite resource when they were relatively few in number, capable of only rather inefficient exploitation of the vasty deep and without as yet a taste for fossil fuels. A world of 6.7 billion souls, set to become 9 billion by 2050, can no longer do so. The possibility of widespread catastrophe is simply too great.”
>With the Roadburn Festival 2009 rapidly approaching I thought I’d share the bootleg video of Neurosis live at Roadburn 2007 with the world (Hello Africa!). Right-click here to download. (717 MB) For a good audio stream of the gig click here.
>I was recommended this book by work colleague Ronnie Haag the other day and I was totally blown away. My fellow worker is into boxing, Bukowski, writing and real life – amongst many other things, of course (check out his books, one about Charles Bukowski and one about Muhammad Ali) – and since real life is a bitch, and this book is all about that, it’s a book that touched my soul. It made me cry, just like when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy (I wrote some words about that masterpiece in 2006, read the article here). At first, it may seem like it’s a book about boxing. Nothing wrong with that, since F.X. Toole (pen name for Jerry Boyd), a boxing trainer himself, is a magician when it comes to describing the art. However, to me this ain’t that much about boxing. When you get past the first fifty pages or so, you’ll see that this is about life and its setbacks and tragedies, the grieving of lost friends and family, sorrow and tears, shattered dreams. It’s about friendship and trust. Loneliness and sadness. But as darkness descends there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. Or is there? It’s a truly heartwrenching story that really made me think deeply about life. You know, the usual crap one thinks about everyday, but sometimes some things make you think harder. Pound For Pound is such a thing. Mind you, it’s not a Rocky story. Life has very few happy endings…
Toole’s way of handling characters is magnificent. The characters are real. The story is real. You can feel the pain and the intensity. You can taste the blood and defeat. Like it says on the back cover: ”Pound For Pound is the story of men down but not out: old men whose lives have been tough and young men searching for glory”. But don’t get caught up by this ”men” thing, though. It’s about people, not about gender. In fact, I first noticed F.X. Toole when Clint Eastwood adapted Toole’s collection of short stories Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner into the worthy film Million Dollar Baby in 2004. The movie tells the story of Maggie Fitzgerald, a 31 year old white trash waitress who decides to make a difference through boxing. I think the movie kind of captures the sadness and melancholy, how life is about finding your passion and giving it your all, even though you still won’t make it (whatever that means). It’s about being able to look back and say ”I did alright” instead of ”I did nothing”. When reading Pound For Pound this feeling is so much stronger. As real as it gets, to quote an old UFC slogan.
F.X. Toole Born 1930 Published Rope Burns, his first book, in 2000 at the age of 70 He died in 2002 Pound For Pound was released in 2006
>Who watches the watchmen? Well, I did yesterday, alongside two men in their early 30’s who hadn’t read the book and didn’t know shit and thus kept asking themselves what the hell was going on. I don’t think they enjoyed the movie, and I don’t think they will read the book.
99 times out of 100 the book is better than the movie. The book gives you the insight and depth, whereas the movie brings the visuals, the surface. The Watchmen comic book is the creation of Alan Moore (author) and Dave Gibbons (artist). The Watchmen movie is directed by Zack Snyder. Claudio Marino comments on my earlier Watchmen post: ”A friend of mine said that Snyder has made an adaptation of Gibbon’s part, not Moore’s”. I totally agree with that. Still, I enjoyed watching Watchmen. A lot. Having read the book at least three times in a short period of time just before seeing the movie was a good thing to do. I knew every part. And my jaw dropped to the floor when faced with what Snyder has created. It was awesome seeing the comic book come to life in a frame-by-frame way. So many details! I guess I missed 90% of all the stuff going on in the background, but when it’s released on Blu-ray I’ll catch up.
However, everything CGI is pretty much crap, especially when they’re on Mars. And the sex scenes and some of the fight scenes are very dull and could’ve been made a whole lot better (Speaking of sex, I noticed that Dr. Manhattans cock is way larger in the movie. You digest that for a second… *insert smiley here* ) As for the fight scenes I had expected more ”normal” stuff, not The Matrix fighting. I mean, only Dr. Manhattan is supposed to have real superpowers, right? The whole thing with the superhero story is that it’s ordinary people doing what superheroes do, but in a realistic way. Saying that, I think the movie focuses on the superhero thing too much. In my opinion the book is not at all about superheroes…
The casting is good, but again – only on the visual side. The actors look like they do in the comic book, but that’s pretty much it. I cannot feel the characters as much as I do in the book, with one exception: Rorschach! Hail Jackie Earle Haley! He’s definitely spot on. The rest of the actors are pretty much meaningless, soulless (so I guess Billy Crudup playing Dr. Manhattan does a good job after all…).
The music is quite different than expected (I chose not to read reviews before watching this one, so I didn’t know anything about the music); Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan… Sure, there are references to Dylan’s lyrics and such in the book, but I’m not sure if the actual music fits. I like the songs, but nah… It felt strange. I laughed at the Apocalypse Now reference in Vietnam, though.
So, the visual take on Snyder’s Watchmen deserve applause. But Alan Moore, who has always hated his stories turned into movies (check the end of this article), will definitely hate what Snyder has done. There’s no depth to be found. Whereas the comic book takes on so many different aspects of story telling (the news vendor, the kid reading the comic book about pirates, the gay cab driver and her activist girlfriend, The New Frontiersman, the imaginary books and articles, the in-depth dialogue about politics and philosophy…), the movie mostly focuses on the visuals and the superheroes. In the comic book characters working in the background take on leading roles (for example, the pirate story becomes part of the narrative), and the level of details and depth is simply amazing. That’s what makes the book so fascinating. The importance of all these techniques and characters is pretty much left out in the movie. Also, changing the ending was not a good move.
All in all, I still rate Watchmen 4 out of 5. It’s the best adaptation of a comic book so far and it is very well put together. 2 hours and 45 minutes went in a rush. I’m really looking forward to the Blu-ray release which hopefully will bring extended scenes, audio commentaries, documentaries, behind the scenes… I’ll be checking out Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic and Watchmen: Tales of The Black Freighter as well. Read about those releases here.
Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flow’r; he flee’th as it were a shadow, and ne’er continueth in one stay.
In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself.
I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, from henceforth blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord, ev’n so said the Spirit, for they rest, from their labours.
Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy upon us.
Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Amen.
Religion, as fascinating and beautiful as it is disgusting and ugly. The hand that strangles and the hand that heals is the same… This is shown with true perfection by Deathspell Omega, especially on the Kénôse EP. They bring forth the ultimate combination of music and ideology, philosophy and theology, life and death. Here below are the sounds of the first song on this amazing album. Click here for the lyrics.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva: “This is a crisis that was caused by people, white with blue eyes. And before the crisis they looked as if they knew everything about economics. Once again the great part of the poor in the world that were still not yet [getting] their share of development that was caused by globalisation, they were the first ones to suffer. Since I am not acquainted with any black bankers, I can only say that this part of humanity that is the major victim of the world crisis, these people should pay for the crisis? I cannot accept that. If the G20 becomes a meeting just to set another meeting, we’ll be discredited and the crisis can deepen.”
