Protected: Lazy Day Today

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Lazy Day Today

I went to work yesterday after the Christmas break but as no one rang and no one e-mailed me all day I asked my manager for the rest of the week off. It seems all our regulars are off on holidays themselves. So he said I could. I can now see all the films that have been released last week and will be released tomorrow, New Years Day.

Today I went and saw Bright Young Things, Stephen Fry’s directorial debut. It is based on Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies and is about the upper-class social set in the ’30s in Britain. Very brittle and unpleasant characters most of them, but that was the intention. Interesting and amusing light entertainment. But little else. But then that was what they were, a group of rich, privileged and totally irrelevant individuals who garnered publicity through their outrageous and totally decadent lifestyles. All the more shocking in comparison to the rest of society still plunged in the economic depression of the ’30s. The last hurrah of the deadwood of the upper class before WW2 changed the world totally and swept them and the remnants of the British Empire into history. There were a few well-known actors, John Mills (as a cocaine sniffing old dodderer who thought it was snuff) and Peter O’Toole (playing an eccentric old miltary man, father of the main character’s love interest), Simon Callow and Richard E. Grant with cameo appearances but the rest of the cast are unknowns. Can’t say I actively disliked it but then it didn’t excite me much either. Rather neutral about it.

This was in comparison to the other film I saw, a joint Spanish-French production called The Spanish Apartment. It was interesting to compare the set of young people in this film with those of Bright Young Things. And I like this lot much better. They are all young European students sharing an apartment in Barcelona. The main character is Xavier, a Parisian studying economics at the University of Barcelona. There is a Dane, an Italian, a German and an English girl and a Spanish girl as well as a Belgian girl who joins them later. This is a much more human and caring lot than the brittle young things. All of them capable of selfishness but unlike the bright young things of the ’30s, they truly care about their friends. Especially liked it when the Belgian girl (who is gay) gives lessons to Xavier on his technique. Telling him that men never understand how to turn a woman on and she and her girlfriend show him how it is done. That is not shown, just implied. But amusing none the less. I’m glad I saw this after the first.

May go and see Cold Mountain tomorrow and Dogville has just been released and there is the German film, “Goodbye Lenin!” as well. I may have missed Mystic River it has been hanging around for a while so it might have finished this week. There is also Peter Pan. I’m also now into the Patrick O’Brian books after seeing Master and Commander the other week. Am onto the third book in the series, HMS Surprise. Loved the first two, even though I didn’t understand the nautical terms and the tactical manoeuvres of the ships in battle. It is the great care that O’Brian shows in the description and development of the relationship between Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin and the description of the complicated and quite intricate responses among the crew to battle and the harshness of life on board a British naval ship of the time that draws me in. I’m hooked and will gradually work my way through the twenty or so books he wrote. I might have to get the accompanying reference book that explains a lot of the terms, nautical and historical which are rather puzzling to me at times.

Also have to look at the third chapter that White Mist has sent me and comment on it.

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Had the day off today before I go back to work tomorrow. Went and saw ROTK, but was a little disappointed –

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Had the day off today before I go back to work tomorrow. Went and saw ROTK, but was a little disappointed –

Saw ROTK today and I don’t know everyone else is raving about it, but I really couldn’t get all that excited about it. It was all right and maybe it’s that I’m all battle scened out. The best parts I thought were those with Frodo and Sam. Gimli and Legolas seemed to have a limited part of the action in this film and even the final crowning of Aragorn as King didn’t stir me that much. Gandalf had a bigger role but I don’t know but he seemed more the doubter and pessimist, needing geeing up by Aragorn to break him out of his despondency and well it was only at the very end that his character returned to the more active persona he had at the beginning, flying the eagles to save Frodo and Sam from the lava flow.

I liked the scene where Eowyn destroys the Witch-King of the Nazguls, taking off her helmet and crying “I’m a woman!”

Or maybe my reaction to the film is just depression at the end of the series or just I was in a bit of a down mood. Whatever!

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Protected: Mad Cows & Texan Presidents

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Mad Cows & Texan Presidents

The cartoonist and me must have been on the same wave length these last few days!

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Protected: Former Friends and Allies – Where Have They Gone?

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Former Friends and Allies – Where Have They Gone?

I was amused when the first response of the beef industry in the US to the discovery of a case of ‘mad cow'(BSE) disease, was to blame Canada. The strains of that South Park classic, “Blame Canada” instantly sprang to mind.

On coming home I was catching up on the newspapers and saw this interesting little article on former friends and allies of mainly Republican US administrations –

The bad guys we once thought good
December 27, 2003

A few pertinent remarks on our friends in low places who have their friends in high places. By Scott Burchill.

Central Intelligence Agency, Langley Virginia
Office of Villains
Department of Wayward Clients and Unsavoury Friends
Status Report: December 2003
To: George J. Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence

Below is the updated report you asked us to prepare with comments, in light of Saddam’s apprehension. With the exception of Warren Anderson, we have omitted US nationals (e.g. Kissinger) from the list.

Deceased

Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Nicolae Ceausescu (Romania), Mobutu Sese Seko (Congo/Zaire), Pol Pot (Cambodia), Heydar Aliyev (Azerbaijan)

Comment: Good friends before most became liabilities. Marcos – greatly admired by Paul Wolfowitz – died soon after we got him to Hawaii, while Ceausescu passed on more suddenly than we expected after many years of loyal service. Pol Pot hung on far too long but had the decency to keep out of sight until the end. Aliyev was much appreciated for bringing dynastic succession and a pro-Western oil policy to Central Asia.

In custody on trial or awaiting trial

Manuel Noriega (Panama), Slobodan Milosevic (fmr Yugoslavia – The Hague), Saddam Hussein (Iraq)

Comment: We managed to gloss over the revelation that Noriega was on the CIA payroll under GWB’s father before jailing him. Hopefully we can do the same to Saddam, though US and UK support for his WMD programs during the 1980s and 1990s could prove very embarrassing in court. Ditto for Chirac and the Russians. Big mistake taking him alive. Footage of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in 1983 and not mentioning WMD looks bad, though networks can be trusted to show restraint despite the approaching 20th anniversary (esp Fox).

Faking illness to avoid trial

Augusto Pinochet (Chile), Soeharto (Indonesia)

Comment: Pinochet is senile and, thanks to the Brits, at little further legal risk. Soeharto has the worst human rights record of all and would be easy to nab from Jakarta, though opposition from admirers like Wolfowitz and friends in Canberra should be expected. Too much detail about our support for his 1965 massacres has already leaked out. Has enough knowledge and residual military support to buy immunity and a quiet suburban death on his own terms.

On the run

Osama bin Laden (Saudi Arabia)

Comment: Still unclear how much money and arms we actually gave him to fight the Sovs in Afghanistan. Now protected by Islamists in the Pakistan military and assorted Taliban. Will be difficult to apprehend without losing Musharraf in the process. Priority here is control of the Islamic bomb.

Free

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvallier (Haiti – in France), Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Central African Republic), Hector Gramajo (fmr defence minister, Guatemala – in Guatemala)

Comment: Hopefully forgotten (we are trying).

New Friends (undemocratic)

Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan), Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan), Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenistan), Teodoro Obiang (Equatorial Guinea), Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria)

Comment: A measure of our new commitment to spreading democratic politics. Some have oil, one is Stalinist, all have corruption. None have democracy. Like old friends in the Gulf, they have been advised not to take GWB’s freedom and democracy speeches seriously.

Given sanctuary by US

Jose Guillermo Garcia (fmr head of El Salvador armed forces, 1980s – Florida), Cuban and Haitian exiles (Florida), South Vietnamese army officers (California)

Comment: We now believe there are more terrorists per square kilometre in Florida than any other place on earth – all with safe haven. Most are from the abattoir states of Central America under Reagan.

It’s a battle to keep them away from snooping journalists when they slip their agency minders. Just as well GWB’s dictum about countries that provide sanctuary to terrorists doesn’t apply to Miami.

Refusing to extradite

Emmanuel Constant (leader of paramilitary group FRAPH in Haiti who murdered thousands in the 1990s – in NYC)

Comment: Avoid comparison with the Taliban’s refusal to extradite Osama after 9/11. Haiti is unlikely to bomb the East Coast.

Warren Anderson (chairman of Union Carbide, now Dow Chemical), responsible for the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India that killed 16,000 people – Long Island, New York)

Comment: They are only Indians, after all. Even Delhi is reluctant to compensate the victims and 120,000 survivors. Unlikely to ever face charges of culpable homicide.

Unindicted

Ariel Sharon (Israel)

Comment: Long record of brutality, most notably in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Rebadged “man of peace” by GWB in the Orwellian sense. European travel may become difficult.

Turkish leaders

Comment: No longer so well disposed after they failed to help us out in Iraq. Army even refused Wolfowitz’s order to defy the government and back the invasion.

Remember not to call Turkey’s attacks on its Kurdish population “terrorism” because we supplied them with the means to do it. As with Colombia, our money officially goes to the guys in the white hats – or in this case – the white fezzes.

Scott Burchill lectures in international relations at Deakin University.
burchill@deakin.edu.au

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Happy Christmas Everyone!

Am going up the coast again to visit wit my parents at Christmas and will be back on Sunday night. Hope everyone has a great Christmas and an even better New Year.

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Xmas Greetings from Dubya

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