Category: Random observations

Jim must be recovering after a cold winter in France. He’s obviously missing the sunburnt country a little bit. If only we could take a piece of it over to him…

My brother and I saw House of Flying Daggers at Indooroopilly yesterday. There’s no question that the film was beautifully photographed. Colour played an important role in the movie; the characters tended to ride around on horses quite a bit, and I think the colours of the leaves on the ground and the colours of the tree trunks were supposed to help you figure out where and how far separated the characters were at any given time. Some of the scenes were obviously quite painstakingly composed, perhaps even pretentiously so. Still, the cinematography was among the best I’ve seen in any movie.

However, something was missing from this film, and I think it might well have been the plot. Granted, the writers tried to use twists and surprises to keep the story interesting, but these twists were verging on the ridiculous. It was too easy to come to the conclusion that these plot devices were used for their own sake rather than because they added something significant to the movie. Furthermore, one particular turn in the plot seemed to render one of the more beautiful scenes earlier in the movie completely irrelevant.

Another disappointment was the use of fantasy martial arts of a kind whose execution had not progressed any further than preceding movies of the same genre, notably Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. It was amusing to see the speed with which the soldiers were able to craft sharp stakes out of the bamboo trees through which they were simultaneously running/flying. Moreover, in these kinds of films, the audience can be expected to suspend disbelief only so far. The mark was well and truly overstepped when the flying daggers began to take on heat-seeking or laser-guided properties of which Raytheon would be proud.

The acting was not too bad. Zhang Ziyi, who co-starred in Crouching Tiger and appeared in Hero did a convincing job as a blind assassin. However, she was less convincing in the romantic sub-plot. But perhaps that, again, was the fault of the writers: the characters were soulless.

There was so much wrong with this movie, and yet, it was so incredibly beautiful that one can almost forgive its shortcomings.

When I started reading The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, I said that it was well written and that from the very beginning the reader has a sense of where the book is going. Unfortunately, the book became a little bit too predictable for my liking. Almost every chapter followed the same formula; only the country or continent in question changes. In each chapter, the failings of the mixed economy or communism as it was implemented in a particular region of the world were brought to light, and then the region’s turbulent swing to the free market was examined. The answer to the "where to from here" type question posed in the final chapter could have been dealt with a little more comprehensively. Nevertheless, it remains an excellent book, and one that I am very glad I read.

Yesterday, I bought myself The Filmmaker’s Handbook using the Dymocks voucher Nigel gave me for my birthday. It’s something just a little bit different to read, and a little bit more formal than the "10 Minute Film School" at the back of Rebel Without a Crew (a book I purchased some time ago). Unfortunately, it’s a little bit too big to take to France.

I think I shall turn back to Hardy for reading material in the form of The Hand of Ethelberta. It ought to make good reading for the upcoming trip.

I went with Karen and her parents to Lamington National Park on Saturday.

Karen snapped this great picture of a Lamington Spiny Crayfish at Elabana Falls. More pictures here.

The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect today. A total of 141 industrialised nations have ratified the protocol and are therefore legally bound by it.

The Kyoto Protocol has always been clouded in controversy. Of primary concern (to me anyway) is that even its proponents accept that the reduction in the average global temperature in 2100 will be 0.15°C lower than where it would have been – and that’s only if everything goes according to plan (I think that figure was relevant only if all members of the treaty had ratified the Protocol, and all members met their obligations). I believe the projected increase in temperature over the period to 2100 is in the range of about 1.5°C-6.0°C, so 0.15°C is extremely small compared to the margin of error in temperature increase predictions. Given this, is it really worth the expense? Kyoto was always about politics, not about science. For the other side of the climate change story, visit EnviroTruth.org.

Having said that, hopefully the Kyoto Protocol will be a springboard to bigger and better things. For a start it ought to provide the impetus for spending on "clean technologies" research, which should have implications far beyond the Kyoto Protocol.

I still hold out hope for a more inclusive, far-reaching, economically and scientifically sound agreement to tackle climate change. Perhaps Tony Blair can use Britain’s presidency of the G8 to develop such a framework.

Britain: forward, not back. So states The Labour Party slogan for the upcoming election in the UK. I’ve added some punctuation to make it read okay in text, but I still have a problem with it. Surely the opposite of "forward" is "backward". Otherwise it ought to read Britain: front, not back, which I don’t think has any point at all. The Sunday Times also points out that the slogan may have been lifted from an episode of The Simpsons, in which a cartoon Bill Clinton makes his twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom speech. They might have done a little better.

Yesterday was a day of knee-jerk reactions, misunderstandings and jumping to false conclusions on my part. Some might know to what I allude, and the faster it is forgotten, the better. However, it seems that others may be guilty of perpetrating a similar crime against me. Maybe "crime" is a bit strong, okay, a lot too strong, but you know what I mean.

First, let me say that while I will not be pulling a Rob Schneider in this article, I do wish to respond to a certain critic. My response begins with agreement on certain points. I agree with the Indolence Log, when it says that I could have gone further with my definition of Patriotism. As a reminder, I said that patriotism could be defined as the love of one’s country, region or culture. In the Indolence Log, Anthony says:

Personally, I’d go further, and say that it’s also the love of one’s family, one’s friends and one’s neighbours. It’s also an expression of happiness and acceptance of the environment you find yourself in – that you think the rivers, and the climate and the mountains and the sights are wonderful and don’t want to change them or lose them; that you’re grateful for the homes and businesses and society your parents and their parents have created and built up.

I would have to totally agree. To me the word "culture" encapsulates some of this. After all, particular cultures, and I would argue most cultures, are tightly bound to the environment in which they have evolved. On this point, I think Anthony and I are in complete agreement, and any disagreement can be put down to semantics.

However, I think I have been misrepresented in Anthony’s piece where he assumes that my article was written in an anti-capitalist spirit. This could not be further from the truth. The article embraces capitalism, and suggests a regulatory mechanism that is not government imposed. That is, it proposes a type of market that is even freer than the one we are used to today. My position on capitalism and free markets is, by and large, very much toward the right. I suspect that some of the articles in The Thin Line have led its readers to believe that I must be a proponent of protectionism and collectivism because I am opposed to John Howard and George W. Bush. A careful perusal of The Thin Line should reveal that my disputes with those leaders relate to their views on issues such as Iraq and refugees. I am also convinced, maybe incorrectly, but convinced nevertheless, that those leaders knowingly misled us on the issue of WMDs in Iraq. Given this, I find it my duty to oppose them. In general, I do not oppose their economic policies. It might come as a shock to some that I have been known to vote Liberal, though in which election(s) I will not say.

I have, in the past, agitated against large corporations, but this is not the same as agitating against the market economy per se. I still see large corporations as a threat to creativity and diversity (so do many others, which is one of the reasons we have antitrust laws).

Going back to the heart of the issue, the reason I propose patriotism as a method to regulate corporations is not because I disagree with free markets. It is quite the opposite. I think, in a truly free market, there still needs to be a factor that resists the unfettered growth of corporations. Instead of government regulation and intervention, I proposed patriotism, because it seems likely to create smaller companies that serve smaller markets and to protect the particular cultural diversities catered to by those markets. Thus, it could help to minimise antitrust cases where the government is forced to step in. But why oppose the unfettered growth of corporations? I oppose any institution, be it a government, a corporation or an entire economy, in which there is a disproportionately large concentration of power. In the case of corporations and economies, and under the premise of free trade and therefore globalisation, such power can steam-roller the cultures of countries with less powerful corporations and weaker economies. The idea is to have culture, and thus the services and products with which the culture is identified, firmly entwined in the market. We live in a capitalist world, so our cultures need to gain a strong foothold in that world so that they can survive. I believe patriotism can help with that.

Finally, Anthony makes the assertion that America, possibly because of capitalism, is a far more diverse place than Australia. I’m not sure whether I agree with this or not; I may well do, but it doesn’t matter because it is completely orthogonal to the debate. Capitalism, with or without the aid of patriotism, may well help to create more diversity. But of primary concern, I believe, is the protection of those things that make Australia (or any other country or culture) different from other countries. I don’t want to see the cultures of the world disappear, and that includes the American culture. Furthermore, in this discussion there is an inherent difference between product diversity provided by the market and cultural diversity. Without a critical mass of love for a country or culture, that culture is doomed to die in a free market society. The reason for this is simple economics. Without some retarding factor such as patriotism, the bigger fish will win because it can create better economies of scale, thereby producing products more efficiently and cheaply than the smaller fish. Patriotism helps to ensure the presence of discerning consumers who form and preserve niche markets, and make it economically viable to produce goods that might otherwise have been squeezed out of the wider market.

This is not about being anti-capitalist or isolationist; rather it is about being pro-diversity where at least some of that diversity is tied to existing cultures.

In celebration of my impending thesis submission and just because we want to, Karen and I are off to France next month for a few weeks. We’re also going to the Netherlands for a little while to imbibe their culture. Well actually, Karen’s got this notion of bringing back some of those blue and white tiles from Delft, but I won’t be carrying them! :) We’re visiting Andry this weekend to get his opinion on the most important things to see in France.

I discovered something very interesting when booking flights online – at least when booking flights through Singapore Airlines’ web site. We’ll be flying into Paris, and then departing from Amsterdam. For this particular scenario, we were able to save $600 between us by booking two separate one-way flights rather than by building a multi-city itinerary. We’re on exactly the same flights that we would have been on had we booked using the multi-city itinerary builder. I called Singapore Airlines to find out why this was the case, but they couldn’t give me an answer other than to assure me that booking the one-way flights was a perfectly valid option. We’re not complaining!

With respect to my thesis, I finished writing a couple of days after Christmas. It’s already been proof read twice by Jaga and by me, so we’re definitely almost there. Give it another couple of weeks while I wait on a few more proof readers to provide me with feedback, and for me to then address their suggestions.

Last Saturday Karen and I headed up to the Sunshine Coast hinterland for lunch at Gardner’s Falls and to browse the craft shops on the main strip at Montville. It was extremely hot, but otherwise a lovely day.

There are more photos from Gardner’s Falls here.