Hard News: Reasons to be cheerful
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Craig, too true. There is such a thing as a good King and a bad King, even if you think having Kings is always inherently bad. Chomsky is of course right to point out that Obama is still a King. I don't think he's gone so far as to say he is a bad King. He's just skeptical about how good a King he even can be, given what it means to be a King. Please note, King is a metaphor.
I'd actually imagine that he's pretty happy about Obama being elected, as is anyone with half a brain. But he's not going to drop his message that he's spent his whole life conveying, that the system of power in the US is geared towards a number of massive injustices, and Obama is still part of that system, and he should be held accountable for his part in them just the same as George Bush should be.
Obama, for instance, made getting out of Iraq one of his big election promises, and it's a good promise. To me it's the most important promise he made. But Obama was also part of the system which put the US army in Iraq in the first place. He voted for it several times. I'll be both very happy and very surprised if the US is actually withdrawn from Iraq on his watch. If you set the good of getting them out against the wrong of getting them in, I think the wrong actually outweighs the good. Obama will never talk his way out of that in a million years. Not to me, anyway, and definitely not to Chomsky.
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Thanks BenWilson - that makes good sense of the word.
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Chaps,
Jon Knox, you will note, is from The Elephant and Castle, that charming part of South London at the top end of the Old Kent Road. There, being carved up can mean one of two events: that you had encountered one of the picturesque knife-weilding locals at Closing Time; or that you were driving in traffic and someone pulled in front of you, to take a space that rightfully was yours.
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Paul Litterick' the 'ah' of comprehension now manifests-
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"carved-up" could just be a family (or perhaps Norn Iron) term for "cut-off". just had a " where does your father do his barnacles" moment.
Chomsky is bleak, may be on autopilot, but writes thoughtfully and without malice. I appreciate that both Fisk & Chomsky have stuck it out, when it would have been easier to get distracted, or to have given-up. Their views don't seem to change, are quite challenging to some particularly powerful groups and hardly seem like rocket-science, all of which contributes to a lack of media interest.
Much better to encourage people to understand what their options are, to consider making a plan of how to deal with certain uncomfortable situations, rather than to bang on about the need for bigger sticks, more prisons and the like.
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'Carved up' was quite common, when I were a lad.
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I retract my interpretation then :-).
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Hope the crowd got full value for their tickets -- unlike the B-list guests at one ball who were pleased that they'd spent hours in line for a security lockdown. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you don't run a party.
Oh me too, I want full value and not a B-grade world if I can stretch a metaphor out of that.
Unlike the image they project or stereotypes people have of them. Most US citizens (and it seems you too Graig) are deeply emotional people in a way that others should emulate, but not is a slavish way.
The number of trends in thinking that have swept thru the US
and the rest of the world has had the joy of witnessing and learning from, well its left them vulnerable.
And I think the western world really should get behind them if the US can set a direction that will benefit the world long term. But can they disarm to some degree and not stumble into war. Well Im not a religious person but I would pray for that.Finlay MacDonald has I think, written a considered piece about it.
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People are in a hurry sometimes. Whilst your advice to slow down is a perfectly good general life principle, another good one is 'teaching people to slow down is not worth dying for'. So being considerate is your best advice of all.
So I guess the collary of that principle is that 'hurrying is worth the mess and crap it casues'.
The curious war that some cyclists seem to want to wage against cars is littered with their dead bodies, and some dents on vehicles.
Guess that would be the same war where a woman cyclist was knocked clean off her bike when a driver making a right hand turn, illegally turned right in front of her. Granted, it was heavy traffic, and the driver possibly may not have seen the cyclist. But the driver assumed that there would be no cyclist there. Given that its summer and it's lovely out, it's the wrong assumption to make at this time of the year.
And the wrong assumption to make when tootling around the fine highways of the South Island currently - cycle tourism is very popular, so expect cyclists when you turn that corner.
It's not a war cause war is ugly and very few wars actually achieve anything (haven't we learnt that yet?). It's about respect. I have a car and pay taxes etc. It's just annoying that somehow some people, not all, just some, seem to think that the road isn't for sharing.
I say some people cause in my limited experience so far, most drivers drive around me in an arc, or wait til they can do so. I model this behaviour when I drive.
But no amount of town planning is actually going to make the place flat.
You've hit one nail on the head. That I wish I could wrinkle my nose and make those freakin' hills disappear! So if I can't, I'm working on getthing the idea of flattening them another way; cycle bridges between ridges.
Geology dictates alot of what we do; it annoys me that somehow we humans think we are immune to it and act accordingly.
At bottom we have a chicken and egg problem. Roads are safe for cyclists and pedestrians when there are lots of them; cyclists and pedestrians tend to avoid unsafe roads.
And roads are safe for other users when they are safe for cyclists and pedestrians. Everyone wins.
Honestly, I feel very sorry for the transport people. They have to figure out solutions that piss everyone off the least.
Too true. Such a hard job - I know a few and the abuse they get is constant. Their skins are pretty thick as a result.
They just need to move away from the existing paradigm that saw the public road as exclusively for the use of cars, and towards a paradigm that sees the space as mixed space, and for the use of everyone, regardless of how they move through it.The younger engineers get this. The older ones struggle with it.
Suppose you are trying to make it safe for people from Onehunga/Royal Oak etc to bike into town (or at least to Newmarket). I don't see any alternative corridors to Manukau Road, and I also predict that any attempts to limit people's ability to park on the side, or to partition off a continuous cycle lane, will provoke howls of outrage from the motorists.
And I guess we (drivers) also have to move away from a paradigm that sees roads as an exclusive privilege, and towards seeing roads as a different kind of space that privileges everyone using it. Fundamentally, public roads are exactly that, public. Parking on the road is not a right. It's a privilege.
Where to put cycle paths is a tough one. Follow main roads, or quiet suburban ones?
It's a tough choice in Auckland for simple reason of geology. The street pattern was laid down over a period of time and subject to various influences. Not surprisingly, given the geology of our landscape, people developed main roads along ridges. And for good reason; it's easier.
I've rode in Vancouver where I lived; there the street pattern was grided. The bike paths were usually parallel to the main arterial routes. However, precious few of our suburbs follow a grid pattern, so our choices are limited as where to put cycle paths. Not surprisingly, main roads are a good choice, for the same reason as they were developed - it's easier.
Which leads back to seeing the space as a space for all users, not merely drivers.
Whenever I see those multi coloured Lycra clad shaven legged plonkers covered with fake advertising
It never ceases to amaze me; people seriously think that by putting on bright lycra and riding $2000 bikes that they instantly will look like Lance Armstrong? Personally I think it's more of a sexual fetish at work here.
I've had generally positive experiences on the road in Auckland. Most people appreciate if if you signal and act predictably, even if you may be temporarily holding them up, and will give you enough road room to get by. That's alright by me.
Yeah, I've noticed Auckland traffic is mellower than I remember the 80s and 90s being. ... I feel it's a zeitgeist thing, intangible, a mass mood swing. Perhaps popular mellowness has huge amounts of chaos built in due to karmic feedback loops. But whether that is true or not, I want to be on the side of good karma.
Been my experiences as well. Long may it continue.
Sorry for the long post... it's just a particular concern of mine.
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The victim seems to have been shot either by the fugitive (who tried to hijack a westbound track after crashing) or in error, by police. Yikes.
And there's this dis-quieting thought at the back of my mind that the courier driver that was shot by the police was shot because he was young, brown and driving a vehicle that the police didn't think someone of that age and race was meant to be driving. Pray it ain't so.
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Reason to be cheerful: Revolutionary Road-- not a terribly good film, but it's strangely hypnotic watching Kate Winslett and Leonardo De Caprio rediscover the lost art of performative smoking
Craig: You really need to watch Madmen to see it done with aplomb. I agree that Revolutionary Road is not great but Kate Winslet does magnificently in her role. There is something ill-formed about De Caprio--it is as if his baby-face features struggle to express adult emotions. But the the strongest roles are supporting--Kathy Bates as Helen Givings, and Michael Shannon as her 'insane' son John. He really brings something terrific to the film.
There are some excellent movies around this summer. Frost/Nixon was a great surprise (given it was directed by little Ronnie Howard), and My Brother Is An Only Child (a good Italian melodrama). Benjamin Button is worth going to, if only for the ramming-the-submarine sequence. But there are many to avoid eg Hotel For Dogs (an absolute dog of a movie), and Tom Cruise saving the world from Hitler, in Valkyrie.
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Frost/Nixon was a great surprise (given it was directed by little Ronnie Howard)
I think Ron Howard is pretty good at telling a story. I mean, he's not going to set the world on fire with his mad directorial skillz, but (apart from a few dogs) he generally makes really watchable films (see also: Apollo 13 ). He did a good job explaining that 'battle of the wills' between Frost and Nixon, I thought - the back and forth, the seesawing power struggle. Also: fun sets. 70s-a-palooza!
I would be happy to watch Revolutionary Road for the frocks and set design and Kate, but I might have to go with someone other than my husband, who saw the preview and said 'Christ! There's nothing I hate more than films where white middle class people whine about their lot in life!' Which is an objection I can understand, I suppose.
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And there's this dis-quieting thought at the back of my mind that the courier driver that was shot by the police was shot because he was young, brown and driving a vehicle that the police didn't think someone of that age and race was meant to be driving. Pray it ain't so.
That's fairly outrageous extrapolation of any information about the shooting so far.
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There is something ill-formed about De Caprio--it is as if his baby-face features struggle to express adult emotions
Thanks for that description! I've never been able to work out what it was about Dicaprio which stops me from completely warming to him. There's no denying he's an engaging actor, but it seems that he's better equipped at expressing child's play than self-torment. I thought his best moments in the Aviator, for instance were the opening scenes when Hughes was going out of his way to spend more and more money on his "Hell's Angels" film, or in the final congressional hearings near the end, where he's goading the Alan Alda character to actually pin him on something he could be guilty for.
His descent into OCD-madness, on the other hand, didn't work quite so well. Not sure what it was, but there was something slightly mannered about the segments- he understood the tics, but couldn't quite delve further than that to get to the point of it.
Likewise Catch Me if You Can was great fun when it was breezy and focusing on his character's dissembling and impersonations, rather clumsy during "search for the father he never had" segments (although to be fair, Spielberg is as much to blame as Dicaprio for that). That said, I thought he was more or less succesful in his role in the Departed.
It's funny you mention his "babyface" features because he's now in his mid-30s, which is scarcely believable, really!
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So I guess the collary of that principle is that 'hurrying is worth the mess and crap it casues'.
It's just a fact of life. People hurry. Watch out.
And the wrong assumption to make when tootling around the fine highways of the South Island currently - cycle tourism is very popular, so expect cyclists when you turn that corner.
I think you're talking at cross purposes. For sure drivers should watch out and slow down and follow the rules. But so should cyclists. Especially cyclists, since it is they that are going to get killed.
I have a car and pay taxes etc. It's just annoying that somehow some people, not all, just some, seem to think that the road isn't for sharing.
There might be more in that, psychologically. Bikes don't pay any road taxes, nor are they subject to any roadworthy requirements. To that extent, it's easy to feel that they actually don't have as much right to the road. On the flipside they do negligible damage to the road and don't take up much of it.
So if I can't, I'm working on getthing the idea of flattening them another way; cycle bridges between ridges.
:-) In 200 years, Auckland could be a cyclist's paradise yet. For me, it's already one, I flattened every hill by allowing the power of falling water in the South Island to push me gently up every hill. I got to explore the Oakley Creek path last week going uphill. It was lovely, I was pretty much totally alone in the wilderness, cruising along quietly, heart at a pleasant 110 rpm, mind calm and focused on seeing everything, scenery and hazards alike. Downhill would be nicer for normal bikes, but every downhill has a corresponding uphill at the end ...
The younger engineers get this. The older ones struggle with it.
I think the worst part is that town planning is a political process. For every engineer there is a politician who supports them, including all the ones who just want more motorways.
Personally I think it's more of a sexual fetish at work here.
Easy thought to have when you see a lycra clad bum going up and down on a seat that has a particularly phallic shape. But I think cycling gear is really just the most practical design for cycling when you want to go fast, or have lots of hills to climb. You get damned hot, and the wind-drag factor is huge. Personally I just wear what I always wear. T-shirt and shorts in the summer, sweatshirt and jeans in the winter. Like all the kids in my neighborhood. We're not hardcore, or trained, and just do it for transport and fun.
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Yes, the Lycra thing.
Maybe practical for racing but hey, we ain't racing here. Is it the equivelent of a boy racer on a bike? I don't think so, it lacks the cool. But then, maybe in cyling circles it is cool to look like a banana. -
That's fairly outrageous extrapolation of any information about the shooting so far.
For which I'd dearly love to be proved wrong.
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I would be happy to watch Revolutionary Roadfor the frocks and set design and Kate, but I might have to go with someone other than my husband, who saw the preview and said 'Christ! There's nothing I hate more than films where white middle class people whine about their lot in life!' Which is an objection I can understand, I suppose.
I don't so much mind seeing films (or reading novels) about "white middle class people whining about their lot in life" -- I'm a huge Jane Austen fan, after all. :) But I don't think the film managed to avoid the pretty nasty streak of alcoholic misogyny in the source novel, and you know something -- I just don't give a shit about Frank and April Wheeler. And I'm so bloody over the glib condescension towards the American middle-class in the 1950's, whose great sin appears to be wanting to be reasonably comfortable after the Great Depression and the Second World War. The bastards.
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Apropos the lycra - I'm afraid I tend to tune out any comment which features rude remarks about lycra-wearing cyclists.
Most cyclists I see are the commuting-from-A-to-B kind, and they don't generally wear lycra. They wear their work clothes, or a t-shirt and shorts.
If it comes to that, Jack Elder should be popping in any moment to tell you that he is a responsible lycra-clad citizen...
People for whom evil lycra-clad cyclists are typical are people who are not paying attention. Your aggro, rule-breaking lycra-wearing cyclist is no more typical of cyclists than the aggro, inattentive SUV driver is of motorists. I don't think anyone, cyclist or motorist, (lots of us are both, of course), can have a productive discussion if these reductive stereotypes are all we have to offer.
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Benjamin Button is worth going to, if only for the ramming-the-submarine sequence.
The movie is okay (kind of intriguing) up to that point. Then the sea battle part itself is good, as you say. Then there's the silly hummingbird bit - and it's all down hill from there.
Danielle,
I agree with your husband's assessment of RR. I might go to see it, just because that's my tradition (well, as of last year) - to go all the Best Pic nominated movies. But based on the trailer, that film looks soul destroying.
Matthew,
Amy Tauben (I think it was) said of Seven, that it wasn't a great film, but it was great filmmaking. I agree with her assessment of the film and Fincher's ability. Fight Club was much better - a flawed classic. Oddly, I feel somehow the flaws make the film better somehow, as if they mirror the imperfections of the protagonist, maybe.
Zodiac is his best film. I was very impressed by it on first viewing, but I've only seen it the once and need to watch it again to solidify my opinion.
Button was a disappointment, but Fincher's lesser films are mostly flawed at a script level. His problem seems to be his choice of projects.
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That's fairly outrageous extrapolation of any information about the shooting so far.
For which I'd dearly love to be proved wrong.
Sadly, the initial impressions are not good.
Offender drove through a police checkpoint while police chatted.
Offender drove past police cars after stealing the second car.
Police bullets strike two bystanders, killing one.
Major operational fuck-up.
If the race insinuation proved to be valid it would be the icing on the, particlarly, stinky cake.
Not a good look, heads will roll. -
Wait, Revolutionary Road isn't one of the movies nominated for Best Pic - I'm saved!
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Button was a disappointment, but Fincher's lesser films are mostly flawed at a script level.
Yup, and why was I not in the least surprised to find that Button and Forrest Gump were both written by Eric Roth? The funny thing is Scott Fitzgerald's original story (like Winston Groom's novel) is a damn sight less sentimental than the film, and can let a lot of it pass because it's gorgeous, and most of the performances (even Cate Blanchett -- who is an enormously talented actress, who can easily tip over into mannered self-parody) are a damn sight better than the material deserves.
Tilda Swinton should have been up for an Oscar for this, not her hammy turn as a corporate bitch in the grossly over-rated Michael Clayton. She brings some adult emotion -- sorrow and regret -- into the middle of the film; a welcome dash of lemon juice to cut the syrup.
But it's way too long, and I'll be very cheerful indeed if Hollywood declare a moratorium on any film being longer than 110 minutes.
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But it's way too long, and I'll be very cheerful indeed if Hollywood declare a moratorium on any film being longer than 110 minutes.
Ha, yes. My line is 'is it longer than The Big Sleep and if so why?'
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Stephen Judd, too true. You never notice the thousand lycra clad cyclists who don't get in your way, just the one who does.
However, one thing I do think adds to the danger factor of cycling is tiredness. People who are pushing themselves physically have less attention to spare for ... anything else. It stands to my reason that the lycra clad are more inclined to inattention and danger. Not because of the lycra itself (which is probably helping a great deal) but by the factors which caused them to don it.
A good friend of mine in Australia competed in Iron Man comps, and would regularly take 200km bike rides as part of his training. He'd be limping and staggering afterward. Pretty hard to believe he was in a safe condition to be in charge of a vehicle by the end of it. The way he described it, all his mind was doing was saying "breathe! push!" and he was otherwise on autopilot. No wonder they have such gnarly accidents on the Tour de France all the time.
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