Posts by Jim Cathcart
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It's pleasing to see that Nandor has made some progress towards accepting that technology can contribute to sustainability. I am saying this because of a disturbing lecture he gave at AIT in 2008 where he flatly rejected the notion that the corporate sector could drive (or be part of) a solution towards sustainability. What was of even more concern was that the audience hung on every word of his anti-corporate, anti-technology message.
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"And to be fair, this resurgence of history revisionism in Japan appears to be partly linked to the economic insecurity following the early 1990s bubble burst."
Oh, so the hypocrisy of the Japanese is justified by bursting of an economic bubble. Good grief. The Japanese love to see themselves as the victim. A small island nation poor in natural resources being bossed around by external powers. The reality is somewhat different. Japan is still essentially feudal in its power structures and operates a welfare state. Or is someone more aptly puts it: "A retirement village run by the mafia and bureaucrats."
Japan could do well to get over its neuroses and be more self-critical. Furthermore, the only way forward for the country is to purge the power structures of corruption, nepotism, and inaction.
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This is the same nutty rhetoric shared by most Japanese politicians and power brokers. The occasional emotional potshot at the Chinese or the Koreans is a useful tool to shift attention away from Japan's own chronically dysfunctional society and hopelessly inept political system.
Most permanent residents of Japan (myself included) see the futility in voting. As long as we can slip under the taxation radar, we're not going to get too concerned. It's a survival tactic but a practical response to the reality.
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Doesn't the "selfish generation" rely on a steady stream of suckers and/or migrants to ensure that the their property values continue to out-pace inflation and to prop up the prices of their funds? From my outpost, they may have severed their limbs below the knees and not even realize it.
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Islander, your point is taken, but bidding up the price of residential property with money funded offshore is not "investment." Risk is inherent in any investment but NZ suffers from the same muddled monetarist failings of the Anglo-Saxon countries who all live beyond their means. While it's a simplistic analysis, compare the investment in property relative to equity markets. You cannot build a productive economy based on buying and selling houses.
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How can any analysis of the NZ economy not focus on the hard issues such as a taxation regime that promotes non-productive investment in housing and impedes investment in capital markets? Surely, these constraints are a huge drain on NZ productivity.
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"I worked in a t-shirt stall at the Tom Petty-Bob Dylan gig at Mt Smart back in the day. I was with a young girl and we were taking $20 notes hand over fist while Mongrel Mob and Highway 61 guys glowered at us and said, "Gizzus a t-shirt bro'."
I had a similar experience at Strawberry Fields manning the coffee tent to the right of the main stage. After first being shouldered to the ground by a stauncher-than-thou bogan, wasted Mob members and prospects started tearing the tent down after the generator crashed and our lights went out. The on-site police were unhelpful and basically useless.
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Culture critic Alex Kerr, who wrote 'Lost Japan' and 'Dogs and Demons' called Huis Ten Bosch the single most beautiful place in Japan because everything native had been reduced to mere schlock. You have probably seen or read it, but Kyoichi Tsuzuki's 'Roadside Japan' has its share of cultural appropriation for frivolous fun. Perhaps it's a bit condemning and mean spirited, but the Japanese can take it to an extreme.
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Unfortunately, I'm finding it very hard to understand how Maori stakeholders (except the ones' with the trendy media jobs; executive power; and access to the piggy bank) are actually going to benefit. Like most government-funded business in NZ, I guess this is actually a secondary consideration.
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Well I'm a libertarian and I don't know shit, but I would love to have Gregory King's films available online because I like the guy as a person and artist (and I don't know when and where I could ever get the opportunity to see his work living outside NZ). Also, anyone with an interest in digital film would realize that digital content can be delivered to projectors and digital displays, so the argument about display size is redundant.
As for NZ film festivals, I'm aware of two that have been shown in Japan and Korea. I think that Gin Slingers Inc. (Dept of Foreign Affairs) is involved so I'm unsure of how the content is selected.
I think Andre's idea of a NZ Film Month is excellent (but probably too excellent to be conceived and executed by TVNZ). There's no reason why it couldn't be run concurrently at cinemas throughout NZ.