Category: Blog

The News From Japan (and what’s really going on)

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I mentioned last week that I was bothered about the way the awful news from Japan in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear emergency trifecta was being reported. Turns out I’m far from the only one. The Japanese are bewildered and angry by the way the Western news media have been focussing on the drama at Fukushima to the near-exclusion of reportage on the very real and growing humanitarian crisis elsewhere. Worse, the focus, particularly on American news networks, has been to talk not about how the incident is affecting the Japanese, but how it is likely to impact on American lives.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s seen American news programmes. They are shockingly insular. Foreign news is either a sixty-second sidebar, or non-existant. The rolling news networks have had to address wider concerns as a way of filling time, but even then the coverage is one-dimensional, and astonishingly ill-informed.

Take a look at this footage of pundit and harridan Nancy Grace, arguing with a weatherman about the likely spread of a plume of Godzilla farts to the California coastline.

Danny Choo writes an informed, comprehensive and geek-friendly blog about Japanese culture, and he has been tenacious in both logging the flawed coverage, and pointing out just how skewed from the reality it can be. Images like this give the lie to the fact that the population of Japan is evacuating in a mad panic. His must-read list of the most wildly speculative bits of news coverage includes, I’m sad to say, posts from the BBC News website, whose reporters really should know better.

I am not for one instant trying to belittle what has happened to Japan. On reading around I am more and more impressed and amazed with the way the Japanese are simply getting on with their lives and the job of reconstruction in the face of disaster. They deserve better and truer representation from the world’s news media then the lazy sensationalism that appears to be the norm.  These are tough times for Japan, and they don’t need this nonsense.

You can donate or get up-to-the-minute and accurate news about the events in Japan right here.

+++UPDATE+++

X&HTeam-mate Elina has pointed out to me that there’s an ever-growing list of bad reporting (including the Nancy Grace piece) up at The Journalist’s Wall Of Shame. Well worth a look. Thanks, Elina!

The Sunday Lao Tzu: A Journey

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Lao Tzu has certain themes that he returns to over and again from different perspectives and viewpoints. Self-mastery is one of them. The ability to conquer your own doubts and shortcomings is a vital part of achieving enlightenment, but it is equally important in your daily life.

You can use many of his teachings as guidance while planning a tough endeavour such as running a marathon. Training is best accomplished little and often, building up slowly and carefully, aware at all times of the lessons and warnings that your body is giving you. Running is a perfect opportunity to empty your mind of worry and care; to simply be in and of the moment. It can be a deeply meditative time.

I hope that everyone who has run the Reading Half-Marathon today has succeeded in their goals, and that the experience has helped them in all the ways they hoped, and some that they never expected. I would especially like to send warm good wishes to X&HTeam-mate Paul Staples, for whom this race is just another milestone on the road to the London Marathon in May. To him, and all the other brave and noble souls joining him, may the road rise up to meet you.

Cannon Fodder: the changing face of the villainous horde

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Battle: Los Angeles is a war movie. Let’s get that out of the way right now. The SF trappings are there to pull in the core audience of 16-25 year old males who will happily sit through it in the same way that they’d sit through a walkthrough of Crysis 2 on YouTube. But it’s really an excuse to have US military, modern US military with their grenade lobbing rifles and laser sights and night vision wage war against an enemy with which they can actually get their fight on. There is no fear of accidental civilian deaths or any of the horrible tangled messiness that modern warfare against an enemy that remains undefined and hard to find has become.

SF has always provided this kind of unambiguous thrill. As the audience becomes less and less excepting of the traditional war movie (which after all served primarily as propaganda against countries that have now been friends and colleagues for over fifty years) there’s still a need for shootybangbang excitement against a villainous horde. If you can make that villain completely fictional, and of a different species to the hero, then all to the good.

The aliens in Battle: Los Angeles are faceless, emotionless avatars, existing only to shoot and to be shot at. They spindle around in a backward-leg walk, and fire guns that have been grafted onto their arms. They couldn’t surrender if they wanted to, or were given the chance.

There’s little sign of pain or any kind of emotion when M-16 slugs tear through them (or, in one memorable sequenced, skewered on a bayonet and then torn apart by M-16 slugs). They make that default monster noise that’s becoming as over-used as the Wilhelm Scream, and then they fall over. As such, they’re simply the latest in a long line of invaders that runs all the way back to War Of The Worlds. Think the swarming hordes of James Cameron’s Aliens, mirrored helmets topping a drooling tooth-filled maw. The creatures of Independence Day, blankeyed and mouthless. Notice too, that the writers haven’t even bothered to give the enemy proper names. They are simply called by their function. Alien. Invader. Enemy. Monster.

Creatures from the Doctor Who universe have names, at least. Of their species, anyway. On the whole, they still follow the same idea of being interchangable, indistinguishable. Daleks and Sontarans differ from the Hollywood Horde ideal in that underneath the expressionless masks they wear, something hideous lurks. The Cybermen take this one step further – they were humanoid once, and chose to lock all that away behind a blank carapace. There’s a little more depth there, but their intentions remain the same. They are set on conquest and colonisation.

The Stormtroopers of the Star Wars Universe have the same purpose. Spookily, under their helmets, they all look the same. They’re clones, and therefore again one step away from the human. They’re constructs, manufactured and therefore easily expendable. And again, they have a collective name rather than anything that would allow us to see them as individuals, to give us the chance to empathise.

The one flipside to this idea that I’ve been able to find comes in, of all places, from the first Austin Powers movie. A running gag showed the home lives of some of Dr. Evil’s henchmen after they were killed by the International Man Of Mystery. Giving a faceless hench a wife, a family, friends and a social life is unthinkable in most of the cases I’ve talked about. We’re not supposed to care about them. They are obstacles to be removed without thought or consequence.

As @JaesonX pointed out to me on Twitter, SF invasion pics are starting to shrug off the old cliches. District 9 takes a much more complex and nuanced approach to the theme of first contact, a situation that’s unlikely to begin with the two sides shooting at each other. Gareth Edwards’ Monsters tells us that we’re just unlikely to be able to figure out what they want here in the first place. Both films end, not in full-scale conflict, but a grudging, uncomfortable co-existence, marred with sporadic violence. This can be tracked back to shows like Alien Nation, where the visitors arrive not as aggressors, but refugees. This reflects the fluid nature of national identity, racism and touches on the way people view their territory and the people that come into them in ways that the basic war movie simply doesn’t have the tools to address.

There will always be a place for war movies. But we live in a complicated world, and it’s sometimes difficult to figure out who the bad guys should be. I’m holding out for the first war movie that pits the USA against it’s own banking system. That’s a fight with some life in it.

(pic credit: Francesco Francavilla).

X&HT MUSIC WEEK: The Bandcamp Option

Sorry, couldn't resist.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Yesterday I touched on how Radiohead had developed their own distribution and marketing after parting ways with their record company. You no longer need to be a big famous rock band to do that. These days, it’s as easy as signing up for Bandcamp.

Bandcamp is a bit of a paradigm shifter. It’s a quick and easy way for musicians to get their work out to an audience, with a good-looking home page featuring your own custom artwork and full previews. For a user like me, browsability and preview options are key, and Bandcamp has all this covered. Most interestingly, the pricing is set so that the minimum the artist is prepared to charge is always the default, but you can pay more if you think the music’s worth it. File options run the gamut from MP3 to massive lossless formats. It’s a great way of discovering new music at a pleasingly affordable price point, and compensating the artists appropriately.

My latest Bandcamp download is from Stepdad, who specialise in sunny, quirky synth-pop. They have the bounce and charm of early Depeche Mode before they discovered rubber leisureware. There’s nothing particularly original or innovative at play, but it’ll make you smile and jig about, and most days that’s all that you need. You can pick up the Ordinaire EP for under a quid. That has to be worth a punt, surely.

It’s not just the little guys that use Bandcamp. Longtime X&HT Crush Amanda Palmer has released her latest album on the platform after leaving her old label Roadrunner in 2008 – a process that she extensively documented on her blog and on stage, pleading to be released from her contract after it became clear that they were simply not interested in promoting her. Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under, a mix of live and studio recordings based around her regular trips to Oz and New Zealand, shows off her punk cabaret stylings beautifully. It contains odes on a mix of subjects, including one on the horror of Vegemite, and the joy and wonder of intimate female hairstyling in the hilarious Map Of Tasmania.

You can pick up the album for 69c, but there are a ton of other options, including vinyl, artwork packages and, for $5000, An Evening With Amanda Palmer where she will come to your gaff and perform. I’m not sure if anyone’s taken her up on the option yet, but I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when it happens.

Readership, I urge you to visit Bandcamp and have a sniff around. There’s a huge range of music to explore. The preview options make it a no-risk endeavour. Who knows, your new favourite band could be waiting there for you.

Let’s Show The Kids How To Do It: X&HT listened to Collapse Into Now

Music week continues on X&HT as I look at the new record by my favourite band, R.E.M. Mentioning this has led to responses as varied as “Oh, are they still going?” through to “…pukies”. I can see I’ve got my work cut out with this one.

 

Continue reading Let’s Show The Kids How To Do It: X&HT listened to Collapse Into Now

The Sunday Lao Tzu – Enough

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

 

I’ve got a bit of a nerve posting the above quote. I am in the top 1 per cent of the population of this blue marble we call home in terms of my standards of living. I am healthy, warm, well-fed, amongst people that I love, doing a job that I enjoy that comes with a decent income. For most of the planet, that would not be enough. That would be an unachievable dream.

Yet there are plenty still who would view what I have as not enough, as nowhere near. For those people, there can never really be enough. Watching Inside Job earlier in the week, I was struck by the greed and venality on display. The quest for greater and greater profit at the cost of worldwide financial misery was astonishing, and led me to wonder just what kind of vacuum these people were trying to fill.

I am content with what I have, because I understand my needs and live within them. I am incredibly lucky to be in that position. I realise it, and am hugely thankful for it. It’s important that we realise how few people have or get the idea of enough – and to do all that we can to bring everyone together into that happy place.

Follow The Money: X&HT watched Inside Job


It’s telling that Charles Ferguson’s Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job hits UK screens in a week when no less a figure than the head of the Bank Of England has made it clear that the blame for our financial woes should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the banks. Telling, and in some ways heartening, although the conclusion Ferguson reaches in his film isn’t at all comforting.

Like a financial version of An Inconvenient Truth, or a less schmaltzy Michael Moore, Inside Job makes no attempt to be objective. It’s a film that has no interest in painting the leading monetary figures behind the 2008 bust as anything but ogres or incompetents. Ordinarily, I’d be bothered about the fact that so many of the key players declined to be interviewed. But in these arena that doesn’t really matter. It’s the numbers that count, and Ferguson does a good job of showing how the venality of the banking sector tried and failed to skew those numbers in the interest of quick and massive profit.

It’s a film that demands your full attention. One point that the bankers who are seen in Congress sessions make time and again is that the situation is and remains way too complex for we mere mortals to understand. Ferguson uses graphics and a measured, careful narration from Matt Damon to ensure that we can.

We are taken though a history of financial deregulation since the Reagan era that led to investment banks packaging loans that were designed to fail, and betting that they would in the quest for spiralling short term profits and bonuses. It is complicated, I’ll admit. I’m a complete doofus when it comes to money, and I found myself squinting more than once at the screen to make sure I got it. But it’s worth the effort.

The end picture is clear. The banking industry in the US (and although it’s not mentioned, I realised there was a direct correlation to the UK bailouts of Lloyds and Northern Rock) has systematically engineered a structure in which it can operate without regulation or any real restraint, and with the clear understanding that they will be bailed out by government funds if they should screw up.

The failure to appear by most of the big noises in this perfect storm begins to look less like a flaw, and more like an admission of guilt. It’s a dirty journalistic trick, to be sure, and Ferguson doesn’t come across as a sympathetic interviewer. But the silence at the heart of the film speaks volumes, and you get the feeling that these guys very definitely have something to hide. Something that Ferguson’s simple, clear graphs and extensive research winkle out with mathematical precision.

In short, no-one in this story gets away clean. When the rot even extends to the compromised state of the educators at Harvard and the Columbia Business School (who, while they should have taken the Fifth that their smarter colleagues invoked, also provide some wonderfully squirm-inducing moments) you have to wonder if there’s anyone you can trust with your money anymore.

Inside Job is a brutal indictment of an awful situation that has been allowed to fester for years. Sadly, as Ferguson points out, not only are the banks in question unlikely to be punished for their misdeeds, many of the key players are still in power, and in many cases in central roles that will enable them to dictate US and hence world financial policy under the Obama administration. It’s not an easy or fun watch, but I think it’s essential, and left me wanting to know more. There’s a lot of cant and waffle about the state we’re in, and we need more work like Ferguson’s to at least begin to answer the unasked questions.

I wonder if George Osborne’s seen it.

The Friday Foto: Leake Street

Leake Street in Lambeth is for the most part a pedestrian access tunnel that runs under the old international hanger at Waterloo Station. It used to be a dank, grim and depressing place. Until, in 2008, the Cans Festival was held there. In conjunction with a ton of high profile graffiti artists, Leake Street become a free expression zone – a safe place for writers to show what they could do without fear of prosecution. It’s a showcase for world class freestyle work.

The rate of change at Leake Street is frantic. New work is thrown up almost daily, over the top of what’s already there. So if you see something you like you’d better have a camera on you. It’ll be gone the next time you show up. The tang of volatiles from spray cans is always thick in the air. Leake Street is a heady, dizzying place, and I make a point of visiting whenever I’m in the Waterloo area. If you’re at all interested in street art, you should check it out.

You can view my latest Flickr set of the art in the tunnels here.

Blood + Roses: Treat Yourself To Some Grown-up Horror!

The big news this weekend for music fans is the sudden appearance of the new Radiohead album, The King Of Limbs, which I’m happily downloading as I write. But if you like horror, then there’s another reason to celebrate.
Simon Aitken’s smart, grown-up vampire film Blood + Roses is finally, finally available to buy from Amazon. OK, yes, I have a deep connection to the film. I have a big fat colourist credit, and edited the behind the scenes documentary Love Like Blood. But I believe in the film. I think it’s a clever update on the mythology and iconography of the vampire trope. It’s well written, and has a sterling brace of leading performances from Benjamin Green and TV’s own Marysia Kay (she’s on Take Me Out tonight on ITV1). Those in the know are already calling Blood + Roses “Twilight For Grown-ups”. I’m really pleased that you all have the chance to enjoy a film that I’ve been banging on about for the last couple of years. Do yourself a favour, and snag a copy of Blood + Roses, Readership. You know it makes sense.