Shine Media

Shine Media:

"Orange Life - Latest Issue
Summer 2006: Space for Ourselves
Features:
Revolutionary Tourism
When Nepal does appear in our newspapers and on TV, it's usually to show Himalayan landscapes and Sherpas, complete with references to Shangri-La (the earthly paradise found in a lost Tibetan valley, imagined in James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon). Recent political turmoil in Nepal has however brought other images to the forefront: strikes and curfews, the King forced to reopen parliament, a new prime minister, protests in the streets. But in either case, the representation of Nepal raises questions about our perceptions of faraway places, filtered through the lens of our media-driven preconceptions."

- a commissioned piece in the Canadian mag "Orange Life" I did ages back - for some reason I have had a lot of trouble trying to get copies delivered. If they did not seem so nice (Canadians!) I'd be thinking they were deserving of a visit from some tough Mountie type who'd go round their place and duff em up with his sharp hat.
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What are those things for?

I was asked just recently about the purpose/function/mechanics of those 'subscribe to this' lines that appear at the bottom of the page here, and on the sidebar in my main "diary thing" (called Trinketization where you can also subscribe via email through feedblitz). So, what these are, are basic RSS feeds and the like that let you track new posts rather than having to recall the urls - as explained conveniently - via mainstream press articles - by Jon on Posthegemony: "For more on RSS, see 'The Really Simple Future of the Web' and 'RSS Feed' from the BBC, 'Fine-Tuning Your Filter for Online Information' from The New York Times, or 'Reboot' from The Guardian. RSS Info has a list of suggested RSS readers."
So, now you know. Thanks Jon.
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Attributed to Jean-Luc Godard:

"Tracking shots are a question of morality."

[on Los Angeles] "It's a big garage."

"There is no point in having sharp images when you've fuzzy ideas."

"Every edit is a lie."

"Up to now -- since shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution -- most movie makers have been assuming that they know how to make movies. Just like a bad writer doesn't ask himself if he's really capable of writing a novel -- he thinks he knows. If movie makers were building airplanes, there would be an accident every time one took off. But in the movies, these accidents are called Oscars."

"What I want above all is to destroy the idea of culture. Culture is an alibi of imperialism. There is a Ministry of War. There is a Ministry of Culture. Therefore, culture is war."

"In a house there is the top floor and there is the cellar. The underground filmmakers live in the same house as Hollywood, but they work in the cellar. It's up to them if they like to live in the dark. The Hollywood filmmakers are more intelligent, because they have that sunny top floor."

"All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun."

Speaking at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival about filmmaker Michael Moore: "Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary."

"It's over. There was a time maybe when cinema could have improved society, but that time was missed"

"In the beginning I believed in Cannes, but now it's just for publicity. People come to Cannes just to advertise their films, not with a particular message. But the advantage is that if you go to the festival, you get so much press coverage in three days that it advertises the film for the rest of the year"
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I cite

I've not met Jodi Dean, but I like her style - a little anxiety at an error on the last page of her new book I can surely understand (since my first book - Rumour - had an error on page two - gnnng). And I like the way you can have a little anxiety and still do self promotion (which is what this blog is about - see Trinketization for better-more-the same...)...

Anyway, her book comes out in two weeks - so I am pre-ordering as from what I heard of it in advance it looks good.

"I cite August 09, 2006
[jodi writes:]
My advance copies of Zizek's Politics arrived today.
Apparently, books will be in the warehouse in two weeks.

It's weird. On the one hand, I'm happy to have the book out. On the other, I feel a kind of pit in my stomach, anxiety over the book's appearing. Somehow, the appearance of this book makes me feel more exposed than I have with other books and articles. It may be that this sick feeling is linked to the difficulties during copyediting, a process that was more complicated than usual because I had to
make a bunch of alterations after Parallax View appeared.

The sick feeling was confirmed and heightened just now when I discovered that the last sentence of the book makes no sense (a word is missing or one word should be
changed), that there is a mistake in it. The mistake is, of course, mine. But I wish I had caught it. Or that one of the various copyeditors had. Oh god, this makes me feel so completely ill. I'm afraid of looking through it and finding more errors."

Don't look any further Jodi - you can't change em now. It will be fine.

Riotinto in court strife

Of course picking on arms trader Spicer over Bougainville as I have done previously, perhaps overlooks the real gangsters in this scenario - the mining company, pretend 'community friendly', plunderer of Islands, destroyer of worlds - RioTinto Zinc. It was they that ripped the hole in the planet that was the Panguna mine on Bougainville, and their posting of 3.8 Billion in net income during the rise of copper prices this year only reminds us that its the legalised fat cats that sit in head office 6 St James Square London - and shareholders like Queen Lizzie and her nefarious gang - that were the real target of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army uprising and war throughout the 1990s. Austrailian military support and the PNGDF were just the front for the company's interests.

Lawyers seem to be making a decent effort to corner some of the gangsters though. News from the US circuit court offers something to smirk about. Light up your fat-cat stodgies now! May they go the way of Enron. Thanks Vikki John, check Partizans.

"Islanders Win Court Appeal - Reuters August 7 2006.

By Steve James

NEW YORK, Aug 7 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday reinstated a human rights claim brought by Bougainville islanders in Papua New Guinea against international mining giant Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.L: Quote, Profile, Research).
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled the case may be heard in the United States. A U.S. District Court had dismissed the suit, siding with the State Department that the case could not be heard in U.S. courts.
There was no immediate comment from Rio Tinto and a State Department official said it had no comment until it looked into the ruling.
The suit claims that London-based Rio Tinto conspired with the government of Papua New Guinea to quell civil resistance to an environmentally devastating copper mining operation, actions that led to the deaths of thousands.
The State Department argued the case could interfere with the peace process on Bougainville, which is the largest of the North Solomon islands and is part of Papua New Guinea, off the northeast coast of Australia.
The ruling remands the case to U.S. District Court in San Francisco, and says Rio Tinto could be held liable for actions by the PNG government if the company's involvement is proven.
The suit was filed in 2000 and seeks to represent Bougainvilleans exposed to toxins resulting from the Panguna copper mine, people who lost property due to environmental contamination, and people injured or killed during the Bougainville conflict between 1989 and 1999.
Under the Alien Tort Claims Act, foreign nationals can bring suit in the United States against companies that violate international law. Rio Tinto's subsidiary, U.S. Borax Inc., has headquarters in Los Angeles.
The Panguna mine and the political events that erupted since the mine was established are at the core of the case. Between 1969 and 1972, the Australian Colonial Administration leased land on the island to Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. The suit claims that landowners unsuccessfully resisted intrusion onto their land, and many Bougainvilleans were forced to move or flee the island.
According to the suit, Rio Tinto destroyed villages, razed the rain forest, sliced off a hillside and established the world's largest open-pit mine. The mine excavated 300,000 tons of ore and water every day between 1972 and 1988.
The suit alleges that Rio Tinto improperly dumped waste rock and tailings, emitting chemical and air pollutants. The waste destroyed local fish stock, it alleges.
The Bougainville people -- especially children -- began dying more frequently from upper respiratory infections, asthma and tuberculosis, the suit states.
According to the complaint, in 1990, villagers started an uprising which closed the mine, and in response, Rio Tinto and the Papua New Guinea government brought troops in to reopen it. The complaint alleges that Rio Tinto provided transport for the troops and played a role in instituting a military blockade of the island that lasted for almost 10 years."
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Japan sees manned moon station in 2030. 02/08/2006. ABC News Online

Japan sees manned moon station in 2030. 02/08/2006. ABC News Online:

"Last Update: Wednesday, August 2, 2006. 7:31pm (AEST)

Japan sees manned moon station in 2030

Japan's space agency has set a goal of constructing a manned lunar base in 2030.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has revealed its ambition to an international conference in Tokyo this week but has not yet been allotted the budget for the ambitious project.
JAXA hopes to launch a satellite into lunar orbit next year, followed by an unmanned spacecraft that will land on the moon and a probe ship that will collect samples from the moon.
Under the plan, the astronauts will be sent to the moon by around 2020 so that they will start construction of the base to be completed by 2030.
Japan had earlier given 2025 as the target date for a lunar base.
'The feasibility of the plan is unclear at this point as we need to gain understanding by the Government and the Japanese people on our plan, but technologically it would be possible in a few decades,' Satoki Kurokawa, a spokesman for JAXA, said.
'Exploring a frontier is always a mission of science. In addition, space programs have the potential to create cutting-edge technologies, particularly in the field of robotics.'
Japan's space program has been on a rebound with a series of satellite launches after an embarrassment in 2003, when it had to abort a rocket carrying a spy satellite just 10 minutes after lift-off.
The United States is planning to put a person on the moon by 2015, the first since another American, Eugene Cernan, on December 11, 1972.
US President George W Bush has set the goal of a manned mission to Mars by 2020.
The European Space Agency plans a human flight to the moon in 2020 and China and India are preparing unmanned missions in the next two years"
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pic - George Melies - Voyage to the Moon 1902.
See also Federation Big Brother and to see what the place might be like, see the film by Ichikawa Kon

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