Posts by Rich Lock
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Can you tell what his point is?
S'pretty incoherent alright. But I think he wants us all to go back to sleep, because he can't see what all the fuss is about, and there's nothing to worry about.
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Rich: the biggest threat is internal, not external?
I wouldn't say that. I'd say that the external threat managed to extend to the home front as well as the outside world - the Scouring of the Shire was still Sauron and Saruman's work.
With the help of large numbers of local bullyboys, if my teenage recall is correct. But it was a throwaway comment for amusement rather than intended as anything deep and meaningful. I'm all for the deconstruction of culture, including pop culture, as part of The Debate on the State of the World Today. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Orcs, in the mythology of the book, are clearly not indigenous - they were created in mockery of or from humans by an envious demigod. It's hard to integrate that with European racist mythology.
so all that stuff in the book about black skins and slanty eyes should be dismissed as irrelevant? :)
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obviously he could have done something else and radically revamped those themes
Like the end of RoTK, where the hobbits return home and find that the biggest threat is internal, not external? Something Peter Jackson entirely left out?
Probably would have thrown a major spanner in the narrative arc, though. But might have been possible with less Enya, and less singing Viggo. So win-win, really.
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even the Star Times is obliged to tuck away at the bottom of the page the news that, in fact, "intelligence operations aimed at identifying threats to the World Cup are well underway" and a security steering group will be led from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Seems to me that there could be an interesting story here. Unfortunately it's struggling to get out from behind the "ZOMG TEH TERRORISTS WILL KILL US ALL!!!11!!1" headlines.
If there is a threat to the RWC, where does it come from? Inside NZ? Outside?
If it's outside, how are they (THEM!) going to get here? The vast majority of 'external threats' who are fanatical and indoctrinated enough to carry out an attack are going to have big problems slipping under the radar and getting into NZ. But questions about our border security could certainly be asked.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that they get into the country. Now, you can't easily slip through customs with WMD's in your pants, so they'll almost certainly have to source something locally. I'd guess this is almost impossible, but again, that's a question it might be nice to have an answer to. How easy is it to pick up a couple of pounds of, for example, mining dynamite?
Moving on to internal: how credible is an internal threat? Well, my guess (and it is a guess) would be that any internal fanatics would, in a place like NZ, stand out like the proverbial balls on a bulldog. The only thing like it that we've had recently has been that bunch in the Ureweras, and I really dont find it credible that they'd actually be dumb enough to try something horrifically spectacular at a match or a game. You have a be a lot more indoctrinated to ge tto that level, and that makes you easier to spot and deal with.
I'd much rather read a sober, detailed analysis along those lines than some sort of semi-hysterical nonsense based on pulp-sport style pranks. But maybe that's just me.
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Is this a dead horse? 3 months ago, I would have said "Yes". Now, it seems there's just that little bit more life to be flogged out of it.
This week in your NZ Herald 'Viva' supplement, fashion watchers predict that in 2010, black will be the new black, and 'Avatar' will be the new 'copyright must change'!
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I actually enjoyed Gladiator.
Me, too. and for the opposite reason that Ben outlines.
And at that point, the crowd was not cheering, because what he had just finished doing was actually not entertaining - he had killed everyone the way a soldier would, fast and efficiently, and with some measure of empathy, no torturing the last helpless victim, asking the crowd if they should be spared, etc.
If I said I found that amusing and entertaining, would that make me a bad person?
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And how old were you when you figured out that George Lucas was trying to make a statement about Vietnam?
Eh? 38, and not buying it.
Everyone knows Star Wars is all about Chaos Theory, anyway.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Star-Wars-vs-Chaos-Theory-Spaced
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This article infuriated me.
It didn't so much infuriate me as bemuse me, because there didn't seem to be any point to it apart from to let someone have a whinge in the national press. And why did they want to have a whinge? Well:
property investors are maligned in the media. That's not fair
Life's not fair, dear. Didn't your parents trot out that cliché when you were a kid? Because it doesn't seem to have stuck. And I'm sure that $700,000 a year will go some way towards taking the sting out of all those nasty playground taunts from the bad widdle journalists. Plus the double-page soapbox those same journalists gave you to whine to your hearts content. Seriously, cry me a fucking river.
In other news, lawyers and politicians form pressure group to complain about 'being unfairly maligned in the media'. More at six.
More seriously, give people a system - any system - and they'll game it to their own advantage. She has done very well for herself by doing so, and I doff my cap.
But possibly we should be encouraging investment elsewhere, and discouraging investment in property? Is that a question worth exploring? If so, is it too much to hope for some balanced journalism along those lines, rather than something that reads as a thinly-veiled propaganda piece? Clearly so.
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Actually, I think we should all go dressed like the School of Athens
Really? I think you know how badly that would all end up.
Or is that your plan?To! Ga! To! Ga! To! Ga! Toga! Toga! TogatogatogatogaTOGATOGATOGATOGATOGAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
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Yeah, but Bjork still looked pretty.
...and, now I've wiki'd it, I see that the South Park boys were frocked up at the 2000 Oscars, and Bjork broke out the swan dress at the 2001 ceremoney.
Which fatally undermines my ballsiness argument.
Now, Wellywood.
Has anyone done SRSLY? (the only real answer to to the question: 'how about we put a great big unoriginal hollywood-type sign on this hill'), or YA RLY ('I think it would be really great if we put a big unoriginal hollywood-type sign on this hill').
Or even just FAIL