Why kamikaze pilots wore helmets

I read another one of Timothy Kalyegira's colummns in The Monitor and I couldnt help rolling my eyes.
Kalyegira has been seeing this woman who claims to be a seer. She's been telling him she can see into the future although whether hallucinogenic drugs are involved in this entreprise is left unclear. He claims among other things that she predicted the outbreak of ebola, Fancy that! Who could have imagined an ebola outbreak in the Great lakes region?
And that's one of the things that annoyed me about the article- how predictable her 'visions' were. All it involved was a rudimentary grasp of the region. Her prediction about ebola was a perfect example but another one was her assertion that there would be some kind of chaos in the great lakes region next year. Considering all the turmoil this region has seen in the last decade- and what is currently happening in Congo- it is highly amusing that Kalyegira considered her a visionary.
I read something recently about how religious cults recover from the failure of their apocalyptic prophecies. As I mentioned in my 'cognitive dissonance' post a few weeks ago, people suffer severe mental discomfort when ideas that challenge their deeply held beliefs are presented to them-especially when the conflicting ideas are convincing. Religious cults have a brilliant way of resolving this cognitive dissonance- they come up with a theory about why the event they predicted didnt actually show up and postpone the next coming. Bizzarely this strengthens the group and cognitive dissonance is easily overcome because they can never be wrong. All that is required is for the goalposts to shift a little bit so that the collective delusion remains intact.
Kalyegira also asserts that everything we do is predestined and the future is fixed in stone- a moment of enlightenment I can only assume was encouraged by our seer friend. I've never understood this argument-whether or not you incorporate God into it, it does not make any sense. If God is generally non-intervening, then our fate is clearly not set in stone. If God does not exist, then what higher force has ensured that we all live predestined lives? How can you even tell that everything was pre-destined? Just because it actually happened? Or because a strange woman sitting in a shack claiming mystical powers told you so?
In a way Kalyegira cannot be blamed- we all need to make sense of the world and knowing the future helps to reduce the helplesness we feel at not being in control. However everytime I read about an obvious quack with mystical powers and the people who believe them, my heart drops. I recently read a story that Robert Mugabe and some of his advisors were told by a woman that she could get refined diesel from rocks by striking them with her staff- magic which obviously came with a fee. A lot of people in high places swallowed the con with predictable consequences. She's now in jail but she's the smart one in the story. Mugabe is not a man known for his rationality but it was still a very sobering story about man's desire to embrace anything no matter how outlandish and no matter how disconnected from the actual facts. I guess self-delusion was probably an important tool for stone-age man, but its somewhat ill-suited for a country in an economic crisis in the twenty-first century.
Delusions of destiny also lead people to say something like this priceless quote I found this on the New Vision message board-which by the way is not a place for the sensitive and faint-hearted)
My position on Buganda has been stated publicly here, and I don't mind repeating it: Baganda are God's own chosen people. When good angels die in heaven they are rewarded with being born as Baganda. I teach my children that, as Baganda, they are a superior people and that a Federo Buganda is the promised land they will one day repossess.
Keep in mind this was said without any irony and consider the epic degree of self-delusion involved here. He's got a lot of company.
**
In my 'best and worst films' list, I made a few criminal omissions. In the best of category, I should have included Kinsey which is a truly wonderful biopic about the late Alfred Kinsey- the wasp expert who in the fifties undertook the most extensive study on American sexuality that had ever been carried out. The results were predictably shocking and the film handles the whole thing very well. If you want the perfect example of how to completely flesh out a character on film, this is the one you want to see.
In the 'worst of' list I really should have mentioned the wretched piece of trash that goes by the name of Doom. I played the computer game when I was growing up and enjoyed it thoroughly-it was genuinely creepy- but the film is a catastrophe. Jesus wept-so will you after seeing this film.
Kinsey's tagline-'lets talk about sex' made me think about how other films sell themselves in one sentence. In the case of Kinsey, the tagline is accurate and a good departure from the norm but too many films recycle the same taglines with little variation. The most annoying is the one based on 'the secret'- usually something like 'everyone has a secret' or 'some secrets should stay buried'. It's become so overused that it is seriously annoying. I guess it probably scores well with their test audiences because everyone wants to know a secret even if you have to pay some money for it and sit in a crowded dark room with total strangers to find out what it is. Another annoyance is the tagline I saw on Shooter and all its variations-'yesterday was about justice, today was about honour...'etc. I wish films had interesting taglines- I'm very fond of the one for True Lies-'When he said I do, he never said what he did.'

such small portions...

Mini-reviews of the best and worst films I've seen this year. Note: It doesnt matter what year they were released, as long as I saw them this year.

BEST
Mean creek: Close contender for best film I’ve seen this year. It’s a well-shot and beautifully-acted tale about how a nice day out goes horribly wrong for a group of young kids. The acting is superb, the pace is unhurried and when the inevitable turning point arrives, it is still shocking even though you are likely to see it coming. Good stuff.
Knocked up: A funny film about what happens when you decide that condoms are optional.
Hot fuzz: The last half-hour or so are a bit tedious but the rest of the film is very funny although mainly for people who are attuned to British humour. Some of it is really quite subtle-those who have seen Shaun of the dead (with the same director and leading actors) will know what to expect when they rent this film.
Bourne ultimatum: Not just the best action film of the year, but possibly the best action film of the decade. The fight scene in a Morocco apartment is just breathtaking-so realistic you can almost feel the blows- and the directing is superb.
Children of men: The best film I saw this year. It’s dark, disturbing and violent-its about a dystopian world in which mankind has stopped reproducing- but film-making rarely gets better than this.
Little Miss sunshine: Charming and funny, I really enjoyed this.
Flight 93: An achingly realistic film about 9/11 focusing on the passengers on one of the doomed planes and their loved ones on the ground. There’ll never be a better film about those events than this one.
House of flying daggers: After Crouching tiger, hidden dragon showed us that martial arts and sword fights could be as graceful as ballet-and gravity could be overcome if you were skilful enough- here is another film to follow that path. The action sequences are unbelievable but the film as a whole is a truly memorable experience. You wont see too many violent martial-arts love stories in your life.
Anchorman: A lot funnier than I thought it would be and already one of the most quotable films in years.
Red Eye: How to make a gripping action thriller with most of it set in an airplane- and with the heroine and villain barely leaving their seats until about an hour into the film.
24 hour party people: This film came out about five years ago, but I only saw it recently and I strongly recommend it for anyone who wants something a bit more unconventional. It is set mainly in the eighties and chronicles the music scene in Manchester so wonderfully and with such humour that you cant help but be drawn in. It stars comic genius Steve Coogan (of I’m Alan Patridge and Knowing me, knowing you fame) and has too many good moments to mention.
The departed: Intense and uncompromising-and what an ending!. Martin Scorcese’s genius is clearly evident in just about every frame of this movie.

WORST
XX2: Take your worst hangover and multiply it by about a thousand. That’s how bad this film is.
Scary movie 3: So bad, so repulsive, so insulting I feel actual physical pain just thinking of this travesty of a film. It is so bad that I heard angels weeping loudly for mankind as the closing credits rolled. I would rather drink paint than watch this again. I hope that wasn’t too subtle- this film is an abomination on so many levels. It sucked so badly it warped space and time. If you liked this film, you need to take a long hard look at your life.
Nacho libre: To quote Charlie Brooker (from one of his priceless reviews about a TV show whose name escapes me) this will be warmly welcomed by those sitting infront of a TV set with a shotgun in their mouths trying to pluck up the courage.
Elizabethtown: This film was very similar to Garden state- depressed guy meets quirky girl who changes his life- but while Garden state was funny and smart, this one was just pretentious and dull and Kirsten Dunst’s character was just plain irritating (compared to Natalie Portman’s character in Garden state who was charming and a lot more believable) The only good thing about the film is Alec Baldwin’s very brief role- he’s onscreen for about ten minutes but he steals the film. Very poor and frequently annoying.
The Simpsons movie: While I think The Simpsons TV show is one of mankind’s greatest achievements- there’s never been a funnier series than the show in its prime- the film is a desperate let-down. It’s truly disappointing and has very little of the wit and warmth of the series.
Next: I blogged about the sci-fi author Philip.K.Dick in a recent post and this film starring Nicholas Cage and Jessica Biel is based on his story The golden man. It starts off very promisingly but by the end it just loses its marbles. One problem is Jessica Biel- she’s a fine actress but shes so beautiful and has a certain je ne sais quoi that the film inevitably becomes a love story and a celebration of her rather than a smart sci-fi film(I saw the same thing in The illusionist which also had Biel- that also became a lets-worship-Jessica-Biel film as soon as she made her appearance) The lead character-and the camera- cant help falling in love with her at the expense of the film.
Revolver: I’m a big fan of the director Guy Ritchie-Snatch still makes me cry with laughter- so it really hurts to say this, but this is without a doubt the worst film I’ve seen this year. Pretentious, stupid and completely incomprehensible. Don’t go anywhere near this.

He had become death, the destroyer of words

More on George Bush and his continuing attempts to treat the law with the respect normally reserved for two-dollar prostitutes with a crack habit. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was given permission to have a look through the wealth of legal opinions drafted by the White House (Basically their version of porn) which are supposed to justify among other things tapping Americans without a warrant and-surprise!- he was somewhat unhappy with the things he found. Excerpt:
1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.
2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President's authority under Article II.
3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President's legal determinations.
I’m sure there is a banana republic or two somewhere in the world where the President is now dancing with joy, tears flowing freely from his eyes as he hears that the President of the US has legally declared himself Superman. What a fine example to set to the rest of the world! I’ll be honest here- I’m actually going to miss Bush. The sheer audacity, the nerve makes him look like a comic-book villain albeit one with a particular fondness for red ties.
And they've been doing this for quite a while. A few months ago the US Government finally accepted that torture was illegal but before anyone could sigh with relief, they made it clear that they would continue to employ ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’
‘Well’ enquiring minds wanted to know ‘whats the difference? Maybe you could tell us which methods fall in which category so as to avoid confusion.’
“Aah now there’s the problem, we cant do that” The White house replied ‘We cant let the terrorists know what we consider torture and what we don’t.”
So in effect, they rendered the whole thing redundant- all they have to do is call any particular method an enhanced interrogation technique and they'll argue it wasnt torture. It's very, very cheeky and I think you'll agree that my prostitute analogy at the beginning of this post was accurate.
Seriously, I’m going to miss these clowns.
***
It's not been a good month for organized religion. First we had the incredibly undignified'Teddy bear' saga(although I wonder- if it is such a precious name, why do so many Muslims name their sons Mohammed? That's hardly a sign of respect, it just kills the prestige of the name)And then there was the outrage over the film The Golden Compass based on a series of books by an avowed atheist and considered a thinly-veiled attack on Christianity. I've seen Christians picketing cinemas calling for a boycott of the film because it espouses 'atheist principles' a claim that made me chuckle as I imagined a kind of Atheists bible with all their values explicitly laid out.
I mean, what exactly are these principles? Atheism is quite simply taking the position that God does not exist. Once that's out of the way, what other values do atheists have that are different from other Christians? Unless we're taking the postition that non-belief is a set of values all on its own? I dont get it. I suspect the protestors equated atheism with immorality which doesnt make sense because religion obviously does not have a monopoly over morality. Also, if Atheists do decide to get their message out, what exactly is wrong with that? Christians-and other faiths- are allowed to do it, why on earth should they try to suppress the views of others? And in this case we are talking about film that does not even explicitly attack Christianity, but let's suppose for a moment that it does. This is not going to change a single thing about their faith or the faith of other commited Christians, so whats the point of protesting? Why waste so much time being offended and outraged? It completely puzzles me. Maybe they should have been holding a banner saying WE STRONGLY OPPOSE THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH IF THAT SPEECH CONTAINS VIEWS DIFFERENT FROM OUR OWN.
**
This news item caught my eye. I'm in awe.
A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools.
The artificial intelligence of CyberLover's automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report on every person it meets complete with name, contact information, and photos.
"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," PC Tools senior malware analyst Sergei Shevchenko said in a statement.\

And this (excerpt):
The particular high on which the A.P. story focuses is the smoking of bufotenine, a psychedelic that can be obtained from the toxin of the Sonoran Desert toad. The government has not banned possession of the toad, only possession of it with knowledge of its psychoactive potential, which transforms the toad into "drug paraphernalia":
In October, a Kansas City man was charged with possessing a controlled substance after Clay County authorities determined he possessed a toad with the intent to use its venom to get high.
Clay County Prosecutor Daniel White said possessing the toad is not illegal, but using it to get high off its venom is.
"It is easier to get it, and law enforcement might not immediately know you use it to get high," White said. "It's sort of a New Age way to get high. You convince yourself it is OK because it is something you get naturally from our environment.
"There are a lot of things that are created naturally but they are still not legal," he said.
If you live in the United States and you are ever worried that the police aren't out there fighting serious crime, fear not- they are out there running after people who own toads, what more could they possibly do?. I hope you'll sleep better at night now. To paraphrase The Simpsons, I, for one, welcome our new toad-hunting overlords...

Disinfected, not eager to please/ "We've no time for later"

I was intrigued by the recent comments by sci-fi author Brian Aldiss about the marginalization of science-fiction. I thought he was right when he complained that it is rarely considered as serious fiction-sci-fi authors rarely make it onto any 'greatest writers ever' lists for example or even compilations of classic novels. Yet how many brilliant writers has the genre given us? Arthur. C. Clarke, Aldiss himself, Isaac Asimov, H.G Wells, Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and the incomparable Philip.K. Dick (who I praised profusely on my old blog) I do think thats a travesty. Considering how many truly great sci-fi novels have been written- many of them quite beautifully- its baffling that reading this genre makes you a kind of oddball and yet we live in a world in which Dan Brown is considered a serious author. We can embrace the most outlandish fiction (and im counting many romantic comedies here!) but science-fiction for some reason appears 'too weird' (and of course its quite feasible that today's science-fiction will be tomorrow's reality-can you imagine how many weird looks you would have got if you'd written about computers and satellites in the seventeenth century)The reality is that sci-fi can be just as well-written and as profound as 'ordinary' fiction.
It was also very fascinating to read about the battles Aldiss had with director Stanley Kubrick over his story Summer toys last all summer long which Kubrick was trying to film (Spilberg eventually took over when Kubrick died- the film became A.I)Aldiss hated the direction Kubrick was trying to take his story- the 'Pinocchio' angle- and even now he hates the film. There's so many sci-fi stories I've read that I think could make truly good films like J.G Ballard's Billenium or Philip.K.Dick's The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch which is one of the most mind-blowing reading experiences I have ever had. I so wanted to steal The Oxford Book of science-fiction stories from my old uni, but I wanted to graduate....
***
Some time ago, I read a film review praising the legendary French director Jean Luc Goddard and comparing his take on pop-culture with that of one of today's cult directors Quentin Tarantino. The reviewer noted that Goddard made fun of pop culture in his films while Tarantino worshipped it and this automatically made Goddard more credible as a cinematic voice. But was he right? I dont really see whats wrong with taking pop culture seriously as Tarantino did (although I prefer to think of him as regarding it affectionately not worshipping it as such)Considering how much pop-culture represents about any society, the likes of Goddard run the risk of becoming self-indulgent and smug and in the end failing to make any interesting observations on the whole thing.
***
Who is the greatest actress working today? I'm sure a few people will say Nicole Kidman or perhaps Cate Blanchett. I'm going for someone less obvious-Samantha Morton. I first saw her as one of the pre-cogs in Minority Report and then I saw her in a lot of other stuff like Code 41 and The libertine. She is a truly sublime actress, I dont think I've ever seen any actress quite as compelling as her. In The Libertine, she even manages to upstage Johnny Depp which is quite an achievement. Watch out for her.
***
Saw a man struggling to come out of a taxi while dozens of people were trying to shove their way in (Rush hour on Monday at the taxi park is a bitch) He annouced in a loud voice "Okay- all thieves stand to the left. The rest of you..." And then his voice was drowned out by a lot of chatter. Made me smile.
***
There was a recent A.A. Gill restaurant review from The Times which was so good that I wanted to frame it and put it up in my room. I like unorthodox restaurant reviews- Gill, Will Self and Giles Coren expecially- but this one may be the funniest Ive ever read. Here is a snippet (I'm too lazy to link to it)which I thought wasboth incredibly cruel and very funny. He hated the restaurant-Il Divo- so much that he recommended it at the end of the review for its sheer . If only The New Times took on this format instead of only writing kiss-ass restaurant reviews(once in the middle of a review, the writer started saying 'we') maybe we would all get somewhere but thats a story for another time. Here's one of the best bits of Gill's article.
There was some sort of interrogation heat lamp that was so blinding, I denounced all my neighbours. The decor is late oligarch. The money spent on this large, gilded, swagged and distressed room, with its hysterical fixtures, prostitutes’ fittings and Ruritanian lavatorial splendour, hasn’t been so much wasted, or squandered, as sent to a gulag of tastelessness. The chairs are vast and histrionic, but still managed to be more uncomfortable than sitting on an Ethiopian Santa’s knee

Fifty miles of elbow room

We lawyers have no souls and we have been known to dip our cookies in our vanquished opponent’s tears, but we give credit where it is due especially when said credit is going to other lawyers. Because occasionally a lawyer comes up with such a wonderful piece of acrobatic legalese that you almost weep with joy that we live in a world in which Lewis Carroll appears to have more influence than Voltaire. We cant weep of course, because we don’t have tear ducts, but you get the point.
I’m talking of course about the Bush administration. Now like most of the civilized world I have serious problems with these bozos, but we wont get into the substantial issues now. However I have no choice but to hastily prepare a shipment of kudos to be delivered to the White house in celebration of their contribution to what I can only call Alice-in-Wonderlandism. I can only bow before them and mutter ‘I am not worthy!’ when presented with the kind of legal acrobatics that however somewhere between truly brilliant and completely insane. I spotted this from the Reason magazine blog.

Two months ago a Justice Department lawyer assured U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of international communications involving people in the U.S. was perfectly legal. He declined to elaborate, saying "the evidence we need to demonstrate to you that it is lawful cannot be disclosed without that process itself causing grave harm to United States national security"

How brilliant is that? ‘It’s legal, but we cant prove to you that it is legal because if we do so we will endanger National Security’.
But its not their first contribution to the nonsense files- oh, no. There’s this gem from a few years ago at a time when the American people were just beginning to cotton on to the fact that this Iraq war thingy was a little dodgy. One Bush aide said:

It's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

‘A success that hasn’t occurred yet’! Just bask in the sheer brilliance of that. Marvel at it. Turn the idea over in your mind and hope to God it doesn’t fry your brain cells. It is the war and peace of the nonsense canon, proof that with careful aim, mankind can kick the enlightenment square in the balls.
I must also give honourable mention to England’s disgraced ex-coach Steve Mcclaren whose failed attempts to get England to Euro 2008 enabled the world to better understand the concept of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He was fired the morning after the Croatia defeat and his typically boring speech had one moment that made me sit up and take notice. He said-and I quote-
"I said right at the start I would live and die by results and results haven't gone my way. In that sense we have failed"
So if he was going to ‘live and die’ by the results and he quite clearly didn’t get the results, in what sense exactly did he not fail? Notice also the ‘results havent gone my way’ line as if it wasn’t really his fault- the results just went another way. As a non-apology, it takes some beating.
***
“Have you been drinking son?
You don’t look old enough to drink to me.”
“I’m sorry officer, is there a certain age you’re supposed to be?
‘cause nobody told me”

Riot Van: The Arctic Monkeys