The Five Year Old Go Player

My son can play go. This weekend we played a game on a little training board and he came up with this – he played black. As if that wasn’t enough, before the game he bowed and said “Enjoy the game” in Japanese. I was about to have heart failure until I remembered he has been watching my Hikaru No Go anime dvd’s but it seems the bug has bit deep and he spent about 4 hours over the weekend playing and nagging me to play. Who knows, he has started a lot earlier than many go professionals did – wouldn’t that be something.

Pink Floyd Still Rocks!

When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers
Who would hurt the children in any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
Exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids

But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night
Their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave those kids alone
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone
All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

Damn I love Pink floyd.

De-Humanizing the Victims of Crime

Here are a couple of media clippings taken from recent headlines around the world.

The body of a 21-year-old woman, whose neck had been cut and her genitals cut off, has been found in a veld in Bloemfontein, southern Free State police said on Sunday. “She was brutally, brutally murdered and then dumped in the veld. Her throat was cut open and her head was
almost hanging off. Her private parts were also cut out,” said police spokeswoman Sergeant Thandi Mbambo. The woman’s body was found by a security guard around 7.50am on Sunday in a veld near Taelo Moloisia in Phase Two, Bloemfontein.

Or this one:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Five U.S. soldiers were charged in a rape and multiple murder case that has outraged Iraqis, as documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed the rape victim was aged 14, and not over 20 as U.S. officials have said.

We all feel the bile rise at the mention of “the girl” who was raped in Iraq by 5 soldiers and then murdered along with her family but how many of us know her name?

Whenever crimes are committed the media falls back to the focused comfort of statistics and nameless generic labels. “x children killed in Gaza”, “y families killed in Tel Aviv bomb blast”, “z women and children raped and killed by Sudanese militia”. Somehow the numbers distance ourselves from the events, it allows us to go on eating our meals during the news and then put out children to bed with stories and fairytales of a better world. I live in a country where crime is rampant and I am tired of being fed statistics – these are tales of tragedy, of pain and loss and they should hurt.

The nameless raped 14 year old statistic of war was called Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi. She was born on August 19, 1991. Her birth certificate was given to Reuters recently showing a beautiful baby girl of 18 months. When she was six years old, Abeer sister was killed by “several gunshot wounds”

…..

A soldier cited in U.S. court documents as the first witness told investigators Green and three others drank alcohol and discussed rape. They then told the soldier to keep watch on the radio as they set off for the house, some in civilian clothes.
Two soldiers who said they went to the house accused Green of killing the parents and child before he and the other soldier in the home raped Abeer. Green then shot her too, they said. – Reuters
Abeer leaves behind two brothers who were not butchered that day, thankfully (or not) they were out the day their sister was raped and shot along with their mother, father and toddler. Her brothers are 10 and 13 years old respectively.

I want to cry and to rage against stories like these, to beat my fists against the stupidity and cruelty that we so readily impart on our fellow man. Somehow I take small consolation that the horror and pain I feel is an important reminder of an underlying humanity that is so easily mixed with a darkness in the human condition, and it gives me some hope.

These are people who have suffered under trauma that most of us can never comprehend. At the very least let’s give them names, and think about them a little more than checks on a statistics sheet.

It is the final bit of dignity we can impart on today’s atrocities.

Apologies

First off some apologies to readers of my blog, I have been very busy at work of late and spending more time over on my Newsvine column (found here).

Sorry bout that – will try and be a little more consistent.

Brushing Off The Bicycle

I work less than 6km from where I live. Unique in the position where a drive to work (with traffic) takes 5-10 minutes I’ve still been getting up in the morning and climbing into the car (my energetic mountain-climbing brother would weep).

However things have changed a bit recently, I got the old mountain bike down off the rack, had it serviced, and now am riding to work about 3 times a week (winter weather permitting). Once I had overcome the heart pounding inertia of the sedentary modern lifestyle I found that the ride to work opened a whole host of pleasures that just can’t be got any other way.

You leave in the morning and soon with the aid of the crisp air and elevated heart rate you feel fantastic. you arrive at work without being in the irritable-give-me-my-coffee (and why did that Wally have to cut me off at the circle) mindset and you arrive home in the evening having done an activity that brings a complete break from the rigors of the day.

Today I had to laugh at an rss headline entitled ‘World’s most energy efficient vehicle: A bicycle‘, how appropriate.

Nausicaa of The Valley of the Wind

I have been thinking about this movie for years. Released in the late 80’s in a severely edited version called “Warriors of the Wind”, this movie along with others like Akira were seminal events in the beginnings of a love for manga and Japanese animation. Meandering through CD warehouse today I found the official DVD version, a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki’s genius. Miyazaki is known to the modern generation for his hauntingly beautiful ‘Spirited Away’.

A wonderful synopsis of this movie is borrowed from wikipedia:

The story takes place 1,000 years after the “Seven Days of Fire,” an event which destroyed human civilization and most of the Earth’s original ecosystem. Scattered human settlements survive, isolated from one another by the “Sea of Corruption” (fukai, sea of rot/fungus in Japanese), a lethally toxic jungle of fungus swarming with giant insects which seem to come together only to wage war.

The title character, Nausicaä (Naushika transcribed into Japanese), is a charismatic young princess of the peaceful Valley of the Wind. Her name comes from the princess in the Odyssey who assisted Odysseus; part of her character comes from a Japanese folk hero known as “the princess who loved insects”. Although a skillful fighter, she is normally humane and peace-loving. She has an unusual gift for communicating with the giant insects (particularly with the Ohmu, the gigantic armored caterpillar-like insects who are the most intelligent creatures in the Sea of Corruption). She is also noted for her empathy toward animals, humans, and other beings, and for her skill at “windriding”, flying with an advanced glider-like craft with a jet assist called a mehve.

The Valley of the Wind becomes threatened when another state, Pejite, unearths a God Warrior (kyoshinhei) which is then stolen by a more powerful state, Tolmekia. The God Warrior is one of the lethal giant bioweapons used in the ancient war. Pejite and Tolmekia hope to use the God Warrior against each other and, ultimately, against the Sea of Corruption. While transporting the Warrior back to their realm, the Tolmekians are attacked by insects and subsequently crash-land in the Valley. The very next day, the Tolmekians invade the Valley to secure and revive the Warrior, eventually forcing the peaceful people of the Valley into armed resistance. The situation deteriorates as the fight to possess the God Warrior escalates out of control and the inimical fukai strikes back against those who attack it.

The story holds deeper meaning beyond war, however. Even the insects seem to be working toward some secret harmony and the lethal fungal forest seems to have a vital role in Earth’s new dominant ecosystem.

As she is forced to aid prisoners, villagers, enemies, mutant insects, and artificial bioweapons, Princess Nausicaä increasingly becomes a Joan of Arc figure—a warrior maiden inspired by a supermundane vision to defend all life against destruction.

If you love beautiful animation then you will be incomplete without seeing this movie. It is harrowing, visually unbelievable and full of an animation richness that defies comprehension. Beware however of the pirated and incomplete ‘Warriors of the Wind’ it is nothing next to this. The running length of this movie is 116 minutes.

Go and get it now.