It was in Antonioni’s classic film, Blow Up, that a photo was taken of a quiet park scene, but only after repeatedly enlarging the picture, the hero discovers that a murder was actually taking place unnoticed. It’s this same re-evaluation of reality and closer inspection that’s needed when you look at some of the media pictures coming out of Iraq.
Remember the recent TV pictures of happy mobs cheering as the statue of Saddam fell? Unfortunately you weren’t given the reality – just a carefully staged fake ‘event’ to sell the idea of happy Iraqi’s. The media was given the event right in front of their hotel, so that they couldn’t ignore it.
But the reality of the scene wasn’t shown to the world. Take a look at a picture of the square as it actually was at
A Tale of Two Photographs.
Then for more info, look at Photographs Tell the Story.
For a large picture of the square that you may have thought – if you watched the scene on TV – was filled with a large happy crowd, look at The
Photograph. And do a little reading at About Those Dancing Crowds
Those people who say the Iraq invasion isn’t about oil, are partly right. It’s actually about oil, water, roads, trains, phones, ports and drugs. Read this story — Privatising Iraq — about the push to ‘privatise’ Iraq and make it the most sold country on Earth. And consider The Corporate War on Iraq.
Then the highly suspect rent-a-cop industry in the US, is now employing ‘cops’ to police that occupied country – read DynCorp Rent Cops in Iraq.
As we’re peeling back the curtain and showing reality, you may have thought that your PIN number on your bank card was completely safe and secure. It’s not. There are now ways and means to uncover your pin number – not that anyone’s talking about it. In fact, there are overseas court orders trying to suppress this information from getting out. Take a good hard look at this next page, which contains lots of affidavits (including some very revealing court statements by local SA Bank security officials) on aspects of our banking system that you may not have known about. Go to Court Tries to Gag PIN Number Scam Info.
It’s an archetypal story – the lone inventor comes up with a major invention that could wipe out big business interests. Then the invention just vanishes, and the inventor either disappears as well, or just dies penniless and unacknowledged. This happens a lot, I’d imagine. After all – what do you think local petrol companies would say to an engine that gave you 200 miles to the gallon? Read this fascinating and all too brief news report on a recently rediscovered invention that was suppressed way back when. Pass this story to any budding engineers and inventors. Go to
The 200 Miles Per Gallon Carburettor.
Gear change, and for those of you who actually read books, take a browse through the various authors on display and – provided you’ve the bandwidth – listen to
Authors Interviews.
I bought a DVD player recently, and have realized that despite all whining from local companies – the only way to get any decent films, at a reasonable price, is either to hit the fleamarkets for perfect quality so-called ‘pirated’ DVD’s or order from overseas. Here’s a prime example. A film from last year, K19 (the Cold War sub flick) is finally being released here on DVD. Cost? R229 at
Incredible. However, a few clicks away at Amazon, you can buy it for $8 – (which works out to around R64).
So this old film is being sold here as a ‘new’ DVD release, at around 4 times its actual price. Another example – look at the very cool ‘box set’ of all the
Godfather movies.
Price roughly in our currency – R430. Price in local stores? R900. (Maybe you want an entire DVD of The Ozbournes First Season.
Pick it up for under R200!
This kind of markup is rampant it seems in local ‘official’ DVD selling. Yet I saw a perfect DVD copy of The Pianist on sale at a fleamarket, selling for R80 – cheaper than 2 tickets and popcorn to watch it in cinema. Every title now in cinema is available at fleamarkets in cheap perfect quality DVD’s, months before the local monopolies bother to release them to us at ridiculously overpriced rates – yet we’re stuck with inflated prices and old product… And we’re supposed to buy the story about pirating being responsible for the high local prices. Do some browsing through Amazon and other US and UK DVD suppliers and work out the ‘real’ costs of DVD – because it seems clear that there’s massive profiteering going on locally. Also, as a serious film fanatic, I resent the mostly offensively brain-dead titles that the companies here think ‘we’ want to buy. Some of us would rather chew our own legs off than watch recycled kiddies movies. Where’re the sleazy Italian zombie flicks? Zombie Flesh Eaters
Gorgeous arthouse films? The Draughtsman’s Contract.
Insane B-grade films? Twin Peaks First Season. Try and find that locally for even double that price.
Get the idea of just how badly we’re being browbeaten with the bogeyman of ‘pirated product’ and that we must ‘support local companies’ – to keep us from seeing that we’re being ripped off on a wide front. (If there actually are any decent legit importers of DVD locally who arent charging 200-400% markup, make contact – given how much contempt I’ve expressed for most of the local DVD sellers, I’ll be happy to punt anyone who isnt ripping the public off.) Now if only we had consumer journalists who weren’t totally compromised and bribed by being given money by banks, maybe we could get somewhere.
Finally, to move from dogs of the movie kind, to dogs of the real kind. If you know any of those poor souls who seem to think animals are somehow more worthy of help and compassion than that starving child at the traffic lights – mess them around with this next page showing a whole Dog Island for canines to be set free on. Yes it’s a hoax, but take a look, it looks bizarrely real.
Ian Fraser is a playwright, author, comedian, conspiracy nut, old-time radio collector and self-confessed data-junkie. Winner of numerous Vita and Amstel Awards, he’s been an Internet addict and games-fanatic since around 1995, when the Internet began to make much more sense than theatre.