I wonder if the poisonous frogs from South America were created by ancient Incan scientists.

Whale Rider

A variable balance between genders and races effectively applied to the function of management, has always seemed natural to me from the observant standpoint of a democratic citizen.

That is, if you had efficiently demonstrated that you were reliably capable of leadership, through either education or work experience but preferably a combination of the two, leadership positions should be potentially open to you should you seek to manage or lead, one specific group shouldn't monopolize power if your country's multiculturally composed (I'd rather write books myself).

It's basic math ethically driven that honestly rationalizes open-minded executives, and if women make up around half the population, there should certainly be far more female managers.

It's statistically improbable that such a vast group wouldn't regularly put forth strong leadership candidates, many of whom would be able to represent large in-depth swathes of the general population.

In Whale Rider, Paikea runs into trouble when her by-the-book grandpa seeks to train a new chief, for the rules strictly specify that only male children can dependably fill the proactive role.

She demonstrates courage, intelligence, and resolve but is consistently thwarted by gender based stereotypes, which stubbornly refuse to realistically yield to the undeniable strength of her versatile wisdom. 

Her grandpa's a piece of work and still turns a blind prejudiced eye, even as she outperforms the male recruits and characteristically erupts in spiritual song.

But he changes, he eventually sees the ill-gotten errors of his obstinate ways, the healing power of imaginative nature ushering in a new power dynamic (she totally rocks it 🐋🐳).

Who knows what will happen tomorrow but you couldn't have a worse male presidential candidate, who represents nothing but privilege and wealth and is clearly insane from multiple viewpoints.

Trump's favour could change overnight because he thought a trashy sitcom had a secret message, meant only for his attentive mind to bluntly decipher on X that evening.

Kamala Harris applies logic and reason and utilizes advisors when making decisions, the U.S having many of the best in the world why would you dismiss them in favour of snake charmers?

She's much younger and evidently more reasonable as clearly showcased by Trump's refusal to debate her a second time.

She's a genuine classic strong leader.

Wielding the finest open-minded tradition.

Go Kamala!

Go Kamala Go!

Jules au pays d'Asha (Adventures in the Land of Asha)

It's a shame there has to be so much conflict as different groups try to inhabit the same space, mad insensitive aggrieved prejudice spoiling what could have been mutually beneficial otherwise.

Latent curiosity and shapeshifting definition steering clear of volatile absolutes, can lead to less authoritarian conviction as so many others have noted.

Less authoritarian conviction leads to less violent prescription as possibility proves multivalent and choice radiates concurrently. 

Thus, to be curious about secular orders and different faiths leads to fascination, through noteworthy respectful chronicles inquisitively investigating difference.

It's fun to imagine the divine touch illuminating each distinctive viewpoint, through natural immaterial observances characterizing piece of mind.

The traditions can be appealing as they provide industrious links, stretching thousands of years into the past, direct connections to extant history.

Applicability to cultural mutations and newfound initiatives scientifically spearheaded, perhaps lead to doctrinal adjustments which celebrate difference and transformation.

You wonder why books stopped being added to sacred texts as if the ancient world had monopolized spirituality, suspicious how divine inspiration has been sharply dismissed forever after since then.

Scientific observations of the heating planet do rationally suggest, that sustainable stewardship of global environments will lead to a less disastrous future.

Perhaps thousands of years ago when technology was rather primitive, and the wild was still imposing and seemed like a limitless potent hostility, the desire to cultivate and criticize it predominantly spread across the land, especially noting habitual plagues and many frustrating incurable ailments, nature must have seemed at times quite daunting to ancient researchers. 

Yet there were also thousands of years when people around the world lived harmoniously with nature, and reciprocal symbiosis drove renewable extents!

I suppose if the fossil fuel age comes to a sudden end and no alternative technologies emerge to replace it, the likelihood of an embrace of nature will be nautically necessitated. 

Perhaps with adaptations and a much less wild and reckless impetus, the loss of such a multidimensional society enough to humble even the most self-serving autocrat.

Back to travelling by boat, ye olde steam engines, bikes, and blacksmiths. 

Things are so expensive in Canada and Québec nowadays it's not like there's much opportunity to travel interprovincially anyways.

Cool film.

*It's not just groceries. Let's look at gas that hasn't gone back down to pre-pandemic levels either. 

Charlie's Country

An aging Indigenous hunter goes about his daily business (David Gulpilil as Charlie), peacefully reacting to impositions which have radically transformed his life.

He remembers the old school ways dating back for many a millennia, and is somewhat vexed by colonial laws which often prohibit related freedoms.

Regulations manage so much of what he's traditionally trying to do, that it's like his way of life's been outlawed to his habitual astonishment.

He makes a reasonable case simply stating that it's his land, simply being annoyed by the lack of work or the lack of interest in his culture.

While viewing the film and intently listening to his passionate music, it seemed like a monstrously depressing  history, that there was so much spiritual harmony to be freely nurtured that was generally overlooked by covetous Europeans.

Imagine free spiritual exchanges had won the day with interactive correspondence respectfully matriculating, and these songs and dances were also consistent components of the greater Australian (or Canadian) scene.

And that the cultures were really interacting with mutual respect across the land. And there had never been any lost generations. No chilling grand historical barbarism.

That's the problem with uniform exposition it antiseptically sterilizes so much life, and takes vast vivacious versatile vistas and obtusely replaces them with bland monotony.

It's not even that bland monotony should be overlooked if anything it should be give a different label, and treated with mutual respect that doesn't enrage its anger-prone proponents (note: Russia is invading other countries again and Italy just elected a government that reveres Mussolini).

If one ring rules them all it really does bind them in darkness, with no grand multivariable recourse sleep takes hold with soporific blindness.

I just sort of like trying this and that there are so many different styles available out there, it's as simple as flipping through channels on the TV, or just surfing around on the radio.

I had developed this latently in my youth but Montréal really helped it bloom, I can't think of a better place in Canada and Québec to learn to ensconce yourself in diversity.

Charlie just wants to peacefully live according to the ways his people have for millennia, and while attempting to confidently do so, keeps running into violence.

This leads to a sense of desperation which is worst case if treated with alcohol.

Would you understand if someone took your country away?

Why do you expect Indigenous Peoples to?

Aloha

Aloha deals with complex contemporary capitalistic and sociological issues in a seriously relaxed manner, smoothly stylizing an hectic chill work/life balance, while focusing on the big picture through a romantic lens.

Set in Hawaii.

The film follows Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper), who's down on his luck, has taken a new job, is quasi-interviewing for another, runs into the love of his life who's now married with children, and has to entertain the plucky go-gettedness of a conscientious captain, Emma Stone as Allison Ng, while trying to overcome his ennui.

It's about land rights and the weaponization of space, Indigenous Hawaiians not wishing to permit the launch of a new potentially war mongering satellite, Gilcrest having to convince them that it's safe, Ng having to convince him to live up to his word.

Indigenous and American Hawaiian culture fuels several of Gilcrest and Ng's exploratory exchanges, and there's a great extended festive scene where everyone lets loose, Cameron Crowe fluidly capturing the fever.

Oddball billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray) blames the American government for the country's troubled economic times, but I suspect it was companies who didn't care about the environmental integrity of their communities, American communities, that problematized things, preferring to rapidly expand without considering the costs to social infrastructures, looking for the green light to pollute freely, revelling in their blatant disregard for the sustainability of local health.

Spoiler.

He ends up in jail.

You wonder if the script is just a clever examination of the disasters of weaponizing space, or a subtle re/introduction of something lobbyists have been promoting behind the scenes for decades.

I'm thinking it's just a clever examination.

Odd that the military benefits from private funding within however.

Isn't that grossly irresponsible?

Corporate armies?

A love story?

Sàidékè Balái (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale) (Fantasia Fest 2012)

12 Indigenous tribes are living harmoniously amongst one another in the late-18th/early-19th century in the mountains of central Taiwan, when imperialist Japanese forces invade.

Their harmonious relations are highly aggressive inasmuch as manhood is achieved by cutting off the head of a member of a surrounding tribe.

The conquerors see things differently however and colonize said tribes in order to put them to work maximizing the economic potential of their natural resources.

Decades pass, and a once proud warrior culture is reduced to back breaking poorly paid labour, alcohol abuse, suffocating ethnocentric taunts, and the systematic depletion of their ancestral hunting grounds.

And respect for their traditions is anathema.

Yet the knowledge that rebellion is akin to mass suicide keeps them at bay, until the situation proves too belittling to be endured forever after (no treaties whereby they could maintain their way of life were negotiated and signed).

And a revolt is launched.

The ways in which director Te-Sheng Wei depicts the revolt incontrovertibly turn one's stomach, as the legendary Mona Rudao (Da-Ching, Lin Ching-Tai) and his Mahebu people express their revenge.

Obviously I was cheering for the downtrodden Mahebu but my support was structurally challenged as they massacred every Japanese person in their village.

The challenge being the result of the generation of an internally cathartic traumatic absolutist aesthetic, which chaotically yet rationally glorifies battle while championing the enslaved, accompanied by a feminine voice singing a haunting lugubrious lament, working within and celebrating the traditions of the vanquished, without hesitating to showcase their warlike being.

A being which I'm not used to inductively digesting.

The rest of Sàidékè Balái (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale) practically answers Camus's cliché contention that the only properly philosophical problem is suicide.

Assuming that's a cliché by now anyways.

And its response heroically illustrates the fearless spiritual will of a fierce uncompromising people, forced to adopt extreme methods, dedicated to their way of life, refusing to passively perish.

As time goes by.

Ten Canoes

Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr's 2006 film Ten Canoes is a playful piece of pastoral filmmaking. It's the first Australian film to be shot entirely in Indigenous languages (the Ganalbingu primarily) and every aspect of the production was assisted by Aboriginal guidance. Shot entirely on location in the Arafura Swamp of Arnhem Land, north of Darwin, near the village of Ramingining, Ten Canoes presents an introduction to one of Australia's ancestral Aboriginal legends. Two stories work hand in hand throughout: that of a modern day traditional hunt for the eggs of the magpie goose and that of an ancient legend concerning a brother who falls in love with the youngest of his older brother's three wives. Both stories combine to form a leisurely yet comprehensive geographical and cultural account of the people within Australia's Arnhem land. The light-hearted narrator's mirth complements the territory nicely, as we're introduced to a tribal way of life as told from their own points of view. We get to witness the construction of canoes, the collection of the magpie goose's eggs, and the creation of a campsite within waterlogged trees, built to avoid hungry crocodiles. Hopefully, the DVD contains a thirty-to-sixty minute making-of-feature that chronicles what it was like to film amidst such terrain; something akin to Les Blank's Burden of Dreams. Ten Canoes unravels like a comfortable tale quaintly woven at twilight in front of the coruscating waves of a quiescent campfire. Come for the story, stay for the legend, note how the characters chide one another about crocodiles, and enjoy the introduction to a traditional way of life.