The weather in Genoa appears to be returning to normal with the low pressure zone filling and clear skies and warm air returning, although warm to a temporarily exiled Englishman to a Genovese it is now autumnal, so my T Shirt is looked at somewhat askance by people dressed in overcoats with mufflers and gloves.
To us it feels like a summers day but to locals it is time to get ready for Christmas.
Yesterday with rain still in the air after the thundery showers and the flooding we decided to take ourselves along to Cinema City where a film advertised as Lingua Originale, was being shown.
The film, Cowboys and Aliens was based on a graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.
It is an old fashioned western with the added twist of UFO's.
It was both entertaining and intriguing, reminding me a little bit of Eric von Daniken's, Chariots of the Gods, which appeared to convince many people that Jesus was a space man.
I remember in Youth Clubs in the 70's, teenagers waving the book under my nose and challenging me as the new curate, to refute the 'scientific' facts produced by von Daniken.
The Cowboy narrative is one of the core stories that human beings tell each other around the camp fires. It is central to the human need to tell stories, its popularity arising precisely because it is a core story and it often used as the progenitor of the Capitalist ethic.
There are good guys, bad guys, whores with hearts of gold, moral courage and heroism and, usually, good wins out and the hero rides into the sunset.
Cowboys and Aliens has all this plus some rather clever, self referencing, humour and its triumph is that in the end the whole human race is the good guy seeing off the alien bad guys, Cowboys and Indians are on the same side and even the outlaws are invited to share in the general state of grace.
Finally in a post feminist conclusion the woman who is neither a whore or entirely what she seems to be, having emerged from the camp fire naked and unharmed, offers herself as a final sacrifice to rid the world of the 'demons'.
Central to the narrative thrust of the film is the aliens desire for gold.
So desperate are they for gold that they collect gold where they can, the robber is robbed of his stolen bullion, and people are snatched in order that their spectacles and watches can be melted down in the alien's space ship factory.
With Harrison Ford, bringing the memory of his role in Star Wars as Hans Solo bringing down the Aliens with lances and stone axes and Daniel Craig reminding us of his role as James Bond, it is somehow unsurprising when an arch alien, demon, is drowned in molten gold.
Apparently one of the 'suprising facts' described in the report Value and Values published by the St Paul's Institute is that people in financial services think that they are paid too much and yet say that 'salary and bonuses' are (their) most important motivation.
Essentially the report is a survey of attitudes, which like people can be contradictory, but implicit in the text is a view that ethical capitalism is possible even desirable.
The trouble is that 'ethical capitalism' like UFO's is often reported but has rarely if ever actually been seen.
Perhaps what is needed now is for the Church to look at these issues again and in a future report to take on board that if the planet is to survive we need to adopt the view that prosperity is possible without GNP growth, see Tim Jackson's book Prosperity Without Growth which offers a new economic paradigm or the recent report from the Co-op published on November the 9th, showing that 300 Co-op's worldwide have generated $1.6 trillion, roughly equivalent to the GDP of the world's largest economy.
Both these alternative approaches to Capitalism suggest that there are other ways of doing the world's business.
Capitalism, like the wild west, needs to be radically rewritten if the world is to survive its current crisis ......
To us it feels like a summers day but to locals it is time to get ready for Christmas.
Yesterday with rain still in the air after the thundery showers and the flooding we decided to take ourselves along to Cinema City where a film advertised as Lingua Originale, was being shown.
The film, Cowboys and Aliens was based on a graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.
It is an old fashioned western with the added twist of UFO's.
It was both entertaining and intriguing, reminding me a little bit of Eric von Daniken's, Chariots of the Gods, which appeared to convince many people that Jesus was a space man.
I remember in Youth Clubs in the 70's, teenagers waving the book under my nose and challenging me as the new curate, to refute the 'scientific' facts produced by von Daniken.
The Cowboy narrative is one of the core stories that human beings tell each other around the camp fires. It is central to the human need to tell stories, its popularity arising precisely because it is a core story and it often used as the progenitor of the Capitalist ethic.
There are good guys, bad guys, whores with hearts of gold, moral courage and heroism and, usually, good wins out and the hero rides into the sunset.
Cowboys and Aliens has all this plus some rather clever, self referencing, humour and its triumph is that in the end the whole human race is the good guy seeing off the alien bad guys, Cowboys and Indians are on the same side and even the outlaws are invited to share in the general state of grace.
Finally in a post feminist conclusion the woman who is neither a whore or entirely what she seems to be, having emerged from the camp fire naked and unharmed, offers herself as a final sacrifice to rid the world of the 'demons'.
Central to the narrative thrust of the film is the aliens desire for gold.
So desperate are they for gold that they collect gold where they can, the robber is robbed of his stolen bullion, and people are snatched in order that their spectacles and watches can be melted down in the alien's space ship factory.
With Harrison Ford, bringing the memory of his role in Star Wars as Hans Solo bringing down the Aliens with lances and stone axes and Daniel Craig reminding us of his role as James Bond, it is somehow unsurprising when an arch alien, demon, is drowned in molten gold.
Apparently one of the 'suprising facts' described in the report Value and Values published by the St Paul's Institute is that people in financial services think that they are paid too much and yet say that 'salary and bonuses' are (their) most important motivation.
Essentially the report is a survey of attitudes, which like people can be contradictory, but implicit in the text is a view that ethical capitalism is possible even desirable.
The trouble is that 'ethical capitalism' like UFO's is often reported but has rarely if ever actually been seen.
Perhaps what is needed now is for the Church to look at these issues again and in a future report to take on board that if the planet is to survive we need to adopt the view that prosperity is possible without GNP growth, see Tim Jackson's book Prosperity Without Growth which offers a new economic paradigm or the recent report from the Co-op published on November the 9th, showing that 300 Co-op's worldwide have generated $1.6 trillion, roughly equivalent to the GDP of the world's largest economy.
Both these alternative approaches to Capitalism suggest that there are other ways of doing the world's business.
Capitalism, like the wild west, needs to be radically rewritten if the world is to survive its current crisis ......
That's a great line about ethical capitalism and UFOs - bullseye.
ReplyDeleteInterested readers might like to know that Tim Jackson's report is available to download at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/data/files/publications/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf (my thanks to George Monbiot for that link.