Safely home after a warmish break - 18degC days compared to 11degC Canberra days.

Finished Wittgensteins Poker and two greg bear novels + half a tome called 'complete reference guide to html' which of course it is not, was not and will not be slash / \ anyone?

Watched Molokai
Amazon.com
This biography of Father Damien, the Catholic priest who in 1873 volunteered for service on the eponymous Hawaiian leper colony, doesn't hesitate to idolize its subject, and why should it? For 15 years Damien ministered almost single-handedly to the quarantined community, supplying what medication he could procure while struggling against the red tape from organizations (religious and governmental) that would rather have forgotten all about the hundreds of people slowly dying in primitive conditions. He won some battles and lost others, finally succumbing to the disease himself in 1888. The film can't overcome the inherent weaknesses of projects such as this: high officials given to improbable speeches recapping the relevant historical events for us, a certain formlessness generated by skipping through the years and only hitting the high points, stock bureaucratic villains whose motives are never fairly explored. On the other hand, screenwriter John Briley has an Oscar on his shelf for Gandhi, so he knows how to string the lessons together and make them go down smoothly.
The earnestness of the project no doubt led to the who's-who supporting cast (Sam Neill, Derek Jacobi, Peter O'Toole, Leo McKern) (oh yes, and Kris Kristofferson), but it is David Wenham who must carry the film as Damien, which he does well enough--not spectacularly but with a touching humility not above a tetchy self-righteousness. Director Paul Cox was an inspired choice, however, bringing to the project his patient fascination with emotions at their most subtle and restrained; as a result, Molokai's low-key sense of conflict, often a fatal flaw in similar movies, becomes the film's saving grace, a manifestation of its subject's quiet, persistent faith. --Bruce Reid


which shows nothing ever changes.... Gandhi is next, been sitting unopened on the shelf for too long...

meanwhile many agonist posts to catch up on....

Gone to the coast for three days
Winter walks along the sandy beaches and thru the State Forest.

Israel to bulldoze Gaza settlements
JERUSALEM June 13, 2004
(Times of Oman-AFP)-- Israel will demolish all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip as part of a promised pullout from the territory, officials said yesterday, going back on earlier plans to leave the homes intact.

"The houses will be destroyed so that they do not fall into the hands of terrorists or the mafia run by (Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat," said an official in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"It would have been otherwise, had we received assurances that these buildings would be turned over the Palestinian refugees, but, as this is not the case, we had no other choice," the official said, asking not to be further identified.

The announcement came as Sharon accelerated preparations to implement the withdrawal following its approval in principle by ministers last week, despite opposition from hardline members of both his party and his government.

continues:
timesofman

My blood boils and my outrage grows, the sheer vindictiveness in demolishing perfectly good housing by the so called representatives of God's People is an expression of the ongoing callousness and hatred that those who do not wish peace exhibit!