yesterday we saw a few films as part of the first annual human rights film festival in wellington. we were gonna see some more films today but decided to stay at home. yesterday i was still feeling crappy, tired from my panic attack on friday. today i felt good and just wanted to stay home, enjoying the feeling. my appetite finally returned just after dinner. below is my review of the films we did see.

"arms for the poor" - a film to remind americans how messed up our government's priorities are as can be seen by examining the biggest chunk of the national budget. if you didn't already know the answer to this, it is military spending. weapons. keeping up with other countries. only, why do we spend so much to keep up in the arms race? are we not the biggest military might on the planet? the answer is that we sell our weapons technology to other countries. not just ones that you would think are our allies so naturally we would trade all sorts of things with them but countries that our public policy makers and media often condemn. countries with human rights violations and dictatorships. not only that but we don't sell second-hand out-dated weapons technology. no, we sell the best we have to offer. we sell what we are currently using. hence, lots of money must be invested to develop the next level of weapons technology if we are to be ahead of those we have sold our technology to. isn't this the stupidest thing you have ever heard of? if you were playing a simulation video game of empires and world powers, there is no way in hell you would ever do this. so why does the government do this in real life? money. profit. greed. 'for the people, by the people.' no! they don't give a shit about you. most of us already know of all the oil industry and other corporate ties to the bush administration. much of the defense portion of the bush administration are former top executives and shareholders of the arms industry. work all your life in a military career as a noble sacrifice for one's country and get to the top as the secretary of defense? no. spend your life running corporations who design and sell technology whose sole purpose is to end life and then be rewarded with a top government-military position. there is a serious conflict of interest in our government. you should not be in a position of power if you directly benefit from it financially, i.e. you conduct business and sign contracts with your personal company and companies of your friends and family. it is one thing to have connections and get a good deal or trusted advice. it is quite another to bring into the fold people who have no business being there. it is very disturbing that seemingly nothing is being done about it. not even a simple conflict of interest policy that prevents certain hires and favors. i mean, have you ever heard of such a thing? sure there is a limit on how much can be accepted as a donation to a campaign but we know about the under the table stuff, don't we? imagine how different our lives would be if there was a conflict of interest document in place for politicians. in place and enforced.

"sixty thousand barrels" - a film centering on a woman who is a watch dog on a company in her neighborhood. sixty thousand barrels of a highly toxic substance (hcb) are stored at a plant in the suburbs of sydney. these chemicals must be disposed of as there is a deadline to do so imposed by the government, but the dilemma is how to do so responsibly. responsibly to the people in the surrounding community or wherever else they may move the barrels of death and responsibly to the company. after all, it is a company in charge and they are the ones who must research and determine the method of disposal, then carry out with it, and be financially responsible for the costs. i think this film could have used some work here and there (it isn't always easy to understand an elderly australian) but i think the bite of this film is to wake up the people in the suburbs. the people who think humans rights is something far away and out of reach. something out in the third world far away from me. something i see on tv. this is a film to remind the suburbs of what is going on in their own backyard. what if there are toxic substances being stored and disposed of in your community? how would you even know about it? i think the photographs of people who were exposed to hcb decades ago were very powerful. with exposure to only minute traces, you could get seriously fucked up. the photographs were of turks who had eaten bread made with contaminated grain. in your backyard? in your bread? toxins leaking here and there at home, at work, on vacation. how would you know? what would you do about it?

"children" - very short film comprised of photographs with a voiceover. something like 'see jack. see jack run. see jack run with shoes. see jack run with shoes made by sweatshops.' judging by the credits, it was probably a class project of a SFSU student. no filming required. just voice over. it could've been put together in an afternoon. which begs the question, why don't i have a hard drive full of 3 minute films put together in afternoons? lazy.

"no limits" - so short it could've been a commercial. a very effective piece of animation against child labor.

"singapore rebel" - i wanted to see this film simply because it is banned in singapore. what doesn't the singaporean government want their own people to see? what doesn't singapore want other countries to see? i had serious issues with the audio quality of this film. the intro is hard to understand but the quality improves and you quickly get up to speed on what the film is about. this is a summary story of the last 10-15 years of a singaporean politician. a man who returns to singapore to begin a career as a professor after studying in america. we tainted him. he wants to enjoy the freedoms that are afforded to americans by the bill of rights--the freedoms that we consider to be basic to all humans and take for granted--in singapore and finds himself becoming a politician in the process. he has been arrested several times for speaking in public without a permit. he has lost his job because of it. one piece of footage shows such an arrest. nothing violent at all. simply people gathered for a talk. as he is arrested, the crowd shout at the many police demanding he be free, what are the charges, and so forth. the director of this film is facing charges himself.

"shipbreakers" - you know all those things that you buy in stores? how did they get to the store? probably by ship. since ancient days we have relied on sea vessels. ships make the world run. what happens to ships once they have served their purpose and must be laid to rest? have you ever seen a ship scrapyard? probably not. disposing of ships is such a hazardous, toxic, dangerous, and costly job that a lot of first world countries have banned it or don't even bother. why mess up your country when there is an abundance of third world countries who can do it much cheaper and do not have strict environmental laws to tangle with. the ship breaking companies buy the ships and then turn it into scrap metal. this film focuses on one of the biggest ship destruction yards in the world in alang, india. imagine giving a bunch of high schoolers blow torches and $5 to tear down a ship. that is basically what is going on in the yard. only, i don't think they make that much money. there is no training in this very complicated job. there are at least 300 deaths/accidents per year. there are no gas masks or face masks to protect your lungs and eyes. it's a wonder that they even have hard hats. women work as well but not destroying the ships--they help to carry out the furniture and other items left behind in the ships. then they showed the men who turn the metal into scrap. passing along long hot rods of steel from man to furnace and furnace to man with little more than a crowbar. it was watching an accident waiting to happen. not only do they work in such conditions but they live in them as well. remember that this is a third world situation. they are not doing a shit job and going home to a decent home. they live in shantytowns built from the scraps of the ships. the water and land is poisoned. the ships they are scrapping were built before strict environmental laws. the ships are death on water. these men are like coalminers. working hard, bad conditions, getting into accidents or cancer later in life if they survive at all.

some buses in wellington run on cables like san francisco