Fly the friendly skies of Ghana Airways: wing and prayer required

ghana_dc10So yeah, flying on America West mostly sucks, but it could be much worse. Take Ghana Airways for example. Ghana Air hasn’t renewed its operating license to fly into US airspace. The US Department of Transportation has banned them from flying here anyway because of “serious questions surrounding the safety of its aircraft”. 200 Accra-bound passengers have been stranded in BWI limbo after one of Ghana Air’s two remaining DC-10s was grounded for safety reasons (leaving them with only one long-haul jet). Big surprise then than Ghana Airways’ passenger comments vary between angry and wrathful while industry watchers look on with disdain.

Meanwhile Ghana Airways has been rummaging through the Mojave Airport mothball fleet for replacement jets, but I suspect that the FAA takes a dim view of painting your airplane with (get this) paint rollers. However, Ghana Airways isn’t through looking for help just quite yet:

What does an airline do when it has only five planes, only one of them is still flying and that one, too, is grounded with a “Technical”? When for years it has been sitting on $160 million of debts thanks to ongoing mismanagement and corruption, its sole shareholder, the government, is reluctant to shell out any more money, and the fourth CEO since the beginning of 2001 cannot make any headway with the problems? When the company, bloated with 1,500 employees, many of them unproductive, has more drivers than vehicles and more secretaries than typewriters, let alone computers, and the payroll is only intermittently paid? They put their trust in God. At the beginning of June, the hopelessness among the workforce of Ghana Airways had reached such proportions that they flew an expatriate preacher back to the capital city, Accra, from London and joined with him in a three-hour prayer session, during which they beseeched the Almighty for help.

Top most wanted DVD list of 2004

Two years ago I put together my top 10 list of movies that needed to be released on DVD and I think it’s time for an update. Of that initial list, The Monolith Monsters, Action In The North Atlantic, and the Dragnet TV movie are completely unavailable with The Driver available only as a region 2 disc.

Anyway, this year’s most wanted is:

O Lucky Man – Lindsay Anderson’s surrealist triptych with coffee salesman Malcom McDowell. I’ve always wondered how the heck something like this got made and wish more movies were like this.

fisch-allegrettoThe works of Oskar Fischinger – Known probably for some of his early work on Disney’s Fantasia, Fischinger was a pioneer in abstract animated films. Seventy years later, his films are still a couple light years ahead of their time. Attention Criterion: how about a monster Fischinger DVD box like what you did for Brakhage?

Highway 61 – This kinda got lost in the shuffle of early 90s indie road trip movies, but it’s smarter than the rest and, well, extremely Canadian. One of the best representations of Satan in any movie ever, and hey – Jello Biafra plays a cop.

Rikky and Pete – This one got lost in the flood of late 80s Australian movies. It’s not spectacular and the “wacky Aussie humor” could be just as annoying as it is charming, but it’s just gentle enough to be the perfect thing to watch when you’re sick.

The Lively Set – 1964 teenage exploitation on wheels. Hokey as any Elvis movie but with lots of racing scenes and twangy guitar on the soundtrack. Worth it alone for all the scenes of Chrysler’s 1963 Turbine Car.

The Loved One – Hysterically absurd Terry Southern comedy about the funeral industry, Hollywood, and Los Angeles cliffside living. Ahem… Criterion again?

Ace In The Hole – Bleak and ultra-harsh movie about journalistic corruption with Kirk Douglas as an alcoholic reporter. Possibly my favorite Billy Wilder movie.

Nightmare Alley – Lurid film noir about carnys, nighclub fortune tellers with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell

The Conformist – Again, attention Criterion! Why the HELL isn’t this available on DVD? We’re not talking some offbeat cult movie, but a cinema classic. WTF?

ere_ereraEre Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren – Basque artist José Sistiaga’s seventy (yes, seventy!) minute abstract work of 100,000 individually painted frames. This is messy and swirly flipside to the precision of early computer graphics and the “stargate” sequence of 2001. No audio necessary, the only soundtrack necessary is the sound of your neurons being tuned up.

The Double Life of Veronique – Again, I’m stumped as to why this hasn’t been released on DVD yet. Almost all of Kieslowski’s other movies are available, what gives?

Angel’s Flight – Gritty and bleak film noir filmed in and around the Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles before the city bulldozed the whole works down to put it out of it’s misery.

Ace In The Hole – Bleak and ultra-harsh movie about journalistic corruption with Kirk Douglas as an alcoholic reporter. Possibly my favorite Billy Wilder movie.

Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion adapted her own novel about the LA entertainment industry in the early 1970s.

Serial – Satire/sitcom of the baby boomer post-cocaine crash at the end of the 70s. Not a particularly great movie, but supposedly a lot got cut before it hit the theaters.

Dusty and Sweets McGee – Sort of the Los Angeles version of Panic In Needle Park which also came out around the same time. Terrific shots of the forgotten areas of early-70s Los Angeles.

Dogs and cats living together… Mass hysteria!

Senator John Cornyn (R – TX) is afraid that gay marriage will lead to a slippery slope Sodom & Gomorrah of marrage absurdity

“It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. . . . Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife.”

So why stop there?.

John then listed the stuff he plans to marry. Not long afterwards, Victoria at Unspeakable Vitrine picked up the meme and came up with her own list.

Now that the bedrock of Western Civilization has been irrevocably shattered here in Portland, I realize that it’s time for me also to be lawfully wed to a selection of animals, objects and concepts. Here’s my list. I encourage you to post your own. Remember, an elected official has made it clear that if you can marry someone with the same bathroom parts, you can marry ANYTHING. Have fun, and happy marriage!

Therefore, I intend to marry:

The box turtle, because The Man is putting them down.

box_turtle

The 1964 New York World’s Fair

nyworldfair1964

Iapetus, a moon of Saturn

iapetus

“Southforkscu“, a Romanian replica of the set of the TV show Dallas built by the King of Romanian cheddar, Ilie Alexandru.

romanian_dallas

This album cover from the band Quatermass

quatermass_cover

R. Buckminster Fuller stamp

buckyfuller_stampThis new R. Buckminster Fuller stamp is so cool looking that I’ll stop paying bills online and go back to checks just so I can use it. It reminds me of a early 60s “new wave” science fiction book cover. The Register has a nice summation of Fuller’s influence.

Fuller’s actual inventions come secondary to his reputation as a popular, homespun philosopher of science. At times vilified as a fruitcake and a show-off, he later taught to appreciative audiences and represented the United States delegation in meetings with top Soviet scientists. (This was before the days of Air Miles). Although it’s true that Fuller’s reputation has never quite shaken off the hucksterism, and at times his writing reads like a very bad weblog, this was an extraordinary achievement. Fuller was a more profound critic of contemporary capitalism than any of the communists he can have met.

That’s because Fuller came to represent – much to the horror of his peers – the creativity and imagination that we like to think propels scientists at their best. And these are qualities we look for in vain from popular scientists and “futurologists” today.

 

Inexpensive Apple flat-panel monitor repair

The voltage regulators on Apple’s 17″ flat panel monitors have been failing and there’s a great deal of justified hand-wringing and irate anger at Apple’s inflexible out-of-warranty strategy which is to replace the monitor at a $500+ cost. If your Apple LCD is flaking out, go directly to Monitor Experts in Anaheim – they can fix them at a fraction of the price.

Not affiliated with them in anyway, just a satisfied customer with three formerly dead displays.

AllMusic Guide 3.0 blows

Yeesh. The latest AMG site redesign is quite possibly the worst site redesign ever. Browsing by genre, theme, etc. is now “subscriber content” (attention BugMeNot!), less information is now listed on an artist page and there’s this:

“Notice: You are accessing allmusic.com with a browser that is not currently supported. The appearance and functionality of the site could be impacted. allmusic.com is optimized for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above for Windows.”

Firefox and Safari users apparently have to step to the rear of the bus. Sorry AMG, I’m out – I’ll pop in for the occasional discography check, but feel free to drop dead in the meantime.

Waxy.org piles on the hate.