Recently most of my movie-watching seems to be on the airplane. Here’s one formulaic romantic comedy (anti-social guy falls for pretty girl with emotional baggage, add twist of lemon–the ghosts) that managed to be enjoyably simple, witty, and charming. Great movie for a date or night at home with your bf/gf. Great music!
Watching the trailer though, seems like I saw a slightly edited version on the airplane…
Official Website: ghosttownmovie.com
この番組を見ながら、「攻殻機動隊」というテレビアニメの第２シーズン「STAND ALONE COMPLEX Solid State Society」を思い出す。設定は日本社会の高齢化によって生きるために治療機械と常に繋がる必要のある老人が増加し、それは貴腐老人という。現在の技術で人間によるケアなしで治療を受けることができないが、もしそういう技術ができてしまったら未来はそのまま「攻殻機動隊」の世界になってしまう。
と思って上記の投稿を書いた。怖いですね。
I am right now watching an NHK special documentary “Cancer Refugees” about cancer victims who can’t find hospitals to take care of them. There is a terminally ill woman who has no relatives in the documentary who is accepted into a hospital that doesn’t have facilities to care the terminally ill, but the hospital is neither allowed to turn her away nor can they find another hospital to take her in. As she waits for someone to take her in, she passes quietly into the void.
Recently, there have been quite a few news stories about ambulances unable to find hospitals to take their patients. This documentary makes it clear that there are also cancer refugees in Japan, people who are turned away from hospitals when it is clear that their treatment is having no effect. Unable obtain treatment they move to another hospital, and so on and so on.
However, Japan’s hospitals are not as terrible as they seem. It’s simply that in a rapidly aging society, the health care infrastructure simply can’t keep up.
And all of this reminds me of an Sci-Fi anime called Ghost in the Shell. In the second season, S.A.C. Solid State Society, an aging Japanese takes center stage with terminally ill elderly people connected permanent to machines to stay alive at the center of the plot. Such technology does not exist right now, but it is quite imaginable to think that one day, in the apartments above us as we walk the streets, a lonely generation shut off from human contact could be lurking.
The possibilities of dehumanization offered by technology combined with the necessity of taking advantage of such technology…scary.
Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas turned the last section of Barack Obama’s New Hampshire speech into an heart-moving song, but the words, these words below, are the most inspiring.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. (We want change.)
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant ……….. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea: Yes We Can.
“will continue tomorrow…” was one week ago, but who’s counting? I wish the downpour in the stock markets would stop….and maybe figure out how to find more focus on this damn blog. Thinking about starting yet another website to focus on more non-fiction research, marketing, trends tracking type of writing. “Matcha Everything dot com” maybe?
Sayuri actually hadn’t noticed any thunder, but she kept the thought to herself for the moment. She sat down at the table near the window. It had gotten quite dark outside. Suddenly, a flash of light reflected off the wet pavement outside. A moment later, the sky echoed a BOOM.
“There’s another one!” The woman picked up a thin black covered book and opened it up to a page with that day’s date. June 21st. Laying it on the table in front of Sayuri, she said, “Let me know when you’re ready to order.”
“Thank you.” The woman was already making her way back to the bar counter. Sayuri looked down at the book. A short selection of coffees was handwritten on June 21st. On the facing page, a list of teas and cakes. <note to self…find myself a list of coffees and teas to populate this mess> She turned back and took a look at the room. One wall was lined with well worn books, the other displayed four framed sketches of what seemed to be foreign, pastoral landscapes and townscapes.
The cafe was quaint. Sayuri felt as if Hemmingway would walk in at any moment. And he did. In Sayuri’s mind. Walking through the chingling door. Taking off his hat and shaking off the water. Did Hemmingway own a hat?
The woman returned with a small glass vase holding a two withering miniature hydrangea blossoms that looked as if they had been cut from the bush outside the door now being pelted by the rain. From her position at the windowfront, Sayuri could see the blossoms falling apart under the attack. She wondered briefly which of the flowers would last longer. “I’ll have a cappucino, thanks.” Again lightning and a moment later, thunder.
“Sure, coming right up,” the woman said almost absent-mindedly as she looked up at the bit of sky visible from the window. She left.
