On the Implications of Polanski’s Arrest

Recently, I saw two films directed by Polanski that I hadn’t seen before. The first one, which I saw last night, was Chinatown. As a neo-noir film, it exhibits the typical qualities of a story set in a world of all-powerful mafias and profoundly corrupt police. Critics have rightfully seen it as a major milestone in U.S. cinema: it has all the qualities of a very entertaining but also deeply serious narrative, both visually and textually. It reveals the power of corruption like few other movies do and, of course, ends on a correspondingly desolate note.

The second film, which I saw several days ago, was The Ninth Gate. It tells of the book-dealer Dean Corso and the rich rare-book collector Mr. Balkan who hires Corso to investigate a very sinister book. The tome supposedly exists in only three copies, and allows its reader to summon the Devil (Lucifer, Satan, etc.). The premise itself looks like an invitation for comedy, but the viewer sooner or later discovers that no comic effect is intended. Instead, Corso manages to discover the secret of the three copies, and to presumably meet Lucifer at the end of the film. What the movie betrays even to a person casually watching it is that all the characters are obsessed with the power the book can purportedly grant – even Corso, who is essentially only in for the money. Nothing is sacred, and nothing is unthinkable in order to possess the book; murder becomes a trivial matter if it leads to acquiring the object of power, or any substantial knowledge about it.

I do not know the film’s source – the book upon which it has been based, but I definitely see some parallels between the film’s messages and Polanski’s behaviour in the rape case. The director does not seem to be a mafioso who plans his crimes thoroughly; nor does he look like a criminally insane person. Nevertheless, I think he carries a madness that is very visible everywhere these days: the madness of power. Of the conviction that one can do anything if they are rich enough; of the persuasion that one can do things simply because one can, simply because one is empowered, and also get away with it.

Rape is one of the most disgusting crimes I can think of. It destroys the life of the victim and leaves them in a constant state of fear and horror. It makes every step they take one of essential, inescapable uncertainty, and of pain. There is no excuse for this crime. It leaves a rotten stain so enormous on the soul and mind of the perpetrator that nothing can ever remove it; the rapist must suffer not only the judicial punishment, but also the dissolution of their personality under the acid of the crime – and that is one acid that remains inside for life. One cannot accept that someone might believe such a crime is insignificant – unless that someone does not believe in the sacredness of life itself. And, unfortunately, that might be something we could claim about Polanski, especially after his experiences as a small boy in Nazi-occupied Poland, and certainly after the brutal murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate in 1969. The director himself stated in his autobiography that the murder replaced any remnants of religious faith he had with a “faith in the absurd”.

So why do we hear all this noise about his recent arrest? He is obviously a deeply disturbed person, someone whose world-view is irreparably tainted, and someone who finds solace and some resemblance of sense only in film-making. Yes, he must be sentenced, and incarcerated, and so on, and so forth. But why all the fuss around that? Is it not something we all agree upon? Is it not something logical, accepted long ago?

The reason behind the media explosion over this lies elsewhere. As Jonas (linking to WSWS) pointed out, catching an individual criminal will divert the attention of the public from all other criminals who work together to fill their bellies while that same public is suffering. As we all know, the USA is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue failing financial institutions that have spun way out of control because of their greed. Do those people get caught, tried, and sentenced? Not really. They pay themselves hundreds of millions in bonuses even now (via BoingBoing). The media owned by corporations distracts the public with a criminal who committed one crime more than 30 years ago; even the victim of the crime said she wished for an end of the whole hunting-in-wait because her private life suffers from it. So that is why lots of people are filing their teeth as if they were wolves that have caught a lamb. Meanwhile, the big financial fish continue swimming and slipping away, unperturbed. They are joined by illegal wiretappers, war criminals, and many others. For how long? No one can tell.

Polanski may be extradited, tried again, and sentenced. But what exactly will that sentence be for someone who has been, in a sense, hiding for the last thirty years? That question remains to be answered by the great legal minds who do not want to consider the victim’s position. As a ploy for distraction from the perpetrators of the US financial disaster, of the illegal wiretapping, of war crimes, however: this seems to be working very well. Great journalistic spirit. Serious reporting work. Bravo. Q. W3ary out.

Getting Closer to Solving AIDS and Alzheimer’s

Recently, I saw (as usual, on /.) a couple of news items/links to articles that made my day a degree brighter. One relates to a prototype vaccine for AIDS which has obviously managed to prevent a little above 30% of expected infections. Of course, one central problem with fighting AIDS is that scientists need actual humans to test the vaccines and other medical produce on, which represents a very tough ethical dilemma -infect people with AIDS to produce vaccine against it? – in itself. On the other hand, this recent development is something of a major breakthrough since no other earlier treatment had managed anything near this percentage of prevented infections.

In somewhat related news, researchers seem to have discovered a possible link between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer’s disease. Although this is just a small step toward uncovering the myriad interconnected factors that cause/contribute to the illness, it is nevertheless quite important. If the link can be confirmed for all, or most, of the cases, that would mean discovering a rather easily manageable cause for Alzheimer’s which can be brought under control, or perhaps completely eliminated. Let us hope for the best. Q. W3ary out.

The Kindling Brother

So, did you hear that Amazon silently pulled off books by George Orwell – that is, erased them from the devices – purchased by people for their Kindles? The very nice guys at Amazon did that overnight without informing their customers because the current Orwell publishers/rights-holders decided they don’t wanna no electronic copies of the writer’s books circulating the extremely restricted, even constipated, Amazon Kindle tubes. As usual, I find the commentary republished by Slashdot the best: “Amazon customer service may or may not have responded to queries by stating, ‘We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.’” Q. Weary out.

My Introduction to Tony Harrison

Recently, I wrote (academically) about the English poet and playwright Tony Harrison; while doing that, I had to go through a lot of research and re-discovered a website I’ve visited before but have stupidly forgotten since. It’s called The Poetry Archive, and it hosts recordings of a great number of contemporary writers reading their poetry. Out of the four Harrison poems there, I’d say that two are absolutely required reading: “Timer”, on his mother and her cremation; and “Initial Illumination”, on the silent horrors of war, on the way some people exploit religion to justify and support their wars for wealth and power, on the power of poetry, and on several other things. If you have the time, do read and listen to all four, but do not miss these two. I don’t think I could do any better in talking about Harrison – his poems say much more than I ever could. Q. Weary out.

Killer Robots Get Ethical

So now we’re no longer only producing killer robots, we also spread the delusion that they can be “ethical”. Ronald Arkin, a computer science professor, is developing decision-making machinery to be included in the controlling modules of flying drones, “smart” missiles, and other killer machines. We don’t have enough people on the planet willing to go for each other’s throats for the most stupid reasons you’ve heard in your life, no; we also need robots that act autonomously and decide whether to kill on their own. Great. I’m starting to think that the first Terminators will look either like the current Predator and its family of murderers, or like over-sized Wall-es with machine guns, small missiles, mines, and possibly a couple of flame-throwers on board. The future awaits.

UPDATE 22.09.2009: Obviously, data on deadly robots had already been available when I was writing the above. Slashdot posted another story about killer robots deployed in battlefields. Numbers: 250 dead in Pakistan, 9 in South Africa; software glitches are blamed at least in the second case.

Microsoft Patents Methods for OS Crippling

Microsoft has evidently been granted patents for what it long desired: to restrict the users of their operating systems as much as possible. Now they can do that all they want, and no one can steal the sweet invention from them. Congratulations, Redmond! Happy choking on your well-deserved mints, and happy exploding Creosote-style! I’m wondering how far will MS go in enforcing this type of OS behaviour. They stated that “virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system” if that system has an open architecture. How ingenious. What an insight. And now, thanks to finally patenting mechanisms against this sort of blasphemous, disrespectful, beyond-the-pale behaviour on the part of users, MS can curb said behaviour. (via /.)

Strange how MS doesn’t get it at all: with each Windows version from 95 up to XP, they enabled users to do more and more and more on their own, take their own decisions what to install and run. I find XP to be the peak of that enabling thinking. It is a relatively stable system (especially with the latest service packs), has little difficulty except reboots in adding and removing programmes/components of all sorts, be those applications, drivers, residents like firewalls, etc., and lets the user define default programmes, default file associations, default start-up services and applications, and so on. Of course, it has its limitations, but they are a few, and far between. The good thing with XP lies in the combination of all these features which are constantly available to the user. And where did Vista go? One hundred million warnings and confirmations are needed to install a new piece of hardware, or a programme like an audio editor which hovers slightly above average complexity. And now they want to prolong these procedural agonies even further. Dear MS, don’t you get it? Really? Your customers want stability and freedom of choice. You can’t restrict those for reasons of security because security of computer systems can only be guaranteed by both writing bug-less code and educating users about security problems. When you do that, you win. When you don’t, you get lost in the wild vistas of public anger, which are right next to the vistas of oblivion. Since choice of how to accomplish a task borders on the political so often, users need to be allowed to exercise that freedom and learn. They’re not all children under the age of three. (Actually, almost none of them are children under the age of three.)

So what do you do? Do you give people that freedom, or do you decide you can solve everything for them, keep them from cyberharm, find answers to all their questions, give them all they need and want on your own? Your choice, MS.

Obama Administration Blues

While I was posting away a couple of minutes ago, I remembered that Jonas had published some short, sharp analyses during my weeks of silence. So, a couple of links to pieces I appreciated very much:

Killing the Somali pirates

Torture (But This Time, Not Devised by Good Old Frank Zappa, Unfortunately)

On capitalism and the Obama admin

He’s politically better informed than I am, so read him when you can.

As a final afterthought, I can only say that I feel something close to political Weltschmerz — that a good chance for democracy is going down the drain fast, that hopes were not met with promised action, that a good country will probably suffer more in the future to come. Just the thoughts and feelings that can inspire a slow, sorrowful blues tune. Might write one myself someday.

Back from the Dead, Again

Here I am, back from the dead. World’s not doing so fine, so we have to talk about it all.

Situation in Guatemala not good. People getting sentenced for posting on twitter — within the day! How long until all sorts of bloggers – on free platforms, on paid platforms, on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace – are forced under the same knife? Or should I better say — under another Damocles’s sword. I feel we’re slowly getting there, and it’s a shame.

Situation in the UK crazy, too. Now, in addition to all the CCTV surveillance, Internet monitoring, cities barricading, etc., they’re setting up a database for all children in the country. For all CHILDREN? What kind of madness is this now? And who’s to follow suit first? France? The USA? China? Russia? Me say, let’s profile the unborn! New convention for the UN: registration of all unborn mandatory; to be done two weeks after conception at the latest; people failing to comply – jail!

Situation in teh USA just as insane as before. I’ve got no words to describe that one.

So, fight the Good Fight for Human Rights, but insist on those rights in all cases, even while fightin’. And listen to Street Sweeper Social Club.