Cryptic Clarity

“I didn’t want to offend anyone, but I did perhaps want them to be provoked. If anybody is offended, it’s his [or her] own fault. You are free to leave the theater after 5 minutes. I have always said: anyone who watches the film from beginning to end apparently has needed it,” says Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke to Stern about his latest film Funny Games U.S., a scene for scene, shot by shot remake of his own notorious creation bearing the same name sans the U.S. tag a decade ago. The original German cast (starring The Lives of Others‘ Ulrich Mühe) is replaced by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, and the story is taken to the US. Why a remake of his own film? Because, the controversial director elaborates, the 1997 original has not reached his intended American audience due to the language barrier and the average viewers’ aversion to subtitles.

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YouTube has been everyone’s favorite soap box for quite some time now. For anyone who lives in a country where TV programs are just painful to watch, YouTube is such a lifesaver. Not only is it a great source of information and misinformation, it’s also a practical platform for citizen journalism. It has been so effective in its instant gratification, and so convincing in its democracy, that we almost forget that our worshiped soap box is still controlled by a corporation that has its own interest to look out for. Not every video is treated equal. Sure, it can’t prevent you from getting on the soap box, but it can give you a defect megaphone; it can’t tell the pedestrians to go away, but it can employ warm bodies to pose as bystanders to block you from view.

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Magnet club is a good venue for concerts, just make sure you arrive early and are in the front rows. The concert hall is long and narrow with a rather low stage; if you’re not in the front, you’ll be staring at many heads. It was still early when I got there, and Jamie Stewart was actually sitting behind a table selling his CDs and T-shirts. He was talking with a woman who was buying a CD, but Jamie kept giving her money back while the woman also kept refusing the money. I heard him saying “I made this CD because of you” or something like that. It was probably not the best time to intrude, I thought to myself, and kept a distance and waited for my turn. However, the woman grabbed herself a chair, sat herself down and the two were engaged in a conversation. More people came. Should I perhaps go and buy a CD so I can chat with him a little? Somehow Knowing he was aware of me watching him and the woman the whole time suddenly made me feel embarrassed. Then the show started.

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Remember those Net Neutrality videos you watched on CC a while ago? Turns out some corporation not only wants to control the Internet traffic, they want to block public forums as well. Last year Comcast, one of the biggest cable companies and Internet Service Providers in the United States, was caught injecting forged TCP/RST packets into users’ traffic to interfere with their BitTorrent uploads and downloads. FCC, or the Federal Communications Commission, therefore set up a public hearing to take place on February 25th at the Harvard Law School on a first-come, first-served basis. Based on discussions on this public forum as well as written comments from private citizens, the regulators may establish on what ISPs may and may not do.

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UPDATE (11/27/2009): The Title “Why Germany Wants to Ban the Cult of Scientology” is now back on the index, but the permalink still isn’t.

UPDATE (11/13/2009): It seems Google has taken the permalink for this article out of its index completely. You will still see articles linking to this post, but you won’t find it directly if you google it. Well done Google.

Understanding the German View of Scientology.

This is an excellent paper explaining why Scientology is not recognized as a religion but a commercial enterprise in Germany, why its activities are under surveillance, and why the federal court is moving towards a ban on the criminal organization. All emphasis are mine, and links to most of the media coverage on Scientology mentioned in the original article are provided for your viewing pleasure. (update: except for articles from the WSJ and “The Germans have a word for it”, all links are there)

“The German government considers the Scientology organization a commercial enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and an extreme dislike of any criticism. The government is also concerned that the organization’s totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to Germany’s democratic society. Several kinds of evidence have influenced this view of Scientology, including the organization’s activities in the United States.

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Got 20 minutes to spare? My friend Shaunessy sent me this link which I just have to share with everyone:

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

If the video on the linked page takes too long to load, just click ‘keep reading’. Enjoy!

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