John Allen Muhammed executed tonight

Yes, Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammed was executed earlier tonight, and I was, as always, extremely dismayed at the sense of celebration I've seen from press releases and even among my friends. For the record, as I've stated many times before, I oppose the death penalty. I can't see that it's about anything but revenge. The most disturbing comment was a post on Facebook wishing that not only Muhammed but his accomplice Lee Malvo got the chair. The electric chair was a terribly cruel method of execution, and I've stated before how I feel about Malvo's involvement in the crimes. But, of course, I didn't support the death penalty for Muhammed either. All that happens is, as Camus wrote in his essay "Reflections on the Guillotine," is the barely cloaked sadism of the masses, relieved that the usually hidden part of their psyches finally has an outlet against a "bad" person, and the chance to revel in the thought of a now-dead criminal burning in hell, and wishing that he had a more painful death. There is something extremely troubling about otherwise decent human beings wishing pain and suffering on another human being, even if that person is a murderer. There is a very simple saying, but it's so true: two wrongs don't make a right.

A Serious Man review

A Serious Man, the latest offering from Joel and Ethan Coen, is brilliant in many respects, such as the revelatory performance by Michael Stuhlbarg in the lead, which deeply deserves recognition come award season, and the Coens’ trademark quirky humor. What makes the film stand out is how it expertly blends broad comedy with biblical tragedy, causing the viewer to think that the two inevitably go together. Small in scope where the Coens’ other recent masterpiece, No Country for Old Men, was wide, it centers on the fall of one ordinary, self-described “serious” man.
Larry Gopnik, the protagonist, is cursed with an insufferable family; a bratty teenage daughter whose shrill whining fills the house the second he comes home, a pothead son in debt to a local bully who gets high before his bar mitzvah, a wife who reveals that she’s having an affair and, with the assistance of her new lover, forces Larry out of his house into a motel, and a brother who compulsively gambles and ends up getting arrested. Larry’s job as a physics professor doesn’t offer much comfort; there, he’s being bullied and bribed into changing a student’s failing grade by both the student and the student’s father, and has to jump through legislative hoops to get tenure. On top of all of this, he’s low on money (meaning he can’t afford a lawyer for his divorce), his neighbor is building over the property line, and his quest for spiritual enlightenment is more frustrating than enlightening. He is also plagued by nightmares, which form some of the more entertaining and disturbing dream sequences in recent film history.
Larry’s trips to three ineffectual rabbis form a frame in the middle of the story. The first is a young, inexperienced one who can only offer empty platitudes. The second, while more experienced, only offers an odd story (it must be seen to be believed) that has no relevance to Larry’s problems. On the trip to the third, most revered, rabbi, Larry has reached his breaking point. He is clearly exasperated as he begs the rabbi’s secretary for an appointment. She then walks into a book-filled office where the rabbi is sitting quietly. She shortly comes back, and tells the frustrated Larry, “The rabbi is busy.” When Larry shouts that he doesn’t look busy, the secretary, in the same deadpan voice, says, “He’s thinking.” The spiritual quest, which his soon-to-be ex-wife was convinced would help, comes up empty.
Larry’s story does not have a neat ending. A tornado approaches a school as a group of students, including Larry’s son, hides in the basement. At the same time, Larry receives a call from the doctor he saw for tests at the beginning of the film, and the doctor is clearly bearing bad news, but the screen fades to black before the news is revealed. There is no redemption in Larry’s suffering, as there was, of sorts, in the Biblical story of Job, whose story Larry’s symbolically resembles. Unlike Job, Larry finds no solace in faith, and, the viewer can infer from the grim voice of the doctor and the black tornado clouds overhead, will not gain back what he has lost.

In the first installment of a series during the European Union Film Showcase at the AFI Silver Theatre, a brief review of the Bulgarian film Zift. This film could best be described as an Eastern European homage to American film noir. The story centers around a thief who goes by the name Moth, just released from prison in Communist Bulgaria, and is told both forward and backward, in what happens after his release, and how he ended up in prison. While occasionally Moth's voice-overs lend too much exposition, and explain things that don't need to be explained, the film is a classic noir, full of twists, including the subtle but jarring ultimate twist at the end, and moody cinematography. The lead actor, whose name escapes me at the moment, is coolly charismatic and gives a stunning and nuanced performance, particularly while Moth, in the second half, is walking the streets after being poisoned by a former partner in crime. The bleakness of Communist-bloc Eastern Europe proves an excellent setting for a film noir.
While there is no way I will get to see every film in the showcase, or even every one I want to see (I unfortunately missed a very interesting-sounding Polish movie called Piggies this past weekend), I will mention the ones I do get to see here.

Edmund Kemper: fact and fiction

I just saw a movie about Edmund Kemper I found on Hulu. Considering that I found it online, I wasn't expecting much, but even so, I was severely disappointed by its inaccuracies. First of all, although Kemper committed his crimes in the 1970s, the movie featured contemporary accouterments like laptops and cell phones. Edmund Kemper was 6'9" and weighed 300 pounds, but the actor who played him was shorter than the actors playing the detectives. He looked more like Green River Killer Gary Ridgeway than Kemper. Even worse than the anachronism, it took dramatic license with the story to the point that it was barely recognizable. While Kemper spent time at a bar frequented by police officers and befriended a few of them, he did not have a detective as a close friend, much less help the detective solve other murders, as portrayed in the movie. When the detective learns, through a phone call from Kemper, that he is the killer the police have been tracking, the movie turns into a cat and mouse chase that never happened. In the process, it loses the already fascinating true story, and one of the most interesting aspects of the Kemper case is lost. Edmund Kemper is the only serial killer that I know of who turned himself in, and waited for the police to come get him.
While Kemper is not as well known as the likes of Bundy, Gacy and Dahmer, I've always considered him one of the most interesting serial killers. Like many other killers, he grew up in an abusive home. His mother, embittered by having been left by his father, and because her son looked so much like his father, hated Edmund and didn't try to hide it. Because of his size, and because she hated him, she assumed he would molest his sister, and made him sleep in the basement. She also, an aspect only hinted at in the movie, constantly belittled him, telling him, among other hateful things, that no woman would ever love him. At fourteen (not ten, as depicted in Kemper: The Coed Killer), Edmund's mother sent him to live with his father's parents, and, one day, he shot them, saying "I wanted to know how it felt to shoot Grandma." At a juvenile facility, he learned how to manipulate psychological tests. In his adult killing career (after, in an exceptionally stupid move, being released to his mother's custody), he once passed a psych test administered during a parole meeting, while the head of his latest victim was sitting in his car. A true cinematic moment, but it was left out of the film version of Kemper's life. As the psychologists who later interviewed Kemper realized, the young women he killed were a substitute for his mother, who he was metaphorically killing each time. But one night, he decided to actually kill the woman he hated most. In the film's one saving grace, it included what Kemper did to his mother's dismembered corpse, such as using her head as a dartboard. Also, in what I've heard described as one of the more symbolic gestures in criminal history, he shoved her larynx down the garbage disposal, which he considered appropriate, "seeing how she bitched at me over the years." Kemper then invited his mother's friend over, and, after she saw what he had done, killed her too. Then, either to gain attention for his crimes, or because, having killed his mother, his demons therefore fully exorcised, he drove to a pay phone, called the police and told them to come get him. He stayed until they came to arrest him. That would have been an excellent ending for a film.
While the close friendship Edmund Kemper had with a local detective never happened, FBI agents who later interviewed him admitted, uncomfortably, that they liked the killer. He was intelligent, articulate, and fully aware of the impact of his crimes but stopped short of true remorse. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler recalled an interview with Kemper where the hulking serial killer told Ressler that he could "screw off his head." When Ressler pointed out that Kemper would get in trouble, the prisoner serving consecutive life sentences replied, "What will they do, cut off my TV privileges?" Thoroughly shaken, Ressler signaled for the guard. When he was about to leave, Kemper told him, "You know I was just kidding, right?"

Roman Polanski arrested in Switzerland

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090928/wl_time/08599192650800

As a fan of both crime stories and film, this case is intriguing, even though it's a fairly standard case of statutory rape. France doesn't want to extradite Polanski, and while I don't feel that his artistry holds him above the law, as some of the French seem to, the charges are over 30 years old. Also, his victim, now a grown woman, has said for years that she wants to drop the charges and get on with her life. Now, against her wishes, the grim details of her ordeal are once again being dragged into public scrutiny. If, as many in the American justice system claim, the search for "justice" in these cases is for the benefit of the victim, then why are they going directly against what the victim has said many times that she wants to happen? It leads me to believe that it is not about justice for the victim, but a personal vendetta against any type of sex offender.
Recently, The Economist had a story titled "America's Unjust Sex Laws." One of the related stories was of a man who had been convicted of statutory rape, served his sentence, and later married his "victim." Despite all of this, he is still listed as a registered sex offender and considered a potential threat to his community.
An adult having sex with a 13-year-old girl is wrong, no one is disputing that. But when the victim herself has moved past the troubling incident, she deserves to have her wishes in regard to the case honored. But the American justice system, in an urge to appear "tough on crime" for "the sake of the children," and an American public that is alternately appalled and morbidly fascinated by any sex crime news, it's unlikely that United States officials will let this quietly go away, which, I must say this again, is what the victim wants.

Edward Kennedy: RIP

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_fortune

Read the last quote of this article. It's a moving, eloquent assessment of the need for health care reform. As many of us know, Edward Kennedy recently died after a long battle with brain cancer. He lasted far longer than any experts predicted, who thought he'd be dead within six months of diagnosis. While that's usually the case, Ted lived for over a year.
Despite the unfortunate Chappaquiddick incident, which left an innocent woman dead, and Kennedy a reviled figure and symbol of how the rich and powerful protect their families from actions that would land the rest of us in jail, Kennedy was a tireless fighter for the left. And, among conservatives, he was as hated for this even more than Chappaquiddick. Right to the end of his life, he fought for health care reform. I heard someone say, after Kennedy's passing, that, although President Obama will likely honor the late senator with a moving eulogy, the best way to honor Kennedy's memory would be to finally get health care reform passed. And I agree. There would be nothing that would have made Ted Kennedy happier than to see every citizen of the United States have access to affordable health care. In his memoir, soon to be published, Kennedy expresses his regret and remorse for the woman who died as a result of the car he drove off the Chappaquiddick Bridge, and his later drinking problem. Even in his tormented personal life, he held nothing back at the end.
It's odd to think of a world without Ted Kennedy. While his brothers John and Robert died far too soon to fulfill their promise, Ted spent his long life crusading and getting laws passed for working wages, affordable health care and social programs for the poor. I never thought Ted would die. After Chappaquiddick, campaigning for Obama despite the cancer eating away at his brain, and living with the cancer longer than anyone expected, he seemed indestructible. But, in the end, he was just as human as the rest of us, and fought to make the human struggle a little easier. Rest in peace, Ted.

Evil children

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/evil-children-subgenre-can-chill-moviegoers-ap

One quote in this article, about how children were "easier to control" before television "exposed" them to the "world of adults," is pure bullshit. Ask any parent or teacher, from any era, and they will tell you that any child is a challenge. In my experience working with children, I know that they can be demanding, unruly and even vicious (particularly toddlers and toddlers with hormones, aka adolescents). Anyone who's read The Lord of the Flies is familiar with the fear that, if left to their own devices, meaning outside the influence of television, children will devolve into pre-civilization savages.
This is probably one of the reasons the "evil child" is such a compelling narrative device. Children, with still developing senses of empathy and morality, feel they can act without consequence and, as a result, are very self-centered. The evil child is a regular child's selfishness and occasional cruelty taken to its logical extreme.
The portrayal of the young Lord Voldemort in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is mentioned, and, connoisseur of evil and deviance that I am, while watching, I noticed the signs of a psychopath in training in the portrayal of young Tom Riddle. As a child, he is cold, unfeeling, with an inflated sense of his own self-worth and a tendency to bully other children and torture animals. Animal torture is, of course, one sign of a future serial killer. As an adolescent, he uses careful flattery and superficial charm to get what he wants, the psychopath's mask of sanity.
My obsession with crime began with Columbine, a mass murder perpetrated by two teenagers. In a new book on the subject, the author interviews a forensic psychiatrist who concludes that Eric Harris, one of the killers, was a fledgling psychopath, a cold, manipulative egomaniac who considered everyone else inferior and, therefore, deserving of their fate. His partner, Dylan Klebold, was suicidally depressed and angry at the world, but with the inertia that comes with depression, was unable to act on his feelings by himself. When the psychopath with something to prove collided with the depressed boy with a death wish, they exploded.
The scariest "evil kid" I've read about is Jesse Pomeroy, the "Boy Fiend" of Boston in the late 19th century who, at 14, was sentenced to life in prison for two torture murders. At an age where most serial killers are still dismembering dead dogs or tormenting family pets, Pomeroy, the product of a poverty-stricken family and a viciously abusive father, had already graduated to human victims. He tortured several children before killing a four-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl. Most teenage killers fall under the categories of school shooters, going into their school with guns to let out aggression, or thrill killers, bored kids who kill for profit or out of twisted curiosity. But Pomeroy was disturbingly focused on his own sadism as his motive, his murders matching the savagery of adult murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer or Andrei Chikatilo. Even before television, the moral watchdogs of the time found a sinister pop culture object to blame for Pomeroy's crimes, in this case the lurid dime novels popular among the nation's youth. When he was captured, Pomeroy was originally sentenced to death, but, because of his age, this caused a public outcry, and his sentence was changed to life in prison.

Patrick Burris: the South Carolina spree killer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/ap_on_re_us/us_sc_killing_spree

Patrick Burris, suspected as the killer who had been terrorizing a South Carolina community for the last couple weeks after being killed by police during a burglary investigation, has been linked by ballistics to the shooting deaths of victims in five different murders.
The article doesn't reveal much about Burris' motives or background, but neighbors recall him as "scary" and "someone you didn't want to cross," unlike the "nice, ordinary" men who later end up in handcuffs after opening fire at their workplaces or with bodies in their basements. Burris had been in and out of prison for burglary-related offenses for much of his adult life, and he reportedly intimidated a victim he tried to extort money from to the point where the victim wouldn't testify, and the case was thrown out.
A former FBI profiler commented on the case, saying that Burris didn't have the "mentality" of a serial killer, noting the random victims and shooting method. Most serial killers have at the very least a gender or age preference for their victims while others, like Ted Bundy, had specific physical characteristics in mind. But Burris' victims, like those of the Zodiac or the Night Stalker, were random, victims of opportunity. The relatively short span of time between Burris' crimes indicates that he was a spree killer, not a serial killer. Serial killers usually kill one victim, have a cooling-off period, then get the urge to kill again, sometimes with an "escalation period," where they kill in quicker succession. But Burris often claimed more than one victim at one crime scene, and killed in rapid succession, suggesting a man on a rampage, not a calculating murderer, as does his method of shooting. Serial killers usually prefer the more personal methods of strangulation or stabbing, where spree and mass murderers, who want to get their rage out fast, are inclined to use firearms. With Burris dead, we may never know the motives for his rampage.

Connecticut man burns down house with ex-wife inside

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/ap_on_re_us/us_divorce_hostage

Yet another man who couldn't accept that his wife wanted to leave him. The list of men who murder or attempt to murder their wives, or kill their wives and others in one blow, or lash out at strangers after being left by their wives, is far too long, especially since, according to popular psych theories, women are the ones who become emotionally clingy and can't let go. I think that sending an ex-wife threatening messages saying, "We are not getting divorced...we are married until death do us part," constitutes not being able to let go. There is an interesting twist to this rather standard crime story; the disgruntled ex-husband got a priest to perform last rites on his wife before setting their former home on fire with her inside. Another odd element: the man gave himself up, instead of taking his own life or goading the police into shooting him, as often happens in cases like these.
Personal news: I have a new boss at the learning center where I work, and she is taking her new position of authority way too seriously. She sent an email about the teacher meeting last night, saying at least twice in three sentences that it was "mandatory," even though, with all the changes happening in the three weeks since last being reminded of the meeting, many of us forgot and had made other plans. Plans which, of course, we now had to rearrange. And, after I had emailed her telling her that I had to make an effort to arrange my schedule to be at this "mandatory" meeting, which ended up covering the same old bullshit at least four times over in slightly different wording, taking almost an hour of our time, when I showed up for the meeting, my new boss said, with false gratitude, "Thank you for being here." She also has an annoying habit of smiling whenever she speaks, which she probably thinks sells her "sincerity."
I bring this up because, this morning, it took said boss almost one hour after the center opened to post the schedule for the day, meaning that the teachers who came in on time (which she self-righteously reminded us to do at last night's meeting), had no idea where we were supposed to be, and had to divide the tasks among ourselves. The core of this is, bosses rarely feel the need to hold themselves to the same standards as their employees. Employees are raked across the coals for being five minutes late or not properly filling out forms, but when the directors are an hour late posting the schedule, or schedule employees for times when employees have said they're unavailable, or ask us to stay an extra hour, or, worse yet, just expect it, because they've screwed up the schedule and don't have the balls to tell parents to stick to their kids' previously determined schedules, the employees are just supposed to accept it. It's not right.
Some good news: a friend offered to give me a chance to review albums for his music site, ReGen: www.regenmag.com I just sent in my first review, and am waiting to hear if I made the cut. It gave me something to do while waiting to get a job and for my boyfriend to stop working and my so-called friends to acknowledge my existence.