Chapter X

"Oh, wait. I'm a cyborg not an android, I have no self-destruct buttons. That also means my limbs are intact, attached and I’m ready for action instead of simply lying about. How silly of me! My mother always told me not to get carried away by the thrill of the moment."

This moment of self-reflection allowed him to think of what to do next. After such a jolly jog a short bout of rationalization was called for.

"I'm a sensible person. A sensible person who has just strangled his ex. I'll do what every sensible person would do in my shoes – head to the nearest public house and get wasted."

And he did; after all Jerry was a sensible person. Somewhere around 4 AM he found that even his technologically enhanced body needed some shut-eye. As a sensible person he ordered one final round, said his goodbyes and stepped out into the cold night oblivious to the dangers it contained. Dangers like muggers, who would relieve him of his change, like aliens who would try to probe him in a way far from sensitive or even large trucks just like the one, which hit him.

Little did he know that his arrival at the local morgue saved the life of an innocent young deer, who would have been hit by the coroner on his way home. Unfortunately she did get hit the next day; however one can only save so many.

What would Jesus do?

This post is inspired by the death of Jörg Haider. This post is NOT inspired by sympathy for his cause. This post is NOT about any conspiracies. It is rather about an interesting moral dilemma.

Though by now the authorities have stated that the politician mentioned had been speeding and been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the fatal accident, that is irrelevant. Let us forget that part. Let us even forget that persons name. Another Austrian fellow should be the focus of our discussion. Yes, the very same one who sported a rather nasty mustache and loving long walks with torches. Would it be ethical to kill that man before he gains absolute control of his country and forces the world to experience another devastating war? Hitler as baby argument with a twist so to say. We assume for the sake of the argument that this leader is already exhibiting harmful tendencies but is adored by his countrymen. What we are lacking is hindsight, we can only guess whether this person is a raving lunatic.

On the one hand we should not take our chances and act only when it is too late. Every moment wasted is another life lost. Right now, when he is in the opposition, he can be eliminated causing less of a fuss. Besides, it would not present the virulent extremists with a reason to embark on a quest on vengeance. At least on a more limited one. Even if we miss, it would be a single life, the lives and well-beings of billions are at stake. From that point of view it is not way too steep of a price to pay. Though there will be conspiracy theories, they are as relevant as those about aliens probing all the world leaders as a ritual way of welcoming them to their office.

Then again it is not that easy. Who are we to judge that person? There is no basis for us to be competent to establish such a precedence. If bush can do that, why can't Putin? Even the genocidal village elders in South-Eastern Africa will claim themselves to be responsible enough to take on such a burden. There is no institution impartial enough to be able to do something like this. That is not even to touch the subjects of one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter. We simply cannot have everybody going on killing everybody. Under some categories G. W. Bush can be considered responsible for the deaths of thousands, should he too be taken care of? Not to mention the member of Congress, who voted in favour of attacking scary bearded men. Or the pock-marked dude in Ukraine responsible for dismissing the Parliament? Is he too a tyrant in the making as his opponents suggest? No bad guys have outed themselves as such, at least not voluntarily.

Therefore it is politically and morally wrong to embark on such a path. Then again the pay-off is immense, at the cost of a few lives, the world can be saved from another great war of mass devastation or even a nuclear one. What would Jesus do?

I wasn't there

Despite being late and not posting for a month I still am capable of thought. To prove that I'd point out a few important ideas spawned by the infamous film.

Instead of discussing the details of the plot all over again, I'd rather scrutinize the final moments. Yesterday was one of those rare days on which I happened to be watching TV. I'm not sure of the channel but I looked up the film I had watched. It was called "Stranger than Fiction" and it presented a rather curious problem. To summarise the plot, it is about a writer trying to finish her book about an especially insignificant man, Harold Crick. For no apparent reason, such a person exists and actually lives through everything the writer typed. This brings about a moral dilemma, should the writer finish the book by killing the protagonist and by that create a masterpiece, or write a mediocre happy end as to save the man's life.

The idea, which i found worth pondering, is too of the ending. As we all now, the finale was one of failure, the boys carted off by the police. As I am still human and suffer from all the side-effects of being attached to the protagonist, I found myself wishing for the boys to make it. On the other hand there is common sense explaining that Rass and others are common criminals nothing else. The emotional and involved side of me is crying for him to be released to live a happy life with his new-found woman. Naturally he would go back to school and eventually become a doctor. Then again, who would believe such a conclusion? It too would be mediocre if not poor, art and intelligence lost for a piece of petty hope. On the other hand it is not a bit more moral to create a character of immense appeal to the audience just to make him miserable. What could one do as a writer, the twin evils of human nature make an intelligent yet emotionally involving piece almost impossible to produce.

Hey guys, I'm special!

I'm rather surprised that as soon as the results were announced everybody started making up excuses. Is it truly not possible that we actually are satisfied? The notion of students agreeing with school in general or the dreaded perioodõpe in particular, seems so alien that our consciousness simply rejects it. We start searching for actual excuses such as skipping school often or simply having had lunch. The latter is especially dubious as if I am not mistaken, we had this survey during the 7th lesson.

It is rather difficult to make general statements as the data is apparently absent from our fancy new website. Still, I'd like to use this page to make a little statement of my own. I actually am satisfied with the system. If one would take the wonderworld of orkut as an example then everything wrong has something to do with the system. Someone will probably even blame the late arrival of trains to The Hague on perioodõpe. Some teachers enjoy being a pain in one's side regardless of the system. The schedule was messed up in the old days as well. Oh, and what do you know, being absent for long periods of time such as two weeks still messed up your grades, only in all the subjects. Let's no forget that the system is a foreign one and probably devised by a joint committee of Jews, neo-Nazis, communists, Illuminati and the very same aliens who went on a mind-controlling spree in the sixties. Simply put, school is without doubt a little messed up but let's not blame something for everything just because it is new.

That being said, the genuinely nice aspects of balancing a schedule as in having less lessons on the periods leading up to the exams, having intensive studying periods instead of long arduous process consisting of two lessons a week or simply the lovely aspect of not having to attend the not-so-fine lessons every week; are rather enjoyable. Besides, it even feels better when one only has seven weeks to count down instead of more. Even the dreaded idea of having a test every week seems a little less intimidating when taken in perspective. Though the tests will probably be grouped closer together, the material will be as well. This is where the questions comes in, if we take in roughly the same amount of information simply divided on a different timescale, would we rather have the tests on something we learned in the course of last week or enjoy the benefits or having a test on something learned a month ago. Besides, we only have about 8 subjects as opposed to double that number. That naturally means that the number of subjects we can have tests on immediately drops by half. That too is something I cannot object.

The idea of us having a partial perioodõpe and that being the reason behind all our problems is also a little curious of an idea. The only actual part we are apparently missing is the final week as an examination-only week, the idea of which I personally object. Though that will probably be discussed in another post sometime in the future, I'd simply like to point out the obvious. Having a few tests on material studied in the course of a single week in more or less of a continuous stream is a little better. The other option would demand digging up stuff from day one and still remember everything. This is not to mention the extra strain of such a week. Another curious aspect would be the attitude of some. Pointing fingers at a certain someone and a certain post on a light blue website, I'd claim that the opponents of the system are trying to play on both sides of the field at the same time. A person complains about the new system being harsh on absentees and making the last week of the term stressful and then in the very same advocates having all the important tests in the course of a single week. If that's not conflicting then what is? Once more, let's not oppose something just for the hell of it. And if we do, let's try not to contradict ourselves, shall we?

As a final note, let me declare that life would be so much nicer, if we would simply consider the merits of something for its own worth. Just because Anu-demon is promoting it does not mean something to be utterly rotten and bad. Furthermore, don't be afraid to admit that you were wrong. Simply because the original statements were made with limited information (oh, how typical), does not mean that they still have to be defended. I, myself was a vocal critic of this perioodõpe, when it was first mentioned. Now, however, After having experienced it for a year, I am not afraid to stand up and admit that I was wrong in the first place.

Political partisanship anyone?

While watching TV, something I rarely do, I spotted something odd. The piece itself was called The American President and is of no particular artistic value. However the political or moral values caught my attention. Not the part concerned with bombing Syria nor anything with the French. The stances on environmentalism and gun control stood out.

Though the plot revolved around the feasibility of a First Girlfriend as opposed to serious issues, the stance on those was remarkably familiar. Practically every film brought to us from Ameerikamaa, which even remotely mention the subject, has the same point of view. Global warming not only exists but can be stopped by simply using less gas. In addition to that, gun control is the perfect way to make crime obsolete. The only thing in the way preventing us all to live in a global village called happiness is a strange cabal consisting of pork-barreling republican senators on the pay-roll of various lobby groups. That's it, no sensible character appearing human at least in some part, fights against these ideas.

Now the problem here is not whether the points made are valid or not, I am trying to highlight the political bias behind it. The naturally liberal and free-spirited folks at Hollywood cannot grasp the possibility of mentioning any opposite arguments for a debate. We occasionally like to presume that we have no problems understandig American culture or attitudes, simply because we have seen so much. We are stunned by those who claim Jesus created everything and abortion should be banned on all occasions, those folks appear to be on the fringe. Actually it is not the case. We simply haven't seen any. Though I rather not call the media communists, there is a strong bias present.

A thin red line line or a fat blue one?

As you all know our lovable neighbour just had a rather unpleasant confrontation with Georgia. Naturally we are rather annoyed in case some of that nasty stuff gets spilled on our own freshly mowed lawn, however there are other troubling events to pay attention to as well. David Cameron and David Miliband and some others not named David recently enjoyed their own bout of sabre-rattling. That is NATO giving Ukraine something of a turbo-membership. Something we should be rather afraid of.

Don't get me wrong, everybody and their grandmother should be given a chance to be free of intervening KGB veterans and all but NATO membership might be one step too many. You see, Ukraine is not a lovely unified country of western values and aspirations but rather a country stuck between two radically different worlds. Without getting bogged down by details, one can view Ukraine as a bipolar country. The nation is roughly split in two along the same lines as on the picture to the left. The western part of the nation can be characterized as pro-European and the eastern or southern, which ever way you like it, part as pro-Russian. This means a seriously messed up country in short. The Estonian equivalent of such a division would not be the Ida-Virumaa versus the rest but rather something along the lines of Estland and Livland. What I wanted to prove with that boring demographic talk was that the country itself is not sure, which way it wants to go. Apparently they are too busy cutting each others throats to see the big bad wolf creeping around the house.

Now imagine NATO getting involved. Apart from the fact that we would be forcing an alliance of serious strategic importance onto people against their wishes (how's that for democracy?), these kind of countries tend to be extremely unstable and impossible to predict. It is like giving a rabid schizophrenic monkey pumped up to the eye-balls on various stimulants a fully armed nuclear football. Oh and just for the heck of it, the monkey lives next door to a megalomaniac mastermind as well as some bloke named Hitler. Even without a smirking Russia poking around where it is not wanted, the mixture is still highly potent. If, at some point, a few oblasts would decide to secede, the odds are that a full blown civil war might erupt. What will NATO do then? Back one ethnically cleansing half of the country over another? Simply ignore the events? Ask the warring sides to simply kiss and make up? Install a meaningless puppet regime tasked to freeze the conflict and hope nobody notices?

Though I strongly support all attempts to help Ukraine deal with it's nasty neighbour, NATO membership is no silver bullet. Until it's ready, and by that I mean dealt with it's internal issues, there should be no further talk on the subject. Right now we would simply be trying to douse the flames with gasoline. Not only would be fuel further conflict but put ourselves on the line. This, my friends, is contrary to the golden rule of helping someone out: make sure you do not put yourself in danger. Nobody needs another would-be helper crying for rescue.

It's happening

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