Synaptic Sugar

This post was going to appear days ago but for various reason it’s been delayed. However, I thought I’d still publish it even if late, and say a few words especially because these issues have been discussed at length lately.

Warren, Ohio: a police officer tasers a woman a whole seven times on September 2, two of those times being after she had been handcuffed, and at least one when she was already in the officer’s cruiser. The woman had been escorted out of a bar, charged with violent behavior under the influence of alcohol.

Gainesville, Florida: police officers take away a student attending a forum, on September 17, with John Kerry as guest, and taser him while pinning him to the floor. On this episode I’d like to spend a few more words, since so many newspapers had the brilliant idea of crying out that the student was taken away because he “asked too many questions”. From the video of the incident (on YouTube) things seem to have happened in this order: the student asks Kerry his questions (provocative questions, but it’s still in his right to ask them); his microphone gets cut off and he is asked to leave (which is wrong); he refuses, so police officers try to take him away (which is also wrong), and he begins to struggle to set himself free (which doesn’t help his situation at all); as he keeps trying to resist any way he can and screams for help, the officers, three at first, then suddenly six, pin him to the floor and handcuff him; but at this point, the situation has escalated so much that I don’t think there’s anything else they could do, and handcuffs are probably just the logical consequence (and mandated by police “rules of engagement”). The subsequent taser discharge, however, isn’t logical; no matter how much he might have, whether with premeditation or not, tried to create an “incident” (it looks like he, in part, has), I don’t understand the need for the taser, nor honestly why most of his fellow students just sit still and watch, only to blog in outrage about what happened later and upload videos all over the Web.

(Some of the) Police officers involved in both cases are now on leave while matters are investigated. Perhaps there are people who are too taser-happy; tasers may be useful in extreme cases (such as to incapacitate an armed felon?) but should they be used so liberally? What if the victims have some sort of heart condition? How much more force do you need to stop an unarmed student when you’re already employing six officers and a pair of handcuffs, or to arrest a woman who has been drinking too much? Really, people, chill.

V-Day will come in two days, and it seems to have grown to be a worldwide event, present in all five continents and in over 180 cities in Italy (where it originated). I already wrote about it ("V-Day") so this time I will only be highlighting Italian comedian Beppe Grillo’s posts where the main world cities holding the event Saturday are listed. There are also two maps on Google that give a good visual impression of how widespread the phenomenon is, both in Italy and the rest of the world. Congratulations, the topic the event revolves around is worth discussing, and hopefully something good will come out of this.

Edited on September 9 at 1:36 PM to add: The following day, V-Day shows to have been a great success worldwide, with over 300,000 signatures gathered in Italy (at least 50,000 were needed) to support the law proposal aimed at cleaning up the parliament. Attacked as demagogic by many politicians and their personal media outlets, the event and the months spent in preparation nevertheless proved that people DO want to take part in the decision-making process, if offered the possibility of deciding on actually meaningful matters rather than ratifying pre-cooked and pre-packaged arrangements.

The Italian Corte dei Conti (the organism that administers justice in matters of state accounting and public administration) has publicly shown appreciation two days ago for the proposal for a popular law brought forward by comedian Beppe Grillo with the support of thousands of readers of his highly popular blog. The request asks that a new law be passed to “clean up the parliament“, focusing around three main points:

1. No citizens previously convicted or awaiting trial may be allowed a seat in parliament (and thus may not use parliamentary immunity to escape judgment and punishment for any crime). There are currently at least 25 parliamentarians in Italy who have been found guilty, up to the last degree of judgment, of crimes such as corruption and abusing their power;
2. Citizens may serve in parliament for no more than two terms, and the rule should be valid retroactively. Many of people currently seating in the Italian parliament have been there for more than twenty years;
3. Candidates to the parliament must be elected directly by the people through explicit direct preference, rather than by political parties. This also discourages internal scheming and exchanges.

In order for the request to be accepted, at least 50,000 authenticated signatures must be gathered, and September 8 has been chosen as the date to gather them in the main Italian squares and known as the V-Day, according to Beppe Grillo “halfway between the D-Day and V for Vendetta” (the V also stands for a curse word in Italian, and was chosen as the official word addressed to the current Italian politicians).

It’s also possible to join the V-Day by signing up on a special page on Beppe Grillo’s blog, and receive organizational material to help spread the word. A law like this has never been seen in Italy, and it is surely the first time that such a large-scale democratic operation achieves such a wide success (at the time of writing, there are more than 90,000 people who signed up to V-Day). It is definitely a law that Italy needs, and that many other countries would certainly benefit from.

Mika Brzezinski is one of the co-hosts of the MSNBC show “Morning Joe”, who recently populated the headlines because of her refusal to present news about heiress Paris Hilton’s release from jail as the show lead story, before more relevant news about the Iraq war. In two occasions the journalist refused to break the “news” that her producers tried so hard to advertise and apologized to viewers, while being teased and made fun of by her two co-hosts. To more strongly make her statement, she also tried to burn the script with a lighter, but failed, and resorted to shredding it (all on camera).

The news item she said she’d rather lead with was the recent break from their own party’s political decisions operated by Republican senators Richard Lugar and George Voinovich, who strongly protested against the direction Iraq war policies have taken and criticized President Bush’s strategy and his attitude towards Congress. The MSNBC producers apparently thought that telling the world more gossip about Paris Hilton’s release from prison after she served roughly half of her 45-day sentence for driving with an invalid license was more interesting, and it looks like most other media outlets thought the same, offering viewers the same reheated leftovers for days.

The bit of the show with Mika’s protest became a very successful video on Youtube, so you can see what happened for yourself. It’s a strong symbolic gesture and it doesn’t look staged, and if indeed it wasn’t, I only have one thing to say to journalist Mika Brzezinski: thank you.

No matter how good hardware is getting year after year, computers are only as good as the operating system they run, which lets users take advantage of the hardware. It is thus only expectable that a prerogative of such users would be to tweak and customize their operating system according to their needs, up to the point of choosing what operating system to buy together with a new computer (or choosing to buy no OS at all). However, it’s not that easy: we all know the vast majority of PCs are sold with an operating system pre-installed (Microsoft Windows), and it’s not always possible (and not in all countries) to decline the license agreement shown on the first use of the operating system and obtain a reimbursement of the price paid for it (don’t forget that even if the computer comes with it, Windows is not free of charge).

It would be quite a lot better if PCs were sold without any operating system at all and the user could always have a choice of buying Windows with them or not. In fact, it wouldn’t change much for those who want Windows, but it would change a lot for those who don’t (take for example software developers, people who want to build their own media centers or home network, and might benefit more from using a flavor of UNIX) as they wouldn’t waste money on something they wouldn’t use. And obviously, it’s primarily a matter of freedom of choice, not merely of money.

Professor Renzo Davoli of the University of Bologna, Italy, has launched a campaign to press for the passing of a law that would facilitate things in such a matter. The proposal, sent to the Minister of Economic Development Pierluigi Bersani, revolves around three main points: when computers are sold, the price for hardware must be listed separately from the price for the operating system license, if any; buyers must be given the choice to buy plain hardware, without any operating system; the prices listed for the operating system license must be realistic and must not depend on private agreements among third parties. There is also an online petition aimed at estimating how many people agree with this idea.

I believe the proposal is noteworthy and meaningful. The key point here is not which operating system is better or which one is more complete, cheaper or more effective. The key point is that different people have very different needs and want different things; hence, everyone must have the right to choose what they pay for. It’s the freedom of choosing and the right of not wasting resources, two principles that most of the times are not being granted.