Three observations

Today, well for the past two days, the following things have occupied my mind.

Firstly, I have been following the saga between the States and the United Arab Emirates, where a company from latter is interested in buying strategic ports in the USA. The main reason why I find it interesting is twofold: firstly, because I visited UAE less than a year ago (it left me a very good impression of the overall culture) and secondly, I believe that we can see some sort of a clash of civilisations in this case. How much is US willing to trust one of its best allies in the Arabic world?

Secondly, I’ve been worried about the fact that viruses have intruded the Mac world. Is it the case that I really have to buy virus protection software for my laptop? Hope it really isn't so. Anyway, if anyone knows any good virus protection freeware, please let me know.

Thirdly, as I just finished reading one of my course mates winter term essay. I can conclude that there are mainly four arguments favourable to and against women participation in science: economic growth, equal opportunity, biological dissimilarities and particular (dis)ability to do science differently. Overall the arguments posed left me with no real discoveries. The only part that I find interesting, but unfortunately was only briefly touched upon, was the equal opportunity of man vs women. What I find interesting is the fact that "Understanding and making science provides scientists with a certain power over the rest of the population. Since men have dominated the fields of science and technology during the last 2000 years (at least since the earlier time of Aristotle), they have benefited from a significant amount of power over women." So can we see/say that artefacts DO have politics as L.Winner argued in his 1985 classic? Well, that’s another essay topic worth of material to discover…

Munich

The movie is supposedly based on George Jonas' book Vengeance and claims to have been "inspired" by true events. Probably all the main events occurred, but all of the character interaction is made up. Despite the historical nature of the story, the parallel with today's events is impossible to miss: i feel that all the context of terrorism is as relevant today as it was in the 1970's.

The ‘mission” in the movie begins as an act of patriotism, but soon the main character becomes lost on his way: he doesn’t know what to believe any more, and he has lost the capacity to differentiate right from wrong. What is death and what is their mission? Do we create our own missions? The deeper he gets into the espionage, the more difficult it becomes to differentiate reality from the deceit by enemies.

For Prime Minister of Israel, the doctrine is compelling: "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values" One should forget peace during these moments and show our enemy that we are strong! But from an individual point of view one gets really confused: the appointed group uses the methods of terrorists. So in the case of terrorist war we should ask who exactly are the terrorists?

Probably Spielberg notes that from a broader perspective the war on terrorism is not winnable. As Munich points out a sobering truth: for every terrorist killed, there is another. And maybe the whole cause of war is useless: the scene were the main character talks to a terrorist and argues his way about Israel and Islamic world show's how we should really approach these problems. The solution of killing the guy two hours later isn't really the solution to the problem.

So an overall conclusion one can say that Munich is a film with quite uncommon depth and intelligence compared to usual Hollywood set pieces.