AgPerson

Iowa has passed a law heavily restricting where convicted but released sex offenders may live in the state, specifically restricting proximity to schools and day care centers. Counties and cities have now started an arms race to see who can pass the most restrictive laws, making housing near parks, pools, libraries, and bus stops off limits as well. The former criminals have been forced to live concentrated in a few rural areas or move out of state entirely (and often far away from family and friends), causing the surrounding states to pass their own laws to keep the people away.

Now more and more of the sex offenders — many of whom were convicted as teenages of statuatory rape for having sex with underage girlfriends (note that it doesn’t work the other way around, girls having sex with younger boys is perfectly legal in Iowa) — have no place to go, and as a consequence are slipping off the radar, not registering with sex offender registries (thus violating another law), and, in some cases, being forced to live homeless in parks, cars, or under highway overpasses.

I’m not going to give any caveats like “of course these people are bad, but…” I think such statements are silly and counter-productive. Almost everyone is in favor of catching and punishing (and/or reforming, depending on your political bent) criminals, and people in general also acknowledge that crimes against children are in some ways more “wrong” and “evil” than crimes against adults. However, if you are going to release someone from prison with the assumption that they are reformed and can once again become a functioning member of society, only to heavily restrict their movement, and their rights, and then to alienate them from their communities by labelling them and putting up signs and tracking them with GPS bracelets and going around to local families to warn them, and on top of that legislating in such a way as to make it *almost impossible* for them to live quiet lives without once again *breaking the law*, you are giving these human beings no life at all.

The response of some lawmakers to the inevitably problems with these laws, including sex offenders disappearing from the registration databases and living concentrated in a few rural areas, is an even more extreme form of “not in my backyard” thinking that advocates more restrictive prison terms. Which I guess makes sense, when you think about it. Force the people into a situation where it is almost impossible for them to avoid breaking the law so that they can be rounded up and thrown back in prison despite not having done anything else wrong. Some people might call that entrapment, might call it evidence that we do not have faith in humanity, that we intent to punish forever people who made a mistake in their youth. In Iowa they call it protecting the children.

I’ve finally finished watching _The Prisoner_, which got progressively more strange in its last four episodes, concluding with an episodes that makes absolutely no sense unless one completely disconnects it from the 16 that proceeded it and think of it, not as a science fiction continuation of the series, but at some strange amalgamated literary/symbolic wankfest by series creator Patrick McGoohan. Realize that (which took me until near the end of the episode), and then I needed only one further clue to get the final “message” of this show — the door to No. 6’s flat in London opening as he drove off. And that, as they say, is that. Unlike the marveloulsy interprative “Restless” episode of _Buffy_ at the end of season 4, the ultimate episode of _The Prisoner_ cannot sustain more detailed analysis. Which makes sense, perhaps, when you realize it was written in 48 hours.

This isn’t a review, but I’d been meaning to watch _The Professional_ for a while and caught it on OnDemand(tm) tonight. The quick and dirty version is that a hitman who is disconnected from life and spends his days in an emotionless routine comes to the rescue of the scared, scarred, and world-weary young girl next door when her abusive parents and younger brother are shot in a drug deal gone bad. Mathilda forces Leon to reconnect with the world, and he shows her that life is worth living and good people (that is, good bad people, or is it bad good people?) do exist in the world.

What I got from this film was nothing like I expected: rather than cute and schlocky, it was violent, dark, thoughtful, full of uncomfortable sexual tension — and brilliant. Natalie Portman’s film debut here shows clearly the actor she was to become, and sets her up as that “wise beyond her years” young girl that plays so well in later films. Jean Reno is great as the hitman of few words but a big heart. But don’t be fooled, this movie doesn’t get sappy, nor does it cross that scary line into pedophelia — it plays everything just right, skirting the edges, staying true to the story and the characters, to a story about love, not sex, not violence, not despair.

The only thing I didn’t like about the film is that I felt like some of the angles simply weren’t fleshed out enough — Leon is training Mathilda to be a “cleaner,” but we never get to see how far she goes, whether she has the skills, whether she’ll follow through with a job. She has an inappropriate infatuation with him, clearly leading somewhere, but we never see how that plays out. It was interesting to see on IMDb that the director’s cut of the film, at 24 minutes longer and released in Europe, addresses just these issues, and is even more of a character driven film. It figures that the US test screenings would want more bloody action and less complex characters. Now I’m gonna go have to buy the DVD. Damn you, Amazon Prime!

Yesterday I went on Amazon.com to buy a phone accessory that I wanted to get quickly. After adding it to my cart, I clicked on the two day shipping option to see what the price was — expensive! But then an offer popped up for a free 3-month trial of Amazon Prime, the company’s premium shipping service. For $79 per year, Prime offers free 2 day shipping on all Amazon orders, with the option for discounted overnight shipping. I don’t buy enough to justify this, but this free offer was pretty tempting, so I took it.

Immediately my purchasing behavior changed. First, I finally gave in after several years and turned on Amazon’s “One-Click” shopping option, which lets you purchase items in one step. Previously I’ve avoided it like the plague because I’d always wait to make sure I had enough in my shopping cart to qualify for free ground shipping before placing an order. But now, I get free two day shipping on everything, which is pretty darn close to instant gratification. So when I saw a book that looked interesting, I clicked “buy.” A few minutes later, I saw a DVD, and clicked “buy” again. And then again. It was so simple, so fun, and so nice to not have to worry about the stupid shipping charges. And hey, I had a couple gift certificates in there anyway, so what’s the harm?

Amazon has caught me in their web. I don’t know if the intent of the Prime free trial is to change your shopping habits or just to get you addicted to the free shipping — probably both — but with me, so far, they are succeeding. Eep.

One thing I should add, the offer has the (obvious) caveat that after three months if you do not cancel, you will be charged the $79 for a year subscription to the service. The difference between this offer and every other offer I’ve ever seen is that Amazon emails you *before* your trial runs out, to warn you if you want to cancel, and they allow you to *immediately* cancel, well before the subscription runs out. Meaning, I signed up and cancelled on the same day, and my free trial is still active for the next three months *without any worry about being rebilled*. That’s absolutely awesome, and makes me love Amazon even more. Which is smart on their part, because if someone like me, a loyal customer for several years, were to get pissed off by being charged for something they didn’t want, Amazon might lose a lot of good will. Instead, at least in my eyes, they just gained a ton, and who knows, if I use it enough, I might even sign up for their damn Prime program. But probably not.