Random Chaos

It's possible that my first sexual relationship began just like yours. I met someone cute and we started talking on instant messenger, where we exchanged an embarrassing number of kissy face emoticons. We held hands at the high school football game, followed by a fumbling attempt at making out underneath the bleachers.

--Samantha Allen, writing in a guest editorial for the web publication Kotaku

This makes a strange sort of sense. I'm going to dive into this using one of my favorite genres as an example, fighting games. All games have the effect to some extent--I remember actually getting weak in the knees when I finally finished off Kefka in Final Fantasy VI, after so many attempts over the years ending with disastrous failures--but it's most immediate in a brawler.

( FOLLOW THE JUMP: Descriptions are POSSIBLY NSFW. )

I remember a few months ago when I woke up one morning and first heard the term ‘Wikileaks’ on the news.  At first I thought that, for some reason, that the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, had been hacked somehow and was malfunctioning.  Imagine my surprise when I heard that this was, actually, a website dedicated to exposing the hidden information that the authorities supposedly don’t want us to know about.

I’ll admit it—at first I was all for it.  I don’t like the concept of things that happen right under our noses not being divulged.  Especially the torture thing—I don’t condone that sort of thing, and for good reason: it’s counter to what the nation stands for.  (I resist adding a ‘supposedly’ after that, due to what’s been going on.)

I wasn’t paying attention to most of it, though—It was enough to know that this put such things into the public eye and to start a dialogue.

Then, this:  the revelation that the founder of Wikileaks was going to divulge diplomatic cables.  Now, thanks to these documents being thrown out there for anyone to see.  Diplomatic relations are at a strained state, and getting worse.

There are a lot of opinions about what should be done about the man behind all this, one Julian Assange—shot, ‘assassination,’ according to one Canadian pundit (and this is not without its controversy either), ‘executed,’ according to one friend…

Something has to be done, but death?  Isn’t that a bit extreme?

Several countries have launched criminal investigations into the man.  He’s a highly wanted man, even if he isn’t officially ‘wanted’ yet.  He's been called an 'enemy combatant' by Newt Gingrich, and a he’s wanted for rape charges in Sweden.  For whatever reason, lots of people want their hands on this man, and none of it for the reasons he’d like.

The reactions have been mixed, none of them totally ambivalent—either he’s being praised as a hero, or people want him dead.  The remark from the guy on the CBC has been singled out for the extremeness of it, and asking around my own circle of friends it’s equally polarizing.  Largely, we seem to agree to NOT  bring it up—unspoken agreement, all that.  I haven’t voiced my own opinion on it because, until recently, I was one of the few still sitting on the edge of the fence on this particular thing.  Now I want him brought in.

Not to kill him, but on charges of espionage at minimum, treason preferably.  He’s gone out of his way to undermine the diplomatic efforts of the nation, at one of the worst possible times to do it.  I think, however, that having him killed will serve no purpose.  It seems to be kind of the mind of a suicide bomber—not that he wants to be caught, but he’s doing these things in the most visible way possible without leaving any openings; he’s become an enigma, causing—yes, terroristic effects on the populace.

It’s information warfare, and under that definition of what he’s doing, I’m in complete agreement with Mr. Gingrich on his assertion that Julian Assange is an enemy combatant.  His activities have been actively disadvantageous to the nation—and others as well.

Don’t put him to death when he’s caught.  Make an example of him.

Pulling the foundational bricks out from underneath us is not something to be tolerated.