Last night we rented Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, a science fiction movie made in 1991 and set in 1999. The premise is that a nuclear-powered Indian satellite loses its control, and is spinning wildly in different orbits, and people are dashing madly from cities into the country depending on where it's supposed to hit. The hero has stolen a futuristic device which his father invented while working for a company in Palo Alto. The device allows people to see other people's memories as virtual reality. In the end, the Americans shoot down the satellite, and the heroine gets a job working on a space station. All completely plausible. I wanted to rent Wings of Desire but it was out. Only movies with happy endings for me for the foreseeable future.
Bin Laden and his followers can never accomplish anything that creative - satellites, space stations, virtual reality memories - they can't create, they can only destroy. Ironically, bin Laden's family is well known for construction works, and his brother is a big investor in Iridium, so what I say shouldn't be interpreted as a criticism of Arabs in general.
I wish we could spend all the money we are going to spend on weapons and soldiers and rebuilding the WTC and taking care of the widows, widowers and orphans of the people killed in the WTC and Pentagon, and the ones who will no doubt be killed in the future - - I wish we could have spent that money doing something more positive. Feeding starving children in Afghanistan. Removing landmines in Kosovo. Educating children in Palestine. It's a staggering amount of money, and it would have been better spent doing good.
It's too bad. |
