- Pretty freaking cool, that’s how I’d describe last night’s Lost. I may not have felt that way throughout the entire episode, but as it ended that was my prevailing thought. My early negative feelings were because the episode was a flashback/this is your life, Sayid episode and we’ve had plenty of those episodes in previous seasons, both for Sayid and other characters. This week’s flashback took us back to a) Sayid’s childhood in Iraq, where his domineering father wouldn’t allow his older brother back into the house until he killed a chicken from the family’s coop, b) an apartment near the Kremlin in Moscow where Sayid, during his time working as an assassin at the beck and call of Ben Linus, killed the man Ben claimed was the final person from Charles Widmore’s organization that needed killing in order to protect the Oceanic 6, c) Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where Sayid was located when working for an international humanitarian organization building houses and where Ben tracked him down to ask him to kill the mysterious man who was lurking outside Hurley’s home at the Santa Rosa mental hospital, and d) the meeting on the pier from earlier this season in which Ben, Sun, Jack, Kate and Sayid all took place and which Sayid left after threatening Ben that, “If we ever meet again, it will be very unpleasant for both of us.” After the meeting on the pier, the same woman, Ilana, who we saw lead Sayid onto Ajira Flight 316 in handcuffs, approached him at a bar near the pier as he sat drinking expensive Scotch. After talking for a while, the two of them ended up in a hotel room and appear to be about to sleep together when the woman attacked Sayid, told him she had been hired by the family of the man he killed on the golf course on the island of Seychelles (last season) to bring Sayid back to Guam to be held accountable for his actions. That’s how Sayid ended up on Ajira 316 with the rest of the Oceanic 6, although he did plead with Ilana to wait for the next plane when he saw Hurley, Jack and Kate at the gate. Of course, once the time travel flash hit the plane, Sayid went back to the island circa 1977 with Jack, Kate and Hurley, while Ilana stayed in 2007. In 1977, things aren’t looking so good for Sayid. The Dharma Initiative people are growing impatient with him, wanting to know who he is. Horace questions Sayid and offers him a chance to explain himself, but Sayid declines. Sawyer, a.k.a. LeFleur, asks for a chance of his own to talk with Sayid and tries to talk him into saying he’s a defector who wants to leave the Others for “Dharma-ville,” as Sawyer calls it. Sayid declines that offer and asks Sawyer to let him escape, which Sawyer declines. The next move for the Dharma crew is to take Sayid to a man named Oldham, whom Sawyer describes to Sayid as “our you.” Oldham is a torture specialist, but his treatment of Sayid involves only forcing some kind of drug in cube form down Sayid’s throat. The drug is apparently a truth serum, but when Sayid comes to and actually tells the truth - that he’s from the future, has been to the island before and that the Dharma Initiative will soon be massacred by the Others - they don’t believe him even though he is telling the truth. Frustrated, Horace and Co. take Sayid back to the barracks, throw him in his cell and hold an emergency meeting at Horace’s house. There, Rudzinski and Horace’s wife Amy both argue that the only sensible solution to maintain their safety is to kill Sayid immediately. When everyone votes in the affirmative, Horace asks Sawyer to make it unanimous even though he clearly doesn’t agree with the decision and Sawyer reluctantly raises his hand too. He then goes to visit Sayid and decides that the earlier plea for an escape is a good idea, except that now Sayid wants no part of it. He says he knows what his purpose in being brought back to the island is. That purpose has been made clear to him by his interactions with a 12-year-old Ben, who has brought him food and books while he’s captive. Ben even suffered a beating at the hands of his abusive father (who we know he later killed, as we saw in an episode two seasons ago) for being kind to Sayid. After Sawyer leaves his final chat with Sayid, who seems ready to face his impending execution, something odd happens: a flaming Dharma VW minibus rolls through the barracks, setting a house on fire after crashing. While everyone rushes to put the fire out and save the people in the house, young Ben sneaks into the holding cell and offers to let Sayid out if he promises to take Ben with him. Sayid agrees and off they go, only to be spotted by Jin, who is on a security patrol. Sayid recognizes his old friend and convinces Jin to let him keep going, but when Jin gets on the radio to confirm with Sawyer that he did in fact let Sayid out (which Sayid claimed), Sayid knocks him out. An amazed Ben asks Sayid where he learned to do that, but Sayid is crouched over Jin’s unconscious body and appears extremely upset. He grabs Jin’s gun, then says in a barely audible voice, “You were right about me, I am a killer.” The comment refers back to what Ben said to Sayid in the Dominican, but Sayid is turning it back on Ben because……he’s about to shoot and kill him. That’s what Sayid meant when he said he knew his purpose in coming back to the island, he was to kill Ben. My guess is he believes that killing Ben at age 12 will prevent all the horrible things Ben did later in life, but is that going to create more problems that it solves? The shooting was the final scene of the episode, but there were a few other interesting scenes I still want to get to. One involved Kate and Juliet, with Kate beginning her work assignment in the Dharma garage, working on cars with Juliet and having a conversation about Juliet now being with Sawyer. Kate learned of the development from Hurley, who blurted it out in the Dharma dining hall where he’s now a cook, making tasty waffles with dipping sauces. “I didn’t know how to tell you without it sound like I was telling you to stay away,” Juliet admits to Kate. Of course, that doesn’t prevent a tense Sawyer-Kate moment right before the flaming bus hits the barracks. After talking to Sayid and hearing about his “purpose” in returning to the island, Sawyer marches over to Kate’s house and demands to know why the Oceanic 6 came back to the island. Kate admits she doesn’t know everyone else’s reasons but, “I know why I came back.” Before she can explain, the flaming bus comes onto the scene and that conversation will have to be had another time. That about sums up this week’s episode, a great ending, a decent middle and a very good hour of television overall, can’t wait for next week…………
- Isn't denying the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference just about the most blatant invitation for bad karma you can extend? South Africa is about to find out, because the exiled Tibetan religious leader wanted to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg, but was refused a visa because it was not in South Africa's interest for him to attend, said presidential spokesman Thabo Masebe. The reasoning is every bit as bogus and convoluted as you’d expect; South Africa thinks that, if the Dalai Lama attended the conference, the focus would shift away from the 2010 World Cup, the major international soccer tournament the country will host next year. “We cannot allow focus to shift to China and Tibet," Masebe said. No, why would you want people to think about a major human rights crisis when they could be thinking about an irrelevant soccer tournament? Two of the Dalai Lama's fellow laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president F.W. De Klerk, have stated that they not participate in the conference if the Dalai Lama remained excluded, which I give them props for. De Klerk went so far as to say that the decision to refuse the visa made a "mockery" of the peace conference. “The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity. South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory - regardless of the power and influence of the country,” he fumed. Zero props for you, South Africa, for caving in to pressure by the Chinese government to black ball the Dalai Lama, who has always been a force for good and peace. It’s been 50 freaking years since they guy fled China in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, so get over it. Oh, and nice show of total hypocrisy by South Africa, billing this peace conference was billed as an opportunity to showcase South Africa's role as a human-rights champion prior to hosting soccer's World Cup next year, then denying a visa to a man who is a human rights champion and noted peace advocate. But hey, I’m sure conference attendees Sepp Blatter, president of soccer's international governing body, and actress Charlize Theron will have enough great insights to make up for the absence of three laureates like the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu and De Klerk……
- Spring training is a time for Major League Baseball players to shake off the rust, refine their skills and prepare for the upcoming season. And for the wife of one prominent Pittsburgh Pirates prospect, it’s a time to allegedly steal someone else’s 2-month-old baby. It’s an admittedly odd way to spend spring training, but you’ll have to take that up with Amalia Tabata Pereira, not me. She’s the wife of Jose Tabata, 20, an outfielder and one of the top three prospects for the Pirates who now has the extra burden of dealing with a wife who could be headed to prison. According to police, Amalia Tabata Pereira is suspected of taking the infant from a health clinic outside Tampa. She is being questioned by Florida detectives in Manatee County, where the girl was found unharmed Tuesday afternoon, a day after she was taken from the clinic. Sandra Cruz-Francisco was taken from her mother, Rosa Sirilo-Francisco, about 3 p.m. Monday by a woman her family only knew as 'Janet.' Janet/Amalia Pereira posed as an immigration official at the Plant City Health Department, where the baby’s mother had taken her child for a checkup. She met Janet, who told the mother that there were officers at her home waiting to deport her and the child's father to Mexico. She claimed that she could help the family out, but to do so she would need to take the baby. Incredibly, when the two women drove with the infant to a farm where the child's father works and Janet told him the same story, the mother actually handed the child over. No word as to why she’s looking to steal other people’s kids, but that should be an interesting explanation whenever it comes, as should her story about what she planned to do with the kid once she thieved it. In the end, Periera was done in by the ol’ anonymous tipster, who called police to report a woman on a street corner in downtown Bradenton had information about the missing baby. But is Pereira really the criminal type? Oh, you mean she has a criminal record that includes theft and fraud convictions? Never mind then. I do feel compelled to ask why a top prospect like Jose Tabata, a future star, is doing with a woman 23 years his senior who is an outright criminal. Step your game up, Jose………
- Arrogance is the downfall of many a criminal, mostly because the criminal ranks are full of morons who aren’t nearly smart or talented enough to be arrogant in the first place. Men like Joseph Wesley Torma of Largo, Fla. have enough trouble carrying out their harebrained schemes without calling the police to taunt them. I don’t know if Torma, or "Plasma Pat, the TV Discount Guy," as he dubbed himself, would have gotten away with his scheme if he’d simply laid low and kept his motuh shut. What I do know is that opening his yapper helped him get caught, period. After allegedly taking cash from Wal-Mart shoppers, promising to use his employee discount to get them a good deal on a TV set and then ripping them off, Torma decided that he had gotten over and decided to call the police to taunt them. Rather than get hooked by this idiot, the cops simply circulated security pictures of "Plasma Pat" and were able to find people to identify him and point them in his direction. He was arrested in Polk County over the weekend, charged with conning victims from as many as a dozen towns across the state of Florida. He allegedly befriended people outside Wal-Mart stores, telling his victims that he worked at the store, and that he could use his employee discount to get them a good deal on a major purchase. These people, like Torma clearly of subpar intelligence, handed him their money to go inside and make the purchase. Instead, Torma took the cash in one door, walked out another and left his clueless victims standing in the parking lot. One victim found himself out $300 while waiting outside for a television. According to Lt. Michael Loux of the Largo Police department, Torma made at least three phone calls to the police, talking of surrendering while bragging that he had cheated about 30,000 people who will never file a police report because they are too embarrassed. This is a situation where there are no winners, only losers. Torma loses because he’s an idiot who will now be heading off to jail, while his victims lose because a) they too are morons, as evidence by the fact that they handed some complete stranger hundreds of dollars in a Wal-Mart parking lot because he claimed to be a store employee who could score them a sweet deal, and b) because they’re not getting their money back. Then again, the money they lost should serve as a nice little lesson for these people and maybe they’ll use their remaining cash to go out and buy a brain transplant, or at least a freaking clue……
- To poison a mile-long stretch of the Rio Grande's banks or not to poison? The federal government is now smack dab in the middle of a bitter debate on the subject after planning to eradicate the invasive Carrizo cane infesting many portions of the Rio Grande's banks between Texas and Mexico because they claim the lanky cane provides cover for immigrants crossing the border illegally and poses a danger to Border Patrol agents trying to stop them. However, environmental groups and local residents complained that doing so posed health and environmental risks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, so the poisoning has been postponed. Residents of two Hispanic communities near Laredo, Texas -- Barrio de Colores and Barrio El Cuatro -- filed a lawsuit late Tuesday asking a federal court to intervene and the court agreed. Among the complaints lodged by the plaintiffs in the suit are allegations that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection failed to assess the environmental impact adequately, failed to consider reasonable alternatives and failed to notify the public adequately. Jay Johnson-Castro Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center and a leading opponent of the plan, doesn’t believe that sufficient studies have been done on the effects of the herbicides the government plans to use. "I've lived long enough to know what the government says is safe isn't always safe," he said. He does have a point there; the government lies, it lies often and it lies to benefit its own case in situations like this. Arguing for the government, Chuck Prichard, spokesman for CBP's Laredo sector, claims that the plan is safe and extremely necessary. “Someone can be in the cane and be 3 feet away from them, and you cannot see them,” Prichard said “A Border Patrol agent] could literally be surrounded and have no idea.” That may well be, but you can’t go slamming down any herbicide or pesticide you want to clear the area. Applying herbicides on a 1.1-mile test stretch of the Rio Grande may work and it may solve your problem, but at what expense? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may have settled on imazapyr for the test project and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may claim that there is "reasonable certainty of no harm from aggregate exposure to imazapyr residues," but I’m not sold. Maybe that’s because maintaining a hearty distrust of the government is a staple of my life plan, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. So before you spend $2.1 million on this project, do your homework. You’ll have ample opportunity to eradicate vegitation along the stretch of river that forms a sharp bend between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, no worries. Persecuting illegal immigrants can wait for a day or two……
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