Director and writer Roman Polanski has been a controversial figure since his conviction of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in California, 1977.  When Polanski was released on bail for this conviction, he fled to Europe.  He eventually ended up in Gstaad, Switzerland, a gorgeous and affluent area.  I know this because I visited there in the 60’s.  I remember it well.  Here and in other places in Europe, Polanski, lived in the lap of luxury.  In the States and Europe he made films such as  Chinatown,  Knife in the Water, Repulsion, and Rosemary’s Baby, among many others.  Many famous actors took part in his films.  He is by all accounts a fabulous director and writer.

Having sex with a 13-year-old is considered statutory  rape in California and the United States.  Doesn’t this mean he should be held accountable for his crime?    The United States and California have been trying to have him extradited for eons.  Recently they came closer to this prospect when Switzerland had him imprisoned.  Polanski has now been placed under house arrest.  He must pay off his 4.5 million dollar bail to be released from house arrest.

All these years Polanski has thwarted his responsibility.   He has lived the good life.  He in essence lived above the law.  Isn’t time he faced his accusers?  Being an excellent director and writer does not excuse them from having to obey the law.

The fact that Polanski ran away from being prosecuted says to me that he is guilty.  Why else would he have jumped ship?  He had powerful people in powerful places behind him; shouldn’t he have utilized those resources before he decided to run?

Just a little note from imdb.com about Polanski:

In 1969, while he was on out-of-town business, his wife, actress Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by members of Charles Manson’s cult family; though Manson only ordered the killing and was not present during the murders. She was eight-months pregnant with their first child at the time. He has said that his life’s biggest regret was not being present at the house on Cielo Drive, Beverly Hills the night his wife Sharon Tate and four others were brutally murdered.

Some people think it was this event in his life that altered him and ultimately made him take advantage of the 13-year-old.  Not that this makes it right either but,  the 13-year-old girl’s mother dressed her up daughter in a promiscuous manner and dropped her off at Polanski’s house.  I certainly would have chaperoned my daughter at that age.

Friday. December 4, 2009.

I am trying for exposure with this English and the French language blog. I am trying to figure out how these blogs work. I wonder if anyone could help handle the technicalities of these blogs. My teachings at this point come advice from “The Dummies” series and from computer experts skilled in hardware who dabble with blog sites.

Oh, to be rid of the technical details and just concentrate on ideas.

Today in the news:

Political dynasties are alive and well. We talked of Imelda Marcos yesterday. Today it is the turn of the former president of Argentina, Nestor  Kirchener. As you may remember because he could not run again for president , he had his wife run for him. His wife, Christina has “run” the country since that election. Apparently Mr. Kirchener will not give up; he likes to be president: it is a fact that his wife had a little trouble with the truckers who went on strike for weeks on end. “Cherry man” (in German) is also called, “the Penguin”, in political circles in Argentina.

We expect to know who will be the president of the great business Center outside of Paris sometime today. As you may remember the French president had nominated his son, Jean Sarkozy to head EPAD ( la Defence). Because of the uproar in many circles, the nomination had been withdrawn. Isn’t it said that he who hath not succeeded first should try again?

Imagine being arrested in one country for a serious infringement on the morals of that country, on its laws, of skipping that country and 30 years later being arrested in a third country? Poor Roman Polanski who was arrested on an international arrest warrant in Zurich, Switzerland: was obliged to post a 4,5 million Swiss franc, (about 3 million Euros),  bond in order to leave the Swiss prison .  The poor man will now have to await an extradition order from the State of California, USA in his very own  chalet, located of all places in Gstaad, Switzerland!  You have to admit that it is a pretty hefty thing to be obliged to wear an electronic bracelet, stay at your own home with surveillance cameras all over the place. No doubt that the paparazzi will be sufficient to keep him inside his chalet, that’s for sure.

All that for the man who admitted having fondled a minor of 13 years old which she was intoxicated with alcohol and drugs.

I suppose that certain cultures and ministers do stick together when needed

SNEEZE. Will you please cover your mouth and your nose with your arm? That is what is requested in France when you sneeze. The H1N1 virus is spreading all over the country. Schools are closed because of the fear of contagion. Various governments have bought considerable vaccinations destined to protect you and me from the deadly and mutant strains of the virus. I thought that vaccines needed to be tested for at least one good year or more before being satisfactory for consumption.

The US President has stated that the comparing Afghanistan and Vietnam is a mistake: let us remind Mr. Obama that Vietnam was “lost” because the regime there was unsustainable due to its loss of national and international credibility. Why? The leaders of South Vietnam were unable to show new improvements, and were, just reaping it in. When a government cannot be trusted because of rampant corruption, it will die. So many countries made the mistake of supporting unviable regimes. Here we go again…seems history is repeating itself .

I wish I got to hang out in a ski cottage if I ever got arrested and then fled the country.  That’s exactly what Roman Polanski has done.  Polanski has been in jail for the last two months waiting for the US and their extradition protocol is now in-house arrest in Gstaad.  I’m guessing that’s somewhere in Switzerland.  Polanski is in this ski house with his wife and children.

To remind my reading audience this man has been in Europe trying to escape prison time in the US for sleeping with a 13-year-old girl.  He has been running since 1978.  I’m sorry but I feel no sympathy or pity for this man and some of his legal mishandling.  He pleaded guilty to the crime and doesn’t wan to do the time.

The Great Escape 2

The Times reports that the rapist Roman Polanski has been granted bail due to the intervention of Comrade Nicolas Sarkozy. However, there are concerns that Polanski may make a run for it.

The Swiss authorities have ordered that he should not leave his chalet — for fear that the first-rate skier might slip over the nearby border via a mountain pass into his adopted French homeland and escape US justice a second time.

Mr Polanski must turn in his passport and have a surveillance system installed at his chalet, where he will wear electronic tagging, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said in a statement. “He must not leave this house,” the ministry said. “He will be under house arrest and has also committed to wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.”

Experts say that if he fled, the set-up is not equipped with global positioning system and would therefore not help to track him down. Jonas Peter Weber, a professor at the University of Bern, said, “We can only check if the person is at home. If the alarm goes off and no police is in the vicinity , the person will be able to flee,” he said.

They could make a movie out of that. They could have Rutger Hauer, as an SS officer, chase after pederast Polanski. But at the last minute, little Roman could whizz across the border, and the Jewish American Resistance in France could grab Hauer, carve a Swastika into his forehead, and smash his skull in with a baseball bat.

Now that’s entertainment!

Talmudic Entertainment

SANHEDRIN, 55b: “A maiden three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband’s brother cohabits with her, she becomes his. The penalty of adultery may be incurred through her; (if a niddah) she defiles him who has connection with her, so that he in turn defiles that upon which he lies, as a garment which has lain upon (a person afflicted with gonorrhea).” (emphasis in original text of Soncino Edition, Ed.)

(footnotes) “(2) His wife derives no pleasure from this, and hence there is no cleaving. (3) A variant reading of this passage is: Is there anything permitted to a Jew which is forbidden to a heathen. Unnatural connection is permitted to a Jew. (4) By taking the two in conjunction, the latter as illustrating the former, we learn that the guilt of violating the injunction `to his wife but not to his neighbor’s wife’ is incurred only for natural but not for unnatural intercourse.” (emphasis in original, Ed.)

SANHEDRIN, 69a ” ‘A man’; from this I know the law only with respect to a man: whence do I know it of one aged nine years and a day who is capable of intercourse? From the verse, And ‘if a man’? (2) He replied: Such a minor can produce semen, but cannot beget therewith; for it is like the seed of cereals less than a third grown (3).”

(footnotes) (2) ‘And’ indicates an extension of the law, and is here interpreted to include a minor aged nine years and a day. (3) Such cereals contain seed, which if sown, however, will not grow.”

SANHEDRIN, 69b “Our rabbis taught: If a woman sported lewdly with her young son (a minor), and he committed the first stage of cohabitation with her, -Beth Shammai say, he thereby renders her unfit for the priesthood (1). Beth Hillel declare her fit…All agree that the connection of a boy nine years and a day is a real connection; whilst that of one less than eight years is not (2); their dispute refers only to one who is eight years old.

(footnotes) (1) i.e., she becomes a harlot whom a priest may not marry (Lev XXL, 7.). (2) so that if he was nine years and a day or more, Beth Hillel agree that she is invalidated from the priesthood; whilst if he was less than eight, Beth Shammai agree that she is not.”

Polanski to remain in Swiss jail until Friday

Photo by Rita Molnár; Wikipedia Commons

For the past week it’s been reported that Roman Polanski will most likely be released on bail. The latest report from Variety says:

Roman Polanski will remain in jail until Friday as the filmmaker raises the $4.5 million bail, Swiss authorities said Tuesday.

Polanski will basically be under house arrest – mind you, in his “chalet” in the Swiss Alps – until the government decides whether or not to extradite him to the U.S. to be charged for the crime he fled in 1978.

But what if Polanski tries to escape yet again?

I, for one, don’t see why Polanski wouldn’t try to escape this yet again. The fact that he has a family and is almost eighty years old seems to give him more reason to flee.

I guess we’ll have to see what happens. Until then, I am not doubting that he will be released on bail (Variety also reported that in Switzerland, the bail has to be paid in full). After all, if things are still the way they were in early October, Polanski has all of Hollywood behind him.

You can read more about the Polanski case and my initial thoughts on it in this post from October.

Polanski chiuso nel suo chalet svizzero col braccialetto al polso, mi sembra tanto un suo film, un kammerspiel angosciante e visionario col protagonista prigioniero (dei fantasmi del suo passato), mentre di fuori la neve lo isola dal mondo.
***
Sempre a proposito di Svizzera e di referendum antiminareti, il direttore dell’Osservatore Romano mette in guardia dalla strumentalizzazione delle religioni.
No. Non era una battuta.
***
Sempre a proposito di strumentalizzazioni: asilo romano intitolato alla Contea degli Hobbit. Scandalo: si tratterebbe di sottocultura fascista.
L’acquisizione tolkeniana da destra negli anni Settanta è una fra tante delle loro malefatte.
La perdurante misinterpretazione da sinistra, non l’ultima delle loro stupidaggini.
***
E comunque, a questo punto, perché non un bell’anello, sul tricolore, eh Ignazio?

L’utilité des minarets en Suisse

Le minaret suisse

Il y a différents types de tour, en fonction du pays, de la religion ou des convictions politiques

Swiss won’t fight Polanski bail ruling

(CNN) – Swiss authorities will not fight to keep Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski in jail while he battles extradition to the United States on a sex charge, they said Thursday.

A Swiss judge ruled Wednesday Polanski could be transferred to house arrest if he posts bail of 4.5 million Swiss francs ($4.5 million). The Swiss Federal Office of Justice could have appealed the decision.

The filmmaker was arrested in Switzerland in September on a U.S. arrest warrant stemming from a 1977 sex case.

Wednesday’s decision to grant him bail reverses an earlier court decision.

Last month, the Swiss Criminal Court refused Polanski’s request to be released on bail and said the director posed a high flight risk, according to court documents.

The Swiss Criminal Court said measures such as revoking Polanski’s travel documents and requiring him to report daily to the police would not reduce the possibility that the director would flee.

Polanski, 76, pleaded guilty in August 1977 to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl five months earlier. He was 43 at the time.

Los Angeles, California, prosecutors dropped other charges in exchange for his guilty plea.

But Polanski fled the country before he was sentenced, after he learned the judge might not go along with the short jail term he expected to get from the plea agreement.

Polanski remained free — mostly living in France — before he was arrested in Switzerland on a 31-year-old arrest warrant. Los Angeles authorities said they sought his arrest when they learned he would be traveling to Switzerland for a film festival in September.

Polanski agreed to pay his sexual assault victim $500,000 to settle a damage claim she filed against him nearly 12 years after the crime, according to court papers released October 2.

Polanski still owed the money — plus another $100,000 in interest — three years after the 1993 settlement, according to the documents.

The victim sought money for damages suffered when Polanski had sex with her. She claimed Polanski plied her with alcohol and quaaludes during a photo shoot at the Hollywood Hills home of actor Jack Nicholson.

It’s not clear if Polanski ever completed paying the debt to the woman, although the court papers document efforts by her lawyers to garnish residuals and other payments owed to Polanski by the Screen Actors Guild, movie studios and other Hollywood businesses.

The victim came forward long ago and made her identity public — saying she was disturbed by how the criminal case had been handled. Samantha Geimer, now 45 and a married mother of three, called in January for the case to be tossed out.

Polanski’s arrest has divided public opinion, even in Hollywood. Some high-profile filmmakers, such as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodovar, have called for his release. Others, including actors Kirstie Alley and Paul Petersen, refuse to defend him.

“JUST FOR THE RECORD….RAPE IS RAPE…this is one HOLLYWOOD STAR who does not CELEBRATE or DEFEND Roman Polanski..his ART did not RAPE her,” Alley wrote on Twitter.

Petersen, a former child actor and president of A Minor Consideration, which advocates on behalf of young performers, said was shocked Polanski’s colleagues were taking his side.

“I can’t believe that Hollywood has separated itself so completely from American morality,” Petersen said. “It is yet another case of Hollywood being out of sync with most of America.”

Polanski won an Academy Award for Best Director in 2003 for “The Pianist.” He was nominated for a best director Oscar for “Tess” and “Chinatown,” and for best writing for “Rosemary’s Baby,” which he also directed.

CNN’s Sarah Sultoon in London, England, contributed to this report.

In the news . . .

Prolific spammer sent to prison for more than four years.

White House comes out in favor of net neutrality.

Michelle Obama Google bomb raises censorship questions.

Director Roman Polanski granted $4.5 million bail, but Swiss government has ten days to appeal.

Prison tweeting sends Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avary out of work furlough program and back to full-time custody.

New twist in the medical marijuana debate–should kids with ADHD be granted access?

Baseball player Sammy Sosa sued for $203,000 by businessman who, among other things, allegedly helped sell Sosa’s house and arranged for Don Omar to sing at Sosa’s 41st birthday party.

Trouble on the horizon? With no app censorship for Droid users, obscenity may be on the rise as company launches first “adult only” app store.

Believed to be first of its kind in UK, British pub owner fined $13,000 after patron unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over pub’s Wi-Fi hotspot.

Blut fliest im Bärengraben. Polanski  fristet in der Kiste. Minarette bleiben im Ausland.
Da leisten wir Schweizer uns ja wieder mal einen filmreifen Bärendienst am anderen…

Polanski will not be released until Monday

The New York Daily News have reported that Roman Polanski has been ‘freed’ after Sarkozy intervened on his behalf. Of course, it’s not as black and white as that. They later point out that actually,

After initially balking at his release, Swiss authorities agreed to let Polanski move from a cell to his luxurious Alpine chalet once he puts up $4.5 million bail.

So he’s on bail. He could (SHOULD) still face US courts.

But I still can’t help but feel an overwhelming desire to scream ‘what the fuck?!’ at these empty skies, in desperation. I do not understand how people can help this man. If it were your average Joe who had raped a 13 year old, the public would be baying for his blood. But because he’s a wealthy, arty man with ‘good’ connections, he can get away with rape.  He can have celebrities calling for his release, claiming he’s been treated unfairly, believing that his (admittedly horrible) past excuses in some way the heinous crime he committed.

This is the President of France, supporting a rapist. What message does that send to the people of France? What message does it send to the rest of the world, about how France responds to such incidents? He is in no way acting as an individual, he acts as representative of the people of his country, and he has just bailed a rapist.

It sickens me. It sickens me that I should even have to be writing this, that people could even go so far as to support this man. And it makes me feel so helpless, when all these bigshots get to twist the law around their little fingers. And it frightens me, that you can get away with rape if you are rich and famous. That is terrifying, and wrong.

All of this is so wrong.

reż. Roman Polański

Polański twierdzi, że woli być aktorem, ale biorąc pod uwagę metody jego reżyserii, szczerze w to wątpię. No chyba, że chodzi o rolę pozaekranowego demiurga, który pozostałych bohaterów wrzuca w sytuację, daje im emocje i narzędzia, by w końcu zrobili sobie krzywdę, i obserwuje co wyniknie. Obserwacja jest zaś ostra jak skalpel i choć dokonuje bezpardonowej wiwisekcji psyche postaci, to nigdy nie jest zabieg na widzu. Manipulacja w słusznej sprawie.

4 / 5

ostatnio obejrzane circa 2007

Swiss to release Polanski as soon as bail posted

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss authorities will release Roman Polanski into house arrest as soon as he posts $4.5 million bail while the film director fights extradition to face U.S. sentencing over a 1977 case of sex with a 13-year-old girl.

via Latest News & Media | Source 1 News | Source1news.com.