Who Murdered Robert Wone

I want to be a lawyer lately. It’s not because I think we need more lawyers. Quite the contrary—I think we have way too many lawyers. To be fair, there are many wonderful and intelligent attorneys who work hard to protect civil liberties of the ordinary people, and to seek justice. However, more often than not, this world gets lost in legal frenzy. People stop using common sense. They act according to lawyer’s interpretation of the law. As a result, the government and the society have wasted tremendous amount of resources not to serve the citizens, but just to avoid being sued. Still, the government even sues the governement itself. What’s even more frustrating is that the government cannot always convict the criminals. This happened one more time last week on the murder case of Robert Wone. Robert Wone was an 32 year old attorney. He was murdered on August 2, 2006 in DC. when he stayed over at his friend Joseph Price’s house where Price’s two lovers Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward also lived. The three men fabricate a theory—:some intruder came to the alarm protected house, didn’t touch any valuable in the house, didn’t leave any trace of coming and leaving, didn’t wake up any of three men, but the intruder did went to Robert Wone’s room and stabbed him three times to his death. If these three men want to cover up their crime, they should have come up a better story. Yet, with this lousy crafted absurd plot, the government failed to put them behind bars. That stuns me as well as upsets me. A few years ago, when I first read the "Affidavit in Support of an Arrest Warrant – Dylan Ward" which describe the crime scene, autopsy, and the three men’s behaviors after Robert Wone’s murder, I came up a conclusion of my own. This is what I believe what happened. Joseph Price is the master mind among their threesome relationship. He took the advantage of his friend Robert Wone’s trust for staying over, and staged a sexual assault on Robert, after they drugged Robert. The drugging might go wrong or Robert might become aware of the assault that night. To cover up, he (alone or accompany with his two lovers) stabbed Robert to death, then concoct a "theory" about what an intruder. There is an extensive coverage at this Web site: Who Murdered Robert Wone? However, I cannot keep my blood from boiling due to anger when I read them. I am angry because I am so frustrated with the weakness in the police work and in the government to move this case forward, to solve the murder case, and to convict these three people. I see them all guilty, even not all of them participated in the killing, they are certainly part of the team to cover up the crime. This must be easier to solve than a mathematical theory I solved in my graduate school homework. Well, maybe not when all the lawyers are involved. I had to try hard to keep myself calm when I was reading Judge Lynn Lebovitz’ Verdict that acquits all three men from the charges of obstruction of justice and tamper with evidence. Let’s hope the justice will be served soon, and the murderer of Robert Wone will be punished. Speaking of murder trials, not long ago, I was completely captured by a fascinating story on The New Yorker about a murder trial in New York City: "Iphigenia in Forest Hills" by Janet Malcolm (The New Yorker, May 3, 2010, p. 34). Her writing is even more interesting than the murder trial. She exhibits the entire trial vividly on those pages, like a film script. Good stuff, I mean the article, not the murder. Do I still want to be a lawyer? Nah. The 4th of July is here. To celebrate it, and my friend’s birthday, I will go to a pool party to swim under the sun in a bit. I hope I won’t get baked, because it has been quite hot lately. I am also looking forward to Galen’s house party tonight, even that means I will miss the fireworks in the evening. The fireworks never last long anyway. Oh, stay away, far away, far far far away from "The Last Airbender". Even without taking the controversy on casting into account, I can smell how stinky the film is. The Last Airbender Once upon a time, a talented young director made an excellent film called "The Sixth Sense" and rose to the fame. Then, he moved to Hollywood, and began to fit in and live the expensive life style for his films. His characters gradually disappear in his films behind the ostentatious high tech toys. His newest film "The Last Airbender" (USA 2010 | 103 min.) sinks to a new low, as if a painted cardboard display in a store window, lacks of any substance. His name is M. Night Shyamalan. Since "Avatar" is already established as the king of the box office, "The Last Airbender" must drop the name Avatar from the animated television series "Avatar: The Last Airbender," which the film is based on. While the film loses Avatar in its title, it also loses many great Asian characters to very white Caucasians. Even the stories are washed away by giant 3-D water balls. Apparently, showing off CGIs outweighs any character development. Aang (Noah Ringer) is the last Avatar, although the film makes him sound like the Dali Lama. He is also the last "airbender," that is, someone can bend the air as a weapon during a fight. However, he does not know how to water-bend, fire-bend, or earth-bend, because he runs away from leaning when he was younger. Now he is the only hope to fend off the invasion from the aggressive Fire Nation, while he is the most wanted by the exiled son of the Fire Lord. It is ridiculous to hear these characters speaking like they are reading menus that explain what, why, how they are doing. This is no longer a cartoon show on TV, but they continue to talk like a cartoon. There is absolutely no character development, only cheesy setups and fancy 3-D effects. However, you have seen the visuals in "Red Cliff", "The Lord of the Rings," and of course, "Avatar!" It is also unclear exactly what Aang can do and what he cannot. In one scene, he is able to fly in the sky and fight an army with his bare hands. The next scene, he is tied up with a rope and hung from the ceiling—with the tattoo on his bald forehead, that can be easily mistaken as a display at Folsom Street Fair. M. Night Shyamalan just offers us this film as one of the worst films this year. If he does not move out Hollywood any time soon, even this last Avatar indeed turns into the Dali Lama, his films will not be saved. "The Last Airbender" opens on Thursday, July 1, 2010 at Bay Area theaters. Why bother? http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/cCIbfglrX88&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3d18 Wild Grass (Les herbes folles) Perhaps you experience this before when reading a poem—although those lines in a poem do not necessarily connect to each other in a logical narrative sense, but each line connotes feelings in its unique way and constantly provokes thoughts or emotion. You might have a similar experience when you watch renowned French director Alain Resnais‘s latest film "Wild Grass" (Les herbes folles | French 2009 | in French | 104 min.). At age 87 (born in 1922), Alain Resnais adapts a French novel "L’Incident" (by Christian Gailly) into this intriguing, stylish, and a little bit strange "Wild Grass." He receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at Cannes Film Festival last year for this work. The film elegantly opens with two incidents that connect the two protagonists who otherwise would never know each other. Dentist Marguerite Muir (Sabine Azéma) loses her bag and her wallet to a robbery after she purchases a pair of shoes in a store. She goes home and takes a bath, trying to forget about it. Meanwhile, Georges Palet (André Dussollier) finds her discarded wallet in a parking lot, and examines it in detail before returns it to her. However, Georges does not let Marguerite move on. He escalates his expecting a thank-you phone call, to engaging in a bizarre stalking, and to pursuing his unrequited love toward Marguerite, despite the fact that he is married and has two grown children. With excellent performance, the story unfolds in a deliciously gripping manner, regardless sometimes the characters’ spontaneous behaviors are hard to explain and plot development seems hard to believe. The film has its remarkable magic to intrigue the audience from scene to scene, and it rarely goes the way as one expects, until the very end of the film. Director Alain Resnais explains his leitmotif eloquently: "To me, this title (Wild Grass) seemed to correspond to these characters who follow totally unreasonable impulses, like those seeds that make the most of cracks in the asphalt in the city or in a stone wall in the country and grow where they are the least expected to." Certainly, this can be said about his film itself—a poetry that the least you expect to read in a cinema. "Wild Grass" opens on Friday, July 9, 2010 at Bay Area theaters. http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/M3TeAiMb754&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3d18