As a young kid, most -- if not all -- literature I read seemed to present a world of black-and-white characters. Black and white as in, someone was either a bad person or a good one, no in-betweens.

Sidetrack #1: that opening statement contains a case of dangling modifiers. It should've read: As a young kid, I was presented by most -- if not all -- literature I read with a world of black-and-white characters. Or: When I was a young kid, most -- if not all -- literature I read...

In consequence, the Law always sided with the good guys. If you did good, you would be rewarded. If you did bad, off to jail you would go. That's how all Blytonian bad guys end up getting rounded up by the authority. I remember watching a scene in Richard Donner's Superman -- I was 3 or 4 and it was the Istana cinema in Medan -- where Lex Luthor was being roughed up by some policemen, and I asked my dad who the guy with the funny hair was. He told me it was the bad guy. I asked why he was the bad guy. He replied because the police took him to prison. I asked, what if those were bad policemen.

My wise dad laughed and answered: policemen are good, they're never bad. And they only catch bad people. If you're good, you've nothing to worry about.

Sidetrack #2: how a 3-or-4-year-old knew those guys were policemen, I don't know. My best guest is that my dad -- who was at that time seven years younger than I am now -- told me. But it never occurred to me that a 3-or-4-year-old should know what policemen were.

All right, so, only bad people should fear the Hands of the Law. But then, as I grew older and was about to enter my teens, new characters came into the picture. Those of good people who were in trouble with the Law. One notable example was Godek in Bung Smas' Noni series. I can't recall whether he was really a criminal who turned good yet somehow was still wanted by the Law or a guy framed for a crime he hadn't committed or he did kill someone out of necessity -- self-defense or something like that.

Sidetrack #3: I hated most of Bung Smas' main protagonists -- Noni, Pulung, Sina, Mae -- but I hated Noni the most. In present days, I guess we would call it love to hate, since I hated them but kept reading their books. I especially stuck with Noni because it was set in Semarang, which I always consider my childhood hometown, despite officially living there for eight months only. Most of our relatives from my mom's side live there and we used to visit the city at least once a year.

Back to those Godek-like characters. When I first encountered them, it was always under the pretext that those guys were really good guys; it was the unfortunate circumstances -- being framed, having to defend themselves, misunderstanding -- that made them outlaws. It was then easy for me to sympathize with them and hate the Law. The A Team comes into mind. Or, in black-white terms, they were essentially white, but seen black by some people. In any case, it was still either black or white.

Growing up older yet, I started to be exposed to more colorful characters. Or rather, I started to see that my previously black-white characters had more colors. When I first knew him, Redbeard was a victim of society, avenging the haves for their wrongdoings. Over time, I began to see him as a killer. Well, you can't attack and rob a ship without killing a few so-called innocents, can you? No, the social system shouldn't have treated him the way they did. Yet, that doesn't make his killings justifiable -- not to say right.

Similarly, I perceived Rambo as cool when he first showed up on the silver screen, an outcast struggling to regain acceptance in society and fighting for what he believed was his rights. Years later, I looked back at the death traps he devised -- ingenious as they were -- and those sheriff deputies he neutralized. I remember thinking, whoa, is this guy troubled or what!

All those, alas, failed to make me like Janggut Merah and Rambo less. OK, I did eventually like Rambo less, but only because I watched Rambo III.

In any case, Barbarossa and John Rambo were arguably provoked or even forced to do what they did. They started white, were wronged, and turned, well, blackish. In other words, it wasn't too bad, really. Besides, the authors want us to love them, don't they?

Sidetrack #4: I am by no means an accomplished writer -- it shames me just to write accomplished -- but from what little experience I've had, I find it not so easy to make the readers love the characters they're supposed to love. Just like Bung Smas' above, I also hated about half of Enid Blyton's protagonists. I once read a short story in Bobo about a spoiled sister who changed and turned sweet and as a result, was able to perform well in some school play. I had wanted her to fail so badly that once I knew the ending, I slashed my Bobo -- still in mint condition, mind you -- in sixteenths (even in rage, I'm pretty obsessive compulsive), burned the parts, and drank the ashes.

Nah, just kidding. Did you really think I -- the sweet, innocent Dodol Surodol -- would do that? I simply moved on to the Paman Kikuk pages instead. But I was pretty pissed, a'ight.

You write your protagonists with too many good qualities and they may appear fake and hateable. Is that a word, hateable, BTW? You give your protagonists too many bad-boy attributes and readers may hate them even more. There was this Spaghetti Western where the main guy was so bad he spat every two minutes -- in the tub, on the saloon floor, on dogs. I was like, what the fish?! It would've been better to have him spit on scantily clad blondes, don't you think? Or even better, make him spit on scantily clad Monica Bellucci.

Whoa, that was a long sidetrack. OK, enough of them for today, I'll get focused.

Now, as I grew older and older still, I encountered even more colorful characters. This time, though, they were not from literature and films, but the real world. These people knowingly break the Law, get roughed up for it, yet have none of it and in fact try to take revenge.

These colorful ones are everywhere. From premans manhandling the security guard who tried to stop them from robbing, to rogue students bullying their teacher when told off. From people occupying pieces of government land under the bridge and staging violent protests when asked to move, to illegal downloaders threatening the company that sues them.

Many times, I can't stand such characters. And this time, it's not that love-to-hate thing.

I agree that many times the Law could and should handle these outlaws better. Anyone who has ever witnessed those (usually joint) operations to round up illegal street vendors (I have) or prostitutes (I haven't) won't deny that the Law Hands tend to overact. Hey, I was once or twice a senior, I know what it feels like to have powers and how difficult it is to resist the temptation to abuse them.

Sidetrack #5 -- apologies, this time it's really the last: I once smashed a freshman's workbook -- book that they had to write on during OPT/Ospek -- onto the concrete floor just for the sake of it. And they had really worked hard to fulfill the impossible tasks we seniors made them do, you know. Remember those blue-red books, guys? In another instance, I kept them under the scorching mid-day sun for an extended period, without any reasons really. Remember, these are Computer Science students, not Mechanical Engineering. Talk about being abusive, huh?

For some curious reason, however, at the end of it, the Ogebs voted me -- and I kid you not, I swear on my unborn son's name, which if I have my way would be Michael -- Kakak Terseksi. I suppose we didn't call them Ogebs for no reasons.

Topic now. And in that anime downloading case, the company's authority in this matter is questionable at best. Also suspect is the too-readiness of the ISPs to disclose the subscribers' info. I'm cool with people being angry and all. Maybe not the death threats, which I think are childish.

But! Aren't we forgetting the original issues here? It's all too easy in the midst of morally questioning the Law's -- using the term liberally here -- methods to overlook the fact that our original acts are indeed illegal. I mean, look, we download copyrighted materials without authorization, shouldn't we know what to expect?

Once, I didn't do my homework. Or rather, I didn't manage to finish it. Why? Because I procrastinated, what else. I got reprimanded rather severely. My high-school self took this to heart, the reason being I had always done the homework before, now it was one strike and I was given a punishment this harsh? On reflection, I still think the teacher overreacted. I mean, had that happened on this island, it would've been all over the news. But, again, I did break the law. While what the teacher did may be wrong, that doesn't make what I did right.

If I stole Pak Raden's guava, then I would be wrong. If he caught me and beat me blue-black, he would also be wrong. Well, in most modern societies anyway. No matter what, I would still be wrong. Two wrongs never make a right.

An Indonesian and an American (presumed) littered on the infamous Orchard Road. No, this is not the beginning of a joke. A lady reported this on our mailing list. The two occasions happened close to each other. A policeman fined the Indonesian and let the bule off. Now, I agree with the writer that the policeman was being unfair. And from her account, perhaps the officer should've been more tactful in handling the Indonesian offender.

That doesn't give the fined offender the right to be angry for being fined, IMO. Because littering is clearly a breach of Law and punishable by a fine.

Of course, I wasn't there and for all I know, the policeman could've insulted the Indonesian's mother while fining him.

So, to our fellow illegal downloaders I have this to say: look, we all know it's illegal and so, Odex or no Odex, fair or unfair, if you decide to keep downloading, you're knowingly breaking the Law and should know what to expect. Don't be cry babies because someone suddenly decides to take action -- or advantage, depending on which side you're on -- now. You do bad, you get caught, you'll be punished.

Just ask my dad. Or Lex Luthor, for that matter.

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