born live love die

I’m watching a movie called “Wild Hearts” on the Hallmark Channel. Having a post-op shoulder means I can type on my laptop while my hind quarters are anchored to the sofa, so I see a lot of movies. This movie has all of the story beats that I would put in it. This is good and bad.

Beats:

Richard Thomas is a former LA detective who goes home to take over as interim sheriff for his recently deceasd father. He is a widower and he brings his daughter along. There was estrangement between father and son, and distance between father and daughter. There is the ranch with the wild mustangs and Simon Legree is trying to buy it. Richard Thomas has discovered the cores from a drilling project that no one seems to know about. Nancy McKeon is in this and I think she has become a good actress.
Good:

I like this kind of movie. The general themes of redemption are right there and are waiting for Richard Thomas to be broken on the wheel of his pride. We know it is coming, and how that coming happens determines if we will feel satisfied.

Bad:

This story contains the beats I like to write. These movies only end up on Hallmark, Lifetime, etc. There isn’t a lot of money in it; there are thousands of writers who drum up these stories.

Update:

More bad - the plot is as creaky as a rusty windmill on a lonesome ranch.  Feral wolf imprinting on humans?  Don’t mention it.  Let’s all meet at the abandoned silver mine for the final apocalypse.  feh.

Dahlia Lithwick rocks.  Flat out rocks.  If she weren’t already married and had babies and all of that, I would probably be in love with her.  But it would be be one of those pathetic, one-sided, at-a-distance, unrequited loves, and we know how those turn out.

She has a top ten list at the end of this year.  The theme?  The Bush Administration’s ten worst legal arguments of the year.

10. The NSA’s eavesdropping was limited in scope.

9. Scooter Libby’s sentence was commuted because it was excessive.

8. The vice president’s office is not a part of the executive branch.

7. The Guantanamo Bay detainees enjoy more legal rights than any prisoners of war in history.

6. Water-boarding may not be torture.

5. Everyone who has ever spoken to the president about anything is barred from congressional testimony by executive privilege.

4. Nine U.S. attorneys were fired by nobody, but for good reason.

3. Alberto Gonzales.

2. State secrets.

1. The United States does not torture.

Read the article for her explanations.  Rock on.

What it takes to be a democracy is not found in high sounding ideals, political pedigree or military strength.  It takes sacrifice.  Sacrifice like that made by Captain Miller.

CAPT. SEAN MILLER shook his head like a big brother. He and his marines had just walked by a cluster of large orange garbage bins, American-bought, from which thieves had ripped the wheels, and now they confronted a cemetery entrance that Captain Miller had paid an Iraqi contractor to fix. It was still broken.

He snapped a photograph and moved on.

It was one more day on the job here in Anbar Province, where fighting has given way to fixing. But reconstruction was hardly the only thing on the captain’s mind. Falluja’s past as the epicenter of the Sunni rebellion was with him too.

“The road we just walked down, I lost three marines on that road,” said the captain, a compact 32-year-old company commander from Virginia. “I was wounded in Falluja too, so walking down these streets — it’s not easy.”

“Reconciliation,” he said, eyeing some Iraqi policemen nearby. “It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Read the whole thing.

I stumbled across this story because I was wasting time looking at end-of-year pictures on the Seattle PI web site. There is so much wrong here, but it strikes me that this 14 year old boy had an individual Jonestown because he drank the kool-aid.

Here are the bones of the story:

• Dennis Lindberg was born to methamphetamine addicted parents.
• He had a very unstable homelife.
• When he was ten, his aunt became his legal guardian after his father was jailed for drug possession.
• His aunt is a Jehovah’s Witness.
• He was diagnosed on November 8 with lukemia. His prognosis was 70 per cent survival of the next 5 years if he received blood transfusions.
• Blood transfusions are necessary for cancer treatment.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in blood transfusions.
• Dennis Lindberg became a Jehovah’s Witness while in his aunt’s guardianship.
• Dennis Lindberg refused transfusive treatment.
• On November 27, Dennis slipped into unconsciousness.
• On November 28, Judge John Meyer refused to force the transfusion; Dennis Lindberg was a ‘mature minor’ and capable of making decisions about his treatment.
• On November 28, Dennis died.

Not every kid gets a good chance at life. That is unfortunate, but the truth. But it grates on me when it seems like people conspire against a kid so that he has an even poorer chance at life. And when the people involved are the ones that are supposed to be helping him, looking out for him, it pisses me off.

Here’s the aunt, the one who opened his head and poured the Jehovah’s Witness stuff in:

On a CaringBridge Web site that has now been deactivated, Mincin’s final journal entry, dated Nov. 22, spoke to those who questioned the decision not to accept blood transfusions. She said that after her nephew made his decision, he “relaxed in a way that he has not relaxed since being admitted (to the hospital.) He is at peace.”

“For those reading (about) this journey our family has been on that are not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, we compassionately understand your confusion and, perhaps, even your anger at the decision that Dennis and his family have made,” Mincin wrote. “We understand that this is an amazing bright young man who has before him 70, maybe 80 years to contribute to this world. While we empathize with your strong feelings, we ask that you attempt to respect Dennis’ fight for what he and his family believe so strongly in.”

No, I don’t think you understand my confusion. I’m not confused at all. You took in a boy who was thirsty for the love that he didn’t get from his drug addicted parents and filled his head with your religion and its crazy axioms. “Blood is sacred” is a belief born of fear. “He and his family”? The JW church is now his family?
The judge:

“I don’t believe Dennis’ decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision,” Meyer said during Wednesday’s court proceedings.

“I don’t think Dennis is trying to commit suicide. This isn’t something Dennis just came upon, and he believes with the transfusion he would be unclean and unworthy.”

I don’t envy the judge in this position. At 14, kids can make clear, well-reasoned decisions, and they can do the stupidest things imaginable, and kids will consider them both valid.

The ethicist:

Dr. Douglas Diekema, an ethicist at Children’s and director of education at the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, said the question was whether a 14-year-old really had the maturity to make medical and religious decisions on his own.

“In my mind, if there is a role of the court it would be to test a 14-year-old and see just how intense he is about his decision,” said Diekema. “My approach would be to push it a little further. If he fights you physically, then I’d respect that. But also, are you willing to tie him down every time he needs a transfusion knowing he’ll need treatment for the next three years? You’ll have a hard time finding a provider willing to do that.”

Yeah, tie the boy down and give him that transfusion. That is what may have been required. I have a hard time supporting that as the reasonable decision.

But why? Why was that the only option? This was an intractable problem for many reasons, but it was the anachronistic religious beliefs of the boy’s aunt that was the kool-aid from which the boy drank.

I would wish a separate level of hell for those who do things like this woman. Wrap yourself in your religious sanctimony and let a boy in your charge die. On the other hand, there should be a special place in heaven for those who take in children and treat them with love and respect and help them heal from whatever trauma they have experienced.

We have a tradition of ethics and law.  The former is supposed to inform the latter, but the two do not always overlap.  Ethics is about the balance of rights and responsibilities.  Neither rights nor responsibilities can exist in a vacuum.  The question facing the judge was the validity of the boy’s claim to speak for his own best interest.  The judge had a hard decision to make.

The boy’s parents failed completely in all of their responsibilities.  But the aunt is the one to whom I return.  She had a responsibility to safeguard this boy to adulthood, to the best of her ability.  Her claim of rights is secured by that responsibility.  But her fealty was to religion.  She saw her responsibility to that religion as out-weighing the responsibility to this boy.

If I really believed in heaven and hell, I would probably go pray or something.  But all I feel is sadness.  Tell me where the just God is in all of this?

I’m watching Ninotchka, the wonderful movie with Melvyn Douglas and Gretta Garbo.  There are so many wicked little lines, it is a great flick.
He takes her to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  He points out the beauty of all the lights at night and she notes them as a waste of electricity.  I was thinking that those on the progressive side of the arguments have been painted with those colors.  Progressives need to take the lights and the people they represent back from the reactionary right.

Ninotchka: Why do you want to carry my bags?
Porter: That is my business.
Ninotchka: That’s no business. That’s social injustice.
Porter: That depends on the tip.

I was looking for something on the Internet and found Tom Clancy’s novel, “Patriot Games”, on a Russian site. My guess is someone ran it through an OCR system. Whatever.

The book starts with a quote from William Webster, head of the FBI, in 1985.

Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are bringing home one unassailable fact — [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime . . .

In our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope of dealing with it . . .

Let us use the tools that we have. Let us invoke the cooperation we have the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve.

-WILLIAM H. WEBSTER, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, October 15,1985

What he said.

When I go, I want to go the way this guy went, laughing.

Even in death, Chet Fitch is a card. Fitch, known for his sense of humor, died in October at age 88 but gave his friends and family a start recently: Christmas cards, 34 of them, began arriving — written in his hand with a return address of “Heaven.”

The greeting read: “I asked Big Guy if I could sneak back and send some cards. At first he said no; but at my insistence he finally said, ‘Oh well, what the heaven, go ahead but don’t (tarry) there.’ Wish I could tell you about things here but words cannot explain.

“Better get back as Big Guy said he stretched a point to let me in the first time, so I had better not press my luck. I’ll probably be seeing you (some sooner than you think). Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Chet Fitch”

Way to go.

What do you do on Christmas day when the younglings are with the other parent and you have only one good arm?  Join the rest of the cripples at the movies.

“Dan In Real Life” is the story of a widower of four years who meets the ideal woman while on a holiday (Thanksgiving?) retreat with his extended family.  Dan has three daughters and works mightily to raise them.  His occupation is that of advice columnist and he is on the cusp of mainstream success via syndication.

But back to the woman.  She is the new girlfriend of his not-very-well-tethered younger brother.  Much comedy ensues as they try to hide the attraction they feel toward each other.  More comedy ensues with Dan’s unwillingness to hide his bitterness that his younger brother has captured Dan’s perfect woman.

Juliette Binoche, always good for at least 950 ships, plays Dan’s perfect woman, and Dan is played by Steve Carell.  There were only a couple of things I would have changed or added with this script.  This was a good flick.

What do you do when you are forced into inactivity by shoulder surgery?  Watch movies.  I did.  A stack of them.  “Man of the Year” is a collaboration by Barry Levinson and Robin Williams about a Jon Stewart like character who decides to run for President as an independent.

This movie required more suspension of disbelief than I could summon.  It was like trying to drive a manual transmission car where the clutch requires several tons of pressure and your best hope is to manipulate the throttle and hope the synchronizers hold because the clutch is no help at all.  Along with watching movies, I watch the entire series of “West Wing” and the sixth and seventh seasons give the nitty gritty of a presidential campaign.  This movie expected us to believe that someone could get into the presidential debates in the way shown in this movie.  Dumb.

The movie is presented as a fable.  Maybe that worked on paper, but it doesn’t work on celluloid.  Fables start with, “Once upon a time…”  So let’s try this.  “Once upon a time, last year, a comedian with a cable TV show ran for President.”  Yeah, some fable.

There is a sub-plot about voting machines that was written by someone who is mystified by technology.  The author of that sub-plot is more concerned with the artifice of society than the structure.  I hope they write with a pencil, because the sub-plot was dumb.

In the end, order is restored and all is mostly well, which is to say that the status quo is only slightly listing.

This is what the name of Will Smith’s new movie should be, because it was pretty stupid.

Stories are about people, and there was precious little human interaction in this movie.  While watching this movie, I wanted to hit the fast forward and get the story going.  I remember thinking that it was slower than a bad French movie where the voice over tells us what the character is feeling (take your pick there, because there are lots of offenders.)

This movie seemed like it was going to be a remake of the Charleton Heston vehicle from 30+ years ago, “The Omega Man.”  Will Smith plays a scientist and Army officer who is one of the few people immune to a virus with rabies-like symptoms.  Think Buckaroo Banzai, but with better abs.  Actually, Buckaroo Banzai is more believable.

Emma Thompson makes an appearance via video tape as the doctor who created a virus that cured cancer.  That virus mutated into a virus that causes rabies-like symptoms.  I think there was more to that sub-plot, but it didn’t make it out of the editing bay.

Dr. Neville, played by Will Smith, sets up a laboratory in the basement of his house across from Washington Square Park in New York City.  There is lets us have lots of shots of the city in ruins.  It’s Washington Square, it must be New York.  But how stupid is that?  He is in the middle of a very high concentration of the viral ridden survivors, and they are trying to kill him.  He needs subjects on which to test his antidote, and he hunts them.  How about setting up a lab on a former army base and going into New York only when a subject is needed?

In the end, his redoubt is not very secure (yeah, like we didn’t see that coming) and things happen.  By that point, I was cheering for the poor bastards who were being hunted by this clueless chump.