Author: Tom Fitzpatrick

Life

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Project Hail Mary isn’t a bad movie. It is clearly well done — quality technology creating the splendor of outer space, an interesting but flawed character, and an actor (Ryan Gosling) who winningly captures this character. But it doesn’t work for me.

I will confess it isn’t my type of movie to begin with — a Sci Fi movie with a lot of action moving the plot along. The sun is being eaten away by some mysterious microbe and someone has to go on a suicide mission to figure out why. Will they make it on time? So even though I wouldn’t normally go to this type of movie, I saw some potential there.

The main problem I have is there just isn’t enough plot and/or action to keep this movie going for the 2 and 1/2 hours plus running time of the movie. But what are directors (there are two of them — Phil Lord and Christoper Miller) to do when they have all this fabulous technology that can recreate outer space? They show it with way too many minutes of blaring choral music of Grace looking with awe. I get it. Yes, it is awesome but repetition makes it a little less so. It began to bore me after about the mid-point of the movie.

This boredom lead to me picking apart the plot. Most movies depend on suspending a certain amount of disbelief. A movie about spacecraft in outer space and meeting with aliens then would require much more than the normal movie. Keep the damn thing moving or else you will lose your audience. So, as I was plodding through these beautiful shots of space, I used this time to find plot holes.

Like how the hell was Rocky (the alien our lead character, Grace, encounters in his trip) is Grace going to reconnect with Rocky in the vast expanse of space when they have no communication after Grace departs for earth. Or, given the time needed to save the earth and the time Grace needs to get where he needs to go and his own inability to make it back, how is their enough time for him to save Earth. There was a very short time frame to work with.

Now normally these are not big issues in a movie that is moving along because you are paying attention to what is happening on screen but it is the death knell for movies when you start thinking about them in the middle of the movie you are watching because it means you are no longer watching the movie.

So while Project Hail Mary is in no way a bad movie, it just isn’t a great movie either.

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Hucksters learn faster than any other people how to manipulate new technology to finagle people out of their money. The volume of junk mail, email, and texts I receive as opposed to actual communication from people I know and welcome is amazing. Almost every email I receive is junk — very rarely do I get a legitimate piece of email. Phone and texts are a bit better. I would say about half of what I receive there is legitimate. This is still a lot of junk.

What irritates me about this junk is that I thought laws were passed several years back to help the average citizen stop unwanted communication in what ever form — be it phone, text, letterbox or email. Report the offenders and these nuisances would stop.

But it has not stopped and the junk communications just keep coming. I realize it is complicated. A lot of the problems is the huckster operate outside the national borders so American laws are ineffective. Basically there is nothing we can do. The laws are pointless so the junk will continue to flow. So what if they are trying to sell viagra to lesbians. All they have to do is ignore the message, nobody is hurt.

I disagree. The best case scenario here is that I have to wade through hundreds of unnecessary emails and texts in order to find the ones that I actually need. This takes time. Every day precious minutes are stolen from me as I try to find what really matters to me amongst all this junk. This may be a small problem, but it is a problem. I don’t like it one bit and apparently there is nothing I can do about it because we couldn’t possibly stop hucksters from pursuing their businesses.

Never mind that these businesses are quite often engaged in ways to steal money from naive people. See the huckster has rights. It is the individual’s responsibility to stop the huckster.

It is so ingrained in our belief system of right and wrong that when we hear stories about someone getting bilked out of money, the gut reaction is why were the victims so stupid to fall for the huckster. The victim needs to smarten up because there is nothing wrong with parting a fool from his money. Unfortunately, the fool is in a dog eat dog world and apparently that is the way we like it.

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I guess we are at war although Trump and company say otherwise. There are war like things going on — the occasional missile falling on the UAE, the Straight of Hormuz being closed to commercial shipping (Sorry if it is open, the status changes so quickly I can’t keep track) and there is war like rhetoric flowing from both sides.

Who knows? There is no consistent trustworthy source of information. By that, I mean every one agrees that these people are supplying the facts as they are. So as far as I can see we are in a range of the war is already won to the war will go forever. The truth is somewhere in between those two mutually exclusive points. But where it is in this range I haven’t a clue.

I do know that the general feeling that comes from a nation at war, the rally around the flag feeling, is glaringly missing. Young men aren’t signing up at the recruiting stations. There is no grandmotherly figure urging us to grow victory gardens. People aren’t glued to their television sets watching the progress of the war — although this may be more a result of there being so little progress (either way) in this war.

Think World War II — everybody (this includes the Allies and the Axis, Democrats and Republicans, British and Americans, I mean everybody) knew it would end when the Germans and Japanese surrendered or vice versa. The finish line was apparent.

What will mark the end of the Iranian War is both a mystery and dependent on who you are talking with. Iranians say one thing. The Trump Administration says another. There are negotiations sometimes going on and sometimes stalled. Trump says nothing short of an Iranian unconditional surrender is unacceptable. Except that he is negotiating terms with the Iranian government and they are bring terms which are far from unconditional surrender.

Which begs the question when does a defeated enemy negotiate terms. If you lost the war, you take the terms that the winner gives you and hope for the best. This isn’t happening here so Trump’s victory claims are hollow.

There is very little, if any, personal investment in winning the war. The only consistent sentiment I can see is that everybody wants the war over as fast as humanly possible. Oddly missing is any idea of what victory actually looks like — just end the fucker. Hardly a war cry to rally the nation.

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Whenever I hear some talking head bemoaning the fact that there is a lack of trust in government, I always think what am I missing here. Why do these people think I should trust government? Government officials have been lying to us for years — particularly when it involves national security. Just off the top of my head — the government knew the War in Viet Nam was lost even while escalating the number of troops sent to die what they knew to be a losing cause. Or the weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq? I could go on but you get the hint.

It seems to me perfectly reasonable for the public to question any information that comes from a government official. I mean really, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

So when the government’s released UFO documents which confirmed that there have been actual sightings of UFO’s, I became a little irritated. While I am excited by the possibility of there being intelligent life beyond our planet, I am a little miffed that our government has been hiding this information and dissembling about any reports of UFO’s for the past 80 years.

Why? Oh, right the public would panic if they learned there were actual UFO’s. The relative calm that greeted this information must have been a bit of a disappointment to all those government officials who have been so worried about the public’s reaction all these years. I haven’t heard of any panic yet.

Denying it may be a reasonable reaction if there were 1 or 2 sightings over the course of 80 years, but once you got into the hundreds and thousands, what possible advantage could there be? People were actually seeing UFO’s and reporting it. At some point, you would think someone would say this is going to continue to happen maybe we should let on that this is indeed happening instead of quashing any reports.

More worrisome to me is if there are UFO visitations happening then not telling people that they were happening seems like the exact opposite of what responsible government should be doing. They would rather have people encounter UFO’s and alien beings and question their sanity than the actual truth. Right.

And then if anyone ever did run across a little green man, and weren’t content to take the government explanation of an errant weather balloon and they decide to report the UFO to the wider world, the government made it seem like that person was off their rocker with a wink wink and nudge nudge. They would rather undermine good people’s reputation as sane human beings than tell the truth of their fantastic encounter with an alien being or spacecraft. What a fucking crock of shit.

And you want me to put faith into these people? No, thank you. I’d rather live in the real world than in some imaginary one.

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Whenever I despair about Donald Trump he does something that reminds me he has absolutely no fixed ideas on how the world should look. He has authoritarian instincts but his only vision about the future is how he, and maybe his family, make out financially. Unlike Hitler, Mao and Stalin, he doesn’t want to eliminate the Jews or bring about a Communist Revolution. He wants to line his pocket book in any way possible. This makes him wildly inconsistent and difficult to gauge.

So, I was oddly comforted when I heard Donald Trump wants to make Venezuela the 51st State. Venezuela has a population somewhere between Texas and California — roughly 30 million Spanish speaking people? The very people who he wants to stop at the Mexican border and is having ICE round up in cities across the nation. He now wants to make them citizens.

I am not sure what Trump sees. I suspect he sees a cut of the oil revenue from Venezuela. On the other hand, I see 2 Democratic senators and a large Democratic delegation in Congress. I see an even larger Spanish speaking population — perhaps doubling the number in one fell swoop. It makes no sense particularly to his White Christian Nationalist friends. It is baffling position to take.

But,OK, until I can see a good reason to oppose statehood for Venezuela, you can bet I going to support statehood perhaps quietly until it passes.

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The above photo really bothers me. Why is there this vast empty blue background above the seated man’s head? This is a pretty amateur mistake for a photographer. Or am I wrong?

If you have three men of approximately the same height, shouldn’t they all be standing so there isn’t this vast amount of blue hanging about. Particularly if the men are so tall which only accentuates the vast empty blue space and if the seated man for some reason couldn’t stand, then take the picture with them all sitting but this vast empty blue space is really bothering me. It is distracting.

I don’t think I can take both Donald Trump and a badly balanced photograph is the same day. It is all I can think about.

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OK, I have a bit of a beef with Visine eye drops. The product is fine. Pretty much instant relief from itchy eyes. However getting the protective plastic wrap at the tip of the container is a challenge.

I am sure there is some easy way to rip the protective plastic wrap off but whatever that may be eluded me. It broke me. It got to the point I was trying to determine what form of physical force I could use to open the fucker. I am afraid to say that pounding it on the bathroom marble doesn’t work which led to me considering chewing through the wrapper.

The only thing that stopped me from this method was the embarrassment of having to explain my cracked tooth to my dentist who already thinks I am of an asshole because I won’t fix a tooth that he says is due for imminent collapse, something he has been saying for the last 7 years and has weathered the most rigorous assault from the vast arsenal of dental tools at my dental hygienist’s disposal. My tooth beats them every time.

I think it is pure orneriness on my part that I haven’t gotten it fixed. I get a great amount of pleasure in depriving my dentist of the couple of thousand dollars it would take to repair it. They have definitely toned down their pleas that I will be in Paris some day and my whole trip will be ruined when my tooth falls out. Now they just say I might put it on my calendar for this year.

So I am overdue for the damn tooth to come out. I would hate for it to break my tooth for such a lame reason that I lost my temper with the plastic wrapper on my eye drops that I, in a moment of uncontrollable anger, I decided to rip it off with my teeth. I couldn’t bear the look he would give me. After 7 long years of them trying to knock that fucker off with every dental instruments known to man, all it took was a plastic wrap to do the trick. I am afraid it would break him.

Anyway, back to the plastic wrap. I had to use my nose hair scissors to finally get underneath the plastic enough to remove it. It was a minor trauma in a life filled with minor traumas.

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This might just be a wild hair up my ass but I keep thinking there is a better way to deal with criminals we can’t actually catch or prosecute — particularly those involved in the illegal drug trade. Pablo Escobar famously had more money than he could ever spend — loosing hundreds of millions of dollars to decay because he hid his money so poorly. And, despite the worms eating the dollars, he still had billions left to spend.

To start out with, let me acknowledge that Pablo Escobar was an asshole. He murdered people. There is no doubt about it. And the general resume for someone involved in the illegal drug trade would be someone similar in ilk to Escobar. They deserve stiff prison sentences more than their ill gotten money. The people hurt by these criminal deserve justice.

The problem is catching them and/or prosecuting them isn’t always successful. The criminal eludes justice and gets to keep his money which largely goes unspent and whatever money is spendable goes to mostly dubious ends. The victim doesn’t get any justice or restitution for what happened to them without prosecution.

The government wants somewhere in the neighborhood of 46 billion dollars to deal with illegal drugs. Some of this goes to drug treatment but at least 11 billion goes directly into enforcement. The question, then, is do we get a good return on this investment. Illegal drugs, for as long as I can remember, seem to be doing just fine. Yes, there is something to be said for there being no price on justice. The criminal justice system is taking the hard way out here — there has to be punishment for the criminal or there is no justice. Perhaps, but getting a financial settlement is better than nothing at all.

This means if a person wants a return to society with the ability to spend some of their cash legally, the drug dealer will surrender all of their hidden cash, pay a very stiff fine from those funds, pay any taxes due based on this money and get out of drug dealing. Since a lot of these dealers are sitting on pile of cash and are pretty tired with running from the law, they might jump at a chance to get out of the game.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But, then, much of the justice system is imperfect. What we are aiming for is a reduction in crime. If this takes some people out of drug dealing, it is better than getting nobody out of drug dealing.

Won’t this only encourage people to commit crimes if they aren’t punished for their crimes? Maybe but then, it is illegal now and a lot of people seem to be willing to take the risk. I think the government would have some discretion in how they move forward. Focus would be on the big dealers with large amounts of hidden cash. Also removing the bigger names from the drug trade might have some impact on the food chain for trafficking in drugs.

The problem here is that the government since the 1960’s has been fighting a losing war with illegal drugs — mostly because a significant portion of the citizenry want to use them which makes the illegal trade of drugs profitable. This doesn’t look like it is going to change any time soon. I am betting that some of these people are tired of running and would like a way out. Right now, there is no realistic exit — it is death or jail. Letting them get out with something might make them think differently.

And their is precedent for this — the Sackler family. The Sacklers unleashed Oxycontin onto the American Public with devastating effect. The government, in order to get something out of this criminal family, made deals that involved financial penalties. It was far from a perfect deal, particularly for those families who lost loved ones to addiction. On the other hand, the Sacklers were able to hide a lot of their money and delay the legal process that they might never have gotten anything if they waited for justice. Again, the settlement wasn’t perfect, but it was something and something is better than nothing.

Maybe we forego punishment over an imperfect pay off.

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It has come to this. A woman in Florida was in labor. Her doctor advised her that their might be a problem if she decided to have her baby vaginally. They advised a C-section. She wanted to continue with vaginal delivery. In a normal world, the doctors and the woman would make a decision based on the medical circumstances involved. This is far from a normal world and Florida is being pretty much at the center of the weirdness that now revolves around pregnant woman delivering a baby. The woman, while in labor, had to discuss her delivery choices with a judge who then made a decision on how she could proceed.

This type of decision is, even in the days before Roe versus Wade, a medical decision. No ruling from a judge is needed. The woman and the doctor would work it out based on the woman’s circumstances. Why does a judge have to be involved at all?

Well, because now, the fetus, in Florida, has protected rights. In the past, there was an assumption that since the woman wanted the baby and the doctors wanted to deliver a health baby, then everyone involved was working together for this same happy ending. But, because Florida’s abortion laws are so restrictive, doctors now are worried that if something were to go wrong with the delivery, they may be held liable if the baby were to die in the process. Hence a judgement from the courts was required before the doctors would proceed.

This is worrisome for a number of reasons:

  1. The law was intended to protect fetuses from abortion not delivery. This case does not involve abortion in any way, yet the courts were dragged into it because the anti-abortion laws make any tricky delivery suspect. Did the baby die in delivery or was the doctor sneaking in a late-term abortion? If a doctor wants to cover her ass, she will make sure that a judge knows what she is doing and she goes on record with the courts what she is trying to do. Hopefully this will prevent any busybody from claiming otherwise later thus protecting the doctor from future legal hassles but also delaying medical attention to the woman in labor.
  2. Delivering a baby involves a woman’s health. It needs to happen when it needs to happen. Waiting for a court to make a decision on the best way to proceed is ridiculous here. Delaying medical procedures in order to get this decision is criminally stupid because both the mother and the baby are at risk. In this case, the judge decided for the woman with the caveat that the doctors could perform a C section if the vaginal delivery became difficult. This is how the doctor and the patient wanted to proceed in the first place. What possible wisdom did the judge add here that the doctor and the patient hadn’t already discussed?
  3. The doctors were over reacting you say. This should never have happened. Florida’s draconian abortion laws have nothing to do with this case and it was unnecessary for a judge to be notified. Well, probably, but try telling that to doctors who are trying to avoid going to court over their handling of women going through childbirth. Any state with such restrictive laws will have this problem. Better to go to court to check that you are right, then to go to prison if you are wrong.

The irony here is that laws instituted to protect the fetus from abortion are now causing delays in health care that both endangers the mother and the baby. It is also making it more difficult for medical professionals to advise women how to proceed during a difficult delivery. What if the judge makes a decision that the doctor’s and the patient disagrees with? How will the doctors proceed? A certain amount of good faith needs to be given doctors trying to navigate on how to proceed in a difficult situation. Florida’s abortion laws have only created confusion not better health care for pregnant women.

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Why is it that every time I see a new doctor, I have to complete the same questionnaire. This is so irritating. I thought the whole point of having your information on line was every medical professional now has easy access to your data and you won’t need to keep supplying it every time you go to a doctor.

This is not my experience. Every time I walk into a new doctor’s office, I am handed a clipboard with a questionnaire asking for my details. You know name, address, emergency contact, medical history, medications you are taking and why you are visiting the doctor. Yes, I get it that they need to get it right but to see my questionnaire sitting unconsulted on the doctor’s desk while she asks me the same questions yet again is a bit insulting.

Or to have the office hound me with texts and emails too complete the an on line questionnaire before my appointment with the caveat these replies will make it easier and faster for the doctor who is treating me, only to be asked to fill out a paper version of the same questions when I arrive at the doctor’s office.

Sometimes I will be working on the questionnaire and I am called into to see the doctor. I will let the nurse know I haven’t completed the questionnaire yet, only to be told don’t worry about it, she never looks at it in the first place. Then why am I filling it out? Are they giving me busy work to keep me occupied while waiting for the doctor? Quite frankly, I’d rather being perusing the People magazines stacked on the tables than completing yet another form with my medical history.

If I were a smart ass, I would advise them I already given them this information and could they possibly retrieve the data there. Thank God, I am not a smart ass. More of a coward I suppose. I don’t want to look like trouble to the doctor’s front desk staff. They have a lot of power for you, they can offer you an 7:30 AM appointment tomorrow or a 1PM appointment sometime after the first of the year. Neither choice is good. You can keep asking but the choices are never good. Whatever you do keep on the good side of the office staff or else you will never get a decent appointment time.

And keep filling out those damn questionnaires or your chances of seeing the doctor are pretty darn slim.