The Terrible News, and the Bad News that goes with it

On the news yesterday, five GIs were killed fighting insurgents. What was not noticed was that there were probably five GI s nearby that were wounded. Say they lost a foot and an eye. We will compensate them $880 month for the rest of their lives. Plus cost of living increases.

So in May 2065 we can go to an old folks home and meet one of them in his wheel chair, and he can tell us about the hazards and the tensions of the second Iraq war, and we can compare them with the ongoing seventeenth Iraq war.

We will ask “How long before we can stop fighting and learn to live together?”

Movie Review -- Adaptation

Adaptation with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.  Wow, what a complicated story.  There are as many as four story threads to follow, with flash-backs in each, and flash-backs within flash-backs to complicate the matter.
Furthermore, certain scenes appear, and seem to advance the narrative, but suddenly, you discover,\ they were merely the dreams of the hero. 
All the story lines converge and the ending is slam-bang, shootem up action to wind up what has been mostly contemplative, introspective thoughts of the hypochonriac hero.
The protagonist is a screen writer who is struggling with an adaptation of best seller.  As it turns out, the script he is writing is the script for the movie we are watching.  How's that for confusing?
There are lots if little ironic touches like the scene in which the screen writer is shown thinking.  A voice-over explains what he is thinking about: that voice-overs to show what a character is thinking are bad writing.
Tonight I'm going to be watching Oceans Eleven.  I expect lots of straight forward action and NO contemplative ruminations.

PS  To Karen and others who made comments below::  I view this now as a colossal joke. The story is about a screen writer, and points out all the bad things in screen writing: (1) voice overs to show what the character is thinking (2)  Scenes that advance the narrative, and then turn out to be dreams (3) flash backs (4) flash backs within flash backs (5) multiple personalities of the protagonist (6) evil twin character (7) Deus ex Machina...the resolution of the plot by an "accident" or force outside the realm of the characters.  Yet the script of this movie employs all of these.

Most of the movie is about introspection and adaptation and making fun of car chases and thriller chiller scenes.  It makes fun of protagonist's brother who employs these devices.  Then the brother takes over the writing of the script and that is how it ends, as a slap-dash chiller movie with a Deus ex Machina (car crash) ending.  Oh, now I get it.  Charlie wrote the first part of the movie and brother Donald wrote the end. The hero had a multiple personality.

Only, that makes it MORE complicated, not less.

-- Chuck

Red Alert

Two private pilots got lost over Washington DC yesterday and caused a red alert.  This was not a drill. It was a genuine alert..I am looking forward to reading the article.  The news photo caption says they were not held.  I wonder if they were cited.  There are some things you DO NOT DO as a private pilot: (1) Run out of gas and (2) Get lost.

The most frequent question asked of me when I was a private pilot: What do you do when you run out of gas?

My answer:  Oh, you DON'T do that. 

Obviously, you check the gas before you take off. You can't pull over to the curb and call the AAA when you're in the air. It goes without saying.

It also goes without saying that you know where you're going before you take off and you keep track of where you are when you're flying.  You don't get lost. You just DON'T do that.  Especially over the Nation's Capitol.  They are lucky they weren't shot down.  They will be lucky if they don't get cited.

Now, having scolded them for their ignorance, I have to admit that I was lost once, for several minutes, within ten miles of my home airport.  Somehow I was disoriented and familiar landmarks looked different when they appeared where I did'nt expect them.  So I understand it happens.

Once after I landed at Santa Monica, CA,, the control tower told me to telephone Los Angeles International Airport controllers.  I was scared.  I got "reamed" for letting down too close to LAX. I was not cited for that bad judgement.  You are allowed few mistakes when flying -- sometimes NONE.

A Fun Poll -- shudder

U.S. News and Time both have items mentioning a possible presidental race between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.

I took a poll for three days.  There were ten votes.

Final results

Hillary.......8

Jeb...........1

None of the above...1

Votes cast   10  (Thurs morning)   The polls are closed Thanks for taking part.

 

Rejected Pick up line

From Las Vegas on TV late night:

Jon Levitt to good-looking chorus girl:  Come here.  You wanna see something swell?

Girl: (Walking away) If that's a pick up line, it's terrible.

More About Teeth (or the lack thereof)

   Since I lost a bridge on the upper left yesterday, and am missing a molar on the lower left, and since I have lower right teeth missing, I have NO grinders meeting anywhere. 

   For breakfast I had Cream of Wheat, lightly poached eggs.  I had my apricots and my orange juice blended together and drank them both at once. Coffee tasted as good as ever.  Breakfast was good.

   But what about lunch? 

   I had a table mate, 83, who said we were all "Super-annuated".  I think that means "too many years".  He was a physician and liked Latinate words.  One day he announced, "I have a painful callousity on the distal end of my fifth meta carpus."  He wasn't making a joke; that's the way he talked.

   A few days later when he limped in and I asked, "How's the painful callousity on the distal end of your fifth metacapus?"

   "Hurts," he said.

What fun

Went to the dentist to have a loose tooth pulled.  Pulling was easy, then he had to do dental surgery to get the roots out.

What's fun I hear you ask.

The fun is doing nothing all afternoon, reading journals, including Adrianna Huffington's new journal, without feeling like I should be out and about, doing something "important".