Vote "Duh" On Prop "Yeah Obviously"

   This story is kinda old, and I was going to just let it go... but then it kept bothering me until I realized "hey, you know what?  It's my duty to inform people when they are being idiots."  And so, for the sake of humanity, I'm about to talk to you about these terrible no good awful voter ID laws that threaten to tear the very fabric of what makes America great.

   Except they don't.  Or they shouldn't, anyway.  Look the basic argument here is over whether people should be forced to show ID proving they are a US citizen before they can vote in any elections.  The Democrats apparently feel this is a slap in the face to residents of our great country.  But why?  I don't get why saying that only US citizens can vote is so wrong?  Isn't that the point of being a US citizen?  I don't go vote in Mexico's elections, or England's, or Norway's (because if I did I would ALWAYS vote based on silly names.  President Sven!)  Those people should not be allowed to vote here.  I think the LAST thing we want is for some CANADIAN to choose our next president, amiright?

   Seriously though, I don't understand what the big deal is.  Democrats say that this will hurt their minority vote.  How in the world could it do that?  Are minorities not US citizens?  Last I checked they were.  No, you wanna know who this law will really hurt?  The illegal immigrant vote.  Now I'm not trying to start a fight about illegal immigration here (we'll have that fight later), but the law is that illegal immigrants, or even legal immigrants who aren't US citizens should not be voting for anything in this country.  It's yet another reason we should all consider ourselves lucky to be born on US soil.

   Now of course, the Republicans are not squeaky clean in this either.  They want this law to be as complicated as possible.  It would appear that they want to force people to carry a separate voter ID, something they have to renew (probably in some long ridiculous DMV-style line).  By creating a voter ID law in this manner, they are in fact making it harder for people to vote.  And while I wouldn't go so far as to say this affects or harms minorities per-say, I will say that lower income families would probably have a tougher time getting these IDs.  Why?  Because they are working, they are raising families, they are presumably using all of their time trying to get by and move up in the world.  Standing in line for hours on end just to renew their voter ID card?  Or just to get one?  To quote the wonderful "Sweet Brown," AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR DAT!

   The only real way for this to get done is to tie it to your existing driver's license.  If you can renew this voter ID card each time you renew your driver's license, then I think it works.  But the bottom line here is that this does need to happen.  Honestly, it's a stupid argument because there really is no argument against it.  If you're not for the idea of making people show ID and prove who they are and that they are US citizens when they vote, then you are basically for voter fraud.

   What's hilarious is if you asked these same people about moving the vote online and having the option to vote from the internet, most of them would probably laugh in your face, spouting some nonsense about how that opens the door for fraud and hackers.  Well next time they laugh in your face, SLAP them in the face, because they are morons.

The Fifth Prophecy

   I'm convinced that whatever Luc Besson on his team were eating/drinking/smoking/whatever when they started working on "The Fifth Element," it gave them a unique look into the future of humanity.  And I'm not just talking about the general stuff, though there is plenty of that too.

   They completely nailed the political/celebrity hybrid structure that our world is slowly leaning toward.  They nailed the big-business concepts with Zorg and his complete, naive, almost innocent disregard for humanity.  They even got the annoying radio DJ right.  They created a world in this movie that is a farce of itself, and thanks to social media, the entertainment industry, and the political machine, we are very quickly becoming that ourselves.  

   Think about it... we're reaching a world where everything -- everything -- has a name.  hurricanes, winter storms, athlete's body positions, the list goes on.  But, I digress.  As I said they nailed the general concepts... but there are couple of VERY specific ways in which "The Fifth Element" is correctly predicting our future:

   1.  We're living in a "super green" world.  As the great (and greatly annoying) Ruby Rod was so fond of saying, the idea of "super green" is becoming a reality.  Right now it has to do with buildings that are extra protective of the environment, but keep in mind we're not in the future yet.  All it takes is one environmental catastrophe, someone to prove global warming exists, some kind of superstorm/shark attack hybrid, and the next thing you know we'll all be talking about "super green."  It won't be long before the web gets a hold of it, and the next thing you know we'll be calling everything that's good or cool "super green."

   2.  Our living spaces are becoming foldaway storage facilities.  This is a trend that's just catching on, but something tells me as we continue to explode our population without any regard for our world or what it can handle, we're all eventually going to have to come to grips with a solution like this.  And while I wouldn't mind the "autowash" feature that came along with the movie, I don't know how I feel about all of us cramming into these buildings like sardines.  

   If you've never seen "The Fifth Element," I can't recommend it highly enough.  It came out many, many years ago, but it is still very near -- if not at -- the top of my list of all-time favorite movies.  It gets almost every single thing right.  It's hilarious, it has great action, a very attractive heroine, awesome soundtrack, and actually astonishing special effects (especially given when it came out).  There's only ONE spot where this movie drags, and that's in the scene where he's stuck behind the bar.  Watch it and tell me if you disagree.

   I can't wait to see what truth comes out of this movie next.  Intergalactic cruise ships?  Flying cars?  I just hope it's not a giant evil meteor trying to destroy the planet... something tells me Bruce Willis might be too old by then to do anything about it.  Though I could be wrong.

Who (Health)Cares?

   I recently read an article in Time Magazine that completely change the way I view healthcare in this country.  The article, which is very thorough (and long), basically makes the case that while as a country we are fighting over who is going to pay for skyrocketing healthcare costs, the real question we should be asking is why those costs are so high in the first place.

   

   There's a lot of fantastic stuff in that article, but I'll break it down for you here because I'm such a nice guy. The author shows case after case where hospitals are blatantly overcharging customers for everything from CT scans to gauze pads.  And I'm not talking small overages either.  Those gauze pads?  Try $77 a box.  A BOX.  That's the same box you buy at Walgreens for $5.  What's worse is that these "nonprofit" hospitals are turning the biggest profits in our country.  Bigger than Exxon Mobile, bigger than Apple, it's disgusting... and because they are "nonprofit," they get to enjoy all of the tax benefits that come along with it.  Their CEOs are making four, five, 7 BILLION dollars a year.  Billion.  And if you're not already sick, here's where it gets really shady.  Most of these overcharges are based on prices that they make up.  Look in that article for stuff about the "chargemaster," a document that puts arbitrary costs on everything the hospital bills you for.

   And when the author confronted the hospitals, the doctors, the government, he basically got a big shrug from all of them.  The message was "yeah, so, that's just how it is."  No one other than patients and billing advocates seemed to care the slightest bit that these hospitals are gouging us beyond repair.  As the author says, by bringing these prices down to where they would be if you were to buy the same products at a drug store, the country would save tens of billions of dollars each year.

   Wait, wait.  What does this have to do with the country?  See, this problem goes all the way down.  It starts with the medical manufacturers, the people who make the drugs and who make the equipment.  The overcharge for what they are creating.  The hospitals happily pay that price, because it then justifies their markup even more.  By markup I mean a drug that costs a hospital $2,000 to buy, they charge you $40,000 for it.  That's a serious markup.  And your insurance company will netotiate with the hospital to knock off some of that price -- but not much -- and then gloat to you about how much money they are helping you save.  All of these forces then work together to lobby congress, basically buying them off so that they don't regulate any of these prices.  And who gets screwed?  All of us.

   So here's the part where my opinions on healthcare completely changed.  Because of this article, I now believe that the government ABSOLUTELY should be intervening in the healthcare of this country.

   Hear me out.  I'm not talking about taking over healthcare, doing the whole "death panels" thing, or that they should be covering the payments for your healthcare or hiring doctors or anything like that.  But what I discovered is that the only entity that has ANY kind of negotiating power with these hospitals is Medicare.  And the reason Medicare is able to negotiate prices down to more reasonable levels (like from $30,000 down to $4,000) is because they have such a huge client base that the hospitals actually need them in order to stay as profitable... er, NONprofitable... as they are.

   I honestly had no idea that there was this level of corruption in our healthcare system.  Maybe I'm stupid, I don't know.  But the fact that we are all going in circles shows me that there is no such thing as a "free market" in that industry.  It's similar to the cell phone companies.  Everyone is in everyone else's pocket, and together they are slowly making us all more and more poor.  Because they work together (AGAINST us), they are able to continually jack up prices and we are the ones who get screwed.  We're basically reaching a point in this country where if you get something as serious as cancer or heart disease, you might as well just die... because in order to survive you are going to saddle yourself and your loved ones with so much debt that you will be essentially ruining their lives to save your own.  What's the point of healthcare if that's the outcome?

   Here's what I propose.  Medicare should become available to us all.  It should no longer be taxpayer funded, it should instead be run as a private insurance company, but managed by the government.  Why leave it to the government?  Because then it can be forced by LAW to keep its subscribers first and over profits.  When there's no incentive for Medicare to raise prices on us, it won't do it.  But if Medicare steps in as a private insurance provider and says "hey you can stick with Metlife and pay these ridiculous prices, or you can sign up for Medicare and pay the same premiums, but you get these enormous discounts," why would you NOT sign up?

   If Medicare goes that route, it helps all of us.  It takes the burden off the government (and taxpayers) to have to pay for the care of the elderly.  It becomes self-funded because of all the young people paying into it as an insurance provider.  It also forces other competing insurance companies to lower their premiums, improve payout amounts, and put pressure on the hospitals to lower their markups.  If hospitals are receiving pressure from everyone, essentially we are a "union" forcing them to do what's right... and they will, or else they will run the risk of going out of business.

   To be clear, I am still not a supporter of Obamacare.  I do not believe the government has a right to FORCE me or anyone to have medical insurance.  I also don't believe there is any way for government to play nice with private insurance or hospital companies without room for SERIOUS corruption.  But I do think there is a way that the government can step into the world of healthcare, play by the rules, and still forcibly keep everyone honest.

   I really hope you read that article.  Here's a link to it again, just in case you're too lazy to scroll all the way back up to the top of this entry.  Yes it's a long read, but it is important, important stuff.  If we as a country do not get a grip on this now, in 20, 30, 40 years we are going to be wondering how we suddenly went bankrupt.  I'm no genius, but I can see what's on the horizon.  And I know it's more complicated than the solution I proposed, but why not START in that direction and see where we wind up?  It's time for us to say a big "fuck you" to these politicians, these rich-ass insurers, and these hospitals that take advantage and make a mockery out of the idea of "saving lives."

Moviezilla

   In an effort to be more user-friendly and hopefully not damage the painfully short attention spans we've all grown over the years, I'm now going to be breaking my entries up into individual topics, which includes movie reviews.  These will probably go away eventually, but I can't let them go just yet since, after all, these reviews are what started me writing here in the first place.  For now they're just one more thing you can skip reading.  Anyway here we go...

MIB 3

   From Netflix:  When Earth comes under the threat of an alien attack, Agent J (Will Smith) travels back in time to join forces with a much-younger Agent K (Josh Brolin) and change the course of history. But if they fail, the future of the world is at stake.

   My take:  It's been 10 years since the last "Men In Black" movie was made, and to be honest the reason I didn't see the third installment when it came out was because I figured that money train had left the station a long time ago.  I loved the first two "Men In Black" movies, and the thought of a third one coming out strictly to play on our nostalgia and milk us for money really pissed me off.  But thankfully, I was wrong.

   "MIB 3" stays surprisingly true to it's core.  I didn't think I was going to like it... time travel seemed like a cheap cop-out, an excuse to get away from an aging and most-likely-not-interested Tommy Lee Jones... but you know what?  It worked.  It not only worked, it was very entertaining, and surprisingly heartfelt.

   This movie closes a lot of loops and fills in a lot of gaps that I didn't even realize had been opened in the first two movies.  It's almost like someone (most likely with OCD) watched the second "MIB" and thought to himself "hey wait a minute, who is what and what is who and when did this happen... SO MANY QUESTIONS UNANSWERED!"

   Well, I thank you sir, because now it feels like a part of me that has always been unsatisfied can finally rest.

   "MIB" doesn't break any new ground.  Its story is sort of basic, though considering they tried to tackle time-travel, I think they did a decent enough job.  It reminded me a lot of the series finale for a show that you never got around to watching, but now that you're sitting in it you wish it wasn't ending.  And hopefully it IS ending... these movies should quit while they're ahead.  I'm going to be very disappointed if I see Will Smith trying to use his son to unsuccessfully reboot another series of movies that need to just be left alone.

   I know I'm late to the party, but I'm still going to give "MIB 3" my stamp of approval.  If you saw the previous "MIB" movies, you will definitely enjoy this one.  If you like the more grown up version of Will Smith, the funny-yet-reserved version, the not-quite-"I-Am-Legend"-serious-but-still-serious version of Will Smith, this is a good one for you.  It's a nice bow on a series of movies that, whether you realized it or not, needed some closure.

Safety Not Guaranteed

   From Netflix:  A team of journalists are dispatched to find out who's behind a classified advertisement seeking a companion for time travel, with payment on return. After tracking down their oddball prey, the team has to decide how best to approach their subject.

   My Take:  Not gonna lie, I rented this movie because I wanted to see if "Nick" from "New Girl" (Jake Johnson) could hack it as a real actor.  Sure he's hilarious in the show, but he's also surrounded by hilarious people.   Here not so much, and he's also in a more leading role.  But you know what?  I was pleasantly surprised to see that he not only held his own, but he owned the role.  Also, when did Aubrey Plaza (the nonchalant chick from "Parks and Rec") get hot?  Holy crap.

   This is one of those movies where the actors and their abilities are key to making everything work.  There were so many moments when this movie could have easily gone off the deep end, into "Garden State" territory where everything feels forced and the entire effect is cheapened by weak actors trying too hard.  There are a couple of points where "Safety Not Guaranteed" comes perilously close to crossing that line (fake ear?  Seriously?) but never quite crosses it.  And that's good because I think if you watch this movie you'll want to enjoy it.

   It's not the movie I expected it to be... but I have to say as I was sitting there watching it I realized there wasn't much else they could have done.  It has a nice twist (followed immediately by another twist), and it does some of the brain-warping time travel stuff without getting simply ridiculous.  

   I enjoyed this movie.  It has a nice indie feel without being pretentious, and that's tough to do.  The characters are memorable and well-acted.  There's some superflous story and character development going on, but ultimately it does a nice job of keeping everyone very "real" and grounded.  It's not a particularly fun or "feel good" movie, but it is one that will make you think, and maybe think twice before judging people you see every day.

Mansome

   From Netflix:  This raucous but thoughtful documentary examines what defines masculinity in our modern culture of male grooming products and suave celebrities.

   My Take:  Now here's a documentary that needed to be made.  It asks a question that I definitely think needs to be answered: what in the world has happened to MEN?  I'm a hairy, strong-but-not-sculpted dude, and I've watched with horror as the definition of "manly" has changed around me.  I've seen gyms turn into day spas, I've seen "Structure" turn into "Express Men" turn into just "Express," and I've seen jeans get so tight that even "loose fit" hugs my thighs like spandex.  The whole idea of men being "men" is changing, and in my opinion becoming much, well, weaker.

   So here comes a documentary that promises to explore all of this.  Except unfortunately, it doesn't.  Sure "Mansome" touches on some of the things that make men men, but it doesn't do much to explore WHY the concept of "man" is changing or what the ramifications of that are.  It tells us that women are now more interested in men that are less "manly," but we all know that already (it's a painful reminder).  What I want to know is WHY?  What happened, where was the shift, and why did it shift?  Is it chemicals in the air?  Chemicals in our food?  Some kind of weird brain-ray from China?  What is going on here?

   Instead we get Will Arnett and Jason Bateman joking around in a day spa, where they are clearly uncomfortable (though I'm sure the pampered life doesn't come as surprising to them).  We spend a lot of time on beards and grooming, and less time on the sociology and psychology of what's happening in our world.

   "Mansome" is entertaining, but ultimately it is a missed opportunity.  It approaches some serious questions (some would call them problems), but it never takes any kind of deep dive into answering any of those questions.  I don't want to call it laziness, but maybe I'll just say the movie was a little afraid to offend, scared to ask tough questions because it -- like us -- may not like the answers it gets back.  I guess that's okay... but I would like to see a serious documentary made on this subject.  I do think it's something we need to address as a society.

FAREWELL.