A Monkey Movie Review

If you want the penultimate proof the human beings are the stupidest, most short sighted beings on this planet then look no further than this film. It shows once again why we are at best a cancer that can and should be wiped out as soon as possible.

This film tells two stories, the main story is about the village of Taiji in Japan where they slaughter around 23,000 dolphins a year and the other story is about how the guy who caught and trained the dolphins on the '60's TV show Flipper came to do a 180 on dolphins in captivity, initially he was all for it but after he saw what it did to the dolphins he captured and trained for television he's against it and works for the release and protection of dolphins everywhere.

The main story about the slaughter in Taiji is heart wrenching, disgusting, and shows what idiots humans are. The Japanese, despite western entreaties to stop, still actively pursue whaling. They do it for food and out of a sense of national pride, they resent the west telling them to stop. But a lot of the meat sold as whale meat in Japan is actually dolphin meat, which is loaded with mercury, which is a toxic substance which will lead to birth defects. Despite being shown that eating dolphin leads to mercury poisoning and that given the choice Japanese people will not knowingly eat dolphin, the slaughter continues and the eating of misleadingly labeled dolphin meat continues. The townspeople of Taiji are very protective of their dolphin killers and they'll go to just about any lengths to keep the slaughter secret.

And the Japanese government backs them up by saying that the murder of dolphins and whales is necessary because the whales and dolphins eat the fish that would have been caught and eaten by Japanese citizens. It's fucking insane. But it's not unheard of, a government collaborating with a business or corporation in a business that has been proven to be unpopular, unwanted, and bad for the environment, case in point is how our government been in bed with fossil fuel companies for decades.

I recommend this film highly, although it may make you sink deeper into despair over how badly we humans have fucked things up. Kudos all around to the film makers, one of whom is actor Fischer Stevens who I'm guessing helped produce this film in order to atone for his horribly racist performance in Short Circuit.

The doctor will see you when we say he'll see you

My yearly visit to my cardiologist was yesterday. The visit with him went fine, and I knew it would. There's been no changes in my condition since my last visit, so I knew things would go quickly once I got past The Coven.* Next year's visit however will entail getting a stress test done which means they'll probably do a heart cath afterwards.

In the few minutes we had together my cardiologist and I had an interesting conversation. I had said something about being on a very fixed income and he asked me since if I was worried about government spending since my income is mainly Social Security Disability. I chuckled and said, "No. I'm not worried at all. See, I'm not one of those nut bags who is fearful of the government. I fear the corporate take over of our food supply, water, and health care." He nodded and said, "I've seen both sides of the health care debate..." I cut him off and said, "It's not like people are dropping like files in England, France, and Canada where they have single payer national health insurance. It's not perfect but it's working pretty good over in those countries." He said, "I was an army doctor for many years so I know how government run health care works. I also know how corporate driven health care works. If there's a problem with the government system then the people fix it because government is the people, so there's someone to answer to. In the corporate system the corporation is answerable only to the shareholders." I smiled and said, "Exactly." I bet most doctors secretly feel the same way as my cardiologist does.

After they drew some blood to check my cholesterol, I was done. So Sparky, who took the day off of work to go with me, and I went out and had a late lunch at a fabulous locally owned restaurant in the Fountain City neighborhood of Knoxville. We ate at Litton's. It's a real home cooking style restaurant with a great wait staff and damn good food. It's not inexpensive because they use quality ingredients and it's the kind of place you don't mind spending a little more at because it's locally owned and their food is so good.

After our late lunch we headed over to McKay's, the used book superstore:
I picked up a slew of cool books, which you can see by clicking here. I also got a Alison Moyet CD and an Suzanne Vega CD for two bucks each. I love McKay's.

The weather was great, it usually pisses the rain on us when we go to Knoxville to see my cardiologist, and the traffic moved smoothly. And on the way out of town I snapped a picture of this classic sign:
All's well that ends well, so I'll see you next year o cardiologist of mine.

*The Coven is a name we, Sparky and I, have given to the unhealthy looking fat bottomed women who work the front desk at my cardiologist's office. They are rude, dismissive, disrespectful, and just down right bitchy to all patients who dare set foot inside their domain. They get away with it because most of the patients are very old and likely to kick the bucket at any moment. I, however, do not put up with their crap and therefore they hate me for it.