Choke on this

The book to movie issue

So last week I found out that the first Chuck Palahniuk book that I bought, Choke, has been made into a film. Initially I was very happy with this news. But after a while I thought, "Is this movie going to live up to my expectations?"

And it probably won't. Most book to movie conversions end up this way for a variety of reasons. Having read Choke several years ago when it first came out and again this week, I knew that it wasn't going to live up to the book based on the fact that it's only an R-rated film. NC-17 would be the lowest rating this film could get and accurately portray what happens in the book. I mean, the book is about a sex addict who chokes on food to make money to support his dying mother. His mother is, well, anarchist isn't the right word, but it's the first that comes to mind.

But I think the biggest problem I had, just seeing the previews for this film was the cast. Now, while I like the actors in the film, they don't really resemble the characters of the book much. The guy who plays Denny seems way to big for the role, Sam Rockwell is too old to play a 25-year-old guy and Kelly McDonald, who plays Paige Marshall, while I loved her in Trainspotting and, most recently, No Country for Old Men, she still just doesn't seem right.

But this is exactly what I mean by "a variety of reasons" to not like the film. But does that make it bad? Maybe I would have felt differently about Fight Club (one of my favorite films) if I had read the book first. I don't know. But then again, Jurassic Park was very different from the original book (and seriously lacking in the Malcolm drawings) but still kicked a lot of ass.

Well, WDR readers, I'll let you be the judge for now. I'm sure I will report back on this once I've actually seen the film, which should occur sometime in September when it's finally released to large audiences.

ASEVoIS--The Riveting World of Governmental Processes

Yesterday I was reading this commentary on the nature of the primary system here in the US, and it got me to thinking. And thinking leads to bad things, like not-studying for LSATS and to ridiculous blog posts. No thinking for me--as my parents told me, "Lord loves a working man, and don't trust whitey".

Now that I assume that you've actually clicked the above link to see what the article proposed, I can make my point without going through a pointless introduction. The idea of a national primary seems like a good idea on its face (for the LatinFolk out there, that's prima facie), but is in practice not a very good idea. It's actually a retarded idea, and gives electoral reform a bad name. Seriously, electoral reform is embarrassed to be mentioned in the same paragraph as this concept.


The idea of the national primary seems to solve the idea of allowing everyone a voice to participate in the nominating process. However, the opposite effect would in fact occur, as the focus of the campaigns would then revolve solely around the delegate-rich states (NY and Cali for the Dems, Texas for the Reps), and leaving smaller states with no attention. Minorities would also get the shaft--there's a reason why South Carolina and Nevada have primaries at the beginning of the schedule, and that's so their issues would get heard.

Which leads to my point that the current process serves as a good representative of the overlooked states. Iowa represents the Midwest (derisively referred to as "flyover country), while New Hampshire covers small-town America. As veterans of the political process, these states are also filled with savvy voters, who are used to poring over candidates and studying the issues instead of just regurgitating force-fed infocrap from the national networks.


The other benefit of having these small states early in the process is that it allows more non-mainstream candidates to have a viable campaign. These are small media markets, so it doesn't take a massive warchest to be able to just stay afloat in the polls in these states. Instead of relying solely on name-recognition and media pimping, campaigns have to be more candid with their answers and more engaged in the actual process. This is why you can have Hildog leading polls nationally, but not doing as well in the early states--the voters in these early states have gotten a more in-depth look at each of these candidates instead of relying on broad assumptions. This may especially work in favor of Democrats, because Hillary would be the absolute worst candidate for the party to nominate (based on the potential of the Republican Attack Machine and her ability to rally the base to support the GOP).

Small states also benefit from personal attention. What is especially true in New Hampshire is that candidates have the opportunity to visit with virtually every eligible voter, and listen to his/her concerns and open themselves up to their questions. This is in direct contrast to the large stump speeches that one would find in the large metropolitan cities that you would otherwise have. As a result, you have an overall more connective democratic experience.

Sorry to bore you with this stuff--when you take a few Comparative Politics classes, the nature of how different forms of government works gets in your head ( "I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work"). But feel free to call me an asshat in the comments.

Health Care is Not Funny (And Don't Even Think About Patch Adams)

I apologize for the rambling nature of my previous post. This is what happens when you don't work with an editor, and you just fire things out stream-of-consciousness style. So broad points are made in hopes that something sticks (mainly in an attempt at humor), without really constructing a well-crafted argument. Not to worry, it's not as if I've been spending most of my time the past few years trying to get into law school or anything...

The point that I was trying to make was that the immigration debate by and large has been totally misrepresented. And to tie it into the introduction to this series, even though it is a problem that we should solve, it is not a crisis. Do you need evidence? Well, we didn't pass the legislation. It's probably going to be a long time for legislation to actually get passed, since it takes time to draft it and vet it and so on. And we're still standing, though I do believe we have a few additional pickup trucks selling fresh fruits along our beautiful highways.



The demagogues have been silenced. They have found their victory. It was not in actually succeeding in getting anything done that would fix the problem, no, that would make too much sense. They are content in relaxing now that the process has stalled. That really makes sense.

Bah, enough of that. How about a real problem? Try our nation's health-care system.



The argument has boiled down to two different systems: 1) the private-insurer system that is in place now, done usually through one's employer OR 2) single-payer state-run system that is similar to that of W. Europe and a good portion of the world. Each have their advantages and drawbacks, and they have been rehashed numerous times. Each side decides to repeat the same claims, without taking the time to listen to the other. It's really productive, as you can clearly see.

Well here's my slightly educated contribution.

With the private-insurer system, we have over 12% of our population without any coverage, and with countless more that have limited and insufficient coverage. But we also have the finest medical technology, qualified and well-compensated professionals, among other things.

The irony is, that though we have a market-driven system, it is completely inefficient. In the US, we spend more per-capita than any other country on health care, yet we rank 37th in terms of quality of care (as has been oft-repeated in reviews of Sicko). We are not getting our bang for our buck; in fact we're getting screwed. There is a failure somewhere that is not being corrected.



The single-payer method allows for universal coverage and great service, but the expense is long waiting lists, and well, expenses. Higher taxes, that's the way you got to pay for them. My question is, considering that we already have an abundance of medical facilities and professionals that have the ability to staff these facilities, if we switched the method of payment shouldn't we be able to account for these lines? And how much more inefficient can taxes be, considering that we get so little for what we pay for these days? Shouldn't redistributing some of that burden help out a bit, AND allow for more people to fall under coverage?

My point is that we already know what works and what doesn't in these systems. Why don't we do something like adopting a hybrid--allow for a baseline coverage for all, and allow some to opt out if they choose?

The status quo is crap. We can do something, one way or another. We just need to demand change.



And thanks to both Mr. Zhuang and Joe Reefer, for bringing back the funny. I'll join in again soon.