Saturday & Sundry Thoughts on This & That

Not many or particularly deep thoughts. Over the past week or so I've been feeling tired, exhausted, fatigued, fed up.... It's not really connected the breast cancer issue. Both incisions are healing well, and the pesky drain was taken out at last, on Thursday. Stitches likely to be taken out on Monday. There might be a course of radiation sometime in my future, but I have not yet made my appointment with the radiation oncologist for assessment - I need a little breathing space, damn it! It's our 15th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. We missed a celebration last year, have missed celebrating my birthday and husband's birthday already this year.

My secondary issue, lymphocytic colitis, discovered after colonoscopy, has been causing more problems after it had gradually started settling down. I suspect that side effects from the 6-week course of meds I bought - at the knock down price of $1,400 - have been kicking in during past days. I have only 5 days' worth of tablets left. Side effects of this med do include unusual tiredness, and various types of discomfort stomach/bowel-wise. These should subside once I finish the course (I hope).

Other thoughts, unrelated to health issues:

If Joe Biden eventually becomes the Democrats' nominee in the 2020 presidential election - it simply has to have been "a fix".

Happy to see the name of Mike Gravel around once more, this time in context of the 2020 election.

Two of my posts on Mike Gravel from 2007 and 2008:

https://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2007/10/soapbox-time.html
https://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2008/05/changing-horses.html

We watched "I, Daniel Blake"

on Netflix this week - a 2016 British movie. It made me as angry as I've ever felt watching any movie or TV drama. Angry, not at the movie itself, but at the circumstance described in it, which are present for far too many people in the UK (and in the USA too as it happens). Gold Star to the movie's director, Ken Loach (also famous for other hard-hitting films such as "Kathy Come Home" and "Kes"). Thank the gods for the Ken Loaches of this world - unafraid to say what needs to be said in ways that strike at the heart.

 James Spader as Alan Shore, Candice Bergen as Shirley Schmidt

David E. Kelley, in the USA, is another such writer/director, though not as raw and hard-hitting as Ken Loach, he still managed to get said things that needed to be said. We've been re-watching (by DVD) the whole series of "Boston Legal" this week. Alan Shore's wondrous closing speeches are the jewel at the heart of each episode; these address issues that needed to be candidly addressed at the time the show originally aired. Those same issues mostly still need a candid airing in 2019 - because really nothing much changes, does it? "Boston Legal" managed to last for 5 seasons on ABC channel, 2004-2008. Those outspoken closing speeches did, eventually, raise the hackles of the network's owners, or their advertisers, I guess. Where is today's comparable show?

This Speech Never Loses Relevance

A commenter on Eric Margolis's excellent piece, Are We Becoming What We Once Hated? published on Sunday at The Smirking Chimp reminded me of a favourite clip from a favourite old ABC TV series, Boston Legal. I featured this clip myself in a post in 2010: Boston Legal, James Spader, David Kelley.

Here's the video clip once again. It's from an episode titled "Stick it!" The speech seems even more appropriate now than it did when first aired in March 2006!

In case the video isn't accessible or a passing reader prefers to actually read, here's a transcript, lightly edited to omit remarks from the judge and another lawyer.

Background: Alan Shore (James Spader) is delivering his summation, defending a co-worker, Melissa Hughes, who had sent her 1040 form to the IRS (tax authority) with a Post-it note attached bearing the message "Stick it!" Source of transcript is HERE.

When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up.

Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure the American people would be heard from.

We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of terrorist suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly we would never stand for that.

We did.

And now it's been discovered that the American government has been conducting massive illegal domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. and I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough.

Evidentally we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're OK with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial - war on false pretenses.

We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old-fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost that right as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control, and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade, or appearance, if you have a supportive T-shirt on, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This, in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarassed?

Really long speeches make me tired sometimes.

Actually, I'm sick and tired.

And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labelled un-American.

Speech in thiis country is free. Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say, "Stick it!".

I object to this government abusing its power to quash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anyone challenge it. They're smeared as a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29-year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "the tragedy of our time is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under a patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism.

Stevenson also remarked, "It's easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights--we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to do. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.

Much as I loved The West Wing and its cast of brilliant actors, there was never a speech to match this one from Boston Legal in the whole series. Credit has to go to David E. Kelley first and foremost, for the writing of it, then to James Spader for its superb delivery.