Hero Of The Month

For once, a politician has done something that I fully support....
Indiana Senator Evan Bayh (pronounced "Buy") announced this week that he's retiring. Why? Because, basically, he thinks that remaining in Congress is a waste of time. Yes, Bayh was quoted by BSNBC as saying that the American political system is "'dysfunctional,' riddled with 'brain-dead partisanship' and permanent campaigning." FINALLY, a high official with the guts to be honest for five seconds. What a guy!


My mind has been blown in recent months at the sheer futility of taking government seriously. For example, we've got a "ruling party" that struggles to get a reform measure passed with a 60 out of 100 vote majority, and then gives up on the whole thing when that majority slips to 59 out of 100. Whether their reform measure was good or not is beside the point. The healthcare debacle has to be, like, some kind of record for incompetence. Bayh recognizes this as being indicative of other problems, and decided to just blow off the whole thing. I admire him for walking away.

Yahoo News says: "Bayh blamed the current atmosphere of intense partisanship on the need for senators to constantly campaign to be reelected to another six-year term. Citing his father, a popular liberal senator in the '60s and '70s, he noted that 'back in the day they used to have the saying: You campaign for 2 years and you legislate for 4. Now you campaign for 6!' He noted that the need for constant fundraising made it nearly impossible to focus on passing legislation." Yeah, that's half the problem. The other half, as I've noted in the past, is the constantly nasty tone. Pundits, I think, are largely to blame for this. They've got idiots everywhere thinking that every political issue is some kind of battle for the country's very soul. Opponents are either Fascists or Commies; any kind of half-sensible cooperation is out of the question. Oh, and NEVER give someone from the opposite party any kind of credit for ANYTHING without questioning his motives.

(Who we really need.)

Proof of that last principle lies in the reaction to Bayh's retirement. I've heard pundits and Tea Baggers suggesting that "his mafia ties" had pulled support from him, or that he simply thought he'd lose reelection. "There's no way he could actually be walking away for honorable reasons or a concern for the country!" such individuals think. Even fellow Democrats are accusing him of some complex maneuvering with all of this. Ridiculous. He quit for all the right reasons, and deserves applause.

This week, there was some incident in Texas involving a plane crashing into a building. For about two and a half minutes, I wondered if it was another Nine-Eleven type terror attack, and how President Carter -- er, I mean, Obama -- would handle it. Then I thought about what kind of support he'd be likely to get from the opposing political party: really, I suspect, little or none. Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I say the unity that George W Bush got from pretty much EVERYONE after the 2001 attack is almost impossible to imagine now. In our current childish climate, another attack on the country would only be met with internal finger-pointing and shouts of "I told you so!" How pathetic to even imagine it. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck may have already compromised our country's ability to defend itself. I guess that's because they're patriots!


Well, in a twisted way, that security problem should be slightly fixed in the next election when (I have no doubt) the Democrats will be absolutely HAMMERED into irrelevance by sweeping GOP victories across the board. President Clinton -- er, I mean, Obama -- will be utterly powerless for the rest of his wasted administration, and government by big bank and pharmaceutical companies will return for another 15 years or so...UNTIL, of course, THEY screw things up so badly that the people return to Democrats. Of course, the Democrats, in turn, will once again squander their opportunity to change anything, leading to another extended period of GOP rule, and, and...well, you see how history repeats itself.

Anyway, enough about the past. Let's talk about the future. In particular, a movie that takes place there.

Re-Generation (2004)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424238/


Netflix description:
In the dystopian future of Northern Canada, black market doctor Gabriel Goode (Peter Stebbings), whose specialty is the regeneration of organs and limbs, is summoned to a water-mining colony to "heal" the daughter of a corrupt water exporter. This low-budget sci-fi thriller also stars Ingrid Veninger as Dr. Goode's patient, Clara; Clark Johnson as her corrupt father, Abe Fielder; and Charles Officer as the reticent son Charles.

Re-Generation takes place in what I GUESS is supposed to be the future, although it looks more like the wild west. An extremely boring version of the wild west.

Actually, the future in this movie reminds me of what you'll see in The Book of Eli or maybe even Borderlands, the video game. It's all...you know...apocalyptical and stuff...with all sorts of bad things going on cuz the human race has gone and blowed itself up or something. I dunno. Water is extremely rare -- I can at least tell you that for sure.

The main character is a doctor named Gabriel who specializes in transplanting human limbs (in fact, this movie's original title was The Limb Salesman). He's been hired by some kind of corrupt water tycoon to give his daughter a new pair of legs. The whole family is creepy, really -- the tycoon seems to have an incest kind of thing going on for the daughter, and she looks like she has a mop head for a wig. Plus, the woman is way too old to be anyone's daughter. I had a hard time getting past that.


Well, our hero hooks this woman up with a new pair of gams, and then...uh...he helps her learn to walk. Um, I guess that's sort of it. Yeah, thinking back, that really IS the only thing that actually happens! OH MY GOD, this movie has no plot!!! What happened to my 90 minutes?!?

I'm not kidding, Re-Generation is slap-yourself-in-the-face boring. NOTHING HAPPENS. We're introduced to a few characters, suspense is built up -- like we're supposed to expect some horrible dark secret to present itself -- and then there is no payoff at all. Perhaps the point of this movie was to examine moral issues surrounding the seedy character that Gabriel buys his client's new legs from (HE would be the real "Limb Salesman"), but that seems like quite a stretch, considering that the fellow only appeared in three or four scenes. There's also some business about Gabriel needing a new heart, but I can't honestly believe that his transplant (or whatever) was supposed to be the point. I certainly didn't care about it, and I'm sure no one else did. Why would we?


In the end, Re-Generation is a tedious drama disguised as a science fiction film. It's poorly written, slowly-paced, and almost totally lacking in a score (which drove me friggin' nuts). You know, despite all of this, I'm actually a little tempted to give the film two stars, since it does feature some rather impressive performances and sets for the ultra low-budget with which it was made. In the end, however, I simply cannot let a bad experience go unavenged. Limb Salesman, I smite thee with a low rating!

1 out of 5.

b.