Migraine, Grampa, and Hollywood douchery
Sep. 30th, 2009 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It looks like my Wednesday is going to start out with a migraine. AWESOME. I am taking measures to cut it off before it progresses, but that hardly ever works so mostly I'm sitting here until I finish my tea.
Mom took Gramps to the neurologist yesterday, and the news is... not so good. His MRI showed significant shrinkage in the frontal lobes since his last MRI, which was a year ago August. The neurologist has since diagnosed him with mid-stage fronto-temporal dementia, which, apparently, is the worst kind of dementia to be diagnosed with. It doesn't affect memory quite as much as other types of dementia, but rather affecting personality and behavior. It's progressive, and most patients, after initial diagnosis, have about a 2 year life expectancy. The neurologist thinks he's had this since last August. Mom is... understandably upset. I don't think I've really let it sink in yet. I sort of don't want to.
I almost didn't go to agility last night, because this news had left us... kind of out of sorts, but in the end I went and had a really good time. I talked with my agility instructor, Vickie, a breast cancer survivor (who, this time last year, was bald). She gave me a hug and talked a bit. "Don't feel guilty for doing the things you like to do," she said. I told her it wasn't so much guilt that made me almost skip class, but my concern that my head wouldn't be in the game, so to speak. But... the funny thing is, I've sort of reached a point with agility where when I'm on the course and running obstacles with Darwin, I almost go to a very zen place. (Well, this happens when we're running WELL. Not when I'm screwing up and giving miscues.) And even though last night I was a little distracted, and definitely screwed up and gave miscues, I still left class feeling very centered.
In other news, I would like very much to rant about this Roman Polanski BS until the cows come home, because I am thoroughly OUTRAGED at how many people seem to have turned into rape apologists overnight, and am doubly outraged at the media for using what I personally believe is misleading language regarding his crime. "Having sex with a teenager/minor" conjures a completely different picture than and is NOT the same thing as "drugging and anally raping an adolescent." And what the shit, do Hollywood A-listers actually believe they are above the law? HE DRUGGED AND SODOMIZED A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD, GUYS. LIVING THE HIGH LIFE SKIPPING AROUND EUROPE FOR THIRTY ONE YEARS DOES NOT CONSTITUTE "PUNISHMENT." HE HAS NOT PAID ANY SORT OF DEBT TO SOCIETY. COME ON, PEOPLE. HE IS NOT SOME SORT OF TRAGIC HERO. HE IS A RAPIST. SAY IT WITH ME NOW: RAY-PIST.
So, hopefully someone on my f-list will compose a lengthy and vitriolic rant about the subject, because that's about all I can muster -- this headache is looking like I'm going to be out of commission for the rest of the morning.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-01 01:37 am (UTC)OH MY GOD, THE POLANSKI THING. SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP. YOU PLED GUILTY.
And what the fuck? "He's suffered so much for the past thirty years, having to live in the south of France! He couldn't even come back and get his Oscar!" To quote Jon Stewart, "No. Shut up. No." He committed a crime, to which he pled guilty, the judge rejected the sentencing suggestion -- as was within his right, I believe! -- and he couldn't take it so he fled the country.
I know people are all, "Oh, but he's an artist, he's made brilliant films." You know what? I don't fucking care if he made films so brilliant all the celluloid on the planet spontaneously combusted and another film was never made because his were simply les ne plus ultras. HE'S A RAPIST. A RAPIST WHO PLED GUILTY AND THEN FLED THE JURISDICTION BECAUSE HE COULDN'T FACE THE CONSEQUENCES. And I like Chinatown.*
And now I must go buy a copy of Dogma because Kevin Smith gets it.
*Although knowing about Polanski's predilection for teenage girls makes the scene where Gittes asks Mrs. Mulwray if she was raped by her dad and she shakes her head "no" that much freakier.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-01 11:44 am (UTC)Yeah, I don't even know, dude. Being an artist, no matter how gifted, does not de facto forgive you any and all transgressions.
What's been interesting to watch about all of this is how this seems to be the one thing that the left and right-wing blogospheres seem to be able to agree on without condition. Sure, you get the odd nutball or two in the comments who think that it's been so long since it happened that we should just drop it already, but for the most part, people on both sides of the fence are disgusted and outraged.
And then you have Hollywood. Oy. Not all of them, of course, but Kevin Smith is one voice on a sadly short list.
I think this whole thing illustrates an interesting picture on the question of class and power in society. I keep looking over to my bookshelf and I'm like, "Yep, The Monk, Caleb Williams, The Red and the Black, and damn near everything Dickens wrote about." The corruption of those in positions of wealth and power, their depravities, and their belief that aforementioned wealth and power should protect them from the repercussions of those depravities.
...Or something.