An Imaginary War

I've been pretty busy over at my Warhammer 40,000 blog, but it's been a while since I last posted here on the home blog. And it's been even longer since I made a political post. In fact, my last one dates back to October when I discussed a crude anonymous comment I received. Much of the reason why I enjoy politics is because I enjoy a good debate. However, more and more it seems that irrationality and emotion are dominating politics and a lot of people (especially on the Internet) simply skip the part where they actually try to argue their point and begin immediately with name calling and ad hominem attacks. It's my belief that, when people stop arguing and resort instead to personal attacks, our country is in trouble. The pre-Civil War era was rife with that kind of behavior.

The Left's current claims that the GOP has started some sort of "War On Women" fall into this category. Of course, if you were to ask a diehard leftist they would tell you that the Republican Party has always been at war with women. Now, however, professional Liberals and their media allies seem to think they can make the charge stick with nonpartisans. It's the kind of obvious political demagoguery you can expect in an election year. I guess most of this started when Glorious Leader Obama and his secretary of Health and Human Services decided that they could, and should, force religiously run institutions to cover birth control through their health plans. (I for one find it disturbing that the Executive Branch now wields enough power to actually make such diktats.) This didn't go over well with the Catholic Church since it holds birth control to be verboten and has numerous medical and charitable operations that are affected by the decree.

The subject became personalized when Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke (apparently a self-proclaimed activist who also believes that the government should mandate that insurance cover gender reassignment surgery, among other things) testified to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee that her birth control costs upwards of $1000 a year and urged the government to require her student insurance to cover it. Georgetown University is a private Jesuit school, so the University isn't going to do any such thing willingly. Apparently Fluke and quite a few Democratic politicians think that her right to receive subsidized birth control (by means of government coercion) trumps a Catholic institution's 1st Amendment right to freely exercise its religious principles.

It should be expected that the government's trampling of religious liberty in order to give Fluke et al. an absurd "right" to have their birth control paid for by others is going to rub a lot of Conservatives the wrong way. In response to Fluke's demands and Liberals characterization of her as a hero, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh (who is an entertainer, despite Liberal's claims to the contrary) used several non-chivalrous terms and inflammatory language to describe Fluke during his show. Apparently, between Limbaugh's unfortunate language and Conservative's general support of religious liberty over the previously unrecognized right to have one's lifestyle paid for by others, Liberals claim that the GOP is engaging in a "War On Women".

The Ploesti Raids of World War II (a.k.a., an actual war)

A few observations: first off, the party that looked the other way and/or tried to justify the depredations of high profile politicians like Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy really can't claim the moral high ground. Limbaugh (an entertainer) was repeatedly condemned by fellow Conservatives for what he said and he eventually apologized for his statements. (Fluke, classy lady that she is, rejected his apology.) Clinton and Kennedy (elected representatives) did a lot more than call a woman unkind names. Second, since when is an unwillingness to subsidize something, or force others to subsidize it, a de facto ban or an attack on a particular group? As an engineering student I spent more on books each year than Fluke did on birth control. Did someone declare war on education or war on engineering students because they didn't subsidize my books? Finally, why are we supposed to feel bad that a law student at Georgetown University spends $1000 a year on birth control? Not only does that dollar figure suggest that she prefers an unusually pricey birth control pill, but the cost is a pittance compared to Georgetown's $40,000+ annual tuition. Seems like a case of 'poor little rich girl' to me.

When did this nation sink to the point that it doesn't reject as ludicrous the argument that one person or a group of people have the right to have their chosen lifestyle paid for by others? I love Warhammer 40,000; the hobby relives stress and improves my quality of life. Do I therefore have the right to have my rather expensive hobby supported by someone else through government coercion? As absurd as this example is, it's no worse than arguments I've heard from the Left. And at least you wouldn't have to infringe on someone's 1st Amendment rights to get them to pay for my 40K habit.

One final thought; if Fluke doesn't like the policies of the Catholic Church, why did she decide to go to a traditionally Catholic school? Oh, right, she's a professional rabble-rouser who attended the school to attack its principles. Now who's declared war on who?

The Atomic Spud: Minus One Gallbladder

Bad gallbladder! Bad!

Much to my consternation, the results of the HIDA scan I received in February came back normal. However, according to the doctors I've talked to (including Dr. Google), gallbladder disease can be missed by both a sonogram and a HIDA scan. Thus, I agreed to meet with the surgeon who removed my wife's gallbladder last year. During our discussion, I asked him how probable it was that I had gallbladder disease. He responded that the fact that the injection I received at the end of the HIDA scan recreated my the pain meant that there was an 80% chance that my gallbladder was to blame. Since 80% is a greater degree of certainty than many other things in life, I decided to have the (potentially) malfunctioning organ removed.

My wife and I showed up at the hospital yesterday late in the morning. Within a short period they had me in a gown, had an IV in my hand, and had shaved my stomach. Unfortunately, the hospital staff were so quick and efficient in getting me ready that they didn't realize that the surgeon wasn't scheduled to actually do the operation for another hour. This was exactly the opposite of my wife's gallbladder removal experience where we sat in the waiting room for over an hour and they didn't get her into the pre-op area until about ten minutes before the surgery.

This was only my second time under general anesthetic; the first was when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I was completely out mere minutes after the anesthesiologist injected the cocktail into my IV. The last thing I remember was thinking about how many light fixtures there were in the operating room. I woke up coughing since I'm still recovering from a head cold and because of the dryness of the oxygen they were feeding me. Thank goodness much of the initial painkillers were still in effect then; coughing became excruciating only a half hour later.

My wife is still laughing about my recovery from the anesthesia. She becomes extremely nauseous after receiving any strong anesthetic and has a difficult time keeping food or liquids down. In short, her recovery is extremely miserable. In my case, I seem to remember waving my hands around and rolling my head from side to side. Then I would touch my wife's face and tell her how pretty she was. My mother later said that if anesthesia works as a truth serum, I definitely passed the test.

Immediately after the surgery and prior to my waking up, the surgeon talked to my wife about how everything went. Thanks to the negative results of my earlier diagnostic tests, my greatest fear was that we had made an expensive and painful mistake and that the surgeon would tell my wife that mine was the healthiest gallbladder he had ever removed. Instead, he told her that he didn't find any gallstones and could find no explicit cause for my problems, but that he had found some gallbladder adhesions.

Not that kind of adhesion

While they usually aren't a direct cause of gallbladder-related pain, adhesions are typically indications that something is wrong. According to one source:

Adhesions can be formed due to surgery, injury, infection, or even radiation. However, they most commonly develop as a result of gallbladder inflammation caused by gallstones, termed cholecystitis. Gallbladder adhesions can also develop from gallbladder cancer, associated with gallstones; however, such cancer is rare. Some gallbladder adhesions have been found to be due to natural causes, such as congenital anomalies.

[...]

Gallbladder adhesions generally do not cause any pain or symptoms, but the conditions leading to the production of adhesions, such as gallstones and inflammation, can be extremely painful. Gallstones can produce biliary colic, or pain resulting from bile duct blockage by a gallstone. This pain is localized in the upper abdomen and will generally go away in a few hours once the gallstone passes out of the duct.

It's nice to know that there was almost certainly something wrong with my gallbladder and that all the pain and discomfort wasn't all in my head or due to some other as yet unknown cause.

Since the surgery I've been in a considerable, albeit manageable, amount of pain. The surgery injects a small quantity of air into the cavity to make the gallbladder more accessible, so a lot of the discomfort I'm having is due to the air bubbles that tend to float towards my right collar bone. Unfortunately, the medicine used to control the pain makes me feel lightheaded and spaced-out (that I was able to write this blog post at all is a miracle). I can't believe that there are drug-abusers who actually seek out such sensations. Although recovery from the surgery isn't exactly pleasant, I've actually had migraines that were worse.

Now I Really Am the Atomic Spud

A few months ago I started getting odd pains after eating. The symptoms weren't like those of the acid reflux I've had for most of my life (and can control most of the time with Prilosec), but they did seem similar to the pains my wife had been having off and on for a few years. We found out last year that she had a pyloric ulcer as well as gallbladder disease; the former was treated with expensive medications and the latter was taken care of through gallbladder removal surgery. Since we didn't know which of her symptoms was caused by what ailment, we really couldn't say if my problem was caused by an ulcer (pyloric ulcers are the result of bacterial infection and can be spread from person to person) or by a gallbladder problem.

A visit to the doctor a few weeks ago indicated that I don't have an ulcer. A simple blood test showed that I didn't have the bacterial infection and the description of my symptoms didn't seem to match up with those of an ulcer. According to the doctor, certain symptoms I've been having are characteristic of a malfunctioning gallbladder. The doctor explained to me that the first technique we could use to confirm his suspicions would be to look for gallstones using ultrasound. If that came up negative, we could monitor the gallbladder's function with a HIDA scan. He warned me that it's possible for both techniques to yield negative results and to still have gallbladder disease. Last week I had a sonogram that showed that I didn't have any gallstones. On Friday morning I went in for the HIDA scan. I came out of the scan radioactive.

Yep, that's me

Prior to a HIDA scan, the patient is injected with the radioactive isotope Technetium-99m (Tc-99m). The Tc-99m eventually ends up in the person's bile and can be seen passing through the gallbladder with a radiation-detecting scanner. In my case, I was also injected with a medicine near the end of the scan that exercises the gallbladder as if I had eaten a fatty meal. The function of the organ was monitored and I was instructed to tell the technician whether or not the injection recreated the pain.

Hours of gamma radiation-emitting fun

I have yet to receive the results of my scan, but the final injection caused a relatively mild form of the discomfort I've been having. As for the radioactivity, I was injected with 6 millicuries (mCi) of Tc-99m. Six thousandths of a curie seems like a lot to someone who typically works in units of picocuries (pCi), or trillionths of a curie. Of course, the isotopes I work with emit a lot more energy per curie than Tc-99m. The relatively low energy of the gamma photon emitted when Tc-99m transitions to Tc-99 is much of the reason why this form of Technetium is used for medical diagnostics.

Anyway, if my experience is anything like those of the people who received the diagnostic, happened to have a Geiger counter at home, and posted the results on the Internet (oddly enough, I'm not one of those people), I probably left the clinic with an on-contact radiation reading between 20 and 30 millirem/hr. (Objectively, this is not a very high level, but at work we would consider implementing certain controls when dealing with an item emitting that level of radiation.) Tc-99m has a half-life of 6 hours, meaning that the radiation level is halved every six hours. The effective levels may drop even faster since the radioisotope will also leave the body through the urine. Given my line of work and the caution with which we treat radiation and contamination, it's amusing to think that I am currently an unmarked, walking radiation source and that I'm simply dumping radioactivity into the sewers every time I flush the toilet.

Most sources suggest that I'll have received about 500 millirem of exposure by the time the Tc-99m is out of my system. Although this is not an insignificant level of exposure over such a short period of time, it is still far from being dangerous. It is also a lot higher than the amount I've received at my facility since I started there several years ago. Occupational radiation exposure is monitored separately from that of other sources (e.g., medical treatments). Thus, I won't be allowed to wear a dosimeter when I go back to work next week until I'm scanned by a radiological controls technician and am declared to have returned to background radiation levels. I look forward to finding out my radiation level on Monday so I can back-calculate the level I reached when I was first injected.

I wonder what super powers I'll get

UPDATE: 2/13/12
First thing this morning a radiological controls technician checked my radiation levels. Between Tc-99m's short half life and the soda and Powerade I was drinking to flush out my system, I had returned to background levels. And since I don't know when I got rid of most of the isotope, I can't even back-calculate my original levels. The worst part is that I don't have a single super power to show for it.

Nerd-Hating

The other day I was visiting one of my favorite political websites, Pajamas Media, where I found an article in their "PJ Lifestyle" section entitled "Five Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks". Much of the article is a fairly inoffensive (and entirely unoriginal) rant about the derivative nature of the Star Wars saga's plot, the extreme degree to which Star Wars has been merchandised ("George Lucas is a plastic toy manufacturer who makes mediocre movies on the side"), the low quality of several of the films, and how much the author, Kathy Shaidle, generally dislikes the Star Wars franchise.

An Internet critic who complains about Star Wars
and George Lucas? How utterly unheard of!

Despite being a huge Star Wars fan, I have absolutely no problem with Ms. Shaidle griping about the franchise on her blog. It's her right to dislike sci-fi in general and Star Wars in particular. The fact that she dislikes it doesn't affect my enjoyment of Star Wars in any way. As for me, I strongly dislike professional sports and have no compunction about expressing my views on the topic. However, I recognize that there are many people, if not a majority, who greatly enjoy them. Although I don't share their interest and can't understand the appeal of watching televised sports, I have no problem with fans in general or as individuals as long as their passion doesn't become unhealthy or destructive (which I've seen before). Although I dislike football, I know that the bulk of football fans are decent people who aren't anything like the grotesque, Homer Simpson-like caricatures seen in sitcoms.

Unfortunately, Ms. Shaidle doesn't give people like myself the benefit of the doubt and has decided that Star Wars fans are a worthless lot. Not content to merely condemn Star Wars itself, Shaidle directly attacks the fans on a personal level. She then goes as far as to belittle pretty much anyone with geeky interests:

Successful, mature men do not play computer games, attend "cons", and get excited about overrated science fiction movies from the 1970s.

Come on, all the conservative boys who’ve read this far:

Do you imagine Victor Davis Hanson is some kind of font of boring zombie lore?

Do you think Mark Steyn wastes his spare time playing World of Warcraft? (Trick question. Mark Steyn doesn’t have any spare time.)

No, these men have careers and families, here on planet earth.

In describing the brother of the man who designed the Stormtrooper armor seen in Star Wars, Shaidle says:

He shared his brother’s passion for militaria, so since the 1960s, Andrew Mollo has worked as a historical consultant to the movies, with an expertise in military uniforms.

In other words: Andrew Mollo is a guy who has a lot in common with thousands of Star Wars fans, except his job does not require him to wear a name tag.

I find her lack of respect disturbing

I'm not even sure where to begin. How about the statement that "Successful, mature men do not play computer games, attend 'cons', and get excited about overrated science fiction movies from the 1970s"? Shaidle's prejudice and contempt for people with interests she doesn't share are on full display in this single statement. Note that she doesn't single out those who can't or won't achieve a productive adulthood and instead latch onto something like Star Wars or World of Warcraft to avoid reality. In my experience, people for whom their hobby becomes a way of life rather than a pastime are given a lot of attention but are relatively few in number. And it's not the fact that they're sci-fi or fantasy fans that makes them this way. I have seen sports nuts, avid hunters, and inveterate outdoorsmen engage in similar behavior. What is offensive is Shaidle's blanket declaration that no "successful, mature men" could possibly play computer games or engage in sci-fi or fantasy fan activities. In her narrow worldview, me and my ilk are all lonely, unmarried losers who could only get the kind of job that requires us to wear name tags.

I bet most of these geeks have more respect for people
with different interests than Kathy Shaidle does

Unfortunately, I've found that many people think like Ms. Shaidle. In response, I would point to the fact that the vast majority of my friends, most of my fellow alumni from the college of engineering and technology, many of my coworkers, and I play video games, attend cons where possible, and get excited about science fiction movies. The majority of us are successful and mature where it matters. Many of us are happily married, own homes, and have children. Given her prejudice, I'd guess that Shaidle doesn't want to know how many of us 'unsuccessful' and 'immature' types work with nuclear power. Nor does she seem willing to consider all those 'unsuccessful' and 'immature' people who design and maintain the technology that she enjoys and upon which modern life depends. And I doubt she's even thought about the number of 'unsuccessful' and 'immature' computer scientists, engineers, and programmers who helped make her blog possible. Only through arrogance and willful blindness can a lifestyle blog author declare that we can't possibly be successful or mature simply because she finds our interests "boring" or pathetic.

It's too bad I don't have a career and family
here on planet Earth. Oh, wait...

What horrible offense have we committed that makes Shaidle and others like her feel justified in libeling us and reducing us to some pathetic and odious stereotype? After a nine hour work day (not counting over two hours of commuting time), I enjoy coming home, spending some time with the kids, and then sitting down to paint Warhammer 40,000 figures. Every other weekend five of us get together to spend a few hours playing 40K. On top of that, most of us enjoy science fiction and fantasy and play video games. However, in stark contrast to Ms. Shaidle's portrayal of our kind, there are seven engineering or science degrees between us. All of us have mortgages, are married, and have children or will soon have children. And all of us have a good career in the nuclear industry. We all wear name tags at work, but they're in the form of security badges. Yes, Ms. Shaidle, even nerds can have "careers and families, here on planet Earth". Does the fact that we enjoy geeky hobbies nullify everything else we do and accomplish? If we were to get together to watch a football game instead would we somehow become mature and successful? I have another friend who has an engineering career, is interested in politics and history, and made more than the average Idaho family in his first year out of college. He also plays video games, has a huge comic book collection, and wields a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel superheroes. Do his interests make him an immature and unsuccessful loser?

How can Shaidle sleep at night knowing that there are so many
unsuccessful and immature men involved in nuclear power?

My geeky T-shirts, 40K models, and Star Trek books don't hurt anyone. I don't force my Godzilla DVD collection (most of it in Japanese with subtitles) on anybody. I buy the toys and action figures that Shaidle makes fun of, but I do so on a budget that also covers all our bills, contributes to my retirement plan, and provides for religious donations. I don't make fun of those who don't share my interests, nor do I sneer at those who enjoy things that I don't. And there are millions of people like me. For the most part we leave other people alone to pursue their interests in peace. Why don't we deserve the same courtesy?

It's All About Your Mindset

Despite the poor economy, several engineers at my company have recently found other jobs. Each time someone leaves, the morale seems to dip a little. You can't go a few minutes without overhearing hushed conversations about how much greener the grass is outside the company, that our company/management/policies drive employees away, that such-and-such's new job is going to be so much better, etc. This is on top of the constant complaining that you hear from the chronically disgruntled who are bound and determined to be dissatisfied with every aspect of their job and who seem to believe that it's their duty to make others unhappy as well. From what I've heard from other professionals (and from the impression I get from Dilbert), this problem is far from being unique to my company.

When employee disgruntlement reaches critical mass...

Here's my confession; up until about three years ago I was part of those types of conversations. I kept a stiff upper lip for the first six months or so of my job, but I eventually allowed myself to be influenced by the attitudes of a number of coworkers, both newer employees as well as veterans. They were angry with the bureaucracy (there's a lot of that in the nuclear industry), with various company policies, with the management, with the pay, etc. One coworker who had been with the company for 25+ years took it upon himself to personally tell each new guy to "do yourself a favor and quit". Others were less overt, but they still grumbled continuously. A large chunk of each Friday was dedicated to unmitigated complaining. The effect of all this was that half of the engineers who started around the same time as me quit within less than two years. I had tried to join them; at my one year mark I had several resumes out and was doing job interviews with other companies. Now I'm very glad that none of those resumes or interviews went anywhere.

Except for an increase in responsibilities, very little has changed about my job. However, I've since gone from despising my job to enjoying it. The only real change was in my own behavior; I made a conscious decision to be grateful for the position I had (this is even easier to do in our current economy) and to take on a "can-do" attitude. Although this will swell his head a bit and I'll never hear the end of it, I have to admit that I was helped along this path by my friend and coworker, Bryce, who was also the one who introduced me to Warhammer 40K. Bryce showed me that your job is what you make of it. I saw that he could derive fulfillment by working as hard as he could and trying to make a difference regardless of roadblocks, uncooperative coworkers, or red tape. With his example of a positive attitude and his accomplishments, I saw that professional satisfaction and happiness are determined primarily by oneself.

Abraham Lincoln said that "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be". This is as true about work as anything else. I decided to be happy with my job and feel like I've succeeded at it. In just a few years my professional life has changed entirely. I stopped looking for reasons to be miserable and now feel a strong loyalty toward the company and a sense of gratitude for my job and my responsibilities. I don't dread Monday mornings anymore; I look forward to another week to get things done. Of course, I rarely accomplish everything I need to, but that just ensures that there's rarely a dull moment. I can still get frustrated with coworkers or with the bureaucracy, but I've found it a lot more productive to suck it up and tell myself 'I'll get through this' than to gripe about the situation.

The following is what I learned while on the path to enjoying my job:

1. Venting doesn't work
I have never vented my frustrations and felt better afterward. Nor have I seen others do so. It is completely and utterly non-productive as it simply reinforces negative feelings and attitudes while encouraging a (mostly false) sense of helplessness. Venting to others usually has the effect of either annoying them or encourages them to vent as well, resulting in a morale-destroying cycle. What I've witnessed over and over again has been angry employees bouncing their frustrations off each other and blaming everyone and everything else for their dissatisfaction. Participants in these discussions inevitably end up in a fouler mood and with even less appreciation for having a secure job in a shaky economy.

2. New employees are watching the older employees
A word of advice to more experienced/veteran employees: your attitude strongly affects your younger coworkers. The new guys have recently chosen to throw in their lot with the company. This is a serious decision that is hard to back out of. Your attitude will affect how they feel about the company and how they view their professional future. Whether you like it or not, new employees will look to you as a mentor and an example. If you are constantly complaining about the job, the management, etc., your attitude will be exaggerated in the newer employees who don't have enough experience to tell them otherwise. I cannot stress this point enough: DO NOT POISON THE NEW EMPLOYEES' MORALE! If you can't muster a good attitude, for the new guys' sakes keep your disgruntlement to yourself and let them decide for themselves whether or not the job is a good one.

3. Follow the golden rule and treat others as you would want to be treated
Unless you like to have people deal impatiently with you, to treat every interaction with you as an inconvenience, to yell at you, or to refuse to return your phone calls or emails, don't treat others this way. The simple act of returning a coworker's phone call as quickly as possible can go a long way toward making the workplace a lot less stressful. For every half-dozen or so fellow employees who let me down there is at least one individual whose work ethic, competence, and professionalism makes my job infinitely easier. Those people inevitably end up at the top of my list of people to commend to their managers or to help out if they ask for it. Much of a person's attitude towards his or her job is determined by the environment created by fellow employees. Do your best to make it a good environment and others just might reciprocate.

4. Do your job to the best of your ability
Throughout industry, a lot of young engineers are dismayed to find that very little of what they do involves cutting edge design work. In fact, engineers often do a surprising amount of writing. Although I do some limited designing, most of my job would be better described as process design and procedure writing. Even if your job isn't quite what you thought it would be, remember that you're being paid to do it. At a minimum, it's only honest to do what you're being paid to do as well as you can. Even better is to take pride in your work and strive for continual improvement. I wouldn't have thought that I'd be writing as much as I do, but I've come to enjoy the challenge of producing the best procedures and processes possible, to be proud of my successes, and to learn from my failures.

I've come to despise phrases like "good enough for government work". It's not the government's work, or the company's work, it's your work, whether you like it or not. It reflects on you: on your professionalism, on your competence, and on your dedication. Too often I've seen employees attempt to divorce themselves from their work and thus try to avoid taking responsibility for the quality of their product. On this subject, the late Admiral H.G. Rickover said:

Responsibility is a unique concept. It can only reside and inhere in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. Even if you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion or ignorance or passing the blame can pass the burden to someone else.

And:

When doing a job - any job - one must feel that he owns it, and act as though he will remain in that job forever. He must look after his work just as conscientiously, as though it were his own business and his own money. [...] Too many spend their entire working lives looking for the next job. When one feels he owns his present job and acts that way, he need have no concern about his next job.

I have yet to meet a satisfied employee whose work product was poor. Of course, I'm not saying that unhappy employees are necessarily unproductive since I've often seen good work come from otherwise dissatisfied employees. I will say, however, that those who hate their jobs and therefore try to justify doing poor work will never be happy, and that those who value the quality of their work have a better chance of eventually coming to tolerate (or even to enjoy) their job.

[from The Far Side by Gary Larson]

5. Job satisfaction takes personal effort
If you're waiting for your boss or the management to make you happy, then I can guarantee that you'll find disappointment in the future. If you think that a change in policy or an increase in pay will finally make your job worth the effort, then you're hopelessly self-deluded. I have yet to see a disgruntled employee become satisfied through the efforts of others. On the contrary, I have often seen managers go out of their way to improve employees' happiness only to be met with cynicism and ingratitude. You must decide to have a positive attitude. You have to work at it. You have to learn to stop whining and to start counting your blessings. It was only when I learned this lesson that things turned around for me. And from what I've seen in the lives of others around me, I think I can safely say that this principle extends beyond the workplace and into everyday life. The happiest people I know are not the ones with the least difficulties or challenges, they're the ones who have consciously decided to be happy.

Movie Review: Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)

As much as I love MST3K, it's not as fun to watch it alone. My wife just doesn't understand why anyone would deliberately watch a bad film and my mother (my usual b-movie partner) lives in another state and can't visit as much as we'd like. Fortunately for me I've been able to get Bryce (a.k.a., "B" in previous posts) into the show, although he has cursed my name on several occasions for recommending certain movies.

Despite evidence of my poor taste in movies, Bryce has agreed to watch several episodes of the show with me. I own every volume of MST3K ever released, so I don't lack in movies to subject him to. We play Warhammer 40,000 every couple weeks, so we chose an off-week to watch the truly wretched Hobgoblins and Space Mutiny back to back. The following week we were scheduled to play 40K with Jon and Carl, so I came over a few hours before the game so that Bryce and I could watch Gamera vs. Guiron from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 vs. Gamera collection (i.e., Volume XXI). All I can say is: Bryce, I'm very, very sorry I made you see that... but not sorry enough that I won't do it again.

For those who aren't familiar with Gamera, imagine a giant bipedal flying turtle with tusks. The Daiei Motion Picture Company's early Gamera movies were effectively cheap knock-offs of Toho's Godzilla films from the same era. Like Godzilla, Gamera's first appearance featured him as a city-stomping, nearly indestructible prehistoric monster of the sort that us kaiju fans love. In subsequent movies, which were geared more towards younger viewers, he became a friend of children (kaiju fans generally do not like it when their city-stomping monster is turned into a friend of children). By the time of Gamera vs. Guiron, Gamera is using his ridiculous flying ability, wherein he pulls his legs into his shell and the resulting cavities emit jets of flame, to rescue children who get themselves into interplanetary mischief.

Joel and the 'Bots riffed five Gamera movies during their third season, all of which appear in Volume XXI. I chose to inflict Gamera vs. Guiron on Bryce since I'm pretty sure that it was the first MST3K I actually sat down to watch and was the episode that got me hooked on the show.

Gamera would never pass California's emissions standards

Now on to the plot, such as it is. Two boys, Akio and a gaijin named Tom whose presence in Japan is never commented on, explore an empty spaceship that has inexplicably landed on earth. No, we never find out why the spaceship was here. Anyway, the boys are whisked away when they accidentally activate the ship. As the ship flies off into space on some sort of preset course, the boys are threatened by a meteor shower. Luckily for them, Gamera arrives and bats away the meteors. This scene had Bryce simultaneously laughing and groaning. The effects are horrible, the flying Gamera model looks incredibly cheap, and the jets of flame appear to be scorching the model's rubbery shell at several points.

The ship ends up outpacing Gamera, Friend of Children (*ugh*) and takes the boys to "Terra"; Earth's long lost twin. Terra and Earth share an orbit but are always on opposite sides of the sun (the "Counter-Earth" is a well-worn sci-fi notion). Once there we behold a vast model... er, a vast city that is occupied by only two women. Apparently Terra is a planet on the brink: it is slowly freezing over and is constantly under attack by giant monsters. The women fight back by unleashing the dreaded (*snicker*) GUIRON; an odd-looking monster whose distinguishing feature is the giant Ginsu knife protruding from its head. Although the monster's head appears to have been designed for a creature that stands upright, it spends most of its time on all fours. This gives one the impression that poor Guiron is constantly looking for a dropped contact lens.

Despite the unusual physiology, Guiron just isn't a particularly interesting monster. It's certainly not as cleverly designed as many of Godzilla's nemeses such as King Ghidorah or Gigan. Even the notoriously cheap Megalon costume put in a better showing than this abomination. On a humorous note, it would appear that the costume people put a lot of the budget into making Guiron's and Gamera's eyes moveable, with the result being countless loving closeups of thrilling eye-moving action!

He slices, he dices!

Although the Terran women play nice at first, it turns out that their real plans for the boys is to "eat their brains raw(!)" ("What, no sides?" responds Joel) and to travel to earth in the spaceship, leaving Terra behind. Unfortunately for the brain-eating duo, Gamera arrives to rescue the boys. Our favorite tusked turtle ends up fighting Guiron over a period of several disappointingly short scenes. For every minute of kaiju action we get two or three of watching idiot children trying to evade evil alien women. But on the plus side we get to enjoy some of the worst translation and dubbing I've ever encountered in a Japanese film. It's thanks to the ineptness of American distributors that I insist on watching subtitled Japanese edits of daikaiju films whenever possible. Yes, this means that I'm a snob with regards to movies that feature stuntmen dressed in rubber monster suits destroying models of Tokyo. And yes, I do understand how weird this seems to most people.

Anyway, Guiron is one of those giant monsters that the villains guide with some sort of mind-control device. Anyone who has ever seen a monster movie knows that the mind-control device will be damaged or deactivated at some point and the monster will "ironically" destroy its master(s) in the resulting rampage. (Oops, that should have been preceded by a spoiler warning.) In the end, one Terran woman kills the other (with very little motivation, it seems), Guiron chops the spaceship in half with the second alien inside (thus killing the entire native population of Terra, yay!), and Gamera kills Guiron with a little help from a missile launched by the boys (the first and only useful thing those kids do during the whole movie). Gamera is able to weld the spaceship together with its fiery breath(!) and the giant turtle returns the boys safely home.

Oh, and there was also a whole subplot about how the boys' mothers won't believe the claims of Akio's little sister that their sons were carried off in a spaceship, but that part of the story was dull and didn't have giant monsters in it, so I kind of forgot about it until just now.

"Gamera is really neat, Gamera is filled with meat..."

Not being a connoisseur of Japanese-made giant monster films, Bryce called Gamera vs. Guiron one of the five worst movies he'd ever seen. Apparently the shabby costumes, boring subplots, poor dubbing, and absurd storyline didn't add up to fine cinema in his opinion. Obviously the movie isn't good by any objective standard, but I'd have to say that it doesn't even make my list of the top 20 worst movies I've suffered through. Admittedly, having been a kaiju fan since childhood biases me a bit. Maybe next time I'll torment Bryce with Monster A-Go Go or The Creeping Terror to give him some perspective. That would make him revise his list, although he probably wouldn't let me pick the movies anymore.

C- [the mere presence of giant monsters will save almost any movie from a lower score]

Movie Review: The Violent Years (1956)

This Christmas I received Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volumes XXI and XXII. My mother and I have made it a tradition to watch at least one MST3K episode whenever my parents visit. On their first night in town we watched the awful Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and on their last night we watched the juvenile delinquent film The Violent Years (1956) written by Ed Wood.

The plot of The Violent Years is somewhat similar to I Accuse My Parents (1944), which was also an MST3K subject. In both films, a teenager ends up in a life of crime due to his or her parents' "neglect". Both films include lengthy (and I mean lengthy) lectures from a judge, with the majority of the action occurring as flashbacks.

I write "neglect" with quotation marks because neither set of parents is particularly bad, nor could you really say that they're at fault for what their offspring did. Young Jimmy Wilson's parents in I Accuse My Parents are often drunk and irresponsible, but they're never abusive. And Jimmy is actually a pretty good kid. His criminal activity mostly involves delivering and receiving packages for the owner of a nightclub where a girl he's trying to impress is the lead singer. Jimmy is never directly informed that their contents are illegal or ill-gotten. Jimmy doesn't even realize what is going on until near the end of the movie.

This situation is even more ludicrous in the case of The Violent Years' Paula Parkins. Paula's father is a newspaper chief and her mother is often busy with her charity work. For heaven's sake, dad is working like just about any other '50s father and mom is raising money for charity! How is this neglect? Paula is able to visit her father at the office and is given a warm welcome while mom usually seems to be around the house. Her parents obviously love her and are extremely generous. In fact, at one point Paula is given a blank check just in case the boy with whom Paula is about to go on date can't cover the evening's costs. Apparently her parents' worst offenses against her are that dad always gives her a new watch for her birthday that is often delivered by one of his reporters and mom always gets her a new car. Mike and the 'bots often remark on the truly "hellish life" Paula leads.

Unlike Jimmy, it turns out that Paula is a rotten apple from the start and is actually the leader of a gang of female hoodlums. Immediately after receiving the check and seeing mom out the door, Paula picks up the phone and arranges their next heist; the armed robbery of a gas station. Following the robbery, miscellaneous crimes ensue, including an attack on a man and his girlfriend. The girlfriend is left tied up with strips of her own dress (the girls need to learn better knot tying techniques since the girlfriend is able to escape within minutes) while the man is dragged into the forest and is further "attacked". Although this is an exploitation film, it was still released in 1956 and still had to get past the Hays Office. Thus, the nature of the attack is obvious but is never explicitly spelled out. However, it's not ruled out that Paula's "delicate condition" (I love '50s euphemisms) at the end of the film may be the result.

Although the gang is supposed to be the cause of a reign of terror, most of the film's running time is taken up with padding: the cops' inability to trace the robbers, Paula's use of her father's inside sources to discover where the police will be setting up traps for the gang, a pajama party, etc. All this time the film tries, and completely fails, to convince us that Paula became a criminal because of her parents. Her motivations seem to have less to do with uninvolved parents and more with thrill-seeking.

The climax of the film occurs when the woman to whom the girls sell their stolen goods gives them a job from a "foreign interest". Apparently this foreign interest is willing to pay a significant amount of money for the gang to vandalize a few schoolrooms. They are even told that they shouldn't go easy on any US flags they may find. This being the mid-fifties, it's pretty obvious that the unseen party is meant to be some sort of communist group. I'm not exactly fond of communism, but even I find it hilarious that the fact that the girls are willing to take a job from the Reds is meant to show that they have become truly irredeemable. It's also nonsensical. Why would communist infiltrators actually pay to have schoolrooms vandalized? The girls' contact is a small time fence that buys any jewelry they steal; why would she even have communist contacts? It goes without saying that the mystery commies are never heard from again.

The extremely tame trashing of the schoolroom includes knocking over chairs, throwing a globe out a window, throwing books on the floor, and *gasp* erasing the chalkboard (fiends!). I assume that the film's budget could only afford two panes of candy glass for the girls to break. Just as one of them goes to lay her hands on Old Glory, the cops arrive. The gang starts a shootout with the cops (over vandalism?), which results in the deaths of a cop and two of the girls. (Raise your hand if you knew that the girl who was about to destroy the flag was the first to get shot.) [Correction: on a second viewing of the movie, I realized that the one who was going to damage the flag was the second one to be shot. The first was the one that hated school.] The Violent Years taught me that you can take a fatal blast to the gut from a shotgun without getting any blood on your white shirt.

Paula and the other surviving gang member make a break for their contact's house. The contact is horrified that the girls killed a cop and threatens to call the police... with very predictable results. Eventually Paula and the other girl end up in another car chase, they crash into a storefront window, and the other girl is killed. Paula is treated for her wounds, after which she is tried for her crimes and is sentenced to life in prison. A short while later, Paula's parents visit her in the prison hospital where she cries that she doesn't want her child to be born in a place like that. Once she comes due, she gives birth to a healthy baby girl. Since this is a 1950s exploitation movie, the audience has to see that Paula gets her just desserts; she dies during childbirth for no apparent reason.

It is at this point that, with no small measure of despair, the viewer notices that there are still about 10 minutes or so left in the movie/MST3K episode. Now The Violent Years is not a long movie. According to IMDB, the film originally ran for about 65 minutes. The MST3K episode had to include the short A Young Man's Fancy (1952) just to meet the usual episode running time. That means that the film is about to end with a glut of padding that represents nearly 15 to 20% of the film's total length. This is pretty common in b-movies where the filmmakers were forced to insert last minute material into their movies to get them up to the 60+ minute running time that was typical for feature length films of the period.

In a monologue that could only have been written by Ed Wood, the judge denies the right of Paula's parents to take custody of her orphaned daughter, relegating her to a state home instead. The judge lectures the parents in a long and rambling discourse on parental responsibility, the importance of religion, and the need to discipline one's children (which includes the use of the "old fashioned woodshed"!). During this scene, the viewer is subjected to a montage of stock footage as well as highlights from all the gang's crimes (the aforementioned attack on the man and his girlfriend is given extra attention here). I hadn't noticed how much padding was spread throughout the film until the movie itself showed that all its exciting scenes could be compressed into a five minute time span. Only Mike and the 'bots make the movie bearable.
D+