Can the government be trusted? In "The Crazies," the answer is "no"

In the case of this year's remake of George Romero's 1973 film "The Crazies," the message is simple: the government wasn't trustworthy then, and it isn't trustworthy now.
Both films focus on the after-affects of the accidental release of a government chemical weapon on a small American town. The weapon, designed to destabilize large population groups, does exactly what it is designed to do, and soon, chaos ensues. A military quarantine is called, and soon, troops in bio suits are randomly killing infected (and in 2010's remake) non-infected civilians in an effort to keep order. One of the story's central themes is distrust of the government, but the new remake takes that and adds a different twist through the use of characters and situations we've seen more recent "social collapse" films, like "28 Days Later" and "I Am Legend." The results of this experiment are mixed.
One of "The Crazies" strongest assets is its story line. It's perhaps not a stretch to imagine that the government WOULD order a quarantine/culling to ensure the maintenance of the prevailing social order. The original tapped into this fear by focusing almost exclusively on the heavy-handedness of the military response, as evidenced in a scene where soldiers in bio suits turn flamethrowers on infected civilians (known as "Crazies") to a stirring score of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." Part of what made the original so disturbing was the reversal of every day logic and situations, like a scene where a normal-looking elderly woman attacks a soldier using her sewing needles. It was effective because it was the everyday turned upside down.
Unfortunately, the remake is a bit heavy-handed in its own attempts to scare us. The infected civilians in the remake eventually morph not into normal-looking insane people (which made the original version more disturbing) but into blood-spattered zombies. By the end of the film, one of the last infected people we see almost has what looks like green skin and scales. So are these people the living dead? Or just crazy? We're never quite sure. This inconsistency, combined with cheap "quiet/loud, jump out of a quiet corner" scenes, comes off as an over-the-top attempt to disturb the viewers. It doesn't quite work as a thriller, but it has too much of a story to be the B-rate horror it aspires to.
I couldn't help but notice several cultural differences as well. In the original version, written during Vietnam, all of the soldiers are portrayed as faceless killing machines. In the updated version, there is a scene when one of the soldiers is captured by uninfected survivors, and revealed to be a whimpering, double-chinned teenager under all of the bio gear. He promises not to tell about the survivors if he is let go, and, in the end, keeps his word. It's perhaps emblematic of the nuanced anti-war sentiments that developed in the wake of Vietnam. Unlike then, people today from all political spectrums seem to agree (or at least pay lip service) to the idea of supporting the troops even if they are against the war.
The remake, much like the original, attempts to tap into the anger people have (for different reasons) against the United States government. One scene in the remake seems to speak directly to this theory. A government official is captured after the uninfected survivors cause his car to crash. He acts haughty, and asks the sheriff, "What do you want? An apology?" It unsubtly speaks directly towards the anger people have against the government hubris that lead to the film's catastrophic consequences (and the real-life government's bailouts and spending in the midst of dire job forecasts). Government, in both films, is the main hindrance to a truly humanistic response. An example: the sheriff figures out that the water supply of the town is tainted with the chemical, and the mayor (who seemed to be chosen based on how he would look as "an infected") stares up at him from his swimming pool (subtle) and says he can't shut the water off on a hunch. The sheriff ends up doing it anyway, but by that point, it is too late.
After some (spoiler alert) really impressive nuclear special effects, the film ends with the two main characters walking towards Cedar Rapids, which, unknown to them, has been selected for the same kind of quarantine they just escaped from.
While I enjoyed the remake of "The Crazies," I think the original was superior, even if its production values were far less, because it relied on the story more. It was a simple fable about how easy it is to disrupt the fabric of every day living, and how the impersonal bureaucracy we think we can turn to for help can sometimes turn out to be worse than the problems we are running from. Ruling structures, these films remind us, will do what benefits the status quo, and if everyone benefits, great. If not, there is plenty of fuel in the flamethrower tank to wipe away any discontent. It is a valid warning now just as it was then.

‘Time’ now is different than ‘time’ then – isn’t it?

Part of growing up is realizing that some things get better with time (“Caddyshack”) and some things get worse (“Porky’s”). But lately, the nature of time itself seems to be changing for me.
I remember very distinctly how slow the days once passed. The summers of 1993 and 1994 were, according to me at least, the slowest times ever recorded in the history of the planet. Minutes would languidly crawl by under the glare of a hot July sun, trailed by the still-distant vulture of an approaching school year. It was this same kind of boredom that I’m convinced wiped out the dinosaurs.
I pictured myself aging like Rip van Winkle – spending each passing day waiting for something, anything, to happen. The coming school year was a welcome break, if not exactly a blessed release.
Nearly 20 years later, I find that entire years have gone by before I’ve realized it (2009? Where are you?). I’m still trying to figure out how my wife and I can sit down on Monday nights (if there are no meetings for me to attend), turn to each other and say, “Didn’t we just watch ‘Big Bang Theory’ yesterday?" No. Sadly, it was a week ago – when we asked ourselves the exact same question.
So why is it that time itself seems to pass faster as we age? A recent story on National Public Radio asked the same question. Scientists have many theories on the subject, including one focusing on how the brain records experiences. Part of this is common sense – for example, you wouldn’t remember driving somewhere the fourth or fifth time as much as you would the first. It is simply routine by that point.
“The brain records new experiences – especially novel and exciting experiences – differently,” the article (available NPR.org) states. “This is even measurable. [Neuroscientist David Eagleman’s] lab has found that brains use more energy to represent a memory when the memory is novel. So, first memories are dense. The routines of later life are sketchy. The past wasn’t really slower than the present. It just feels that way.”
It sure does. There is much in an adult life that is routine and unmemorable: getting dressed in the morning, driving the same routes to work day in and day out, having the same types of lunches in the same boring break room, picking up children at daycare, making dinner and then collapsing into a heap on the couch wondering where the day went. Yes, that sounds about right.
I’ve had a few friends tell me they have only recently started to notice that something they considered "relatively recent" (like Kurt Cobain being alive) turned out to have happened 14 or 17 years ago. A friend and I were talking about this concept not long ago.
“It sucks getting old, and I feel like I’m too young to be saying that,” he said.
“Be patient,” I replied. “It’s our first time.”
Life, I’m told, moves in stages. Growing older is just a means to that end. I take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in feeling that the very measurement of life itself seems to be moving at a faster pace.
Maybe too much time seems to have passed because I am at another formative point in life where the otherwise-routine nature of existence is starting to change through new and different experiences (hearing Evelyn say “Daddy,” trying new things like volunteering with the Commemorative Air Force) thus creating “denser” memories and an impression of life lived at a slower pace.
Maybe it’s an elegant way to remind me that I need to stop and smell the roses.

‘Time’ now is different than ‘time’ then – isn’t it?

Part of growing up is realizing that some things get better with time (“Caddyshack”) and some things get worse (“Porky’s”). But lately, the nature of time itself seems to be changing for me.

I remember very distinctly how slow the days once passed. The summers of 1993 and 1994 were, according to me at least, the slowest times ever recorded in the history of the planet. Minutes would languidly crawl by under the glare of a hot July sun, trailed by the still-distant vulture of an approaching school year. It was this same kind of boredom that I’m convinced wiped out the dinosaurs.

I pictured myself aging like Rip van Winkle – spending each passing day waiting for something, anything, to happen. The coming school year was a welcome break, if not exactly a blessed release.

Nearly 20 years later, I find that entire years have gone by before I’ve realized it (2009? Where are you?). I’m still trying to figure out how my wife and I can sit down on Monday nights (if there are no meetings for me to attend), turn to each other and say, “Didn’t we just watch ‘Big Bang Theory’ yesterday?" No. Sadly, it was a week ago – when we asked ourselves the exact same question.

So why is it that time itself seems to pass faster as we age? A recent story on National Public Radio asked the same question. Scientists have many theories on the subject, including one focusing on how the brain records experiences. Part of this is common sense – for example, you wouldn’t remember driving somewhere the fourth or fifth time as much as you would the first. It is simply routine by that point.

“The brain records new experiences – especially novel and exciting experiences – differently,” the article (available NPR.org) states. “This is even measurable. [Neuroscientist David Eagleman’s] lab has found that brains use more energy to represent a memory when the memory is novel. So, first memories are dense. The routines of later life are sketchy. The past wasn’t really slower than the present. It just feels that way.”

It sure does. There is much in an adult life that is routine and unmemorable: getting dressed in the morning, driving the same routes to work day in and day out, having the same types of lunches in the same boring break room, picking up children at daycare, making dinner and then collapsing into a heap on the couch wondering where the day went. Yes, that sounds about right.

I’ve had a few friends tell me they have only recently started to notice that something they considered "relatively recent" (like Kurt Cobain being alive) turned out to have happened 14 or 17 years ago. A friend and I were talking about this concept not long ago.

“It sucks getting old, and I feel like I’m too young to be saying that,” he said.

“Be patient,” I replied. “It’s our first time.”

Life, I’m told, moves in stages. Growing older is just a means to that end. I take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in feeling that the very measurement of life itself seems to be moving at a faster pace.

Maybe too much time seems to have passed because I am at another formative point in life where the otherwise-routine nature of existence is starting to change through new and different experiences (hearing Evelyn say “Daddy,” trying new things like volunteering with the Commemorative Air Force) thus creating “denser” memories and an impression of life lived at a slower pace.

Maybe it’s an elegant way to remind me that I need to stop and smell the roses.

The Ballad of Joe Stack

The similarities are there: taking control over an airplane that isn't yours and flying it over civilian territory before crashing it into a building filled with civilians. But one of these incidents represents, in most people's minds, one of the worst days in America's history. The other, which happened only recently, is spawning American-made Facebook fan pages and approving Twitter posts.
What is happening here?
When Joseph Stack crashed a single-engined plane into an IRS office in Austin last week, one of my immediate fears was that both the man and the act would become twisted into some sort of mythic folk-hero status about standing up against perceived tyranny. Nearly a week later, the New York Daily News is reporting that there was a Facebook fan page (since deleted) with quotes like, "Finally an American man took a stand against our tyrannical government that no longer follows the Constitution," and Twitter posts praising Stack's action, including this one: "Joe Stack, you are a true American Hero and we need more of you to make a stand."
So how come there is such a vast gap between the horrors of 9/11 and Stack's last flight? I don't think we'd see any Americans praising Mohammed Atta on Facebook, so why does Stack get a page?
It reminds me of the aphorism "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." While I don't agree with much of what Stack wrote in his rambling six-page suicide note, I can understand his frustration facing what he felt was a monolithic wall preventing him from succeeding. I understand the pain he felt when he wrote about being unable to find work. I understand when he railed against the perceived injustices of the United States tax code, and how needlessly complicated it could be. But that's where I draw the line.
I'm afraid this is just the beginning for the myth-making regarding Stack's last flight. I fear that, in some circles, his example could be used to inspire others. It's a reminder to me that the same type of seething hatred of the federal government that inspired the homegrown militia movement in the 1980s and 1990s didn't fade away in the wake of 9/11. It merely laid low until the time was right, and, with the election of Barack Obama, has come back. We've seen the Barack/Joker "Socialism" posters and the town hall meeting shout-downs last summer. There is obvious anger towards our government, which I can empathize with to an extent. I get the distinct impression that Stack's action would have been met with something different in some of these circles than the wave of repugnance that the average American citizen probably felt at the thought of a man deliberately crashing an airplane into a building full of American citizens.
What I don't understand is how anyone could fully justify Stack's action as one of patriotism. While no one likes the IRS, they perform an essential function in collecting the revenue the government uses to maintain the physical infrastructure of the roads we drive on, the police and fire departments that keep us safe and the very armed forces that maintain our dominant status in the world. If it weren't them, it would be someone else doing the same job. While I empathize with those who find tremendous difficulty navigating through the tax code and the perceived notion that tax money pays people to be lazy, I don't believe this in any way is a justified reason to crash an airplane into a building full of people working for the organization.
Bottom line: if a foreign citizen crashed an airplane into an American building, there would be no doubt in people's minds that it was a terrorist attack. Get a white American male behind the control column, and the lines apparently begin to blur.
"But Stack was just angry at the government and he wanted to make a point," I imagine one of his defenders saying. Maybe. But on 9/11, Osama bin Laden wanted to make a point. He wanted to show his extreme displeasure with the United States by crashing four airplanes into two buildings. On Feb. 18, Joseph Stack wanted to make a point by crashing one airplane into one building. No matter how you look at it, it is still a person/persons crashing airplanes into buildings with civilians, despite the ideological basis or scale of impact. So why is one detested and one revered?
Perhaps "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."

The "Biggest Loser[s]?" All of us.

The more I look at it, the more one of TV’s more popular shows raises issues that go more than skin deep.
NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” is a game show that takes obese contestants away to a health ranch and rewards the person who loses the highest percentage of weight with $250,000. During this time, contestants are shown how to work out and eat a healthy diet. While I applaud the thought of an out-of-control person taking the courageous step to change their lives, I think “Loser” shortchanges both them and us, and here is why.
The scenario, while appearing ideal, is far from it. Weight gain happens over time. As someone who used to be 230 pounds, I can tell you that such a thing doesn’t happen overnight. The habits that created the situation are also complex, and go beyond mere intake of food. For many people (myself included) food is more than mere sustenance – it is a reward, an indulgence, a painkiller. I imagine that many of the people on the show have the same issue. So how is it healthy to merely help them lose weight and not address the underlying issues? It’s akin to having someone shoot themselves only to have a doctor stop the bleeding and let them out of the hospital. In the end, the old habits come back, as we’ve seen with former winners who gained all of their weight back when they return to the non-structured environment of the real world.
The real world isn’t like the highly-structured environment on the ranch. The ranch wouldn’t feature brownies in the break room during a highly-stressful day at the office. The ranch wouldn’t feature friends or family whom, not understanding you goals, gently cajole you into eating pizza. In the end, any sustainable weight loss program comes from within, not from a ranch with two health trainers encouraging you to spend a few more minutes running on the treadmill while your 400-pound bulk hits the footpads (does this strike anyone else as a really, really bad idea? Shouldn’t they walk?)
I’m not the only person to question the healthiness of the show’s sometimes-amazing weight loss (as high as 15 pounds in a week). A New York Times article in November 2009: ‘Kai Hibbard, the runner-up from the third season, has "written on her MySpace blog and elsewhere that she and other contestants would drink as little water as possible in the 24 hours before a weigh-in" and would "work out in as much clothing as possible" when the cameras were off. Two weeks after the show ended, Hibbard had gained about 31 pounds, mostly from staying hydrated.’ Also in the same article, Dr. Charles Burant, director of the Michigan Metabolomics and Obesity Center, was quoted as saying he was waiting for the “first person to have a heart attack.” I can’t disagree.
The popularity of this show also makes me wonder what TV audiences have become. It used to be that audiences were treated to some somewhat intelligent programs, like “Cheers,” Seinfeld,” “MASH,” etc. Now, one of the most popular shows on television focus on watching morbidly obese people putting their lives at risk for weight loss and a financial reward? It sounds sadistic to me. Do we have nothing better to do on Sunday nights but watch people who shouldn’t be engaging in heavy exercise in the first place cry into cameras about how hard things are? Do I really want to see people collapse under the strain of physical exercise they shouldn’t be doing in the first place? Pure freudenshade.
Also, in an age where one in three adults in the United States is considered obese (sciencedaily.com), NBC has obviously found a show that taps into the cultural zeitgeist. While one could make the argument that “Loser” could serve as an inspiration for people to lose weight (I don’t deny it could happen), I could also see the opposite happening. I could see someone saying, “If only I had a few weeks/months at the ranch, I could really do some good. But I don’t, so, well, I won’t bother trying.” Again, sustainable real-life weight loss doesn’t happen in a matter of 10 TV episodes. It happens over a much longer period of time, and only when some of the issues that caused the problem in the first place are taken care of. But “Loser” doesn’t address this. Instead, contestants work out six hours a day and eat a closely-monitored food regimen – something nearly impossible to do or sustain in the real world.
I applaud anyone who tries to take control of a weight problem through healthy means. But “Loser” doesn’t strike me as something very healthy. It strikes me as a game show masquerading as some sort of holy quest to help people who have let themselves go. If contestants are able to use this to jump-start a healthier life, more power to them. But from what I’ve seen of past winners on this show, the results are fleeting (Erik Chopin, Ryan Johnson).
We should be careful not to confuse health with entertainment.

Therapeutic throwing: Lakeville man credits part of stroke recovery to pottery classes

By Joseph Palmersheim - Sun Newspapers

Published: Thursday, February 18, 2010 3:19 PM CST

Don Krukow, a Lakeville resident who survived a stroke in 2006, never thought he'd be able to live an active life after his life changed so suddenly at 2:30 a.m. on an otherwise ordinary March day.

"I remember going up the stairs, and I just fell down," he said. "My eyes were open, but I couldn't speak. I had no feelings in my right or left arm. And that's all I knew."

Krukow, a PhD who had spent a 30-year career with the Minnesota Department of Education and spoke five languages, faced the prospect of learning how to read and write again. The stroke also affected his hands.

He's been able to recover much of the feeling and strength in both with exercises - and nearly a year of pottery classes at the Lakeville Area Arts Center. He and Jo Anne Andres of Lakeville, an Arts Center pottery instructor, will speak about the therapeutic uses of pottery 1 p.m. Monday, March 2, at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park.

"When Don came in a year ago, he was a little tentative," Andres said. "It was about two weeks after we first met. I was really excited for him to come in. His dexterity has improved a lot. When he first came in, he was sticking his fingers through the first pots he made when he took them off the boards for drying. Since then, he's been very successful, and his pottery has become much more proficient."

As he kneads a lump of clay, Krukow elaborates on how pottery improved his life in addition to his dexterity.

"I thought my life was over," he says. "I thought all I had to do was watch life on TV, until I came here. This is such a great place."

He looks over at Troy Dahnke of Forrest Lake, another stroke survivor who also throws pots at the Arts Center.

"It's amazing what we've done," Krukow muses, smiling.

As he seats himself at an electric wheel, Krukow begins to wrangle the uneven clay into a smooth, even shape, occasionally dripping water over the surface to keep friction to a minimum. His foot controls the electric motor that spins the wheel

"Having it centered before you start opening [it] is real important," Andres says, referring to the metaphorical blooming process that raises walls out of what minutes before was a spinning lump of clay. "You can't be distracted by other things. You have to be concentrating on the clay. You have to be centered yourself. Now, you can see the clay has settled, and Don has gone into his 'Zen state.'"

As Krukow makes a hole in the center of the spinning mass, he begins to raise the outer edges, and with each pass of his rising hands, the walls of the bowl become more defined.
"I felt very thankful when I made my first pot," he said. "I felt I could do nothing anymore. When I could [do this], well, damn it, I was happy."

A few minutes later, the bowl is roughly half a foot high, with the outline shape of an upside down lampshade.

"I think this one will be white, and dark blue," Krukow says, easing his foot off of the wheel pedal and allowing his latest creation to spin to a halt.

"I think pottery is about learning to use your hands in a balanced way," Andres said. "You have to use your hands pretty evenly. As a stroke survivor, I'm guessing he used his weaker hand less than his stronger hand, and he's been able to use both of them and get good balance. It's the fine motions, dexterity at the fingertips. I'm thrilled for him - and he wants me to work with more stroke people, and build their confidence."

Andres said she and Krukow were in the early stages of planning pottery classes specifically for stroke survivors. For more information on Krukow's upcoming speaking engagement, call 952-993-6789 or e-mail strokeinspire@parknicollet.com.

History underneath my fingernails

As I scrubbed the dripping de-greaser from the B-25’s left wheel well, I was struck by the notion that making models of the same aircraft as a child never included so many stinging dings on my hands from the unsoftened edges of pre-1940s metalwork.

I recently began volunteering with the Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing. It is based in a World War II-era hangar at Fleming Field in South St. Paul, and houses several vintage aircraft amidst a rather extensive museum collection of uniforms, equipment, and other historical bits and pieces. I’d daydreamed about becoming involved with the group for years, but made the plunge this year after one too many weekends at dance competitions.

What I’ve experienced so far has been eye-opening. I have built model airplanes since I was 7 years old, and thought I knew my way around a B-17 nose compartment or a P-51 cockpit. Models, being as small as they are, greatly simplify everything as a matter of economy. For example, a cockpit in a model kit, depending on the scale, could consist of a floor, and instrument panel, two control columns and two seats. In the real thing, it’s slightly different.

On my first day at Fleming, I was able to crawl around the inside of “Miss Mitchell,” a B-25J medium bomber, a type most famously associated with “The Doolittle Raid” on mainland Japan in April 1942. It was my first time inside of one of the aircraft I thought I knew so well. That familiarity ended the moment I crawled through the too-small floor hatch and into the dark insides of the aircraft. There is no way to convey the cramped, everything-on-top-of-the-other sense of claustaphobia I felt in that cockpit.

When I sat in the pilot’s seat and stared through the Plexiglas canopy, I remarked that the entire pilots’ area was about as big as the two front seats in the old Chevrolet Cavalier I used to drive. It’s something that has to be felt to be understood. I couldn’t even fit into the top turret, having shoulders that are apparently wider than those of the flight engineers who manned the same guns in combat 65 years ago. Later, I thought I was going to get stuck in the tunnel connecting the cockpit to the bombardier’s expansively windowed compartment at the front of the plane.

When I popped out of the same belly hatch I’d crawled into minutes before, I felt as though I’d been doing contortions. These machines were not designed with comfort in mind. They were designed for one purpose – to deliver a payload on an enemy target. If your feet didn’t go numb during the ride, so much the better. Part of me wonders how this people from today’s relatively soft “Sleep Number bed” society would handle the unforgiving nature of this design philosophy if it were inflicted on them today. They’d probably talk to their therapists, and then sue.

Another thing I’ve learned: these machines may be old, but they are astoundingly complex. I was amazed at how many parts were inside the wheel well I was cleaning, and how many of them had to work together to accomplish a specific task. It’s not just the big things, either – the little things are impressive, too. During my first visit, someone showed me some rust-encrusted gun sights that had been pulled from a wreck of a B-25 that had crashed in a lake years before.

The sights, which I’d never seen before, used a system of mirrors and lights to reflect the target and help the gunner more accurately aim. It was something so tactile and clever that I couldn’t help but be amazed. Many of the relics at Fleming fall into the same boat. Things from that era are still impressively engineered and well made, and I respect the creators all the more because they designed these things with slide rules and pencils.

I came home with part of history underneath my fingernails last Saturday after cleaning out that wheel well. When I got home, I looked at the stack of un-built model kits in the basement that await my time and patience, and found them somehow lacking in comparison to what I’d just done. For years, I’d only tasted pale imitations of the historical machines I’d admired from a distance. Now, I’m getting my hands dirty, and it feels great.