I saw Sicko yesterday. I cried through a lot of it, partly because of hormones and partly because I have lost my steel-hearted immunity to any true story about loved ones getting sick or dying. Give me a story about someone who's been killed and my eyes will stay dry. I guess I'm still under the illusion that my loved ones are safe from the more dramatic kinds of death. May I never be disillusioned.

Anyway, it's a good movie for stirring up some bewildered anger and some desperate longing. Quick, I have to get to France NOW. But really, I don't want to go to France. I want things to be fixed here. I just fear that it's all too late. We've become too hardened against the poor, too enamored of the dream of wild amounts of wealth. I wonder if there is a cure for our selfishness other than the complete collapse of our economy and our environment.

I guess, we're all going to have to get better at self-surgery. Here's a story about an apparently sane man who decided to remove the steel plate from his ankle in the bathroom of his home, down the hall from where Mom was sleeping. He was not successful.