Irritation and Missing the Point

This past week has been the most awful week in my life. I may write about the things I heard and saw at some point in time (and I should do it while the memory is still fairly fresh) but I'd like to complain about an article I read in the Washington Post instead, because it will make me feel better.

It was an article about cutting down the hours for residents and interns in hospitals. Administrators don't like it, older doctors don't like it, no on likes it except for the interns and residents because it means they don't have to work as many hours. The older doctors say the millenials are lazy, too focused on having a life outside of medicine. The administrators (one of whom quoted Malcolm Gladwell) said that people need 10,000 hours to learn something and with the hours of interns and residents being cut, they would not be learning. The interns and residents say they like working more normal hours and seeing their families.

People, are we missing the point? Here's the point: these rules were put into place because once a person has gone 24 hours without sleep, they are the equivalent of being legally drunk. Seriously, would you want to see a doctor who had been on his or her feet for the last 24 hours? Really? These laws were put into place exactly to avoid that because interns and residents who worked so many hours in a row were making mistakes. It's not a matter of learning or of following a patient for hours on end (another argument of the pro-120 hours per-week crowd), it's a matter of a doctor seeing a patient who has had enough rest to make an intelligent diagnosis. Please don't say they have to work 120 hours a week or they won't learn or saying they're lazy and entitled because they don't want to do it. Look at the reason behind why these guidelines were put into place and comment on that. The Post article got absolutely no other point of view as to why this was happening and never even asked the administrator about sleep-deprivation in interns and residents and whether it affected their judgement. It was all "Oh no, they don't want to work 120 hours a week, those lazy kids. How will they ever learn?". Maybe if the hospital got hit with a multi-million dollar lawsuit because a resident make a poor decision because they had been awake for the past 2 days they would change their tune-and the Post would ask a few more questions.

Eraserhead and The Ghost Writer

But first a shout-out to The Hurt Locker, which I said back in July was the best movie of the year. Yay! And Bigelow won for an action movie, not some chick flick! And Jeff Bridges! All good.

It's hard to compare and contrast The Ghost Writer and Eraserhead-it's not comparing apples and oranges, it's comparing apples and that weird food I saw in the East Berlin grocery stores, back when it was East Berlin. None of my classmates nor I could identify it, even we could read the labels perfectly well-it was mystery food. Or it's like an Art History test I had once, where we had to compare something by Jackson Pollock to Rubens "The Lion Hunt". Yes, the medium is the same but...

It's hard to call Eraserhead a movie. Not much happens, it's more a series of grotesque scenes and events. From cutting into the cooked chicken that bleeds to the little woman who lives in the radiator and sings every night, all is weird, and beautiful, in it's own way. You have to take this movie on it's own terms, because anything you bring to it will have no relevance. It looks amazing-more like art than a movie. But really, if you recommend it to friends with no warning, they will never take your recommendations seriously again.

The Ghost Writer, comparatively speaking, is extremely conventional. A ghost writer is hired to do the memoirs of the former British Prime Minister, the first one having drowned off the coast of Nantucket. What he discovers is the plot of the movie-and by the time we reach it, it's not a huge surprise. But oh the journey! It's clear from the very beginning that we are in the hands of a master director. It's beautifully shot, the cinematography is gorgeous (all icy cold colors, there is no warmth in this movie) and a story that makes you wonder about the falling-out the writer had with Tony Blair and his wife Cheri-they can't be friends anymore after this.

This movie hits every beat, note perfect. The air of menace that permeates everything-you do wonder if there's a reason for it, and as it turns out, there is a very good reason for it.

Ewan McGregor is fantastic-bemused as to why he's doing this (for the money) and even though he's not an investigative reporter, he finds himself drawn into a mystery. I've never thought much of Pierce Brosnan as actor-yes, he looks great but as an actor...but I have to give him credit here because he does a great job as the former PM, hurt by the insults and determined to redeem himself. Kim Cattrall is fine-her accent slips a bit but she's mostly good and Olivia Williams is terrific as the jilted spouse putting up with her husband-or is there more to the story? Of course there is, and Roman Polanski is a master at getting the most out of it.

Fashion in DC, or Why is Desiree Rodgers Leaving?

I've been waiting for Robin Givhan's take on the Desiree Rogers departure ever since I heard the news last week-and I have to sayI was disppointed in her column about it. She seems to believe that you can't wear straight-from-the-runway coutoure and succeed to DC-that this city is still full of badly-dressed people who run the world. While it is true the DC is full of people who still believe you can't dress well and still be smart and competent, that has changed a bit-but Desiree Rodgers just set back the cause for dressing well in DC by 10 years. And why is that? Well, she committed two cardinal sins:

1) She didn't do her job and
2) She outshone her bosses

Did she do her job? When it came down to crunch time, no, she did not . Despite the Secret Service taking the blame for letting in people to a State Dinner that did not have invitations, everyone knows it was Rogers' office who was at fault. Were there people checking names at the door? No, there were not. Was there a master list? No, not really. And where was the person responsible? Was she running the party? No, she was seated at the dinner in her Commes des Garcons dress. My point here is that the person running this sort of party should not be seated there-who should her underlings ask if something goes wrong? I guess they should just deal with it themselves, because they can't go up and ask her. Anna Wintour has people who run her parties, so she can sit there and look great-that's what Ms Rogers wanted, to sit there and look great and let someone else run the party-unfortunately, it was her job to take responsibility for it.
But I think outshining her bosses is an even more egregious sin. Did she forget that she worked for the President of the United States and the First Lady? Otherwise why on earth would you wear a dress that had been shone on the runway literally a few weeks before this dinner and was designed to be an attention getter? The issue with the dress is that, if you're paying attention, you can see how fashion-forward it is-it's NOT your typical state dinner lovely dress (that would be Michelle Obama's Naeen Khan dress). No, Rogers' dress was designed to say "Look what I'm wearing and how fashionable I am-I KNOW the fashion world", while Michelle Obama's dress said beautiful and elegant State Dinner dress. There may be places where outshining your boss is okay, but at a State Dinner and your bosses are the President and First Lady, is not one of them.
And all would (probably) have been forgiven if the dinner had run smoothly-but it did not. There were gate-crashers who got to meet the President-so instead of talking about how well everything went, all anyone could talk were the mistakes-not what anyone wanted, least of all the President and First Lady.