Several months ago I made a very deliberate decision to avoid the news in general and politics in specific. It isn’t that those things aren’t important, but that my obsessions with them were driving me crazy. I would spend entirely too much time debating politics on Facebook and Google+ and any of the various other social sites out there. I’d pace the house in a fury coming up with just the right wordage to put my opponent in his place. I’d Google for hours making sure all my points and beliefs were just exactly perfectly correct. I’d get mad, I’d get pissed, I’d keep myself up all hours of the nigh stewing over gay rights and abortion and whether or not Obama golfs too much.
I had to stop. It was all too much. Since then I’ve tried to avoid the normal political sites, and I’ve defriended a lot of folks who post political rants with regularity. I now engulf myself in music and film and books and anything else that brings me joy. I must say it is a much happier existence for myself.
And now here’s the part where I ignore the above paragraphs and pick something this week that is highly political. The House I Live In is a documentary about America’s Drug War. Or rather, it is about how America’s War on Drugs is a complete and total failure. We have thrown away billions of dollars and jailed countless thousands of people over the last several decades on a war we simply cannot win. The drugs are still out there; they are being sold and bought and used more than ever. It isn’t that drugs aren’t dangerous and harmful to individuals and society at large, but mass incarceration is not the way to stop it.
Ok, end rant. I’ve not seen The House I Live In but the reviews have been very good and it features David Simon a great deal and I’ve never been disappointed in anything he’s ever been involved with. Which is why it gets my Pick of the Week seal of approval.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis: The Complete Series: I used to watch this show as a kid when the reruns ran on Nick at Night or wherever. I mainly remember it as the show where Gilligan played a beatnik. Also that I didn’t like it that much but that my uncle loved it.
6 Souls: A thriller starring Julianne Moore and Johnathan Rhys Meyers. The plot involves Meyers with multiple personality disorder with his personalities taking the form of murder victims. Normally, I’d not mention a movie like that, but this week is dry and I needed to fill a little more space.
That’s it for this week. There is literally nothing else coming out that looks slightly interesting to me.
