“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model,” he said. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
Her younger sister, J., was glamorous and a little forbidding, but D. was warm and she asked questions and listened to the answers, and even my teenaged snot-self could see that it was not a bad thing that my older cousin was soft and caring. We both loved animals, could always talk about animals.
I didn’t see her much: the occasional Sundays and my grandma’s, and, later, she and her husband would always at least stop by for the holidays; I’d sometimes see her at her job at the mall. Always, again, still warm, still kind. A little sad, maybe, but not crushingly so. She had a weakness for the weak, so it made sense that her kindness could also make her sad.
And it has again, or so I’d guess. I just found out that her house had been condemned, and that she was taken into custody for hoarding. Forty cats, 5? 7? dogs, a number of birds. The place smelled so bad passersby complained to the police. My parents told me so many of the cats were sick, emaciated; they probably had to be put down.
It was on the news, my mom said. It was really upsetting, to see those cats like that. She worked at a vet’s office, and these cats had ear infections, eye infections—she couldn’t get them treated? But then again, that was probably where the problem began, she reasoned. People probably brought in animals they wanted to get rid of and D. took them in.
And it got to be too much, I nodded. She wanted to save them, thought she could save them, and when she couldn’t take care of them she wasn’t able to ask for help.
I feel so bad for those animals; I feel so bad for D.
Not as a guilty pleasure, not ironically, not contrari-wise. And no, not (just) because of this guy:
Devoe, Tom Devoe.
Or my general attraction to tormented Eastern Europeans:
Marcel Iureş , as Dušan Gavrić , the man who'd bring the Bosnian war to the US
Nope. I love The Peacemaker because it takes bureaucracy seriously.
Seriously.
Now, no, this is not a documentary and all the usual suspensions of belief—getting information at the last minute, getting out of the car/truck/church just before it goes up in flames/falls off a bridge/explodes—apply, as do the usual tropes of the roguish operative who clashes with the beautiful and smarter-than-he-is woman. It’s a combo spy-action flick, not Godard.
But unlike so many spy-action flicks, the hero and heroine (a likably brittle Nicole Kidman as Dr. Julia Kelly) work for and more importantly within agencies. She’s a part of the Executive Office of the President, thrown into the interim position as adviser to the president on nuclear issues; he’s a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Special Forces, and while both rely upon their wits and experience as they try to prevent 9 Russian nukes from ending up on the open market, their authority is clearly drawn from the positions they hold within their respective agencies.
Kelly discovers that the alleged accidental nuclear explosion was deliberate by looking at spy satellite photos provided by the NSA. Devoe gets information on the corrupt Russian officer from his contacts within government. They fly to Europe on a jet filled with staffers, and Devoe acts on the information he and Kelly find by calling the army and setting up a special op (which he commands, natch).
And then the crucial scene, at the launch site of the special op: three choppers would have to cross Russian air space in order to intercept the nuke-loaded truck before it enters Iran and almost certainly disappears. They can’t do it, however, without authorization. Devoe pushes, says, hey, at least let us get in the air, “it’s only jet fuel”:
Up he goes, to the border, and. . . waits. He waits! He doesn’t do the I’m-a-motherfucking-warrior-god and order the crews across, but sits on the border, however impatiently, waiting for authorization.
Which he gets, of course. Duh. (Around the 6-6:45 minute mark)
Kelly and her team trace payments to an address in Sarajevo, wherein IFOR (the NATO-led Implementation Force operating in the former Yugoslavia)—not some punk kid or homemaker-slash-freedom-fighter freelancer or burned-out ex-spy roused to one last sacrificial act—find Gavrić’s tape explaining his final act.
On the flight back to New York, the team notes that, again, they need authorization to shut down the airports. Once in New York, the military works with the city police to block off traffic (too successfully, as it happens). The team works with airport security to track Yugoslavian passengers, realizing they missed their man when an airport official notes that official delegations do not go through customs. At the hotel where Gavrić is staying, a State Department official cautions that internationally-agreed-upon protocols mean they can’t just barge into delegates’ rooms.
(The hotel scene also provides the biggest groaner of the film: Really, you have a man with a backpack nuke staying there, and you don’t think to cover all entrances and exits—including all elevators?!)
The Department of Energy tracks radiation concentrations, and a special agency (NES?) team is tasked to deal with they nuke. They get stuck in traffic, of course, so it’s up to our heroine to defuse the nuke.
Which she does, just in the nick of time. Of course.
Okay, so not a great movie, and one with more than a few flaws. But it’s grounded movie, one which tries, not always successfully, to remain tethered to political and bureaucratic realities.
And physical realities: In an early scene, Kelly is swimming when summoned to the White House by an officer. The next scene shows her at the office with her hair still wet. Not a big deal, I know, but one which rings truer than a scene in which an adviser to the president takes the time to dry and style her hair before responding to a nuclear emergency.
This is too much for what is, really, just a diverting B-movie, isn’t it? Maybe I am too overcome by Clooney and those tormented Eastern Europeans, and maybe I adore Armin Mueller-Stahl (as a scene-stealing Russian office) just a little too much. And yes, I do have a weakness for nuke movies.
But I also believe in the necessity of government and thus, by extension, of the necessity of the bureaucracy. I get all of the complaints against both—I’ve made more than of few, myself—but if you want government to work then you need agencies within the government to work. You need bureaucracy.
No, this is not me and not particularly what I went through or what I’m going through—except for the parts that are exactly like what I went through or what I’m going through.
And my penultimate-ish panel involved a small green stone instead of horror movies and Skittles.
But I did have my Eskimo vagrant moments. Still do. Probably always will.
I started getting a sore throat on Sunday, by Monday my voice was pebbly and on Tuesday, it was full-on gravelly. I did make it through my classes, but by the time I got off the train my voice had disappeared down my gullet. I tried to say “thank you” to a cute tot who closed my dryer door at the laundromat, and all that came out was a squeak.
You can’t yell at cats with a squeak and, unsurprisingly, they don’t much respond to a whisper.
My throat doesn’t really hurt; it just doesn’t work.
He’s home, three of his legs are shaved below the joint (paws unshaven: legs of an off-kilter coiffed poodle), he’s eating, he’s drinking, he’s eliminating what he’s eating and drinking, and he’s fighting me when I try to give him his three medications—all good signs.
Staff at VERG-South were very nice, not snitty about my fiscal inability to keep him in the hospital any longer, and quite complimentary to Mr. Jasper.
My particular kitty-boy, Jasper, is in the hospital, with a problem which particularly affects males. (My old cat Jazz died from this, although he was much older than Jasper. I swore then I’d never get another boy cat. So much for swearing.) The doc should be calling me shortly to let me know how the procedure (to unblock his ureter) went—I expect it went fine—and I’ll pick him up tomorrow.
Of course, he should be in the hospital for at least another day, but I can’t afford that. To be honest, I don’t know if I can afford the care he’s currently being given. If his bill comes in toward the low end of the estimate, we’re fine. If not. . . .
I have no idea how I’ll pay it.
And then, of course, there’s the after care, which I also have no idea how I’ll afford.
But he was crying and I was crying and as I asked C., what, I’m going to let him die because I can’t afford to keep him alive?
C. did do me the great favor of looking for 24h care and telling me about CareCredit. I qualified for it—it pays the vet and then I pay it—but not enough to cover all the costs. Had I known about this before, I might have been able to get him into the vet before it became a costly emergency.
[*Update* The vet just called. He came through fine, his kidneys are fine, and he’s awake and groggy. So yes I’m still hyperventilating about the money, but at least Jasper’s okay.]
So, if you have pets and not a lot of cash, get CareCredit before anything bad happens; then maybe you can afford to pay for the little bad before it turns into the big bad.
Like it did with Jasper.
_____
*Update2* I learned a bit more about low-cost vet care—which, again, had I known about sooner, I might have been able to prevent this. (Joyce at Safety Net/Pets for Life was very nice about this, however, saying that this might have happened anyway. Thanks Joyce!)
So, for those of you in the New York City area, there are two (more) options you should know about:
Safety Net/Pets for Life (ACC; updated site at Humane Society) at 917 468-2938. If you’re low-income or on public assistance, they can help you find vet care at a reduced price, as well as low-cost or free spaying and neutering. As I mentioned, I spoke to Joyce and she was very helpful.
Low-cost vet mobile. This hits the different boroughs on different days; the one in Brooklyn parks at the Animal Care and Control site at 2336 Linden Boulevard every Wednesday from 10-6. They do everything but spaying/neutering (another mobile van does that) and extended hospitalizations. Intake exam is $25, with additional costs for other services. It’s a walk-in clinic for the most part, with appointments for surgeries.
I don’t have a contact number for the vet mobile, but if you’re in another borough you could call Safety Net for locations and dates.
I had looked previously for low-cost vet care, but somehow in my searches I didn’t find any of these services. Yes, I found the low-cost spay/neuter mobiles, but as I wasn’t looking for those services, I didn’t click on those links; had I done so, I might have also discovered the regular vet mobiles. And I messed-up in not finding the Safety Net program. I don’t know what search terms I was using, but they were clearly the wrong ones.
Jasper’s care cost a fair amount of money, and, more importantly, a great deal of distress to him. Perhaps had I taken him in when the problem first hit, we might have been able to avoid this. Joyce tried to reassure me by saying, well, even a vet can’t necessarily prevent blockages, and he would have had to have been unblocked anyway.
Finally, even if you’re not in New York City, you might have a Safety Net/Pets for Life program in your area. The NYC one is apparently run through the Humane Society, but it also has a page on the Animal Care and Control page. Check your local animal care societies to see if its available near you. And get CareCredit (which doesn’t cost anything to apply for and keep it on hand), just in case.
AbsurdBeats 