Case given das boot, with good reason.

Fucking America!

I can't believe that a culture has developed that is so ludicrously litigous as the glorious US of A.

The American dream has been perverted into a swinehole hallucination where someone ELSE does the work, then the sick, the poor, the dirty, the downtrodden masses clambor for a crack in the armour to appear - a place where the guard has been dropped long enough that the slightest indication of a potential 'i'-dotting ot 't'-crossing error results in someone else trying to scavenge a piece of the pie. Drives me fucking nuts.

It may be the case in the Jackson trial... much to my additional disgust.

It appears to be the situation in the case of the Wendy's finger.

But luckily there is an occassional outbreak of sanity. I feel for the family of Billy Tyne. It is a terrible thing to have to lose someone you love. We all have to do it. But few of us have it made into a movie - in this case The Perfect Storm. But it was a very respectful film, I thought. It recognised the very real dangers of being a fisherman on the Atlantic coast of North America, and paid homage to the men who live, love and die doing the job.

But Billy Tyne's family just didn't see it that way.

Ridiculous.

Did you see the film? Was Billy Tyne a bad person in the film? Nope. Driven? Yep. Did he make mistakes? Yep. Did he die? Yep. What happened in real life? Was he a bad person? Apparently not. Driven. Dunno, who cares. Did he make mistakes? I'm betting. Did he die? It appears as though. What went on on the Andrea Gail? I don't know. Wolfgang Peterson doesn't know. Sebastian Junger (the book's author) doesn't know. Billy Tyne's family doesn't know. It is ALL fiction.
The film itself is a huge fiction, and thinking otherwise is absolute folly - particularly if you know anything more than just what appears in the film! Just by reading the book I know that practically all of the events in the film are based upon things that DO happen in sword fishing - but all in one trip? Never. (Much like Planes Trains and Automobiles.) It's just far more interesting than the interminable hours of doing nothing or working without rest on a boat are. Can you imagine Jack Bauer went to bed for 9 hours sleep on '24' - what kind of Andy Warholian nightmare TV-show is that? "Tonight, on '24' - Jack's arm falls asleep, so he rolls over." For sweeps they'd probably have to have him get up and relieve his bladder. But I digress.

Anyhow, to short-cut to the point, the court made the right decision. Anything else would have been absurd.

But here is my question...

Why Florida? What sense is that?

Clearly it was a Florida law that was being exploited. But did the Andrea Gail set sail from Florida? Nope. That'd be Massechusettes. Was the film made in Florida? Nope. Hmmmm. Okay, the logic is starting to fall short. Uhhh. Does Mrs. Tyne and family now live in Florida? They had fucking better, and even then it pretty fucking stupid.

A related web-site to today's ranting.