Hello. How was your week? I thought asking questions last week would result in more responses but surprisingly I got less. So I figured I'd start right off with a question.
This is the last week before I start my final year at Evergreen Tacoma. I'm excited and nervous and stressed out. I'm also trying to find a new apartment within walking distance of Evergreen. I'm looking at a couple of good candidates tomorrow. Currently I've been spending my time at Outpost Epsilon (girlfriend's place) and less time at Outpost Zero (room I'm renting across the bridge). All this transition hasn't given me much time to work on the novel, but that's okay. I'm going to have plenty of time to get A Better Lie to press before year's end. (Thanks again to all of you who pre-ordered the book).

What I'm Watching
With a cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Michael Sheen, the 2010 movie Unthinkable seemed like a solid choice from the Netflix queue. It advertises itself as one of those post-9/11 War on Terror movies. This one has Samuel L. Jackson as a specialist interegator with a 'certain set of skills'. Carrie-Anne Moss acts like the audience, questioning his every move. The premise is that a guy has placed three nuclear bombs in three cities in the United States. Their job is to get him to say where the bombs are. With millions of lives on the line, what is unacceptable (or as the title suggests, unthinkable)? Do you cut his fingers off? Do you torture his children? Do you torture his wife? And what happens if the only people who are willing to cross those lines are people who just enjoy hurting people?
These are all interesting and dramatic questions to ask in a movie like this, but Unthinkable chooses instead to be as incredibly graphic as it is predictable. The 'twists' are telegraphed so far ahead that they fail to be twists. The only thing that saved this from being a terrible movie was the fact that they got an amazing cast for it. It's too bad that the talent behind the camera isn't as good as the talent in front of it.

What I'm Listening To
Doctors are human beings. They have lives. Like anyone, those lives can impact their job performance. And they make mistakes. Unlike most of us though, when a doctor makes a mistake, it may be life altering or life ending for their patients. That's what I thought the Dr. Death Podcast was going to be about. It wasn't.
Dr. Death is about a Texas neurosurgeon named Dr. Christopher Duntsch. Duntsch wasn't a doctor who made simple, but catastrophic mistakes. He was a surgeon who intentionally harmed and sometimes killed his patients. When someone died on his operating table, it was because he purposefully murdered them using the tools meant to heal them.
The podcast is nightmarish, but riveting. It goes into not only what Dr. Duntsch did, but how the healthcare system that allowed such an individual to operate for years before being stopped. It's difficult to listen to because of the content, but very good. It is produced by the same people who did Inside Jaws. So it has the occasional and jarring commercial ads. But if you're the sort that likes true crime podcast, this one is a can't miss.

What I'm Thinking About 
Last week on Real Time With Bill Maher, he had John Kerry on. Kerry was good, but failed at one important question. Bill asked, "How can the Democrats beat the Republicans when the Democrats are the only ones playing by the rules?" Kerry went into a very political answer about what's good about Democrats without touching the topic.
Between the Dr. Death podcast, Unthinkable, and Real Time, it's not surprising that this week I have been thinking a lot about bad actors. I'm not talking about the theater, but real people who aren't there to help or to do their job. They are there to hurt. This is true of Samuel L. Jackson's character in Unthinkable. It is true of Dr. Duntsch. And it is true of Congressional Republicans.
It's also true in Catholic Churches where pedophile priests are transferred from parish to parish with their crimes hidden. It's true in police departments throughout the country when they murder the very people they are supposed to serve and protect. 
As a society we assume that people in positions of authority actually want to do their job. Police want to protect people and enforce the law. Doctors want to save lives. Pastors and priests want to cultivate your spirituality. Public servants want to act in the best interests of the people. 
Now, I'm sure many of you are cynical enough to think, "I don't believe any of that." But that doesn't matter because we, as a society act as though these things are true.
A year out of high school a friend of mine was directing a play. The play was part of a class. His classmates didn't like him being director and some of them would not listen and seemed to intentionally not know their lines. He called me and asked for advice. I quickly realized the problem: He couldn't fire them. He was literally having a bad actor problem.
When a cell isn't doing what it's supposed to do and instead causes harm, it's considered cancerous. We have cancers all over in our society. And in our liberal thinking, it is difficult to admit when cancer needs to be cut out because it's difficult to acknowledge that it's cancer.
Now to be clear, not all bad behavior rises to the level of bad actor. Sometimes people are inept or misguided. Sometimes people simply don't know how to behave. But when you're dealing with someone who clearly has no interest in actually doing what they claim their job is, you're dealing with a bad actor.
The difficulty is that we don't know how to deal with bad actors. If the Catholic Church simply and publicly banned every priest they know is a pedophile, they wouldn't have enough priests to occupy their churches. If police departments fired every racist or corrupt cop and put them on a list never to be hired by any other police department, police departments across the country would be even more understaffed than they are already. One could argue that in both cases this would still be a good thing, but the problem with that is that we here in America simply don't do that sort of thing. 
Americans are a complacent bunch. We've shown again and again that we'll tolerate any sort of atrocity if it won't burn our dinner. Take the neighbors to a concentration camp so long as you don't wake me when you do it. That's been our attitude. Most people didn't even bother to vote in the last election. We can't so much as get a majority of people to fill out a piece of paper. This isn't leaving a door to our White House unlocked. This is leaving the door wide open. Is it any wonder that there are criminals and thieves inside it now?
If a bad actor cannot change their behavior, then that individual needs to be removed because failing to do so may very well be fatal to the system. Right now almost every major social institution has bad actors in it.
There are no easy answers. Just because a pedophile is fired as a priest doesn't mean he won't become a daycare worker and keep at it. Just because a racist cop is fired doesn't mean he won't end up a security guard or bounty hunter. The death penalty has the potential to kill innocent people. And locking people up doesn't improve their behavior, costs a bunch of money, and isn't always feasible because not all bad actors actually commit crimes. I don't know the answers and that's why I'm thinking about it. 

One Last Thing
I like this newsletter best when it's interactive. This means that I encourage you to reply to it. I encourage you to send it to friends. I encourage you to talk to me about it online and in real life. According to Facebook I joined that social media platform 11 years ago today. By next year I want this newsletter to be where my content is shared. Thanks for being here for it.
I know this newsletter was fairly serious and didn't have a lot of jokes. Next week will be more fun I promise.
What are your thoughts regarding bad actors?

- Jack Cameron