Outside Counsel

To apheresis yesterday, a tedious event. I'd told myself I was taking a holiday during the running season, but they called and told me that the rains and flooding had created a serious shortage, and faced with that sort of plea naturally I had to go. I realize that it is unseemly to complain about what is, essentially, a charitable act, but the fact is that the Red Cross seems to be about as badly run an institution as I've ever seen. It takes me less than an hour to donate platelets-- once I'm on the machine. It takes something like an hour and a half for them to get to me, ask me if I've been to Africa or paid for sex since they last saw me, two months ago, take my b/p and temperature and get me on the table. It would be interesting to see the statistics on blood donation in general, and on platelet donation more specifically. Who does this? It mostly looks like old people, and I'd be willing to bet that most of the men were in the service, and most of the women were or are nurses. You hear about shortages, but the people I see all seem like pretty dutiful regulars. Are there really peaks and troughs based on weather? What other variables are there? Do the phone calls really work in a cost effective way? Is anything about the process cost effective? I guess that last might be the wrong question: since there is nothing that competes with the Red Cross, and since blood can't be substituted, whatever they do to get it is what they do, and it costs what it costs-- but wouldn't you think there'd be a more efficient way to do it? How much waste is there? Since the product is donated, the overhead is essentially in collection and distribution, right? How does that break down?

None of this occupied my mind yesterday. I spent the 55 minutes on the table watching "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I never get to see the whole movie. (They always ask if I'd like to stay to see the end-- wouldn't it be better to get another person on the table? Apparently not.) Later that night we went to the "Pirates of the Caribbean-- Dead Man's Chest". I'm getting it now about Johnny Depp-- he really is that good, I think. He completely occupies every character he plays, to the extent that you actually buy into the notion that you are watching Dr. Hunter S. Thompson or Captain Jack Sparrow. The Pirates movie is a mess, but he's terrific-- every moment he's on the screen is great to watch. "Fear and Loathing" is also a disaster. It requires a voice-over narration for its duration for coherence, but if I hadn't known it was Depp, I'd have been surprised if you told me it wasn't Thompson. It would be an interesting movie to watch with the sound off, just to see how Depp manages to create the persona by sheer physicality.