Independence

A short film set in Dependence, CA, a place where people go to lose their baggage.


Source: David Altobelli

Sole Survivor | A Documentary

When Galaxy Flight 203 was in its final seconds, George Lamson pulled his legs above his head, an arbitrary decision that helped save his life as he was thrown through the fuselage upon impact. Immediately after the crash, George’s sole survival was considered miraculous and newsworthy, making him a fixture in the media for a year.

Twenty-six years later, George lives a few blocks from the crash site and still struggles with the emotional weight of his survival. He doesn’t know if he was spared for a reason and if he was, what is that reason? In an effort to heal, he seeks to connect with the other thirteen sole survivors of commercial aviation disasters, including Cecelia Cichan, Bahia Bakari and Jim Polehinke – none of which have ever spoken publicly.

From award-winning filmmaker, Ky Dickens, Sole Survivor profiles the lives of these four people who were the only survivors of commercial plane crashes. Having suffered through the physical trauma of a deadly crash and the emotional impact of losing family members, these survivors are now sharing their stories. Here's the trailer -

A Short Twitter Vacation

Twitter has become too addicting, and its taken over a good portion of my life. So, as difficult as it may be, it's time to put it down for a while and do something a little more entertaining with my time.

Why Do We Cheat?

Lance Armstrong’s confession has us thinking about cheating in all aspects of our lives. Cheating is a familiar story. First comes the cheating, then comes the lying about it, and then eventually comes the confession, most often because that person has been caught.

So why do we cheat? To answer that question for us is David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and the author of Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner and Saint Lurking in All of Us.

Source: Katie Couric Show

Blood Pressure: The Movie

What do you do when the pressure of the daily pharmacy grind and the limits of your life wears you down? Do you develop a strange attraction to me and my blog, or to perhaps a secret admirer?

Nicole, forty-one, is a pharmacist with a husband and two teenage kids, who is at a point in her life when she is asking if "is this it?", or whether there’s something more to life.


Blood Pressure Trailer from Templeton Ratsworthy on Vimeo and Film Website

Free Beer: The Truth About Dishonesty

Bestselling author and professor of psychology and behavioral economics at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, Dan Ariely discusses how the principles of behavioral economics can help us understand some of our irrational tendencies, specifically the mechanisms at work behind dishonest behavior and cheating.

One of the most interesting lessons at work is understanding our capacity to think of ourselves as honest - even when we act dishonestly. The implications of Dan's research are far reaching and include a better understanding of the most recent financial crisis and some of the many challenges facing healthcare.


Source: The RSA

Hitler's Children

Their family names alone evoke horror: Himmler, Goering, Göeth, Hoess. What's it like for Nazi Party members offspring to have grown up with a surname that immediately raises images of mass murder and genocide? How do they live with the weight of their ancestors' crimes? How do they cope with the fact that they are the children of one of the greatest abominations in history?

Hitler’s Children is a unique documentary film that reveals, for the first time, the ways in which family members of high rank senior Nazi officers from Hitler’s inner circle struggle with the burden of carrying a terror-inducing surname.

During detailed interviews, descendants of Frank, Goering, and Himmler, amongst many others, share the feelings of guilt and responsibility that accompany them in their daily lives. What happens when the children of the perpetrators of this genocide eventually meet with the children of the victims?

Already broadcast on BBC, Hitler’s Children distribution rights in North America have been purchased and it's expected to screen in theaters in the U.S. in 2013. Here's the trailer -



Related posts: The Real Drug Nazi

Tali Sharot: The Optimism Bias

Are we born to be optimistic, rather than realistic? Tali Sharot shares new research that suggests our brains are wired to look on the bright side -- and how that can be both dangerous and beneficial.


Source: TED: Ideas worth spreading

Lovely Monster

Have you noticed how hateful the workplace has become recently? Ever wonder why you often come home so angry, tired, and depressed after work that you continually lash out at your loved ones?

What do you think is causing it? Could it be that we've given in to the unreasonable demands and expectations of our corporate overlords so often that we've allowed our jobs to consume us and become part of who we are, and have unconsciously become angry about everything?

I've seen this condition affect many older, burnt out pharmacists and their relationships over the years. But in recent years, I've noticed it happening more frequently to even younger and younger pharmacy workers. Perhaps it's fear of retaliation, fear of the unknown, the herd mentality. Who really knows?

Personally, I think this terrible affliction could easily be prevented by exercising a little intestinal fortitude in the workplace. No job is worth having to endure living alone. Have the guts to say "NO!" before it starts to grow on you and ruins your life.


LOVELY MONSTER from Francesco Calabrese on Vimeo.

Toeing The Party Line

I often wonder why I encounter young pharmacists either so eager to toe the party line or too afraid to speak their minds. Seems to me that they've either bought into the propaganda, or they've become fearful slaves to their debts. Either choice promotes conformity and loss of individual control.

Imagine only realizing right after you graduate pharmacy school that you owe one-hundred thousand dollars or more in non-extinguishable student loan debt, and that you've entered a profession with very little control over your professional destiny, and an undefined role in the healthcare system. How do you think it would affect your decision-making abilities or your behaviors?

I recently caught some new pharmacy graduates on their way to work in their chain pharmacy, PBM, insurance-industry or other corporate-controlled positions; and some young wanna-be pharmacists competing for those pharmacy school positions which just became available.



Interesting and scary stuff to think about. Greed and fear are two very powerful forces. They will make even the most-intelligent individuals behave and conform in ways they would never have imagined. To a cynic, it might seem like the current system was designed around these emotions - intentionally.

Analyzing Bernie Madoff

Forbes contributor Todd Essig, Ph.D., psychoanalyzes the biggest crook in U.S. history (so far).

The Wonder Hospital

When did the American standard of hiding one’s true status in order to project a desired image - usually that of rich, young, and successful - cross the line? Has corporate culture pushed us to the point where we can no longer consider ourselves ever to look good enough? Why do we buy into it?

The Wonder Hospital, a 3D & puppet animated film, is a surreal journey of oddity and empty illusion. In a mysterious hospital, modification of physical beauty is not what you would expect.

A girl's desire for superficial beauty leads her to chase after the luring 'after' images on a path of advertisements throughout the hospital. But in the end, she finds something unimaginable and irreversible, an unexpected journey that alters her perception of beauty.


"The Wonder Hospital" [Full film] from Beomsik Shimbe Shim on Vimeo.

He's Not Heavy, He's My Bro

Simon’s brother Mark suffers from Fragile X Syndrome. Simon believes his failure to lead a normal adolescent life is solely due to his brother's disability. What do you think?


Bro from Chris Dundon on Vimeo.

Are You Being Followed?

When the dead begin to rise, and relentlessly follow the people most responsible for their deaths, a man must come to terms with the corpse of a young child who is following him. In the face of her silent accusation, he struggles to understand how he is responsible, and wonders if there has been some mistake.

Based on the story (pdf) by 2010 Hugo-winning writer Will McIntosh, Followed is a socially conscious monster movie in which zombies symbolize society's disadvantaged and oppressed. McIntosh says that zombies are a way to face the existential terror we feel at the awareness of our own mortality. "I think people love zombie fiction because it explores that terror so directly–the dead are right there, in your face, and they’re not ‘undead’ beings with supernatural powers and sexy lives, they’re corpses," he says. "Corpses scare the shit out of us."

I'd like to think that perhaps the zombies also represent our consciences, there to constantly remind us of the consequences that can result from continued poor decision-making. But, that's just me.


Followed (2011), based on the short story by Will McIntosh from James Kicklighter on Vimeo.

Liespotting For Non-Pharmacists

I truly believe that pharmacists are experts at lie detection. I think we've all heard the old joke - How do you tell if a customer or patient is lying to you? His/her lips are moving. But, all kidding aside, I consider my ability to detect bullshit to be one of my strongest attributes.

However, if you're not a pharmacist and would like to learn why we are so good at spotting lies, here's something worth watching.

On any given day we're lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lies can be subtle and counter-intuitive. Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception, shows the manners and "hotspots" used by those trained to recognize deception -- and she argues honesty is a value worth preserving.

The Cynic's Theme Song

How many times have I reported on the massive amounts of crime and corruption perpetrated by corporations and individuals not only in healthcare, but in the rest of America too?

It's become so pervasive that I've almost come to believe that there isn't an ethical person left in this country. And, it seems to only grow worse each day. The sad part of it all is that it's so very unnecessary, and it doesn't have to get worse unless you let it.

Most everyone in America has what they need. It's only that overly-competitive drive for excessive greed that perpetuates the problems facing America today. It's seems as though almost everyone has to "keep up with the Joneses", and prove to each other that they're better than the next person because they have more "stuff".

Being cynical and realizing that it'll never happen, the way I see, the solution to the problem comes from within each individual. Find a way to realize that it's the little things in life that are important - things like good health, love, and freedom. More "stuff" won't make you any happier. Be happy with what you've got.

Don't let the pursuit of wealth, fame, or power cause you to lose focus on what's important and lead you to do things that you really don't want to do, or otherwise wouldn't ever dream of doing.


I Need Nothing - a nearly useless odyssey from Cãoceito on Vimeo.

Zero Degrees Of Empathy

Ever wonder why people do such evil things? Here's a new theory - it's about six degrees of empathy. University of Cambridge Psychologist, Simon Baron-Cohen, author of Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty, presents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals down negative paths, and challenges all of us to consider replacing the idea of evil with the idea of empathy-erosion.


Source: The RSA

The Perils Of Obedience

Have you ever experienced being an unwitting participant in the Milgram experiment at work? If you've been practicing pharmacy for any length of time, I'd bet you've experienced being at both ends.

One similarity that I've noticed in all of the different aspects of pharmacy practice in which I've worked over the years, is that many pharmacists are given supervisory or management positions without ever having had any education, training or prior experience in management.

In many of these instances, the pharmacists seeking these positions do so only in order to escape the absurdity that comes with working the front lines of pharmacy, or because they are unable or incapable of working the front lines for an extended period of time.

And why is that a bad thing? Because, IMO, it perpetuates a problem.

As Milgram points out - ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.

Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. They just can't seem to say that one simple word - "No".

I've seen many newly licensed, untrained, or inexperienced pharmacist managers blindly follow the same absurd, corrupt, or reckless orders of their superiors - the same orders they hated when they were working the pharmacy front lines - out of fear of losing their jobs or for fear of being transferred back to the front lines, where they can't cope.

And so, the vicious cycle of abuse continues.

Is there an absolute solution to the problem? Of course not. Each individual pharmacist will have to decide their own actions for themselves.

However, it is my opinion that Milgram's book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, should be required reading for every pharmacist considering a supervisory or managerial position.

Are You An Automaton?

One of the unfortunate things about life is that one gets caught up in the enthusiasm of work in the rush to become rich or feel important to others. We always want to "win", to beat the other guy, no matter the potential consequences of our actions. It's only as one gets older and reflects on our past decisions, when we realize our errors in judgment.

I wonder how different the world would be if we reflected beforehand, while we're still young, and didn't follow the herd, didn't blindly follow orders, and didn't become an automaton?

We can do it if we live below our means, avoid debt, keep a well-funded emergency fund, save a significant portion of our earnings, and invest wisely. These simple steps will empower us to say "no" when presented with difficult decisions that could negatively affect ourselves, our loved ones, our peers, and any other innocent victims - and keep us from going down the path to the dark side of healthcare.


Automatons from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

Keep Your Eyes Open And Your Wallet Shut

Are you still buying homeopathic products even after knowing that they don't contain any measurable active medication? Then put your wallet down and listen to Randi.

James Randi, best known as the world's most tireless investigator of pseudoscientific claims, continues to offer his still-unclaimed million-dollar reward for anyone who can produce evidence of paranormal abilities under controlled conditions.


Source: James Randi Educational Foundation