Following the Rules

Are you watching The Last Man on Earth? It airs on Fox on Sunday nights and it's absolutely delightful.  I've just deleted three sentences because they were filled with spoilers.  You can find it On Demand, and in reruns; be sure to start at the beginning when you binge watch the season.

It's more than comedy, though.  It raises real questions about the rules.

Do you stop at stop signs if there are no other humans around?

Do you drive on the wrong side of the divided interstate, just because you can?

Are the formalized institutions of civilization anachronistic or that which holds us together?  Does marriage matter?

The characters come to grips with these issues, as they learn to dispose of sewage and create meals reminiscent of those containing meat.  Raisins, it turns out, are a poor substitute.

House of Cards bumps up against the rules, too.  The consequences are a bit more glaring; murder, scandal, disgrace, divorce follow in Francis J. Underwood's wake.  The moral issues play out in the faces of the secondary characters.  Frank can't seem to imagine a world where he is bound by convention, where his behavior is limited by rules.

I'm beginning to think about these issues as the Arizona legislature adjourns.  Among the disasters wrought during their time in Phoenix, is a rule mandating that physicians inform women that the abortifacient drugs administered to terminate a pregnancy can be reversed.

Whether that is true or not is one of those science vs belief arguments which make my head spin. The larger issue of smaller government except when it involves a uterus makes me wonder if Arizona's doctors need to take a page from Will Forte and start ignoring the rules.  Whether no one is there or the rules were created by idiots doesn't seem to matter to me, as my indignation begins to split my brain.

This came from the same legislature which rejected my Representative's attempt to create a helmet law for motorcycles.  "I'll wear one if I want to, not because you tell me I must," was one colleague's response to my physician/legislator's bill.  The fact that Rep Friese is an ER doctor who sees the results of brains meeting concrete on a regular basis was meaningless.  I just hope that fool has health insurance; I'm not looking forward to my tax dollars paying for his long term disability.

But what really set me off on this rant is the bill which allows traffic cops to cite me for wasting a scarce resource and fine me $15 and not report the violation to my insurance company if I am going 10 or fewer miles an hour over the speed limit.  Voted down was the amendment to add an asterisk to all speed limit signs in the state.

So, denizens, I ask you: am I breaking a rule if I travel 55 miles an hour on the posted 45 mph roads leading up to my street?

It's enough to make a girl cry.