Side Note from a movie...

I rented a movie tonight, a foriegn film called  The Lives of Others, an engaging if dark film concerning an East German writer in the 80's, and the Stasi agent (the local name for the state police surveillance unit) assigned to find a crime to charge him with.  A dark film, but a good one.  A tour de force of the corruption and perversions of power found in a totalitarian state.  I'd recommend the film, should it cross your path. Surprisingly, both turn out to be good men, and the film had a strangely inverted effect on my depression.  Sort of like a tears in your beer whiney country song done right, the kind where when it's finally over you say to yourself "I'm not in as bad a shape as that poor fellow, guess I really don't need to be feeling so very down over my lot in life.