You may run the risks, my friend, but I do the cutting.
Blondie (in: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)

Sergio Leone’s 1966 movie made it easy. There were good, bad, and ugly people. Some were taking the risks, others made it happen by cutting the rope.

The world has been ok in the past few weeks. The summer came and never left. Pádraig can do at least some of his exercises al fresco. The sky is blue. The air is clear. The ocean calm. The people are happy.

I had the unique opportunity to travel to Arizona last week, just for a couple of days. Coming into Los Angeles and driving down to Phoenix through the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree National Park.

It was a trip like no other.

The endless desert. A mystery pool that made me look for the body floating upside down in the water. Breakfast with powder-made egg, muffins, sweet maple syrup waffles, paper bag portion sized cinnamon oatmeal (in German, this would have been one word). A sign warning guests not to hang their coats on a sprinkler as that would cause flooding.

Bob Dylan triggered memories and made me wonder about the world again while I was listening to a selection of his incredible poetry for the best part of six hours. When would I ever have the time to do this but on an endless desert road trip?

While in Phoenix I visited Barrow Neuro-Rehabilitation. Their general Neuro-Rehab centre. Their Neurological Institute. Their Centre for Transitional Neuro-Rehabilitation. Their Outpatient Centre. Their Functional Strength and Robotics Gym. Their Ashlyn Dyer Acquatic Centre with a submerged threadmill.

I only saw pictures of their Brain Computer Interface (BCI) work. Barrow is one if not the leading centre for this work in the US and partners, among others, with Elon Musk’s Neurolink. A paraplegic man recently managed to use several devices just thinking about what he wanted to do via brain implants connected to computers.

Barrow is located in what looked to me like the middle of the desert. It’s endless. Big. Truly impressive. The US’s best brain tumour surgeon works here saving lives that others have given up on. Getting people back to their work and their families.

Last week was also the week when, on Thursday, yet another parliamentarian, this time Dessie Ellis, T.D., asked the Minister a topical question about the lack of progress in relation to funding for the An Saol Foundation and, specifically the Teach An Saol project.

As in the previous week in the Seanad, when Senator Aubrey McCarthy presented a Commencement Matter, the Minister of Health was not available and sent a Junior Minister. This time not from the Department of Enterprise and Employment but the Department of Agriculture.

By the way, I had invited the Minister of Health to visit us in Santry. Last Monday, I received a reply, just three months later (sic!), saying she was too busy to squeeze in such a visit, unfortunately.

Can you help me?

Who are the Good? Who are the Bad? Who are the Ugly?

The world is not the same as it was in Sergio Leone’s 1966.

In this new crazy world, do we have to take the risks and cut the rope? Is there anybody we can rely on?

Is it time for a new movie: “Once upon a time in Ireland”, by A Man with No Name, For a Few Dollars More? Music by the Dreamboaters? Starring the heroes who survived because They Would Rather Live. A celebration of their resilience, their monumental strength and defiance, and their dreams of a life worth living.