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Today -- as pretty much all but one person on my Friends' List knows -- is Canada Day, the 140th Anniversary of Canada officially becoming a "new nationality" as the language of 1867 styled it.
I celebrated the day by seeing Sicko, the new Michael Moore "documentary".
I can't say that I consider what Moore does to be a proper documentary. It's not a considered, fair assessment of a situation. It's entertainment and propaganda, with only traces of true journalism. But whatever I ought to call Moore's output, he's certainly good at what he does. That mixture of emotional first person stories, ironic use of retro propaganda films/news footage/music, and his new trickster stunts definitely works.
Every Canadian viewer will know that Sicko gilds the lily about patient wait times. But those clips of American news stories on Canada show that CNN, Fox and the rest have spent a lot of time making Canadian healthcare look far, far worse than it is. And flawed as our system is, it's a million times better than the American ... well, I'm not even sure I can call that corporate piracy of theirs a system.
I don't understand HMOs. Seriously. They don't make any sense to me at all. Anytime I try to figure out what an HMO is, I can't understand why Americans don't have a second revolution to get rid of them.
But the fact that I can't understand HMOs is down to one man -- a person who is name-checked in Sicko. I speak of Kiefer Sutherland's grandpappy -- Tommy Douglas. It was his provincial government in Saskatchewan, and then his support as federal leader of the NDP in Pearson's minority governments of the 1960s, that led to universal health care in Canada. Actually, pretty much every good and compassionate thing in Canadian society can be traced to Douglas's time as premier of Saskatchewan. (Yes, I know that Douglas had moved to federal politics when the medicare legislation finally went through in Saskatchewan, but he started it.)
The other year, I was looking up the statutory holiday policy for a co-worker. The background information explained that statutory holidays (and shortened work weeks) came from 1940s Saskatchewan. Yet another one of Tommy's legacies. Can one man really have done so much? And while balancing his province's budget!
A few years ago, when the CBC was running their "Greatest Canadian" contest, we were able to cast up to 10 votes per household. Each week I cast most of those votes for good ol' Thomas Clement Douglas. (I'd assign a few extra votes to Lester B. Pearson, the Prime Minister who shepherded healthcare for all Canadians and to Frederick Banting, discoverer of insulin. I wanted the hockey players/commentators on that list far at the bottom.)
Anyway, watching Sicko made me think about Tommy Douglas all the more. So thanks, Tommy. You truly are the Greatest Canadian! We'd be a much worse country without you.
The best thing about that cheesy Greatest Canadian show is that most Gen-Y/Gen-Z (the 20-somethings) Canadians now know his name and what he accomplished. It also led to a cheesy bio-pic starring the guy who played Gollum on stage at both Toronto and London. But I won't hold a bad bio-pic against Tommy. After all, I'm co-writing a bio-pic these days.
Watching Sicko also drove home how I need a new job. I'm sick of hearing co-workers chuckle at those they deny insurance to. I am working for the Sheriff of Nottingham. And it's long past time that I picked a fight with the cook, stole the silverware, and headed back to Barnsdale.
Allen
P.S.: Do you know that scene in A Knight's Tale, where Heath Ledger is asked to lose the tournament to prove his love? He spends a day getting absolutely battered to a funky 1970s rock soundtrack. And then his lady love sends her servant to say "My lady commands that you must not lose another match. If you love her, you will win this tournament." And he's not so much relieved as confused and angry? Well, that doesn't just happen in the movies. On the bright side, it looks like I'll be spending time on a spatio-temporal rift this month. On the dark side, seriously -- WTF?
P.P.S.: I think the change of heart has more to do with a certain deceased alcoholic gay, Jewish dwarf. Thanks for the holiday, Larry!
I celebrated the day by seeing Sicko, the new Michael Moore "documentary".
I can't say that I consider what Moore does to be a proper documentary. It's not a considered, fair assessment of a situation. It's entertainment and propaganda, with only traces of true journalism. But whatever I ought to call Moore's output, he's certainly good at what he does. That mixture of emotional first person stories, ironic use of retro propaganda films/news footage/music, and his new trickster stunts definitely works.
Every Canadian viewer will know that Sicko gilds the lily about patient wait times. But those clips of American news stories on Canada show that CNN, Fox and the rest have spent a lot of time making Canadian healthcare look far, far worse than it is. And flawed as our system is, it's a million times better than the American ... well, I'm not even sure I can call that corporate piracy of theirs a system.
I don't understand HMOs. Seriously. They don't make any sense to me at all. Anytime I try to figure out what an HMO is, I can't understand why Americans don't have a second revolution to get rid of them.
But the fact that I can't understand HMOs is down to one man -- a person who is name-checked in Sicko. I speak of Kiefer Sutherland's grandpappy -- Tommy Douglas. It was his provincial government in Saskatchewan, and then his support as federal leader of the NDP in Pearson's minority governments of the 1960s, that led to universal health care in Canada. Actually, pretty much every good and compassionate thing in Canadian society can be traced to Douglas's time as premier of Saskatchewan. (Yes, I know that Douglas had moved to federal politics when the medicare legislation finally went through in Saskatchewan, but he started it.)
The other year, I was looking up the statutory holiday policy for a co-worker. The background information explained that statutory holidays (and shortened work weeks) came from 1940s Saskatchewan. Yet another one of Tommy's legacies. Can one man really have done so much? And while balancing his province's budget!
A few years ago, when the CBC was running their "Greatest Canadian" contest, we were able to cast up to 10 votes per household. Each week I cast most of those votes for good ol' Thomas Clement Douglas. (I'd assign a few extra votes to Lester B. Pearson, the Prime Minister who shepherded healthcare for all Canadians and to Frederick Banting, discoverer of insulin. I wanted the hockey players/commentators on that list far at the bottom.)
Anyway, watching Sicko made me think about Tommy Douglas all the more. So thanks, Tommy. You truly are the Greatest Canadian! We'd be a much worse country without you.
The best thing about that cheesy Greatest Canadian show is that most Gen-Y/Gen-Z (the 20-somethings) Canadians now know his name and what he accomplished. It also led to a cheesy bio-pic starring the guy who played Gollum on stage at both Toronto and London. But I won't hold a bad bio-pic against Tommy. After all, I'm co-writing a bio-pic these days.
Watching Sicko also drove home how I need a new job. I'm sick of hearing co-workers chuckle at those they deny insurance to. I am working for the Sheriff of Nottingham. And it's long past time that I picked a fight with the cook, stole the silverware, and headed back to Barnsdale.
Allen
P.S.: Do you know that scene in A Knight's Tale, where Heath Ledger is asked to lose the tournament to prove his love? He spends a day getting absolutely battered to a funky 1970s rock soundtrack. And then his lady love sends her servant to say "My lady commands that you must not lose another match. If you love her, you will win this tournament." And he's not so much relieved as confused and angry? Well, that doesn't just happen in the movies. On the bright side, it looks like I'll be spending time on a spatio-temporal rift this month. On the dark side, seriously -- WTF?
P.P.S.: I think the change of heart has more to do with a certain deceased alcoholic gay, Jewish dwarf. Thanks for the holiday, Larry!
