Kicks are for trids

Gaming health care

As I write this, I'm watching legendary journalist Bill Moyers put the current US health care debate in 100 years of political context. He is flaunting the popular wisdom that President Barack Obama's plans for health care reform are at risk because of lilly-livered Democrats, evil corporate Republicans and an agglomeration of special interests including, but by no means limited to, physicians, pharmaceutical companies and the insurance juggernaut.

There is no doubt that these forces have conspired to derail Obama's single most significant policy initiative to date. They have much to lose if he is successful. They have trotted out all manner of canards, scare tactics and blatant lies to bolster their case. They have fed the delusion that many Americans suffer that theirs is the best health care system in the world. Yes, true. As long as you overlook minor annoyances such as the number of un- and under-insured; the lack of portability in the system; infant mortality rates; and - oh yes - the World Health Organization. (Note to smug, self-satisfied Canadians: our track record on this last measure is only marginally better.)

One of the points that Moyers made - one that really resonated with me - was the idea that the US is the only Western-style democracy that fails to see proper health care as a fundamental human right, unrelated to economic means. We'll leave for now the broader question of whether the US is actually a true democracy, even though that very question may be at play in this issue.

Obama is a sharp cookie. He cut his political teeth battling the Democratic machine of  Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his cohorts - surely one of the most advanced, and quite possibly corrupt, operations of its kind outside of New Orleans. Obama is an educated, experienced politician who could not possibly have set himself in this battle without taking into account all of the possible outcomes.

Right?

Well, maybe. There was a time when I believed, as did others I'm sure, that he and his supporters had vastly underestimated the Republican smear machine - the same crew that gave us the Swift Boat attacks, which sunk John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. But lately, I've been nursing a slightly different theory.

Perhaps - just perhaps - Obama is smarter than some of us think. What if he knows that no one really pays serious attention to politics over the summer. Certainly there's been no lack of noise on the topic. But perhaps - just perhaps - that's also part of the strategy.

Sometimes, in politics, the best way to win a fight is to let your opponents exhaust themselves - to prove their arguments so fatuously full of hot air that common sense simply needs to wait them out. Of course there's a whole industry built on the quick response, and normally, I would subscribe to it, especially in case such as this one. It would hold that you don't let your opponents define the debate. You fight back, and you fight at the same level as your opponent because every victory - however small - is a point in your favour.

But Obama is barely eight months into his presidency. He can afford to take the long view here. He can afford to take his lumps in the court of public opinion, because he knows that - at its root - health care is not a social program but an economic driver. A healthy workforce is a productive workforce, and if there's one thing Americans are craving right now, it is a healthy economy.

So in my mind, it's no accident that Obama has chosen to address a joint session of Congress next week. Yes, it's true that it's the day after Congress returns from its summer recess. But Obama could easily have commandeered the agenda before this if he had wanted. He could have asked the US networks for air time. He could have launched a massive advertising blitz. He could have had every Democrat in the House and the Senate (or at least those who support him) out stumping for the cause at every barbecue, county fair and demolition derby in the country.

For heaven's sake, he could have done what he did during the 2008 Presidential campaign and gone all social media on us.

But he did none of those things. He spent much of the summer - and his considerable political capital - apparently squandering a once-in-a-generation chance to make his country a better place. Not since the civil rights battle of the 1960s has the US faced the prospect of such seismic change.

Obama campaigned on the theme of change - generational change, racial change, social change. For him not to see this one change as his legacy is unimaginable.

So I'm not counting him out yet. I think he may have a plan. A game plan. It had better work.

I hope I can keep from squealing

I am old enough to remember both the Monkees and the Bay City Rollers. Even before them, of course, there was a long and storied history of cute teeny bopper performers attracting an intensely loyal - some would say manic - following of largely teen and tween girls.

Fortunately, I now have one of each.

So when the tickets for the Jonas Brothers' show went on sale, I bought four of them. That was almost six months, and about $400, ago.

My 12-year-old has a major case of the googly eyes for Joe Jonas. He's the cute one, with the eyebrows, I think. And for my 9-year-old, anything her older sister does - and in particular, when it's related to the Family Channel - is just the bee's knees.

Now, I'm all for making sure my daughters have access to all kinds of music. And I do my part to expose them to the full variety of my somewhat eclectic tastes - everything from Broadway musicals to ska and reggae to Brazilian jazz. And I know that they will develop their own tastes along the way, which is exactly what they need to do.

My long-suffering wife has accompanied them to other Disney-sponsored shows. This is my first. I haven't been privvy to a group of screaming girls this long since... forever.

Back in May, my wife and I attended the Neil Young tribute show at Massey Hall during Luminato. I live tweeted that show, which kind of felt like being there to review it as a critic. Except that no one was paying me, or cared what I had to say.

I did the same thing during our annual visit to the Cisco Blues Festival in Ottawa.

In both cases, live tweeting enhanced my experience. So I'm planning to do it at tonight's show as well. Only in this case it's more of a survival technique than an essential addition to the show.

Curtain's at 7:30. Deafening begins immediately thereafter.

Old gory

There's something vaguely surreal about being in the United States these days. A couple of years ago, I wrote about our family trip to Virginia Beach, and specifically, the decline of industrial civilization. Much has transipred since then, and frankly, it ain't pretty.

Ithaca, NY is a pretty college town, nestled alongside the Finger Lakes, and offering an easy get-away from Toronto or Kingston - which was exactly what we did. The region is not particularly industrial, being blessed with gorgeous scenery and lakefront access, plus many of the right conditions for a young but promising wine-growing region. Farms and related agribusinesses are also much in evidence.

So the entropy that marked our trip to Virignia Beach was not so immediately apparent. What was apparent, though, was the destruction that these last few years have wrought on American society in general.

It started on our way into town. The radio played a commercial for a company that offered pay day loan consolidations. While these companies might serve a purpose for some people, their business models are rife with the potential for flagrant abuse of the most vulnerable. That is why, I'm proud to say, my home province has sought to regulate them more closely.

Bill consolidation loans are often a good idea. They can help you lower your overall interest costs and manage your finances more efficiently. But they only work when they lighten the load. If the company offering this particular consolidation follows suit, so much the better. But experience, and cynicism, tend to point elsewhere.

Then, on an hour's drive up one side of the lake and down another, we witnessed the wholesale disposal of some spectacular lakefront property. Conservatively speaking, I would estimate that 25 or 30 per cent of all the cottages and homes we passed had for sale signs out in front of them. Again, in tough economic times, it makes sense to pull in your horns and cut your costs. And desirable though it may be, a cottage is no one's primary focus.

But the prevalence of the fire sales was bordering on the obscene. My heart breaks for people who lose their homes, and these buildings are extensions of those homes. But there's an old saying that when you owe the bank $1,000, it's your problem. When you owe them $1 million, it's their problem - and that's exactly how this felt. The number of homes for sale (and who knows how many had been foreclosed) was truly shocking.

My first encounter with the new economic reality, at least on this trip, was at the snack counter in a department store. My wife had commented on the lack of customers. So, as is my habit, I began chatting with cashier. It was a Tuesday in mid-May, and the store seemed... empty. So I asked: has it been busy the last little while? No, she said. Not at all. I'm not saying she should have lied; in fact, I appreciated her honesty. That she would have been so breathtakingly honest with a complete stranger - even while dressed in company colours - suggests that it was very much on her mind.

The same lack of retail activity was apparent at the Waterloo Outlet Mall. The parking lot and the stores were devoid of human action. In many stores there were more staff than customers. It's good in one way - no worry about service levels. But outlet malls, like dollar stores, are harbingers of economic activity - or inactivity. When they wither, it's cause for deep concern.

Even in Ithica itself, which is theoretically somewhat insulated from the vicissitudes of big business, the recession had take hold. There were many empty storefronts in the Common, the pedestrial mall in the middle of the city.  

It's easy to point fingers at the so-called "villains" of the current economic malaise afflicting the US and, to a lesser extent, Canada. And much of that blame is justified. Greed was allowed to run rampant for decades, with predictable results. From the evidence I've seen this week, it's going to be a long climb back to prosperity.

Strange bedfellows

Richard Nixon was the president of my youth. Although I was very young when he was elected, and barely sentient when he left office ignominiously several years later, I still have this view of him as a larger-than-life figure even beyond what is normally ascribed to holders of that office. His actions, and subsequent villification, may have been factors in my early decision to be a journalist.

As a public servant for many years since leaving the fourth estate, and both a student and a teacher of public policy, I approached a viewing of Frost vs. Nixon with a mixture of curiosity, intrigue and not a little salacious interest in reliving the details. As an aside, it was also a reminder that I'm getting older - movies are now being made about real events that have taken place in my lifetime.

For the record, my view of Nixon was that he was a man whose real accomplishments - and there were many - will forever be oveshadowed by his vicious temper, borderline sociopathic personality and unbridled paranoia. The Watergate break-in and subsequent coverup were the manifestation of his self-destructive tendency, not its cause.

The movie does an admirable job of portraying Nixon as a flawed human, but a human nonetheless. In some ways, it is reminiscent of Oliver Stone's portrayal of George W. Bush. That film uses actual, documented events to tell a story that is so farfetched and beyond credibility that it could only be true. Neither Stone nor Ron Howard, who helmed Frost vs. Nixon, has ever been known as an apologist for the right. And yet their takes on their respective subjects were, if not sympathetic, then at least somewhat balanced.

Where the movie falls down, though, is in its trotting out of the old saw that politicians and journalists share many of the same flaws - vanity and insecurity not least among them. Other movies have made the same point, and often done so more convincingly. I get that they need one another, and endure something approaching a sibling love-hate relationship.

This is simply too facile an interpretation of one of the most complex stories in American politics in the last 40 years. It calls out for a more probing, thoughtful analysis - one that goes beyond what's known and probes the more difficult questions. For example, why did it take a lightweight British talk-show host to do what the American networks steadfastly refused to do, namely, to tackle the Nixon legacy? If the mainstream press truly found its feet in the post-Watergate era, why then did it take them so long to start challenging Ronald Reagan when he took office less than a decade later? And we won't even go to the hagiography of the Fox Newses of the world while George W. Bush was president.

Frank Langella does a stellar job with Nixon's ambling gait, mumbling delivery and mercurial personality. The way he embodies one of the best-known personalities of the past half-century, without lapsing into parody, is both admirable and quite possibly Oscar-worthy. As David Frost, Michael Sheen brings to the role an air of pomposity and uncertainty that speaks to both the medium's self-image and its power. He is at once uncomfortable in his role as Nixon's inquistor, and aware that it just might cement his career.

There is a pivotal scene in the movie's final third in which Nixon drunk-dials Frost late at night. The rambling, disjointed and frequently terrifying conversation that ensues marks the beginning of the film's end - both literally and figuratively. From there it devolves into protracted exposition and more words per minute that even David Mamet could muster on his best day. After the final of the four interviews, Langella's Nixon emerges into the bright sunshine and has trouble focusing his eyesight. He looks like he might stroke out. Shortly afterwards, he enters a scene at his palatial San Clemente estate hobbling on what appears to be a cane, but turns out to be a golf club. Although it was a stroke that evenutally felled Nixon - many years later - this felt like a missed opportunity to foreshadow the outcome.

In the end, the movie breaks no new ground. It does not tell us anything we didn't know before about either man, their relationship or the seismic importance of these interviews in the canon of western journalism. It is alernately entertaining and unnerving, but focuses on neither enough to make a success of it.

Real comments, from a real focus group session

I have no idea what they mean, either. But a real person said them in a session a colleague was running.

• Flittering away money like peanut butter and jam sandwiches
• We’re getting hee hawed at the pumps
• You need dada to invest in dada and when you are so busy paying dada, dada and dada you don’t have any dada
• I look like a bag of hoo haw
• I haven’t seen that fartin’ thing and I’m 52 years old (Ontario Flag)
• Your ass is grass and I’m a giant lawn mower
• Everything in a hand basket
• People are in love with their computers…ok?

8-track cassettes should make a comeback

It doesn't really deserve a place - except as an artifact of the many different ways the music industry has tried to force feed and steamroller its fans. Even at the time, everyone knew the 8-track was a clunky, clumsy attempt to package music in the most inconvenient way possible - much like the industry's efforts to play whack-a-mole with peer-to-peer file sharing systems.

Jack Daniels Single Barrel always soothes me when I'm stressed

Previously gushed over here: http://webdude.blogs.com/kicks_are_for_trids/2005/12/december_29_200.html

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, and cookies. And not necessarily together, although I'm open to it.

Reading 'Fahrenheit 451' opened my eyes

First time I ever read a book that truly spooked me - not just because it was my introduction to sci-fi, but also because the censorship and mass obedience was so painfully realistic.

You'll find "Slate" atop my virtual toilet

"Slate"
Owned by old-school, mainstream media titan The Washington Post, this amalgam of news, views, entertainment and techno-geekdom is never far from the top of my browser history list. See it for yourself at http://www.slate.com/

My trip from Winnipeg, MB to Thornhill, ON

I was working at the Winnipeg Free Press, where I'd been hired - without my knowledge - as a strike breaker. When the strike failed to materialize, neither did my job. Fortunately, my brother flew out to meet me and keep me company on the trip home. It's 20+ years later, and I think he's finally forgiven me for rolling the car and almost killing him outside White River, ON.