Famous Last Words

Two bang-up articles for fans of film critic Roger Ebert, medicare, and the meaning of life. Ebert has had several surgeries to remove cancer which has left him jawless, speechless, and full of beans.

The first is an excellent review of the term 'death panel' in the health care 'debate', where he talks of the beauty of a term that so efficiently shuts down reason, even though it appears to have dropped out of the stupid mouth of Sarah Palin.

Luckily, Ebert was old enough to qualify for Medicare just as his own benefits ran out, exhausted by the severity of his illness, and the multiple surgeries to keep him alive and (mostly) in one piece. One of the many kickers in his article is that every member of the House of Representatives and Senate receives universal health care, no matter what their age. "You should try it some time," says Ebert. (Chicago Sun-Times)

The other is a long, beautiful article on Ebert in Esquire by writer Chris Jones. Totally worth the read.

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

Canada's Health Care System Doesn't Suck

First off, I'm not dying. I'm not even sick. Just having a bit of back trouble. Nothing serious.

But, I did have to have an MRI. As a precaution. Now, considering how often I've heard in the media how crazy long the MRI waiting lists are and considering how on talk radio, the MRI backlog is one of their many canards used to justify further health care privatization, when I was told I was being signed up for one, I figured, well, it'll be months before I have to worry about that. Up to a year, I figured I'd be waiting around.

So, how long did I have to wait to get an MRI?

Three weeks.

That's it. Three weeks. And it's not like they were calling me in on short notice to fill a cancellation. They phoned me a week in advance to schedule my appointment.

And you know, when the doctor was filling out my paperwork, there's a triage rating from one to five that he had to circle. And I was put at the lowest priority for an MRI. So, when the MRI people were surveying their list to decide who gets to go next, I was one of the last people they picked.

And still I got in in three weeks. I'm sure if I had something really worrisome they could have had me in even sooner.

Hats off to the folk in the General Hospital MRI clinic.

You know, I hear a lot about how broken our public health care system is. And I can't deny that I've had a few frustrating encounters with it. But most of the time I've nothing to complain about. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

U.S. Congress Passes Health Reform: The Dog Blog Linkapalooza

They had to sacrifice abortion rights to get it done, which I guess will appeal to religious assholes who like to meddle in government and strip unbelievers of their liberty.

But it's a start.

Heres' the New York Times story.
Here's the Guardian's story.
Heres' the Salon article.
Here's a piece in The Nation.
And finally, here's a long article on Alternet about the wacky things critics of health care reform in the United States say.

Save Our Insurers

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

What's really funny is the article I found this in -- worth a read (Insurance News Net). Among other things, INN calls the video "witty but ineffective" and, without a trace of irony, object to the actors' lack of irony in presenting the skit, because they're all rich enough to afford healthcare.

Rich actors. That's a good one. Note the random university student sources too. That Will Ferrell's so darned mean.

Also thanks to The Current which broadcasted the audio this morning. God bless The Current.

Voices of Reason

Finally, some rational discussion on health care reform in the United States. (College Humour)

Superman Supports Public Health Care

Of course he does. Superman at his best is a compassionate, generous hero. And he's a rational-minded realist--Supes knows that communities need to work together to solve problems that are too big for individuals and families and neighbours to tackle. Superman also knows that a strong government sector doesn't automatically threaten indivuality and freedom--it promotes it by protecting individuals against amoral market forces like the profit motive.

The full comic is here, and there's some sharp commentary too. (Comic Mix)

Alberta Flu Doctors Want $500/Hour

Here's something to chew on while you're ruminating on the Canadian Medical Association's plan to push governments on private-sector solutions to health care problems (Star Phoenix). The Alberta Medical Association wants its flu doctors to earn $500/hour. From a canoe.com article:

The Province and the Alberta Medical Association are now trying to hammer out a deal on compensation for doctors who'd volunteer in the case of a renewed and widespread swine flu (H1N1) pandemic here, said Alberta Health spokesman John Tuckwell, who insisted the proposed pay scale is still "premature."

In a letter to doctors, the association lists a series of rates that could be paid if the province was scrambling to deal with a major flu outbreak this fall. The top rate quoted for doctors who volunteer to be part of the flu-fighting team would be $518.45 an hour.

Full article here.

I am reluctant to question the motives of Canada's valued doctors. When they say they want to reform Canada's health care system by lobbying for more private sector delivery, I'm not going to immediately call them a pack of greedy, manipulative jackels using a manufactured health care crisis to extort higher profits from Canada's publicly-funded system.

No, I'll respectfully listen to what they have to say.

But $500/hour? That's insane. Tons of Canadians working full time barely make $500 a week. And I sincerely doubt there are many "volunteers" making that kind of coin. (Do Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan even earn that kind of money?)

I know there's a strong culture of compassion for patients among Canada's doctors. And I know a lot of doctors support Canada's public system and are concerned about some of the directions suggested for it (Doctors for Medicare).

I'm just worried there's also a growing culture of "I want my second yacht".

U.S. Congressman Destroys Health Care Critic

Barney Frank for the win. Finally a politician acknowledges you can't argue with crazy people. Here's a short news piece on this exchange, which happened yesterday in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. (Boston Globe)

More On That Jerk With The Rifle At The Obama Rally

Turns out his show of force was planned in advance--police had been notified and the "journalist" who interviewed him is apparently a friend and fellow libertarian wackjob. Here's the story on Talking Points Memo.

So, instead of this being a spontaneous event where a lone asshole shows up with a gun to intimidate people who disagree with him it's an organized, calculated show of force by an organized group of armed right-wingers and fringe media creeps. Phew! A group of heavily-armed, self-absorbed egomaniacs with axes to grind and a following is so much better than one loon with a machine gun. I feel so much better about America's prospects for the future now.

The gunman's name is supposedly "Chris B.". In the interview he attacks the public option in health care by saying, and I quote, ""We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote." (I wonder how he feels about gay marriage.)

Naturally, this guy also says taxation is theft--one of my favourite psycho anarchist right-wing talking points.

Here's the charming little video where he says many pleasant things.





Of course this is all insane garbage. No one is talking about taking his "right" to private healthcare insurance away. But most Americans want a public system. They voted for it. They should get it.

These gun-toting maniacs really need their own country. Ideally on Mars. In the meantime, where, exactly, is the FBI? Yeah, yeah I know, probably spying on some neighbourhood anti-poverty organization somewhere. Snort.

Here's the Guardian's take on the whole thing, by the way.

Man Shows Up At Obama Rally With Assault Rifle

photo swiped from Daily Kos.

Holy crap. From Talking Points Memo:

About 12 people were carrying guns, including at least one semi-automatic assault rifle, outside a building where President Obama was speaking today. No one was arrested outside the VFW National Convention in Phoenix, according to the Associated Press, where hundreds of people demonstrated both for and against health care reform. There are no reports that the 12 were part of an organized group. The man spotted carrying the assault rifle and a pistol, who gave his name only as "Chris", was asked why he was armed. "Because I can do it," he said. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms."

So was the scary gun guy arrested by Homeland Security? Ha ha ha, of course not.

Two police officers kept close by. Carrying guns, including the AR-15 assault rifle, is legal under Arizona law. "If we need to intervene, we will intervene at that time," said Detective J. Oliver.

Full article here. (TPM)

Two points of my own.

One: what would've happened to any anti-war activist who showed up at a Bush or Cheney event with a weapon like that a year ago? Exactly. (Thanks Blaine.) Funny how America has different standards for peaceful liberal protestors than it does for armed conservatives. Where is this "liberal bias in the media" the Fox News pundits are always wailing about, again? This guy isn't even in a free speech cage.

Two: This man is clearly threatening political violence. He's intimidating health care supporters with the implicit promise of mass murder should they not back down.

Meet the face (well, the back of the head) of the anti-healthcare movement. They're fucking brownshirts, but better armed than those Nazis ever dreamed of. Next step: smashing windows, beating and killing political opponents, assassinating politicians, riots, misery etc. Welcome to real, honest to god fascism, America. At least it's not a white-only party.

The politicians always say you aren't supposed to negotiate with terrorists? Well, so be it, I say. This thug is a terrorist. He can't get his way through peaceful conversation. He can't get his way through democracy because his views (which I promise you are insane) don't have majority support.

He can only get his way if he frightens people into silence with his (legal!!!) assault rifle.

Most Americans want public health care (CBS.) The Democrats have to stop trying to build consensus with Republican saboteurs, they have to stop trying to appease the lunatics and they have to force this thing through. It's what Americans want. If the conservative lunatic fringe explodes into violence, I'm sorry but, well...they're going to anyway, sooner or later. Right? Deal with it now.

You can't stop working for a better world because the nuts have guns and are holding everyone hostage. Health care now, America.

Ronald Reagan Hated You

Further to item #1 in my Six In The Morning, please enjoy this vintage recording of Ronald Reagan attacking public health care on behalf of a powerful special-interest group called the American Medical Association.



(And here’s some context from the New York Times’ Paul Krugman.)

Crap like this is why I freak out when I hear even a whisper suggesting the Canadian Medical Association might support ANY degree of private health care. Whenever ANYONE uses the word “socialism” to scapegoat political opponents or frighten the public, I think of haters like Reagan, whose evil bullshit helped entrench the for-profit U.S. health care system. Which makes lots of money for the U.S. insurance industry while failing countless Americans. This stuff makes me extra-furious because thanks to America’s bad example, Canada’s beloved public system is always under the shadow of privatization.

You know, I’m just a (co-) small business owner who wants to make enough money to enjoy the one life I get and have a fun job with swell co-workers. And I’m smart enough to realize it’s usually the so-called “socialists” who bring forward the ideas that actually benefit lower-middle class me and my scruffy company. They’re the ones who talk about fair taxation, a strong public sector, protecting the environment, looking out for the vulnerable. etc. etc. All the sane stuff I support.

Unless you’re a multi-millionaire it’s in your interests to be on the “socialist” team, too. Best of all, you don’t actually have to BE a socialist. You'll just have to put up with name-calling by prostitute politicians who care more about their special interest group buddies than they do about you.

There They Go Again

Obama wants universal health care in America. (Guardian) Great. Now we get 18 months of douchebag TV pundits insulting the Canadian system on Fox. Wheee.

Today In Surgery

Dog Blog's shyest member, Carle Steel, sent me a link to this story about North America's first succesful face transplant. (Thanks Carl). The article is interesting mostly as a portrait of the amazing recipient, a woman who lost most of her face after her husband blasted her with a shotgun.

Read the Associated Press story for the feel-good (well, as good as possible) humanity, but maybe do me a favour and remember it the next time you hear some libertarian asshole say there shouldn't be any restrictions on the purchase or ownership of firearms. I'm not opposed to collectors and hobbyists keeping guns, I don't want to take rifles away from farmers and hunters, and I recognize that some of the gun laws in this country might need tweaking. But Jebus Cripes, there are just flat out too many guns out there, and everytime a gun-owning family goes into crisis (a polite way of saying another man goes mental) there's a danger someone will get shot in the face.

And at the risk of sounding like a looney radical, I'm opposed to people being shot in the face.

For people living in cities and suburbs, guns should not be regarded as "household items". They should NEVER be sold in malls, department stores and grocery shops.

Ninety-nine per cent of people have no business owning guns. End of story. Don't shoot the messenger.

Christmas In Winnipeg

Merry Christmas, Regina!

I’m in Winnipeg.

While I've lived in Regina for a decade and consider it my home, it's an inescapable fact: I was aged to my current, tragically well-documented state of imperfection in this town once dubbed “One Great City” by its deluded and desperate boosters. And because I’m related to people who still live in this sprawled, violent and IKEA-obsessed burg, I often head back here at Christmas time.

The highlight of my semi-annual visits, besides seeing family of course, is catching up with friends. Met some pals last night at the Round Table, a south-end restaurant/pub that seems to be the official Yule gathering spot for the old “gang”.

The service was sketchy — what kind of pub lets thirsty patrons stare at empty glasses? — but the nachos and conversation were good.

One fellow conversant was Jake “nom de plume “ Fiddler, a PhD student who just moved back after a couple years at a university in the States. Jake is the still-recovering youngest son of socialist internationalists. He spent a lot of his childhood in developing countries where his do-gooder folks associated with Marxists, leftists and other hippies—the kind of people who, when they weren’t building schools, helping refugees and digging wells, were complaining about Ronald Reagan and U.S. imperialism.

(I know this because in junior high school I often ate lunch at the Fiddler's and thus listened to their leftist propaganda, their stories about the MNR in Mozambique and death squads in El Salvador and race murders in South Africa and stuff like that. I fear I may have been corrupted. But enough about me.)

So I had to ask this friend who grew up in a household polluted by anti-American sentiment what it was like to be a guy like him in the States for two years. How is the U.S. different from Canada? What did he learn?

“You gotta fight for health care. That’s it,” he said.

Jake says that in the United States, when politicians talk about universal health care they’re talking about making it illegal not to have privately administered health insurance. And that’s the best to be hoped for. The prospects for publically-administered universal health care along the lines of what Canada (and basically THE REST OF THE DEVELOPED WORLD) has are, according to Jake, precisely squat.

There’s a lot I love about the country to the south of us but in too many important ways it’s broken beyond conceivable repair. Too much military spending. Too much corporate lobbying. Too much demagoguery around crime and taxes and patriotism and God and “family values”. Out of control racism and gun violence. The Phoenix Coyotes.

The fact that the United States can’t establish universal health care, though, is probably the best symbol for the nation’s failures.

Yet another reason I get frustrated when the majority of my adopted home province votes for the Conservatives, Canada’s most American-style political party.

So that’s what I’m thinking about while I’m up waiting for Santa at three a.m. Christmas morning.

Don’t tell me I don’t have an ass-full of holiday spirit.