President Barack Obama's health bill will pass, but will it pass muster, particularly with his own Democratic colleagues?
The bill will have no public health plan.
It will extend access to insurance to all Americans, but at what costs and to whom?
It is astonishing to witness this struggle from the smug and superior position of Canadiana.
Perhaps you find it as difficult and mystifying as I do to see decent and reasonable people fighting what should be best for them all because of some ingrained and frankly simplistic outmoded belief systems.
In a classic case of the Law of Unintended Consequences, the private insuring companies are probably singing all the way to the stock market this morning.
As for Ms. Poor and Desperate with three kids...good luck.
Obama has played politics with this enormous issue.
But what did people expect?
He is not a shoemaker. He is a politician. He came from nowhere and grabbed the White House.
This bill is far from ideal, but it is something.
Let's be optimistic (if a little dewy-eyed, I admit) and pray that in the coming years this flawed compromise will be seen as the building block to something that really pays off for those who need it and ought to have it in a modern democracy.
Especially one that spends more on health care per capita and gets less results than any similar democracy in the world today.
It’s only taken about 40 years, but finally – finally – I have sorted out my thoughts and feelings about Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
In short, Sinatra may be the greater artist, but I’d rather listen to and watch Tony any time.
Here’s why.
KCTS has been running a number of their all-time favorites during their recent pledge drive, including “Sinatra at Carnegie Hall.”
I taped the 90-minute piece and watched it in several sittings between bites of food, Seinfeld re-runs and other mindless diversions.
Sinatra, about 55 or 60 at the time, was terrific.
So were the orchestra, the arrangements and the worshipping audience.
But.
There were three big buts.
And one of them was a butt.
A cigarette butt.
There was a time not so very long ago in Magic Land when most of us smoked cigarettes and many of us developed certain styles and nervous tics with our habits that we believed spoke of sophistication, urbanity, hipness and cool.
We were wrong and deluded, of course, but it was great fun while it lasted.
A bit of an anachronism to witness therefore, the Chairman of the Board dragging the last possible hit out of his filter job – whilst singing up a storm no less – and then, before our very eyes, flicking the damn thing onto the hallowed parquet floor of the stage of Carnegie Hall and then grinding the thing in with the heel of his many-lacquered tuxedo slipper.
A cultural oddity I realize, forgivable by the relativity we call Time.
But the second offense was not a passing fancy.
It was essential core Sinatra.
Sinatra has always been famous for, among many other things (just ask Ava Gardner), crediting the great songwriters and tunesmiths just before he opens his pipes and delivers what is usually the defining version of a given melody.
In the concert I was watching he did just that with a song by Carol Bayer Sager.
Then for some inexplicable reason, he began riffing on her name, ending in a dreadful disrespectful insult, which he clearly thought was funny and clever.
It was neither.
“Carole Bayer Sager. Or, Carol Sager Bayer. Or, Bag Lady…”
Bag Lady?
I have never heard him do this with the names of Gershwin – George or Ira – Irving Berlin, Jimmy van Husen, Sammy Kahn, Rogers & Hart or any other of the great contributors to The American Songbook, which is Sinatra’s stock and trade.
But of course they are all men.
I would suggest that this odd and not amusing little sideways outburst has a lot to do with Sinatra’s great love for and fear of women.
Women have always been Man’s kryptonite.
Men adore the fairer sex and knowing at the deepest level our dependence on them, we fear them mightily.
It was Sinatra who insisted on calling them “broads.”
Finally, there is a palpable sense when one watches Sinatra that we are witnessing a guy who is oh so very in love with himself. He is so hostile and angry with you and you and me and so pleased with his own very wonderful self, that much of the potential for communication is cut off by the glory of the performance.
He was a marvelous actor, possibly the best pop singer in living memory, a pretty fair Sunday painter, a complete entertainer and a fascinating complex character.
He has left us much to cherish.
But you know what?
I’d still rather listen to the straight ahead and much less complicated voice of Tony Bennett.
Most, I suspect, has to do with aging and its attendant wonders.
But the rest I can lay squarely on the peculiarities of an evolving culture.
If culture is what we can call it.
Here are some of the basic upheavals.
I rarely go to the movies.
Seems like a small thing, I realize.
But not for a guy who can quote you chapter and verse of a few thousand flicks, who sat in movie houses through what used to be called "double bills" at least three times a week from the age of 4 to the age of 14.
I no longer like an experience I used to love.
People are noisy and rude and stupid and they are celling and texting and talking out loud.
And the movies themselves are more often than not juvenile nonsense.
So like many of you, I rent movies, I buy DVD's and I watch TV.
Moreover, the movies I rent are often from France and Italy and South Korea.
At best, I'll see a different point of view, a different sensibility.
At the very least, a travelogue.
If on occasion, there's another "Lawrence of Arabia" that demands the Big Screen experience, I'll sneak in on a Tuesday afternoon in the hope that the public mayhem is at a minimum.
But when is there another "Lawrence of Arabia?"
"Avatar?"
I don't think so.
I rarely go to the theatre.
No doubt I am missing the occasional treasure.
But I am also saving myself from hours of watching radio plays played out by wooden poseurs with no compelling life force in them.
I skip through the section of the newspaper I used to jump on - the movies and entertainment.
I don't know who the stars are and I can't seem to care.
No doubt there are some darn fine young talents and no doubt I'll stumble upon one or two in the coming days, but my searchlights are no longer on high beam.
Hahahaha...
I am increasingly a homebody.
A cocooner.
The phrase "crotchety old fart" rushes to mind.
That's O.K.
I don't tweet and I don't facebook or linkin.
On the other hand...
I still listen to music. I still sing. I still watch movies - at home. I still swim and play tennis. My cooking repertoire is building up and my cholesterol is going down.
Let's dig the poor fellow out of his grave and have him pretend to do practically everything at the opening and closing ceremonies.
Good idea. Won't that be fun?
Fun for everyone except Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Kudos and Bravos to Bramwell who didn't really want to be the Sym-PHONY Orchestra de jour and pre-record their music only to have it be conducted by Milli Vanilli or someone rescued from the DTES.
Bramwell said quite rightly to VANOC, "Thanks, but we'll pass."
VSO refuses to play for Olympics
Vanoc wanted orchestra to let others pretend to play its music, conductor says
It's like the wizards at VANOC are going out of their way to embarrass themselves.
Excuse me for a moment, folks.
I have to practice my beloved routine of walking silently into an enormous head wind while wearing snow shoes and leading a 90-piece band of cute forest creatures.
Get the staff in the office to order all the students into the auditorium and then shoot everyone.
Then drive to the University of Manitoba and shoot more people until we get tired or the police shoot us.
The preparations included collecting guns, ammo and Molotov cocktails.
For this little piece of adolescent mischief, the 17-year old boy and the 18-year old girl have been given two years in jail.
Their handlers have already reported that while they in custody "they have made strides."
Oy.
Now, let's not worry about all of that.
Let's have a look at this small concern.
Bonny and Clyde cannot be identified under court order, because of their age.
Even though they have been tried as adults.
I understand.
I get it.
I really do.
We don't want to identify young people lest their youthful indiscretions brand them for life.
Right.
I understand.
Like for stealing a car or giving their classmate a wedgie or for spitting on the sidewalk.
But do I not have a right to be protected from harm?
Does the state not have a solemn obligation to do its best to protect me from harm?
Should I not be allowed to know who these two sick lunatics are in case I run into them at Blenz shortly after they are released after serving way less than the two years because of time in custody, good behaviour and mandatory parole?
Arming yourself in preparation for mass murder is not necessarily what anyone had in mind when they determined years ago with nothing but goodness in their mistaken silly hearts that youngsters in crime should remain unidentified.
Excuse me.
I want to know the names and photos of these two wretched souls.
I want the freedom to avoid them like the plague, to run screaming from public places that crazy people are about.
Then I want to sit down with the law makers and the nut cases who think these two have "made strides" and have a good old fashioned jawing with them.
Turns out that the Richard Colvin warnings and claims about the torture of Afghan detainees was only the proverbial tip of the berg.
Seems that the entire Canadian mission in Afghanistan has been without direction or clarity from the beginning.
The revelations now surfacing are shocking, but they shouldn't;t be.
Disarray has been the norm on this front, with no one in charge and assignments spread across numrous desks with little or no communication between funtionairies.
Read the whole mess and weep for the soldiers who have been treated with such disregard by bureaucrats.
Highly paid bureaucrats.
Faceless and highly paid.
Canadian soldiers have died because of the sloppiness of the command that is supposed to be standing on guard for them.
Francis Bula has done a nice job as usual of covering the current deliberations of Vancouver City Council.
How to hold the line on expenditures without cutting back on all services.
Yes, how?
Of course, this City Council like all councils before it and no doubt all that will follow, is taking exactly the wrong approach.
Here's what they are considering:
Close the Bloedel Observatory and the Petting Zoo.
Reduce Community Centre hours and Library hours.
Close Libraries.
Reduce street-cleaning.
No.
The truth is that Vancouver City Hall, like all other City Halls across the nation, around the world is a bloating inflated bureaucracy with dozens of frivolous unneeded departments and hundreds if not thousands of useless money-sucking jobs.
The social planning and arts divisions alone are charter members of the What Do You Folks Actually Do Club?
Did I just say that social planning and arts are either not important or not within the purview of a city's responsibilities?
No, I did not.
I am saying that these departments - and they are only two examples - are over-staffed and under worked and cannot in any measurable way justify the money spent.
The City would be wise to hold budgets.
But closing libraries and community centres and local treasures is not the answer.
Across the globe, more than 1.2 billion people smoke - and one billion of them are more or less poor.
Tobacco taxes are poverty taxes.
This is the gist of a fascinating column by Neil Reynolds in today's Globe.
While governments everywhere are having a lot of fun suing Bog Tobacco for health costs, the governments are raking in 50 cents on every dollar spent on cigarettes.
And this money is spent more often by poor people.
The reasons for this are complicated and very interesting.
Apparently, Copenhagen and Afghan detainees are spurring on a recent fit of self-loathing.
Not me.
I am happy to be Canadian.
While this is not the best of all possible worlds, it is pretty darn good in most ways.
A strange absence of mortal shells zinging over head is a good start.
Then there's our universal health care and our glorious physical beauty and warm and friendly neighbourliness - everywhere except Vancouver, of course.
That goes without saying.
Or saying very loudly.
In public.
O.K.
But this morning there is one thing that made me feel downright queasy about being Canadian.
It's that full-page ad in the morning paper from Roots.
Many, many, many leather goods - bags, wallets, purses, pouches - all adorned with the Canadian flag.
There is something creepy about this kind of cheap and phony patriotism.
How does putting the national flag on a shoulder bag make me or you or the shoulder bag any more attractive or superior or pious?
Can I start selling products stitched with the Maple Leaf on them, or is this an exclusive deal for the Roots people?
From whence comes this special dispensation?
And why?
99% of everything we wear in Canada is made in China.
Does Roots get flags because it is the rare exception?
Are Roots products secretly made you know where?
If you are carrying such a bag, please don't stop and say Hello.
In any event, I live in Vancouver and I don't know how to say Hello back.
The Ontario government is considering turning over to the private sector their Hydro, Gaming and Liquor exclusives.
And this is not mere conjecture.
They have asked two major banks for assistance in this initiative.
This matter always seems to bring out the North and South in us all.
Turning government crown corporations over to the wheelhouses of the free market is always the best idea or the worst evil imaginable.
But I don't settle in either of those camps.
I would prefer governments to NOT be in many businesses IF AND ONLY IF they ever bothered to provide some safeguards and protections for the public good during the dumping process.
Did the Campbell government do that with B.C. Ferries?
I don't think so.
Was the sale of BC Rail a good clean kosher deal?
If the Basi-Virk trial ever begins or ends, we might find out.
The Globe has written an excellent editorial this morning on exactly this dilemma.
"As governments assess which services they should and should not provide, they need to decide when owning a company is in the public interest. A sale may make sense if it can satisfy four conditions: It should give the government an immediate upfront cash benefit; it should allow the public to continue to share in the profit the company makes; it should preserve the priority of the public good; and it should not harm vital public-policy interests."
“We have all the manuals, but we haven't had the opportunity to do the training.”
Thus spake Oak Bay Police Chief Ron Gaudet two years after Peter Lee murdered his family in the good chief's jurisdiction.
But not to worry.
The chief's all over it.
Chief Gaudet promised his members will complete a mandatory, one-day online training program by next spring.
Let's pause a moment and think about that.
The police in leafy old Oak Bay, B.C. by the Sea have had two years to get their act together long enough to do a one-day training course on domestic violence.
Think about that phrase.
A one-day training course on domestic violence.
Oh yes, that'll really bring everyone up to speed.
Now look again at the description of this potential life-saver.
Not only is it all of one day, but it is...wait for it...online!
Yes, indeed.
You can really get a feel for the subtleties of human interactions from an ONEFFINGLINE course on domestic violence.
Then, when all of these treasures are considered, consider this.
The police in the Lee case had asked the Crown to hold Mr. Lee after he'd already almost killed his wife.
But it was the Crown who saw fit to let this time bomb out on bail.
Will the Freuds and Jungs down at Crown Counsel be taking this one day on line course too?
