Another Health Care Debate

Today the guest on The Daily Show was Betsy McCaughey, which was really pleasing to me because I recently looked her up... which I know isn't an enormous achievement but... it was exciting for me.

(Maybe it goes to show that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report may unfortunately be my primary news source, as the pundits and interviewers often suggest is the case with the youth of America, but at least the two generate for me enough interest to do some outside reading as well...)

Regardless, Betsy McCaughey is an opinion columnist that is held kind of responsible for the whole "death panel" craziness. She was ALSO kind of responsible for the major column that brought health reform to it's end during the Clinton administration. Jon Stewart interviewed her and they have the exact text for why she thinks the elderly will be euthanized with the new health care system. So you might want to check out the interview part 1 and part 2 and part 3.

(I know the more parts there are, the less likely anyone is to watch it... but... I feel like it's the most pleasurable way to ingest EXACTLY why everyone is freaking out... so you can hear the language of the bill, the interpretation, and determine whether or not you're afraid of it.)

What I think you'll find is (in no particular order of importance):

1. You have an enormous crush on Jon Stewart.

2. At the end, Betsy says she has a PhD in constitutional history. Is it just me, or does actually GOING to college make you LESS confident that other people have any IDEA about anything in their major? In other words, I am now skeptical of "experts" when I see how little I feel I know about my own field whilst heading into my senior year of college.

3. Oh... and maybe some knowledge on what this whole health debate is on.

4. It's hard be sure you're not biased when your (my) least favorite demographic-- middle-aged white women-- is pinned against your (my) favorite demographic... Jon Stewart. Plus Republican vs. Democrat, thinking health reform kills grandma vs. thinking that's absolutely absurd. There was no way I was going to believe her.

ALSO!! The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are done for THREE WEEKS!! BAAAHH! So... in fact you may want to watch the interview once a day for the next 3 weeks... for your fix...

Also, I officially decided, with the help of Claire, that I'm going to watch The Time Traveler's Wife with my pass. I feel I've made a good decision.

ALSO, I watched Running with Scissors. Tricky tricky. The thing is, any problems with the movie, in my opinion, were NOT for lack of trying. I think the problem is that the book is a memoir about this guy who has a CRAAAZY life.... but he makes it funny. But not SUPER funny. It has an undertone of humor in the way that he reacts to things that are actually SUPER shitty.... but they're so absurd that he takes it as shitty/funny. So the problem was, I don't think they could create the funny and it came off, to me, as being SUPER dramatic! And when it was dramatic, it seemed MELOdramatic. But, if I was seeing correctly, I think they REEALLY tried to put the humor in, especially Annette Bening. For instance, in one dialogue she kept repeating stuff about how she won't be oppressed, but she said "oppressed" so many times that I'm pretty sure they were trying to be funny... but ... since it's also, in reality, very sad, it's tricky to see the funny. In fact, I could be making it up because I was coloring the movie with what I read. But I don't think I am. Tricky tricky.