George Carlin Delivers
You have to see this George Carlin video. I was never a big Carlin fan (and I remember him from the 60s), but in this monologue, he concisely, pointedly delivers everything the left has been saying for years.
September 7, 2007
Spotlight
June 30, 2007
See Sicko Again
Yahoo defines “Sicko” as a documentary in the Politics/Religion genre. Truly, the socialism pushed in the movie is nothing short of a religion to many.
First, one of the things I hope to bring out in the ongoing Wisdom of Doubt series is to establish that religion is something other than “fanatical belief in things that demonstrably are not true.” But let’s put that aside for now. The real fantasy is, of course, that the United States has The Best Health Care in the World. It does not. It does not by any empirical measure. The only way one could possibly still believe that the United States has The Best Health Care in the World is if one is utterly ignorant of the health care systems here and abroad.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it. There’s an old joke that a “conservative” is a liberal who got mugged. The new joke is that a “liberal” is a conservative who lost his health insurance.
A brainwashed twit named Sheila commented to the last post, saying that
First of all, 4 out of 5 Americans are satisfied with the health care system, so it is really a non-issue (this will likely be the reason the movie flops).
Take a look at the latest polls on health care at pollingreport.com. It’s very encouraging. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll of May 4-6, 2007, asked the question “Do you think the government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes?” 64 percent said yes; 35 percent said no. Interestingly, a smaller percentage of people in the same poll said yes to “Do you think all employers, including small businesses which employ few workers, should be required to provide health insurance to every employee, or don’t you think so?” Here the spread was 56 percent yes to 43 percent no. I think people are starting to catch on that the cost of employee health insurance is terribly burdensome to business, large and small. Well, except to the health insurance industry, of course.
Anyway, Gateway Pundit’s post is fairly typical of the “Best Health Care in the World” genre. It consists mostly of photographs of filth and cockroaches alleged to have been taken in Cuban hospitals and not at Walter Reed. And they may very well have been taken in Cuban hospitals; I wouldn’t know. But then there’s France, whose health care system is generally considered to be the crème de la crème of health care systems on the planet. And Canada. and Britain. And about 30 other nations with nationalized health care and better life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than ours.
But after reading Gateway Pundit’s post I decided that I’d like to amend something I wrote in the last post, which is:
But most of the bad reviews I’ve read amount to sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore. What the critics never ever do is honestly address the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data. They just make excuses.
To “sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore” I’d like to add “photographs of roaches in Cuban hospitals” and, of course, the old stand by: waiting lines in Canada. Still, not a peep about the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data.
See also: “Bush to Uninsured Kids: Drop Dead” and The Mahablog health care archives.
Spotlight
June 29, 2007
See Sicko
I believe Sicko opens today nationwide, so be sure to see it over this long weekend.
Ari Melber responds to a criticism of the film from Dean Barnett. You remember Barnett; he’s the twit who thinks fertilized eggs are people, but soldiers aren’t, and of course women are merely major appliances. Barnett makes the knee-jerk assumption that Moore made the film to elect Democrats.
Melber points out that Moore probably is harder on Hillary Clinton than he is on George Bush in this film. I’ll let Melber continue (emphasis added) –
These are not the kind of stories that prime people to think of partisan affiliations or presidential campaigns. If anything, the genuine human struggles in “Sicko” raise questions about our society that run much deeper than what passes for political discourse today.
Why does such a rich nation let people suffer and die without health care? If we truly value the Americans who risked their lives on Sept. 11, why do some struggle without treatment for injuries they sustained while trying to keep us safe? And in the toughest challenge for American exceptionalists, why do so many other countries do a better job of providing care to all of their citizens? (Specifically, 36 countries, according to the World Health Organization.)
These questions probably won’t send people running from the theater to endorse a particular health care policy. Yet “Sicko” could drive the public to demand a realistic national debate on how to achieve quality care for all Americans, and to reject the recurring political attacks on the people working toward this admirable goal.
The recent personal attacks on Moore – and other health care reformers, such as former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) – are in line with the vacuous scare tactics that have stifled health care policy long before the Clinton administration attempted reform. The detractors typically don’t offer solutions or engage reformers’ ideas. They don’t join the vital debate over how our public policy should value every human life. They just defend the status quo and launch personal attacks.
This brings us back to Mr. Barnett’s Politico column. It offers a conservative’s supposed concern that the intricate politics of “Sicko” will backfire on Democrats (why would he care?). Then it recycles the canard that Edwards should not help the poor because he is wealthy. (By that logic, Americans with good health care shouldn’t help anyone else, and cities with solid homeland security shouldn’t collaborate to defend more vulnerable areas.)
But after 800 words, Mr. Barnett fails to say anything about health care policy, or whether the Sept. 11 rescue workers deserve assistance or whether the U.S. should even try to improve our world health rankings. The column, like so many attacks on health care reformers, ignores the issues and gloomily accepts America’s dismal health care condition – and then labels Moore as the pessimist. “Smart politicians would avoid him like the plague,” concludes Mr. Barnett.
Here it’s painfully obvious that Mr. Barnett didn’t see the movie or didn’t get it. The issue is not how “smart politicians” position themselves – the public could not care less. The issue is what our nation can do about a health care crisis that leads to the needless suffering and death of our fellow citizens. They are the ones who have to avoid a real “plague,” since they can’t count on decent treatment when they get sick.
I’ve read a number of reviews that complain Sicko is one-sided and that Moore doesn’t always explain where he gets his facts. To this I say, first, that the more you know about what’s going on in American health care, the more you realize the “other” side is indefensible. Second, Moore said very little that I hadn’t already learned in my own research. I can’t swear the film is without factual error, but overall the way it portrays U.S. healthcare is accurate. Moore may be guilty of oversimplifying — the Canadian and British health care systems do have some problems that aren’t discussed in the film. But Moore is also an entertainer. This is a theatrical film, not a presentation for policy wonks.
But most of the bad reviews I’ve read amount to sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore. What the critics never ever do is honestly address the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data. They just make excuses.
Numerous congressional proposals have offered wider, less-expensive and more-reliable coverage than Americans receive from our current patchwork, employer-based system.
But no matter how workable, practical or desirable the proposals may be, the insurance industry reliably shoots them down. Armed with billions of dollars for political campaign contributions, spin doctors and attack ads, the industry has largely steered the nation’s health care debate for decades.
Mr. Moore evens things up a bit. He uses the same pop culture that brings you Paris Hilton and American Idol to offer something truly valuable: a vision of a better American health care system than the one we have.
The fact is that whatever truncated national discussion we’ve had about health care going back as far as I remember has been entirely one sided. It’s the health care industry saying we have the Best Health Care in the World, and if you don’t agree you must be a Communist. End of discussion.
He offers something else that most Americans never see: how easily anyone - including visitors - can access good public health care in Canada and Europe and how satisfied those country’s citizens are with their systems. Critics predictably charge Mr. Moore with sugar-coating his view of the other countries, particularly Cuba, where Fidel Castro’s government still affords superior care to favored Communist Party elites. Nevertheless, having witnessed health care in each of the countries Mr. Moore visits, I think he got it about right.
In Canada and Europe, customer satisfaction is high, despite the drawbacks. Defenders of our health care status quo come up with one horror story after another of long lines, waiting lists, rising costs or rationed care. But they don’t like to talk about the long lines, waiting lists, rising costs or rationed care that Americans face in our existing system. Mr. Moore’s movie does.
Nobody’s system is perfect. But despite the smear job that conservatives over here give to British health care, for example, stalwart conservatives over there aren’t mounting much of an effort to change it.
If the film does nothing else but get people to realize it doesn’t have to be this way, it has done its job.
Update: See Crooks & Liars about a hit piece on Sicko in the Los Angeles Times.
Spotlight
June 25, 2007
Sicko
Michael Moore’s Sicko opened this weekend in New York City, and I saw it yesterday.
I laughed. I cried. So did the rest of the audience, which also broke into loud applause several times.
This is Moore’s most mature film so far, and I mean that in the best possible way. Other Moore films induced anger, outrage, and sympathy, along with the laughs. But Sicko broke my heart.
As Ezra says, this film is not so much about the health-care crisis as it is a challenge to America’s thick-headed exceptionalism — that “the way we do things is the best way to do things because … it’s the way we do things.”
More than that, however, it reveals that democracy in America is fading, fast.
We may call the United States “the land of the free,” but the truth is that most American working folks live constricted lives compared to people in most other western democracies. Our life choices increasingly are being limited by whatever economic boxes we find ourselves in. People who have worked hard and lived by the rules all their lives must choose between medicine and retirement, or medical treatment and keeping their homes. Working parents find that “quality family time” is an unaffordable luxury. And if we are diagnosed with a serious illness, our very lives are forfeit to the whims of the insurance companies.
The young are crushed by student loans; the middle aged and older live in fear of losing their health insurance. This is keeping the workforce docile and compliant.
But most heartbreaking of all is the way in which Americans passively accept the status quo. We have the means at hand to improve the quality of our lives — a representative government — and we don’t use it.
Moore’s film is not without flaws. The Canadian and British health care systems do have problems, which Moore doesn’t mention. (However, those problems are minuscule compared to ours.) Moore tried to show that because the French do not pay for health insurance, health care, and many other services out of their own pockets, les citoyens have plenty of disposable income in spite of the higher taxes they pay. However, I’m not sure the point came across clearly. The trip to Cuba (partly censored by the Department of Homeland Security) was moving, but I wondered how much the Cuban government helped make it so.
But one point came across clearly — we Americans are being lied to. We’re told that “socialized medicine” means the government will limit our access to health care; or that we won’t be free to choose our own doctors. But Moore shows us it’s American doctors whose hands are tied — by insurance companies — while doctors in Canada and France and elsewhere are free to practice the best medicine they can practice. And their patients are free to choose their doctors.
Sicko has its signature Michael Moore touches. One segment follows an American woman trying to sneak her sick daughter into Canada to see a pediatrician. A man who lost the tips of two fingers in an accident recalls that he had to choose which finger to restore, since he lacked the money for both. A woman rendered unconscious in a car accident was charged for the ambulance ride because, her insurance provider said, the ambulance hadn’t been pre-approved.
But then there was Tony Benn, a former member of the British Parliament, explaining how the British managed to create the National Health Service after World War II. “What democracy did was give the poor the vote, and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station—from the wallet to the ballot…. And in 1948 the people asked, If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can’t you have full employment by building hospitals? If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.”
That line got enthusiastic applause from the Manhattan audience.
The poor in America have the vote, yet many do not choose to vote. Some who do vote cast ballots against their own interests. And many, as we know, are cheated of their ability to vote. But Moore’s movie was less about America’s poor than about America’s middle class; working people with insurance who are betrayed by the system. Surely the American middle class has the vote. Why aren’t we using it to our own benefit?
OK, we know why. It’s complicated, but we know why.
Someone in the French segment said something to the effect that The government of France is afraid of their people. Americans are afraid of their government. I’m not sure that’s true. I think Americans are just plain worn down. We’re worn down by the system, by the lies, by working too many hours, by juggling too many responsibilities by ourselves. And most of us don’t realize that we don’t have to live like this.
Like I said — Sicko broke my heart.
Spotlight
June 9, 2007
Another Belmont Stakes Post
[Update: The filly won! Whoopee!]
One filly, Rags to Riches, will be running in the Belmont Stakes today. A filly hasn’t won the race in over a century. Rags to Riches is a daughter of A.P. Indy, who won the Belmont Stakes in 1992. A.P. Indy was sired by Seattle Slew. His dam was Morning Surprise, a daughter of Secretariat.
Rags to Riches is one of the favorites, after Curlin and Hard Spun. Hard Spun is a descendant of Man o’ War and War Admiral, through his grandma Pas de Nom. He is also a grandson of Northern Dancer (winner of the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness) and a great-grandson of Alydar, famous for running second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. Curlin is a great-great grandson of Northern Dancer, as is Rags to Riches on her ma’s side.
Update: Rags to Riches’s ancestry also goes back to Man o’ War, through her great-grandpa Buckpasser.
Spotlight
Once Upon a Time
So we know there won’t be a Triple Crown winner this year, but thanks to video we can watch a Triple Crown Belmont Stakes victory anyway.
First, a story. Once upon a time, two thoroughbred breeders made a deal. They agreed that the owner of pedigree brood mares would send two mares to the champion stud owned by the other owner. They flipped a coin, and the winner of the coin toss got first choice of the two foals. Then the same two mares made the same trip the next year, and the loser of the coin toss got the first choice of the second two foals, except one of the two mares failed to produce a foal the second year.
So, the winner of the coin toss took home one foal, a filly that proved to be unexceptional. The loser got the second choice from the first year — a colt, also unexceptional — and the only foal born the second year. That foal was Secretariat.
If you saw the videos of the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, you might remember that in both those races Secretariat was in last place early in the race. Then he moved up to take the lead in the stretch. According to William Nack in Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, this was how the big horse ran most of his races. Jockey Ron Turcotte felt Secretariat usually needed to settle into his stride early in a race. But once he was in his stride, he kept accelerating. For example, in the 1 1/4 mile Derby he ran each quarter mile faster than the last one. This is unusual.
Beside Secretariat, there were only four other horses in the Belmont Stakes — Pvt. Smiles, Twice a Prince, My Gallant, and Sham. Only Sham’s owner admitted to thinking his horse could beat Secretariat. Sham had run great races in the Derby and Preakness and might well have won any other year. In fact, in the Derby he would have beat the track record had not Secretariat just set a new track record.
The Belmont Stakes is the longest of the three Triple Crown races — 1 1/2 miles. Sham’s owner instructed the jockey, Laffit Pincay, to go to the lead at the beginning of the race and to try to keep the pace moderate. They probably expected Secretariat to hang back at the beginning of the race, as he usually did. But Ron Turcotte decided that if no other horse set a strong pace he’d let the big horse go to the front and set his own pace.
So, in the video below (there’s a bigger version here) you see Sham and Secretariat both going to the front at the beginning, and they pull away from the other three horses. As they go into the first turn, they both pick up the pace. Pretty soon the two of them are running as if they were in a sprint, not a 1 1/2 mile race. Pincay knows that Sham is running too hard, but he had been ordered not to let Secretariat get ahead. Turcotte, meanwhile, feels the big horse running easily and figures he can keep it up for a while. So the two horses sprint, and reach the half-mile pole at 0:46 1/5, which was the fastest opening half mile in the history of the race.
By now Secretariat’s owners and his trainer are tearing out their hair, convinced that Ron Turcotte has gone out of his mind and will cause the horse to collapse of exhaustion before he gets to the wire. But because Secretariat is running so easily, Turcotte doesn’t realize how fast the horse is going.
At about five-eighths of a mile, Sham begins to fall apart. They’re still running at a faster pace than Man o’ War, Count Fleet, or Citation had run at that same point in the race. Over the next eighth of a mile Sham struggles, and Secretariat just glides along. At three quarters of a mile into the race, Sham is done. He drifts back and eventually finishes last. But Secretariat maintains the same sprint speed. His owners and trainer still think the horse will break down any minute. But Turcotte hasn’t taken out his whip or pushed the big horse; he is just letting him run, still not realizing they’re going at a record clip.
Now Secretariat opens the lead. On the video, you can hear the announcer Chick Anderson:
“Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 4/5. Secretariat is widening now. He is moving like a tremendous machine!”
Secretariat pulls further and further away from the rest of the horses. His frantic owners watch for any sign the horse is hurting or stressed. There is no such sign. As he turns into the home stretch, Secretariat is running faster than he ran past the half-mile pole. The lead widens. The horse maintains his record pace. At about the point Secretariat is 26 lengths in front — I’m sorry you can’t make this out in the video — Turcotte glanced behind and saw the rest of the field in another county. Then he glanced at the timer and realized he was ahead of record pace. So at the very end of the race, you can make out that he is pumping his arms — for the first time since early in the race — to be sure Secretariat doesn’t slow down at the end and blow the record.
Secretariat goes under the wire at 2:24, 31 lengths in the lead (the announcers says 29 lengths, but the horse was so far out in front it was hard to count). The previous record had been Gallant Man’s 2:26.6, set in 1957.
Since then, the second-fastest clocking is shared by Easy Goer (1989) and A. P. Indy (1992) at 2:26, while Risen Star (1988) and Point Given (2001) hold the fourth-fastest time at 2:26 2/5, it says here.
OK, now you can watch the race. (Or click here.)
You can read about the rest of Secretariat’s life here. In short, the big horse was retired to stud at the end of the 1973 racing reason and euthanized in 1983 after developing laminitis. On the whole his offspring were not exceptional, but his daughters have an outstanding record as brood mares. The fillies got all his good genes, it seems.
Sham was also retired to stud in 1973, after a leg fracture ended his racing career, and died in 1993. In 1978, Ron Turcotte fell from a mount during a race and was paralyzed from the waist down.
To this day, many people still consider Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes race to be the greatest single performance by a running horse. Certainly, it’s the best performance ever captured on film.
Spotlight
June 7, 2007
Enjoy
Sorry I haven’t been around to write much today, so enjoy some music. This is one of my personal theme songs.
Spotlight
May 28, 2007
Late Night for Geezers
Let’s lighten things up a bit. Classic television, ca. 1954. And I bet some of you remember this.
Spotlight
May 27, 2007
Let the Sunshine In
I’ve been looking for an appropriate Memorial Day video. The best I could come up with are a couple of clips from the 1979 film version of Hair, which was actually pretty good even though only about 36 people went to see it in theaters.
This is my favorite bit; Treat Williams as Berger sings “I Got Life.”
Here’s the last scene of the film. Berger takes Claude’s place in training camp — temporarily, he thought — so that Claude (John Savage) can go on a picnic. The rest is self-explanatory.
Spotlight
May 21, 2007
Inconvenient Facts
Rightie bloggers are gleefully linking to an item in the Toronto Star that pans Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. The author of the item, Peter Howell, writes,
We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada’s government-funded medicare system compared with America’s for-profit alternative.
While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system where dollars are the major determinant of the quality of medicare care a person receives, and where restoring a severed finger could cost an American $60,000 compared to nothing at all for a Canadian, Sicko makes it seem as if Canada’s socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.
Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.
In fact, my painstaking research (5 seconds of googling) revealed that Canadians live on average only 2.5 years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system. However, I would have thought 2.5 years is eye popping, too.
Since I haven’t seen the film I can’t judge how Moore describes the Canadian health care system, which does have some flaws. However, compared to our system the Canadian system is, um, way better.
Last week another Canadian, Liam Lacey of the Globe and Mail, wrote,
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
Liam Lacey predicts Sicko will be a hit.
Spotlight
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See Sicko Again
Yahoo defines “Sicko” as a documentary in the Politics/Religion genre. Truly, the socialism pushed in the movie is nothing short of a religion to many.
First, one of the things I hope to bring out in the ongoing Wisdom of Doubt series is to establish that religion is something other than “fanatical belief in things that demonstrably are not true.” But let’s put that aside for now. The real fantasy is, of course, that the United States has The Best Health Care in the World. It does not. It does not by any empirical measure. The only way one could possibly still believe that the United States has The Best Health Care in the World is if one is utterly ignorant of the health care systems here and abroad.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it. There’s an old joke that a “conservative” is a liberal who got mugged. The new joke is that a “liberal” is a conservative who lost his health insurance.
A brainwashed twit named Sheila commented to the last post, saying that
First of all, 4 out of 5 Americans are satisfied with the health care system, so it is really a non-issue (this will likely be the reason the movie flops).
Take a look at the latest polls on health care at pollingreport.com. It’s very encouraging. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll of May 4-6, 2007, asked the question “Do you think the government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes?” 64 percent said yes; 35 percent said no. Interestingly, a smaller percentage of people in the same poll said yes to “Do you think all employers, including small businesses which employ few workers, should be required to provide health insurance to every employee, or don’t you think so?” Here the spread was 56 percent yes to 43 percent no. I think people are starting to catch on that the cost of employee health insurance is terribly burdensome to business, large and small. Well, except to the health insurance industry, of course.
Anyway, Gateway Pundit’s post is fairly typical of the “Best Health Care in the World” genre. It consists mostly of photographs of filth and cockroaches alleged to have been taken in Cuban hospitals and not at Walter Reed. And they may very well have been taken in Cuban hospitals; I wouldn’t know. But then there’s France, whose health care system is generally considered to be the crème de la crème of health care systems on the planet. And Canada. and Britain. And about 30 other nations with nationalized health care and better life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than ours.
But after reading Gateway Pundit’s post I decided that I’d like to amend something I wrote in the last post, which is:
But most of the bad reviews I’ve read amount to sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore. What the critics never ever do is honestly address the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data. They just make excuses.
To “sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore” I’d like to add “photographs of roaches in Cuban hospitals” and, of course, the old stand by: waiting lines in Canada. Still, not a peep about the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data.
See also: “Bush to Uninsured Kids: Drop Dead” and The Mahablog health care archives.
June 29, 2007
See Sicko
I believe Sicko opens today nationwide, so be sure to see it over this long weekend.
Ari Melber responds to a criticism of the film from Dean Barnett. You remember Barnett; he’s the twit who thinks fertilized eggs are people, but soldiers aren’t, and of course women are merely major appliances. Barnett makes the knee-jerk assumption that Moore made the film to elect Democrats.
Melber points out that Moore probably is harder on Hillary Clinton than he is on George Bush in this film. I’ll let Melber continue (emphasis added) –
These are not the kind of stories that prime people to think of partisan affiliations or presidential campaigns. If anything, the genuine human struggles in “Sicko” raise questions about our society that run much deeper than what passes for political discourse today.
Why does such a rich nation let people suffer and die without health care? If we truly value the Americans who risked their lives on Sept. 11, why do some struggle without treatment for injuries they sustained while trying to keep us safe? And in the toughest challenge for American exceptionalists, why do so many other countries do a better job of providing care to all of their citizens? (Specifically, 36 countries, according to the World Health Organization.)
These questions probably won’t send people running from the theater to endorse a particular health care policy. Yet “Sicko” could drive the public to demand a realistic national debate on how to achieve quality care for all Americans, and to reject the recurring political attacks on the people working toward this admirable goal.
The recent personal attacks on Moore – and other health care reformers, such as former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) – are in line with the vacuous scare tactics that have stifled health care policy long before the Clinton administration attempted reform. The detractors typically don’t offer solutions or engage reformers’ ideas. They don’t join the vital debate over how our public policy should value every human life. They just defend the status quo and launch personal attacks.
This brings us back to Mr. Barnett’s Politico column. It offers a conservative’s supposed concern that the intricate politics of “Sicko” will backfire on Democrats (why would he care?). Then it recycles the canard that Edwards should not help the poor because he is wealthy. (By that logic, Americans with good health care shouldn’t help anyone else, and cities with solid homeland security shouldn’t collaborate to defend more vulnerable areas.)
But after 800 words, Mr. Barnett fails to say anything about health care policy, or whether the Sept. 11 rescue workers deserve assistance or whether the U.S. should even try to improve our world health rankings. The column, like so many attacks on health care reformers, ignores the issues and gloomily accepts America’s dismal health care condition – and then labels Moore as the pessimist. “Smart politicians would avoid him like the plague,” concludes Mr. Barnett.
Here it’s painfully obvious that Mr. Barnett didn’t see the movie or didn’t get it. The issue is not how “smart politicians” position themselves – the public could not care less. The issue is what our nation can do about a health care crisis that leads to the needless suffering and death of our fellow citizens. They are the ones who have to avoid a real “plague,” since they can’t count on decent treatment when they get sick.
I’ve read a number of reviews that complain Sicko is one-sided and that Moore doesn’t always explain where he gets his facts. To this I say, first, that the more you know about what’s going on in American health care, the more you realize the “other” side is indefensible. Second, Moore said very little that I hadn’t already learned in my own research. I can’t swear the film is without factual error, but overall the way it portrays U.S. healthcare is accurate. Moore may be guilty of oversimplifying — the Canadian and British health care systems do have some problems that aren’t discussed in the film. But Moore is also an entertainer. This is a theatrical film, not a presentation for policy wonks.
But most of the bad reviews I’ve read amount to sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore. What the critics never ever do is honestly address the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data. They just make excuses.
Numerous congressional proposals have offered wider, less-expensive and more-reliable coverage than Americans receive from our current patchwork, employer-based system.
But no matter how workable, practical or desirable the proposals may be, the insurance industry reliably shoots them down. Armed with billions of dollars for political campaign contributions, spin doctors and attack ads, the industry has largely steered the nation’s health care debate for decades.
Mr. Moore evens things up a bit. He uses the same pop culture that brings you Paris Hilton and American Idol to offer something truly valuable: a vision of a better American health care system than the one we have.
The fact is that whatever truncated national discussion we’ve had about health care going back as far as I remember has been entirely one sided. It’s the health care industry saying we have the Best Health Care in the World, and if you don’t agree you must be a Communist. End of discussion.
He offers something else that most Americans never see: how easily anyone - including visitors - can access good public health care in Canada and Europe and how satisfied those country’s citizens are with their systems. Critics predictably charge Mr. Moore with sugar-coating his view of the other countries, particularly Cuba, where Fidel Castro’s government still affords superior care to favored Communist Party elites. Nevertheless, having witnessed health care in each of the countries Mr. Moore visits, I think he got it about right.
In Canada and Europe, customer satisfaction is high, despite the drawbacks. Defenders of our health care status quo come up with one horror story after another of long lines, waiting lists, rising costs or rationed care. But they don’t like to talk about the long lines, waiting lists, rising costs or rationed care that Americans face in our existing system. Mr. Moore’s movie does.
Nobody’s system is perfect. But despite the smear job that conservatives over here give to British health care, for example, stalwart conservatives over there aren’t mounting much of an effort to change it.
If the film does nothing else but get people to realize it doesn’t have to be this way, it has done its job.
Update: See Crooks & Liars about a hit piece on Sicko in the Los Angeles Times.
Spotlight
June 25, 2007
Sicko
Michael Moore’s Sicko opened this weekend in New York City, and I saw it yesterday.
I laughed. I cried. So did the rest of the audience, which also broke into loud applause several times.
This is Moore’s most mature film so far, and I mean that in the best possible way. Other Moore films induced anger, outrage, and sympathy, along with the laughs. But Sicko broke my heart.
As Ezra says, this film is not so much about the health-care crisis as it is a challenge to America’s thick-headed exceptionalism — that “the way we do things is the best way to do things because … it’s the way we do things.”
More than that, however, it reveals that democracy in America is fading, fast.
We may call the United States “the land of the free,” but the truth is that most American working folks live constricted lives compared to people in most other western democracies. Our life choices increasingly are being limited by whatever economic boxes we find ourselves in. People who have worked hard and lived by the rules all their lives must choose between medicine and retirement, or medical treatment and keeping their homes. Working parents find that “quality family time” is an unaffordable luxury. And if we are diagnosed with a serious illness, our very lives are forfeit to the whims of the insurance companies.
The young are crushed by student loans; the middle aged and older live in fear of losing their health insurance. This is keeping the workforce docile and compliant.
But most heartbreaking of all is the way in which Americans passively accept the status quo. We have the means at hand to improve the quality of our lives — a representative government — and we don’t use it.
Moore’s film is not without flaws. The Canadian and British health care systems do have problems, which Moore doesn’t mention. (However, those problems are minuscule compared to ours.) Moore tried to show that because the French do not pay for health insurance, health care, and many other services out of their own pockets, les citoyens have plenty of disposable income in spite of the higher taxes they pay. However, I’m not sure the point came across clearly. The trip to Cuba (partly censored by the Department of Homeland Security) was moving, but I wondered how much the Cuban government helped make it so.
But one point came across clearly — we Americans are being lied to. We’re told that “socialized medicine” means the government will limit our access to health care; or that we won’t be free to choose our own doctors. But Moore shows us it’s American doctors whose hands are tied — by insurance companies — while doctors in Canada and France and elsewhere are free to practice the best medicine they can practice. And their patients are free to choose their doctors.
Sicko has its signature Michael Moore touches. One segment follows an American woman trying to sneak her sick daughter into Canada to see a pediatrician. A man who lost the tips of two fingers in an accident recalls that he had to choose which finger to restore, since he lacked the money for both. A woman rendered unconscious in a car accident was charged for the ambulance ride because, her insurance provider said, the ambulance hadn’t been pre-approved.
But then there was Tony Benn, a former member of the British Parliament, explaining how the British managed to create the National Health Service after World War II. “What democracy did was give the poor the vote, and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station—from the wallet to the ballot…. And in 1948 the people asked, If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can’t you have full employment by building hospitals? If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.”
That line got enthusiastic applause from the Manhattan audience.
The poor in America have the vote, yet many do not choose to vote. Some who do vote cast ballots against their own interests. And many, as we know, are cheated of their ability to vote. But Moore’s movie was less about America’s poor than about America’s middle class; working people with insurance who are betrayed by the system. Surely the American middle class has the vote. Why aren’t we using it to our own benefit?
OK, we know why. It’s complicated, but we know why.
Someone in the French segment said something to the effect that The government of France is afraid of their people. Americans are afraid of their government. I’m not sure that’s true. I think Americans are just plain worn down. We’re worn down by the system, by the lies, by working too many hours, by juggling too many responsibilities by ourselves. And most of us don’t realize that we don’t have to live like this.
Like I said — Sicko broke my heart.
Spotlight
June 9, 2007
Another Belmont Stakes Post
[Update: The filly won! Whoopee!]
One filly, Rags to Riches, will be running in the Belmont Stakes today. A filly hasn’t won the race in over a century. Rags to Riches is a daughter of A.P. Indy, who won the Belmont Stakes in 1992. A.P. Indy was sired by Seattle Slew. His dam was Morning Surprise, a daughter of Secretariat.
Rags to Riches is one of the favorites, after Curlin and Hard Spun. Hard Spun is a descendant of Man o’ War and War Admiral, through his grandma Pas de Nom. He is also a grandson of Northern Dancer (winner of the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness) and a great-grandson of Alydar, famous for running second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. Curlin is a great-great grandson of Northern Dancer, as is Rags to Riches on her ma’s side.
Update: Rags to Riches’s ancestry also goes back to Man o’ War, through her great-grandpa Buckpasser.
Spotlight
Once Upon a Time
So we know there won’t be a Triple Crown winner this year, but thanks to video we can watch a Triple Crown Belmont Stakes victory anyway.
First, a story. Once upon a time, two thoroughbred breeders made a deal. They agreed that the owner of pedigree brood mares would send two mares to the champion stud owned by the other owner. They flipped a coin, and the winner of the coin toss got first choice of the two foals. Then the same two mares made the same trip the next year, and the loser of the coin toss got the first choice of the second two foals, except one of the two mares failed to produce a foal the second year.
So, the winner of the coin toss took home one foal, a filly that proved to be unexceptional. The loser got the second choice from the first year — a colt, also unexceptional — and the only foal born the second year. That foal was Secretariat.
If you saw the videos of the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, you might remember that in both those races Secretariat was in last place early in the race. Then he moved up to take the lead in the stretch. According to William Nack in Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, this was how the big horse ran most of his races. Jockey Ron Turcotte felt Secretariat usually needed to settle into his stride early in a race. But once he was in his stride, he kept accelerating. For example, in the 1 1/4 mile Derby he ran each quarter mile faster than the last one. This is unusual.
Beside Secretariat, there were only four other horses in the Belmont Stakes — Pvt. Smiles, Twice a Prince, My Gallant, and Sham. Only Sham’s owner admitted to thinking his horse could beat Secretariat. Sham had run great races in the Derby and Preakness and might well have won any other year. In fact, in the Derby he would have beat the track record had not Secretariat just set a new track record.
The Belmont Stakes is the longest of the three Triple Crown races — 1 1/2 miles. Sham’s owner instructed the jockey, Laffit Pincay, to go to the lead at the beginning of the race and to try to keep the pace moderate. They probably expected Secretariat to hang back at the beginning of the race, as he usually did. But Ron Turcotte decided that if no other horse set a strong pace he’d let the big horse go to the front and set his own pace.
So, in the video below (there’s a bigger version here) you see Sham and Secretariat both going to the front at the beginning, and they pull away from the other three horses. As they go into the first turn, they both pick up the pace. Pretty soon the two of them are running as if they were in a sprint, not a 1 1/2 mile race. Pincay knows that Sham is running too hard, but he had been ordered not to let Secretariat get ahead. Turcotte, meanwhile, feels the big horse running easily and figures he can keep it up for a while. So the two horses sprint, and reach the half-mile pole at 0:46 1/5, which was the fastest opening half mile in the history of the race.
By now Secretariat’s owners and his trainer are tearing out their hair, convinced that Ron Turcotte has gone out of his mind and will cause the horse to collapse of exhaustion before he gets to the wire. But because Secretariat is running so easily, Turcotte doesn’t realize how fast the horse is going.
At about five-eighths of a mile, Sham begins to fall apart. They’re still running at a faster pace than Man o’ War, Count Fleet, or Citation had run at that same point in the race. Over the next eighth of a mile Sham struggles, and Secretariat just glides along. At three quarters of a mile into the race, Sham is done. He drifts back and eventually finishes last. But Secretariat maintains the same sprint speed. His owners and trainer still think the horse will break down any minute. But Turcotte hasn’t taken out his whip or pushed the big horse; he is just letting him run, still not realizing they’re going at a record clip.
Now Secretariat opens the lead. On the video, you can hear the announcer Chick Anderson:
“Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 4/5. Secretariat is widening now. He is moving like a tremendous machine!”
Secretariat pulls further and further away from the rest of the horses. His frantic owners watch for any sign the horse is hurting or stressed. There is no such sign. As he turns into the home stretch, Secretariat is running faster than he ran past the half-mile pole. The lead widens. The horse maintains his record pace. At about the point Secretariat is 26 lengths in front — I’m sorry you can’t make this out in the video — Turcotte glanced behind and saw the rest of the field in another county. Then he glanced at the timer and realized he was ahead of record pace. So at the very end of the race, you can make out that he is pumping his arms — for the first time since early in the race — to be sure Secretariat doesn’t slow down at the end and blow the record.
Secretariat goes under the wire at 2:24, 31 lengths in the lead (the announcers says 29 lengths, but the horse was so far out in front it was hard to count). The previous record had been Gallant Man’s 2:26.6, set in 1957.
Since then, the second-fastest clocking is shared by Easy Goer (1989) and A. P. Indy (1992) at 2:26, while Risen Star (1988) and Point Given (2001) hold the fourth-fastest time at 2:26 2/5, it says here.
OK, now you can watch the race. (Or click here.)
You can read about the rest of Secretariat’s life here. In short, the big horse was retired to stud at the end of the 1973 racing reason and euthanized in 1983 after developing laminitis. On the whole his offspring were not exceptional, but his daughters have an outstanding record as brood mares. The fillies got all his good genes, it seems.
Sham was also retired to stud in 1973, after a leg fracture ended his racing career, and died in 1993. In 1978, Ron Turcotte fell from a mount during a race and was paralyzed from the waist down.
To this day, many people still consider Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes race to be the greatest single performance by a running horse. Certainly, it’s the best performance ever captured on film.
Spotlight
June 7, 2007
Enjoy
Sorry I haven’t been around to write much today, so enjoy some music. This is one of my personal theme songs.
Spotlight
May 28, 2007
Late Night for Geezers
Let’s lighten things up a bit. Classic television, ca. 1954. And I bet some of you remember this.
Spotlight
May 27, 2007
Let the Sunshine In
I’ve been looking for an appropriate Memorial Day video. The best I could come up with are a couple of clips from the 1979 film version of Hair, which was actually pretty good even though only about 36 people went to see it in theaters.
This is my favorite bit; Treat Williams as Berger sings “I Got Life.”
Here’s the last scene of the film. Berger takes Claude’s place in training camp — temporarily, he thought — so that Claude (John Savage) can go on a picnic. The rest is self-explanatory.
Spotlight
May 21, 2007
Inconvenient Facts
Rightie bloggers are gleefully linking to an item in the Toronto Star that pans Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. The author of the item, Peter Howell, writes,
We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada’s government-funded medicare system compared with America’s for-profit alternative.
While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system where dollars are the major determinant of the quality of medicare care a person receives, and where restoring a severed finger could cost an American $60,000 compared to nothing at all for a Canadian, Sicko makes it seem as if Canada’s socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.
Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.
In fact, my painstaking research (5 seconds of googling) revealed that Canadians live on average only 2.5 years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system. However, I would have thought 2.5 years is eye popping, too.
Since I haven’t seen the film I can’t judge how Moore describes the Canadian health care system, which does have some flaws. However, compared to our system the Canadian system is, um, way better.
Last week another Canadian, Liam Lacey of the Globe and Mail, wrote,
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
Liam Lacey predicts Sicko will be a hit.
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See Sicko
I believe Sicko opens today nationwide, so be sure to see it over this long weekend.
Ari Melber responds to a criticism of the film from Dean Barnett. You remember Barnett; he’s the twit who thinks fertilized eggs are people, but soldiers aren’t, and of course women are merely major appliances. Barnett makes the knee-jerk assumption that Moore made the film to elect Democrats.
Melber points out that Moore probably is harder on Hillary Clinton than he is on George Bush in this film. I’ll let Melber continue (emphasis added) –
These are not the kind of stories that prime people to think of partisan affiliations or presidential campaigns. If anything, the genuine human struggles in “Sicko” raise questions about our society that run much deeper than what passes for political discourse today.
Why does such a rich nation let people suffer and die without health care? If we truly value the Americans who risked their lives on Sept. 11, why do some struggle without treatment for injuries they sustained while trying to keep us safe? And in the toughest challenge for American exceptionalists, why do so many other countries do a better job of providing care to all of their citizens? (Specifically, 36 countries, according to the World Health Organization.)
These questions probably won’t send people running from the theater to endorse a particular health care policy. Yet “Sicko” could drive the public to demand a realistic national debate on how to achieve quality care for all Americans, and to reject the recurring political attacks on the people working toward this admirable goal.
The recent personal attacks on Moore – and other health care reformers, such as former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) – are in line with the vacuous scare tactics that have stifled health care policy long before the Clinton administration attempted reform. The detractors typically don’t offer solutions or engage reformers’ ideas. They don’t join the vital debate over how our public policy should value every human life. They just defend the status quo and launch personal attacks.
This brings us back to Mr. Barnett’s Politico column. It offers a conservative’s supposed concern that the intricate politics of “Sicko” will backfire on Democrats (why would he care?). Then it recycles the canard that Edwards should not help the poor because he is wealthy. (By that logic, Americans with good health care shouldn’t help anyone else, and cities with solid homeland security shouldn’t collaborate to defend more vulnerable areas.)But after 800 words, Mr. Barnett fails to say anything about health care policy, or whether the Sept. 11 rescue workers deserve assistance or whether the U.S. should even try to improve our world health rankings. The column, like so many attacks on health care reformers, ignores the issues and gloomily accepts America’s dismal health care condition – and then labels Moore as the pessimist. “Smart politicians would avoid him like the plague,” concludes Mr. Barnett.
Here it’s painfully obvious that Mr. Barnett didn’t see the movie or didn’t get it. The issue is not how “smart politicians” position themselves – the public could not care less. The issue is what our nation can do about a health care crisis that leads to the needless suffering and death of our fellow citizens. They are the ones who have to avoid a real “plague,” since they can’t count on decent treatment when they get sick.
I’ve read a number of reviews that complain Sicko is one-sided and that Moore doesn’t always explain where he gets his facts. To this I say, first, that the more you know about what’s going on in American health care, the more you realize the “other” side is indefensible. Second, Moore said very little that I hadn’t already learned in my own research. I can’t swear the film is without factual error, but overall the way it portrays U.S. healthcare is accurate. Moore may be guilty of oversimplifying — the Canadian and British health care systems do have some problems that aren’t discussed in the film. But Moore is also an entertainer. This is a theatrical film, not a presentation for policy wonks.
But most of the bad reviews I’ve read amount to sputtering defenses of the status quo and personal attacks on Michael Moore. What the critics never ever do is honestly address the problem of people who can’t get insurance, or our crumbling emergency rooms, or our dismal health data. They just make excuses.
Numerous congressional proposals have offered wider, less-expensive and more-reliable coverage than Americans receive from our current patchwork, employer-based system.
But no matter how workable, practical or desirable the proposals may be, the insurance industry reliably shoots them down. Armed with billions of dollars for political campaign contributions, spin doctors and attack ads, the industry has largely steered the nation’s health care debate for decades.
Mr. Moore evens things up a bit. He uses the same pop culture that brings you Paris Hilton and American Idol to offer something truly valuable: a vision of a better American health care system than the one we have.
The fact is that whatever truncated national discussion we’ve had about health care going back as far as I remember has been entirely one sided. It’s the health care industry saying we have the Best Health Care in the World, and if you don’t agree you must be a Communist. End of discussion.
He offers something else that most Americans never see: how easily anyone - including visitors - can access good public health care in Canada and Europe and how satisfied those country’s citizens are with their systems. Critics predictably charge Mr. Moore with sugar-coating his view of the other countries, particularly Cuba, where Fidel Castro’s government still affords superior care to favored Communist Party elites. Nevertheless, having witnessed health care in each of the countries Mr. Moore visits, I think he got it about right.
In Canada and Europe, customer satisfaction is high, despite the drawbacks. Defenders of our health care status quo come up with one horror story after another of long lines, waiting lists, rising costs or rationed care. But they don’t like to talk about the long lines, waiting lists, rising costs or rationed care that Americans face in our existing system. Mr. Moore’s movie does.
Nobody’s system is perfect. But despite the smear job that conservatives over here give to British health care, for example, stalwart conservatives over there aren’t mounting much of an effort to change it.
If the film does nothing else but get people to realize it doesn’t have to be this way, it has done its job.
Update: See Crooks & Liars about a hit piece on Sicko in the Los Angeles Times.
Sicko
Michael Moore’s Sicko opened this weekend in New York City, and I saw it yesterday.
I laughed. I cried. So did the rest of the audience, which also broke into loud applause several times.
This is Moore’s most mature film so far, and I mean that in the best possible way. Other Moore films induced anger, outrage, and sympathy, along with the laughs. But Sicko broke my heart.
As Ezra says, this film is not so much about the health-care crisis as it is a challenge to America’s thick-headed exceptionalism — that “the way we do things is the best way to do things because … it’s the way we do things.”
More than that, however, it reveals that democracy in America is fading, fast.
We may call the United States “the land of the free,” but the truth is that most American working folks live constricted lives compared to people in most other western democracies. Our life choices increasingly are being limited by whatever economic boxes we find ourselves in. People who have worked hard and lived by the rules all their lives must choose between medicine and retirement, or medical treatment and keeping their homes. Working parents find that “quality family time” is an unaffordable luxury. And if we are diagnosed with a serious illness, our very lives are forfeit to the whims of the insurance companies.
The young are crushed by student loans; the middle aged and older live in fear of losing their health insurance. This is keeping the workforce docile and compliant.
But most heartbreaking of all is the way in which Americans passively accept the status quo. We have the means at hand to improve the quality of our lives — a representative government — and we don’t use it.
Moore’s film is not without flaws. The Canadian and British health care systems do have problems, which Moore doesn’t mention. (However, those problems are minuscule compared to ours.) Moore tried to show that because the French do not pay for health insurance, health care, and many other services out of their own pockets, les citoyens have plenty of disposable income in spite of the higher taxes they pay. However, I’m not sure the point came across clearly. The trip to Cuba (partly censored by the Department of Homeland Security) was moving, but I wondered how much the Cuban government helped make it so.
But one point came across clearly — we Americans are being lied to. We’re told that “socialized medicine” means the government will limit our access to health care; or that we won’t be free to choose our own doctors. But Moore shows us it’s American doctors whose hands are tied — by insurance companies — while doctors in Canada and France and elsewhere are free to practice the best medicine they can practice. And their patients are free to choose their doctors.
Sicko has its signature Michael Moore touches. One segment follows an American woman trying to sneak her sick daughter into Canada to see a pediatrician. A man who lost the tips of two fingers in an accident recalls that he had to choose which finger to restore, since he lacked the money for both. A woman rendered unconscious in a car accident was charged for the ambulance ride because, her insurance provider said, the ambulance hadn’t been pre-approved.
But then there was Tony Benn, a former member of the British Parliament, explaining how the British managed to create the National Health Service after World War II. “What democracy did was give the poor the vote, and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station—from the wallet to the ballot…. And in 1948 the people asked, If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can’t you have full employment by building hospitals? If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.”
That line got enthusiastic applause from the Manhattan audience.
The poor in America have the vote, yet many do not choose to vote. Some who do vote cast ballots against their own interests. And many, as we know, are cheated of their ability to vote. But Moore’s movie was less about America’s poor than about America’s middle class; working people with insurance who are betrayed by the system. Surely the American middle class has the vote. Why aren’t we using it to our own benefit?
OK, we know why. It’s complicated, but we know why.
Someone in the French segment said something to the effect that The government of France is afraid of their people. Americans are afraid of their government. I’m not sure that’s true. I think Americans are just plain worn down. We’re worn down by the system, by the lies, by working too many hours, by juggling too many responsibilities by ourselves. And most of us don’t realize that we don’t have to live like this.
Like I said — Sicko broke my heart.
June 9, 2007
Another Belmont Stakes Post
[Update: The filly won! Whoopee!]
One filly, Rags to Riches, will be running in the Belmont Stakes today. A filly hasn’t won the race in over a century. Rags to Riches is a daughter of A.P. Indy, who won the Belmont Stakes in 1992. A.P. Indy was sired by Seattle Slew. His dam was Morning Surprise, a daughter of Secretariat.
Rags to Riches is one of the favorites, after Curlin and Hard Spun. Hard Spun is a descendant of Man o’ War and War Admiral, through his grandma Pas de Nom. He is also a grandson of Northern Dancer (winner of the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness) and a great-grandson of Alydar, famous for running second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. Curlin is a great-great grandson of Northern Dancer, as is Rags to Riches on her ma’s side.
Update: Rags to Riches’s ancestry also goes back to Man o’ War, through her great-grandpa Buckpasser.
Spotlight
Once Upon a Time
So we know there won’t be a Triple Crown winner this year, but thanks to video we can watch a Triple Crown Belmont Stakes victory anyway.
First, a story. Once upon a time, two thoroughbred breeders made a deal. They agreed that the owner of pedigree brood mares would send two mares to the champion stud owned by the other owner. They flipped a coin, and the winner of the coin toss got first choice of the two foals. Then the same two mares made the same trip the next year, and the loser of the coin toss got the first choice of the second two foals, except one of the two mares failed to produce a foal the second year.
So, the winner of the coin toss took home one foal, a filly that proved to be unexceptional. The loser got the second choice from the first year — a colt, also unexceptional — and the only foal born the second year. That foal was Secretariat.
If you saw the videos of the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, you might remember that in both those races Secretariat was in last place early in the race. Then he moved up to take the lead in the stretch. According to William Nack in Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, this was how the big horse ran most of his races. Jockey Ron Turcotte felt Secretariat usually needed to settle into his stride early in a race. But once he was in his stride, he kept accelerating. For example, in the 1 1/4 mile Derby he ran each quarter mile faster than the last one. This is unusual.
Beside Secretariat, there were only four other horses in the Belmont Stakes — Pvt. Smiles, Twice a Prince, My Gallant, and Sham. Only Sham’s owner admitted to thinking his horse could beat Secretariat. Sham had run great races in the Derby and Preakness and might well have won any other year. In fact, in the Derby he would have beat the track record had not Secretariat just set a new track record.
The Belmont Stakes is the longest of the three Triple Crown races — 1 1/2 miles. Sham’s owner instructed the jockey, Laffit Pincay, to go to the lead at the beginning of the race and to try to keep the pace moderate. They probably expected Secretariat to hang back at the beginning of the race, as he usually did. But Ron Turcotte decided that if no other horse set a strong pace he’d let the big horse go to the front and set his own pace.
So, in the video below (there’s a bigger version here) you see Sham and Secretariat both going to the front at the beginning, and they pull away from the other three horses. As they go into the first turn, they both pick up the pace. Pretty soon the two of them are running as if they were in a sprint, not a 1 1/2 mile race. Pincay knows that Sham is running too hard, but he had been ordered not to let Secretariat get ahead. Turcotte, meanwhile, feels the big horse running easily and figures he can keep it up for a while. So the two horses sprint, and reach the half-mile pole at 0:46 1/5, which was the fastest opening half mile in the history of the race.
By now Secretariat’s owners and his trainer are tearing out their hair, convinced that Ron Turcotte has gone out of his mind and will cause the horse to collapse of exhaustion before he gets to the wire. But because Secretariat is running so easily, Turcotte doesn’t realize how fast the horse is going.
At about five-eighths of a mile, Sham begins to fall apart. They’re still running at a faster pace than Man o’ War, Count Fleet, or Citation had run at that same point in the race. Over the next eighth of a mile Sham struggles, and Secretariat just glides along. At three quarters of a mile into the race, Sham is done. He drifts back and eventually finishes last. But Secretariat maintains the same sprint speed. His owners and trainer still think the horse will break down any minute. But Turcotte hasn’t taken out his whip or pushed the big horse; he is just letting him run, still not realizing they’re going at a record clip.
Now Secretariat opens the lead. On the video, you can hear the announcer Chick Anderson:
“Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 4/5. Secretariat is widening now. He is moving like a tremendous machine!”
Secretariat pulls further and further away from the rest of the horses. His frantic owners watch for any sign the horse is hurting or stressed. There is no such sign. As he turns into the home stretch, Secretariat is running faster than he ran past the half-mile pole. The lead widens. The horse maintains his record pace. At about the point Secretariat is 26 lengths in front — I’m sorry you can’t make this out in the video — Turcotte glanced behind and saw the rest of the field in another county. Then he glanced at the timer and realized he was ahead of record pace. So at the very end of the race, you can make out that he is pumping his arms — for the first time since early in the race — to be sure Secretariat doesn’t slow down at the end and blow the record.
Secretariat goes under the wire at 2:24, 31 lengths in the lead (the announcers says 29 lengths, but the horse was so far out in front it was hard to count). The previous record had been Gallant Man’s 2:26.6, set in 1957.
Since then, the second-fastest clocking is shared by Easy Goer (1989) and A. P. Indy (1992) at 2:26, while Risen Star (1988) and Point Given (2001) hold the fourth-fastest time at 2:26 2/5, it says here.
OK, now you can watch the race. (Or click here.)
You can read about the rest of Secretariat’s life here. In short, the big horse was retired to stud at the end of the 1973 racing reason and euthanized in 1983 after developing laminitis. On the whole his offspring were not exceptional, but his daughters have an outstanding record as brood mares. The fillies got all his good genes, it seems.
Sham was also retired to stud in 1973, after a leg fracture ended his racing career, and died in 1993. In 1978, Ron Turcotte fell from a mount during a race and was paralyzed from the waist down.
To this day, many people still consider Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes race to be the greatest single performance by a running horse. Certainly, it’s the best performance ever captured on film.
Spotlight
June 7, 2007
Enjoy
Sorry I haven’t been around to write much today, so enjoy some music. This is one of my personal theme songs.
Spotlight
May 28, 2007
Late Night for Geezers
Let’s lighten things up a bit. Classic television, ca. 1954. And I bet some of you remember this.
Spotlight
May 27, 2007
Let the Sunshine In
I’ve been looking for an appropriate Memorial Day video. The best I could come up with are a couple of clips from the 1979 film version of Hair, which was actually pretty good even though only about 36 people went to see it in theaters.
This is my favorite bit; Treat Williams as Berger sings “I Got Life.”
Here’s the last scene of the film. Berger takes Claude’s place in training camp — temporarily, he thought — so that Claude (John Savage) can go on a picnic. The rest is self-explanatory.
Spotlight
May 21, 2007
Inconvenient Facts
Rightie bloggers are gleefully linking to an item in the Toronto Star that pans Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. The author of the item, Peter Howell, writes,
We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada’s government-funded medicare system compared with America’s for-profit alternative.
While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system where dollars are the major determinant of the quality of medicare care a person receives, and where restoring a severed finger could cost an American $60,000 compared to nothing at all for a Canadian, Sicko makes it seem as if Canada’s socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.
Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.
In fact, my painstaking research (5 seconds of googling) revealed that Canadians live on average only 2.5 years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system. However, I would have thought 2.5 years is eye popping, too.
Since I haven’t seen the film I can’t judge how Moore describes the Canadian health care system, which does have some flaws. However, compared to our system the Canadian system is, um, way better.
Last week another Canadian, Liam Lacey of the Globe and Mail, wrote,
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
Liam Lacey predicts Sicko will be a hit.
Spotlight
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Another Belmont Stakes Post
[Update: The filly won! Whoopee!]
One filly, Rags to Riches, will be running in the Belmont Stakes today. A filly hasn’t won the race in over a century. Rags to Riches is a daughter of A.P. Indy, who won the Belmont Stakes in 1992. A.P. Indy was sired by Seattle Slew. His dam was Morning Surprise, a daughter of Secretariat.
Rags to Riches is one of the favorites, after Curlin and Hard Spun. Hard Spun is a descendant of Man o’ War and War Admiral, through his grandma Pas de Nom. He is also a grandson of Northern Dancer (winner of the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness) and a great-grandson of Alydar, famous for running second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. Curlin is a great-great grandson of Northern Dancer, as is Rags to Riches on her ma’s side.
Update: Rags to Riches’s ancestry also goes back to Man o’ War, through her great-grandpa Buckpasser.
Once Upon a Time
So we know there won’t be a Triple Crown winner this year, but thanks to video we can watch a Triple Crown Belmont Stakes victory anyway.
First, a story. Once upon a time, two thoroughbred breeders made a deal. They agreed that the owner of pedigree brood mares would send two mares to the champion stud owned by the other owner. They flipped a coin, and the winner of the coin toss got first choice of the two foals. Then the same two mares made the same trip the next year, and the loser of the coin toss got the first choice of the second two foals, except one of the two mares failed to produce a foal the second year.
So, the winner of the coin toss took home one foal, a filly that proved to be unexceptional. The loser got the second choice from the first year — a colt, also unexceptional — and the only foal born the second year. That foal was Secretariat.
If you saw the videos of the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, you might remember that in both those races Secretariat was in last place early in the race. Then he moved up to take the lead in the stretch. According to William Nack in Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, this was how the big horse ran most of his races. Jockey Ron Turcotte felt Secretariat usually needed to settle into his stride early in a race. But once he was in his stride, he kept accelerating. For example, in the 1 1/4 mile Derby he ran each quarter mile faster than the last one. This is unusual.
Beside Secretariat, there were only four other horses in the Belmont Stakes — Pvt. Smiles, Twice a Prince, My Gallant, and Sham. Only Sham’s owner admitted to thinking his horse could beat Secretariat. Sham had run great races in the Derby and Preakness and might well have won any other year. In fact, in the Derby he would have beat the track record had not Secretariat just set a new track record.
The Belmont Stakes is the longest of the three Triple Crown races — 1 1/2 miles. Sham’s owner instructed the jockey, Laffit Pincay, to go to the lead at the beginning of the race and to try to keep the pace moderate. They probably expected Secretariat to hang back at the beginning of the race, as he usually did. But Ron Turcotte decided that if no other horse set a strong pace he’d let the big horse go to the front and set his own pace.
So, in the video below (there’s a bigger version here) you see Sham and Secretariat both going to the front at the beginning, and they pull away from the other three horses. As they go into the first turn, they both pick up the pace. Pretty soon the two of them are running as if they were in a sprint, not a 1 1/2 mile race. Pincay knows that Sham is running too hard, but he had been ordered not to let Secretariat get ahead. Turcotte, meanwhile, feels the big horse running easily and figures he can keep it up for a while. So the two horses sprint, and reach the half-mile pole at 0:46 1/5, which was the fastest opening half mile in the history of the race.
By now Secretariat’s owners and his trainer are tearing out their hair, convinced that Ron Turcotte has gone out of his mind and will cause the horse to collapse of exhaustion before he gets to the wire. But because Secretariat is running so easily, Turcotte doesn’t realize how fast the horse is going.
At about five-eighths of a mile, Sham begins to fall apart. They’re still running at a faster pace than Man o’ War, Count Fleet, or Citation had run at that same point in the race. Over the next eighth of a mile Sham struggles, and Secretariat just glides along. At three quarters of a mile into the race, Sham is done. He drifts back and eventually finishes last. But Secretariat maintains the same sprint speed. His owners and trainer still think the horse will break down any minute. But Turcotte hasn’t taken out his whip or pushed the big horse; he is just letting him run, still not realizing they’re going at a record clip.
Now Secretariat opens the lead. On the video, you can hear the announcer Chick Anderson:
“Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 4/5. Secretariat is widening now. He is moving like a tremendous machine!”
Secretariat pulls further and further away from the rest of the horses. His frantic owners watch for any sign the horse is hurting or stressed. There is no such sign. As he turns into the home stretch, Secretariat is running faster than he ran past the half-mile pole. The lead widens. The horse maintains his record pace. At about the point Secretariat is 26 lengths in front — I’m sorry you can’t make this out in the video — Turcotte glanced behind and saw the rest of the field in another county. Then he glanced at the timer and realized he was ahead of record pace. So at the very end of the race, you can make out that he is pumping his arms — for the first time since early in the race — to be sure Secretariat doesn’t slow down at the end and blow the record.
Secretariat goes under the wire at 2:24, 31 lengths in the lead (the announcers says 29 lengths, but the horse was so far out in front it was hard to count). The previous record had been Gallant Man’s 2:26.6, set in 1957.
Since then, the second-fastest clocking is shared by Easy Goer (1989) and A. P. Indy (1992) at 2:26, while Risen Star (1988) and Point Given (2001) hold the fourth-fastest time at 2:26 2/5, it says here.
OK, now you can watch the race. (Or click here.)
You can read about the rest of Secretariat’s life here. In short, the big horse was retired to stud at the end of the 1973 racing reason and euthanized in 1983 after developing laminitis. On the whole his offspring were not exceptional, but his daughters have an outstanding record as brood mares. The fillies got all his good genes, it seems.
Sham was also retired to stud in 1973, after a leg fracture ended his racing career, and died in 1993. In 1978, Ron Turcotte fell from a mount during a race and was paralyzed from the waist down.
To this day, many people still consider Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes race to be the greatest single performance by a running horse. Certainly, it’s the best performance ever captured on film.
Enjoy
Sorry I haven’t been around to write much today, so enjoy some music. This is one of my personal theme songs.
May 28, 2007
Late Night for Geezers
Let’s lighten things up a bit. Classic television, ca. 1954. And I bet some of you remember this.
Spotlight
May 27, 2007
Let the Sunshine In
I’ve been looking for an appropriate Memorial Day video. The best I could come up with are a couple of clips from the 1979 film version of Hair, which was actually pretty good even though only about 36 people went to see it in theaters.
This is my favorite bit; Treat Williams as Berger sings “I Got Life.”
Here’s the last scene of the film. Berger takes Claude’s place in training camp — temporarily, he thought — so that Claude (John Savage) can go on a picnic. The rest is self-explanatory.
Spotlight
May 21, 2007
Inconvenient Facts
Rightie bloggers are gleefully linking to an item in the Toronto Star that pans Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. The author of the item, Peter Howell, writes,
We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada’s government-funded medicare system compared with America’s for-profit alternative.
While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system where dollars are the major determinant of the quality of medicare care a person receives, and where restoring a severed finger could cost an American $60,000 compared to nothing at all for a Canadian, Sicko makes it seem as if Canada’s socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.
Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.
In fact, my painstaking research (5 seconds of googling) revealed that Canadians live on average only 2.5 years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system. However, I would have thought 2.5 years is eye popping, too.
Since I haven’t seen the film I can’t judge how Moore describes the Canadian health care system, which does have some flaws. However, compared to our system the Canadian system is, um, way better.
Last week another Canadian, Liam Lacey of the Globe and Mail, wrote,
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
Liam Lacey predicts Sicko will be a hit.
Spotlight
« Previous Page — Next Page »
Late Night for Geezers
Let’s lighten things up a bit. Classic television, ca. 1954. And I bet some of you remember this.
Let the Sunshine In
I’ve been looking for an appropriate Memorial Day video. The best I could come up with are a couple of clips from the 1979 film version of Hair, which was actually pretty good even though only about 36 people went to see it in theaters.
This is my favorite bit; Treat Williams as Berger sings “I Got Life.”
Here’s the last scene of the film. Berger takes Claude’s place in training camp — temporarily, he thought — so that Claude (John Savage) can go on a picnic. The rest is self-explanatory.
May 21, 2007
Inconvenient Facts
Rightie bloggers are gleefully linking to an item in the Toronto Star that pans Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. The author of the item, Peter Howell, writes,
We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada’s government-funded medicare system compared with America’s for-profit alternative.
While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system where dollars are the major determinant of the quality of medicare care a person receives, and where restoring a severed finger could cost an American $60,000 compared to nothing at all for a Canadian, Sicko makes it seem as if Canada’s socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.
Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.
In fact, my painstaking research (5 seconds of googling) revealed that Canadians live on average only 2.5 years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system. However, I would have thought 2.5 years is eye popping, too.
Since I haven’t seen the film I can’t judge how Moore describes the Canadian health care system, which does have some flaws. However, compared to our system the Canadian system is, um, way better.
Last week another Canadian, Liam Lacey of the Globe and Mail, wrote,
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
Liam Lacey predicts Sicko will be a hit.
Spotlight
« Previous Page — Next Page »
Inconvenient Facts
Rightie bloggers are gleefully linking to an item in the Toronto Star that pans Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. The author of the item, Peter Howell, writes,
We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts, with its lavish praise for Canada’s government-funded medicare system compared with America’s for-profit alternative.
While justifiably demonstrating the evils of an American system where dollars are the major determinant of the quality of medicare care a person receives, and where restoring a severed finger could cost an American $60,000 compared to nothing at all for a Canadian, Sicko makes it seem as if Canada’s socialized medicine is flawless and that Canadians are satisfied with the status quo.
Moore makes the eyebrow-raising assertion that Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system.
In fact, my painstaking research (5 seconds of googling) revealed that Canadians live on average only 2.5 years longer than Americans because of their superior health care system. However, I would have thought 2.5 years is eye popping, too.
Since I haven’t seen the film I can’t judge how Moore describes the Canadian health care system, which does have some flaws. However, compared to our system the Canadian system is, um, way better.
Last week another Canadian, Liam Lacey of the Globe and Mail, wrote,
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
Liam Lacey predicts Sicko will be a hit.
