The End (For Now)

Having completed my first year of Creative Communications, I am putting an end to A Philosophy of the Supermarket.  In the fall, I will reboot this blog with a brand-new theme.  I enjoyed sharing my thoughts with you, and hopefully, I tried to instill some thought in whoever was reading this blog.  Have a good spring/summer, and see you soon...

- Zach Samborski

A Poem About A Car (The Final Installment)

The Chrome

 

 

 

She drinks a gallon of money

for another coating of chrome

topping her aging days

ramshackled under sky fire

and upheaval of the clay

 

A vexing of my nerve

to chrome she surrenders;

she takes me to ditches

filled with cobbles of hail

and the rest of the metal

 

I'll lead her to balloon,

blow-out, bail on

connecting yellow;

I'll make her human

three seconds upside down

through the smog of air

 

 

 

 

 



The City

In the next few months, you will hear about Winnipeg 2087, my novella I'm doing for my Independent Professional Project.  Right now, I'm keeping the project mostly a secret, but I will tell you that it deals with one pressing theme: urban sprawl.

Winnipeg's downtown core is certainly at a crossroads.  Every urban planner is literally betting cards on what could bring it back to life.  They guessed Portage Place would do it back in 1987, and they got it wrong.  When Portage Place failed, they placed their bets on the MTS Centre, and sure enough, they were wrong on that count as well. 

In a way, the city used to be a large village.  Almost everything was interconnected.  Then came the superhighway concept, and out sprang the suburbs in the 1950s.  Many of the cities we speak of today are not really cities in the literal sense.  They are more like a series of communities connected by major uplinks. 

Well-known chains are the diving markers of every city's community -- you'll never find two Wal-Mart stores close to each other.  But it would be foolhardy to suggest that chains contribute to urban sprawl.  Technology is a major factor as well.  If you purchase online, bank online, and order Chinese online, you'll wonder what's the point of going to an urban core to do it all.

The irony is that consumer convenience has somewhat led to frayed nerves.  The bigger the suburbs, the larger the traffic mess gets, and it gets hellish for pedestrians.  If there are no linking pathways or walking lanes, pedestrians have to cross the thickest of highways to get to their destinations as the motors idle on and on.

If your house is the community, your exterior environment is your weakness.  The further you push your caravan into cyberspace, the more foreign the world around you becomes.

See STIR at the Magazine Trade Fair

The Magazine Trade Fair takes place in The Roblin Centre at 160 Princess Street this Thursday.  Throughout the afternoon, visitors can check out the work of Creative Communications students.  In groups of four or five, CreComm students wrote articles, took photos, and created designs for full-colour, professionally printed magazines.  Visitors should expect to see some lively booths, great prizes, and some fantastic food.

My group's magazine is called STIR.  STIR is a weekend morning magazine.  We cater to that niche crowd that prefers morning life to evening life on weekends.  We'll be serving up some coffee and fresh-baked banana bread at our booth.  We'll also provide details about our Breakfast Photo Contest, which ends on April 4.  Winners can get a $50.00 gift certificate to Hermanos Restaurant & Wine Bar (one of our sponsors) and another $50.00 gift certificate to Carnaval Brazilian BBQ.

The Trade Fair runs from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m.  'Like' us on Facebook at this link, and Follow us on Twitter at this one.  

The Harlem Shake: Everyone's a Corporation

The popularity of the Harlem Shake meme truly astounded me for the last couple of months.  There will be no video in this post; I'm sure you've seen the hundreds of 'em that have popped up all over YouTube.  And that really is the point: we've seen a cultural phenomenon that is not the work of media companies or corporations.  It is instead the work of ordinary YouTube users.  They spread the popularity of both the meme and the song itself.

Don't believe me? The popularity of the meme caused Billboard to change its policy for creating the 'Hot 100' list.  Thanks to 'Harlem Shake', Billboard now factors YouTube hits into a song's overall chart success. All because of a meme.

In the age of YouTube comedians and vloggers, we are witnessing the rise of a new kind of celebrity, one from the bottom-up and not the top-down.  The viewers follow suit and spread the word everywhere else.  

Think about this: whenever you are sharing something you see funny on the Internet, you are advertising.  You are literally doing the work of ten copywriters.  The agencies no longer need to seek out their target audiences.  Rather, you are doing it yourself.  

This is important because the Internet is reshaping world economies in addition to communication structures. Stay tuned for what lies ahead.

Philosophy of the Day

Your car does all the talking.

Rock N' Roller Cola Wars: An Imaginary Conversation

The following conversation between Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and now-deceased pop star Michael Jackson took place sometime in 1989:

Plant: "So, Michael, you think you're cool hawking all that Pepsi to the young people?  I was on tour before you got your first recording contract! And now I'm drinking Coca-Cola! Take that!|

Jackson: "Are you kidding me? This is 1989! Young kids today are among the PEPSI GENERATION! Coca-Cola's for Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa!"

Plant: "If Coca-Cola's so lame, how come we're number one and Pepsi is number two?"

Jackson: "'Cause you baby boomer rockers ruled the world for so long! One day, this world will be OURS! Victory for the young people! Pepsi says so!"

Plant: "Watch yourself, Michael.  I remember my generation's rallying cry during the days of Vietnam.  But someday, you've got to get off your high horse and join the gravy train.  And drink lots and lots of Coca-Cola."

Jackson: "What are you saying?"

Plant: "I'm saying you'll be drinking Coca-Cola like the rest of us. One day, you'll be a seasoned veteran convinced he is seasoned enough to shun his Pepsi for his Coca-Cola."

Jackson: "You have opened my eyes, Robert.  You have opened my eyes."

A Crazy Movie Consumer

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.

(source: oddfilms.com)

John Hinckley Jr. in police custody a few months after he attempted to assassinate then U.S. President Ronald Reagan.  Hinckley watched Taxi Driver repeatedly.  His motive to shoot Reagan was to impress actress Jodie Foster, who appeared in the film as Iris, a teenage prostitute.

(source: lubbockcentennial.com)

We infatuate with movies because the characters can be believable.  We can relate to their thoughts, feelings, and emotions.  This blog post will be rather confessional because of the point I am trying to raise: that movies are the armchair therapists who sometimes give us the wrong advice.

Of all the movie characters out there, Travis Bickle is the one I can relate to the most.  In Taxi Driver, Bickle was disgusted with the crime and filth of near-bankrupt New York City.  Like Bickle, I have seen my share of filth and petulance around Winnipeg.  I, too, look in disgust at the crime, peddling, and freeloading I see from time to time on the streets of this city.  One Travis quote I can relate to really well is the following:

"Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets." (source: imdb.com)

Having sat alone in food courts, buses, parks, and even the library, I also wish for some kind of divinity, a natural force flooding what I despise into the acid of the sewer for dissolution.  This environment is especially intoxicating in extreme heat and extreme cold.  It suffocates the psyche.

In Taxi Driver, Travis has vigilante fantasies after he comes across a teenage prostitute named Iris (played by Jodie Foster).  He then purchases some guns in hopes of freeing her from her pimps.  Though I have no intention to purchase a firearm, I admit to having vigilante fantasies.  Time after time, I imagine myself behind the wheel of a 1962 Cadillac Sedan de Ville with my firearm in the glove compartment.  It's the middle of summer, and the temperature is muggy.  I've got my hit-list of released sex offenders taped tightly to the dashboard.

I track the first guy down.  I roll down the window to point my .357 Magnum, and the rest is history.  The assaulted woman who walks the streets in fear now feels a bit safer thanks to my actions.  It's a beautiful fantasy where good prevails over evil, morality becoming infinite and psychopathy perishing in the powder blast.  But this is reality, not fantasy, and I am hopefully still in control.

I always relate well to the movie vigilante.  I see characters like Dirty Harry Callaghan, Paul Kersey, or Travis Bickle as outlets to vent my frustration.  There is, however, a bigger reason as to why I relate to Travis: he is awkward and socially uncomfortable, and so am I.  Below is a clip of Travis I find especially powerful.  He's trying to get in touch with Betsy (played by Cybil Shepherd).  Travis took her on a disastrous first date; he took her to a pornographic movie theatre.  When she stormed away, he told her, "I don't know much about movies":

In this scene, director Martin Scorsese treats the viewer to an incredibly awkward phone call.  Travis's attempts to reconcile are so pathetic, it can be painful to watch.   There are many moments in my life where I have been just as pathetic as Travis making that phone call.  Or so I often say.

I am fortunate that my mental standing is strong enough to bring me to restraint.  I act without restraint only within my fantasies.  These fantasies, too, are not prevalent.  They are something I merely retreat to from time to time in moments of frustration.  But some go to the movies for different reasons.  They go to get ideas.  John Hinckley Jr. was one of those people.  He watched Taxi Driver over and over again to the point of shooting U.S. President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.  In the same film, Travis attempts to assassinate a presidential candidate.

I came to an interesting and somewhat frightening conclusion while writing this: we are all on the same spectrum of Hinckley.  Like him, we demand attention for our actions and deeds.  Like him, we have fantasies of what is just for ourselves.  That's why a movie like Taxi Driver is all too real.  The "good guys" aren't supposed to be burned out or mentally frustrated, but many of them are.  We are more like Travis Bickle than Harry Callaghan or Winston Churchill -- aggression minus the virtue.

We rely on movies for narrative sources we can understand: love conquers all, friends in high places, good over evil.  If one of those narratives fails for us personally, we cling to the others more closely.  Because we want it all to be true.  The master narrative is humankind's gratification.

Every Time We Say Goodbye...

(source: ebay.com)

Anyone who owns the T-shirt pictured above must laugh at the irony.  When The Who went on their "farewell tour" in 1982, thousands of fans filled the stadiums to catch a glimpse of their idols for the very last time.

Or so they thought.  Seven years later, The Who went on tour again and promised it would be "the last".  Then they went on tour again in 1996 and promised again it would be "the last".  It turns out The Who never got sick of touring after all and reunited for good.  

The concept of the "farewell tour" is always fascinating.  To me, it implies the musician or band is feeling irrelevant in an ever-changing musical climate.  Consider 1982: The Who seemed out of step in an era dominated by The Police, Duran Duran, and Dexy's Midnight Runners.  The angry-eyed, protopunk-haired teenyboppers of the 1960s slid into yuppie oblivion and treated music as an afterthought in the new age of family values.  

Yet when The Who decided to call it a day, millions flocked to their concerts.  The Who sold out stadiums as vast and wide as the Kingdome in Seattle or the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando.  The newly indifferent punk saw concerts like these as a nostalgia shine, a reclamation of an earlier memory.  

It's a strange thing.  We buy things, tire of things, and when those things go away, we seem to clamor for them once again.  My generation (no pun intended), those Millenials of the late 1980s and early 1990s, suddenly wish for shows like Rugrats and Boy Meets World to return to the air.  For the purpose of nostalgia, or maybe something a little bit more, they go see the Backstreet Boys in concert as if 1999 repeated itself year after year.  

First came the farewell tour, then came the reunion tour.

And the reunion tour sure is clever because the desert of nostalgia brings out the illusion of relevance.  Bands get the illusion they are bigger then they actually are, whereas in reality, the audience is simply older and more niche.  This is no slight against The Who.  The Who may very well be exceptions to the rule; the imprint they left on popular music is something I cannot deny.  But the rule rings true for many figures of fame from the past (like the Backstreet Boys).

At some point during its lifetime, a generation will flirt with regression to a simpler time.  Millenials who realize the bone-headedness of majoring in English suddenly dream of childhood.  They dream of where they didn't have to worry about debt.  I'm sure the same rang true for Baby Boomers who grew slightly disillusioned with the rampant materialism.  For many Baby Boomers, The Who signified a time where the youth dreamed of victory in their exaggerated rebellions.

Yet there is something different about the Millenials.  To me, Millenials seem to be in permanent regression. Silliness is the mantra of the Millenial.  My Generation -- Pete Townshend, your words are calling to me -- stays locked indoors and watches the millions of cat videos online.  My Generation -- thanks Pete, you dear old chap -- is dealing with a shrinking attention span.

They are the twenty-something children.

Children, Pete, children... which wars will they fight? Which cars will they build? Do they count on themselves to put themselves together? Or do they wait and expect the glowing online screens to do it for them? 

The greatest question: are they afraid to conquer and seize the day? Or are they afraid of the years of mundane? I can't tell.  But what I can tell you, Pete, is that these Millenials are more hard-wired into the mechanisms of popular culture than ever before.  And in doing so, they are wrapping themselves up in the plastic bubbles not knowing there is a spray of a thousand needles coming to pop those very bubbles.  To the child, "pop" is fantasy.  To the adult, "pop" is escapism.  Because in moments of crisis, it's easier to embrace the myth than the reality that must surely be confronted.  The solution, then, is to regress into the caverns of nostalgia.



A Thousand Farewells

Nahlah Ayed’s book A Thousand Farewells covers her many travels to conflicts the Middle East as a CBC journalist. In the book, Ayed discusses her experiences of war both as a child and as a journalist.  Ayed discusses not only what she has seen but also how conflict and travel affect her personally.

As a piece of storytelling, A Thousand Farewells works well.  It has its share of drama and tension, particularly when Ayed describes her near-death experience in Iraq.   With great detail, she describes the gunman who took her to Muqtada al-Sadr’s office.  The gunman punched her repeatedly in the head and came close to killing her (p. 146).  This was the one part of the book that stood out to me the most because Ayed did such a good job detailing how she got there and how she escaped.

I also enjoyed Ayed’s story of returning to Winnipeg after spending seven years in a refugee camp in Amman, Jordan.  She fills it with lots of interesting details that really hook the reader, such as hugging her father upon returning or being called a “Paki” at her high school.

Considering how much Ayed went through, I expected her prose to be engaging, vivid, and revealing.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be rather technical and mechanical for the most part.  Consider, for instance, the following passage by Ayed: 

"Baghdad was coming apart.  At the height of the carnage, the violence had sifted its people according to religion and sect, pulling them swiftly apart the way DNA separates in a dividing cell." (p. 151)     

                                                                                                                                                    

The writing is competent and clear, but Ayed does too much telling and not enough showing.  Showing the exact details of carnage is much more effective than just calling it ‘carnage’.  In addition, I felt Ayed should have been more creative with her prose.  It is true that a simple, straightforward reportage can be effective for communicating to an audience.  But it’s also important to consider the medium.  Ayed’s prose style works great for a newspaper feature article, but a 340-page book should go further than basic reportage. 

Ayed should have used more metaphors and similes (like the DNA example) and other elements found within creative fiction, such as a stream-of-consciousness narrative.  I found the narrative in this book to be rather choppy.  Ayed tends to jump back and forth from historical exposition to a dramatic travelogue, and the result is often jarring.  As a whole, Ayed seems to be emotionally detached from  her writing, which can sometimes be alienating to the odd reader who wants to know more about her feelings and experiences.  But maybe that was her intention.

One book I find similar to A Thousand Farewells is Michael Herr’s Dispatches, which is about Herr’s experiences in the Vietnam War.  Like A Thousand Farewells, Dispatches is linear and chronological, yet is also episodic.  The chapters function as segments with a thesis connecting each of them.  The biggest difference between both books is that Ayed explains the history of the conflicts, whereas Herr focuses more on the action itself.

A Thousand Farewells is important reading for aspiring journalists who want to work overseas.  When reading the book, they will see that reporting in a war zone can be a high-stress job.  While working in Lebanon, Ayed experienced dizzy spells due to the sheer amount of stress (p. 241).  Ayed also offers a useful message to journalists in this passage:

"People are not quotes or clips, used to illustrate stories about war and conflict.  People are the story, always.  And you cannot know what people are thinking by reading the reports.  You must come to know them somehow.  Speaking the language, as I did, helps tremendously, but it is not a prerequisite.  Taking the time to speak to people off camera -- at length -- is." (p. 324)

There are moments throughout the book that feature interesting profiles of people in war.  In Baghdad, Ayed befriends a woman named Reem and discovers her poetry, which works as a great hook (p. 134).    She even meets opium dealers in Pakistan (p. 77).  These little bits are the strongest parts of the book, and it is essential for journalists to spend extended time with their subjects to get the hooks needed for their stories.  

When reading this book, I kind of felt disoriented.  Ayed goes to Egypt, leaves, and eventually returns to a new scene in Tahrir Square.  I've always pictured the Middle East as a place of conflict and confusion with vast patches of deserted landscapes, and A Thousand Farewells seemed to confirm those suspicions.  However, when Ayed goes from one town to the next and mentions a whole plethora of names and locations, I feel like I'm in a land I still don't understand despite reading a great deal about it.  The main thing I can take away from A Thousand Farewells is that the Middle East, like all regions, is not easy to simplify.  

The New Meaning of Valentine's Day

(source: coquette.com)

When I think of Valentine's Day, the above image now immediately comes to mind.  In growing circles, sex toys and "love lotions" are replacing chocolates and flowers.  I am sure there will be long lines at Love Nest, an sex toy shop in Winnipeg, tonight and tomorrow.

I find it significant that Love Nest operates as an actual chain of stores in a city as conservative as Winnipeg. Its popularity could mean that certain taboos about sex are fading.  But there's also something else at play here.  What does it mean when a sex toy story markets itself as the perfect place for Valentine's Day gifts?

You could say the answer is all too easy.  You could say that sex is the means to an end within a serious relationship.  But for a long time, it seemed that Valentine's Day was geared towards the platonic, not the promiscuous.  On the mainstream level, it always seemed to obscure sex and other taboos.  

At some point, though, the bubble hard to burst.  And so it did.  For a contest, Red River Radio gave away $25 gift certificates to Love Nest..  Can you imagine a college radio station holding a contest back in 1983, the year Love Nest was founded?

Through consumerism, we have a way of making meaning.  We also have a way of changing the meaning of cultural activities.  Collectively, we have turned Valentine's Day into a different kind of holiday: one that celebrates the so-called sexual taboos.  I think changing technology has had much to do with it.  We are plugged into social media, and we are more voyeuristic than ever before.  Our growing interest in the private has blurred the lines between private and public.  If the lines between private and public are becoming blurred, then so are the lines between what is taboo and what is not taboo.  The end result is booming businesses that couldn't be seen in the public eye about 40 or so years ago.

Do I Only Work for a Mr. Big Nip?

(source: salisburyhouse.ca)

Salisbury House is a brand I am loyal too.  Almost every week, I walk to the one on Marion Street to read a book and have an occasional snack of Pepsi and fries.  

On rarer occasions, I help myself to the Mr. Big Nip Platter.  Health concerns notwithstanding, I wish I could have all the Mr. Big Nips in the world to eat.  Trouble is, they're so damn expensive.  A Mr. Big Nip is $5.75 before taxes.  The Platter is $9.29 before taxes.  I'm a relatively poor college student, so a price like that burns a hole int my wallet.

Metro is doing all they can to help my predicament.  If you go to the Salisbury House web site, you'll see that  Metro is offering a 'Metro Monday Madness' special.  All you have to do is cut out the coupon and present it to your nearest Salisbury House for a free Mr. Big Nip.  Seriously, I love Salisbury House.  When I opened my apartment mailbox to find a book of Sals coupons, I literally jumped up and down.  The ideal Christmas/birthday gift for me is a $25.00 Sals Gift Card.  I feel like I'm six when I find out that Sals is giving me all these great deals.

But eventually, these deals will be no more, and Sals will be asking me to cough up the big bucks.  This has me thinking: am I pursuing a career just for this? Am I looking for a career just so I can eat at Sals more often (as long as I'm single)?

I can only hope the allure of brands is not the reason I'm finding a career.  I can probably say that this isn't the case.  I want to pursue a career in public relations because PR is an emerging profession tailored to my writing skills.  I want to do what makes me happy.  I don't just want a career just so I can afford more of that fine Sals.  Still, my attraction to this place has got me wondering.

Some, however, are just in it for the brands.  The power of the brand is so powerful, it can influence a person's entire career.  I imagine that some pursue a career in civil engineering just to get a Mercedes-Benz.  Not all, but certainly some.  

And it's not just professions.  Sometimes the power of brands even extends to relationships.  Young women will marry old men on their deathbeds just to get a Porsche or a fine steak dinner.  And if they're not going for decaying organic matter, they'll certainly go for the arch-typical bearded doctor who listens to Coldplay.  The hipster will fall in love with his girl just to get that rare 7" Arcade Fire single released before they got famous.  You get the picture.

In fact, almost all relationships are based on brands.  Are you going to marry that girl who loves The Rolling Stones just as much as you? Yes, you certainly are! Because without brands, there are no interests.  But you can't be some robot who goes through the meticulous process of finding the perfect match either.  So you bargain, you negotiate; in other words, you form the legitimate relationship.  If she doesn't like The Rolling Stones, you'll devote at least a quarter of the day convincing her that they're the real deal.  That same rule applies to the work place.  You work, you enjoy it, but you also take the time to go out on vacation.  

That's really what the ideal, happy life is: a negotiation with brands.  A negotiation with competing desires and emotions.  Of course, I will give that Mr. Big Nip a day in court.  But I will also make sure to give it a rest and tend to most naturalistic activities like going for a walk and writing.

I guess that's what the meaning of life really is.

Pay Your Cover, Change Yourself

(source: badinitials.blogspot.ca)

When you go to a bar or nightclub, you sometimes wonder if you're seeing real people there or just their put-ons.  By the latter, I mean forcing the loss of inhibitions.  In plain English: does a bar make you lose yourself?

I pondered this idea after leaving Whiskey Dix, a nightclub in Winnipeg's Exchange District.  On a sub-zero January night, I went there for a friend's birthday.  I had never been to this establishment before; I'm rather a foreigner to Winnipeg's club scene.  When I was inside, I noticed the place filling up with get-ups and cocktail allure.  Young women wore skirts exposing the red-cold rawness of their thighs, some of them bronzed under the rays of artificial fluorescence.  Some of the young men came in wearing the kind of clothing you save up for once per year.  

I wonder if some of them dress up that way in their homes.  After all, Halloween is everyday for some.  More importantly, is the desire there? Human mentality, in my observation, is almost one-third 'urge' or 'desire'.  Who knows, maybe some of them throw those clothes into the waste bins.  Either way, the bar transformed them, made them into upgraded or downgraded models.  They can either obscure their worst traits -- crudely-drawn tattoos, bad breath, or slovenliness -- or expose them all the same.  

When the thumping plastic pop filled the speakers, everyone, myself included, started dancing.  I didn't even care for much of the music.  Yet here I was dancing.  But I wasn't dancing naturally.  I was dancing the way people consume fast-food: no thought, just temptation.  If you stand completely still, you're in a vat of awkwardness.

You've been in this same situation.  What do you do? You follow the trail.  But why? Is it because of rhythmic temptation? Or is it something more? Is it the expectation you're going to be seen within this public space? Maybe that's it.  After all, throughout the night, the photographer went round and about the corners of Whiskey Dix to capture the social climbers and various hangers-on.  

Venturing into midnight in this old bank-turned-sweat lodge, I then found myself shouting the profanities to a hip-hop song along with my social group.  I was now a raging urban Dionysian in the Church of Raucousness. All that mattered were lights and rhythms obscuring personalities like mine.  People behaved almost the same and dressed almost the same.  And on my way out, I thought, what if there is no such thing as a 'party person'? What if it's just the behavior of the crowd influencing the behavior of the individual? What if that's the end goal of an institution like Whiskey Dix: to create a crowd mentality?

When I walked outside, I resumed my normal behavior.  Walking through the snow to catch my bus, I thought of the people leaving Whiskey Dix and where they went.  I wondered about their private lives and how they acted out of public.

I've come to the conclusion that almost every bar and restaurant will sell itself as a mythic part of your personality.  They do not do it explicitly.  Instead, they hide such messages into images and advertisements.  If you're at The Keg Steakhouse & Bar, you're being a professional.  You're the quick traveler, the person who hustles and bustles.  It's time for a fat juicy steak.  

If you're at Starbucks, you're the yoga-enthused urbanist.  If you're at some Ukrainian restaurant, you're homegrown and modest with Manitoba roots.  And if you're at Whiskey Dix, you're a partier, nature boy, nature girl (or maybe both), a rabid dancer, or a drunken sloth.  You could be one or all of these things because you know that's what you'll be when you enter the doors to a marketed reality.

The Only Option

I remember the days of the Internet before Google came around.  Before Google, there were a number of search engines people visited.  Yahoo! was probably the most popular, but I remember using Lycos, Excite, and a variety of other search engines before Google came around.

Now that Google is the dominant search engine today, I feel no need to use the smaller ones.  The most powerful thing about branding is that it convinces you there is one option only, even though there can be more.

Perhaps there may be a better search engine out there than Google, but even if there was, Google has positioned itself as the only thing I can use, the most reliable thing I can use.  When you expose yourself to enough branding and enough advertising, you eventually adopt a series of items you'll stick to for almost the rest of your life.

Food for thought.

The Health Care Supermarket

(source: kickstarter.com)

For a school assignment, I watched Peter Nicks's documentary The Waiting Room.  The film takes a look inside the life of Highland Hospital in Oakland, California.  Here, I will share my thoughts on the film and provide a comparison of the Canadian and American health care systems.

The Film
The Waiting Room effectively portrays the life of an urban hospital in the United States.  For the majority of the film, the only sounds we hear are background noises such as beeping monitors, random murmurs, and ringing phones.  The director avoids manipulating the audience by only using music during the opening title sequence, transition sequences, and the ending.

Most importantly, the director lets the subjects tell the stories, and they are compelling ones.  We see a man talking about an old gunshot wound while pointing to his chest, a carpenter talking about his fear of losing his job to a leg injury, and a father expressing concern about his daughter’s strep throat.  All of these subjects are shown in a natural setting, not a staged set, and it makes for effective storytelling. 

One of the most unforgettable moments occurs late in the film, as we see doctors and paramedics trying to revive a 15-year-old gunshot victim.  The absence of music makes it such a chilling scene, and then we watch the haunting shot of his covered body being wheeled into a morgue.

By keeping interviews to a minimum, the director gives us a view of the hospital that is largely uncompromised.  We mostly see doctors talking to patients, patients expressing discomfort or concern while sitting in the waiting room, and receptionists telling patients what they need to know.  When interviews are done, they are effectively presented as voiceovers while the scenes unfold.

As a documentary about the life of a hospital, The Waiting Room succeeds.  However, it lacks a clear, concise message.  There are references to medical insurance, but there are simply not enough scenes about that topic to create a message that is truly sustaining.  Some quick edits could have presented this message effectively, as I noticed that most of the scenes were rather drawn-out. At the same time, the director lets the audience draw their own conclusions, which makes up for the lack of message the film may have.

Health Care: Canada vs. the United States

 Heath insurance is a great concern for some of the subjects in the film.  A 20-something man, for example, is unable to get his testicular tumour surgically removed due to a lack of coverage.

The United States does in fact offer government-run health insurance, but only for a select number of people.  One program, Medicare, is only offered to American citizens age 65 and over and for people under 65 with certain disabilities, according to the United States Department of Health & Human Services.   Another, Medicaid, is offered to only low-income citizens.

Many Americans instead get private health insurance through their employer or somewhere else.  They have to pay premiums in exchange for the insurance.  According to the 2007 Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey, American workers paid an annual average of $3,281 to cover the cost of a family health insurance plan.  On average, workers in the United States paid 16 per cent of overall premiums for single coverage and 28 per cent for family coverage.

American workers have been facing rising premiums at the expense of their paychecks.  The 2007 survey revealed that 21 per cent of employers expected to raise workers’ premiums within the next year. 

Canadians, on the other hand, do not have to pay premiums for most of the health care they receive.   Each of the ten provinces and three territories offer their own public health insurance systems to cover medical costs incurred at private hospitals and doctor’s visits, according to Health Canada.  

Health Canada states that these provincial health care systems are part of a joint federal-provincial health care co-operative unofficially known as ‘Medicare’.  The federal government’s role is to set and maintain standards for each of the provincial health care systems.  Provinces must meet these standards to qualify for federal transfer payments specifically for health care.  This funding mechanism is called the Canada Health Act. 

According to the Canada Health Act, a province/territory must meet five criteria to receive federal health care payments: public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, and accessibility. A provincial health insurance system must cover every insured person who lives in that province.  The Canada Health Act also restricts user fees (premiums for public health insurance) and additional billing.

Recently, health care in the United States has undergone some major reform.  In 2010, the United States Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  President Barack Obama later signed the bill into law.  One of the key components of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. According to the United States Department of Health & Human Services, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan gives health care coverage to uninsured citizens with pre-existing conditions.  It is offered in states that do not have a state-run program.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also offers assistance to adults in their twenties who are struggling financially like the young man with the tumour.  People under the age of 26 are now allowed to stay on a family health insurance plan as per the requirements of the Act.