June 6, 2011 issue, completed May 20, 2012

This issue had two interesting articles for me: the one about Mitt Romney's universal health insurance success in Massachusetts, and the one about the value of college. Both helped me to gain a greater understanding of current events. In the case of Mitt Romney, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was progressive and sensible enough to pass into law the concept of universal health coverage in Massachusetts when he was governor. It's easy to understand why this would serve as a model for Obama's health-care initiative. What is more disappointing, though not as surprising, is the pathetic and twisted efforts of the Republican party to demonize what is clearly Romney's greatest political achievement - and that he has to distance himself from it, even deny it, in order to keep the GOP happy.

I used to wish that some other (unelectable) candidate would be chosen to represent the Republicans in November, but now I'm glad it's Romney. Maybe once he is officially the candidate he can devise a platform that will put a stop to all this ridiculous condemnation of policies that are actually good for society, simply because they convey more authority to a central federal government. At some point, the government has to actually do its job, which, unfortunately for those who would like it to be otherwise, is to govern. To make society and democracy work. At any rate, it will make for a much more exciting contest this fall than if it had been Obama vs. some (right-)wingnut. The pathetic part is watching Romney try to twist himself into something he is not just to please the Party's extremists.

The thoughtful article by Louis Menand on colleges was timely for me as I live in Quebec, and at the moment, students have been protesting almost nightly, and sometimes violently, for more than three months. They also declared themselves "on strike" -- though I guess they don't understand that you actually need to have a job before you can be on strike from it, and avoiding attending classes that you have already paid for is actually referred to as a boycott. At first the protest was about proposed tuition hikes that would increase fees by $325/year over the next 5 years -- with the final result still far below what any other university or college student elsewhere in North America would pay (students currently pay about 10% of the actual cost of their education; the government foots the bill for the rest).

Then, this protest morphed into a campaign to make all post-secondary education universally free to all. When the government offered to negotiate, and proposed spreading the increase out over 7 years instead of 5, the students conceded nothing, stomping their feet like bratty children and refusing to accept anything less than a freeze on tuition. They put the proposal to a perfunctory vote of students even as they recommended that they vote against it, and when they did, they took to the streets again. Did I mention Quebec taxpayers are the most heavily taxed citizens in North America and, oh yeah, the province is close to bankrupt?

Never mind, the protesters continued, and got more and more violent. The many students who did not agree with the protests and who wanted to complete their year obtained court injunctions clearing the way for them to attend classes -- only to be threatened and harassed by fellow students in masks flashing the lights on and off and calling them "scabs," until the "poor teachers were so stressed" they had to call the classes off anyway. The boiling point was a couple of weeks ago when four students set off smokebombs in the subway during morning rush hour, shutting down the system and making thousands of terrified commuters late on their way to work (where they pay some of their salary in taxes to send the ungrateful little boors to university). The calls for the government to act were deafening, and finally act it did, passing a strongly-worded temporary law that requires peaceful protesters to provide their planned protest location and route at least 8 hours beforehand, or face heavy fines.

So now the protest is about our "totalitarian" government's efforts to take away democratic freedoms such as the freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Of course, the Bill says nothing of the sort. I was horrified to see that Avaaz.org is circulating a petition agains this "dictatorial" government. Makes me question the legitimacy of all the other righteous-seeming causes I have signed my name to with Avaaz. Never again.

Louis Menand argues that the value of a university education is on its way to meaningless when you let everyone in, and that the value of the education they actually receive is lessened. I would think that would be even more true if it costs nothing and everyone can go if they choose to. Perhaps today's students will realize this, but likely not. All I know is, if the government caves to them, I will take to the streets. Maybe a general strike on having to pay taxes so that students can go to university free is in order.  

May 30, 2011 issue, completed May 11, 2012

This issue had a couple of highlights for me: the article on acai berries, whose popularity I had not understood until now. Reading the article made me think about how all great local food discoveries, no matter where in the world they originate, somehow make it into some kind of food fad - whether because they have health benefits (purported or real) or they are economical, or are low-calorie,  or, quite simply, because they are delicious. Such is the case right now with Greek yogurt. I am not complaining, because I am a huge fan, and Greek yogurt's massive popularity makes it easier and cheaper for me to buy it. However, it did cross my mind that when I was in Greece in 1996 savouring the delicious local yaourti me meli (with honey), why did I think to myself, "ah, what a wonderful memory of Greece this will be," rather than "Wow, how can I mainstream the production of this in North America and make millions of dollars?" Clearly as a marketing graduate, I am somewhat lacking in the "big ideas" department.

The other highlight for me was the article about the mentally ill woman who refused to accept her diagnosis but despite her obvious illness was released from hospital without her family's knowledge, and who then proceeded to break into an abandoned farmhouse and attempt to subsist on apples through the winter, eventually dying of starvation in mid-January. It was fascinating to read the author's re-creation of what the woman must have been experiencing in her solitude in the house, based solely on the journal entries she wrote while there. The saddest thing is that she was clearly intelligent, but could not focus that intelligence because of her refusal to deal with her illness. I have been thinking of mental illness a fair bit lately, partly because I read this article and partly because in the news this week a schizophrenic who decapitated and ate the flesh of a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in Canada a few years ago has just been released from mental hospital on day passes. He says now that he believed the poor guy was an alien and that the voices in his head told him to kill him. The mother of the victim believes the killer should be kept locked of for the safety of society. Last week two tourists from Toronto were killed by a schizophrenic woman in the States. There is no question that the "voices" that schizophrenics hear can lead them to do dangerous, unpredictable things if untreated; they can pose a great danger to society. The problem is that it is so easy for schizophrenics to stop taking medication.

I lived with a schizophrenic for a couple of years in my 20s. When he moved into the apartment I shared with him and one other person, he was a kind, thoughtful, hilarious, energetic, fun-loving guy and a good friend. He was getting roles as an actor in Toronto and life was going well for him. So well, in fact, that he decided to stop taking his medication. The first day that he didn't take it, he was fine. Same thing the next day. Soon he decided he was "cured" and didn't need it anymore, since he felt just as fine as the day before.

The problem was that the voices came back. They come back so sneakily, so stealthily that the sick person doesn't even notice them at first. They manifest as a weird "feeling" about someone or something, or a generalized or specific paranoia. But by then, the sufferer doesn't have the self-awareness to know that this is what they are experiencing. They don't even think about going back on the medication. Instead, my roommate would wake me up at 3 am when he got home from his job at a bar (steadily being demoted from bartender to runner to busboy to fired) and keep me up half the night telling me how every person he had seen that night had looked at him and whispered that they wanted to kill him, how everyone just seemed to be looking at him waiting with eager anticipation for his death, etc. etc. We knew he was sick, but he didn't. Eventually, after being fired and losing any interest in him that the theatre world had held, he had to move home because he couldn't pay the rent. But once there his parents could not convince him to go back on the medication, and he grew worse. Finally he lost it on Christmas Day and they had to have him committed - but you can only hold someone against their will for 72 hours. After years of moving in and out of places and jobs, causing no end of torment for his family, he finally agreed to take the medication again.

And then he was fine. But he wasn't the same person anymore. He went from being colourful, fun, creative, the life of the party, and one of the best actors I have ever seen perform to being bland, ordinary, boring. He knew it, too. He stayed back on the meds for many years, but the last time I saw him, which was 9 years ago, he was definitely off them again. He dropped by my new apartment unannounced on a warm March day with no shirt on, covered in mud, and explained that he had just been in a fight with someone who didn't like his singing as he walked down the street. Since then I get the occasional random message from him on Facebook, rambling on about something that happened close to 20 years ago now. When I go to reply less than a day later, he has deleted his online profile. This has happened twice now.

Schizophrenia is a horrible, debilitating disease. I'm not sure that everyone who has it can be trusted to self-medicate daily without fail. I am not convinced that this killer who beheaded the guy on the bus is no threat to society. I hope I'm wrong.

May 23, 2011 issue, completed May 4, 2012

I thought the cover of this issue was a nice one, paying tribute to the centennial of the New York Public Library. But I admit, I sped through this one after spending too long with the previous week's issue. I enjoyed the article about growing meat the best - pleasantly surprised to learn that PETA supports the research in this field - and I do hope that scientists find a way to make it work in my lifetime. I also enjoyed the articles on Clarence Darrow and Joseph Brodsky, neither of whom I knew much about before now. I have to confess to being completely puzzled by the ending of the fiction story, "The Trusty." Was the protagonist about to be killed? By whom? Did the girl Lucy double-cross him? Even reading it through a few times, I still don't get it, and I guess since I'm the only one reading this issue close to a full year after its publication, there is no one to ask so I never will. This kind of thing doesn't happen often, but I hate it when it does. I feel like the rest of the world is in on a joke that I don't get. It happens all the time when it comes to New Yorker cartoons, but thanks to Seinfeld I know I'm not alone in that regard, so I'm OK with it.