where were you when the US'ens saved you and yours from the huns?

O Milo honey, yer missin' the point! I enjoyed the movie (if "enjoy" isn't too emotive a word for something I found compelling but not pleasing) because it made me think about things in a different way. It had never occurred to me that there's a culture of fear in the US, but Moore makes a pretty good argument for this. That's not to say that all US'ns are fearful people - far from it. I've always found that some of the very best Canucks I know are former US'ns, as a matter of fact - they tend to be brighter, bolder, more intelligent and more engaged than a lot of other Canucks. (But I hasten to add that I do also know a lot of bright, bold, intelligent and engaged/engaging native-born Canucks!)

Moore did make some interesting points, though, about the slant of the news in the US and Canada - the US preferring to focus on doom-saying. It was quite a funny segue, actually: US news shows going on about killer bees, epidemics, threats of nuclear war kinds o' thing, and then Moore crosses the border into Canada and discovers what's on the news up here: shot of a tv in a bar with a news item on it about new speed bumps.... But I do realise that Moore would have been selective about the footage he chose to use, in order to shore up his argument. I do try to think while I'm watching things, y'know!

It had never occurred to me how much the news and what it says and how it says it, could create a culture of fear. But then, perhaps it had never occurred to me because I haven't yet read Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness. Have only read Postman's first chapter, in which he suggests that the medium, far more than being the message, DICTATES the message (eg, you can't have a philosophical discussion with smoke signals, you'd run out of wood and wet blankets too quickly).

And I still say Bowling For Columbine is fascinating watching. And I still wonder how much US'ns have heard about it and how many of them have seen it.

and my mother has a copy of Stupid White Men, which I have not read yet - do know she laughed and despaired while reading it herself, though....