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Pat Caponni’s book on her experiences living in a boarding house for discharged psychiatric patients is a painful, uplifting, and ultimately very important book. Caponni displays with both subtlety and honesty the feelings and opinions that she held, and which changed so incredibly, during her time in the ‘crazy house.’ The feelings of fear, disgust, revulsion, etc., towards the other denizens that she admits to having felt upon her arrival, becuase of its honesty, makes her ultimate transition to the caring warden of these same people all the more striking and inspiring.

This book shows how easy it is to accept poverty when we don`t see it, when we succeed in hiding it away, but also how hard it is to not become a compasionate activist when we are forced to see it in an intimate way.

Here is a biography of “Canada’s Greatest Canadian.” The fact that Tommy was voted ( albeit, i assume, by a biased pool of CBC listeners) best Canadian, gives me hope in the face of the other group of Canadians–the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who vote for Stephen Harper. But the real value of this book is that, as the title suggest, it situates T.D. in the context of the various major political events and issues during his long political carreer. From the Great Depression and support for food relief and labour efforts, to early condemnation of Trudeau’s use of the War Measures Act, the book shows how T.D., while he had his faults, was generally ahead of the curve.

Douglas’s unflinching committment to making political decisions based on moral and ethical factors (i.e. the wellbeing of his fellow men and women) is an inspiration to me, as a young person interested in politics, but repulsed by the pettyness of party politics, and the lack of moral leadership/righteousness displayed by our ’socialist’ party, the NDP.

I read this book a little while ago. It is a graphic novel biography of Loius Riel. I thought it was well done, the graphics are great and the narrative flows along. But i think perhaps Brown focused too much on the religious fanaticism of Riel, portraying him as mad and delusional, and not as an inspired political mind and leader. Despite his religious views, i think that Riel must have had an inpressive political intellect in order to have accomplished the things that he did (leading the rebellion, anticipating numerous government moves, strategizing, becoming elected to parliament in Ottawa while an outlaw, etc.). I would have liked to have read more about the political context of the time, and perhaps less about Riel’s personal inner turmoil and revelations…

Recently Laura and I watched Prarie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story, which I must say is a rather inspiring film for a lefty. The film is 3 hours long, and obviously quite low-budget, but the acting is good and the story is excellent and important. It is worth the 3 hour committment to get to know what made canada’s greatest citizen ever (according to CBCers…) tick. I was also amazed to learn of the other progressive and foresighted policies and programs that the TD government brought in besides public healthcare. For example:

• a bill of rights (preceding the Canadian Charter of rights and freedoms by 35 years, and the UN Charter by 18 months)
• public automobile insurance
• rural electricity
• public energy corporation

the list goes on and on these are just a few….a full list is here.

I was also struck by a quote of his, near the end of his life:

The only test of our character that matters is how we look after each other, not how we look after ourselves.

Seems obvious, but well-put.