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Richard Brautigan, �Trout Fishing in America�

Started March 15 � Finished March 17, 2007; 128 pages. Posted 22 August 2007

Our sister publication on the Big Island ran my review of Michael Moore�s Sicko two weeks back, and so the hate campaign against me has started anew. The letter I read today, published in the other paper reads as such:

I don�t know what resounding IDIOT wrote your review of Michael Moore�s Sicko (HIJ, 8/11), but nothing-I repeat-NOTHING-in your paper ever made me so mad! So this piece of excrement reviewer is tired of Moore�s �polemic moralizing.� What the hell is that exactly-Orwellian corporate-techno-whore-speak for the truth? Where did you dig up this smug, pseudo-educated prick?

�If it ultimately fails to resonate with American audiences,� as he says, it�s because American audiences are craven, indoctrinated, and cowardly conformists, who conform without even any reward, other than the satisfaction of being dutifully servile, in other words, just like your reviewer.
-Brent Hightower, Hilo.

I decided to write back.

Since letter writer Brent Hightower seemed confused by my phrase �polemic moralizing,� I, as the �idiot� who reviewed the film, thought I�d help clear things up. By the phrase I was implying that Moore, like Hightower, feel there is only one solution to a complex problem and that you are either with him or against him. To selectively edit and show only anecdotal evidence espousing the positive aspects of health care in other countries with nary a complaint is manipulative and dishonest. It is certainly not, as Hightower suggests, �the truth.�

The truth is, I enjoyed the film and suggested that it be required viewing to further the debate on a complex and important issue. But rather than exchange in some sort of discourse, Hightower instead chooses to go into name calling. Which is fine. He has the right to be a jackass. If he said the same things he wrote to my face, however, I would stick my �smug, pseudo-educated� boot up his ass. Then he truly would have reason to bemoan the sorry state of our health care system.

I don�t know if they�ll print it. And if they do, I don�t know how much trouble I might be in.


Rating: Worth used.

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