Welcome to episode 42, in which one of us is exhausted, one of us is smug, and one of us is much more well-read than the other two.
(Hint, the smugness of an anglo-fille is directly proportionate to the hotness of her Prime Minister.)
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John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight segment “Voting”
“Fuckin’ Craig Mazin: An Appreciation of Ted Cruz’s College Roommate”
“Caucus With Me: Romances for Campaign Season” on Bibliodaze.
Political documentaries we mention: The War Room, Street Fight, Wiener, Best of Enemies
Books: Game Change, Assassination Vacation, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, Unfamiliar Fishes, Nixonland, The Invisible Bridge
About the school curriculum bit: I know when I went through high school in Ontario a half decade ago there was a mandatory Civics/Careers class.
Civics was moderately useful and did talk a fair bit about the electoral process from what I remember. We also learned some stuff about the prison system and youth homelessness, I think. However, I didn’t learn about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the role of the courts until optional grade 12 law, which seems like a pretty glaring oversight.
Careers was ostensibly about life and job search schools but was ultimately a useless class where the teacher mostly made us watch a bunch of inaccurate ‘based on a true story’ films for… reasons, I guess?
I went to high school in Ontario, too. I think mine had a Civics class, but I didn’t take it; now I’m a little curious what was taught in it.
Listening to this episode was like watching The Thick Of It: I have NO IDEA what’s going on, but the people are so funny and entertaining that it doesn’t even matter. Everybody else’s political systems are always sooooo confusing (especially the US, but then everything there is a little confusing to me).
Btw, is there going to be an Eurovision episode this year? I’m a bit of an ESC geek and was so delighted about last year’s one. (See, it’s also sort of politics, so this comment totally isn’t unrelated at all.)
I love this podcast, you’re all brilliant, never stop talking, etc.
Thanks!
We weren’t necessarily planning an entire Eurovision-centered episode, but we’ll probably mention it in one of our inevitable tangents.