The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off #

I recently finished watching this documentary (which apparently won the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary in 2004) on TLC about Jonny Kennedy, a 36-year-old man who suffered from Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa. The documentary was very moving, and the poor guy had a wonderful sense of humor through all of it. He'd had the genetic disorder all his life and it seems he decided to document his preparation for death after he was finally diagnosed with skin cancer and given a year to live. He shopped for his coffin, had it custom-designed, and asked various people to speak at his funeral. He also tried to raise money for the foundation that he was involved with (DebRA) by doing various interviews and gatherings (and even jumping out of an airplane). Unfortunately (or fortunately, for him), he died during filming in 2003. If you're looking for a charity to donate to, I'd say this is a pretty viable choice.

But that's not the reason I made this post. The reason I made this post was because it seems that the American... err, United Statian... public is really mentally deficient. Jonny was an Englishman and the entire documentary (I think) was filmed in England. And, being an Englishman, Jonny spoke with an English accent (which, judging by the similarity of it to Paul McCartney's accent, I would say is Liverpudlian, though that make be completely wrong). Now, last I checked, most (or, at least, many) of the people in the United Sates speak English. But the whole documentary had subtitles! Are people watching this moving actually too dense that they can't distinguish their own language? Aside from the (stereotypical) English phrases, such as, "Jolly good", there really wasn't anything that wasn't understandable. There wasn't even any mention of a "lorry" or a "lift". It was all made up of English words that are common in all English-speaking places. Please, someone tell me that they are underestimating the United States population and that people can actually understand speech with an English accent.

People's comprehension of language disappoints me more and more every day. (Oh, and, if need be, replace all mention of an "English" accent with a "British" accent, if that is the proper term. I'm never sure anymore....)