encouragement

I just got this comment on an early post:

I've been wanting to move to Canada. My daughter and grandkids are in Thunder Bay.

It just looks like the whole immigration thing is so overwhelming. And that's why i haven't tried.

But I am encouraged by your site. And I realize now that it is a possibility.

This makes me feel great. It's exactly one of the reasons I started this blog! What applies here is a wonderful cliche: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

A long time ago, I quit my career in the nonprofit theatre to see if I was really a writer. I literally rearranged my entire life, bought a new typewriter (yes, I predate home computers!), and thought, holy shit, what do I do now? I typed that little saying on a slip of paper and taped it to the wall above my desk. And started to write a book.

I hope the anonymous commenter downloads the application and gets to work.

terrorism

Naomi Klein recently attended an event honoring Maher Arar, the Canadian man who became the most famous victim of the US torture "renditions". She observed some interesting things about torture - especially what an effective political tool it is.

Arar was being honored for his courage by the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, a mainstream advocacy organization. The audience gave him a heartfelt standing ovation, but there was fear mixed in with the celebration. Many of the prominent community leaders kept their distance from Arar, responding to him only tentatively. Some speakers were unable even to mention the honored guest by name, as if he had something they could catch. And perhaps they were right: The tenuous "evidence"--later discredited--that landed Arar in a rat-infested cell was guilt by association. And if that could happen to Arar, a successful software engineer and family man, who is safe?

In a rare public speech, Arar addressed this fear directly.

It's a very good column; read more here.

warnings

Many people are warning me about the (apparently) impending Conservative Canadian government. Where will I go? What will I do?

They just don't get it.

Is Canada eliminating national health care, and almost all other social programs?

Will it suddenly become a huge military power, invading foreign countries to control their natural resources and further their business interests?

Will it imprison hundreds (thousands?) of people indefinitely, without charges, without access to the outside world, even counsel?

Will a neo-Conservative religious minority suddenly exert enormous influence on legislation and the judicial system?

Will abortion suddenly become illegal?

Will gay Canadians be demonized as second-class citizens by the very government to whom they pay their taxes? (And don't tell me about Stephen Harper's opposition to same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is already legal in 7 of 10 provinces, is about to become legal in an 8th province, and will eventually be legal federally, too.)

Will Canadians suddenly become arrogant, ethnocentric egomaniacs, unable to bear the slightest criticism of their Greatest Nation On Earth, ready at a moment's notice to "blow them off the map," whoever "they" happen to be?

Folks, it's not as if I'm emigrating to Canada because I love Paul Martin!

As I've said ad nauseum in wmtc, emigration is far too big a decision - and too prolonged a process - to be based on what party happens to be in power today.

safety valve

Just now a newcomer to wtmc left a much kinder and more thoughtful (and more sane!) comment. She/he said, among other things:

You shouldn't think of it so much as leaving your country, though, for someone else's. After all, Canada (English Canada, anyway), was founded by Americans who left the US for political reasons in the first place. In essense, all you're really doing is continuing that heritage. Canada has always been a safety valve for the United States. Years ago, I had a friend in Seattle who surprised me by saying he hoped Canada would never become a part of the US... he told me it was far too useful the way it was. It provided a few necessary examples of practical alternatives that would vanish if it weren't there, and gave people in the US with unpopular views a means to voice them (Malcolm X, Ralph Nader), or even, if needs be, a familiar place to escape to (draft dodgers). He said something to the effect that 'when the world wants to be free, it moves to America. When Americans want to be free, they move to Canada'. [Emphasis mine.] It's an oversimplification, but I've always thought it was a nice, pithy way of summing it up.

I agree! I had a similar thought, though less articulate, here.

It's especially true as the US becomes less and less free. It retains the superficial veneer of freedom, but there's little democracy left under the surface.

i am a fascist pig

So says a commenter who visited wmtc last night. I'm also a traitor and a conspiracy theorist and I should change my name to - get this! - Jane Fonda. Whoo-hoo! Now if I can have Jane Fonda's body and money, I'll be all set!

In another comment, he hopes "the government tags you as terrorists and blocks your mover." Then I guess he realized that wasn't English, and posted "I hope the government tags you on the terror-watch lists and blocks your move to Canada," but didn't bother to remove the first comment.

Hey, if the government put me on the terror-watch list, wouldn't they want me to leave the country? Or is "Werner" admitting that the government of the "Great United States of America" (direct quote) puts people with dissenting opinions on the terror-watch list to harass them? Just wondering.

Werner also says I am free to criticize the US, but only from "Canuck soil or Mexican soil or any soil that is not a part of the Great United States of America". That's an interesting concept of free speech he's got there. (As an aside, why are these people so obsessed with soil? What is so special about this dirt I keep hearing about?)

You know, since I announced our final acceptance, many friends, family and sister activists have been emailing with good wishes, and I've been feeling sad at what I'm leaving behind. Not that I will never see them again, just a natural sadness at leave-taking. Hearing from this wacko was excellent timing, since it reminds me of everything that's wrong with this fucking country. Thanks, Werner!

not surprised, but astonished

The great Helen Thomas writes:

I am not surprised at the duplicity. But I am astonished at the acceptance of this deception by voters in the United States and the United Kingdom.

I've seen two U.S. presidents go down the drain -- Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam and Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal -- because they were no longer believed. But times change -- and I guess our values do, too.

There are many reasons why the shrinking electorate accepts this bullshit from our elected officials. The lying corporate media, the consumer culture that numbs wills and minds, endless betrayals and scandals that foster cynicism and apathy, the learned helplessness that threatens to engulf us all, among others.

Yet still... still... if enough of us cared enough, could this happen? If 90% of Americans voted, could we have this war? If we took to the streets in such massive numbers and so frequently that we couldn't be ignored or dismissed, couldn't we end it?

These are hypothetical questions, of course. They have no definitive answers. I just feel very discouraged tonight, and I'm glad I am leaving.

Read Thomas's opinion piece from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer here.

local news

The country. Paul Krugman on Wal-Mart:

In 1968, when General Motors was a widely emulated icon of American business, many of its workers were lifetime employees. On average, they earned about $29,000 a year in today's dollars, a solidly middle-class income at the time. They also had generous health and retirement benefits.

Since then, America has grown much richer, but American workers have become far less secure.

Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation. Like G.M. in its prime, it has become a widely emulated business icon. But there the resemblance ends.

The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year. The company's health care plan covers fewer than half of its workers. [Read it here.]

The state next door. Connecticut executes someone for the first time in 45 years. This might be considered state-assisted suicide, as the man fought for the right to abandon appeals and be killed. However, had there been no legal death penalty, had he been sentenced to life in prison, that would not have been an issue.

[Please note: proponents of capital punishment are respectfully asked to make their cases elsewhere.]

Down the street. This happened a few blocks from us. Check out that picture. Amazingly, no one was hurt.

On the other side of the globe, the US continues to spread democracy and good will.

more synergy

Two things I love coming together. Minus the corporate ad, anyway.

thank you

Wow. Thank you, you guys. Thank you to everyone who left comments or emailed to congratulate us. It really means a lot.

OK, our plans.

The immediate next step is to get our photos taken again - all we do is get our pictures taken for this thing! Then we send our passports and the photos to Buffalo in a special envelope that came with yesterday's letter. The passports are returned to us stamped with our visa. (Yippee!!) The visa has an expiration date, by which time we must take residence in Canada or lose our chance.

How long we get has been the big question of this process. We've known that, at some point, the clock will start ticking and there will be a "must move by" date, but have never known with certainty what that time frame will be. The fact that it's not published anywhere tells me it must change, and probably varies for people from different countries and at different times.

Right now, based on the experience of other Americans who emigrated to Canada fairly recently, we believe we'll have six months. But we won't know for sure until we get our visas.

Once we have our visas in hand, we start looking for a place to live. We know exactly what we're looking for, and we've decided that if we find the Perfect Place early on, we're packing up and going. (Argh!) If we don't, we'll need to decide how long to look for Perfect Place before taking Less Than Perfect Place and moving again during our first year. More about Perfect Place later.

Ideally, I'd like to move around the beginning of September, but I don't expect to be able to fine-tune things that precisely.

Since some of you asked, I will tell you unequivocally: yes, I will continue blogging throughout. I warn you that wmtc is likely to get really boring, as I blather about our moving plans, and then later, our settling in and our impressions of our new home.

But believe it or not, I originally started this blog as a way to keep in touch with friends and family through the immigration process and after we moved. Little did I know it would morph into this wonderful little community. Hopefully by now you're all hooked and will keep reading through the boring bits. One nice thing about blogging: reading is always voluntary, so I don't have to apologize for boring you. (Though I probably will.)

I'm still quite overwhelmed by yesterday's news. Someone said this anonymously in comments yesterday: "It seemed as though your blog would forever be about the desire to immigrate to Canada. Now the Big Shift happens, where all your entries will move on to, well, moving on."

In fact, I said something very similar to a friend just the other day. It felt as if I'd be saying "I'm moving to Canada" forever. The transition has been going on for so long - in my mind at least - that it seemed permanent. It's hard to believe (or so I thought, just a few days ago) that one day it would actually happen: we will drive ourselves and our dogs out of New York City, and go live somewhere else.

Wow.

green light

Allan returned from walking the dogs with the mail, as he always does. He opened the door and said one word: "Canada". Handed me a thin manila envelope from Buffalo. My hands were shaking when I opened it:

IMPORTANT NOTICE.

The processing of your application for permanent residence in Canada is complete. We require your passports before we can issue your immigrant visas. You must provide your passports to our office as soon as possible. Failure to do so could result in delays in processing...

If you're keeping score, here's the timeline so far:

March 22, 2004 - applications submitted for first time
April 3 & 23 - corrected applications resubmitted
June 3 - applications declared correct and placed in queue
Jan 18 - initial assessment complete, request for additional documents
Feb 1 - medical exams done
March 21 - FBI clearances received [note: this has changed, CIC now asks for FBI certificate with initial application]
March 23 - second round of documents sent to CIC
May 11, 2005 - applications are complete; request for passports

Oh shit. I'm freaking out. And I'm on deadline.

stop the presses

The mail just came. We're in.

WE ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!!

More later. Too busy bouncing off walls to be coherent.

ladies and gentlemen...

Thanks to Barbara from California's recent post about aging, I remembered something I meant to blog about. (And yes, I am supposed to be working, thank you for asking.)

Yesterday, continuing their tradition of kicking off tours on the streets of New York City, the Rolling Stones announced their 2005 tour by holding a press conference and free concert outdoors at Lincoln Center. Some local coverage here and a good pic here.

In 1975, the Stones famously played "Brown Sugar" on a flatbed truck rolling down Fifth Avenue. In 1989, they announced their "Steel Wheels" tour at Grand Central Terminal; for "Bridges to Babylon", they drove across the Brooklyn Bridge in a cherry-red Cadillac convertible. A few years ago, Mick and the boys descended on the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park from a blimp. I'm sure there are others I can't think of and don't have time to look for right now. Feel free to post anything I've missed.

I won't lie to you: I haven't actually seen any of these appearances, despite both my Rolling Stones and New York City fanaticism, and despite having seen them on 7 or 8 different tours, until I purposely stopped going. I just love knowing it's here.

sneer

"Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."

Sometimes a silly signature line says it all. In this morning's Toronto Star, I see a recap of Ambassador Frank McKenna's appearance on John Gibson's Fox News show.

In an encounter more game show than great debate, Frank McKenna fended off Fox News allegations yesterday that Canada is soft on security and welcoming to terrorists.

The show was "The Big Story" with John Gibson, but the new Canadian ambassador, his on-air time squeezed by reports on a double murder and a police shooting, took on the host as if he were on Final Jeopardy.

"Mr. Ambassador, the big question: Are Islamic radicals inside Canada a threat to both your side of the border and ours?" asked Gibson, a well-known critic of Canada — or Canada-baiter, depending on one's point of view.

Hard on the heels of that question, Gibson asked McKenna: "Explain to me something — I hear there are a certain number of Americans who were mad that President Bush was re-elected. They want to move to Canada."

It takes them a long time to get in, he added.

"But you get the impression that if you get off the plane from Afghanistan and say, 'I'm here claiming political asylum,' you're welcome to Canada," Gibson asserted.

I understand why McKenna has to make these appearances, but sheesh, this is a loss out of the gate. Read more here.

The Star story closes with this:

His message to Americans thinking heading north of the border?

"You like sneering Canadians so much? Fine. Stay forever."

This is not the first time we've encountered this Fox cartoon. Who are these sneering Canadians Gibson is so obsessed with? I've yet to meet one, nor has anyone I know or have ever heard from.

OK, Rob, Kyle, ALPF, G, Raspberry Jubileee, my unknown loyal reader from Nova Scotia, and all you other Canadians reading: one, two, three... sneer!!

Come on, you can do better than that. Really get into it. Crinkle up your noses, curl your lip, feel superior. Think of Elvis! That oughta help.

struggle

Enough complaining, time to do something.

Purple Ocean, the political arm of the Service Employees International Union, is still fighting to make the US's largest employer responsible to something other than the bottom line. A sister organization, WalMartWatch is helping to get the facts out.

The Maryland legislature has passed historic legislation to deal with Wal-Mart's abuse. "The Wal-Mart bill" would require businesses with more than 10,000 employees in MD to spend at least 8 percent of their total payroll on employee health benefits or pay for their employee's reliance on state heath insurance programs. Governor Ehrlich is threatening to veto the bill after receiving generous campaign contributions from Wal-Mart Inc.

Details and a press release here, how you can help here.

Black Box Voting is still fighting to restore and preserve democracy. There are five main focuses right now, including this one in Illinois:

Large payments from Diebold are fueling influence-peddling for a $45 million Cook County/Chicago voting machine contract. Diebold has been lobbying both Ohio and Cook County/Chicago through a small corporation formed by a Republican and two well-connected Democrats. Diebold is reportedly making payments directly to the individuals and payments are also flowing through a corporation formed by the three partners...

Other battles for honest and accountable voting continue in California and elsewhere. Particularly disturbing to me are attempts to undermine fair voting under the guise of compliance with disability-access laws. File that under bullshit, right next to W's claim that destroying Social Security is good for African-Americans. For more info - and to see what you can do - start here.

The NRDC is fighting to preserve America's natural heritage, and keep a few parcels of peace and beauty out of the hands of industry. Here's a typical move:

Earlier this year, the Interior Department approved a plan to open 95 percent of New Mexico's Otero Mesa -- part of our Greater Rockies BioGem -- to oil and gas exploration. In response, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson filed suit on April 22nd against Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton for failing to adequately protect this fragile and irreplaceable wildland. . . .

New Mexico's Otero Mesa is home to pronghorn, burrowing owls, the endangered Aplomado falcon, mountain lions and countless other species. Beneath its grasslands lies a freshwater aquifer that is large enough to supply drinking water for New Mexicans for more than a hundred years.

Even though Governor Richardson proposed a plan for protecting the most fragile parts of Otero Mesa, the Interior Department chose instead to give oil and gas companies virtually unlimited access to this special place. The agency's decision also ignored comments submitted by tens of thousands of people from all over the country in support of protecting Otero Mesa.

What's worse, the Interior Department went ahead with its plan even though federal land managers believe there is little chance of finding economically recoverable amounts of oil and gas in the area.

Here are some things you can do.

And this wouldn't be Activists' Corner (is this Activists' Corner? dunno, just made that up) if I didn't update you on the reproductive rights front.

If you haven't educated yourself about the Teen Endangerment Act (falsely called the "Child Custody Protection Act"), now is the time. Even if you're not a teenager - or the parent of a teen - or the parent of someone who will one day be a teen - even if you feel this dangerous legislation will have little or no direct effect on your life - ask yourself, What kind of country do I want to live in?

This is such an extreme intrusion of government into the private lives of citizens, and such a blatant forcing of someone's private (so-called) morality into the public sphere. It's one more step down the slippery slope called fascism. Resist it.

Read more here. General resistance here, among other places.

shame

Robert Fisk must be reading my blog. (I wish.) In his latest hard-hitting piece in The Independent, Fisk expands on my post "routine".

Here it is courtesy of Common Dreams (you need to register to read the original).

Two years after "Mission Accomplished", whatever moral stature the United States could claim at the end of its invasion of Iraq has long ago been squandered in the torture and abuse and deaths at Abu Ghraib. That the symbol of Saddam Hussein's brutality should have been turned by his own enemies into the symbol of their own brutality is a singularly ironic epitaph for the whole Iraq adventure. We have all been contaminated by the cruelty of the interrogators and the guards and prison commanders.

But this is not only about Abu Ghraib. There are clear and proven connections now between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the cruelty at the American's Bagram [typo corrected here] prison in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

It's an excellent, very disturbing story. He ends with this wrap-up:

Ten bloody days in Iraq: 338 dead, 588 wounded

Thursday 28 April

Roadside bomb leaves four American troops dead and two wounded. Two other US troops die in an accident. Five Iraqis killed in attacks.

Friday 29 April

Seventeen bombs, including four suicide attacks in almost as many minutes in Azamiyah, and 13 car bombs in Baghdad area, leave at least 50 dead, including two US servicemen, with 114 Iraqis and seven Americans wounded.

Continued here.

foreign relations

Canada-US relations again, courtesy of ALPF. According to a recent poll, fewer people on both sides of the Canadian-US border view each other as close friends and allies.

The numbers of Canadians who like the US is still surprisingly high - surprising to me, that is - but the numbers of Americans who share the love is surprisingly low. This makes me wonder about the media's portrayal of Canada in the US, and I don't mean only the Feral and Unbalanced (TM Crabletta) folks at Fox. I wonder what they're being told, because I can't imagine why most Americans wouldn't have a positive view of Canada and Canadians.

Cross-border respect appears to be fading, a new poll says, despite Canadians and Americans seeing eye-to-eye on a lot of key issues.

According to an Ipsos-Reid poll, the number of Canadians who view America as their country's closest ally has slipped to just 53 per cent, compared with 60 per cent in 2002.

More Canadians -- 73 per cent -- said their country is a "friend and ally" of the U.S., but that number was also down from 85 per cent last November.

South of the border, the same trend applies, with only 14 per cent of Americans calling Canada their country's closest ally. That figure was 18 per cent three years earlier.

. . .

In recent years, many took differences over the war in Iraq as a symbol of the growing gulf between the North American neighbours.

But according to the poll, citizens on both sides of the border actually agree on a broad range of value-laden issues.

That last is an interesting bit. When asked whether the government has a responsibility to protect the poor, if caring for the elderly is a government duty, and if civil rights are threatened by the war on terror, the surveyed Americans and Canadians largely agreed.

The percentage of Americans who answered yes to those questions was 78, 88, 40, respectivey. Though all surveys should be taken with a few grains of salt, I do believe that most Americans are not as selfish, mean-spirited and focused only on profit as their current leaders.

Survey results here, summary article here.

synergy

Sometimes several things we love come together. Redsock, in his baseball guise, sent me this link to some baseball poetry. Specifically, limericks. For example:

The Yankees are sitting in last.
Steinbrenner cries, "I'm aghast!
I have a bill
For 200 mill!
Gimme my victories, fast!"

Baseball Toaster has written one for each MLB division. (It's a really nice blog. Scroll down to see his lovely tribute to a former professor.)

This Toaster guy has found an entire dictionary (or dictionary-in-progress) being written in limericks! Really! It's called the OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form.

You have to see it believe it. An example from today's "recently approved limerick" listing:

The apostrophe's often abused:
It gets battered, and bruised, and misused.
On a plural, a blight;
For possessives, just right,
Barring "its", which leaves people confused

And following the limerick is a concise definition of the word. I especially love that he's retaining the name of the contributor for each entry, a nice touch that will attract more people. Go. Give it a try.

ex-pats unite

A nice person named Julien contacted me about his new blog directory: Expat-Blog, "an open community dedicated to expatriates and their adventures all around the world."

To those ends, Julien is contacting ex-patriate bloggers from all over the world and creating a multi-lingual forum for information sharing, support and fun, as well as blog hosting. I know there are many ex-patriate friends of wmtc, so I hope you'll give it a look.

Julien didn't mind that I'm not technically an ex-patriate yet. He correctly pointed out that I already am - in my mind. And hopefully in a few months the rest of me will come along.

krugmanize your mind

In case you started reading this blog yesterday: I love Paul Krugman. This morning he compares BushCo to more mundane con men and grifters.

Hell hath no fury like a scammer foiled. The card shark caught marking the deck, the auto dealer caught resetting a used car's odometer, is rarely contrite. On the contrary, they're usually angry, and they lash out at their intended marks, crying hypocrisy.

And so it is with those who would privatize Social Security. They didn't get away with scare tactics, or claims to offer something for nothing. Now they're accusing their opponents of coddling the rich and not caring about the poor.

Well, why not? It's no more outrageous than other arguments they've tried. Remember the claim that Social Security is bad for black people?

One of the many cool things about our man Krugman is that he's an economist. This makes his bullshit cutter particularly sharp.

The point is that the privatizers consider four years of policies that relentlessly favored the wealthy a fait accompli, not subject to reconsideration. Now that tax cuts have busted the budget, they want us to accept large cuts in Social Security benefits as inevitable. But they demand that we praise Mr. Bush's sense of social justice, because he proposes bigger benefit cuts for the middle class than for the poor.

Sorry, but no. Mr. Bush likes to play dress-up, but his Robin Hood costume just doesn't fit.

Read. Learn.

trust

Don't miss ALPF's comment here. I imagine readers may have a bit to say about this.

(ALPF: Blogger spellchecker asks me if I mean alpaca.)