symbols

Happy Fourth of July to my US friends. Check out Cody's friend Noah.

A long time ago, I thought about my different reactions to the Stars and Stripes and the Maple Leaf. (If you go back to that post, don't miss the comments.)

Howard Zinn (ever my hero) has been thinking about this, too. This Fourth, Zinn suggests we put away our flags - and helps explain the difference between patriotism in a country like Canada and nationalism in the US.

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail last year that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

letter

I have a letter in the Toronto Star today. Nothing you haven't heard from me before!

heartbreak

This story was developing over the weekend; now it's come to a head.

Federal prosecutors said today that an American soldier killed an Iraqi man, two women and a little girl in their home the night of March 12 after the soldier and his comrades plotted to rape one of the women while drinking at a traffic checkpoint a short distance away.

The prosecutors charged the suspect, Steven D. Green, 21, with shooting the four victims to death. They said he and others raped one of the women. If found guilty, the defendant could be sentenced to death.

. . .

Prosecutors said the defendant was discharged from the Army "due to a personality disorder" before the March 12 incident came to light. An affidavit filed in connection with the charges raises the possibility that others will be charged, since the document states that "members" of the 101st Airborne Division killed the Iraqis and that "the same individuals" raped and killed one of the women. The others were not identified by name.

The affidavit, by an F.B.I. special agent, Gregor J. Ahlers, said details of the crime emerged during a "combat stress debriefing" on June 20. Private Green and at least three others planned the rape and told another soldier to monitor the radio while they went to the house near Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, according to the affidavit. Some of the participants changed out of their uniforms before going to the house and had blood on their clothes when they returned, the affidavit said.

After the murder-and-rape rampage, the affidavit states, the soldiers burned their clothes and told the comrade who had been left to monitor the radio that "this is never to be discussed again."

I feel so sad, I can hardly write.

Throughout history, rape has been used as a weapon during war and invasions, as a way of humiliating, subduing and demoralizing - of torturing - "the enemy". Although mass rapes have been documented in wars throughout history, more often rape has been a hidden cost of war. It was only ten years ago (in connection with Bosnia) that rape was officially recognized as a war crime, and added to the list of what constitutes torture. From Amnesty International:

Rape is not an accident of war, or an incidental adjunct to armed conflict. Its widespread use in times of conflict reflects the unique terror it holds for women, the unique power it gives the rapist over his victim, and the unique contempt is displays for its victims. The use of rape in conflict reflects the inequalities women face in their everyday lives in peacetime. Until governments take responsibility for their obligations to ensure equality, and end discrimination against women, rape will continue to be a favored weapon of the aggressor.

The Iraqi woman who was raped in this case paid the ultimate price: she was murdered, too. Her family was slaughtered to cover up the crime. It's almost too terrible to think about. I keep finding myself mentally looking away.

I rarely think about rapists. As a rape survivor myself, I'm not too inclined to see a rapist as a victim. But today I find myself feeling sorry for the perpetrators, too.

I wonder if these men, in their normal, daily lives, would be rapists and murderers. I wonder if their families can picture the men they knew as rapists and murderers. Forced into brutal, dehumanizing circumstances, some people will become the worst of what is human.

Yet not everyone. Other American soldiers will return home from Iraq (if they're lucky enough to return) without this kind of blood on their hands. I can only wonder what separates one from the other.

* * * *

Last time I blogged about atrocities in Iraq, some wingnuts stopped by to jeer. (And then of course accused me of censorship and something called "intellectual dishonesty"). I'm leaving comments open for now, but I'm asking for sensitivity. Anyone who needs to debate this topic is asked to do it elsewhere.

immigrant

Yesterday at work, with nothing but down-time (why didn't they close the firm on the Sunday between Canada Day and the Monday statutory holiday?), I read the Toronto Star lists of "Essentially Canadian" culture. It brought up something I frequently think and feel about being an immigrant, about living in a country in which I didn't grow up.

As I read about theatre, architecture, music - the cultural capital that makes a nation, a nation - I lack the background to put these in proper context. In most cases I lack knowledge of the plays, buildings, songs themselves.

If I read a list like this about the US, or about New York City, I'd understand the significance of every item on the list in a very deep way. I might interpret them through a viewpoint counter to the mainstream, but I'd understand both the mainstream and alternate views. I'd have a cultural context in which to place the work, and that would colour my view of it, whether consciously or no. Here, I look at culture in a vacuum.

This is why, on this blog, I'd ask for an explanation - usually about something in comments - yet be unable to fully absorb the answer, and I'd end up asking about the same thing at a later date. Good examples of this are the political events of Charlottetown and the Meech Lake Accord. They were mentioned in comments, I asked what they were, people explained. But as much as I understood the explanation, I couldn't really absorb it. I didn't have a context in which to place it, I couldn't understand the nuance and slant of what I was reading. Similarly, I didn't fully understand the parliamentary system until we watched the no confidence vote that brought down the Martin government.

On the one hand, this is exciting. I have new worlds to explore. In a sense it's like being in a permanent state of traveling. And that's usually how I see it. But sometimes, it's a little disconcerting. It leaves me feeling ungrounded. It leaves me feeling like a foreigner, with everything that word implies.

I don't have the culture clash that many immigrants do, coming from regions on the other side of the planet. In the business of daily life, it's very easy for me to fit in: Toronto is not so different from New York when it comes to that. But those immigrants also bring a distinct culture with them, and retain it as part of their identity - food, religion, holidays - in a way that I don't. I only have what I'm running away from.

I often note that I'll never know Toronto the way I know New York - not in that deep way where you know a city like it's a member of your family, like you know your own skin. I don't necessarily aspire to know Toronto that intimately. But what about Canada? I wonder if I could ever know Canada the way I know the America. (And I purposely use "America" there, not "the US".)

I add Canadian books and movies to my lists of things to read and watch, and add Canadian places to list of places to visit. It sometimes feels overwhelming - yet I'm unable to ignore it. I can't simply live here and be merely a displaced American. I have to know where here is.

too soon

Question: Why haven't you cheered the recent US Supreme Court decision ruling on the military tribunals at the Guantánamo Bay prison camps?

Answer: Because Gitmo still exists. The prisoners are still there.

Don't get me wrong. It's an important ruling. It's a great ruling. The Supreme Court is finally pushing back the Cheney White House's mad power grab, finally deciding in favour of the Constitution and not some hyperbolic war against imagined enemies. Affirming that there actually aren't two sets of rules, one for the United States and another for everyone else.

Bruce Shapiro, writing for The Nation, says the ruling is to Bush what the Pentagon Papers were to Nixon: "a devastating rebuke to a President who thought he had a blank check; a clear reaffirmation of the rule of law even--or especially--in times of national crisis."

The human rights lawyers who represent the Guantánamo prisoners were thrilled. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, "It doesn't get any better."

The decision also gives us some hope that the junta is not complete. William Kennedy, now the Court's swing vote, swung the right way. Justice John Paul Stevens, is still a beacon at 86 years old.

But meanwhile: they're still in there. The prisoners. Their situation has not changed.

Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive writes:

The question is whether Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld will obey the Court or whether they will directly flout it. This latter course of action is unlikely, though the legal claim the Administration has been asserting — that the judiciary has no authority to interfere with the exercise of the President’s commander in chief powers — suggests that this may have crossed their minds.

More likely, the Administration will drag its feet, as it did after the Rasul decision, the 2004 ruling that allowed Guantánamo detainees to challenge their detention. And Bush will probably look to Republicans in Congress to give him approval for tribunals and more.

I don't put anything past the murderers and thieves who have taken over the US. I can't celebrate until the prison camps are empty.

We have to keep the spotlight on this darkness, all of us, all over the world.

what i miss, summer edition

Long ago, I blogged about what I thought I would miss when I left New York. I was seldom right.

I don't miss the Sunday New York Times. I don't miss Yankee Stadium. I don't miss the Haven Coalition.

I do miss the grandeur and the beauty of New York. I do miss my old job - it was easier, it paid better and it left me more time to myself. And I do miss seeing my mother more frequently, for shorter periods of time.

I didn't know iced coffee wasn't readily available at every street corner here, so I didn't know I'd miss it.

But did I ever imagine the thing I miss most would be an hour of commercial television? I want my "Baseball Tonight"!!

Baseball Tonight is a baseball-only highlights show on ESPN. It doesn't always have insightful analysis - in fact, it's been considerably dumbed down for the last couple of years. I didn't watch it every night, because sometimes it was on during the game. (Stupid!) But I could lie on the couch and watch highlights from all the games of both leagues, and get caught up on the streaks, the winners, the losers, the trade rumours, and all the baseball scuttlebutt.

Everything I used to get from BBTN is available elsewhere, scattered about in different forms. But the form is what I loved. With SportsCentre, I have to sit through the Other Sports, with baseball getting 15 minutes of the hour, at best. Video highlights at mlb.com are very limited. Reading all the baseball news is alright, but come on, it's a sport, you want to watch it more than read about it, and it somehow doesn't sink in the same way.

Like iced coffee last autumn, I tried not to think about BBTN in April and May. But man, it is almost the All Star Break! I am underinformed and out of touch.

It seems like we get a million channels on our digital cable, including all the American networks that I never watch. But no ESPN. Rogers SportsNet carries the Sunday night game (the "ESPN game") and TSN has the Canadian version of SportsCenter (which I call Sports Sentry), but no ESPN, and no BBTN.

Free Iced Americano to the first person to solve this one for me.

canada day, mississauga edition

When I stepped out into yesterday's humidity, suddenly the Mississauga Waterfront Festival seemed like a long walk for very little. I often want to attend events like that more in theory than in practice.

My next-door neighbour and Cody and I, walked over to Port Credit's Canada Day celebration, which featured a Chinese dance performance, a huge Maple Leaf cake, and the inimitable Hazel McCallion, Mississauga's mayor. We missed Hazel, but we did get a piece of cake. Cody (wearing her Maple Leaf bandana) was very happy about all the cake bits on the ground. It's still weird to have a dog that I can go to public places with. It's easier and it's fun... but damned if it doesn't make me miss Buster.

Port Credit didn't have fireworks this year. I've heard that past Canada Day fireworks could be seen from all over our section of Waterfront Trail - which would have been super convenient and fun for us. But apparently other business owners in Mississauga complained about Port Credit getting all the holiday traffic, and I can't say I blame them.

So, on a tip from Next-Door Neighbour, Allan and I drove up to Streestville, another area of Mississauga that has a little main street and village feel. Like Port Credit, Streetsville was an independent town before becoming subsumed into Mississauga. It seems like a nice little town, not as wonderful as Port Credit, of course - but then, we have the Lake.

In Streetsville, volunteers were handing out little flags and Maple Leaf fake tattoos. A bagpipe group led the crowd in a parade from Main Street to a park, where thousands of people gathered for fireworks. I love fireworks - I love the shared public experience of fireworks. Typical for Mississauga, the crowd was a true United Nations. It's amazing how diverse it is here - another reason to feel good about Canada.

Here's Port Credit's cake from Canada Day 2005:

cody sez

Cody wishes you all a happy Canada Day.

essentials

What could be more Canadian than lists of what's Canadian?

For Canada Day, the Toronto Star has compiled lists and more lists of Canadian culture, under the banner "Essentially Canadian".

Panelists in their respective fields pick the best Canadian work in these categories: children's entertainment, movies, visual arts, books, design, music, architecture, theatre and television. Long lists were published throughout this past week; top 10 lists are out today.

Anyone who believes the Canadian identity is lacking needs to take a serious read of the following pages.

It took our 36 panelists months of often heated debate to whittle our long lists of nominees down to just 91 works that we hope represent the very best of Canadian arts and culture. The result is Essentially Canadian, our (almost) definitive guide to the works Canadians need to know in order to understand our cultural history.

The sheer breadth, originality and talent exhibited in these works should be a source of national pride alone.

The project was inspired by a government initiative in Denmark this year to establish a canon of Danish arts and culture. The stated goal of the year-long project was, in part, to "contribute to a lively cultural debate by acting as a yardstick for quality - a yardstick that will obviously be constantly challenged and discussed."

The nationwide reaction, for and against, was immediate and intense. Film director Lars von Trier, one of whose works was honoured, protested the canon's "nationalization of culture."

While our means are more modest, and our list has no government sanction, the goal is the same: to create a dialogue.

The primary guideline in selecting the nominees was that the works must still be accessible to Canadians - whether in books, on video or in person. There would be little point in creating a "must list" unless Canadians could judge the list for themselves. Each work must be strong enough on its own to justify being called a "classic." Narrowing each category down to just 10 works was a monumental task.

Naturally, the Star wants you to use their website to "continue the debate". I'll just save the list for my ongoing exploration of my new country.

canada day

My first Canada Day in Canada!

Amazingly enough, Allan is working today, although I insisted he finagle at least a free evening. So instead of working until 1 a.m., he'll leave at 6 p.m. - but he's going in early to make up for it. Ah, law firms.

We both work tomorrow, Sunday, so we decided against any of the big happenings in Toronto. We'll just hang out in Port Credit, and catch the end of the Mississauga Waterfront Festival. Port Credit is painting the town red today, so I'll check out some of that by myself. I enjoy being in crowds by myself.

Canada Day is the perfect time to welcome two more US defectors - also friends of wmtc - to their new home. A few days ago, Matt from This Nurse and YYZBoy, along with Sophie and the rest of the animals, made the trip from New York City to Toronto. (Matt comments here as "Matt NYC", not to be confused with M@.)

I read Matt's last post from New York, and of course I relate. I hope they had a good move and I wish them lots of luck settling in. Welcome to Canada!

You're going to see a lot of these posts in the coming months, as everyone starts to get their green light.

disorientation

I worked in law firms in New York City for 15 years. Up until a few months ago, the only law firms I had ever worked in were in New York City.

Now I work in a law firm in downtown Toronto.

When I pass a window and glance outside, I still expect to see New York. For the tiniest moment - a speck of time, barely registered consciously - I am disoriented.

It's weird.

cbc

Here's something I keep forgetting to blog about: the CBC's decision to bump "The National" for several weeks this summer, in order to simulcast ABC's "The One: Making a Music Star".

In all the uproar over this, I first thought The National actually wouldn't be aired during this stupid so-called reality show broadcast. Now I've learned that the news show is only being moved from its timeslot in the Ontario and Quebec time zones. Apparently CBC is not as insane as I first thought.

In the practical sense, most fans of The National will be able to watch the show at another time. If you have digital cable, you can watch it at any time of the night anyway, by tuning in to a broadcast from another time zone.

But with or without The National, the decision to air an ABC "American Idol" wannabee is moronic. When public television imitates commercial television in order to (supposedly) appeal to a younger audience, it loses everything. The audience that tunes in for the brain candy doesn't stick around for the more serious shows, and the core audience walks away in disgust.

And why is the Canadian national broadcaster airing crap from the US? If it's determined to run crap, shouldn't it at least be Canadian crap?

Knowlton Nash, famous Canadian journalist and former anchor of The National, said of the move, "If the CBC really wants reality TV, let people get the reality of what's happening in the world by turning on The National at 10 p.m. every night." Nash's comments were read by his wife, Lorraine Thomson, while Nash was accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Journalism Foundation. (Thomson read the comments because Nash has Parkinson's disease.)

Around the same time, the Canadian Senate released its report on the state of Canadian media. (Emphasis mine.)

The CBC needs a full re-examination of itself to get back to its core mandate of public broadcaster, says the head of the Senate committee on transport and communications.

The committee released a report Wednesday afternoon recommending the CBC eliminate all commercials from its TV network.

It also recommends the CBC get out of the business of covering professional sports and the Olympics, leaving those areas to the private broadcasters.

At the same time, it wants Ottawa to have a "more coherent" system to refine the mandate of the public broadcaster, including a commitment to long-term planning.

"CBC-TV in particular is in danger of losing its way," Senator Joan Fraser, head of the committee, told CBC Radio.

"It's trying to be all things to all people. It's trying to compete head-on with the private sector, where such competition is neither necessary nor in the public interest."

I don't think CBC needs to stop broadcasting sports. Sports is a part of culture, too. But mindless fluff that people watch to tune out - and that is easily found everywhere else - should be left to commercial broadcasters.

The Senate committee also urged that Canada should take steps to limit media conglomeration and ensure diverse ownership of media.

However, in some areas of the country, the report says "the concentration of ownership has reached levels that few other countries would consider acceptable."

"An important element of a free press is that there be a variety of different sources of news and opinion," the report states.

It recommends beefing up the Competition Act to require an automatic review of media mergers whenever certain unspecified thresholds are exceeded.

"The country will be poorly served if as few as one, two or three groups control substantial portions of the news and information media in particular markets or within the country as a whole.

"In simple terms, there is a public interest in having a plurality of owners. There is also a public interest in complementing private-sector news organizations with a national public broadcaster."

This is good advice. However, if I understand it correctly, these recommendations are just that: recommendations. They have no teeth and the government has no obligation to implement any changes.

what i'm reading: collapse by jared diamond

I'm reading Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

I'll start by saying that Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. It permanently changed the way I see the world and how I view history, and that's quite a big thing to say about a book. I won't go on about it here; I'll just say that I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Collapse is sometimes called the sequel or follow-up to Guns, Germs, but I don't see it that way. You can certainly read one without the other. Collapse has a very different feel from Guns, Germs. In the first book, Diamond is using a huge breadth and scope of research to alter your perception of history, to teach and enlighten. In Collapse, he's adding an additional layer: he's using that research to advocate, to impress people into action. He's drawing specific parallels between ancient societies that did not survive and our modern world. The parallels are chilling, and inescapable.

Those of us who travel great distances to view the ruins of ancient societies may forget, or not realize, that some of them were not conquered. While the Incan empire was destroyed by Pisarro's conquistadors, the Spanish never found the Mayan Empire. It had already crumbled. The Mayan people were still there, of course (as they are to this day) but they were no longer powerful and wealthy. Their gleaming stone cities - technological marvels of their time, centres for trade, art, religion, and culture - had been abandoned. There was no longer an empire. There were only survivors.

There are many examples of this in history. Diamond takes you through several of them, demonstrating how environmental destruction contributed to their collapse. The degree of that contribution varies, but Diamond says he knows of no case of a failed civilization where environmental destruction did not play a significant role. He also gives examples of societies that adapted to new environmental challenges, properly managed scarce resources, and survived.

Diamond claims that he is not a doomsayer, that he aims to demonstrate that we can make proper choices and save our environment, and so, ourselves. Whether this stems from his optimistic nature or the understanding that one cannot write and market a book like this without including a message of hope, I don't know. However, I find it impossible to share his optimism.

I look at history, at the choices people make and have always made - especially at the choices made by powerful people who control scarce resources and whose concerns are profit and power - and I see little reason for hope. Because of this, I'm finding Collapse almost too depressing to read. I continue to read it, because of my fascination with ancient societies and my desire to learn about them. But I can only read a little at a time, before I become too discouraged and need to put down the book. It's not unlike how I felt reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. It's great stuff, but the implications are so heavy.

If you don't read Collapse, I highly recommend at least reading Diamond's introductory overview to the book. The book's premise is not a simple equation, and Diamond lays to rest many of the objections to his work, raised by people who haven't read it. For example, in the divisive atmosphere surrounding environmental debate, the pro-growth camp dismisses Diamond as an environmental fear-mongerer, while environmentalists cry that he has sold out to business interests. In reality, Diamond is neither simply pro-environment nor pro-business. He recognizes both the need to use resources - try imagining a world without mining! - and to manage resources wisely, in order to ensure long-term survival. That is, survival of both those resources and ourselves.

In the introduction, Diamond also responds to predictable objections from people who view ancient societies through stereotype - whether that be racism or its opposite, the myth of the idyllic people who lived in perfect balance with nature, before those nasty Europeans came along and ruined it. Neither stereotype is valid.

* * * *

One of the collapsed societies Diamond examines is Easter Island, the home of those famous giant stone statues. Easter was never conquered; it was already uninhabited when Europeans found it. Easter Island civilization was dependent on large palm trees, which the people used to make their sea-going canoes, shade their crops, hold down topsoil, and transport and erect their icons. Despite this, and for complicated reasons, the inhabitants of Easter completely deforested their land, which touched off a chain of events that led to an extreme shortage of resources, and eventually, war, starvation, chaos and collapse.

An often-quoted passage from the chapter on Easter Island:

I have often asked myself, "What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?" Like modern loggers, did he shout "Jobs, not trees!"? Or: "Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood"? Or: "We don't have proof that there aren't palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering"?

Here's an excellent essay summarizing Collapse Diamond wrote for the New York Times, reprinted by Truthout.

new here, again

More from the Toronto Star's report on diversity and immigration:

He and his wife, Shweta, have a 2-year-old son, Om, who speaks English and Hindi, likes cricket and basketball and enjoys Bollywood as well as Hollywood movies. He is, says Tandon, the new face of a multicultural Canada, melding his birthright as a Canadian with the advantages of his cultural heritage.

Tandon hopes Om will learn Cantonese and Mandarin someday, to give him a competitive advantage in a global marketplace. In Canada, anything is possible — his son could aspire to be prime minister, he says.

"I'm living my dream. It's not the one I came with, but it's still good."

* * * *

The new face of Canada smokes and drinks less and is more physically active than the general population, according to a sweeping poll examining the behaviours and social attitudes of immigrant Canadians.

For a country that loves its beer and bars, the results of the survey may sound sacrilegious.

But the poll, conducted by the Solutions Research Group, raises the welcome possibility that a population practising healthier lifestyles could eventually save the $100 billion public health care system millions of dollars in doctors visits and medical treatment for certain diseases, including lung cancer.

* * * *

There is no comparison," says Julie Kamarashavu, a 35-year-old administrative assistant who works in a downtown Toronto office. She arrived here eight years ago, pregnant and a refugee from war-torn Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A week after landing in Toronto, she gave birth to a son at St. Joseph's Health Centre and was overwhelmed by the generous care she received. For relatives back home, she says, every doctor's visit, every blood test and every day spent in hospital is paid out-of-pocket. Often, treatment is withheld until the money is paid upfront.

"I was just, like, 'Oh my God, so this is Canada. This is really amazing.' I called my mother after and said, 'If you knew how I got the baby, just like a princess with nurses around, it was just like a dream. And I didn't pay anything.'"

I'm from a supposedly First World country, and I was fortunate enough to always have health insurance there, but I still share Ms Kamarashavu's sense of wonder at Canada's health care system. I understand what she means when she says, "Oh my god, so this is Canada."

day games

We're seeing The Real Thing today, the play from our Soulpepper subscription that we were supposed to see on my birthday. Love those weekday matinees! The joys of working weekends.

After the play, we have to hurry home, as there's a big game tonight: Pedro Martinez returns to Fenway.

Hey Mets fans, I'm up for a 1986 rematch this year, whaddaya say?

difference

I've been making my way through the special report on diversity and immigration that the Star published last Saturday. Some of it is very interesting, if fairly intuitive, if you've lived in a big city and thought about immigration.

Here's something from an article about discrimination and prejudice towards visible minorities.

Overall, the people surveyed rate Canada highly, although not perfectly, for having a justice system based on fairness and equality. Most people draw a distinction between individuals who are biased or bigoted - those are found everywhere - and an institutionalized system that discriminates.

In the US, I've found that people often fail to make that distinction. When talking about equality, they'll point to individual acts of bigotry as "proof" that very little has changed since the days of enforced segregation, which is ridiculous. Others, of course, act as if all discrimination has been rectified and the justice system is now 100% colour-blind, which is equally ridiculous.

I have no problem holding both thoughts in my mind at the same time: the US has come a very, very long way, and still has a long way to go. Clearly the same can be said about Canada.

When it comes to individuals' acceptance and tolerance of difference, and of change, we'll always be on a learning curve - always. Some people will never accept it. That's their loss, but ultimately, their choice. All we can do is make sure their attitude is as isolated as possible, and isn't reflected in law, housing, banking, or any other institutions.

Welcome but unequal? - The 'Canadian experience' isn't the same for everyone

by Nicholas Keung and Prithi Yelaja

What's it like to be part of an ethnic minority in Canada?

The experience may depend hugely on where you came from originally, what you look like, how the media view you and whether your ethnic community has a voice in the political arena.

The Diversity in Canada survey, conducted with 3,000 subjects in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal last year, took a closer look at how major ethnic groups perceive their treatment by the most powerful institutions of society: police, courts, employers, media and government.

Italian immigrants — the group with the longest history as a large ethnic minority in Canada — are the least likely to say they've experienced discrimination (only 22 per cent), and they express a degree of confidence in Canadian institutions that's even higher than the urban Canadian average.

But their experiences are drastically different from those who belong to the more "visible" minorities who make up the vast majority of recent immigrants.

More than one in three members of visible minorities report having experienced discrimination at some point: 52 per cent of blacks, 45 per cent of Chinese, 38 percent of Hispanics, 37 per cent of South Asians and 36 per cent of West Asians/Arabs.

Though Canadian-born, Giuseppe Pelligra went back to Sicily with his family at age 8, returning to Toronto in 1982 at 22, speaking not a word of English. Now 45, the Toronto restaurant owner says he has never experienced overt racism — though admitting it's "probably because I have white skin."

Immigrants who choose to wear traditional dress, such as hijabs, make themselves targets, he argues. "If you wear that, you should expect you will face discrimination."

Parag Tandon, on the other hand, has seen blatant racism more than once since he arrived here from India in 2001.

"You bloody brown people have no concept of urban living," said a stranger whom he once accidentally bumped on the subway.

Another time, while still unfamiliar with some Canadian routines, Tandon asked a gas station attendant to explain how the self-serve system worked. The attendant swore at him, adding, "Who the hell gave you a licence and money to buy a car?"

But Tandon dismisses these incidents as isolated. "Canadians are the most loving, understanding people I've seen in my life, and I'm glad I'm one of them."

Asked whether "the courts in Canada generally treat people fairly, regardless of their ethnic background," Chinese and South Asians were more likely than the average urban Canadian to say they "strongly" or "somewhat" agree (77 per cent and 79 per cent respectively). Other groups expressed less faith in the courts, with West Asians/Arabs and blacks rating them lower (69 per cent and 70 per cent).

Blacks took the dimmest view of the fairness of Canadian police, with only half agreeing that "police in Canada generally treat all people fairly, regardless of their ethnic background."

South Asians were the most enthusiastic in their perceptions, with three-quarters rating the police as fair, well above the benchmark of 68 per cent.

Chinese Canadian Stephen Lam, 62, a social worker, has worked closely with police and feels our justice system is, by and large, fair to all.

"The one thing I had problems with, as to the police, was that they used to have special crime units associated with cultural groups, like the Asian Crime Unit. By doing so, they stigmatized the entire cultural group. It just wasn't good or fair," says the Markham resident, who came here from Hong Kong in 1992.

Abbas Azadian, a psychiatrist originally from Tehran, feels there's an invisible social hierarchy in place in Canada, where people of Western European background tend to rank at the top, followed by Asians, with people from the Middle East and blacks at the bottom.

Suspicions following the 9/11 terrorist attacks have also made things more difficult for those of South Asian and Arab/West Asian background. (The survey was done months before the recent terrorism-related arrests of 17 Muslim men and boys.)

"I have had a friend's son being stopped three times on his way home, being questioned by police for 10 to 15 minutes each time. If a white young man is taking the subway home, do you think he'd be stopped that many times? This is scary to any parent," says Azadian, a 48-year-old father of three with a practice in Thornhill.

"You can say they are being sensitive, but when someone is given differential treatment for no reason other than their colour, race or physical attributes, we call it unfairness."

Azadian said he hasn't had direct contact with the justice system, but has friends and clients who have.

"I have positive views of the justice system. But I think the system works and is fair only when the defendants can afford to have a good lawyer," he notes. "But how many people, immigrants and visible minorities, can afford to hire a top-notch lawyer? So often, they have to compromise and make a guilty plea."

Laura Fernandez, a Yorkville spa owner who left Venezuela in 1976, says she has never experienced racism, though she has no doubt it exists here.

"What has saved my ass is my white skin and green eyes. Even back in Venezuela, that's a big plus. The world seems to have a mentality that white is best. It's not right, but that's the reality.

"I can camouflage," she adds. "If I didn't open my mouth, you wouldn't know I was an immigrant."

Having an accent can be a special hindrance in housing and employment, notes Busha Taa, president of the Ethiopian Association of Greater Toronto.

"Sometimes you call (Canadians) for jobs or an apartment. They can hear your accent on the phone and turn you down right there. And when you apply for employment and write down your (address) in a shanty part of the town, you get rejected.

"There is definitely discrimination out there, but it's not something you can easily prove. It's just so subtle," says the University of Toronto researcher in sociology.

All ethnicities surveyed, except Italians, were less likely than the average urban Canadian to agree that "employers in Canada are open to hiring people from any ethnic background."

Taa, 42, who fled political instability in Ethiopia in 1993, believes he experienced racism when he once applied for a tenured position. "Everything went well with my interview, and they didn't have an explanation why I didn't get it and they ended up hiring someone less qualified," he laments.

"I think the system in Canada is equal, but it's the individuals who are bad in treating people equally," Taa says. "I blame it on those individuals."

The media have an important role to play in promoting understanding and appreciation of diversity, he says.

"The problem is when one of us does something bad, everyone in the community get broad-brushed. People don't see that the person who does drug trafficking or kills somebody is just a bad guy. It isn't because he's black," he notes. "And reporters here only show up in our community when there's a bullet fired."

Not surprisingly, how they're portrayed in the media is a concern for several ethnic communities. Nearly two-thirds of black respondents and more than half of the South Asians, West Asians/Arabs and Hispanics said mainstream media "present negative stereotypes" of minorities.

The Chinese, at 44 per cent, and Italians, at 32 per cent, were least likely to report media bias.

Then there's the question of who represents them politically. Nearly half of the respondents rated Canada as "good" or "excellent" in the extent to which people have an influence over how they're governed — compared with just 36 per cent of the general urban population. But, except for Italians, all the groups agreed that Canada needs more politicians from diverse backgrounds.

"Politicians not only represent their own ethnic group, but everyone in their communities. But by having a diversity of people in government, it enriches the decision-making process and ensures that different perspectives are being represented and recognized. That's how we can promote harmony and tolerance as a nation," notes Azadian.

"When you see someone who looks like you in the government, you see you belong here. You are no longer isolated, marginalized and not counted."

All the articles from the special report are found here.

watch this

Have you all seen Bruce Springsteen's recent performance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien? Along with the Seeger Sessions Band, Bruce performs a haunting version of Pete Seeger's "Bring Them Home".

Go here to see the video.

A minor correction to the post linked above: this song is not on Springsteen's latest release, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for hosting the video, to Allan for sending me the link, to Conan for putting this on his show - and thank you, thank you, thank you, Bruce.

Watch and listen.

call to action

Today is a National Day of Action for Lt Ehren Watada, the first US army officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. In cities and towns throughout the US, peace-loving people will be holding vigils, speak-outs, and rallies, distributing flyers, hanging banners, and otherwise taking action to support Lt Watada, and to build the anti-war movement.

If you live in the US, consider joining a local action. If there isn't one in your area, write a letter to your local newspaper speaking out against the war, and in support of war resisters. And of course, post about this in your blog.

From a recent email from Thank You, Lt:

I am the mother of Lt. Ehren Watada, an officer stationed at Ft. Lewis. He is part of a Stryker brigade unit that deployed last week to Iraq. Despite an unflinching commitment to his men and to democratic ideals, he chose not to accompany his men. His decision came through much soul-searching and through research and consultation with experts across disciplines, inside and outside of the military and the government.

After weighing the evidence, he came to the conclusion that he could no longer be silent while atrocities were committed in the name of democracy. He could no longer be a tool of an administration that used deception and lies to make the case for pre-emptive war.

As a member of the armed forces, sworn to uphold the US Constitution, he refuses to blindly participate in a war of aggression, an illegal war that undermines who we are as a nation and violates international law. Implicit in his oath as an officer is the duty to disobey all unlawful orders for; to carry out these orders renders him an accomplice to a criminal act. Furthermore, to order his men to participate in a war of aggression multiplies his guilt a thousand fold. His conscience will not permit him to do so. He believes that he can best serve them by taking a stand against the war. In so doing, he demonstrates that one does not relinquish the freedom to choose what is right, even in the military, and that the freedom to choose what is right transcends the allegiance to man and institutions.

Contributions to the Friends and Family of Lt. Ehren Watada legal and political defense fund are urgently needed to challege these new restrictions.

As a mother, I have evolved from fearing for his safety and for his future to the realization that there is a higher purpose to all that has transpired. My son no longer stands at the crossroads. He has chosen "the road less traveled." Come what may, he is committed to staying the course.

I invite you to affirm your support of Lt. Ehren Watada on June 27th, National Day of Action. On this day, groups across the country will participate in peaceful demonstrations, prayer services, candle light vigils, parades, leafleting, visitations to recruitment stations to provide counsel to prospective recruits, etc. Please contact your local organization for details.

My deepest thanks,

Carolyn Ho
Ehren's Mom

I've blogged about Ehren Watada several times now, and, amazingly enough, I've received no comments from the wingnuttery. They're really falling down on the job.

You can read about other war resisters at Courage To Resist. For more on how you can resist the creeping (leaping?) fascism and theocracy, try Refuse & Resist.

meta

Every once in a while, I think I should wrap up this blog. I would keep it online, because people who are considering emigrating to Canada or in the process of doing so, use it all the time. But I'd stop writing, or maybe write very infrequently.

When I first mentioned this to Allan, he was horrified, and told me I couldn't, I shouldn't. Then I got a second wind, or a third, felt good about wmtc again, and kept going. This repeats itself every few months.

We're coming up on the one-year mark of living here, amazing as that seems (to me, anyway). Much of our settling-in has been done, and although we're still exploring and learning about Canada, we'll be doing that for a long time to come. I'm not going to blog forever. (Or am I?) Perhaps the first anniversary of our big drive north should be the end of wmtc as we know it.

My original purposes for starting this blog have either been accomplished or never really worked. Writing helped me process this Big Life Change, and wmtc has helped some other people making the same move. On the other hand, blogging didn't turn out to be a good way to keep in touch with long-distance family and friends. I don't know why, but most of those people don't read it.

The most wonderful and unexpected result - the community that's formed around wmtc - is what keeps me writing. I'd miss everyone. I'd miss the advice, the reflection, opinions, jokes, and most of all the occasional but excellent in-depth discussions.

Also, the writing discipline has been excellent. I've never been a journal-keeper; I would write things in notebooks on an as-needed basis, but not as a daily discipline. But writing to be read on a daily basis - as opposed to writing for your own eyes only - helps one think, and therefore write, more clearly. I like to say it "primes the pump" for other writing.

So if something helps me be a better writer, then I should do it.

On the other hand, it often feels like just so much blather.

true stories

A friend and former co-worker from New York sent this to his mailing list today. And who could blame him? It's not every day you're featured on the home page of a New York tabloid!

Harry lives one neighbourhood farther uptown than we did, at the northernmost tip of Manhattan. And yes, we lived there during the riots. Ho, hum.

theocracy watch

Meanwhile, south of the border - way south - the only medical facility in the state of Mississippi that provides abortions is under siege. This from a fundraising letter forwarded to me by my former comrades at the Haven Coalition, which I helped run during my last years in the US.

As summer begins, your Feminist Majority Foundation is preparing to protect the lone remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi. The Jackson Women's Health Organization is facing a week-long siege by Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue) from July 15-22 to make Mississippi "the first 'abortion-free' state in America."

Flip Benham, the director of Operation Save America, has said "We will not wait for the President, Congress, or the Supreme Court to end abortion."

Your Feminist Majority Foundation is determined to help this clinic and protect women's access to abortion in Mississippi. We are sending organizing staff to help the clinic withstand the protests this July and to work with law enforcement to ensure the safety of the clinic and its healthcare workers. We need your help to ensure that doctors, healthcare workers, and volunteer clinic escorts are safe and the clinic remains open.

We need to immediately raise $25,000 for security equipment and staff. Half of your emergency tax-deductible contribution will help the Jackson Women's Health Organization get the security assistance they need.

The other half of your tax-deductible gift will support the Feminist Majority Foundation's Clinic Defense Project, which will be working closely with the Jackson clinic and with other targeted clinics across the country.

We need your help now to keep the Jackson clinic open and keep the Feminist Majority Foundation strong in our struggle to stop this domestic terrorism against women's health care providers. We cannot allow anti-abortion zealots to win through violence and intimidation.

Operation Rescue, as they were then known, invaded New York City in 1992, trying to shut down several family planning clinics. I was involved in clinic defense, at that time the most exciting activism I had ever done. But it was easy for us: the police, the city government and the general population was on our side. Outside the clinics, sanitation workers and taxi drivers would honk their horns and raise their fists in support. There was a pro-choice march through the city, and thousands of people helped fund, organize and staff round-the-clock clinic access teams.

But this is Mississippi.

If you can, donate here.

fearless

Pride Week in the GTA culminates today with Toronto's big parade. Everyone tells me it's one of the best in the world, but I'm working weekends again, so I'll have to take your word for it.

The Toronto Star reminds us that Canada remains a beacon of acceptance, dignity, and hope to people who are still persecuted throughout the world.

Arsham Parsi had barely crossed the border into Turkey when he received the email. It was shattering.

Two gay teenagers, it said, had been tortured and publicly hanged in his homeland of Iran. Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, were executed because they had contravened strict Islamic morality laws that command the death penalty for gay sex.

"I had never met them, but I cried and cried," says the small, immaculately groomed gay activist, who won refugee status in Canada last month.

Parsi, 25, fled Iran in March 2005, the moment he learned through friends that government officials were looking for him. He was in Ankara and applying for asylum in Canada when he learned about the teens' fate, which could very well have been his own. "The judge has four choices," explains Parsi with remarkably little emotion. "You can be hanged, stoned to death, beheaded or pushed from a precipice."

In the mid-1990s, an exiled Iranian gay-rights group, Homan, estimated that 4,000 homosexuals had been executed by the government since 1979.

As Toronto Pride Week reaches its culmination with today's Pride Parade, one could easily forget that in many parts of the world, it is extremely dangerous to be gay.

In some cases, it's not just the state that harasses and sometimes executes homosexuals, but the intolerant citizenry as well. So, for some foreign-born celebrants and their loved ones, Pride Week's theme of "fearless in 2006" strikes a particularly resonant chord.

Because it arguably sets the gold standard for gay rights around the world, Canada is the new home of choice for many homosexuals fleeing repressive countries. Only a few other nations (Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain) can match our record of legalizing gay marriage and adoptions by gay and lesbian couples, or our strong anti-discrimination laws.

"I think Canada is a beacon of hope for a lot of refugee claimants," says immigration lawyer and gay community activist Michael Battista, who has represented many gays and lesbians seeking refugee status.

My great friend Alan With One L sent me this people-profile, also from my local paper, about a man who has really made a difference in the world. AWOL (wow, I never realized what a terrible acronym that made!) attended a conference for gay Muslims in Toronto in 2003, and came back raving about the city and the people.

As a devout Muslim who is gay, El-Farouk Khaki knows what it is like to be an outsider. The Toronto lawyer and human rights activist, who founded the Salaam support group for queer Muslims, was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and came to Canada with his parents in 1974 at the age of 10.

"I was in my mid-teens when I spoke to my parents for the first time about being gay," says Khaki, 42. "They were wonderful, but they said it was a natural part of puberty to be questioning your sexuality and it was something I would grow out of."

He says he first dealt with isolation as a young freshman at the University of British Columbia, but it wasn't until law school that he became openly gay.

"I think my coming out had a lot to do with the stress and pressures of law school," he says. "I really hated law school, as a bastion of social conservatism and elitism that was predominantly white, particularly in the middle '80s."

Khaki moved to Ottawa in July of 1988 and came to Toronto the following year, setting up his legal practice here in '93. "I didn't know anyone in Vancouver who was Muslim and queer," he says. "But when I came to Toronto, I started meeting people who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered - and Muslim.

"One of the difficult parts of coming out as a Muslim - or in any religious tradition - is the religious condemnation and the religious interpretations of text, which demonize same-sex relationships," he says. "As a believer, that was a problem for me, so once I moved to Toronto and began meeting other people, I started the original Salaam in 1991."

He says the original purpose of Salaam, which means peace, was social and support, "just to know that you're not alone."

At this year's Pride gala, Khaki is being honoured for his spirituality and his contribution to queer life through Salaam.

"I think Salaam is very important, both locally and internationally, in terms of creating a safe place for people of Muslim tradition to be able to come together both socially and spiritually," says Rev. Brent Hawkes of Metropolitan Toronto Community Church.

"There are Jewish synagogues that are open; there are Christian places that are open, there are Buddhist places that are open. But progressive Muslims, particularly gay and lesbian Muslims, don't have many options. The work that El-Farouk has done as to help to make sure there is an option there."

Khaki says the original Salaam disbanded in 1993. "This was pre-Internet, and communications were much more difficult.

People would say, 'If you call and my mother picks up the phone, don't tell her your name; don't say this or don't say that.'

"After a series of incidents, including a nasty letter from Islamic Jihad, I decided it wasn't worth my life, it wasn't worth the angst. So I shut it down."

Salaam was reborn in 2001 after years spent reorganizing and establishing ties with sister groups such as Al-Fateha in the United States.

"Salaam is a unique organization because we have a true diversity in gender, as well as a diversity in orientation," Khaki says. "Our co-ordinators, as well as our membership, come from diverse racial backgrounds: We have Iranians, Indo-Pakistanis, Turks, Ismalii, Shiite, Sunni, people who are religious and people who are not, people who are believers, people who are not. We've also had non-Muslims or people who don't identify as Muslim.

"A lot of our members are newcomers, so a lot of what Salaam has been doing is providing support for queer refugees, as well as for the whole body of Canadian queer Muslims, a group that we have some difficulty in reaching."

There are several reasons for the inaccessibility of queer Canadian Muslims, Khaki says. "There is the degree to which people are out to their families and communities. For example, there is a very large Somali community in Toronto, yet Salaam doesn't have any members from the Somali community. My understanding is that a lot of them are very concerned about visibility. You won't see them on Church St. or in other groups or organizations.

"We're not interested in debating or challenging or confronting the larger Muslim community - that's not our goal," he adds. "Our goal is to provide a sense of community and safety for people who come to us. Bringing people together is the cornerstone of Salaam's work.

"Every Ramadan, we host a fast-breaking dinner, called an iftar, for about 150 people. It's an interesting event, because it's 50 per cent Muslim, 50 per cent non-Muslim, 50 per cent queer, 50 per cent not queer.

"I think it's very important right now for Muslim organizations to be building bridges," he says. "We need to recognize that there is a fringe element at the present time within the Muslim community that resorts to violence; for reasons that are multi-level.

"We need to isolate this element and identify what leads to this sort of alienation and this psychology of violence."

sounds

Thursday night was a Red Sox night off, and we didn't even watch a movie. The same four DVDs from Zip.ca have been sitting on the coffee table since early April. After a recent influx of new CDs, we needed a Music Night.

So what did we get? Some capsule reviews.

We finally picked up Green Day's American Idiot - late, I know, but I don't buy music very often. I really like Green Day, and it's a good album, but I expected more. It's completely unsurprising - more of the same. That same is good, but... I guess I got fooled by the hype. I'm glad I have it, and I'll listen to it, but I was hoping they'd do something more.

As part of my relatively new, ongoing exploration of jazz, and in my quest to buy more of the jazz sounds that grab me while listening to Jazz FM in the car, we got Sonny Rollins's Sonny Rollins Plus Four and Saxophone Colossus. I don't have enough vocabulary to write intelligently about jazz; I just love this stuff.

I'm new to jazz. I only started to explore it after feeling I had nowhere to go with the rock and roots sounds I love. I felt I could only find more of what I already like, but no new sounds were appealing to me. (To pick just two examples, I tried and failed to like Radiohead, and think Coldplay is a sad joke.) My favourite music is blues, and I love big band and swing, and I used that as my point of entry into jazz. Once I got over feeling overwhelmed and intimidated, and followed my ears, it's been going really well.

Sonny Rollins from 1956 is an excellent addition to my fledgling collection. Interestingly, some of my favourite blues - some of my favourite music, period - was recorded during the same time period.

Neil Young's Living With War. Love it for the politics, love it for the heart. The music, not so much. It's a string of slogans and political feelings set to standard Neil Young music, with not quite as much grit as Crazy Horse could give it. It's really, really difficult to write topical songs that are anything but prosaic. He doesn't succeed, but I love him for doing it.

Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, The River In Reverse. I am a total sucker for New Orleans- style rolling piano and funky horns. Toussaint's piano gives me chills. Costello's straining voice adds an edge that an off-the-shelf soul singer wouldn't give it. For me, it's a great combination. Many of these songs were debuted at various benefit concerts for post-Katrina New Orleans.

We also re-bought Costello's King Of America, because the CD has finally been re-released with the bonus disc of demos, alternative takes, and previously unreleased material from the same sessions. It's an often-forgotten but excellent Costello album. I think at this point we've re-bought all our favourite Elvis Costello CDs. I admire him no end for his creativity and scope, but I really don't care for most of the results.

Our most important new CD is the one Allan bought me as part of my substitute birthday gift: Bruce Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. Bruce assembled a melange of country, folk and soul sounds to pay tribute to the American folk music that Pete Seeger helped popularize. The disk is also a DVD, so you can see the band recording and playing. This is music that is meant to be experienced live, so that's a great addition.

On the DVD, Bruce talks about "recontextualizing" the songs. It's not a word I would have used, but it's exactly what the songs needed. Who can hear "Froggie Went a Courtin'" or "The Erie Canal Song" ("low bridge, everybody down...") anymore? We've heard these songs too many times; for most of us, they're old and dusty. But a new arrangement, with a screechy fiddle, a slinky trombone, some chugging percussion and gospel-tinged backup singing, breathes life into these old gems. If you like rootsy sounds, I highly recommend it. If you've heard and liked John Mellencamp's Trouble No More, it's a similar idea, but a little narrower in scope, and maybe better for it.

Whether or not this music is to your taste, I hope you all know Pete Seeger. As a musician, he's best known as a folk singer, a member of The Weavers, and a major pillar of the folk and protest-song movement. But for me, he's Pete Seeger the lifelong activist, fighting the good fight from the earliest days of the US civil rights movement to the present. He's been investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he's done time in prison, and he's never stopped inspiring younger musicians and activists with his commitment.

I saw Seeger perform at rallies and demos when I was a small child, then again as a young adult at The Clearwater Festival, an outdoor music and craft festival that benefits Clearwater, the environmental group Seeger helped to found. (Once upon a time, I used to attend the festival every year.) Seeger was born in New York City, and lives in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley. I would call him a national treasure, but I think he would want something less parochial and more universal in scope. I guess he's an humankind treasure.

new here

The Toronto Star has a special section on immigration and diversity in Canada. It looks really interesting; I'm going to read a lot of it before I post about it. (I know, how retro.)

From the front page of the hard copy:

A groundbreaking poll of Canadian immigrants shows a country pointed in a fresh direction. Our nation's newest builders are younger, smarter, healthier and committed to Canada. But if you're a fan of beer or baseball, you should know you'll soon be in the minority.

You know what's funny about an observation like that? It assumes that no one changes in their new home, that immigrants don't pick up habits from their countries of choice, which of course can't be true. I'd bet quite a few fans of beer, hockey - and even baseball - are created in Canada.

One section follows a handful of new immigrants through their first year. I don't think there are any US political defectors among the people interviewed, but then, very few of us have passed our first year yet.

do you really

An excellent editorial from the excellent St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Much of what is so terribly wrong about the U.S. incursion in Iraq has been on display in the last seven days, a misbegotten war writ small.

— On Friday night, three young U.S. soldiers -- a Latino kid and two small-town white kids -- were left to guard a vehicle checkpoint on a canal bridge in the heart of the Sunni-dominated "triangle of death" south of Baghdad. Seven masked insurgents surrounded them, killed one and took the other two captive. Eight thousand troops spent the weekend searching for them. Their mutilated and decapitated bodies were found Monday.

— Friday was the same day the House voted to approve a non-binding resolution expressing "solidarity" with the troops fighting the war on terror. Ignoring reality, the Republican-sponsored resolution linked the war in Iraq with the attacks of 9/11. The breathtaking stupidity of the resolution was best captured by Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga.: "It is time to stand up and vote. Is it al-Qaida, or is it America?"

— Not to be outdone, the Senate Friday briefly toyed with an amendment calling for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year. Democrats promised to get back to the amendment this week, once their political backsides are properly covered. Republicans, sneering at what they call the "cut and run" amendment, promised to defeat it.

— Monday, the same day that the bodies of the two kidnapped soldiers were found, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked at the National Press Club whether he still believed his remarks from a year ago that the Iraq insurgency was in "its last throes."

Mr. Cheney, ignoring the inconvenient facts that 835 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since he made his "last throes" remark; and more than 6,000 others have been wounded; and nearly 3,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers have been killed; and nearly 15,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, answered, "I do."

Say "I do" to the family of Khamis al-Obeidi, one of Saddam Hussein's defense lawyers. Mr. Obeidi was kidnapped and killed Wednesday morning by men posing as police officers. He was the third member of Mr. Hussein's defense team to be killed. How is an Iraqi government so incompetent that it can't protect someone so vulnerable ever going to stand on its own?

Say "I do" to the families of Spec. David Babineau of Springfield, Mass., Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Madras, Ore., and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston. For all the "solidarity" that the House expressed, they were hung out to dry at their checkpoint Friday night. Spec. Babineau was killed in the attack, his comrades kidnapped and brutalized.

The war is being fought by kids like these, kids with high school diplomas or GEDs, taking risks for a better future. There were never enough of them to do the job they wound up doing or enough armor to protect them. The risks they have faced and still face have been grossly underestimated by President George W. Bush and his cadre of ideological zealots.

Last Wednesday, a few hours after returning from his surprise photo-op in Baghdad's Green Zone, Mr. Bush appeared in the White House Rose Garden to tell the American people that while he'd been impressed with the new Iraqi government, "The challenges that remain are serious and they will require more sacrifice and patience."

More sacrifice? Unless you or a loved one are in the military, this war hasn't cost you anything, except maybe a couple of bucks for a "support the troops" car magnet. The trillion-dollar cost of the war will be handed to our children and grandchildren, the worst of it paid in blood by kids like David Babineau, Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker.

Someone actually stood up on the floor of Congress and said, "Is it al-Qaida, or is it America?". This actually happened.

You know, I don't read a lot of US news anymore (though still probably more than many Americans). Every time I do, I find some bit of lunacy like this, and a tremendous feeling of relief washes over me.

needed: class warfare

What's the minimum wage in Canada? When was the last time it went up?

In the US, the minimum wage hasn't been raised in ten years. Ten years. Think of how your living costs have risen in the past decade. Imagine making the same salary you were earning then - if that salary didn't cover those costs in the first place.

Conservatives are fond of saying that government cannot create equality of conditions, only equality of opportunity. If a substantial portion of a population can't legally work their way out of poverty, how can there ever be equality of opportunity?

When Howard Dean tried to talk about working people who always vote against their economic interests - the first Democrat in my memory to lay that on the line - Republicans disingenuously accused him of fomenting "class warfare". In The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes:

The GOP just shafted the working people of America. By rejecting an attempt to raise the minimum wage, the Republican-controlled Senate showed that it is far more interested in lining the pockets of its campaign contributors than - as Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Monday - arriving at a "new New Deal" and working to "rebuild our middle class." The 52-46 vote was eight short of the 60 needed for approval. (The measure drew the support of eight Republicans - four of these are up for re-election in the fall.)

Sen. Edward Kennedy's amendment would have raised the wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $7.25 – the first raise in a decade. "The minimum wage," as economist Gwendolyn Mink, makes clear, is supposed to guarantee an income floor to keep full-time wage-earners out of poverty. But today, the federal minimum wage guarantees abject poverty for workers... nearly $6,000 per year below the federal poverty line for a family of three."

But the vast majority of Republican Senators, several of them millionaires several times over, don't care about poverty or the well-being of their working class constituents, What they really care about is that they're sitting pretty, having voted themselves another raise - to $168,500 - on January 1.

Even the not-exactly-populist Wall Street Journal points out, "While the minimum wage has remained frozen, lawmakers' salaries have risen with annual cost-of-living increases keyed to what is given federal employees. And last week's vote in the House Appropriations Committee followed a floor vote days before in which the House cleared the way for members to get another increase valued at thousands of dollars annually." So, while Congress will soon make close to $170,000 a year, hardworking full-time minimum wage workers make just $10,700 annually.

. . . For millions of families, this callous vote means another day of choosing between rent and health care, putting food in the refrigerator or gas in the car. Meanwhile, a Big Oil CEO makes $37,000 an hour. Want to talk about class warfare?

But don't look now, we've got a terrorism scare to keep you all busy.

coming soon: peru

Allan just solved two of our problems in one swoop, by bringing home a combination printer and scanner. Our scanner hasn't worked properly since we moved, and our printer died a few months ago. Now we're fully equipped again.

This Epson model also makes photocopies. We always do our photocopying at work, but for the occasional one-off need, this is very handy.

I can't believe how inexpensive all this hardware is now. I imagine the reasons for those low costs couldn't be very good, either for workers or the environment. But sheesh, it does make your life easier. I guess that's why we all look the other way.

So now that we are up and running, we'll be able to post photos from our Peru trip. I have one more deadline to get past, and Peru photos will be our next project after that. I opened a Flickr account, in case Blogger's photo capability proves too frustrating. It took way too long to get the party pictures up, so links to Flickr might be the way to go.

urban test

Last March, Readers Digest International sent thousands of undercover "behaviour testers" into cities all over the world. For three days, the testers walked into public buildings behind other people to see whether they would hold a door open, dropped a folder full of papers to see whether anyone would help pick them up, and counted how many times people said "please" and "thank you" while conducting business in stores. Each test was conducted 20 times in each city.

The results may surprise you, but they didn't surprise me.

Toronto came in third. And the most polite city in the world? New York.

New Yorkers are always in a hurry, and they generally don't spend time making idle chit-chat with strangers. But they hold doors, they pick up dropped change (and return it!), they give directions - constantly. In such a densely urban environment, where people are always in crowded public spaces, there is an ethos that encourages both anonymity and tolerance (be cool, don't stare, don't ask questions) and cooperation (we're all in this together).

I have always found that people are more polite in places where they travel on foot and by public transit than in places where they travel by car. Sure, the cashier at my local Loblaws will make small talk with me in a way that you'd never see in New York, but that's not being polite - it's just filling space. After the small talk, we each get in our cars, isolated from each other. The subway, the sidewalk, the streetcar - that lifestyle forces us to deal with each other. For the most part, people do it well.

From the CBC News website:

Toronto-based freelance writer Ian Harvey, who was one of the undercover testers in Toronto, said people shouldn't be surprised that big cities like New York and Toronto topped the list.

He said courtesy is the social lubricant that allows people to get along in densely packed urban areas.

What surprised him was that young people tended to be more courteous than the elderly.

"It was often the high school students or school-age kids that jumped right forward and dived in and were so polite," he said.

This also didn't surprise me. I only wish more people knew it.

In my experiences working with teenagers, they were generally the most considerate, courteous people, and went out of their way to return kindness when it was shown to them. My experience was almost entirely with troubled kids who had dropped out of high school and come from seriously damaged environments. I can't say if privileged kids would be as polite, but the inner-city teens I knew were the best.

The Readers Digest results are here. (It kills me to link to Readers Digest, which strung me along and screwed me over... grrr...) I love how the RD story says "civility [is] alive and well in a place you'd least expect." Meaning, their suburban readers, full of negative stereotypes about New York City, would not expect it.

party pics, part two

James's excellent photos of the wmtc party are now up on his Flikr site. You can click on "view as a slide show" for a nice walk-through.

solstice

Today, our summer solstice, I'm thinking about Peru, the Peruano friends we made, the ancient cultures we met. As in much of the world, it's winter solstice there, although so close to the equator, the hours of daylight and darkness don't vary very much. Even so, many Incan and pre-Incan tombs and monuments are oriented towards June 21.

I see that Solstice-watchers are allowed onto the Stonehenge site today. Stonehenge is an amazing place, but if you should ever go to Ireland, do visit Newgrange, a passage tomb complex older than Stonehenge, and older than the Egyptian pyramids. After creeping through a narrow, sunken passageway, we stood in the burial chamber, under a corbelled stone ceiling, and learned that on June 21, the sunrise would light up that dark passage and flood the interior space.

Ireland's Boyne Valley, a short drive north of Dublin, is full of neolithic tomb sites in various stages of excavation. But beware: like us, you may become fascinated with spirals.

Today is also National Aboriginal Day in Canada, a good excuse to appreciate the people who were really "here first". Another cool place to be today is Alaska, where you can play or watch midnight baseball, a tradition more than 100 years old.

I'm extremely happy and content to enjoy solstice in Port Credit. No ceremonies needed, just a glass of cold wine, a plastic lawn chair, and our green backyard.

party pics

Welcome!




Cody will show you around back.




Part of our backyard. We're gathered in the shade.




More shade, and some food. Also some of our great next-door neighours.




My sister-in-law Marcie ("mkk") made the trip from New Jersey. Our nephew Dave drove from western Massachusetts, met his mom at the Buffalo airport, and they drove up to our place together. We spent Saturday evening and part of Sunday with them, which was a really special treat.




Our friends James (of wmtc commenter fame) and Lori.




S&A, fellow US defectors. They moved to Canada three days before us - and found us through my Globe & Mail essay.




Shane and his wife (not sure how to spell her name).




A nice party photo. Someone showed up without a face.




Cody and Ellen, who lived at our place while we were in Peru.




Dave, Laura, Claudia, Allan, and some knees.




Lori, Paul (Ellen's partner), and Dianne. Dianne and I met in an online community, long before I ever thought I'd move to Canada.




Carlee (cleavage) and Claudia (preggers), two new friends, who I met at work.




Maggie, Claudia's best friend.




S, Allan, and Laura.




Whew! It's been a long, hot day for Cody.

wmtc the book

Last week, for my birthday, Allan gave me a treasure trove of books, CDs and DVDs - a real haul. Yet he said that my Real Present had been delayed, and these were merely substitute gifts.

Apparently he was hoping Real Present would arrive in time for the wmtc party, but no luck. Meanwhile, in the excitement of party prep, I forgot all about it.

When I came home tonight, he handed me a package (in between innings!), obviously a wrapped book, and a lengthy one. I couldn't imagine what book he could have been waiting for, what this Real Present could be.

Wow.

It's a slightly edited version (some posts omitted) from my first post (July 11, 2004) to my year-end wrap-up (December 31, 2005). He worked with a designer on the beautiful cover, and it's available for purchase at Cafe Press.

Man, I don't know what to say right now. I'm overwhelmed.

You can look at the front and back covers, and spine, here on my very own Cafe Press page.

join him

From Democracy Rising:

A Fathers’ Day Statement
by Michael Berg

Of all of the holidays a grieving father can be confronted with after the death of his child, Fathers’ Day is for me the most difficult.

My son Nick died in Iraq on May 7, 2004. He is buried next to my father, who had died just a year and a half before. That is not the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to go somewhere between my father and my son. My mother is on the other side of my father, and my mother’s parents are nearby. My proud immigrant grandparents died first, then my parents died many years later. That is the way it is supposed to be.

I want to make sure no father suffers the loss of their son or daughter in Iraq or a future illegal war of aggression. I urge all those who oppose the military occupation of Iraq and do not want to see future wars of choice to sign the Voters' Pledge at VotersForPeace. Nearly fifty thousand people have already signed. It will let politicians know that we will not support pro-war candidates in the future.

There is a lot else going on that is not the way it is supposed to be. Our leaders are not supposed to lie to us. Yet that is precisely what George Bush and company have done. They told us to beware of weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi involvement in 9/11, and Al Qaeda infiltration of Iraq. We now know these were all lies, yet still my son and the loved ones of 150,000 other grieving souls lost their lives because of them.

I have no excuse. Though I doubted the veracity of George Bush’s words, I did too little too late.

My son Nick was an independent contractor, not associated with Haliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed-Martin, or the U.S. military. Nick was murdered in retaliation for the atrocities committed at the Abu Ghraib prison: murders, rapes, and torture of Iraqi citizens. Though Donald Rumsfeld says he took responsibility for those atrocities, no consequences were felt by him, but they were by my son and everyone who loved him. George Bush ordered Alberto Gonzalez to rewrite definitions of torture essentially ordering these sins, and he did so with impunity. This is not the way it’s supposed to be either.

Nick was arrested by George Bush’s military without reason and then illegally detained for thirteen days. While he was in custody, the revelations of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal became public. These revelations ignited the resistance in Iraq and made it impossible for Nick to get home alive. When Nick did arrive home, it was to the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, a base from which I and all other loved ones of the invisible deceased are barred. This is not the way it’s supposed to be either.

We learn more and more of the truth of what is happening in Iraq every day. We learn what is happening to America and our allies as a result of the voters of these United States electing the wrong men and women: unjustifiable wars, the undermining of vital social programs, willful neglect of the maintenance of the infrastructure of our nation, and dangerous "ignorance" of climate change that could result in unprecedented disaster. This is the legacy of these leaders. Neither of the two largest political parties in this country are doing anything to make things the way they are supposed be.

On March 17, 2006, I joined many others, both conservatives and liberals, in taking the first steps to put things right. I had the honor to be the first person to sign the Voters Pledge for Peace.

The Voters' Pledge on the Voters for Peace website is a project comprising many of the major organizations in the antiwar movement—United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, Gold Star Families for Peace, Code Pink, and Democracy Rising—as well as groups with broader agendas like the National Organization for Women, Progressive Democrats of America, AfterDowningStreet.com, and magazines including the American Conservative and the Nation. The goal of this coalition is to build a base of antiwar voters that cannot be ignored by anyone running for office in the United States. We want millions of voters to sign the pledge and say no to pro-war candidates.

You can help right now by visiting www.VotersForPeace.US and immediately signing the Voters' Pledge, which states:

I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign.

And after you sign it, send it to everyone you know and urge them to do the same. Together we can change the path of the United States—move ourselves in a new direction toward the way it’s supposed to be, so that all fathers, all mothers, all Americans will be able to face the next Fathers Day, Mothers Day, and Independence Day with the pride these holidays deserve.

Sign, send, circulate.