across the great divide

Between the US health care debate fiasco and the Vancouver Olympics, Canada has been in the US news more than usual. Seldom does the US media really "get" Canada, and most Canadian mainstream sources don't know the US any better.

But there's a difference in the misunderstanding. Mainstream Canadian media is likely to take the US at face value, like they've swallowed a press release. Thus in the Bush era, the Democrats were the beleaguered liberal opposition, who would build a peaceful, liberal society if only someone would give them the chance. Now the country has solved its racial issues, abortion rights are safe and sound, and the only threat to this lovely liberal vision in Sarah Palin.

The mainstream US media, on the other hand, invents and re-uses its own stereotypes of Canadian society. So you're likely to see phrases like "slow-motion health care system" and "sky-high taxes," and lots of references to arctic, tundra, sled dogs and maple syrup.

Mike from Veterans for Peace (his chapter is here) sent me a piece that comes a little closer.

Timothy Egan, blogging for the New York Times, contrasts Canada's "modesty and humility" with the high-volume chest-thumping of his own country. Even at its Olympic own-the-podium worst, Canada is still a gentle soul compared with its southern neighbour.

Confession: When I was 17 one of my best friends, now a police officer, molded a few scraps of official-looking paper with camera-booth photos, and just like that we turned 21 — old enough to drink, and Canadians as well.

Our fake I.D. cards said we were from Saskatchewan, a province so distant we figured no one would ever catch us not knowing our prairie wheat from our Molson hops. Questions from clerks trying to talk Canadian seldom went any further than, “Pretty cold up there, eh?”

But my detour into fraud did force upon me an early education in all things Canadian. I not only learned the celebrity exports (Neil Young, Peter Jennings, the wicked talents of SCTV), but I developed a lifetime love for the Great White North, its subtle humor and its unknowable insecurities.

Now, with a global audience of several billion focused on one of the world’s most stunning cities, Canadians are presented with “the biggest branding opportunity a nation ever gets,” as Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff said of the 17-day Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

I was hoping Canadians would take their turn on the stage and step out of national character for a few weeks, losing their collective sense of modesty.

But the rough patches in the opening days of the games, and savaging from a snit-loving British press that has no athletic feats of its own to cover, have put Canadians on the defensive.

The death of Nodar Kumaritashvli, the Georgian luger, was a horrid blow. The weather, at a time when we in the Pacific Northwest and our Ecotopian neighbors just across the border are experiencing the warmest winter on record (note to East Coast global warming deniers who can’t see beyond their snow banks), has forced canceled tickets and delayed events. Breakdowns of ice resurfacing machines have been an embarrassment. Is there no workable Zamboni in all of British Columbia?

The biggest gaffe was imprisoning the Olympic torch, exiling the cauldron behind a hideous chain link barrier. After hearing calls to “tear down this fence,” Vancouver officials have done just that, losing the Cold-War-era prison look for more open access.

It seems like eons ago that the opening ceremony, a triumph complete with magical bears and sub-surface killer whales, prompted some Canadians to take a long overdue bow.

“It made me proud to be from here,” said Ian Brown, writing in The Globe and Mail, a Canadian national paper. But then he added, “I hesitate to say it. Such declarations are always unwise.”

No. Say it! Can you imagine an American being afraid to make such a simple declaration of national chauvinism? “Maybe for a while again,” Mr. Brown concluded, “we can feel alright about being Canadian.”

The prime minister, Stephen Harper, had to make a similar pitch last week in front of the British Columbia legislative assembly. He urged Canadians to show “an uncharacteristic outburst of patriotism and pride.”

Why the prodding? Why the lack of self-esteem? Canada — snap out of it! You’re gorgeous, baby, you’re sophisticated, you live well. No need for an apology.

There are more people in California, at 38 million, than in all of Canada, with about 34 million. But if Canada were the 51st state, they would be on the American medals podium nightly: Their murder rate is just a third that of the United States. They have universal health care, and while the system prompts much grumbling, it works for most people — without the death panel quality of America’s heartless private insurers.

And when our financial system caused the world economy to tank because of reckless deregulation, Canada’s banks were steady as they go, boring and mostly healthy. . . .

Perhaps not the most original observation, but not bad. Mike suggested I read some comments: numbers 3, 5, 40 and 42. Commenter #40 is a Canadian type I have heard from frequently and would enjoy never hearing from again:

How flattering it is some of you want to move to Canada as the last resort if you can't take your politics anymore. You get what you vote for. Deal with it or become pro-active. We are not interested in your faux religious values and violence. We don't want you. We're full. To the writer who fakes a birth certificate- you don't know Canada at all. Our 'modesty' is really our 'tolerance' and 'respect' of others. Believe me north of the border you get quite a view of the U.S.A. No thanks.

I guess she doesn't see the irony in referring to her own tolerance and respect while spitting out such obviously irritated snark. USians are all "faux religious values and violence," but Timothy Egan doesn't know Canada at all. I think he knows Canada better than this Canadian woman knows the US, since she thinks USians get what they vote for. Millions and millions of USians never come close to such a thing.

The second piece Mike from VFP sent is a nice bit of fun: It's Not Political, but More Canadians Are Lefties. Hint: he's not talking about the NDP. It's all about the national pasttime.

swimming through pudding

While combing through old posts for a "best of wmtc 2009," I came upon my reports on my acupuncture experience.

The first time I tried acupuncture, it was with a physiotherapist who was using it for deep-muscle trigger-point stimulation. The effects were good, but they were very localized - it only effected the one trigger point she stimulated. The treatment was very time-consuming and painful, and turned out to be too impractical for something as generalized as fibromyalgia.

But my second experience with acupuncture was very different. I saw a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, right in my own neighbourhood. Treatments were quick, painless - and very helpful.

Reading these old posts reminded me what excellent results I had. I didn't have a reduction in pain or tenderness, although the doctor thought I would eventually. But I did experience a huge increase in mental clarity and ability to concentrate. It was like having my old brain back again. (It also reminded me how much fibro effects my mental functioning.)

Now that I'm in school, I could really use those positive effects. I can get my work done, but it takes so much more effort to arrive at the same place. It feels like my brain is always fighting through fog. Like I'm mentally swimming through pudding, or walking through thick, wet clay.

Sometimes it's bad enough that I think about talking to my professors about a disability accommodation. I haven't done that, and probably won't... but that's how it feels. (Whine, whine, whine.)

Now with the start of a new calendar year, my supplement health coverage through Allan's job starts over. I could go for $400 worth of acupuncture treatments. If my experience is the same, just as the treatment begins to take effect, my coverage will run out. Or my school term will be ending. There's no way we can afford the treatments on our own. I get discouraged and think, why bother.

But perhaps it would take effect more quickly this time. Or perhaps... I don't know, something else. A bag of money falls on my head.

you may be pleased to know...

...that when I got home from work tonight, Cody was completely back to herself. She's up and down stairs, scampering in the backyard, the works. The bed is even rumpled and gritty where she was on it - lying cross-wise on our pillows, I believe. There's just no stopping this girl.

the things that statcounter reveals

Did you know Allan and I are ...

Fucking hippies, thinking they're so smart and all by being anti-everything except promiscuos sex, indie music and converse sneakers. oh and leftist lesbian poetry too.

...?

I've never been much for poetry, but I do like leftist lesbians. Never owned a pair of Converse sneakers.

The author of this portrait of yours truly says:

I have never been so tempted to troll...but I am afraid of failing hard at it. I lack the antipathy.

Also the ability to comment here.

Sorry, I think it would be unwise to supply a link. You'll have to trust that I found this through Statcounter and am copy/pasting it verbatim.

who comes to canada and who does not, revisited

A fascist hatemonger crosses the border, a renowned Mexican chef cannot. That's Stephen Harper's and Jason Kenney's Canada for you.

Don't miss Dr. Dawg on Canada's selectively (im)permeable borders.

For added context, see this old wmtc post: who comes to canada and who does not.

pupdate: the patient is home

We are all home, happy and tired. Thanks for all your great love and support.

Hooray for great vets, hooray for Cody!

can you blame them? four-year-olds often hide bombs in their leg braces

Do you need any more proof that "security theatre" - the appearance of increased security measures, which do nothing to make us safer - is out of control? That airport security and border control are merely opportunities for power-mad brownshirts to have fun at our expense?

Philadelphia TSA screeners forced the developmentally delayed, four-year-old son of a Camden, PA police officer to remove his leg-braces and wobble through a checkpoint, despite the fact that their procedure calls for such a case to be handled through a swabbing in a private room. When the police officer complained, the supervising TSA screener turned around and walked away. Then a Philadelphia police officer asked what was wrong and "suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation."

Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.

The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk...

The screener told them to take off the boy's braces.

The Thomases were dumbfounded. "I told them he can't walk without them on his own," Bob Thomas said.

"He said, 'He'll need to take them off.' "

Ryan's mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.

No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.

According to MSNBC, the TSA apologized. BFD.

Many thanks to James for sending.

google may be its own worst buzz-kill

When I saw the new "Google Buzz" icon in my Gmail, I was curious, so I clicked. Much to my surprise, 13 people are already following me. (This is different than following wmtc. 61 people are now doing that, and 135 people have wmtc on their Google Reader feed.) All but one of my Buzz followers are either readers of this blog or "IRL" friends or both.

It seems harmless enough, but do I really need another social-networking tool? I bought into Facebook with great reluctance, and still don't (won't!) live there. I don't do Twitter. Or any others.

Yet... when you see people following your feed, it's tempting. We know that. They know that.

Here's something you might not know about Google Buzz: unless you change your default privacy settings, a list of your most-emailed Gmail contacts may be made public. Google in bed with the NSA, Google using invasive default privacy settings... it doesn't bode well.

The launch of Google Buzz has set various parts of the technology blogosphere afire -- and for all the right reasons: it does introduce a number of interesting social features that could make our email experience more social (whether it has to be more social is a different question).

However, what tech pundits have mostly overlooked is a peculiar privacy choice made by Google's designers: unless you tinker with Buzz's settings, a partial list of your most-emailed Gmail contacts might be automatically made public (see this post over at Silicon Alley Insider; it appears that contacts those who already had a Google Profile account before Buzz are at risk; also see this excellent and very angry post at CNet for additional background. UPDATE: Google has promised to fix some of these problems).

Yes, that's right: without you ever touching Google Buzz's privacy settings, the entire world may know who you correspond with (yes, including that secret lover of yours and that secret leaker at the White House).

This could be an extremely uncomfortable and tragic privacy disaster for Google, potentially of the same magnitude that Beacon was toFacebook. I certainly don't have many concerns about those who are cheating on their spouses or are leaking sensitive information to journalists-- they will survive (even though the future of whistle-blowing does not look very bright in our increasingly overexposed information environment).

Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists in authoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of their interlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because many of their contacts are other activists and often even various "democracy promoters" from Western governments and foundations. Many of those contacts would now inadvertently be made public.

If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I would immediately dispatch my Internet geek squads to check on Google Buzz accounts for political activists and see if they have any connections that were previously unknown to the government. They can then spend months on end drawing complex social circles on the shiny blackboards inside secret police headquarters.

But potential risk from disclosing such data extends far beyond just supplying authoritarian governments with better and more actionable intelligence. For example, most governments probably already suspect that some of their ardent opponents are connected to Western organizations but may lack the evidence to act on those suspicions. Now, thanks to Google's desire to make an extra buck off our data, they would finally have the ultimate proof they needed (if you think that this is unrealistic, consider this: the Iranian authorities have once used membership in an academic mailing list run out of Columbia as evidence of spying for the West).

It's business decisions like this that make me very suspicious of Google's highfalutin rhetoric about their commitment to defending the freedom of expression.

. . .

Otherwise, all their promises about their stance on freedom of expression is just empty talk. Their recent partnership with NSA does not make Google look any more trustworthy; Chris Soghoian, an expert on information security, made a hilarious point on Twitter: "How do I sign up for the Iranian government's new emailservice? At least they are not in bed with NSA."

Read more here.

Anyone want to tell me about following Buzz? Is it more useful than redudant? Am I expected to reciprocate?

pupdate: cody out of surgery, doing fine

Yay and hooray! The surgery went quickly and easily - they got the whole mass with the famed clean margins - and Cody is doing fine. Whoo-hoo!!

She's been moved from ICU to "wards" and is sleeping it off now. They've even given her extra meds in anticipation of pain as she wakes up. They have to manipulate the dog's body while they're under, and with arthritis and hip dysplasia, that can cause quite a bit of pain later. But they're very pro-active with pain management, and will do everything they can to keep her comfortable.

And now I can breathe again! Allan was confident that all would be well, but I was not.

Tala seems sad and subdued. But she'll be happy in a few days, too.

pupdate: excellent cody prognosis!

What a relief! Cody is having surgery tomorrow morning and her prognosis for a full recovery - cancer-free - is excellent. Here's what happened.

We went to Guelph this afternoon. For those not in this area, the University of Guelph has a huge veterinary college and teaching hospital with an excellent reputation. It's the kind of place people travel great distances to for; we're fortunate that it's only an hour or so away. We brought both dogs, as we always do, for everyone's comfort and moral support.

We met with doctors from the oncology service, who took a full history, did a physical, and also had the results from our own vet. They explained various options, and confirmed what we already knew: a lot would depend on whether or not the cancer had metastasized, and whether or not the tumour seemed operable. The first would be determined by blood work and chest x-rays, the second by a surgeon. They also said the surgeon would probably want to do an ultrasound and possibly a CT scan to get a better image of the tumour.

The great thing about a teaching hospital is that everything is there under one roof. All the different doctors and services can be consulted and results known on the spot. We left Cody for x-rays and blood work, and asked where we could take Tala for some play-time while we waited. We ended up on a snowy, windswept golf course. Tala looked like an arctic wolf out on the tundra!

When we met the doctor again, he was practically grinning. He said the prognosis could not be better. The chest x-rays were all clean. And the surgeon felt the tumour and almost instantly pronounced that she could get the whole thing, clean, no problem.

This surgeon is reputed to be one of the best. She did some aggressive handling of the tumour - far more than what a vet would normally do - and said she was able to get her fingers around the whole thing. This means that it should come out with "clean margins". She was so optimistic that she said ultrasound would be unnecessary. Also in our favour, the tumour is only on one side of the throat; about 60% of these cancers show up on both sides. The surgeon has done this exact surgery many times and, the doc said, she was excited about it because of the excellent prognosis.

Wow! We made the decision on the spot. There seemed to be no reason not to have the surgery, and every reason to do it.

The only question remaining was when, and after some discussion, we decided to move quickly. This crackshot surgeon is available tomorrow morning - Cody is already there - why prolong it.

The doctor assured us that he'll be personally taking care of Cody, seeing to her feeding and walking, making sure she's comfortable, visiting her many times a day. He seemed genuinely elated to give us good news and be able to help her.

So we left her there, not an easy thing to do, but we both feel it's the right thing. She was very groggy from the mild sedation they used for the chest x-ray, so she wasn't upset by our leaving. Tala was anxious to get the hell out of there already, so we did, got some dinner - and called my sister on the way home.

Oh my goodness! This is not what we were expecting. Personally, I was gearing myself up for the worst. We needed two big "ifs" to both come through, and that seemed like too much to hope for. In my mind, I was already preparing for the end of Cody's days. Whew.

Of course there are risks to any surgery. And doctors never really know the extent of any tumour until they're in there. We can't truly breathe easily until we hear that she's out of surgery and it went well. But for now, the future seems much brighter.

The doctor is calling us tomorrow morning, just to report how Cody did overnight (!), then we'll get another call after the surgery. Fingers and paws crossed!

Thank you all so much for your support. Thank you thank you.

intellectual freedom in the library, part 1

One of my classes this term is Intellectual Freedom and the Library. It's absolutely terrific, and I thought I'd share some of it with you.

The class is an elective, but I honestly think it should be required for the i-school's library stream. I think without it, I'd be missing a crucial part of my library education.

The purpose of the class is to build a well-defined, well-defended personal philosophy of freedom of expression in the library, so when there are challenges in your library - when outraged library customers want a book banned, or a film removed from the catalogue, or more filters on the internet - you know how to deal with it.

In Canada and other non-US countries, intellectual freedom in the library comes with a twist. The American Library Association bases its position on freedom of expression on the First Amendment of the US Constitution, a nearly absolutist position. (We're talking theory here, not practice.) The Canadian Library Association, Ontario Library Association, and all the other such organizations in Canada take their positions from the ALA.

However, freedom of expression has greater limits in Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, South Africa, and other western democracies, based on prohibitions on hate speech and a more broadly defined concept of human rights. (Again, this is on the legal, theoretical level. Which country actually enjoys more freedom of expression is open to debate.)

In other words, the CLA's position actually contradicts parts of the Charter - which creates an inherent conflict for Canadian librarians. That's what the class is meant to explore.

* * * *

In the first half of the term, we read and discussed various legal and Constitutional analysis. The prof has a great system: each student studies one article and summarizes it for the class. So we each read one article in depth and prepared a summary and presentation, then read summaries of all the others, and participated in discussions. Much less work, plus an additional compelling reason to do a good job, as your colleagues are depending on you for the content.

This culminates with a paper outlining our personal philosophy of intellectual freedom in the library, especially as it relates to some of the contentious issues, like hate speech and pornography. I thought I might post the paper here, because it deals a lot with hate speech, something we've discussed on wmtc.

In the second half, we'll be examining and analyzing case studies, as a group project. Mine will be on pornography, erotica and obscenity.

* * * *

Our most recent class was amazing. I knew that a former public library board member was addressing the class about a challenge her library experienced - but I had no idea how intense it would be.

Right around the time we moved to Canada, Karla Homolka was released from prison. If it wasn't for that, I probably never would have heard of the Paul Bernardo case. And as I was new to the area, I had no idea where it occurred.

Bernardo is a serial rapist and murderer. Assisted by his wife, Homolka, he raped at least a dozen women and girls, and murdered at least three of them. One of the victims was from St Catharines, and the murder took place in Burlington - not far from where I live now.

The Burlington Public Library had included in its catalogue one of the many books about the case, which contained details that were not published in Canadian newspapers. The challenge came from the mother of one of the victims.

And how did the victim's mother learn the book was in the library? It had been included in the new books display! Ordering the book for the catalogue, fine. Including it in a lobby display? Very poor judgement, to put it mildly.

Obviously, this was no ordinary challenge.

Complicating it further, a library employee, acting on her own with no authority or consultation, pulled the book from the shelves and expunged the record from the catalogue. Media excoriated the library for censorship... the public excoriated the library for insensitivity... a massive, politicized, public campaign launched against the library. The town's mayor threatened its funding, which got the Canadian Civil Liberties Association involved, which further inflamed some members of the community.

Our guest speaker described something of what she experienced living in the eye of this firestorm, the personal accusations and attacks she suffered, the irrational nature of the arguments. For example, there were several other books about the murders, but the public campaign focused only on this one. The book was available in many other places - but no one was picketing Chapters, only this one library. More than 100 holds had been placed on the book by library customers, but the public campaign insisted that no one wanted to read such a book.

In the end, after a long and tangled process, all parties agreed to a compromise. The book remains in the Burlington Public Library and in its catalogue, but it's not in the stacks. Library customers have to request it.

The speaker described the compromise as "something she could live with". And that was the point of the class.

* * * *

Our prof says, "It's not enough to be aghast or outraged at a challenge. As the manager of the library, your role is to understand why the challenge exists and manage it."

We are urged to respectfully listen, to validate the patron's point of view, to situate the library within the community (not opposed to it), and above all, to take a professional approach to managing the situation. But our role is also to uphold freedom of expression, and not allow one person's sensibilities to override other people's access to information.

Challenges occur all the time. The two most recent challenges in Canadian libraries were both in 2009: one to To Kill A Mockingbird (although not for the usual reasons) and one to The Handmaid's Tale.

Right now, in places in the United States, communities are fighting against corporate-sponsored children's books, which teach things like learning to count... using name-brand breakfast cereal! Elsewhere, a citizens group is calling for content labels on books, warning readers about subversive ideas and so-called obscenity - but they skirt accusations of censorship by not calling for a ban. How does a librarian handle those challenges? Dismissing them as nuts is not enough!

The professor holds that it's necessary to understand the whole spectrum of the philosophy of free speech in order to respond to these challenges rationally, compassionately, and professionally. And the way you handle the challenges will partly determine how your community views the library.

Our guest speaker, the woman who lived through the firestorm in Burlington, urged us that every library must have a policy for challenges in place. The policy, she said, must be established when you least need it, in times of calm rationality, then periodically revisited and reviewed. Every staff member and volunteer must accept it: an understanding of intellectual freedom should be part of the interview and hiring process. There must be an appeals process, so the challenger feels she is receiving a full hearing. In other words, there has to be a framework already in place, not thought up on the fly during a whirlwind of protest.

As I said, this should be a required course!

reading week: my canadian acculuration continues

This is Reading Week. I have no idea what Reading Week is. I never heard of it before.

Last week, my profs announced there'd be no class next week because of Reading Week. Classmates asked me, What are you doing for Reading Week? I thought, What am I doing? I guess I'm not going to class.

It appears that Canadian universities and colleges give students a week off to catch up on studying, but most students - a lot of people, anyway - treat it as a vacation.

Both my classes are on the same day this term, so that means today I have one extra day to stay home. A nice little break. It's especially good timing since Allan and I worked a holiday overtime yesterday, and tomorrow is our appointment in Guelph with Cody. So I have a day in the middle to stay home and do schoolwork.

But everyone is making such a big fuss over it. I keep wondering if I'm missing something.

save a little outrage for the real criminals

Everyone gapes in shock and horror because some idiots in Vancouver broke some stuff. OMG destruction of personal property! I find it much more significant that a full 1,000 people - and that's the mainstream media's count, so you know the crowd was really much larger - cared enough to greet the Vancouver Olympics with protest.

B-b-but they broke stuff! They were running around screaming! Oh the humanity. Meanwhile our taxes have been used to torture human beings and are being used every day to occupy another country, for oil and drug profits. If I saw half, no, a quarter of the outrage over Afghanistan as I do about a bunch of anarchists in Vancouver, I'd know we were on our way to getting Canada out of the war. If Canadians were half as concerned about our Prime Minister shutting down democracy as they are that all the protests are peaceful - gotta be peaceful, don't wanna disrupt the lovely peace - we'd have a different government by now.

This disconnect reminds me of some questions Edward Galeano has been asking.

The shoe-thrower of Iraq, the man who hurled his shoes at Bush, was condemned to three years in prison. Doesn't he deserve, instead, a medal?

Who is the terrorist? The hurler of shoes or their recipient? Is not the real terrorist the serial killer who, lying, fabricated the Iraq war, massacred a multitude, and legalized and ordered torture?

Who are the guilty ones - the people of Atenco, in Mexico, the indigenous Mapuches of Chile, the Kekchies of Guatemala, the landless peasants of Brazil - all being accused of the crime of terrorism for defending their right to their own land? If the earth is sacred, even if the law does not say so, aren't its defenders sacred too?

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, Somalia is the most dangerous place in the world. But who are the pirates? The starving people who attack ships or the speculators of Wall Street who spent years attacking the world and who are now rewarded with many millions of dollars for their pains?

Why does the world reward its ransackers?

Why is justice a one-eyed blind woman? Wal-Mart, the most powerful corporation on earth, bans trade unions. McDonald's, too. Why do these corporations violate, with criminal impunity, international law? Is it because in this contemporary world of ours, work is valued as lower than trash and workers' rights are valued even less?

Who are the righteous and who are the villains? If international justice really exists, why are the powerful never judged? The masterminds of the worst butcheries are never sent to prison. Is it because it is these butchers themselves who hold the prison keys?

What makes the five nations with veto power in the United Nations inviolable? Is it of a divine origin, that veto power of theirs? Can you trust those who profit from war to guard the peace?

He has many more questions. Read them here.

We should worry less about orderly streets and more about deceitful government. Less about the conduct of protesters and more about what they're protesting.

this wanderlust, it rules my life

Many factors combined to send me to graduate school and a career change; I needed the change on many levels. But the biggest incentive has been my unsated wanderlust. With our current income and lifestyle, we don't have enough money to travel. And I just can't stand it.

You know that I consider myself extremely fortunate; I'm very aware of my privilege. In general, I have a very good life, and I know it. But...

But as much as I keep that perspective, we want what we want, and when we don't have something that feels integral to our happiness, it chafes. This doesn't feel like a want. It feels like a need.

Apart from the people and dogs in my life, there's nothing I love more than travel. And we simply can't afford to travel as I would like to. "As I would like to" doesn't mean a fantasy of a year-long trek around the world or my lifelong dream of cruising North America with no fixed address. All I mean is one good trip each year - a two- or three-week trip to someplace I've never been.

This year, like last year, we have an important family wedding to attend. Last year's took us to New Mexico; this one is in northern California. It's beautiful there and I'm sure we'll have a great time, but I've been there many times and at this point, it's not where I would choose to spend my incredibly scarce travel dollars. I'll go to New York and New Jersey to visit family and friends, once on my own and once with Allan. And we might squeeze out a short, local trip, like Stratford.

So we'll get away. I understand this would be sufficient for someone else. But for me, a few days away is great fun, but it doesn't scratch the itch.

I have this great hunger to see the world. Sometimes it obsesses me, makes my heart ache with longing. Each trip Allan and I have made together (as well as my travels before we met) has been a revelation. But looking back on where I've been never dampens my desire to see more. It only feeds it, like an addiction.

And as I get older, it gets worse.

In the past, there were many years when we didn't have money to travel. That was always a disappointment for me, but in those days time seemed endless. Now I live with a sense of my life being very finite, and rushing by at breakneck speed.

I fear that past a certain age, we won't have money to travel at all. We don't have a house to sell or big retirement income coming our way. It's realistic to think we'll be financially constrained in our senior years.

So, rightly or wrongly, I imagine I don't have that many years of real travel left. And too many places I want to go. And not the money to go there.

Friends older than me laugh at this. Why should I feel this way at 48? Because I do.

* * * *

I look at the balance in our so-called retirement savings, and I think... I could get five or six really good trips out of that. That would make me really happy. And isn't that what money is for? Who knows if we'll live long enough to spend that money on retirement... We should use it to get more out of our lives right now...

I drive myself crazy thinking along those lines. Fortunately Allan intervenes. He has loved our travels together, but he's not an addict like I am. So the money stays there. Taunting me.

* * * *

I drafted this post almost a full year ago, before I had any thoughts of graduate school. I wrote:

I'm not one to complain about a problem without trying to fix it. Is there something I could be doing differently? I've thought myself in circles about this.

I could get a full-time job in the field of my day-job. I'd be sacrificing the work that gives my life meaning, in essence making my day-to-day life miserable in exchange for two weeks a year. In my heart, I know that's not a wise trade-off, and I've resisted it.

We could cut our budget to the bone, have no entertainment, live like paupers, just to save all our money for travel. But again, it seems unwise to live your whole life for two weeks, and it's not like we spend that much money as it is.

I suppose we could forgo any smaller trips, and save the money we would have spent on those, and put it all towards travel. But we're long-distance from close friends and family now. How can I not see my mother, my siblings or my best friends?

The only other thing we spend money on is our dogs, and I can scarcely imagine life without them.

At the time, I saw no possibility of change on the horizon, just endless discontent and frustration. I was on the road to coming up with a solution, I just didn't know it yet.

But the benefits of my Big Life Change are still far off. It will be years until I get my degree and a start my new career. I have patience for the process. I just don't have patience for the trips I won't be taking until I get there.

* * * *

My family likes to say that travel is in our genes. My grandmother traveled all over the world, before travel was accessible or typical. Everyone wanted to know, Where is Dora going next? She and my grandfather went on group tours, and never ventured off the beaten track. She wore her status as an American like an armor. But she saw the world, and kept seeing it as long as she possibly could.

Her daughter - my mom - had it bad, too. My parents took us on great travel vacations when we were kids, and when my mother became single, she ticked off all the places my father hadn't wanted to go: Russia, Alaska, China. Now my brother clearly has The Bug, as do two of his three children.

When I went to Europe for the first time, with my great friend NN after we graduated from university, I announced my plans to my grandmother. I expected her to disapprove - as she generally did of everything. To my surprise, she lit up. She said, "It's so wonderful, what young girls can do on their own these days. I had to wait until I was married to see the world, but you can just go." For the rest of her coherent days, my Nana always wanted to hear about my travels, always asked if I was planning a trip. I think of her a lot when I travel.

* * * *

As part of this post, I started writing a list of where we've been and where I most want to go, but I'm purposely not including it. Feeling this way, the where is almost irrelevant. It's the go that matters.

I have a group of photos on the wall of Allan and I with various landmark backdrops: Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, the Golden Gate Bridge. Looking over the photos, a friend (someone I don't know well, the partner of an old friend) said, "You guys have traveled a lot!" I stuttered over an answer. "Well, I guess... not really..." Allan said definitively, "Yes, we have," then looked at me pointedly and said, "You have."

Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. But it's all I want. And I can't stop wanting it.

army suicides, prisoner "suicides": suffering on both sides of the barbed wire

Not long ago, I blogged about yet another disturbing statistic that illustrates how soldiers and former soldiers carry the burden of war: the increase in among 18-24-year-olds.

I later learned from a war-resister friend that soldiers who attempt suicide but survive can be charged with crimes and punished for the attempt. My friend said: "Kristofer Goldsmith, IVAW member, got in quite a bit of trouble for trying to kill himself, and from what I recall he didn't receive psychiatric help when he got out of the hospital either." He sent me this link from Winter Soldier II, where you can see video of Goldsmith's testimony.

Goldsmith saw the World Trade Center towers collapse on September 11, 2001. He enlisted in the Army and went to Iraq in 2005.

In Sadr City, he witnessed abuse of Iraqi civilians. He was assigned to take pictures of Iraqis found in a shallow grave, ostensibly for intelligence purposes, but they were only used as trophies by those who received them.

After repeated commendations, he was expecting to return to civilian life and college when President Bush announced the "surge," and the military adopted its stop-loss policy, essentially making Goldsmith a prisoner of war.

He tried to kill himself rather than return to Iraq, but survived. He was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, but then was discharged for misconduct as a malingerer. He now delivers pizzas and struggles to overcome his persisting symptoms with treatment through the VA.

Scott Horton, writing in this month's Harper's, uncovers a different kind of suicide. The kind that is really death by torture.

The Guantánamo "Suicides": A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle

When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Late on the evening of June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Reporters accepted the official account, and even lawyers for the prisoners appeared to believe that they had killed themselves. Only the prisoners’ families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected the notion.

Two years later, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has primary investigative jurisdiction within the naval base, issued a report supporting the account originally advanced by Harris, now a vice-admiral in command of the Sixth Fleet. The Pentagon declined to make the NCIS report public, and only when pressed with Freedom of Information Act demands did it disclose parts of the report, some 1,700 pages of documents so heavily redacted as to be nearly incomprehensible. The NCIS documents were carefully cross-referenced and deciphered by students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and their findings, released in November 2009, made clear why the Pentagon had been unwilling to make its conclusions public. The official story of the prisoners’ deaths was full of unacknowledged contradictions, and the centerpiece of the report—a reconstruction of the events—was simply unbelievable.

Along with many other bloggers, I wrote about the reporting of this incident with shock and outrage. I look forward to reading what the Harper's investigation uncovered. Glenn Greenwald gives us a preview. (Click through for copious links.)

In early December, a report from Seton Hall University cast serious doubt on the government's claims regarding the alleged simultaneous "suicides" of three Guantanamo detainees in June, 2006. I wrote about that report here. Yesterday, Harper's Scott Horton published an extraordinary new article casting even further doubt on the official version of events, compiling new, stomach-turning evidence (much of it from Guantanamo guards) strongly suggesting (without proving or concluding) that those detainees were tortured to death, and those acts then covered-up by making their deaths appear to be suicides. Scott's article should be read in its entirety, though Andrew Sullivan has highlighted some of the critical revelations, including the motives of the whistle-blowing guards and the details of the torture to which these detainees were subjected.

I want to note two points from all of this:

(1) The single biggest lie in War on Terror revisionist history is that our torture was confined only to a handful of "high-value" prisoners. New credible reports of torture continuously emerge. That's because America implemented and maintained a systematic torture regime spread throughout our worldwide, due-process-free detention system. There have been at least 100 deaths of detainees in American custody who died during or as the result of interrogation.

. . . .

Despite all of this, our media persists in sustaining the lie that the torture controversy is about three cases of waterboarding and a few "high-value" detainees who were treated a bit harshly. That's why Horton's story received so little attention and was almost completely ignored by right-wing commentators: because it shatters the central myth that torture was used only in the most extreme cases -- virtual Ticking Time Bomb scenarios -- when there was simply no other choice. Leading American media outlets, as a matter of policy, won't even use the word "torture." This, despite the fact that the abuse was so brutal and inhumane that it led to the deaths of helpless captives -- including run-of-the-mill detainees, almost certainly ones guilty of absolutely nothing -- in numerous cases. These three detainee deaths -- like so many other similar cases -- illustrate how extreme is the myth that has taken root in order to obscure what was really done.

(2) Incidents like this dramatically underscore what can only be called the grotesque immorality of the "Look Forward, Not Backwards" consensus which our political class -- led by the President -- has embraced. During the Bush years, the United States government committed some of the most egregious crimes a government can commit. They plainly violated domestic law, international law, and multiple treaties to which the U.S. has long been a party. Despite that, not only has President Obama insisted that these crimes not be prosecuted, and not only has his Justice Department made clear that -- at most -- they will pursue a handful of low-level scapegoats, but far worse, the Obama administration has used every weapon it possesses to keep these crimes concealed, prevent any accountability for them, and even venerated them as important "state secrets," thus actively preserving the architecture of lawlessness and torture that gave rise to these crimes in the first place.

Every Obama-justifying excuse for Looking Forward, Not Backwards has been exposed as a sham (recall, for instance, the claim that we couldn't prosecute Bush war crimes because it would ruin bipartisanship and Republicans wouldn't support health care reform). But even if those excuses had been factually accurate, it wouldn't have mattered. There are no legitimate excuses for averting one's eyes from crimes of this magnitude and permitting them to go unexamined and unpunished. The real reason why "Looking Forward, Not Backwards" is so attractive to our political and media elites is precisely because they don't want to face what they enabled and supported. They want to continue to believe that it just involved the quick and necessary waterboarding of three detainees and a few slaps to a handful of the Worst of the Worst. Only a refusal to "Look Backwards" will enable the lies they have been telling (to the world and to themselves) to be sustained. But as Horton's story illustrates, there are real victims and genuine American criminals -- many of them -- and anyone who wants to keep that concealed and protected is, by definition, complicit in those crimes, not only the ones that were committed in the past, but similar ones that almost certainly, as a result of Not Looking Backwards, will be committed in the future.

Finally, another Gitmo item, this one a story of peace and reconciliation, a story of what is possible when love and forgiveness conquer distrust and fear. A war-resister friend of mine posted the link on Facebook; he said he would give anything for an opportunity like this. The story, by the way, was buried in the business section of the New York Times.

New to Facebook, Brandon Neely was searching the site for acquaintances in 2008 when he typed in the names of some of the detainees he had guarded during his tenure as a prison guard at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr. Neely, an Army veteran who spent six months at the prison in 2002, sent messages to one of the freed men, Shafiq Rasul, and was astonished when Mr. Rasul replied. Their exchanges sparked a face-to-face meeting, arranged by the BBC, which will be shown on Tuesday. Mr. Neely, who has served as the president of the Houston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, says his time at Guantánamo now haunts him, and has granted confessional-style interviews about the abuses he says he witnessed there. In a message to Mr. Rasul, Mr. Neely apologized for his role in the imprisonment.

Gavin Lee, a BBC correspondent, learned about the Facebook messages from Mr. Rasul, who lives in Britain, and thought the situation was incredible. Mr. Lee tracked down Mr. Neely — on Facebook, naturally — and asked, “would you consider meeting face to face?”

“He thought about it and he said, ‘I would love to,’ ” Mr. Lee recalled last week. “I would love to apologize in person.”

I haven't found a link to the BBC story, but if you do, please post.

Update. A reader sent this link. Many thanks.

alexis hutchinson wins discharge: victory for war resisters and common sense

A victory for peace and common sense! Alexis Hutchinson, the single mom and soldier who refused deployment because she had no one to care for her young son, who the US Army imprisoned and threatened with court martial, will be discharged, not court martialed. However, Hutchinson will be demoted and will lose her veterans' benefits.

Story here.

I blogged about Hutchinson here and here.

[I'm trying to concentrate on schoolwork right now. Hopefully I'll write for wmtc in the next day or three.]

overwhelming majority of canadians support "an olympic peace"

A new Nanos Poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Canadians embrace the idea that all countries participating in the Olympics should declare peace for the duration of the Games. Every age group and region shows strong support for this idea; support for peace was highest in Quebec.

From Nik on the Numbers:

Support for Olympic Peace Question:

As you may know, the Winter Olympics will be starting in February 2010. Do you support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or oppose all participating countries declaring peace, that is stopping hostilities around the world, during the Olympic Games?
Support 80.7%
Somewhat support 7.6%
Somewhat oppose 1.9%
Oppose 5.5%
Unsure 4.3%

This reminds me of the lunacy of the Christmas ceasefire.

Start with an Olympic peace. Then extend the idea. Peace.

google partners with world's biggest spy agency: tell them you disapprove

Are you all aware of this? From Wired, see original for linkage:

The company once known for its "don't be evil" motto is now in bed with the spy agency known for the mass surveillance of American citizens.

The National Security Agency is widely understood to have the government's biggest and smartest collection of geeks — the guys that are more skilled at network warfare than just about anyone on the planet. So, in a sense, it's only natural that Google would turn to the NSA after the company was hit by an ultrasophisticated hack attack. After all, the military has basically done the same thing, putting the NSA in charge of its new "Cyber Command." The Department of Homeland Security is leaning heavily on the NSA to secure .gov networks.

But there's a problem. The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to intercept and read millions of telegrams. During the war on terror years, the NSA teamed up with the telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on customers’ phone calls and internet traffic right from the telcos’ switching stations. And even after the agency pledged to clean up its act — and was given wide new latitude to spy on whom they liked – the NSA was still caught "overcollecting" on U.S. citizens. According to The New York Times, the agency even "tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant."

All of which makes the NSA a particularly untrustworthy partner for a company that is almost wholly reliant on its customers' trust and goodwill. We all know that Google automatically reads our Gmail and scans our Google Calendars and dives into our Google searches, all in an attempt to put the most relevant ads in front of us. But we've tolerated the automated intrusions, because Google's products are so good, and we believed that the company was sincere in its "don't be evil" mantra.

I disagree that we've tolerated this because we "believed" in Google. We tolerate it because, living in a surveillance society, we've become numb and inured to our lack of privacy, and feel helpless to do anything about it.

The ACLU is helping to fight back.

...Google — the world's largest Internet search company — is negotiating an information-sharing agreement with the National Security Agency (NSA) — the world’s largest network for routine, mass communications surveillance.

The partnership is supposed to help protect Google's networks, but the ramifications of companies like Google working with the NSA are frightening.

The NSA — a component of the Department of Defense — is an intelligence collection agency with few effective checks against abuse, and no public oversight of its activities. The NSA sucks up the equivalent of the contents of the Library of Congress every six to eight hours, every single day. In the last decade, the NSA’s dragnet, suspicionless surveillance has targeted everyday Americans, in violation of the law and the Constitution. (To lean more about NSA spying, download our fact sheet on “America’s Surveillance Society”).

If companies like Google think they need the government’s help to secure their networks, then a civilian agency needs to step up to the task. Cybersecurity for the American people should not be handed over to a military spy agency, one that is insulated from public oversight and has a history of secretly exploiting vulnerabilities, rather than fixing them.

Concerned? You can take action today by sending a letter to Google, letting them know that you object to such a deal and value your privacy online.

This "partnership" is very disturbing. The very least we can do is let Google know.

For more about how large telecom companies helped the US spy on citizens, read an excellent interview with AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, and more details from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

my subsconscious is an annoying bitch

Some years back, I wrote a post called "The Tyranny of the Subconscious", about the lingering effects of trauma that live buried in our minds. If you haven't read it and are interested, it's one of my better posts and an excellent, brief discussion followed.

I've done a ton of healing work around my own personal trauma, and I can say with confidence that I am healed and am whole. Almost three decades (28 years) have passed since I was raped, and entire years will go by without even a trace of post-traumatic stress. Then one night, I'll have one of those dreams...

The whole thing really pisses me off. I don't need it, I can't control it, and it just seems frigging ridiculous that something that happened to me in 1982 is still buried in my brain somewhere, and won't leave me alone. Not completely alone, anyway. Seriously. Enough already.

These days my subconscious is playing a new trick on me. Not as brutal and as extreme, but man, it is ever annoying.

Yesterday, I had two big assignments due for school, one paper and one oral presentation. I felt confident about both of them, to the point where I kept my commitment to going to the gym, and even got a bit of social life in on Friday night. The night before my deadline, I ended up working on the presentation a bit later than I wanted to, but still, I felt good and confident about the results.

I went to sleep at my usual hour. A few hours later, from a tiny noise, I woke up - wide awake, heart racing. I was up for hours, full of anxiety. Not specifically thinking about either assignment, just a mess of free-floating anxiety, pulse racing, mind bouncing around like a pinball.

After a couple of hours, I took an anti-anxiety pill - I so rarely need them that I still have the same prescription I moved to Canada with, more than four years ago - and eventually fell back to sleep, only two hours before my alarm rang.

Later that morning, as I was getting ready for school, I suddenly realized I had complained about this same thing last time I had a paper or presentation due. And the time before that. It occurred to me that this has been a consistent pattern since I started grad school.

What the hell is going on? I don't feel nervous about my school work. I'm not a nervous public speaker. My grades have been fine.

But clearly, there's anxiety in there, somewhere, and this is how it's expressing itself. And it really pisses me off.

stop-lossed soldier punished for speaking out: please help

I've blogged before about Marc Hall, a stop-lossed soldier who has been arrested and imprisoned for speaking out against the unjust policy that led to his involuntarily re-enlistment. Hall - on his own time - wrote and played a song protesting stop-loss, and for that, he's feeling the full wrath of the US military. He faces court martial - a "trial" staged by his accusers - and either a lengthy prison sentence or forced deployment to Iraq.

Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Courage to Resist and other groups - the ones that "support the troops" - are joining together to help Hall. The goal is to generate 1,000 letters to to the US Army - and to bring Hall's case to national attention in the US.

You can click on this link to send your letter, and share the link every way you can.

You can also visit Stop Loss Music to sign a petition in support of Marc.

This weekend I saw a news item on a horrific case of untreated PTSD from a veteran. Every soldier who resists the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is not only standing up for the people of those countries and their right to self-determination. They are helping to stop a very dangerous cycle of violence at home. (Have you seen the movie "In the Valley of Elah"? Do.)

Marc Hall is being punished exposing the truth: that the US military is not voluntary. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution - the one the military claims he is defending - gives Hall the right to speak out. But Hall needs no statute or clause to say "no" to war. He is a human being, and therefore he has the human right to conscience. He has a right not to kill or be killed.

I hope you'll take a minute to send a letter.

u.s. election changes nothing for many creatures: wolves slaughtered, thanks to bush-obama policies

The news about wild canines in the US is absolutely stomach-turning. More than 400 gray wolves have been slaughtered since Obama's Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar made good on Bush-era plans to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list.

The other night, I saw a friend who is also passionate about wild canines - one of the people we visited the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre with. I remarked how I can't understand killing such magnificent creatures for no reason. She said, "It's worse than killing them for no reason. It's killing them for fun."

I was struck by the appropriateness of that correction. Killing them for fun. Not for food, or even for commerce. For recreation.

And never forget, the slaughter stems directly from government policy. For these animals, as for many of us, it's a one-party system.

The only silver lining is that policy can be changed.

From email from the NRDC Save BioGems project:

The war on wolves is getting uglier by the day.

It's tragic enough that a record 402 wolves were killed last year in Idaho and Montana after their removal from the endangered species list -- an astronomical level that amounts to one-third of the entire wolf population in those two states.

But what saddens me almost as much are the barbaric tactics that wolf-haters have been employing lately.

For example, on Christmas Eve, Idaho wolf supporter Lynne Stone received a threatening email from a wolf hater there. The email only said "Merry Cristmas" (spelled without the 'h') and included a morbid photo of a bloodied dead wolf in the back of a pickup truck.

This disturbing photo and sinister email remind us of what wolves and their supporters are up against -- and why we need you to speak out now against the savage slaughter of wolves.

. . .

Here are a few shocking examples of how ugly the situation has become:

Just a few weeks ago, a Wolf/Coyote/Predator Killing Derby was held in Idaho, where prizes were given away for shooting the most animals. Participants were told in advance they'd be able to use "wolf distress calls" to attract nearby wolves to the rifle range.

. . . a sickening sign outside an Idaho restaurant proclaimed, "Tag a Wolf. Get a Free Pizza and Pitcher of Beer."

. . .

Many wolf packs have been decimated. A majority of Idaho's Basin Butte pack, a favorite of wolf-watchers, was wiped out, seven of them by government agents firing from a helicopter or airplane. The remaining members of Montana's Sage Creek pack were also killed by aerial gunners. Four of the 10 wolves in Yellowstone Park's much-studied Cottonwood Creek pack were killed when they ventured out of the park's boundaries. And government agents have recently been authorized to destroy several packs in Montana.

This disastrous open season on wolves has reversed so much of our hard-won progress over the past several years. . . .

Over the next critical months, NRDC will be facing off in federal court against Interior Secretary Salazar over the fate of the wolf.

But legal action is just one important tactic. Public action is another. That's why we're urging you to show the Interior Secretary that you care about wolves.

Powerful government agencies and a vocal minority of hunters and ranchers have lined up against the wolves of the Northern Rockies. But the wolves have you. It's urgent that you stand with us now.

Even if you've signed other wolf petitions, please add your name to this one. Tell Salazar to call off the guns!

* * * *

Ever since going to the Wolf Centre last summer, we've been planning to return for a winter visit, when the wolfs are in full coat and most active. I was very disappointed to learn that the Centre is only open on weekends from October to May! Unfortunately, I can't take a day off to go up there again. As a consolation prize, we're going to Jungle Cat World, where my wolf-loving war-resister friend goes regularly to interact with wolves, cougars, tigers and other creatures.

More pics from our wolf visit here.

* * * *

Please don't forget to sign the petition.

little pupdate, with apologies to tala

What a bad dog-mommy I am! January 29 was Tala Day, and we forgot all about it! So, in honour of three years of our hilarious, big-eared Bo (short for Talabo, short for Tala Bobala), let's all go terrorize squirrels.

In other news, Cody - 13 years old, with arthritis and hip dysplasia, not to mention newly-diagnosed cancer - is snoozing on the bed when we're not home. We don't know how she gets up there anymore. We have a ramp for her at the back door, and we help her in and out of the car, and the bed is kind of tall.

But after years of trying to keep dogs off the bed - barriers, balloons, alarms - now I'm thinking of ways to help Cody get on it! I don't think a ramp would work in the bedroom, but maybe some sort of step.

Not much to update yet regarding Cody's condition. She has no symptoms yet. We have an appointment with an oncologist in Guelph, and I'll post an update after that.

the last abortion doctor revisited

People don't get it, he says. After eight murders, seventeen attempted murders, 406 death threats, 179 assaults, and four kidnappings, people are still in denial. They say, Well, this was just some wingnut guy who just decided to go blow up somebody. Wrong. This was a cold-blooded, brutal, political assassination that is the logical consequence of thirty-five years of hate speech and incitement to violence by people from the highest levels of American society, including but in no way limited to George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, Bill O'Reilly, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. Reagan may not have been a fascist, but he was a tool of the fascists. George W. Bush was most certainly a tool of the fascists. They use this issue to get power. They seem civilized but underneath you have this seething mass of angry, rabid anger and hatred of freedom that is really frightening, and they support people like the guy who shot George — they're all pretending to be upset, issuing statements about how much they deplore violence, but it's just bullshit. This is exactly what they wanted to happen.

He goes on about Bill O'Reilly for a while. Over the course of twenty-nine separate shows, O'Reilly accused "Tiller the Baby Killer" of performing a late abortion for any reason at all, even so a girl could attend a rock concert — a charge that is blatantly untrue. O'Reilly is a disgrace to American society, he says.

But O'Reilly says he's just exercising his right to engage in vigorous debate, you point out.

He's full of shit. This is not a debate, it's a civil war. And the other people are using bullets and bombs. I think O'Reilly is a fascist, and he would fit right in in Nazi Germany as far as I'm concerned.

It's odd, you say, trying to be agreeable. They always go after the doctors. They never go after the moms.

His eyes snap up. What moms? The patients?

Yeah, the patients.

They're not moms until they have a baby.

Last week, I posted a link to a long story that ran in Esquire last year, a few months after the assassination of Dr George Tiller in Kansas. Apparently I'm the only person in the entire reproductive rights movement who missed it, probably because it came out in September, while I was beginning school, completely overloaded and stressed, and de-focusing the outside world.

I've just finished reading the story, and it is a must-read for anyone who thinks about this issue.

The story profiles Dr Warren Hern, who performs later-term abortions in Colorado. (At the time of publication, he was thought to be the last such doctor in the US, but abortion-rights activists tell me that two of the late Dr Tiller's associates are still performing the procedure.)

Dr Hern is militantly, passionately and compassionately pro-choice. He drives himself to exhaustion and puts his own life at risk every day in order that women not be forced to bear tragic pregnancies to term. He also recognizes the sadness and grief inherent in his work.

I frequently write that despite how abortion is framed in the media, terminating a pregnancy is not always - perhaps not even usually - a wrenching decision. It is often a clear and obvious choice, not something anyone wants to go through, but very clearly something that needs to be done. The feeling most women attest to post-procedure is that of overwhelming relief.

But all that applies to early, first-trimester abortions. Later-term abortions are almost always personal tragedies, laden with loss, grief, pain and fear.

I will never forget my former friend who, after two spontaneous abortions of wanted pregnancies (commonly called "miscarriages"), was finally, joyfully pregnant. I will never forget the day she called me about the results of her amnio: if she carried to term, the baby would have no brain, and would die moments after birth. She was insane with grief. I truly believe that if safe and legal abortion wasn't available to her, she would have attempted suicide.

That's what later-term abortion is all about.

Imagine being in that situation and also having to fear for your life from terrorism. Imagine being in that situation and having nowhere to go, because all the doctors have been terrorized out of business.

So please read the Esquire story.

More about second trimester abortions, and why they are needed, here. If US state law was not controlled by woman-haters, and if US women had access to health care, most of these procedures would be unnecessary. That's not my opinion; that's a fact.

Thanks again to M Yass for sending.

non-human animals showing us the way

Love is all there is
it makes the world go 'round
love and only love
it can't be denied.
- Bob Dylan

Have you seen the orangutan and the hound dog?

And in case you missed it the first time I posted it, more cross-species love.

the contents of my inbox: wmtc linkathon

Here are various things that readers have sent me or that I have collected over some unspecified period of time, which I don't want to delete unshared, but can't spend any time writing about. Enter at your own risk.

The Ratchet Effect:

In every election year, the Democrats come and tell us that the country has moved to the right, and so the Democratic Party has to move right too in the name of realism and electability. Gotta keep these right-wing madmen out of the White House, no matter what it takes.

(Actually, they don't say they're going to move to the right; they say they're going to move to the center. But of course it amounts to the same thing, if you're supposed to be left of center. It's the same direction of movement.)

So now the Democrats have moved to the "center." But of course this has the effect of shifting the "center" farther to the right.

Now, as a consequence, the Republicans suddenly don't seem so crazy anymore -- they're closer to the center, through no effort of their own, because the center has shifted closer to them. So they can move even further right, and still end up no farther from the "center" than they were four years ago. ...

This is not a vast conspiracy. Nobody planned it out. ... [I]t evolved. And it evolved for the same reason that anything evolves: it was useful.

* * * *

The mortality rate in California for pregnant women has nearly tripled in the past decade. It is now more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia.

* * * *

Iraq has banned 14 parties from taking part in its next election. Blogger lefti:

That's the 'democracy' that 'we' are told 'we' fought to create. Meanwhile, in another 'democracy' that the U.S. supports (to the tune of billions every year) in the region, Egypt deported George Galloway and forbade him from ever returning, all for the 'crime' of delivering humanitarian supplies to the besieged people of Gaza."

Lefti also links to an interview in which journalist Allan Nairn notes that the grotesque euphemism "collateral damage" is not used in the military. Murdered civilians are referred to as "bugsplat".

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President Obama continues to crank up the US war machine: threatening Iran, murdering civilians in Pakistan, asking for $5 billion to fortify the US nuclear arsenal, and selling $6.4 billion in military hardware to Taiwan. He also claims the right to kill anyone on earth without charges, without trial, without warning.

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ABC reports that high-powered rifle sights used by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan (and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers) have references to New Testament passages inscribed on them (pic here). Trijicon has a $660,000,000 contract with the US military -- and says it has been putting New Testament passages on its products for more than two decades. Now the Michigan company says that it will be providing 100 kits to remove the references on already deployed products.

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Wired reports that the FBI and various telecom companies conspired collaborated (feel better?) to routinely violate federal wiretapping laws for four years, as agents got access to reporters' and citizens' phone records using fake emergency declarations or simply asking for them. The inspector general also reveals that the Obama administration retroactively legalized these activities through a secret ruling in early January 2010. That particular fact is buried near the end of the 289-page report.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! claims that its surveillance policies, such as allowing the Justice Department to request wiretaps of its users and revealing the amount it charges US taxpayers per wiretap, should be kept secret because the information would "shock" customers. Verizon said it cannot provide details on its charges for wiretaps because it would be "confusing".

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Jordan Miles, 18, a violinist and honour student at the prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, was severely beaten by three plainclothes officers who believed he was carrying a gun (video). The teenager - who is African-American - said he resisted arrest because he believed the three white men were trying to abduct him.

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Lastly, something cool and beautiful: a photography of a completely frozen Niagara Falls, dated 1911, with thanks to James Morton.

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Thanks to everyone who sends me goodies, and thanks to Allan for getting this post out of drafts.

battle of the letters, war resister edition, part next

Three more excellent letters, these all from the west coast, in support of war resister Cliff Cornell, and in support of soldiers everywhere who refuese to commit illegal and immoral acts.

Re. Deserter's action shames veterans, Letters, Jan. 26.

Tim Harris has my full backing in his respect for the sacrifices that Canadians have made to protect our democratic rights and freedoms.

Might he also consider this: The current war in Iraq, as Cliff Cornell has found out, was not about protecting the rights and freedom of Americans, not even about bringing democratic rights and freedom to the people of Iraq.

It was about establishing U.S. geopolitical hegemony in that part of the world.

My dad went into the Second World War as a 19-year-old and experienced the full onslaught of the Cruel Sea and the frightening prospect of world domination by monstrous fanatics.

I respect what he did. I also respect his views on the travesty of these ridiculous attempts to disguise our current geopolitical manoeuvrings in Afghanistan and the U.S.'s in Iraq as civilization versus tyranny.

Even the disguise is a failure because no nation can donate democratic rights and freedoms to another nation.

So many U.S. and Canadian soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have had a dramatic and eloquent education in the current realities of world geopolitics. I'm giving them my every attention, just as I've listened to the older veterans' thoughts about past and present wars.

Jim Edmondson
Vancouver

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I don't understand why people think that a soldier who has left his or her post or refuses to return to duty is making an easy choice or disrespects his or her country.

Putting aggressive and fraudulent recruiting practices aside, many people who join armies expect the chain of command to possess an element of reasonableness. Armies wouldn't want to waste resources, and abuse of soldiers - sexual assault, hazing, forcing conscientious objectors to remain in combat roles - is a waste of human resources.

When that kind of waste happens on the base or on the battlefield, some soldiers experience a profound shock. They spend a long time trying to resolve their trouble within the military, giving the system every opportunity to right itself, frequently failing to find a solution that allows them to stay in uniform.

The defence of 'following orders' when faced with genocidal or inhumane commands was supposed to be discredited by the Nuremburg trials after the Second World War. Questioning orders that needlessly put soldiers' lives in danger and targetted civilians was partly what built the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and bolstered a generation of peace activists before us.

This country prides itself on its human rights record. We are told that we should not do something if it is unethical, that we should report wrongdoing, and that we are protected by law against retribution for whistleblowing. Where is the shame in that?

And yet your contributor insists that a war resister shames war veterans because that resister exercised the rights that vets purportedly fought for. How absurd.

Welcome, Chris Cornell, and thanks for your example of bravery for refusing to fight an illegal war.

Ian Weniger
Vancouver

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I was delighted to read that Cliff Cornell was released earlier than expected from prison and wishes to return to Canada.

Canadians have expressed their views through Parliament in motions that approved granting war resisters sanctuary here, especially those who have had the courage to uphold the real honour and the laws of their country, as is the case of Americans who have refused to participate in illegal and immoral invasions and occupation of foreign countries like Iraq.

It is unfortunate that some readers have expressed the view that any soldier under any and all circumstances must always obey their superiors even when those orders amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Those who have expressed such views sadly failed to understand why we did not allow the excuse of 'just following orders' to exonerate war criminals at Nuremberg.

It might be timely to recall this as we just honoured the day to remember the Holocaust.

Juergen Dankwort
Vancouver

ignatieff to harper: women are people, don't follow u.s. example

You know I'm no fan of Michael Ignatieff (although I fervently hope he'll be our next Prime Minister, and soon). But Ignatieff did the right thing yesterday, and deserves credit for that.

In this case it's the right thing for Canada, and a shrewd move for the Liberals, shining on one of the Conservatives' major political weaknesses.

Michael Ignatieff is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper not to exclude abortion and contraception from his plan to become an international champion of women's and children's health.

The Liberal leader sought assurances Tuesday that Harper's agenda to improve the lot of women and children in the world's poorest countries will include funding for all reproductive health services.

"Women are entitled to the full gamut of reproductive health services and that includes termination of pregnancy and contraception," Ignatieff told a Liberal-sponsored roundtable discussion on foreign aid and international development.

Harper is hosting the G8 summit in June and he's vowed to use the opportunity to launch a major initiative to improve the health of women and children.

Ignatieff urged the Harper government not to follow the lead of the United States, which in the past has cut funding to some aid organizations that promote the use of contraceptives and abortion.

The Liberals subsequently issued a news release expressing fear that Harper is already going down the American path. It cited a petition filed in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Brad Trost urging the government to cut funding to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

And it cited a pro-life newspaper report that the Harper government has all but eliminated funding for Canada's member on the IPPF, the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health.

The release went on to list a series of anti-abortion comments from various Conservative MPs, dating as far back as 1990. Most of the quotes were unrelated to Canada's foreign aid policy.

On a related note, it completely disgusts me that the Canadian Press uses the words "pro-life" to describe an a publication or an MP. How fucking dare they. If they are anti-abortion, then say so.

Over and over, again and again, we see evidence of how these anti-woman fanatics have succeeded. They've turned the gaze of mainstream society - even those who imagine they are moderate or neutral - to see through the lens of their lies.

pupdate of the bad news variety

We got some bad news yesterday. Cody, our older dog, has cancer.

A few weeks ago, I found a lump. It's on her neck, right next to her throat. We've had many lumps removed from many dogs, and all were harmless fatty cysts (lipomas). But this didn't feel like those. We went to the vet last week, and she was concerned, and confirmed what I suspected, that this could be trouble.

We had a needle biopsy done, and there was even some risk in that. There's a lot of vital stuff in that neck, and high bleeding risk. The procedure went smoothly and cleanly. Our vet said that, indeed, it was not a lipoma, it was a tumour. Now a biopsy would show whether it was benign or malignant.

Since then, as some of you knew, we've been waiting for the biopsy results. Never a pleasant thing.

The vet called yesterday: it is thyroid cancer.

With this particular form of cancer, in dogs in which it has not yet spread, if a surgeon can remove the lump with "clean margins" - when they can get the whole tumour - there is a complete cure. But those are two huge "if"s. One, it may have already spread. And two, getting the whole lump may not be possible. The tumour, for example, could be growing around a vital organ or major artery. It's high-risk surgery, and she is not a young dog.

Allan and I had a long talk last night, and decided that our next step is to speak to the oncologist surgeon to learn more about the surgery. Before we even learn whether or not the cancer has spread, we want to know if this operation is something we should consider putting an old dog through. If it is, we'll have some tests done to see if the cancer has spread. Those are not invasive: chest x-rays, plus blood work for liver and kidney functions. If the surgery sounds gruesome, we may not do that.

Allan and I have loved and said goodbye to three dogs together, one who was older and in decline, two very suddenly. Cody and Tala are dogs three and five. Those of who you share your lives with animals know the pain. Every person has to reach their own conclusion about when it's time to say goodbye. I probably go a little quicker than many dog lovers.

Here's how I think of it. It's going to kill us no matter when we do it. If I do it on [this day] or do it on [this day plus six weeks] or [this day plus six months], it's going to hurt me just as much. But for my animal, those six weeks could be filled with pain and suffering, and she'll end up dying anyway. Six weeks of pain and suffering all because I couldn't say goodbye, because I selfishly wanted the animal here with me six weeks longer.

This is how I've rationalized my decisions in the past. This is how we've let them go faster than some other people might have, when hope of long-term survival was gone and their suffering was inevitable. You could say I've been brutally strong. I view it as our final responsibility to our animals.

The good news is also the saddest part of this story. Cody has been doing great. She has more energy, better appetite, is happier and more spry than she has been in a long time. People are always surprised at how old she is. So she's enjoying her life right now. If I can help it, she'll know no other way. We want to do what we can, but we won't let her suffer.

Thank you all so much for your support. Long-time readers of this blog have gone through one dog loss with us, shortly after we moved to Canada. The love and support I received from readers of this blog got me through it.

putting things in perspective

When I was a child, I had a book called How Big Is Big?. Is your big brother big? Is an elephant big? A redwood tree? A whale? A mountain? The ocean? The Earth? Jupiter?

The second half of the book asked "How small is small?" A baby? A puppy? A grain of rice? Bacteria? An atom? And so forth.

Obviously the book meant to stimulate a young mind to ask, "Compared to what?" and to think about perspective.

Here's an updated, visual version of the same idea. Amazing stuff: The Scale of the Universe. Click, then click "play".

31 days of action for canadian democracy

Between now and when Parliament resumes on March 3, pledge to do something to oppose Stephen Harper's anti-democratic agenda, and to keep the anti-prorogation feeling alive and visible.

This is copied from the Facebook group 31 Days of Action. Choose from this anti-prorogation menu, or create your own recipe for democracy.

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The Anti-Prorogation Rallies were an incredible success. As we draw closer to Parliament's eventual return on March 3rd, it is important that we find new and creative ways to keep the issue alive. Between February 1st and March 3rd, we have 31 days. That's 31 days to get involved, get informed and get out there.

The issue needs to be kept alive at the local level. Here is a list of 31 activities you can do over the next 31 days. Do you have what it takes? Some of them you can do from the comfort of your chair, others require group organization and even some running. Whatever you decide to do, do it with the respect and civility that has defined this movement thus far.

When you've completed any of these 31 goals, share it with us. Post photos to the event wall or mention it on the main CAPP forum. Help build the sense of community that we've developed and give others encouragement.

No one is required to get involved or support these activities, and you are encouraged to put forward ideas that resonate with you and your community.

31 WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
(The list is constantly being updated, so be sure to check back often)

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1) WRITE YOUR MP

This movement started with the simple act of writing to your member of parliament, and look what we've accomplished. Keep those letters coming: whether your MP is in Ottawa or in the riding, write to them and ask for weekly updates. If they are in your community, try to arrange a meeting time. Forward your emails to CAPPfeedback@gmail.com so we have a record, in case any of them claim "they haven't received any feedback".

2)SEND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Structure your letter so that it ties prorogation with local issues or let people know about your experiences with your MP.

3)CALL TALK RADIO

A lot of people listen to talk radio so it's a perfect opportunity to let your voice be heard. Even if you don't agree with the commentator, it's important to engage them respectfully and avoid name calling or bickering. Just keep focused on the issue.

4)DEMOCRACY TORCH RELAY

Some communities will be hosting a torch relay for democracy during the Olympics. If you're interested, you can find more information here.

5)CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

Some communities have discussed holding a candlelight vigil to lament our lack of government. This is still in the planning stages, but more information will be available soon.

6)"WHERE'S DEMOCRACY?" PHOTO CHALLENGE

Sam Philips is organizing a cross Canada photo competition. Participants sign up and will receive a handcrafted mace in the mail and will take photos in their community. You can find details here.

7)DISTRIBUTE BATHROOM LITERATURE

What separates public washrooms from private ones is the lack of reading material. Why not leave a couple fliers for people to reflect upon?

8)ORGANIZE FLASH RALLIES

Many ministers are currently blitzing across the country. You can find out where they are on government websites. If they are coming to your community, you will usually have less than 24 hours to organize a quick demonstration. Work with your local Chapter to help get the word out. Whenever possible, try to engage the minister in conversation, but some of them have been sneaky so be sure to watch the back doors.

9)ATTEND TOWN HALL MEETINGS

Local MPs may be holding town hall meetings during the next month. Attend if you can and respectfully engage them in a conversation explaining why you think prorogation is an important matter.

10)DISTRIBUTE FLIERS

Head down to your local farmer's market or public space and politely hand out informational fliers. Don't be pushy or getting into people's faces. Find someway to identify yourself and people that are interested can engage you if they want. Many local chapters have fliers, but we will have a link to some soon.

11)PUT UP POSTERS

You can make colour photocopies at Staples for 49 cents a page. Throw in a couple staples or some tape, and you can help spread the word by canvasing your neighbourhood in posters.

12)GET INVOLVED IN YOUR LOCAL CAPP CHAPTER

The success of the rallies was due to dedicated volunteers operating in their local CAPP organization. These groups are autonomous and set their own goals. Visit NoProrogue.ca to see if there is a chapter in your community and if they are meeting in the near future. Attend and share your ideas.

13)LEAVE COMMENTS ON ONLINE ARTICLES

This is something you can do from the comfort of your desk. All online news sources have some commenting feature. Take a minute and leave a comment, and agree/disagree with the comments of others.

14)"I LOVE DEMOCRACY" VALENTINES GREETING FOR HARPER

This one is still in the planning stages, but some folks in Ottawa are encouraging people to send them Valentines cards for democracy, which will be hand delivered to the Prime Minister's Office. Mailing information will be made available, check back soon.

15)TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW ABOUT PROROGATION

Going out for drinks with friends? Why not drop the P-Bomb during the conversation? Many Canadians are still unfamiliar with the issue, so talk to them about it and find out what they think.

16)CONTRIBUTE TO THE CAPP FORUMS

If you're here, chances are you're a CAPP Facebook contributor. Post encouragements, relevant news and what you've been up to. Keep it civil and we'll keep on the right track.

17)RALLY IN OTTAWA

Some members in Ottawa have expressed an interest in another rally on Parliament Hill on March 3rd, the day parliament resumes. If you're in the area, be sure to visit the Ottawa chapter's page for more details and if it is going ahead: here

18) CIRCULATE A PETITION

Draft up a petition in your community. Not an online one, but one that you can distribute in your community and get people to physically sign. There are certain criteria to have a petition accepted into the House of Commons, you can find more information here.

19) HOST A CONCERT

Anyone whose heard Trevor Strong's "The Wild Proroguer" knows the power of the creative spirit in this movement. Why not organize a concert? You can have politically minded songs, or simply create a relaxed atmosphere in which CAPP members can relax and chat. It could be a large event or a small gathering at a pub. If you've got a Stephen Harper mask handy, why not bring out the piano and let them man himself entertain the crowd? Work with your community group to get something like this off the ground.

20) VOTE +1

In a democracy, elections are inevitable. When the day comes, be sure to get out and vote, and bring along a friend, colleague or stranger who has never voted before. The 2008 election had the lowest voter turn-out in Canadian history. Let's show them that Canada can be the come-back kid and give the next one the greatest turn-out...EVER.

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