we hear from buffalo

Our letter came today!!!



Our initial assessment has been completed, and now we take the next steps. This includes FBI clearance (proof that we are not felons), medical exams, tax forms and sworn statements of our common-law partnership.



For people following the process and wondering about timing, here's the timeline thus far:



March 22 - applications submitted for first time

April 3 & 23 - corrected applications resubmitted

June 3 - applications declared correct and placed in queue

Jan 18 - initial assessment complete, request for add'l documents



My original estimate, based on length of processing time last time I was able to check, was correct: eight months.



Now I estimate we will be out of here by September. Fingers crossed.

"something's gone wrong south of the border"

Kyle says:

Regardless of whatever bias the media itself has, usually they're always looking for the government to slip up. At least, that's how it works here. Even the Globe and Mail would go for the Liberal party jugular if it smelled blood. A flailing government is news, and the media is far more loyal to the dollar than it is to any political preference.

But somethings gone wrong south of the border. The media is now trying to defend and explain the government's actions, which seems opposite to what they're supposed to do. It seems wrong to have the media in bed with the government, regardless of what your political preferences are.

Exactly. Something has gone drastically wrong. The media is supposed to have an adversarial relationship to government. Yet these days mainstream media functions as government publicists.

This is what happens when giant multinational corporations gobble up media outlets, conglomerating them into fewer and fewer hands. And those hands are profit-driven, stockholder driven - not information-driven or (god forbid) truth-driven. They know which side their bread (and their access) is buttered on. Lately we've been finding out just how connected to government they are.

Some good people to read on this subject are Eric Alterman and Danny Schecter and his Media Channel. The Nation also publishes an annual (is it annual or occasional?) "media family tree" which clearly illustrates the danger. I haven't been able to find one to post, but maybe a helpful reader will. I'm sure there's a .pdf of one somewhere out there.

Before someone protests that the Internet makes up for mainstream media's failings, I think that's seriously disingenuous. Thank goodness for the Internet, it's an activist's dream. But when working people come home from their stressful, low-paying jobs and have to get dinner together before helping the kids with their homework, they can't be expected to hunt down alternative points of view among the kazillion websites out there. They should be able to flick on their TV and get some accurate reporting, which means media that questions government, not parrots it.

future lessons

Kyle gives a civics lesson here. This is interesting stuff. Well, to me, anyway.

I look forward to learning more about Canada's political system, and especially Canadian history, since I love history. It's on the Very Long-Term List of Things To Do Eventually.

Oh! And look at this! Scary!!

an excellent question

Redsock asks this burning question.



Check out that list of statements. Thank you for providing me with additional incentive to get off my ass and join the anti-war organizing efforts.

a walker in the city

I enjoyed this column in the Star: Toronto Mayor David Miller takes a stroll with the journalist. I don't know anything about Mayor Miller. But the first thing I learn is that he cares about streetscapes, the urban landscape, street furniture, cities you "experience through your feet". You might already know I care about those things, too. I like this:

David Miller's views of Toronto do not extend to making the city "world-class." He loathes the term. "It means you're trying to be something else," he says. "Like you're trying to be New York. Well, I don't think we should be. We should be us, and just do it brilliantly."

Excellent!

reclaim january 20!

It's not Inauguration Day - it's Happy Birthday Nancy Day!



Great people and great couples born in January:

Nancy

Rhonda

Camden Joy

me and Allan

Alan and Frederick

Judy and Mark

former friends Beth and Cary (who knows, they might see this)

and of course, Martin Luther King, Jr.

january 20 approaches

I've decided against going to DC to protest the inauguration. I think it's a great thing to do, and I hope hundreds of thousands of people turn out, but I can't be among them.



I love big marches. I love the powerful feeling of unity, the comfort of being part of a huge crowd of people who all feel strongly enough to demonstrate. I love the spirit of community it fosters.



It can be a very emotional experience, as when the mall was blanketed by the AIDS quilt, the last time it was displayed in its entirety. (It became too big.) Allan and I were both overcome with the enormity of it, each square representing a life cut short. Not usually given to public displays, we could only stand and hold each other.



And it can also be a joyous experience, as when we reclaimed our city streets from the Republican convention, then reclaimed our park from government hacks.



But now I am so angry. So angry and sad and sometimes despairing about the fraudulent election and all it implies. And all the horror that will be visited on the world from it. I feel I can't go to Washington in a wholly negative state, all seething fury and grief. It will just make me feel worse. And because I'm so angry, I don't have the energy for it.



Some years back I would have felt guilty about not joining my fellow travelers at the barricades, but thankfully I've grown away from that. We can't all do everything. What counts is that we each do something.

the scariest thing

Of all the frightening specters looming above us in the brave new world of Bush II - and there are many to choose from - I think the scariest is the privatization of Social Security. If you're not reading Paul Krugman's series on this, please do. The two most recent parts are here and here.

i am orange, i think

Kyle says:

A minor bit of trivia. In Canada, Red and Blue are the opposite to what they are in the U.S.

Liberals are red, Conservatives are blue, NDP are orange, and Green is, um, green.

This is useful to know! I'm glad I'll have orange. It would be strange being red.

Truth be told, I don't know the difference between the NDP and the Greens. I'll check it out.

brooklyn

Satisfying a niece's jones for some city life, we trekked out to Brooklyn yesterday to eat the best pizza I've ever had. DiFara is a little nondescript joint in a nice little neighborhood, nothing you'd ever notice if it wasn't pointed out to you. There, Dominick DeMarco has been crafting pizzas the old-fashioned way for more than 40 years: boiling fresh tomatoes, importing three kinds of cheese from a certain town in Italy, growing his own basil on the window ledge.

Where to find the best pizza is a topic of endless debate in NYC, and you can't go wrong with any of the top five or seven places people will argue for. But for my money, DiFara is the best, both for the taste of the pie, and the very satisfying experience of eating in Dominick's homey little joint.

In recent years DiFara has built up a huge following, having been featured in several high-profile reviews, including Mr DeMarco pictured on the cover of The Village Voice. Yesterday I overheard a walking Brooklyn stereotype yelling into his cell phone: "Yeah, I'm in Brooklyn! Eating pizza! It's the fuggin greatest pizza evah!"

We also went to the Brooklyn Museum, to check out the new (to me) entrance that is being touted as Great Public Space. Um, okay. Nice modern glass public space apparently stuck on to old classical building. Interesting building, strange effect.

We didn't end up seeing anything at the museum, not being in a patient or artsy mood. But from there, we wandered into Park Slope, where I lived when I first moved to the city, and where Allan and I first lived together. We drank coffee and walked around looking at the beautiful houses.

Then back into the city to meet a nephew, brother of aforementioned niece, both in town for a family event, for more wandering, plus eating and imbibing. A nice day, plus two Things To Do Before I Leave New York checked off the list.

Great Expectations. My last few "goodbye" excursions were a little disappointing, but that was a function of sights being overhyped, or over-anticipated in my own mind.

The Merchants House Museum is an interesting place, a rare opportunity to visualize how wealthy 19th Century New Yorkers lived. But after intending to go there for 15-some-odd years, then seeing it in all of 30 minutes, I was bound to be a little disappointed.

That was my own fault. But the Frank Gehry-designed Conde Nast cafeteria somehow looked better in photographs than it did in person. It's an extremely unusual and cool-looking room, no doubt about it, but these photos are more eye-popping than it is. Same for the Brooklyn Museum entrance. Nice, interesting, but... where's the greatest public space to be built in New York in 25 years? Hype ruins so many experiences.

Regardless, I'm glad I'm checking out these things and checking them off my list. I don't want to leave New York with a long list of things I meant to see.

to the banned commenter

So it was you commenting anonymously! Good to know my sense of that was correct. Had you made yourself known, I wouldn't have allowed your comments in the first place. As you know, hence the anonymous cover.



You already blew it by harassing me in our first go-round. Banned is banned.



Sheesh, I'm only an itty bitty blog, it's not like I'm Kos or Xymphora. Please find some other folks to harass. And have a nice day.

common ground

Two Canadian readers have sent me some interesting reading lately.

In one, which unfortunately I can't link to, a Globe and Mail columnist disputes a colleague's claim that Canadian society is as religious as American. In "My Canada Doesn't Include Religiosity," Michael Adams, who has written extensively about Canadian social values, writes, "It is neither elitist nor 'out of touch' to state that Canada is becoming increasingly secular. It's accurate."

Adams acknowledges that "Most Canadians categorize themselves as Christian when asked to tick a box on their census form. . . . Many of us will even claim to be religious." But he reminds readers that although 61% of Canadians say they believe in god, only 28% say religion is very important to them, and just 16% attend religious services at least weekly (with another 21% attending monthly).

After analyzing an extensive Pew Center poll, Adams finds "no evidence of a religious revival in Canada of the sort we see south of the border." He says "Canadians are about half as religious as Americans, and Canadians' and Americans' divergent views of religion are one symptom of a growing disparity between the two cultures."

To which I say: yeah, baby!

Another reader from the north sent me a cool column from the conservative site I quoted a few days ago.

In this column, Fred Reed takes a look at the Bush administration's single biggest strategy and weapon: fear. After visiting Washington DC, he writes, "Fear seemed to be everywhere, or at least to be promoted everywhere, but I wasn't sure who was afraid. Nobody I met was afraid. Nobody talked about terrorism or paid the least attention to Mommy Metro. Maybe just the government is afraid. Or maybe it wants us to be afraid. Maybe it's afraid of us."

To anyone who followed the 2004 campaigns, this is nothing new. Bush's speeches basically ran along the lines of: "9/11 9/11 9/11 fear fear fear fear the gays are coming to get your children terra terra terra fear fear fear".

Reed later writes:

A burly federal cop of maybe thirty slid my passport through a scanner and examined the results on a screen carefully placed so that I couldn't see it. You are not allowed to know what the government knows about you, or thinks it knows.

This blue-suited renta-a-bozo started with the rapid-fire questions. I figured he had watched too much television. "Where are you coming from?" Mexico. "Why were you in Mexico?" I like Mexico. "What were you doing in Mexico?" I live there. "Why are you going to Washington?" "Why, to blow it up, Charlie, with tiny little nuclear bombs concealed in my shoes. Gee, you caught me."

I didn't say this or I'd be hanging by my thumbs in Guantanamo. I pictured the Gulag fleeing Russia and oozing across the bottom of the Pacific, pseudopodia groping, to its new home in the Land of the Free. Lunch.

The new America. No checks, no balance. There's no restraint on the power of these people, and they know it. If you suggest that it is none of their business why an American citizen is going to his country's capital, at the very least you miss your flight. You could easily end up in jail, and nobody would know where you were.

While this is hardly new to me, it is a new source. The libertarian right and the libertarian left do have a lot in common, as someone recently said here.

I have to remember to call the loathsome people in Washington neocons - or better yet, fascists - as opposed to conservatives, since they are not interested in conserving anything.

nuts and bolts

People's generosity never ceases to amaze me. In this case, people is Kyle From Ottawa, who writes the Progressive Libertarian blog.

For people emigrating to Canada, specifically (but not only) Ontario, Kyle posts this useful information. I hope others who are applying (or considering doing so) find them helpful.

I doubt I'll ever win the lottery, but it's more fun to do it Canada. Go figure.

"don't move to canada, move to [your state here]"

This is pretty funny. If you search for "move to Canada" on the web, you'll find various blogs and essays imploring you to move to Ohio, Iowa, Oregon and other battleground states.

Hey, yeah. Instead of compiling my life savings, spending $2,500 in fees, filling out a zillion forms, waiting for more than a year and uprooting my entire life, I think I'll just pack up and move to Ohio. That way, my one vote (if counted) can help the state go Democrat in 2008. Why didn't I think of that sooner!

I feel like Lewis Black here. "Funny, last time I looked, Oregon, Ohio and Iowa were still PART OF THE UNITED STATES!"

glory days

In the local "City" section, the New York Times recently ran some famous New Yorkers' responses to the question "What was New York's Golden Age?"



Elaine Kaufman, owner of Elaine's, named the 1940's, Reverend Al Sharpton voted for the late 1960's, when he was a teenager, writer Fran Lebowitz and photographer Mary Ellen Mark nominated the '70s ("when the city was a wreck") and the late '60s, early '70s, respectively.



Choreographer Bill T. Jones said "Right after 9/11," citing how "we were vulnerable and open to the rest of the world, and we were ready for a change. There was a chance to ask questions, and it was a time when we were forced to do so. But it didn't happen. There wasn't a true conversation about what American means to the rest of the world or about why New York was chosen. It was an opportunity. And then the politicians took it."



Caleb Carr, author of New York City historical novels The Alienist and Angel of Darkness, made an interesting choice:

The 1890's. It may seem odd, to those living in a city sterilized by the Giuliani years, that anyone would feel fascination with or nostalgia for a decade that was almost as filthy, violent and degenerate as its predecessors.



But not only did the 1890's witness attempts at the kind of meaningful reform that eluded Mayor Giuliani - of the Police Department, labor laws, and living conditions for the poor - it also saw the blossoming of culture both high and vulgar: the dominance of the Metropolitan Opera and establishment of the city's great museums, along with the Bowery music halls, Broadway, and the proliferation of artists' communities throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. We should remember, too, that a New York scrubbed clean of prostitution, adult entertainment, drugs and other dark phenomena is a city that has lost its original dynamic, and therefore its meaning.



Like a troublesome child taking Ritalin, New York may be more manageable now, but it has also sacrificed its personality. That personality was crystallized during the 1890's, by a collection of idiosyncratic gang leaders, plundering corporate barons (who, while as vicious as any today, nonetheless lived in and tried to improve the life of their city) and reformers more concerned with improving sanitation on the streets and in hospitals than they were with minimizing the amount of annoyance caused the well-to-do by beggars.

Well, why bother blogging if people are going to write things like that?? Bravo, Mr Carr!



Laurie Anderson, consummate New Yorker, said there were a lot of golden ages. Oscar de la Renta said "Now," and Yoko Ono said, "Always".

a true conservative

Here is a conservative I respect and admire. Mr Roberts and I will disagree on certain principles, like the uses and role of government, but we will agree on many basic truths.



This clear, concise and hard-hitting essay explains why Bush, Ashcroft, et al, are not conservatives at all.



My favorite bit: "Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a US Marine." But go read the whole thing, you'll be glad you did.



(Thanks to Redsock for pointing it out to me, of course.)

replies to wretched

I recently received this comment from a disgruntled Trontonian. He says, in part:

Though your reasons for coming here seem somewhat vague and idealistic to me, and not really related to what will be everyday life, they're not really my business.

But, a couple of points on your comment "... it all adds up to a very different attitude about government, society and a nation's place in the world."
For sure! Ppl here still have that sort of British/socialist attitude that Gov't knows best and will take care of us.

And Society? Well, the mind-blowing immigration rate will change it by tomorrow or the next day, so don't get too comfy with whatever it is today!

As for their "place in the world", well they're not sure yet. They cannot actually define what they *are as a people, only what they are *not - i.e. "we're not Americans." How original.

And I reply:

Re my reasons seeming unrelated to everyday life: I'm an American every day. I have to live in this disgusting, shallow, militaristic, jingoistic, undemocratic culture and support it with my taxes. Can't get much more every day than that.

Anywhere I live, everyday life is going to be pretty much the same. We're going to write, work, watch baseball, love our dogs, go out to dinner - we're going to live our lives. In that sense, the pros and cons of New York City vs Toronto could be argued in various ways. Our reasons for moving are the larger picture, which doesn't seem at all vague to me.

Re government taking care of people: as you may have noticed, I have that attitude, too. No one says "government knows best" - that's ridiculous. But yes, progressives do feel the role of government and of our taxes is to help people live better lives. Given the choice between paying high taxes so that every person can have health care or paying high taxes to kill people in other parts of the world, I'll take health care every time. I'm not anti-government per se, but government has got to have a function other than making extremely rich people extremely richer.

Re society rapidly changing from immigration: excellent. It's something I am accustomed to from NYC, and something I look forward to in Canada. But if you read what I wrote, my reference to society isn't about that.

Re Canadians' place in the world not being American: perfect. That's the whole point. But what I meant - obviously - was that Canada is not bullying and conquering and exploiting the rest of the planet.

Thanks for stopping by. And p.s., if you're reading, we have traffic in New York, too.

let them go

On the subject of Quebec separatism, brought up by new reader Beausejour, RobfromAlberta says:

The whole Quebec separation thing does not seem to have the same urgency that it had 10 years ago. I lived in Montreal at the time of the last referendum (vote on separation) and there was a very real fear that the separatists would win. Nowadays though, it is just not a dominant issue in the national agenda. Of course, I have no doubt we will have another referendum some time in the next decade.

Also, now that I live in Alberta, I find I just do not seem all that concerned about it. If Quebec votes for separation next time, I say we just let them go.

At the risk of opening up a can of worms, I ask, Why not? If most people in Quebec wanted to secede from the rest of Canada, why would that be A Bad Thing? Is it any different than independence movements anywhere else (which I would generally support)? Shouldn't people have as much autonomy and self-rule as possible?

I'm asking these questions in ignorance of the issues. Canadian readers are welcome to weigh in with arguments on either side.

justice delayed

Two days ago, Edgar Ray Killen was indicted for his role in the murder of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. These were the three civil rights workers who were abducted and murdered in 1962 near Philadelphia, Mississippi, while registering black people to vote.



The State of Mississippi never brought murder charges against any of the men. They were charged with federal civil rights violations; several Mississippi sheriffs and deputies obstructed the investigation.



Nineteen men, including Killen, were indicted. In 1967, seven of them were convicted of federal civil rights violations and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years. Killen was freed after his trial on federal conspiracy charges ended in a hung jury. None of the men convicted served more than six years.



****



Andrew Goodman's mother, Dr Carolyn Goodman, lives in New York City, and the local media visits her regularly. Now 89 years old, having outlived two husbands and her only child, she honors her son's memory by continuing his work. She says, "I'm not looking for revenge. I'm looking for justice."



James Chaney's mother, Fannie Lee Chaney, now 82, left Mississippi shortly after her son's death, when shots were fired at her home. Like Dr Goodman, Mrs Chaney has established a foundation in her son's memory, and is involved in civil rights work.



The Schwerner family does not usually discuss the case, but Stephen Schwerner, Michael's brother, explains why these three murders are so famous: "If three black men had been killed, it might not have made the inside pages, let alone the front page." He urges people to "realize that this was not ancient history, people still alive were involved in this, and that we still have a long, long way to go."

we heart democracy

Check out Joy of Sox for a rundown of how our democracy fares. Recent posts here and here.