sexism is sexism is sexism

A long time ago, I wrote letters to - and finally cancelled my subscription to - Ms. magazine because they wouldn't defend the rights of women in the military.

They've changed on that score, to their credit. But at that time, in response to misogynistic practices within the military, editors basically said, "Women shouldn't join the military in the first place." This infuriated me. Women should do whatever they want! They don't have to submit their choices to some feminist-approval board first. And whatever they choose to do, women must have equal opportunity, equal pay, and a safe workplace, free of fear, harassment or assault. We don't have to like every woman's choices. But they have to be treated as fully human and equal citizens.

It doesn't matter how we feel about a person who is the target of bigotry. The bigotry is still wrong.

In that spirit, I blogged about the sexism targeted at Hillary Clinton, who I never would have voted for. In that same spirit, take a look at this, from the excellent ThinkProgress.

Donny Deutsch, host of CNBC's Big Idea, praised Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as the "new creation" of the "feminist ideal" yesterday on CNBC's Squawk on the Street. "Women want to be her, men want to mate with her. It's as simple as that," he said, adding that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) failed because "she didn't put a skirt on!":

DEUTSCH: There is the new creation that the feminist woman has not figured out in 40 years of the feminist ideal that men can take in a woman in power and women can celebrate a woman in power. Hillary Clinton didn't figure it out. She didn't put a skirt on! […]

She [Palin] talked about energy. Didn't matter! Today everybody's running in circles — we want to have her over for dinner. I trust her. I want her watching my kids. I want her laying next to me in bed. That's the way people vote.

I'll pause here for you to finish vomiting.

Done yet? A little more mouthwash, perhaps?

One more note about this disgusting woman who the disgusting mainstream media forces us to defend. There is no such thing as an anti-abortion-rights feminist.

You can be feminist and feel that you must not terminate your own pregnancy, wanted or not. I've known many women with those beliefs.

But you cannot be feminist and believe that the government, a religious institution, or anyone other than the woman herself should have the final say - or any say! - over what any woman does with her body.

A creature can't be a polar bear and a duck. And you cannot be a feminist and support anti-choice laws. You cannot be a feminist and want to outlaw contraception. These fucking Uncle Tom women should get themselves a new name.

Good story from a few years ago (Lynn Harris again!) about the group I'm not naming.

free screening of breaking ranks in toronto

Join the War Resister Support Campaign for a free screening of "Breaking Ranks", a documentary about US Iraq War Resisters in Canada, produced and directed by Michelle Mason.

War Resister Jeremy Hinzman will speak. Jeremy and his spouse, Nga Nguyen, and their two children, Liam (6) and Meghan (6 weeks) are currently under orders to leave Canada by September 23. Jeremy and his family face severe punishment if they return to the US.

WHEN: Wednesday, September 10, 7:00 PM

WHERE: Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, near Dundas and Bloor (directions here).

This event is jointly sponsored by Peggy Nash, MP for Parkdale, and the War Resisters Support Campaign.

howard zinn at tiff tonight

Movie fans lucky enough to be attending the Toronto International Film Festival tonight have an opportunity to see someone more important than any film being shown there.

Radical historian Howard Zinn will attend the opening of "The People Speak".

Howard Zinn taught us to look at history with fresh eyes. His landmark book A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, has sold one and a half million copies around the world and inspired innumerable fresh approaches to reflecting on the past.

Now comes a unique documentary collaboration between Zinn and others. They have enlisted an extraordinary lineup of actors, including Viggo Mortensen, Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei and Kerry Washington, who contribute live stage performances of historical testimonies. The actors portray labour leaders, civil rights demonstrators and other activists, whose stories are drawn from Voices of a People's History of the United States, an anthology edited by Zinn and Anthony Arnove that was published in 2004.

In their introduction to the book, they wrote, "Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due, it has been because 'unimportant' people spoke up, organized, protested and brought democracy alive."

Zinn and Arnove are bringing this work to film with the support of Matt Damon and Chris Moore, who previously collaborated as producers on the television series Project Greenlight, and whose formidable powers as producers enabled them to greenlight such a unique project.

In this special Mavericks presentation, the audience will be treated to a sneak preview of clips from the documentary The People Speak, along with a discussion on stage between Zinn, Damon, Moore and actor Josh Brolin (who performs in the project) about the process and their motivations. This continues a Mavericks tradition of giving Festival audiences a sneak peak at works-in-progress. In 2006, Michael Moore tried out early clips of Sicko, and in 2007, Larry Charles and Bill Maher showed samples of Religulous, which premieres at this year's Festival.

The People Speak combines archival footage with new performances, the actors embodying voices full of courage and passion. For anyone who found school-book history dull, this version is an invigorating change.

If you haven't read A People's History of the United States, I hope you will. It's history told from the point of view of Native Americans, slaves, workers, women, war resisters, gay people - everyone who has struggled for freedom and equality, and whose struggles have advanced democracy. It's also a history of people's movements, and a primer on how people, united, can - and do - change the world.

I often recommend reading this book a bit at a time. Read a chapter, put it down, read other things, live your life, go back and read another chapter, put it down, and so on. The beginning chapters are very heavy. Painful. But it's tremendous. It's also an indispensable reference work; Allan and I both take it off the shelf periodically when we need facts and evidence.

I also highly recommend Zinn's memoir, You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train. I feel a personal indebtedness to Mr. Zinn from this book, which I shared with him. After the 2004 US "election", I fell into a real funk. Although we had already gotten the thumbs-up from the CIC, and we knew we were leaving no matter what the outcome of that farce, it still depressed me. Another stolen election. Fascism staring us in the face.

Luckily I was already reading Zinn's memoirs. He reminded me of what is most important - not who is in power, but how we challenge that power. The book brought me back to myself. I posted about it here, here, here and here.

I look forward to being similarly inspired by this film.

Howard Zinn's wife and life partner, the artist Rosyln Zinn, died in May. They were married 64 years. My condolences to Mr. Zinn and his children. I know that while Ms Zinn was ill, Zinn wasn't traveling or speaking. I'm glad to know he's back.

possible future sea kayaking adventure

Some ten years ago, maybe more, I heard about Wilderness Inquiry, in connection with a story I was writing. They're an outdoor-adventure organization for people of all abilities.

Wilderness Inquiry (WI) is an organization dedicated to sharing the outdoors with others. As you will see by exploring our website, we provide all kinds of outdoor adventures for a wide variety of people. We offer canoe, kayak, hiking, horsepack, dogsled and raft trips throughout North America and the world. Each year we conduct over 250 events serving more than 9,000 people.

Our trips are designed for everyone from novices to seasoned outdoor veterans. Over the years, we have found that attitude is far more important than experience or ability. By their very nature, WI experiences have a way of fostering positive
attitudes. . . .

Our passion is making high-quality outdoor experiences accessible for everyone, including those who do not typically get out and enjoy the wilderness. In addition to trips, we have a variety of programs and activities that help fulfill our mission. We do training for other organizations and provide outdoor skills workshops at community events. We also raise money to provide scholarships to make our programs financially accessible to everyone.

Wilderness Inquiry organizes group trips into beautiful natural areas, providing all the expertise and equipment, but teaching participants wilderness skills. There are many organizations that do similar work, including several that specialize in adaptive needs of people with disabilities. But Wilderness Inquiry is one of the few organization that sponsors integrated trips, for able-bodied people and people with disabilities, and everyone in between. They're a nonprofit organization, so their prices are very reasonable. And they specialize in running trips for people with no previous experience.

When I first heard of them, I was very intrigued. But our lives were different then. It didn't happen. Life moved on, we moved to Canada, I forgot about it.

This summer, we went sea kayaking for the first time in Gros Morne National Park, in Newfoundland, and I loved it. Allan enjoyed it, but maybe not as much as I did. I thought if we had the opportunity to do more of this in the future, I would.

When we returned, I started writing and editing the sports and recreation chapter of the new edition of Spinal Network. And I rediscovered Wilderness Inquiry.

Check out their website. If you love to travel and love natural beauty, the list of places they go will have you drooling: sea kayaking in the Bahamas, trekking through New Zealand's South Island, hiking, rafting and horse-riding in Argentina and Chile, and hiking and exploring in Costa Rica are a sample. Closer to home, there are trips all over North America, from the Yukon to the Everglades, from BC to Maine.

The only potential drawback, for us, is the group setting. It could be great: a chance to meet interesting people and share an adventure. And I think people who would choose this type of trip might be more in sync with us than the group-travel herd mentality that we take such pains to avoid. But Allan and I both have misanthropic tendencies, and there's no doubt that even a group wilderness trip has potential for trouble.

However, if we ever want to take an extended sea kayaking trip, a group is the only way. We have very little outdoorsy experience between us, and what we do have is from our childhoods. We're not going to buy equipment and figure the whole thing out ourselves. If we're going, it's with a group like this, or not at all.

So where would we go?

It's not the time for a far-flung adventure, as much as I'd love to go to Patagonia or New Zealand. And a two-week group trip is pretty much out of the question anyway.

I've long wanted to see the Boundary Waters Canoe Area; in fact, this was where I originally wanted to go dogsledding. I would love to see this wild country, especially in winter, and Wilderness Inquiry has several BWAC trips.

But now, with an eye to actually going - as opposed to dreaming about it - I think a five- or seven-day trip might be too ambitious, considering we've never done anything like this before. It's also probably too expensive for us right now (unless my work situation changes).

I'd love to do one of their Canadian trips - there are several great-sounding trips in Ontario - but they're all five or seven days.

Then I saw this: a three-day sea kayaking trip to the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. Three days seems more reasonable for total newbies. Plus we could drive to the meeting point, which would considerably lower the cost.

It seems to choose itself. There's even one on my birthday. We just might do it!

war resister seeks refuge from being forced to torture

This Toronto Star story is about one of our Toronto resisters. He's a great guy, contributing mightily to the Campaign and to Canada.

He was originally here with his son, a lovely young man, but his son went home to live with his mother and sister. I really feel for Peter, so far away from his family. I hope the resisters and campaigners can provide a surrogate family for him.

Peter Jemley is unique among the growing ranks of war resisters who have sought refuge in Canada.

For one thing, he's old by military standards. The only reason the army considered the 38-year-old recruit three years ago was because the age cap had been raised to fill the U.S. military's growing void.

The Tacoma, Wash., father of two young children also bucks the soldier stereotype. Jemley is a college history major, both quiet and fervently independent. If describing a bad situation he's likely to say it "sucked," then apologize for his profanity.

Now Jemley's reasons for deserting set him apart too, and make his case a historic first.

He wants Canada to accept him as a refugee because he's opposed to torture.

Jemley argues that as one of only a small number of Arabic linguists with top security clearance, he could be forced to violate international law by participating in the interrogations of terrorism suspects. It was something he hadn't considered when he enlisted in 2005 and was handpicked to undergo two years of intense training due to his adeptness with languages.

Only last February did he discover that his government had sanctioned new rules on how terrorism suspects could be interrogated. He believes it's torture and when he realized he might be asked to be a part of it, he fled.

"It's a soldier's obligation to say `no' if their commander is doing things that are criminally complicit," Jemley, now 42, said in a recent interview in Toronto. "I think everyone is agreeing now that torture is really what has been going on ... I have every reason to believe that from my small pool that I belong to, with my credentials, that I'd be ordered to do such things."

`Torture' has become a much-debated word with profound legal implications since the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. administration's decision to re-write the laws of war.

Detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the undisclosed CIA prisons around the world have claimed widespread abuse. The CIA has admitted to using `coercive techniques' during interrogations, such as waterboarding, a process whereby agents simulate drownings.

Much of the legal community considers this treatment torture and point to international laws such as the Geneva Conventions, which were established after WWII to impose legal restrictions on the barbarity of war.

Canada so far has largely been able to sidestep the debate about torture and the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies. Other cases of deserters in Canada have focused on the larger question of the legality of the Iraq war. About a dozen cases are working their way through the refugee board and courts with varying legal arguments and one deserter has already been deported back to face a court martial.

The issue of Guantanamo's legality arose earlier this year in the Supreme Court case concerning Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. The high court justices ruled that Canadian agents had acted illegally by interrogating the Toronto teenager in 2003 and 2004. But the high court relied on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that deemed Guantanamo illegal, rather than debating issues of torture and indefinite detention specifically.

Jemley's case is the first to deal with the issue directly. The CIA has admitted it uses acts such as waterboarding. There's evidence that Guantanamo detainees were subjected to programs such as sleep deprivation, intimidation with dogs and sexual humiliation. If these tactics are torture, thereby violating international law, Jemley argues he could be prosecuted for war crimes if he participates.

Canada must decide whether the U.S. administration has sanctioned torture in deciding his case, his lawyer says.

"There are specific rules for soldiers and the basic idea is nobody should participate in torture, ever," said Jemley's lawyer Jeffrey House. "Nobody should associate themselves with torture or violations of the Geneva Conventions because if we start to wink at violations of the Geneva Conventions they're no longer law, they're just guidelines."

Calls to Jemley's commander at the 341st Military Intelligence Battalion at Camp Murray, Tacoma, were not returned this week. But a letter of "unexcused absence" emailed to Jemley from Maj. Brian Bodenman outlined what penalties he could face if he failed to show up to training by yesterday's deadline.

Punishment includes a court martial with possibility of jail time or a discharge and transfer to "inactive ready reserve." The latter means Jemley could still be called to duty for a period of five years.

"To me it's like being an indentured servant. You can't leave, and you can't give your skills back," Jemley said.

Since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003, there is no accurate account of how many deserters have fled to Canada – best guess is a couple hundred, with many remaining underground having not filed a refugee claim.

Comparisons are often made to the Vietnam War when thousands came to Canada. But during Vietnam there was a draft, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has little sympathy for today's deserters.

Jemley's decision to join the army was not one he took lightly, nor one borne of patriotic duty. "It wasn't a political decision. I didn't really like the Bush administration any more then, than I do now, but Iraqis are people too and I'm not afraid of doing difficult things. So I thought I could help," Jemley said.

After scoring extremely high on the army's Defense Language Aptitude Battery test he was asked if he'd become a linguist and was sent to the Army's language school in Monterey, Calif., for two years. Upon graduation, he spent a brief stint at the secretive National Security Agency, the U.S. government's electronic eavesdropping agency, and then sought independent contracts where he could work until his unit was deployed.

In February, he signed a lucrative contract with Washington's Office of Military Commissions, the legal arm of the Guantanamo trials that is prosecuting a couple dozen detainees, including Khadr. It was when Jemley started doing his own research into the Guantanamo cases that he came up with media reports about the waterboarding of suspects. When he was asked to sign an addendum to his OMC contract, which added that he must be available to be on-call for "other language related assignments," he refused and was fired.

A second contract offered him work in unspecified locations with "the agency" based in northern Virginia. No one would confirm it was the CIA and when he couldn't get answers about what he'd be doing he turned down the job.

By then he knew he was trapped. These were positions he could refuse, but if he was ordered to duty he couldn't say no.

"I did everything I was supposed to. I'm not afraid to be deployed. I'm not afraid to die," Jemley said.

"(But) I'm ashamed about what's going on."

His wife Sarah and children aged 8 and 3 have remained in Tacoma until Sarah can finish her master's nursing degree. They hate the separation but Jemley says he's confident in his decision.

"I know it sounds glib but I mean it. If one less person gets tortured then it'll all be worth it."

rnc exploits fake troops, real veterans get thrown out of home

From CBS News, emphasis added:

It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.

On Tuesday night, 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone, a sophomore at the St. Agnes School in St. Paul, led the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience heard her 434-word essay, "Pledging myself to the Flag of the United States of America," an essay she'd entered in the "Wave the Stars & Stripes" essay contest and won. The RNC turned that essay into a three and a half minute video, a visually stirring montage rolling over Victoria's words about sharing the Pledge with Americans who have stood at important moments in history.

There's the Continental Congress...A real WWII vet...Photos of workers at Ground Zero. A close-up of a folded flag presented to a grieving widow at a military funeral...profiles of soldiers swelling with pride in slo-motion.

But CBS News found that the footage of the 'funeral' and soldiers is what is called 'stock' footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.

The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee.

One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, Ill. also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.

And from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Eighty-one veterans, all with health problems, have been told they must find another place to live by Nov. 30 because budget cuts are forcing the state to close the Milledgeville domiciliary unit at the Georgia War Veterans Home.

The Georgia Department of Veterans Affairs has proposed saving $2.7 million out of its budget by closing the domiciliary, which resembles an old college dorm with communal dining room near the lobby.

Assistant Commissioner Len Glass said about half the displaced veterans will go either to the state veterans hospital units that provide full nursing care or to the federal Veteran's Administration's domiciliary in Dublin. He said the agency was helping the rest of the veterans find new homes — maybe with relatives or friends.

And in Canada: a poll shows public support for the war in Afghanistan is at the lowest point ever.

Another three Canadians killed this week.

Bring them home now.

now it gets difficult: beijing paralympics begin today

The 2008 Paralympics begin today.

It wasn't at all difficult for me to boycott the Olympics. I was so disgusted by Beijing, the IOC and everything surrounding the Games, that I had no desire to watch anything.

The Paralympics - the Olympics for athletes with disabilities - are different. I love these games. I know dozens of former and current Paralympic athletes, and I've been involved with disability sports, through my writing, for more than 20 years. I've also just spent a good chunk of my summer talking to North American athletes who are competing in Beijing. I can't help but feel hopeful for them, and eager to see their results.

But I won't.

Well, I will need to look up some results to slug into stories, but I won't do any more than is necessary.

Rather than try to explain why I love the Paralympics so much, I'll reference an old story of mine. I wrote it for Sportsjones.com, which was a terrific, in-depth online magazine about sports and society. Naturally it was bought out by a huge commercial sports publisher, then immediately killed. This is what happens to interesting writing ventures that need commercial funding. You can see the front page of Sportsjone's final edition to see the kinds of stories they ran.

When the Paralympics were in Atlanta in 1996, I wrote about them extensively. Leading up to Atlanta, I wrote a series of stories for New Mobility magazine, then covered the Games themselves, a crazy, exhausting and wildly enjoyable week, and a highlight of my writing career. I also sold a fair amount of Paralympic-related stories to more mainstream newspapers and magazines. It was a sizeable leap in my resume.

Four years later, for the Sydney Paralympics, I did some preview stories, but by that time I had tired of writing the kinds of stories that most mainstream venues want. I can write the overcoming-obstacles, doesn't-let-disability-stop-him story in my sleep. Every Paralympic athlete has overcome tremendous obstacles. It comes with the territory. On its own, as writing material, it's just not that interesting to me anymore.

So in 2000, the only Paralympic stories I wanted to write were ones that no one wanted to publish - until I found Sportsjones. Allan wrote for them, too, which was fun.

Here's the Sportsjones story (in pdf). It's long, but not as long as the page numbers would indicate; many pages have only a line or two of copy.

In response to this story, I received the best blurb of my entire writing career thus far (scroll down to "more information").

The blurb writer is the indomitable Russ Kick, who edits the "Disinformation" series: You Are Being Lied To, Everything You Know Is Wrong and Abuse Your Illusions, among other books. Shameless self-promotion, yes, but praise like this is very rare in a writer's life!

I also received some very negative feedback from families involved in the Special Olympics, who didn't care for my characterization of that event. That was interesting, too.

If you do read the Sportsjones pdf, there is good news. By 2004, the USOC was shamed into doing the right thing. Funding has been restored, and vertical integration is standard now, in both the US and Canada.

I wish my friends in Beijing a lot of luck. I hope it's a great experience for them. I'm sorry I won't be watching.

download for peace

Here's something fun and easy you can do to help support military resistance to the occupation of Iraq. Many, many thanks to Campaigner (and friend of wmtc) David Heap for making this possible.

"I'm Putting Down My Gun Now" is a song written by Lionel Lodge, a London, Ontario-based musician, after he heard personal stories of war resisters. Lodge recorded the song with some other London musicians, using donated studio time and volunteer technicians. He is generously donating the proceeds from sales to the London War Resisters Support Group.

You can hear a sample here.

Each download costs only $0.99, and net proceeds after distribution go to support the great work done by the London chapter of the War Resister Support Campaign.

keep canada canada, part 2: thank you, tommy douglas

"The personal is political."

That feminist axiom sums up the overall theme of this blog, and of all the activism I've ever participated in. Abortion, sexual assault, violence against women, war resisters: these are all events in people's personal lives that must also be seen in a larger social context. In our political work, we should never forget the personal, human side. And when we comfort and help people, we should always keep the political context in view.

Perhaps nowhere is "the personal is political" more obvious than in the realm of health care. When we suffer through an accident or an illness, it can't get more personal. Our bodies, the stuff we're made of, the shells that hold our selves, are hurting or in danger. Pain is frightening. It's debilitating. It hurts.

When we have health problems, our entire world changes. It changes us mentally, emotionally and socially; it changes family dynamics. No matter how well we cope, we are still forced to cope. Even if we deny and avoid health issues, we're still expending energy denying and avoiding, and eventually, inevitably, the body will win.

But what about financially? What if we simply can't afford to get sick?

What happens to people who can't afford health care? What happens to a society that allows people to go without health care? We know the answers. Lack of access to affordable health care one of the principal reasons the United States is falling apart.

* * * *

As you may know, we recently had a frightening bout with illness. Allan was in extreme pain, and we had no idea what was going on.

It turned out to be a kidney stone. I was relieved it was nothing life-threatening. He was relieved when his pain was treated! But the attack itself was enough to deal with. We didn't have to worry about how we would pay for it, or fight a bureaucracy to get treatment.

Here's a recap and update.

1. Emergency department treatment, pain management, plan for follow-up, prescriptions and instructions. (Waiting time: zero.)

2. Appointment with specialist. (Waiting time: five days, including a Sunday and holiday.)

3. Consultation with urologist, including on-the-spot x-rays. He thinks the stone has passed!

For those who like more information: The emergency-department CT scan showed the stone in the bladder. The severe pain was probably the stone entering the bladder. The doctor said that is the narrowest point; if the stone makes it into the bladder, it can make it into the urethra and out of the body with no problem. Good news!

4. Urologist orders some follow-up blood work and pee samples, to make sure all is well, and to make sure the stone was not a sign of underlying issues. Recommends follow-up with family doctor.

5. Out-of-pocket cost to us: $0. We have already paid for this with our taxes.

Thank you, Tommy Douglas! Thank you, Canada.

* * * *

Some months back, I noted to Allan that no matter how long he sleeps, no matter how late he wakes up, he always has a lot of trouble waking up, and always seems exhausted. We started talking about how tired he is, nearly all the time.

Allan has clinical depression and takes anti-depressants, and I was concerned this might be a return of symptoms. But he said it felt different than that.

My blog-friend M. Yass, in a different context, mentioned he had sleep apnea. I wondered if Allan might have it, too.

M. Yass wrote me a detailed email about his diagnosis, and how his life changed after getting help. It really resonated with Allan. I recalled how reading a personal essay about depression helped us recognize Allan's own depression, and began a life-changing process. Maybe this would be a similar process.

So:

1. Appointment with family doctor. (Waiting time: maybe a week, trying to schedule a convenient appointment.) Allan tells her he is always tired. She does a physical, orders blood work to rule out other possibilities, and suggests a sleep study.

2. Blood work normal, Allan does overnight sleep study. (Waiting time: a few weeks, with earlier appointments being offered, but declined for scheduling convenience.)

3. Another appointment with family doctor. (Waiting time: until test results were in.) Diagnosis: obstructive sleep apnea. Treatment: C-PAP machine used overnight to increase oxygen flow to brain. This seems like a really good thing to me - non-invasive, no medication with potential side effects.

While this is happening, of course we discover that many of our friends have sleep apnea and use C-PAP machines. Most of them attest to excellent results. Allan has also gotten some good information through sleep apnea forums online.

4. Appointment with specialist from sleep clinic, who explains the options. (Waiting time: negligible.)

5. Second overnight appointment, to test one type of machine and to determine the proper level he needs. Depending on the results, this may be repeated.

Cost to us so far: $0.

Our provincial health insurance will cover a certain amount of the purchase of the machine. Depending on the price, that may be about two-thirds. Since we are fortunate to have supplemental health insurance through Allan's job, that will pay the remainder. If we didn't have that, it would cost a few hundred dollars.

This amazes us. It thrills us.

We pay our taxes. We receive health care. We pay our taxes, others receive health care. And we receive the same health care as people who earn much more than us and people who don't earn as much.

Last summer, I was unemployed for the first time in my adult life. I still received health care.

If you freelance (as I do) or own your own business or work part-time (as I also do) or work without benefits, you still have health care.

Thank you, Tommy Douglas! Thank you, Canada.

* * * *

I realize that not every Canadian has had as positive experiences with their provincial health insurance as we have. People are waiting for hip replacements and MRIs, they can't find a family doctor, they want treatments that Health Canada considers experimental and won't fund. (I must note that if you do not have a family doctor, you can use walk-in clinics, which are easy to find, and free. Not as good as a family doctor, but you do have access to care.)

It is certainly not a perfect system. I can't imagine that such a thing exists.

But it's a very good system. It's sane, rational. It's egalitarian and accessible. It's responsive. It focuses on prevention. It focuses on patients. It costs less than health care in the United States because it runs without financial profit. The only profit is fostering health, because healthy people strengthen our society.

Canadians are always discussing and debating how to improve the health care system. And no matter how much the Fraser Institute tries to convince us otherwise, any politician who talks about dismantling the public health system is committing political suicide.

I'm not writing this because I fear Stephen Harper's Conservatives will destroy public health care. But the system is a very good one. We need more of it. More funding, more programs to attract doctors, more access, more upgrades. The system needs more public funds, and it needs protection from people who believe otherwise.

rick salutin: canadians care about arts and culture, will hold harper accountable

Unlike Russell Smith, columnist Rick Salutin believes Canadians care about the arts. I hope he's right.

Personally, I think Stephen Harper is calling an election now to get out from under the arts funding cloud - all the protests against his harsh cuts added onto leftover charges about trying to censor films. The issue has legs. It won't go away as he likely thought it would - after some predictable mewling by artsy types alongside some gruff appreciation from the good ol' boys. I imagine he can't understand why. I'd say it's because something has basically changed about the role of art and culture in this society. Lissen up, Stephen:

We have a long tradition of artists and cultural elites groaning about the philistine stinginess of governments. It goes back to the 1951 Massey report on the arts. There was a lingering whiff of it in yesterday's Globe and Mail. Russell Smith: "It's official. Canada does not care about the arts." Noah Richler: "We are on the brink of a dangerous, philistine age." But artists and politicians, like generals, always fight the last culture wars. This one is different.

Culture used to be a baaad word. Goebbels said it made him reach for his revolver. CBC producer Mark Starowicz joked that he felt the same, as he ghettoized culture in news shows the way the old Communist Party dumped artists into "the cultural part of the evening." This changed, IMHO, around the time that pop group Culture Club had a No. 1 hit in 1983. Since then, there has been a culturization, or artsification, of our entire society.

Artist isn't an effete term now. Any drummer or cosmetician is an artist. Rich business people hang around film festivals and wish they were producers. Working-class kids who once wanted to get into the factory aim to be gofers on movie sets. This isn't just so in places such as Newfoundland or Quebec, where culture was always a survival strategy in a hostile surround. It's true in the Scarborough basements where Mike Myers could have made his Wayne's World TV show. Everyone does art and imbibes culture. Look at the reams of art and culture in this paper. It used to be a single page known as the pansy patch.

By the usual serendipity, I received a piece yesterday that helps explain this upheaval. Blogger/author Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody suggests that economic, medical and other changes after the Second World War "forced onto an enormous number of ... citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before - free time." He calls this a "cognitive surplus" that people dealt with variously: largely by watching television but, more recently, by creating their own cultural products (art) or sharing images and ideas with others (the Internet). This multiform explosion of art and culture is to no one's credit or fault - it just happened. But it isn't going away, no more than the changes in women's roles "forced" in the 1970s by new contraceptive methods and alterations in the workplace.

Clay Shirky is enthusiastic about the transition. I'm neutral myself. I don't know if cultural proliferation is a good or a bad thing, although it was the dream of arts advocates like the Massey commission. They thought art would elevate the brutish masses and enable a humane society. Now that art and culture are more or less pervasive, as they hoped, it's hard to assess the results. A redolent mixture, at best. Think of the Toronto Film Festival.

But the point for Stephen Harper is that a shift has occurred. Culture and art won't revert to frill status. And when people's lives and livings are involved, they expect their public institutions and leaders to help out, just as they help out agriculture and the auto industry. The PM can say that he knows all this, or that he's pumped lots of money into culture and is just trying to save some where it's wasteful. But if he doesn't really mean it and is dragging his heels, the citizens will smell it.

safemeat.ca

This is making the rounds: SafeMeat.ca. Click and enjoy.

keep canada canada, part 1: arts funding

One of my favourite columnists, Russell Smith, asks if arts and culture matter to Canadians. He thinks the answer is a sad one.

Nothing like the back-to-school blues: September begins with news from everywhere that the arts are simply not important in this country. CBC Television has decided it's easier to show American game shows than make our own entertainment. Light and cheery pop music blares from the national, publicly funded radio network, where orchestras and chamber groups used to be. And, oh, by the way, the government - faced with several reports in this newspaper - publicly acknowledges plans to cut millions of dollars from programs that promote our artists, writers and intellectuals overseas, that promote Canada itself as an intellectual powerhouse and as a tourist destination, and this just before an election. It's official: Canada does not care about the arts.

How is it possible that this idiotic and ruinous gesture will not become an election issue? It won't, of course. It never does. The arts are not important to the average Canadian. The response I have read to the arts and new-media cuts in online forums has been overwhelmingly positive: Let the arts pay for themselves, say the majority (of the kind of person who argues with strangers in online forums); if a piece of art is good, people will pay for it, and so private investors can be found to create it. Leftist or shocking art should not receive public funding anyway. Furthermore, the artists who were travelling to foreign capitals to participate in conferences, group shows and readings were rich and spoiled. Business is business; sink or swim.

Most people are simply unaware of the importance of culture in diplomacy and for international reputation - unaware that it might perhaps be a problem if Canada is simply not on the radar of powerful people in Berlin and Tokyo and Dubai, and that culture is a powerful symbol of a nation's identity.

These things are difficult to explain and even harder to measure. And so, cruelly, Stephen Harper's poll numbers rise just as he and his crew have inflicted great damage on Canada's international reputation and general level of intellectual sophistication. Politically, it has been a wise move. Here is the frustrating paradox facing the cultural community in its impotent rage: The more protests we mount, the more we bring attention to this popular stance. The Conservatives love divisive issues. They love issues that appeal to the least-educated voter. Polarization is not a good thing for marginal groups.

Should the cuts to the creation and promotion of Canadian intellectual culture be an election issue at all? Certainly the media don't think so. A recent poll, sponsored by The Globe and Mail and CTV and whose results were published in The Globe on Tuesday, asked respondents to choose the most important election issue for them. They could choose from a long list of issues, actually quite a nuanced list: It distinguished between "economic" concerns, "taxes," and "government spending"; it offered national unity, "social and moral" policies and gas prices as issues. There was a lot to choose from.

But no mention of art or culture. That's strange, after so many articles and editorials about the importance of the arts cuts. So it was impossible for any respondents to choose it as an issue, and therefore impossible for it to be mentioned in any subsequent media discussion of the poll results. That makes it not an issue. Clever.

One wonders if pollsters and political reporters by and large share the same baffled incomprehension of this issue as those sink-or-swim rednecks on the discussion boards. It's a minority issue, something that is not going to win or lose an election, so forget it. And really, if we lose a few dozen trips abroad by Canadian academics and literary agents and film producers and other people in strange spectacles, does it make any difference, when we've got a war going on?

It's exhausting to have to have this argument year after year, from its very bottom up, the argument about why extremely wealthy nations should pay for the development and promotion of non-commercial art. It's exhausting to have to explain to intelligent people - people who love travelling to Paris for the museums, Berlin for the architecture - the value of advanced intellectual inquiry that may not appeal to large numbers of people but which may well last for centuries. To have to explain that funding for arts must be administered at arm's length from the political arena, so that a critical or provocative stance will not disqualify an artist from receiving support from the administration of the day. To have to explain once again that in fact much of the great art of the past was considered shocking or intolerable to community standards of the day. To have to show them the statistics for government arts funding from other Group of Eight nations.

To have to explain patiently and calmly, as if to restless children, that we fund scientists and philosophers whose work also has no tangible practical application, and which also may not be understood by you and me, and that this is how society advances. To have to explain, over and over again, that the money required to promote our great artistic accomplishments overseas is a small fraction of the tens of millions spent in subsidizing unprofitable industries. To have to explain that there is indeed an economic reward for a country that is considered, in the universities and ministries of London and Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, to be an intellectual powerhouse with a fascinating culture.

It is exhausting to continue to explain all this because no one is listening. No one, that is, in the current government.

It is now up to the media to at least recognize that this is and should be an election issue.

I came of political age during the Reagan era. I was beginning a career in arts management, mostly because the arts were hugely important to me and it was a way I thought I could be involved and earn a living at the same time. Reagan destroyed the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and his ignorant public cheered.

Last year during our annual (US) Thanksgiving trip to New Jersey, we showed the film "Breaking Ranks" for some of our family. It's a National Film Board film.

When one of our nephews saw the Canada wordmark in the credits, he was confused, knowing that the current Government does not support war resisters. He asked, "Was this a government film? The government put it out?"

I explained about arts funding, the tax credit, and such. It took two or three rounds of explanation: he was incredulous. He said, "Funding for the arts? Universal health care? What are your taxes like?" I answered, truthfully, "The same as they were in New York." I saw a light bulb go off in his head. He said, "I guess that's what happens when you don't have a giant military industrial complex."

As I'm writing this, and thinking about my next few posts, I realize that they are all linked, politically. I'll call it: keep Canada Canada.

ezra klein: daughters of governors and daughters of store clerks

I was resolute in my determination not to post about Sarah Palin, Republican hypocrisy, phony feminists and whatever else is going on you-know-where. And I still am. With this exception! Ezra Klein:

Folks are up in arms over the McCain/Palin campaign's decision to emphasize the fact that "Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby." Given that a prime plank of McCain/Palin platform is the elimination of a woman's freedom to make that decision, that looks a bit hypocritical. Only, in an operational sense, it's not. Because what pro-lifers are really talking about doing isn't outlawing abortion for the daughters of governors but for the daughters of store clerks. No matter how restrictive the legal environment, Bristol Palin will always be able to access an abortion. The daughter of a cashier won't. Whenever you hear talk of legislating values, whether it's prohibition or pregnancy, you can almost always append "for the poor" to the backside of the sentence. That's how a lot of these Republican politicians and elites who prosper in the current environment make their peace with the social conservative coalition: They know they'll never really lose what they have. Bristol Palin will always have a choice, and so will Meghan McCain.

This is it. All of it. And right now, today, with Roe still standing, low-income women all over the US do not have a choice. Their rights exist on paper only. Rights without access is meaningless.

See original for links and comments, and thanks to James for sending.

Warning: if this post somehow opens up a discussion about McCain, Palin, their campaign or the RNC, it's coming down. Don't do it, folks!

two questions for peace-loving wmtc readers

1. Do you support war resisters?

2. Do you live near Bracebridge, Ontario?

If you answered "yes" to both these questions, here's a third. What are you doing this Saturday, September 6?

If you live near beautiful Bracebridge, Ontario, you can join members of the War Resisters Support Campaign for some tabling, petitioning and awareness-raising.

Bracebridge happens to be located in the federal riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka, currently held by Tony Clement, the Minster of Health.

Mr Clement won the riding in 2006 by the slimmest of margins: 28 votes. If a few more people decide not to vote Conservative this time, Tony Clement could well be defeated.

The Campaign has been making Saturday day trips to Port Dover, Peterborough, Parry Sound, Midland, St. Catharines, and elsewhere around the region. It's fun, and it makes a noticeable impact.

If you're interested in joining the Bracebridge contingent, email or call the Campaign: resisters at sympatico dot ca, 416.598.1222.

good war resister news!

This just in! Two great things happened to war resister Corey Glass today.

One, he got married! Congratulations to Corey and Lindsay. Here's to a long life together in Canada.

And two, the Federal Court has decided to hear Corey's appeal against the rejection of his Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) and his application for Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) consideration. The hearing will take place some time in November.

This Federal Court decision could have a positive effect on other war resisters who have had negative decisions on their PRRA and H&C applications. It could mean that Jeremy Hinzman and his family will also get leave to appeal when they approach the Federal Court in the next few days. And there are other war resisters, such as the Ryan family, who will soon learn the results of their PRRA and H&C applications on October 8. More are in the pipeline, and they too might benefit from this breakthrough in Corey's case.

It seems that the Federal Court is beginning to take note of the errors and misunderstandings that have led to so many unfavourable decisions by the Immigration and Refugee Board and by the CIC on the war resisters. This is great news. Here's to the trend continuing.

It also seems clear that the huge support the war resisters have received from Parliament, from organizations throughout Canada, and from thousands of individual Canadians, and people throughout the world, are helping the courts understand the urgency and importance of the war resisters cause.

This is why you should come out in support of the resisters on September 13.

This is why it is crucial that the war resister issue become part of the upcoming election campaign.

If Harper's Conservatives are returned to power, they will continue their relentless efforts to force war resisters and their families to face punishment in the US.

A vote for Stephen Harper is a vote to kick Jeremy Hinzman and his family out of Canada.

citizenship application update

Red Sox day game yesterday - great comeback win! - so what better use of our free evening than filling our citizenship applications.

It's very basic stuff: date you began living in Canada, date you became Permanent Resident (those are the same dates for us, but not for everyone), addresses for the past 10 years. You need more photos, and it costs $200 per application.

The only potentially tricky part is the number of days you have actually been physically present in Canada.

To be eligible for Canadian citizenship, you must have lived in Canada for at least three years (1,095 days) out of the four years (1,460 days) preceding your application. Please note that you cannot meet the residence requirements for citizenship without a minimum of two (2) years as a permanent resident.

The counter takes in the last four years, so those of you who moved to Canada before becoming Permanent Residents, a full year of that time counts. You also deduct any time spent outside of Canada. Day trips don't count, so we don't deduct time for picking up friends at the Buffalo airport or picking up Tala in western New York State. But our little trips to New York and Vermont, our US Thanksgiving in New Jersey, vacation in Peru, my trip to Southern California - all that gets deducted.

The CIC site has a very useful and user-friendly online calculator, where you can input all your info, and it tells you exactly when you're eligible to apply for citizenship. You can save it online, and you can also print your results to submit it with your application.

After deducting our various trips out of Canada, we determined we can submit our applications on November 1. Only two months away, not bad! Allan is eligible sooner than me, but we'll submit our applications when we're both ready.

So far, so good!

zaccardelli calls for ending the use of tasers

Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli says that Canada's national police force should stop using Tasers.

The CBC story makes it sound like Zaccardelli's main concern is bad publicity and public perception - not the deaths of citizens at the hands of police. Whether he has to take that position to not lose face, or whether it's even an accurate representation, I can't say.

Of course, it's much easier for him to take this position now that he's no longer commissioner.

I'm no fan of Zaccardelli, but anyone who finally stands up for what's right deserves credit.

the creative canine mind

Ever since our first dog, the amazing Gypsy, took over our lives and nearly destroyed my sanity, Allan and I appreciate the necessity of training our dogs and establishing leadership.

Our dogs are generally well-behaved. We work with them on training, and we've also seen them learn from each other. That's a fascinating thing to observe. With our second dog, Clyde, we never did formal training. She picked up everything from Gypsy, and quickly knew everything her big sister knew.

On the other hand, we're not into extended obedience training or any kind of certification. It looks terrific for the folks who do it. It's just not something we've wanted to put time into. We do the training to the extent that's needed for us all to live happily together, and the rest is play.

Lately I've been noticing that my favourite things that our dogs do are the behaviours they've made up themselves. Each of our dogs has done something like that.

Gypsy was very vocal. She talked a lot, and used all different sounds to express different meanings. In one of these, she would play a game. One of us would snuggle up to her, face to face, and emit a quiet mmmmmmmmm. She would reply. We'd do it again, then she'd do it again, each time a little softer and shorter. Eventually it was a barely audible mm. She'd keep going, and she seemed to want to out-do us, making sure she exhaled the tiniest of ms as you were leaving. She had to get the last word.

Clyde was a jumper. She would hit the ground and spring up in the air in the same motion, as if on a trampoline. We found Clyde on the street, so we didn't know her background, and had never had a small dog before. We later decided she was a terrier mix, part Jack Russell, part Smooth-coat Fox Terrier (and undoubtedly part many other things). Jumping is definitely part of their M.O.

We never did anything to curb the jumping, so she would just fly through the air whenever she got excited. I saw her kiss the forehead of a man who was 6'2". Then she'd hit the ground and rise back up again.

I'm not sure if this counts as inventing behaviour, as she was obviously hard-wired to jump. But when I came home, Clyde would catapult herself through the air, on a horizontal line. Her front paws would hit my upper chest - with force. She'd often knock me back into the door. She only did this to me. I hated it. I bruise very easily, and I often had small purple marks where Clyde had greeted me.

Buster was a soldier, and lived to obey. He wanted nothing more out of life than for us to tell him what to do, and for him to do it. His aggression towards other dogs - he would have killed any dog who wasn't Cody - was beyond anyone's control, the permanent scars of torture. And it was partly because the sadists who trained him (and then left him to die) took advantage of his fierce need to obey.

But the one area where Buster was spontaneous was in giving us affection. If I was doing something standing up, he would come over, lie down beside me, and put his head on my feet. He spontaneously would give his paw, hooking it around your arm or ankle, whatever he could reach.

I actually have a photo of this, taken on the last day of his life. Some of you read this blog then, and helped us get through it.

And for happier Buster times.

Tala invents lots of games for herself in the backyard.

I taught to her to fetch a ball so that she would leave Cody alone - a way of exercising her without taxing Cody. But she quickly grew to love fetching her kong ball.

It's always just been throw, chase, retrieve, throw, chase, retrieve. Then one time she caught the ball in mid-air, on the bounce. And ever since then, with no prompting from us, she seems to really want to catch the ball in mid-air.

Now we try to throw it that way, and she's really getting into leaping to catch it. You can see her timing the jump, either speeding up or waiting depending on the throw. I totally love it. This is the kind of thing that, for me, shows a dog's natural intelligence. She made up a game, a challenge for herself. She enjoyed it and decided to keep doing it. We're just coming along for the ride.

Together, Cody and Tala have played tug-of-war with a stick. The other day they found a length of rope, and were playing with that. It reminded me that when we did training with Buster, Cody would pick up the long training leash and drag Buster around the apartment. The leash was attached to his head-collar, and he would just walk obediently behind Cody and she dragged him through the rooms.

True to her quirky personality, Cody's creative behaviour is the oddest. She's dug herself a nest.

You can see how deep it is. She dug it one night last summer. Allan filled it in with soil over the winter, but as soon as the weather warmed up, the ditch reappeared. She doesn't like to dig when it's wet; she prefers the dry, dusty soil.

I often call it Cody's Womb, because she curls up in fetal position. (A bit of fetus humour that not everyone would appreciate.) She likes to hang out and relax in her nest. But she also goes in when she's had enough of playing with Tala. It's Cody's "home base," where Tala is not allowed to bother her. And Tala respects that.

perhaps they should have hired a proofreader

This just in from AW1L.

Our friend Alan With One L knows that Allan and I share his teeth-grinding annoyance and mystified incredulity at the misuse of apostrophes for plurals.

Not that I've never confused its and it's. That's a tough one for many people. And non-native speakers of English, especially if they've been through the US's lousy public education system, are to be congratulated if they grasp the possessive apostrophe.

However, the use of apostrophes for plurals is beyond rampant. It's pandemic. The pen has already been pulled, but I hope it enjoys renewed life on the tubes.

Background here.

toronto labour day parade

Today I joined other members of the War Resister Support Campaign and the Toronto Steelworkers Union for the 2008 Labour Day March. Campaigners handed out hundreds of leaflets about the September 13 event, and we marched to the Ex - the Canadian National Exhibition - in the blazing sun.

I'm told that years ago, people would hang around Parkdale, the Toronto neighbourhood that abuts the Ex, waiting for the Labour Day parade, then slip in to the parade to gain free admission to the fair. To prevent such shocking fraud, parade participants now get a plastic bracelet for admission. But there were plenty of extra bracelets making the rounds with parade watchers. So if you're ever desperate for free admission to the Ex...

Shortly after the parade ended, I took the GO train back to my car. We went to the Ex last year when one of our nieces was visiting, and honestly, that's enough for me. Plus, today is the big military day there. The so-called "air show" that is really a parade of war toys marketed as entertainment. No thanks.

It was fun for me to join a labour parade. I have labour roots, as my father was an organizer, then a representative, of textile workers. My first anti-war activism was through his union. In New York, I was active with the National Writers Union and I miss the UAW membership that brought me. Many Campaigners belong to the Steelworkers, and that union supports the war resisters in many ways.

The leafletting was good; I handed out several hundred myself. One interested woman told me she heard about September 13 from her Greenpeace email list. It's great to see people make connections between these disparate issues. Because what's the occupation of Iraq about, if not precious, dwindling resources? The forces that would destroy Iraq would destroy the planet in their quest to control and profit from the oil. The fewer soldiers who will fight these resource wars - the more people who will say NO to being cannon fodder for their profit - the safer we will all be.

The Greenpeace woman asked a lot of questions about Jeremy and Corey and Robin. She knew about the June 3 motion, and she wanted to know what she can do to help.

Never underestimate the power of word of mouth. Every person you educate is another change in the world. Each one, reach one.