A Universal Health Care Message

I try to stay away from political matters on this blog, and I try to stay away from talking about my job. The first, because politics isn't really my focus, and the second, because it is never wise to talk about work on a public forum, even if you like your job, which I do.

Tonight, however, I get to do both:

See, today my boss forwarded me the latest newsletter from Longwoods Publishing, a Canadian company that "... publishes academic and scientific research, commentary and information related to health sciences and health care."

This week Longwood Publishing has on their website a video entitled "Universal Health Care Message to Americans from Canadian Doctors & Healthcare Experts." It's a good, solid piece that dispels several of the lies put out by the opponents of universal healthcare in the USA, and talks about the benefits of the single-payer system:

Everyone is welcome to register opinions, of course. I will say, however, that if you are going to engage in personal attacks on other commenters or unnecessary rudeness, I will delete your comment without explanation or warning. Differing opinions are welcome, but there is no excuse for being uncivil.

Buy Small Magics

if this is your first visit to my blog, whether or not you came solely as a result of this video being posted here, do me the goodness to nip over and buy Small Magics while you are around.

Think of it as doing your share to stimulate the economy.

Barack Won

Cool.

And the man gives a damn fine speech.



Well, back to real life now. Be interesting to see what happens.

Barack Obama's Infomercial

Wow. He is good, and he has good people working for him. This video is a great peice of work.



America, a lot of us north of your border would very much like to see you vote for Barack Obama.

I hope you do.

Welcome to Gilead

Posting a lot of political stuff this month. Must be all that election in the air.

Anyway, here's an interesting post from truthout on the rise of Sara Palin and the parallels in her character to the aunts in A Handmaid's Tales. Scary stuff.

Welcome to Gilead, Governor Palin

H/T to Suzanne, who is not a blogger but is frightfully well informed.

Defining Liberalism

Chet over at The Vanity Press has a great post defining Liberalism, and given how the conservatives are constantly attacking the concept (more so in the USA than here, where they are too busy attacking the Liberal Party and just work on undermining liberalism without noising about why it's bad) it's good to remember what liberalism is and why it's worthwhile.

Have a read.

It's a good definition. Thanks, Chet.

Politics: SPP and What It Means for Democracy

There are many writers on the web who are far more intelligent than I. One of them is Zapagringo, whose very intelligent look at the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (commonly referred to as SPP) gives a lot of very good reasons why we as citizens should be taking note and fighting very hard against it.

Please read it.

My reason is this:

Any time the Prime Minister engages in making agreements on behalf of the country with another government nation or national leader without consulting Parliament and the people of Canada, that Prime Minister is deliberately flouting the democratic process which forms the basis of Canadian society.

Before a democratic nation chooses to enter into an agreement with another nation, that agreement must be made public to the people, and scrutinized by the people's elected representatives. Anything else is contradictory to the spirit of democracy.

If you haven't already, now is the time to start taking action. Call or email your local MP and demand the government create a clear, transparent process for SPP in Canada, including full Parliamentary and Senate scrutiny of all previously signed agreements, and votes in the House of Commons on all agreements to be signed in the future.

Another great link (Hat tip to Zapagringo):

Integrate This

Easter Sunday Night Post

Happy Easter to any Christians reading this post, and to the rest, happy whatever makes this day good for you.

My daughter returned from her first overnight visit to Mum-Mum's house (her maternal grandmother). Apparently all went well, save that my daughter did not sleep well in the playpen we sent, and as a result, neither did Mum-Mum. Good to have a day or two on our own, good to have her back.

I have finished re-reading the draft of Small Magics and am going to send it through the spellchecker once more before it goes back to my publisher (Dragon Moon Press) for final proofs. The cover art is coming along swimmingly (and you'll notice I've added Laura Diehl's link to my list on the side there). Laura has done a great job, and put up with me which is no easy feat.

And now, because I read this recently, and meant to post it earlier, I'm going to put here an abridged quote on the nature of existence by Leo Rosten. It struck a chord with me when I found it on the Walking with Ghosts blog, so I thought I'd share it:

Credo, Leo Rosten

I BELIEVE that you can understand people better if you look at them as if they are children. For most of us never mature; we simply grow taller.

I have learned that everyone - in some small, secret sanctuary of the self - is mad. If we want to stay sane we must moderate our demands - on ourselves and others.

I have learned that everyone is lonely at bottom, and cries to be understood; but we can never entirely understand someone else, no matter how much we want to; and each of us will forever be part stranger - even to those who love us most.

I have learned that it is the weak who are cruel and that kindness is to be expected only from the strong.

I have had to learn that life - so precious, so variable, so honeycombed with richness and delight - is held cheap in the scheme of impersonal events. When a human life is snuffed out in an instant, without meaning, without reason, without justice, how can one deny that all our lives hang by threads of nothing more than luck? I cannot escape the awareness that in our last bewildered moment just before we die three simple, awful questions cry out from our souls: 'Why me? Why now? Why forever?'

I have come to see that every person is subject to fantasies so obscene, yearnings so mendacious, drives so destructive that even to mention them shakes the gates we have erected against the barbarian within.

I have been driven to believe that no despotism is more terrible than the tyranny of neurosis. No punishment is more pitiless, more harsh and cunning and malevolent, than what we inflict upon ourselves.

Most men feel cheated if happiness eludes them. But where has it been written that life will be easy, our days untroubled by suffering, our nights unfouled by the beasts within our nature? Where, indeed, is it guaranteed that life will be at the very least fair?

People debase 'the pursuit of happiness' into a narcotic pursuit of 'fun'. To me this is demeaning. I would question the sanity of anyone not often torn by despair. Euphoria is the province of lunatics. I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be 'happy'.

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honourable, to be compassionate. It is above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

And while looking up the reference to who Leo Rosten was for those who wish to know, I found this quote from the man which nicely sums up one of the major problems with neo-conservatives, both north and south of the 49th:

Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them.

And now, I am going to bed.

American Politics: Bill Maher says it right.

From Chet at The Vanity Press:

Bill Maher explains the Plame affair so clearly that even a cable TV pundit
might be able to understand it.

Word.

America in Iraq: To What End?

"I see, as in a map, the end of all."
-QUEEN ELIZABETH, from Richard III, II, iv

Rolling Stone Magazine has put together a panel of experts to talk about the war in Iraq.

And if they are right, the outcome is going to be grim.

By the way, the people on this panel are not a group of granola chewing hippy liberals, as the American right likes to portray everyone who opposes their opinion. Rather, they are:

Zbigniew Brzezinski: National security adviser to
President Carter

Richard Clarke: Counterterrorism czar from 1992 to
2003

Nir Rosen: Author of In the Belly of the Green Bird, about
Iraq’s spiral into civil war, speaking from Cairo, where he has been
interviewing Iraqi refugees

Gen. Tony McPeak (retired): Member of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff during the Gulf War

Bob Graham: Former chair, Senate Intelligence
Committee

Chas Freeman: Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf
War; president of the Middle East Policy Council

Paul Pillar: Former lead counterterrorism analyst for the
CIA

Michael Scheuer: Former chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden
unit; author of Imperial Hubris

Juan Cole: Professor of modern Middle East history at the
University of Michigan

Now, given the credentials of these people, what do you think the chances are of the administration listening to them?

Yeah, I think that, too.

H/T to Chet, who got it from Dymaxion World. And the quote that's on his page makes it onto mine, because it sums up the whole mess:

This is a dark chapter in our history. Whatever else happens, our country's
international standing has been frittered away by people who don't have the
foggiest understanding of how the hell the world works. America has been
conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the
proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president.
Now we know the result of that experiment [laughs]. If a guy is stupid, it makes
a big difference.-- Gen. Tony McPeak (retired), Member of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff during the Gulf War