Health Care Reform

A Canadian tells it like it is. . .

John Rawls, in Justice as Fairness says that the fair way to choose the societal structures that will serve you is to do so behind a Veil of Ignorance. Effectively, you make your choices about the society you will live in, its laws, its rules, its social safety net, without knowing who you will be in that society. You don't know if you are male or female, if you are able bodied, or a paraplegic, smart or not, the poorest immigrant, or the most powerful person in the world. You chose on what you would want, based on knowing nothing about your life, knowing that you could need every ounce of that social safety net, or that you could spend your life paying for it, and never need it at all. This is the way, Rawls says, that we get justice as fairness.

And it seems in our world, that we should get fairness this way. Its smart to assume that you could get the worst of the cosmic dice toss, and you could be poor, disabled, not smart, not wealthy. For every opportunity to be healthy, wealthy and wise, there is an equal opportunity that you won't be. That would be the safe assumption. Not everyone in Rawls' society is going to be healthy, wealthy and wise. It's the law of averages. You may all have unlimited opportunity, or at least believe you do, and that's fine, but you won't all succeed.

Can I just say as nicely as possible, that Americans don't always seem to make the safe assumption? It seems like many Americans, rather than assuming they will be the poor sap, assume they will be rich and powerful. I have to confess, I've never met so many people who believe in the awesome power of a boot strap. Especially when all the evidence of the world seems to indicate about 10% of your population succeed by bootstraps, and the other 90% of the population languish in whatever socio-economic strata they were born into.

This is the only way I can understand the American health care system - other than to consign most of your country as selfish, thoughtless hypocrites who have no thought for their fellow man(1). I can only think that you all believe you will fall into the healthy, wealthy and wise category. I think your faith in yourselves is commendable, but perhaps not that sensible. Some of you will be poor, sick and weak, with no health care.

So, to Canadian health care. I won't lie. We don't have the Rolls Royce, the Porsche, the Aston Martin of health care. We have a nice, reliable Toyota. It looks ok, it gets you where you want to go, but it's not fast, and as you drive by, no one looks at it and says "Wow!".

When I got sick with Gabe, I had world class care, as quickly as I needed it. Care that literally saved my life. No complaints. I want to see an RE to try and get pregnant? It's going to take 11 months to get in, and if I need an IUI, that's $1500, including the drugs. An IVF is $9K, including drugs. Our system is not perfect. Not at all.

The reality is this: If you have gold plated health coverage, that can't be cancelled, in the US; you don't want a Canadian system. You get faster treatment, at nicer facilities, with more renowned specialists, than you would in the Canadian system. I get why you might be opposed to change. I really do. But, as near as I can figure, from pretty extensive reading, that's not most of you. That's not even a third of your population. Maybe a quarter.

What about the rest of you?

Could you please explain to me why you are not rioting in the streets about the state of your health care system?

If you have coverage with an insurer and it's costing you $500 a month for your family? I bet your take home wage is the same as mine, with the higher taxes I pay. If your coverage can be cancelled when you lose your job, or can't afford to pay your bills, if you aren't covered for pre-existing conditions, well, your system is screwing you. If you've ever had a HMO tell you that they won't cover you for that doctor, because they are out of network, well, the Canadian system has 1 network, Canada. If you've ever driven past a hospital that was closer to your house, to go to the one in your network, if you've ever had a doctor file an appeal to an insurance company to get the treatment they say you or your family need, would you please explain how your system is better?

Maybe it's just me, why hold out hope for an Aston Martin system that you don't have access to? Why not insist on the Toyota? Maybe it's a Canadian thing, but I'd rather know that I don't get to see an RE at the snap of my fingers, but my neighbour next door, the single mum whose barely making ends meet, gets health care coverage. And in a catastrophe? We both get treatment.

Learn something from us, would you? A reliable Toyota in your driveway is still better than an Aston Martin in some one else's.

***
(1) Except not my readers. You are all nice.

All that is necesary . . . .

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke

I have just finished reading Jay Bybee's memo to John Rizzo. Jay Bybee was the US Assistant Attorney General, John Rizzo the then acting General Counsel of the CIA, way back in 2002.

It was strange reading. Strange because much of my professional life is composed of writing similar pieces, not in the sense of condoning torture, but in the sense of looking at a piece of legislation and teasing out of it what my employer must do. It was easier for me to at least understand that this memo was prepared in a particular milieu. It was one more document that involved reviewing the statutes, gathering information, reasoning a course of action.

Indeed, I read through the descriptions of torture (your office has informed me. . . ), read through the research on torture (It appears you have conducted an extensive inquiry. . .), establishment of the pre-eminent legislation (Section 2340A makes it a criminal offense . . . ), and then interpretation of the legislation.

It is 18 pages of stuff, and I must confess, while the descriptions of the 10 types of torture left me uneasy, so too did the descriptions of the suspects activities. It is foolishness to simply assume that Mr. Zubaydah, the third or forth in control of a-Qaeda, was going to furnish information on terrorist threats when approached with a nice smile and pretty please.

And yet. Much has been written about means and ends, and I'm not going to re-iterate it. Other's far wiser and more eloquent have written about the dangerous ground we stand on when we say that our ends justify our means. There be dragons.

No, perhaps if the pages were filled with unease, it was the last line that left me cold: Please let me know if we can be of further assistance.

Now, I suppose that this is the standard ending of letters. Certainly, I write many a memo, e-mail, letter with the same line. But after reading 18 pages of prose, that stretched the definitions of torture and prolonged mental harm and the phrase due diligence to almost the breaking point, I was left cold.

It was a dirty exercise to research. It was wallowing in filth and depravity to review the legislation and find loop holes. It was torturous wording to find excuses. And all of that was bad enough. It was great human tragedy that this memo was all in a day's work for someone. It was contemptible that the Attorney General became the lap dog of the CIA, and presented no review of perceptions or morality or literature, that they bent the existing legislation to the point of breaking it, all to support the need for torture. It was, and still is, reprehensible that at no point in 18 pages, someone couldn't find a place to put a paragraph suggesting that torture puts the American government in bed with the worst of the world: names that live in infamy, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Genghis Khan. It is an abject moral failure of all of us that this report could even exist.

Further assistance?

I posit: The only thing necessary . . . . .

prostitution

I have been thinking about writing a post about why prostitution is wrong. I have been thinking about the ways I could engage you all in my passion for the subject, in my quest to make a difference for the girls living this life.

And the problem is that I don't quite no where to begin. But maybe it's by saying this:

When I moved into my neighbourhood 4 years ago, I didn't know much about prostitution. I knew it existed. I had a classmate that put herself through University working as a call girl. But street level prostitution, well, I knew it existed, out there somewhere. If you asked me about it, I might have said something like "Well, I don't like it. I don't think it's a good idea, but really, it's between the women who do it, and then men who hire them."

And then I moved to somewhere.

Just the words I have used give me pause now. The women who "do" this, and the men who "hire" them. As easily and casually as if they were hiring someone to clean their house or watch their children. Except, not really.

One of the things that astounded me about the entire subject was to realize that prostitution isn't about sex. Mostly it's about possession and control and power. It is exactly what those John's say it is - it's about buying a woman. That's the term they use "buying a woman".

Now, I know someone will come along, sooner or later and point out that maybe selling sex is a viable economic prospect for these women, and who am I, with my moral puritanical-ness to tell them what they can and cannot do with their bodies.

And I suppose that's why I haven't written a blog about it. Because I know, deep within me that selling sex may be big business, but it's not ever going to empower women to sell their bodies and not their minds. I think we can all agree that men aren't hiring any woman: be she on a street corner, in a massage parlour, in a high priced hotel, or in a yellow pages ad for "escort services"; for her mind. Frankly, if they wanted someone for her mind, they could go and strike up a conversation with a woman. You know, have a relationship.

No, there's a problem with saying that it's ok for women to sell their bodies, but frankly, I'm still not sure how to articulate it, other than to call it a form of slavery.

But really, that's not what strikes me most about prostitution. You see, when someone asks me why prostitution is wrong, I think of the woman I saw, standing on a street corner 2 years ago, on Christmas Day.

She was standing kiddy-corner to my house, at about 8:30 am. It was cold, I think. She was standing there, waiting for a man to pick her up. On Christmas Day. Now, you can tell me that women might consider this to be empowerment, a valid way to make a living, but the truth is, did you work outside on Christmas day? When I was going to open presents and have eggs Benedict, she was standing, looking, waiting for a John.

Did you stand outside, looking for work on Christmas?

And lest you start thinking of this as a terribly Dickensian scene, she was standing there, freezing, stoned out of her mind. Frankly, the girls in my neighbourhood usually are stoned. I hardly wonder why, I'm sure I would have to be too.

Could we all just agree, irregardless of what you think of women's rights, irregardless of your position on empowerment, that she probably, in whatever lucid bit of her was left, she probably didn't want to be there either.

Could we leave the issue of whether she should be there, or wants to be there, or even if this is an economically viable method of supporting yourself aside. Could we say that when you have to be stoned out of your mind to do a job, when your job supports being stoned out of your mind, and when that job has you performing risky work on Christmas Day, that we have an obligation to stand up and help you?

Irregardless of the politics, could we make it about the people - the women? And could we be their voice?

You know You're A . . . When

I should know better. I really should. Everyone tell me, I should know better. When My BIL, whose politics are slightly to the right of, well, everyone I know, posts on his Facebook page, I should just click in the other direction.

Otherwise, I will read a note that says "You Know you are a Liberal When. . . . ." And I will fascinate myself, spending the entire evening thinking of an equally caustic and disdainful equivalent for those to my right.

You know you’re a liberal when:
1. Your first reaction to anything you dislike is, “There ought to be a law against this!”
2. You foam at the mouth over how “hateful” and “intolerant” conservatives are.
3. You think there should be a million laws to protect children…unless they’re unwanted: then they’re “tissue”, not children.
4. You believe in “survival of the fittest” but you want to take the "fit’s" livelihood and give it to those who refuse to contribute to "society’s" survival.
5. You accuse the Bible of teaching hate against gays but ignore that it’s only in countries which have had the Bible that homosexuals are given any rights at all.
6. You enshrine personal freedoms, civil liberties, and privacy but think children should be taken from their parents if they aren’t in government-run schools.
7. You believe that “separation of church and state” is written in the
Constitution but you don’t find it peculiar that the government legislates against churches all the time.
8. You think outlawing guns will
prevent their use but fail to notice that millennia of laws outlawing the crimes of violence, rape, and theft haven’t done anything to stop them.
9. You believe people should question authority but you have a fit when they try to put stickers in textbooks reminding students that evolution is still just a theory.
10. You think immigrants who entered the country illegally,
proving their contempt for the law, would make model citizens.
11. You watch more than 9 out of 10 blacks vote for Obama and don’t notice any racism.

If anyone likes this list, you're welcome to publish it anywhere you like, as long as you don't change it to make it rude, angry or insensitive. - Luke

And I will laugh to myself, and I will want to post my own version here, and then I will remember that I do have a few conservative readers (wave hello guys!), and I will equally remind myself that I am somewhat conservative. (No, really, I am.)

And I will try to be nice about the whole darn thing, until I read that note at the bottom. And that's when I say, game on. . .

You know you’re a conservative when:
1. Your first reaction to anything that might violate what you think is in the Bible, or what you want the Bible to say is to make a law.
2. You foam at the mouth about how stupid and ungodly those Liberals are. Why, they're positively un-American.
3. You think you should be able to tell a woman what to do with her body, until you have to help pay her health care bills. It's ok if children don't have healthcare or food after they are born, as long as we don't abort them.
4. You believe in organized groups, as long as they are church, or the NRA, and not unions or civil rights movements.
5. You love the portions of the Bible that deal with sex and violence and spanking your kids, but you somehow manage to ignore the parts about love and charity and duty to neighbour.
6. You want the smallest government possible, that is still big enough to be in everyone's bedroom, all the time.
7. You believe that “separation of church and state” is written in the Constitution but find that annoying. You'd rather legislate Christian morality than have people chose it because you've shown them the influence of God in your life.
8. Your convinced that if you just look hard enough, you'll find that right to bear arms in the Bible.
9. You believe that no one should question authority, unless it's you doing the questioning. If you are questioning, then that authority is just wrong, and more importantly, unGodly.
10. You think immigrants who entered the country illegally, often risking their own lives, living life on the edge, with virtually no safety net, doing jobs that no American wants to do would make lousy citizens, but they make great cleaners and gardeners.
11. You watch more than 9 out of 10 blacks vote for Obama and still don't believe that maybe the national sins of slavery are being slowly abolished.
12. You want to tell everyone how to be married, but your rate of divorce is as high as anyone elses.

See, I can do that too. I probably even got some of you smiling - at least wryly. And I can say that I'm fair and reasonable and even-handed. I can even mutter about speaking the truth in love.

And I'm left at the end of this, with a dirty taste in my mouth. None of it is true. Not what my BIL said about Liberals, not what I said about Conservatives. It's all parody, an intellectual short hand. Discussing the issues without having to sit and make a reasoned plea. Not even discussing the issues. We aren't articulating a policy to prevent child poverty, we aren't articulating ending gang violence, and there are still drug addicts on our streets. We hurling accusations, that have no basis in fact.

It used to be that politics was the process that attempted to define a better country. A better place to live. It used to be that policy could change lives, could make our countries better. It used to be that some Christians fought against slavery and fought for civil rights. I think, I hope we used to debate policy, not sling mud.

We can all sling mud. It's easy enough. I'm wondering if we can debate policy.

Abortion

They say it's the third rail of blogging. They say touch it and die.

I've been thinking about abortion. It's not the first time. It was a post from a while back on some one's blog, and another and more after that. It was the Alberta College of Physician's and Surgeon's who are trying to set rules around referrals for abortion. Simply trying to say that you must refer a patient. You don't have to perform the procedure, but if you have a straight request, you have to refer them to a Doctor that performs the procedure.

I've heard rhetoric and hate, and horrible things. From both sides. I've heard people scream about oppressing women, I've heard people cry anti-choice and anti-life. I've heard horror stories from both sides, it's all ugly. It's all abstract.

And perhaps it is this: we forget, real people are involved, with real stories, and in some cases, real heartache. We forget who is listening. We forget, abortion is not abstract if you've been in that place. There's nothing abstract about it. Women who have abortions are short and tall and fat and skinny and married and single and young and old and educated and not. Whatever they are, they are real people. Who have real feelings and make real choices. Whatever, whomever they may be, they are not theoretical.

When I thought about writing this post for the first time, I thought about a friend of mine. Who had an abortion. I remember her when I talk about abortion. I remember that she is not some degenerate, that God loves her, that she is still a wonderful friend and a great citizen. She's smart and funny, kind, compassionate, and I will stand up and say that I am proud to know her, I was then, and I am now. She's still the same person. She hasn't changed.

But, no. Her story is not mine. I have a story.

On December 8th, a resident walked into my hospital room. I will never forget it. Mr. Spit and my mum had gone home, to eat and shower and pack some things. I was in the room with my midwife. She'd given me a shower, the Magnesium Sulfate was hooked up. And this resident walked in my room.

She took her surgical cap off. She sat down and picked up my hand. She said "I need you to sign a consent form to be induced. I have to tell you that in all likelihood your baby will die. I have to tell you that at this point, given his gestational age and weight, and given the pre-existing complications, he will die. Most likely before he's born. Do you understand?"

I nodded. She handed me the pen. I signed my name.

I, Cheryl-Nancy Elizabeth.

I signed my name. I gave full, free and informed consent. I had options open to me, and this is the choice I made. I consented to kill my child.

I had an abortion.

I will stand up with thousands, hundreds of thousands of women. I will say that we made the best choice we could, at the time, under the circumstances. I'm not sorry if you don't like my choice. Frankly, I don't care. Perhaps you think I'm morally bankrupt, perhaps you think we all are. Perhaps you are able to make distinctions between my case and someone else's. I will say that those distinctions are completely artificial. I will say that I am not flattered when you tell me that you think I had a socially acceptable abortion. I will say that you are dead wrong when you tell me that I didn't have an abortion at all because I was dying. I will say this: either I have the choice to chose my life above my son's, or no one does. Either we all have choices, or none of us do.

When you fight about abortion, when you say that I am an exception, when you say that we are wrong or horrible or morally degenerate, when you want to take away a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, would you remember -

That's my face up there. That's me you're talking about.

The Power of Words

Words are my currency. Some use paint, some use music, some use dance, some use humour. I use words. I think that words are powerful. Call me crazy, but I really do think that, over time, the pen is mightier than the sword. I think we should be careful about the words we use. Words are ideas. Ideas are actions. Actions are powerful.

I'll try to put it another way. My Nana had this line. "Is it nice, is it true, and last but not least, does it need to be said?".

Usually, when someone believes in the power of words, they believe in absolute freedom of speech. I don't. I don't believe in freedom to denigrate someone because of their race, their political beliefs, their sexual orientation or their gender. I don't believe that you should have a right to spew hatred and bile. It may be true, but it isn't nice, and like Nana said, it doesn't need to be said.

I believe in the absolute power of the audience.

We get so confused about freedom of speech. We get so confused about who has the right to say what, and when and where, and if we should protect it, and if we should help others speak. We get confused that just because we can say something, we should.

Now, I'm not talking about voicing feelings and needs and desires. I'm not talking about saying "I'm hurt, I'm sad, I'm angry. I need to be heard."

No, I'm talking about expressing ideas. We get confused and think that all ideas have equal weight, all ideas have absolute merit. We don't understand ideas, and good ideas, and how to tell them apart. We confuse hearing others out with giving credence to their ideas. We think that if you can write it down, it deserves to be read, if you can string it together, it deserves to be heard. And not only that, but irregardless of the quality of the idea, we hold it up and say "freedom of speech".

We never talk about the power of the audience. No one says that some things don't need to be said.

Mel, over at Stirrup Queens posted this article. I read it. With horror. Disgust. Astonishment.

The power of the audience is this. To stand up and call this what it is: disgusting crap. The author has poured a collection of venomous and mean thoughts into 5 paragraphs, and run up the flag of 'personal beliefs'. Anyone can do it. It doesn't take talent as a writer to write snipe, it really doesn't even take much thought. There are logical issues wide enough to drive a truck through in this article: it's not well written; it's not well thought out; and it's sure as heck not a constructive contribution to the abortion debate.

But the power of the audience. The power of the audience is to vote. With your feet, by leaving a comment that this sort of "article" is not nice, true, and it doesn't need to be said. You can vote with your eyes by no longer reading this site. The power of the audience is to stand up.

Stand up and say that it is wrong to be hateful. It is wrong to deny the grief of another, and it's always wrong to tell an adult how they should feel. The author may be a lovely person, but her ideas, they are putrid and foul.

A "tax" on me

To quote the words of a song, Mr. Spit and I are above the below, and below the upper -alright. We do well enough. More than well enough, really.

Don't believe me?

• I turned on my tap to fill my water bottle, and clean water poured out. Clean, drinkable water. Which makes me better off than 1.8 billion people in this world.
• As I was leaving my house this morning - unlike the 640 million children who have no home - the kids across the street were heading into school - unlike 57% of female school-aged children, who will never step foot in a school.
• I delivered my son, in the midst of an extraordinarily high-risk pregnancy. Do you know what it cost me? $36 for the chlomid to conceive him. By the time Mr. Spit's supplementary insurance kicked in, I actually paid $7.20. That's the only bill I ever saw.
• And while Gabriel died, I did not. Unlike Africa, where a woman will die every 6 minutes - for want of a bag of Magnesium Sulfate, worth about $5 a bag.

So, when I calculated my tax savings with the new budget, and realized I was getting a whopping $166 extra, I shrugged my shoulders. The money ($13.38 a month) will buy me 2.9 lattes at work. I'll contribute to the economy, making sure that my favourite barista has a job. Maybe. I doubt that my 3 extra lattes make all that much difference.

But, there's another side to my $166. When the Federal Government gave me my $166, it meant that they couldn't give it to someone else. Someone got less. As it so happens, I know who it was.

And I'll start by saying that I'm not a hero. I don't wear a cape, I don't deserve your accolades, I'm just doing what needs to be done. For a few months now, Mr. Spit and I have been paying our neighbour's power bills. She's a single mum, and she can barely make ends meet, and it's a struggle, and we could do this little bit to help. It's Canada. It is simply not an option to go without electricity and water and natural gas to heat your house. It's not. And my mum and I have quiet conversations about how her young daughter will afford university in 2 years, because she's so damn smart, and she has so much potential, and we mutter about amounts, and say "well, if we all kicked in. . . .". (So, if I'm phoning you in 2 years, you'll know why.)

And we get angry - my family and I. We get angry because we know that if we didn't help, there's no program. She'd be juggling paying her rent, or paying her power bill, and sooner or later she'd be evicted, and then homeless, and then what? In a country as rich as Canada, how can Mr. Spit and I be what stands between a family and homelessness? What about all the family's whose power bills I am not paying? How and when do things get easier for them?

And I looked at my tax return, and I realized that my savings aren't even 15% of her monthly power bills. I'll buy an extra latte or three, and my neighbour will struggle to make ends meet, even with my help. She'll get no real help from this budget either. In fact, she gets $66 dollars under this budget.

$166 is an insult to me. But far more than that, it's an insult to my neighbour. It's an insult that I will go and buy a latte or lunch, while she parcels out her pennies to feed and clothe and house the next generation. It's an insult that I'll go and buy a frivolous pair of shoes to help out the economy, while the economy is leaving my neighbour behind.

And so when I read about how much I'm getting, I think, "I'll tell you what. You take my $166, and Mr. Spit's and my mum's, and my knitting buddy's, and all those like us, and you give them to her. And she pays her utility bills, and sends her daughter to university. Without charity.

You tell me, Minister Flaherty that this is Canada's Economic Action Plan. Real hope for families. Not quite Sir. In MY Canada, help is given to those who need it, not those who don't."
********
numbers from here

This post brought to you by the letters B and E

As in break and enter, into Chez Spit, and make off with a lovely assortment of our consumer electronics. Including my laptop and camera.

We are fine, the dogs are fine, the guard lousy and pathetic felines are fine. The house will be fine. (They rummaged through my underpinnings. I'm off to the store.)

And on another note.

150 years ago, a black man was worth 3/5ths of a white man. 45 years ago, a black man stood up and told us that he had a dream, and then died for it. Last night, a black man was elected to the highest office in your land.

Last night, a man stood up and we saw that it could be true. Last night it did not matter that Mr. President-Elect Obama didn't look like many of us, or that his middle name was from the middle east, it didn't matter that he wasn't the same ethnicity as we were, that he had been raised in foreign places, last night, a man who stood up and called us to be better, to hope and courage and service, to all of those in the world, last night, he accepted his nomination to the highest office in America.

And lest you think that all is well with the world, that man, a great and honourable man, he accepted your nomination from behind bullet proof glass. Our world is still broken, things are still not the way they should be. Problems, on both sides of the 49th parallel are looming and here. But I can think of no better way to meet them than with courage.

I'm proud of my American neighbours.

Smart

It is election season, on both sides of the border. As I sit here typing this, I am looking at a McLean's magazine, with a picture of Stephen Harper(1) holding a baby, and CBC is promising me wall to wall election coverage for the next 30 odd days, and my local NDP candidate(2) is calling wanting to know if they can have my volunteer hours, give me a lawn sign, have my vote, and please, more than anything, send money(3). And I read a really interesting article in Time Magazine about your man Barack.

Anyway. So, I'm thinking about the West Wing. Which I have been watching as I knit for the Parish Priest's children. And specifically I'm thinking about a quote from Toby Zeigler.

"Make this election about smart, and stupid. Engaged and not. Qualified and not."

And I stood up and cheered. I stood up, and I honest-to-goodness pumped my fist, and said "YES!!".

Because it's true. Read it again. I say over and over, we get the politicians we deserve.

There are big problems on our continent. Both sides of the border. Our world is heating up. We are in wars in the Middle East. America is in a recession, and when the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold. China owns 1/3 of US Debt. Alberta has no debt, but we have Tar Sands, dead ducks and all. The US has huge racial problems. We are killing each other in our streets, and your young African and Latino men are dying at disproportionately high rates, in Iraq. And lest we in Canada become smug, the life expectancy of a white man is 71.1. It's 63 if you are an aboriginal man. Canada ranks number one on the UN index of places to live, unless you live on a Federal reserve, in which case it ranks 63, smack dab in the middle of third world countries. The Hobema reserve and Bangladesh. Your women and children are dying in hospital emergency rooms, because they have no health insurance. 10% of our population lives below the low income cut off line(4). 12% of Americans do so.

These are big problems. Big. And we need smart people to solve them. And there is this tendency in modern politics - Toby Zeigler hit it on the head. We, the voting populace demand that our politicians are just like us. They have to be the guy (or girl) next door. We would want to have a beer with them. Pound them on the back at a football game. They need to be the common guy. The ordinary guy. We don't make our elections about smart, qualified and engaged. We make them about hairdo's and the religious right and abortion and homosexuality and embryonic stem cells and welfare. We make them about who went to church where, and what their pastor might have said, and if their daughter is pregnant.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm looking at my neighbours. And they are nice people, good people. I'm looking at me. I'm smart (mostly), but I don't know what the hell we should do about global warming and racial tensions and how to fix the reserve system or war in the middle east or somehow get all Americans health care, that they can afford. I don't know. And my neighbours, they don't know either. But I do know this, there are smart people who know. And maybe we should elect them to office. Let's stop making elections about popularity contests, and start making them about smart people who can fix our problems. People that we can send to Ottawa and Washington, and let them make a difference. I don't care about your family, your religious affiliation, your work history, but can I see an IQ test please.

I have watched Sarah Palin with interest. Fascination and horror. In some sense, I'm excited to see a woman run for high constitutional office. (We've already had one.) I'd rather have seen one for President.

And then she opened her mouth. She was the first woman to be Governor of Alaska, and the youngest governor. A two term councillor and a 1 term mayor. (and in case you are wondering, city politics are the most brutal out there. The most vicious form of retail politics there is). But she didn't talk about what she did, or how smart she was or the ideas she has. I watched the speech, and I left with a sick feeling in my mouth. Who was this woman?

I don't like her politics. But I'll stand up and say that she's worked hard and she's had a few good ideas. Yet, all she could tell us about herself was that she was a hockey mom. She defaults to harmless, stupid hockey mum. You got yourself a crossing guard with a spiffy uniform and a new hair-do.(5) Seemingly no ideas, no thoughts, no plans. A lovely family. A hockey mum who doesn't think ideas are important is campaigning to run your country. She spent more time insulting the other guy, than she did talking about herself. The news cycle is more consumed with wedding plans for a 15 year old child, than they are about recessions and welfare and health care.

Now, whether you like Sarah Palin or not, whether you think you might vote for her or not, think about how we characterize our candidates. Perhaps more than that - think about how they characterize themselves.

We all have to go to the polls soon enough.

Make the election about smart. And not.
And engaged, and not.
And qualified, and not.


*******
(1) Our present (sigh) Prime Minister.
(2) New Democratic Party. I'm not sure how you go from being a red tory to being an NDP-er. I blame Kuri. Totally.
(3) I do donate to candidates. Women Candidates. My volunteer hours are non gender specific. One of these days I'll write a blog all about how women face specific barriers to running for office.
(4) The LICO is a different measure than the poverty line, actually higher than the poverty line, so Canada has a higher level of "poor" just because we say you are still poor at a higher income than most countries.
(5) You have no idea how badly I would like to take this name for myself. Alas, I must give credit to Heather Mallick

My Thought Last Thursday.

George Bush.

You're a feckless thug. (or possibly, that should be "still a feckless thug")

It doesn't take much courage to insult the Chinese, while standing in Thailand.

"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists"

Your statement brings to mind two things.

Umm, exactly how do you stand in firm opposition? Do you refuse to buy their goods? Umm, no. Do you refuse to sell to them? Uh, well they do have Most Favoured Nation trading status. Do you refuse to travel there (because that's worked so well with Cuba, hasn't it?). Umm, no again. Oh, I know. No rice and ginger beef for you!

And, perhaps more pressingly, the Chinese own $340 billion of your debt. (That's about 20%). I realize you don't like the honourable gentlewoman from New York, but she did have a point. It's not a good idea to piss off your banker.

This group decided to protest at Tim McLean's funeral. They decided to intrude on the private sorrow and grief of a broken family, to make their wing nut point. I have to say, I don't like your religious activists. It might be helpful for you to detain a few of your own, before you criticise China for doing that. It would save wear and tear on our RCMP as we detain them for you. (No problems, your bill is in the mail. After all, the mounties always get their man!)

Just saying.

Eliot Spitzer Resigned

Anyone else followed this story?

Mr. Spitzer was involved in prostitution. Interestingly, he hasn't been charged, and the information wasn't publicly released. Spitzer willingly acknowledged his failings, and has now resigned. Now, don't get me wrong. You don't have to know much about me to know how passionate I am about prostitution. I'm appalled that anyone would purchase another human being.

And, I wonder. Newt Gingrich, who is not the most stellar of role models, in spite of his time "dedicated to calling America back to our Christian Heritage", has managed to divorce 2 women, discuss details of his divorce settlement with number 1, while she had cancer and was in the hospital, and then had an affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter. . . He tries to run for presidency. And Christians support him. George Bush got the US into a war they had no business to be in, their young minorities are dying and they can't get out, but we'll crucify and try to impeach Bill Clinton.

I don't get Americans. I don't get their tawdry fascination with the private/sexual/religious/family lives of their politicians. I don't get why they expect their politicians to be perfect and without sin, but aren't like that in their own lives. I don't get why Eliot Spitzer is nailed to the wall, in spite of the tremendous good he has done, and the American public looks on, applauding, in between wallowing in the morass that is the Desperate Housewives/CSI/Grey's Anatomy - which glorify anything but the "christian' values that they expect their politicians to hold. I don't get why they call their fellow citizens hypocritical, but assume that as individuals they are right with God. C'mon USA today says that desperate housewives is the second most popular show - 22.8 million people watch it. Surely some of them are sitting in church nodding their heads and shouting AMEN as they go home to wallow in affairs, half naked pool boys and consumption crazy suburbia.

Newsflash: Politicians are people. They fall down. I'll let Mr. Spitzer say it best: "Our greatest glory consists not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."

Seems to me, if he's honest enough to admit he fell, admit he was wrong and is willing to try better the next time, that's the kind of politician you would want running your state.

Maybe it's just me though. I'm not sure what religion any of my elected officials are. I don't much care either. I expect spiritual counselling from my priest and my bible. I expect good public policy from my elected officials. The two aren't always one and the same. Seems to me that you can "fall down" and still pursue truth.


People always ask how Americans and Canadians are different. There's way number one.

Wow, those federal conservatives

Can apparently resurrect people from the dead. That's a real skill. No wonder the Liberals keep bowing down to them.

Depending on who you believe, Chuck Cadman was offered some amount of money as a bribe an inducement to vote with the Conservatives to bring down the Liberals over a budget vote in 2005.

Today the conservatives have announced that the inducement was nothing more than an offer of campaign funding (for a person who sat as an independent after getting screwed out of the Conservative Nomination), given to a man with only weeks left to live. Interesting, no one admits that they offered Chuck the Conservative nomination, only that they were willing to pay for his campaign.

Which makes me wonder, was any portion of the money allocated to perform a resurrection? If that was possible, it would be money well spent. Stephen Harper described Chuck Cadman as "good and decent man". I wonder what Chuck Cadman would say about Stephen Harper?