Pancreatitis

I regret to hear that Ashcroft has been hospitalized with pancreatitis. That is an extremely nasty ailment. I lost a good friend a few years ago to it. He was in his early forties, and it's a medical problem that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

My friend was of Irish ancestry, and like all of Irish ancestry wouldn't let the world forget that he was Irish. Me being Scottish, he and I had a good-natured rivalry about our respective celtic backgrounds for decades. Shortly before his death, he announced to a bunch of us that St. Patrick's Day was coming up, and that there WOULD be celebrations in the office. "Why is it," I asked him, "that St. Paddy is celebrated all over the stinking world, but St. Andrew's Day barely gets a mention outside of Scotland?"

"Well, that's because the Irish gave the world so much - music, poetry, whiskey..."

"What!?!!" I replied, a bit screechily, "Scots invented the bicycle, the telephone, discovered penicillin, developed the steam engine. Capitalism! We invented Capitalism!"

"Typical," he said, "a Scotsman celebrates history while an Irishman celebrates life."

This St. Patrick's Day, I'll raise a glass of uisce beatha and drink to his memory. Erin go bragh, Bryan.

Salam is back

Phew. Never do that again, young man.

The Annual Kayak Trip

It's that time of year. Trip planning time. Every year, I do one or two multi-day kayaking trips on Canada's pacific coast, some of the finest kayaking areas in the world. Last year, for the first time, I took some of my older kids with me, and we did a novice-level trip in the Gulf Islands, a protected inner coast area. I carefully picked an area that never took us more than fifteen minutes from land, as both kids (11 and 16 years old at the time) were beginners, and I didn't want any capsizes. I also picked routes that are usually calm.

The first two days of the trip had unusually bad wind conditions, with the sea high enough to make whitecaps. Wind is one of the kayaker's worst enemies, and I wasn't a happy guy. We had to beach for a while until I judged conditions were good enough for a crossing. Thankfully, there were no incidents, and we had a great time.

Trips like this worry me beforehand. I'm an overcautious kayaker, especially with kids. I read all the kayaking horror stories, have professional first-aid training and a wilderness first-aid kit that even my paramedic brother was impressed with. I read up on the routes as much as possible, and always take the safest path. I leave trip information at home, with local authorities, with friends. But I still worry about things like not having emergency oxygen in case of a head injury, or being separated on the sea by a sudden squall.

On the other hand, these are trips of a lifetime. The kids become more confident in their abilities, gain a sense of independence, and an appreciation for the incredible environment we live in.

This year, I'm considering a trip to the Broken Island Group, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. This area is a kayaker's paradise, and you could spend months paddling through the area without getting bored. Ancient aboriginal settlements, middens everywhere, thousand-year old canoe runs, eagles, seal, otters, oysters, tame deer… it's incredible. I spent a week there a few years ago, and it remains one of the best weeks of my life.

And it's on the west coast of Vancouver Island, some of the roughest water in the world. My father was in the British Merchant Navy, and went around the world several times by ship. He was immune to seasickness, never had it. Except once, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. But most of the waters in the island group are protected, and make for easy paddling. And the kids would love it. But maybe I should wait a year or two. But then again, they'd love it. But maybe I should wait.

And this is how it's going to go in my head for the next month until I make a decision. I hate the planning part.

Oh, crap...

Last week, from Salam Pax:

I, my mother and cousin will be going to Karbala for a week. I hope I will be able to take pictures and blog from there. This is of such significance to Shia in Iraq this year it should not be missed. You said freedom of expression? Well, this event is going to test the boundaries of this freedom. You can bet your ass that the Sunnis will see this year’s Ashura as a provocation and you can bet your friend’s ass that the Shia will use it to provoke. Poking the hornets’ nest is a very close image. So we be there wearing black and a pious beard with a camera in hand.

Yesterday, from Raed:

salam i was trying to call your phones all the day long, i hope u didnt die in the karbala explosions
I'm coming back to baghdad next week

Fingers crossed, toes crossed, c'mon man, post something already...

Could Someone Please Ipsum Lorem Lileks?

A while back, I chopped The Bleat from the list of blogs that I regularly read. I just found that I just couldn't stand the constant syrupy droning about Gnat, particularly when he misspells her dialog, and his prattling about politics. Reading his blog made my skin itch from the inside.

The trouble is that I love his design work. He has a great appreciation of typefaces and design of the 1950s (where his politics also seem to be firmly wedged), and regularly posts images that he's found or created.

Now, I could go to his site just to look at these, but I frequently get sucked into the text, which occasionally makes me want to pluck my eyes from my head. So what I need is a tool that will present the blog, but convert his text into Ipsum Lorem nonsense, which it almost already is.

There must be one of these out there somewhere.

{UPDATE} Okay, I've been thinking about this, and it's an immoral proposition. It's the man's blog, and the price of looking at his creative work is to look at it in its entirety. So Ipsum Loreming it would be like theft.

Fascists?

For my right-wing friends who think the left is soft on Middle-Eastern terrorism, from Professor Cole:

If Bin Laden and Zarqawi could destroy us, they would do it in a second; and these troglodytes are really fascists. The American left is as much in their sights as the rest of the US, and, despite the small size of al-Qaeda, because of its excellence in asymmetrical tactics, we on the left haven't faced such an enemy since Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. Al-Qaeda and even less radical fundamentalism are movements of the far right, and they are focused on taking over governments. They've tried in Algeria and Egypt and had succeeded in Afghanistan, and hitting the US was part of a long-term strategy for pushing it out of the region so they could take it over. It won't be the last such attack at least attempted against the US, which they paint as a purveyor of decadent liberal individualism.

I agree wholeheartedly with most of his post, which includes both a hope that the CIA becomes the front line against these fundamentalist assholes, and a reminder that past actions of the CIA is probably largely responsible for a good deal of the mess in the Middle East right now (along with the Soviets).

Even so, I take exception to his use of the term "fascist". Fascism has a narrow political definition, and I don't think that it applies to Al-Qaeda. It definitely applies to Hussein's Baath Party, with all its military pageantry and the cult of leadership, but those features are absent from movements like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, at least as far as I know.

I think that people are using the term in a dramatic sense rather than an analytic one. Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were the last big bogymen in the eyes of the west, and so we paint the current bad guys with the same brush. While this may have an emotional impact, I think it dumbs down the discussion, and dilutes the term until it becomes something meaningless.

Money Madness

For no reason other than I was just thinking about it, I want to jot down the hell that I experienced in my school years when learning the British monetary system.

I grew up in the West Indies (or Caribbean, to many), and attended a British-style private school. Even though Trinidad & Tobago used dollars and cents, we were a loyal member of the Commonwealth, and had to learn how to handle British cash (this was pre-1971, when Britain simplified their monetary units). The information wasn't completely useless, as we occasionally visited the mother country, and due to my training, I knew which coins were being pressed into my greedy paws from generous relatives, or which coin I was choking on when eating plum duff.

Here's a taste of this complex system – for coinage, we had farthings (¼ penny), ha'pennies (½ penny), pennies (also called pence), sixpences (6 pennies), shillings (12 pennies), half crowns (2 shillings and sixpence), and crowns (5 shillings). Then we had ten-shilling notes, called tenners or tanners, and pound notes, which were worth 20 shillings. Add to this madness the concept of the guinea, which was worth 21 shillings, and didn't actually exist as a monetary unit since the early 1800s, but still regularily referred to, for no rational reason.

Buying things was a complicated process, and we were bedeviled in math class with questions like "If one were to buy one-and-a-half stone of apples for 1 shilling sixpence a pound, and paid with two one-pound notes, what would be the smallest number of coins and notes that you could receive in change?"

I won't mention learning about rods, chains, furlongs, pecks, and bushels - all bizarre units in the Imperial system of measurement. Sadly, all this schoolwork was in vain, as Britain changed to the metric system soon after, and changed their money to a standard of 100 pennies to the pound. The bastards.

{UPDATE} I can't believe that I left out the thruppence, worth three pennies. Just goes to show you, you don't use a coinage system for four decades and you start to get sloppy.

Heartening News from Iraq

Professor Juan Cole reports on the efforts being made by the Sunni in Iraq to give aid to the Shiite victims of the bombings in Kazimiyah:

In the Sunni city of Fallujah, mosque officials with microphones urged citizens to donate blood to the victims of the bombing at Kazimiyah. In in the Sunni district of Azamiyah in Baghdad, where the bridge was blocked that leads over the river to the Shiite quarter of Kazimiyah, appeals were also made over microphones for the Sunni inhabitants to save their brethren in Kazimiyah by donating blood. Hundreds of youth heeded the call and volunteered. Drivers volunteered to transport more than a thousand such volunteers. (The Shiites of Kazimiyah and the Sunnis of Azamiyah have an old rivalry and their youth gangs have often fought in the streets. There was trouble between the two last fall when Saddam was captured).

Vancouver is Number 3

Crap. Vancouver slips from being tied with Geneva as 2nd highest quality-of-life city to live in to tied for 3rd with Vienna.

Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s overall quality of life survey has revealed that Zurich and Geneva are the world’s top-scoring cities, with 106.5 points. Geneva moves up from second place last year (score 106) and pushes Vancouver down a place (score 106). This move takes account of Geneva’s schools, where standards of education, both in public and private schools, are now rated among the best in the world.

Cities in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia continue to dominate the top of the rankings: Vienna shares third place with Vancouver (score 106), while Auckland, Bern, Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Sydney are joint fifth with a score of 105.

Those damn Swiss, hogging the limelight.

Language

Rosemary, over at Dean's World, has a conniption because some California ballots will have multiple languages on them, including English:

California has officials running around making sure minority voters are not disenfranchised. That is good. One of the ways they are making sure no disinfranchisment (sic) occurs is to make sure they have enough ballots, in enough languages, to cover everyone.

WTF? Voters must be citizens of this country. Our language is ENGLISH. The only fucking language on our ballots should be ENGLISH.

Okay, admittedly, I come from a bilingual nation with a long history of support for multiculturalism, and so I'm used to other languages coexisting beside my native language. For example, signs in my kids' primary school are in English and Chinese. Our cereal boxes are in English and French. When voting, we have stuff in English, French, Chinese, Hindi, and Vietnamese. And I noticed last night that the last bottle of peanut oil I bought (Planters) has English, French, and Chinese on the label.

However, I also understand that some people may fear that if everyone isn't speaking their language, they'll lose their culture, or heritage, or something. We do have a sizeable minority in our country that fears just that, and have language-use laws to prevent other languages from being used in certain contexts. So I think I understand that as well.

But English is not in the minority, nor is its continued use threatened. So I don't get it. Why the fuss? Is this just some kind of linguistic jingoism? Or, as rednecks used to say in my country when they heard French being spoken, "Hey! Speak White!"

The Poor Man ...

..has an excellent post today.

Familiar Situations

Hmm. In one of the books I'm currently reading…

A powerful nation is threatened by a political movement (referred to as "more a social disease than a political philosophy") that uses terrorism to further its political aims.

This movement seems to be gaining a toehold in a small nation in a politically sensitive area. This small country is run by thugs, and is considered by most to be a more of a bunch of criminals than a real nation. Preemptively, the powerful nation invades, with the intention of setting up a pluristic democracy in the region, where all of its ethnic groups may live in harmony. Happily, the inevitable friendship of the grateful new democracy would also strengthen the invading powerful nation, as the small nation is rich with resources essential to the powerful nation.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work out as planned. The powerful nation is tricked by the terrorist-using political movement who understand the local politics far better than the invading nation, and provoke them into more and more military incursions, alienating the population of the occupied nation. The constant guerrilla attacks on the invading army eventually erupts into full-scale war in the region, and the angry troops of the powerful nation commit horrific atrocities in the occupied territories. The terrorism-using political movement successfully manipulates the politics of the situation, and gain astonishing power in a short time.

This was Japan's invasion into Manchuria, as I'm reading in "The Rising Sun" by John Toland. Of course, the Iraq situation is very different: the US troops are more disciplined and far more humane than those of the Japanese at the time, and the cultures are extremely different, and the outcomes may be quite different. Still, I was struck by a lot of the similarities in the political situation. The Japan military justified preemptively striking into Manchuria as necessary to stop Mao's communists, and there were some glorious dreams of setting up a democracy there. But, according to Toland, Japan got suckered, and suckered good, by the communists. The more the Japanese used their military, the more support the communists received, the less they had to spend fighting a civil war, and the more the international community detested the Japanese.

The Angry Arab

Hey, how come I've never heard of this blog before? This guy is great! He's invited to meet the Amir of Qatar, but refuses to put on a suit (I don't own one either, I'm waiting until I've grown up a bit more), and has coffee with him in the same t-shirt, jeans, and runners he wore the day before. He wouldn't use any royal titles, and had a normal conversation with the guy, including enumerating his critisisms of the Amar's government.

Anyone who treats royalty as a human being instead of some kind of divine poodle is okay in my books.

(via Riverbend)

Today I have no argument with Andrew Sullivan:

...this president wants to drag the very founding document into his re-election campaign. He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens - and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself. The document that should be uniting the country will now be used to divide it, to single out a group of people for discrimination itself, and to do so for narrow electoral purposes.
...
We must oppose this extremism with everything we can muster. We must appeal to the fair-minded center of the country that balks at the hatred and fear that much of the religious right feeds on. We must prevent this graffiti from being written on a document every person in this country should be able to regard as their own.

This amendment will not pass, and this will finally break the back of the anti-gay movement. And maybe then we can say to our brothers and sisters who have been humiliated by so many in this society for so many years, "We're sorry you had to put up with this stupid shit for so long."

Russia's New Missile

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that Russia is testing an ICBM missile that seems to be designed specifically to evade the American anti-missile shield? And I'd think something like that would be kept quiet when under development, and not trumpeted in the world press. What is Putin up to?

Who's who in the Iraqi Shiite Movement

Via Juan Cole's Informed Comment, an article in the Christian Science Monitor describing the two main movements within the Iraqi Shiite political movements. Complex, and some good insight into what's going on, and how it may influence political change in Iran. The good news - a successful multi-ethnic democracy in Iraq will probably positively influence Iran's politics. The surprising news - Sistani is the relative moderate, and is pushing for a secular democracy. The bad news - there's a strong, violent conservative Shiite movement that isn't beneath using assassination to further its aims.

Say it With Flowers

Via Obsidian Wings - Send flowers to a random couple waiting in line for marriage licenses in San Francisco.

And if you can't afford a whole bouquet, here's a PayPal group effort. C'mon, throw in a few bucks to get your pro-marriage message out.

{Update} - Some good photos at this site of the happy couples. And this one is my favorite - the guy on the left is wearing a kilt with my clan tartan, the House of Gordon. I'm currently waiting for the delivery of my own kilt. Of course, now I want that jacket as well.

{Another Update} - The PayPal account is just under $3,000, and volunteers are delivering flowers. Here's what one volunteer posted:

As I approached the center of the chaos, several people came over to me to ask me
how much the flowers were. "Free! They're gifts from around the world to the
people getting married." I started at the front of the line and passed out bouquets
to anyone who wanted one, and then worked fairly hard to get rid of all those roses.

While I was there, a few different florists showed up with bouquets destined for
random couples in line, and everyone there seemed to be well taken care of. The
general reaction was surprise and delight to be receiving gifts from total strangers.

It was quite wonderful to be able to play even a minor role in this amazing event.

Aw, this is getting me choked up. What the hell, it's a wedding.

Yet More Wildlife Invading the City

On my daily pilgrimage to Starbucks this morning, several hundred crows were swarming a raven. This is downtown, mind you. Masses of crows, all screaming their heads off ("rauk! ca ca ca!"), pursuing a single huge raven ("Roook! Roook!") through the spaces between highrises. I'm seeing a surprising number of ravens downtown this year. Love these birds.

A TV documentary on animal intelligence that I saw a while back dealt with the swarming behavior of crows. While it appears to be intelligent behavior (group defense against predators), it is, in fact, instinctual.

An experiment was demonstrated. There's a room with caged wild crows on one side of the room, and crows raised in captivity on the other. In the center of the room is a box that displays a stuffed owl to the wild crows, and a box of detergent to the captive crows. The wild crows respond to the owl by exhibiting swarming behavior. The captive crows learn that this behavior is associated with detergent boxes.

After a while, the wild crows are removed, along with the stuffed owl, and more captive crows introduced. When the box of detergent is introduced, the newly-introduced captive crows also learn the swarming behavior. The final scene is a room full of crows, shrieking and cawing at a box of detergent.

I think this also explains a lot about the Little Green Footballs blog.

Redrawing the Middle East

Via Talking Point Memo, the Dreyfuss Report:

The Kurds—whatever they say in public—want an independent Kurdistan and they want to control the oil in northern Iraq, centered on the city of Kirkuk. The Shiites—whatever they say in public—want to create a medieval-minded fiefdom with sharia-based Islamic law, repression of women, and all the rest. And they want to control the oil in southern Iraq. It now looks like the Kurds and Sistani are on the verge of a deal to support each other's claims.

The Kurds have no use for Islamic fundamentalism at all, but if they can get Shiite backing for a breakaway state, they'll support Sistani's vision in a heartbeat.

All of this is happening outside the U.S.-UN Fantasyland about when to hold elections. No elections are going to be held in Iraq this year, because it's impossible, and neither Paul Bremer nor Kofi Annan can fix that.

This will just thrill the neighbouring states, especially Turkey. Dreyfuss goes on to detail why this is going to destabilize the region in a serious way.

Encounter of a Lifetime

A posting on Dave Rodrigues' blog reminded me of my sole grizzly bear encounter. Well, not quite.

The kids and I were visiting some old friends who lived on a 100-acre sheep farm in the remote interior of BC. The area has no phone or electrical service. Access is by about 20 miles of dirt roads. Free range cattle wander all over, and wildlife abounds.

A few days into the trip, I had to make a call via my cell phone. Our hosts suggested that I go to a nearby meadow, which had the best reception. So my son (nine years old at the time) and I headed out to meadow, about a five minute walk.

Once there, we wandered about, checking the signal strength and looking for the best spot. Just as I was about to make the call, I heard a low, deep, rumbling grunt from the edge of the meadow. I glanced over, and saw a HUGE brown form shambling through the bush.

The old primitive hindbrain kicked in. The hair on the back of my head literally stood on end as my body tried to make itself look big. My forebrain was mumbling something about how you're not supposed to run from grizzlies, but the hindbrain pretty much shut it down with a howling scream of primal fear.

"Oh my god, a grizzly. Let's get out of here, quick," I hissed to my son. We galumphed away through the meadow. I was staying behind my son to make sure that I didn't outrun him, and to protect him from what I was sure would be a ton of hungry bear landing on us (amazing what having kids does to you, isn't it? I didn't even have a choice, the old primitive hindbrain makes you protect your offspring even more than your own ass).

I literally scooped him up and flung him over a split-rail fence, where he stopped and started walking. "What are you doing?" I panted. "Can bears climb over fences?" he asked. "They go THROUGH fences!" I yelled, "RUN!"

We charged into the farm area where our hosts were waiting. "A – gasp – bear – pant – grizzly – pant –meadow – wheeze" I said.

"A grizzly? In the meadow? Are you sure? We've never had a grizzly before. What did it look like?"

"Huge. Brown. Beary".

"What colour?"

What colour? What the hell, why weren't these guys getting the artillery, or getting us in some sort of bear-proof shelter? "Light brown, kind of tan."

"Oh. It was probably a cow."

"What, you mean a female grizzly?"

"No, a moo-cow."

Oh. Ohh. Yeah, could have been a cow. Crap.

Fast forward to that night. I head out to the outhouse. Son says "Hey dad, take a flashlight, we don't want the cow-bears to get you."

He's out of the will.

Ouch

Josh Marshall makes a deadly funny remark yesterday:

I came home this afternoon and saw this headline on the front page of the CNN website: "Bush says Democrats would threaten fiscal health."

The article's lede said Bush told a crowd in Florida that "Democrats would endanger America's fiscal health by raising taxes."

[ ... ]

This is the arsonist in your house telling you that [the] stranger outside with the hose can't be trusted.

Life in Iraq

Riverbend has a harrowing story about why she hasn't been posting for the last week or so. Scary, and worth a read.

World Press Photo of the Year, 2003

I'm amazed at how much emotional energy punches me in the gut when looking at this photo.

Awk! Friday the Thirteenth falls on a Friday this month!

A blog post title over at Obsidian Wings reminded me of Churchy LaFemme, of Walt Kelly's brilliant comic strip, Pogo.

I first read Pogo in my teens, when I bought the first ten year collection of his strips (Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo), and was blown away. The man was brilliant, the strips fantastically drawn, and he laid the groundwork for later artists like Bill Watterson, who's fantastic Calvin and Hobbes strip reminds me a great deal of Kelly's humour and drawing style.

I now have a large collection of original paperback Pogo collections, most of them older than I am.

A frightening moment that wasn't, really

Last night when I got home, the kids (6, 10, and 12) were sprawled across the couch watching TV. I was doing the normal "Hi guys, how was the day" and getting the TV-zombie mumbles in reply, when suddenly a foot-long rat darts from under a blanket and scurries across the couch.

I jumped a mile high. Then I remembered that we have a pet rat, and we let her run around on the couch.

The kids, of course, were hysterical with laughter. "Why did you get scared?" asks the six-year-old. "I thought it was a real rat," I sheepishly replied. "She IS a real rat" they all chorus. More laughter.

My sister is terrified of the rat, a phobia of some sort, despite it being friendly and intelligent. I was pretty firmly in her shoes for a few seconds there.

Juan Cole's Book Project

Juan Cole of Informed Comment is starting what I think is a worthy project:

As my own tiny contribution to helping resolve this problem, I have therefore decided to begin a project to translate important books by great Americans and about America into Arabic, and to subsidize their publication so that they can be bought inexpensively. This is a non-profit project, but until it grows large enough to become a proper foundation, it will not be tax-deductible. I will try to ensure that almost all of the money goes to actual translation, publication, and distribution. If the office work becomes a burden, some money may have to be spent on overhead here, though I'll see if I can't get some University or extramural support for that.

This is a cause that should transcend political lines. I'm sending the cost of my last Amazon book purchase. I challenge the reader to do the same.

A "War President"

More about Bush's Guard record.

I wish Bush would just release his military records. This is going to become a bigger and bigger issue during the campaign, especailly as he's the one who has been posturing as the guy in the flight suit, the guy addressing the troops in front of the flag, and the one who calls himself "a war president" on a televised interview. It's become a legitimate point of contention.

So, if he releases his records, and it turns out he skipped out of service, 'fess up already and move along. He was young and irresponsible at the time, apologize and get on with things. If he releases his records, and they prove that he fulfilled his obligations, well, um, I guess he would have released them already if that was the case. Never mind.

Taking credit where credit isn't due

Wow, talk about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Presenting the right-wing spin bloggers:

Andrea Harris (via Instapundit):

I have a question on this WMD thing. So, apparently we are now concluding that Hussein did not, in fact, have a huge stash of nuclear weapons aimed at New York and Washington DC. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means that the thing the administration wanted to prevent was, in fact, prevented, and not only that, a dangerous troublemaker has been removed from power in a very unstable region.

Comment: Yeah, it's a good thing. But Ms. Harris doesn't mention that he was prevented from possessing weapons by UN sanctions and inspections, not by an illegal invasion. Nor that the current US administration belittled and ridiculed the very processes that prevented him from possessing those weapons.

Michael j.:

From the AP:

A letter seized from an al-Qaida courier shows Osama bin Laden has made little headway in recruiting Iraqis for a holy war against America, raising questions about the Bush administration's contention that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.

Actually, no, it doesn’t raise such questions. At least it shouldn’t.
…
The Al Qaeda letter does, however, cast a wee bit of doubt on the idea that invading Iraq would only inspire more terrorists. Chalk that one up to the latest overwrought doom-mongering.

Comment: If Al-Qaida terrorists WERE co-operating with Iraqis, then the post would be: "We were right! See! Terrorists!!" What an incredibly safe position to be in, where no matter what transpires, it supports your position. Almost like being right-wing but claiming you're a liberal so that no matter what happens, you always get to claim victory.

So what's next? I can't wait to see the blog spin put on the US bugout before the elections. Things like "The situation is now excellent, we're no longer needed," or "If they haven't the political maturity to handle democracy, it's their own fault," or "They can't expect us to prop them up forever."

More wildlife invades the city

On my bike commute last night, cyclists were stopped all along the bike route and staring upward. "oh oh", I thought, "a jumper?" Nope, two bald eagles circling through the downtown highrises, looking for a seagull to grab, I guess.

Are we better off in a Social Democratic nation?

An interesting blog post from Brian Leiter (via Crooked Timber) that examines the statistics, comparing industrialized nations that are Social Democracies (including Canada, for some reason) to the United States, and attempts to prove that most people are generally better off in those nations that provide better access to socialized services. The outcome? We live longer, are better educated, have less accidents, and have less poverty.

But are we really a social democracy? I guess we are, when compared to the States. We're certainly less conservative when it comes to most issues, more than I thought, according to this New York Times article reprinted in The IHT:

The nations remain like-minded in pockets, but the center of gravity in each has changed. French-speaking Quebec, with nearly a fourth of the population and its open social attitudes, pulls Canada to the left, just as the South and Bible Belt increasingly pull the United States in the opposite direction, particularly on issues like abortion, gay marriage and capital punishment.

None of those have resonated much over the last decade in Canada, where the consensus on social policy seems more solidly formed, its fissures narrower and less exploitable.

Chris Ragan, a McGill University economist, observed: "You can be a social conservative in the U.S. without being a wacko. Not in Canada."

Drugs are one point of departure. A bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana is working its way through the lower house of Parliament, bringing threats from the White House that such a law could slow trade at the border.

Recently, while musing about his retirement plans, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said he might just kick back and smoke some pot. "I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand," he said with a smile.

The glibness of the remark made it nearly impossible to imagine an American president uttering it. But in a nation where the dominant West Coast city, Vancouver, has come to be known as Vansterdam, few Canadians blinked.

When Massachusetts' highest court ruled for gay marriage, the issue instantly loomed over American politics. Conservatives vowed to change the Constitution. President George W. Bush said he would defend marriage. Even the major Democratic presidential candidates backed away from supporting gay marriage outright.

Contrast that with Canada, where two provincial courts issued similar rulings this year. With little national anguish, Canada became only the third country - after the Netherlands and Belgium - to allow same-sex marriage as a matter of civil rights.

Canadians themselves are not wholly united on the issue. Many elderly and rural Canadians express reservations, and the Canadian Anglican Church is almost as divided over homosexuality as the American Episcopal Church. Still, Canadians remain tolerant of the shift.

Already more than 1,500 gay and lesbian couples have married since the court rulings. "The Canadian reaction to same-sex marriage has been mostly positive," said Neil Bissoondath, an acclaimed Trinidadian-born Canadian novelist and social critic.

But the same issue in the United States "has upset the fundamentalist Christians who drive a lot of the politics in the country, especially with the present administration in power," Bissoondath added.

[ ... ]

In his new book "Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values," he argues that greater Canadian tolerance reflects a fundamental difference in outlook about everything from the ethnic and linguistic diversity of immigrants to the relative status of the sexes.

Adams notes that weekly church attendance among Canadians has plummeted since the 1950's while American church attendance has remained virtually constant.

To many commentators the two countries seem to be exchanging their traditional roles, one founded in America's birth as a revolutionary country and Canada's as a counterrevolutionary alternative.