My cat's pretty seriously sick - and I'm reminded once again why I treasure Canada's system of universal healthcare because blood tests for the cat started at $300. Add the ancilliary costs of treatment, a day at the vet's and actually being
examined, we'd hit the $500 mark before even getting a diagnosis. I imagine what that it would cost for a human being and I feel faint. Universal healthcare isn't "socialist" - it's the decent fucking thing to do because no one should ever be faced with choosing between paying their rent, paying their power bill or buy food and going to the doctor.
The diagnosis, btw, was he's got a major infection (gee, what was your first clue? The massive fever?) and probably has for a while. If he gets better with antibiotics, good, otherwise the vet is going to want to go looking for causes.
My wallet trembles at the thought.
Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. Sometimes, it's good to be wrong. My thanks to John McCain and the GOP braintrust who told him to select that mendacious ignoramus for a running mate and suspend his campaign to "address" the financial crisis - Obama couldn't have done it without you.
However, constantly point out how electing a black man means that the US is over its issues about race actually proves how much the US (or the person in question) is not over its/their issues about race. When a black, red, brown, yellow, puce, chartreuse man/woman/eggplant can run for President, Prime Minister or the head of the local School Board without someone commenting on their skin tone/ethnicity/religious affliation/gender or sexual preference is when the US/Canada/the rest of the world will be over it.
I believe Mr. Obama's election is one giant step for us all towards that day. But the fight is far from over.
The ACLU is
Challenging Proposition Eight in California. You can donate to the ACLU
here.
Thanks to
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenofthorns for telling me where to send the cheque.
This morning,
Andy Barrie interviewed
Lisa Ray on Metro Morning about her upcoming films. Halfway through the interview, he asked how, without knowing her background, a person could see the ways in which she was Polish and the ways she was Bengali. Ms. Ray responded, "Well, I have Eastern European legs but I'm Canadian."
It made me think a friend, bubbling over about Obama's victory, who wished that I had been there to see all the people from different backgrounds, united in celebration and a renewed belief that they were one people, so I could understand what it meant to be American. And while I'm pleased for my friend and for all Americans who have found a reason to be proud about their country again, I don't need to see what that looks like - I live it every day.
Tuesday is Remembrance Day.
My employer gives me the day off, so when I'm in Canada, I always go to a Service of Remembrance, normally at the cenotaph in Kew Gardens Park but this year, I thought I might go to the service at the cenotaph at
Old City Hall. There's also a ceremony at Queen's Park.
Last year, I was in Cambridge, England on Remembrance Day. It was the first time in nearly at decade that I hadn't attended a service of Remembrance, although I watched the Queen and the Royal Family lay wreaths at the Cenotaph on the Mall in London. Between living in Ireland, where there were no poppies - the Irish disdaining them as a sign of British unionism and WW I itself as a British war, no matter the tens of thousands of Ireland's sons buried in Flanders' muck (De Valera choosing to sit out World War II because, really, what was the threat of Hilter's unchecked aggression compared to an opportunity to thumb Irish independence in Britain's eye?) - and then coming to stay with my German friend over Remembrance Week, the day mostly passed by me. Not that my friend would have snatched the poppy from my coat (I was somewhat more concerned about the Irish but for a week or so, it was fun to pick Canadian tourists out in Temple Bar by the poppies on their coats) but I felt awkward and constrained on the subject around her. A reminder of how very much of our tradition of Remembrance has focused not on the bloody stupid waste of war but the righteousness of our cause - the fallen are not merely the dead but "the glorious dead", glory being a privilege of the victor.
I have
a poppy pinned to both my jackets.
"In other news: rain is still wet."
The headline that Prime Minister Harper looks forward to meeting the President-Elect greeted me as I stepped into the vet's office last night.
No. Kidding.
I need to write the review of TSCC: "The Brothers of Nablus" - in the meantime, Charlie Jane Anders of io9 said most of what I wanted to say already, damn her - "
io9 - This Is How You Do a Science Fiction Show About Religion."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
