green

Wow! This is a tough question to tax my morning brain with but it is an interesting qestion. At one time, when I was must younger I would say that Canada does it best and it is true that on those international poles Canada always shines as the star. It is true that most Canadians would be content (the question they always seem to eventually ask, eh) to have Muslims, atheists or blacks living nextdoor. And I think we really do feel this way as long as the Muslim, Atheist or black do all the good neighbour stuff. My own street is a case in point: on it we have Muslims, Poles, Canadians, Greeks, Italians, Koreans and I am the token Canadain atheist. We also have blue collar workers and a university prof and his wife, a lawyer, and everything in between, included suspected dope dealers. A lot of variety concidering that this city street is one long city block long. What seems to have made this microcoosm work is that people are quiet but friendly towards each other. No grudges have been imported into the street. Another think that helps, I believe, is that this is a street with front porches, People like to sit on them and observe the rest of us. This leads to talking and talking leads to friendliness. Sadly, there is one group who do see to be having a hard time of making it in Canadian society: young black men. They join clubs, obtain illeagle firearms, and seem to hate everybody but themseves. They jostle people in malls trying to pick knife fights. It is a really sad state of affairs. These young men had never been a force to be reckonded with before but because our immigration rules permitted nannies to eventually apply for citizenship status these pleasant, hardworking woman were eventually allowed to import their offspring who aere by now well into their teens. The out of control black teenager phenomenum is only about 2-3 decades old but noboy knows much want to do about it. These kids have managed to turned a generation of carefully raised non-racists into racists by their behaviour. And of course the endless refrain is blame whitey. Well, while it is true that Canada had displayed cruel racial policies towards all of her non-white citizens in earlier eras, apologies had been made and these folks, the Japanese, Koreans, South Asians did manage to ignore these insults and go on and profit from living in this country. Too, Canada gave succor to American slaves. Once you reached Canada you were pretty much home free. Our angry black youth seem to have their roots in Jamaica. This anger really is a pity and is pershaps specious; there is enough room for everyone in this large, cool country.

Yep, it has always struck this Canadian as really odd that if you are bi-racial you inevitably will, by default as it were, be judged to be a member of the lower status race. Thus we see Tiger Woods being considered to be black and a singer-performer like Lena Horne whom, they say, had little more than a few drops of black blood being viewed as black. What is also quite interesting is that the darker races continue to impose a sort of self-loathing judgement on themselves. A close friend of mine is a middle-aged black Jamaican woman. She happens to be quite dark herself but she has told me that back home the lighter members of her family would, once they reached adulthood, move away from associating with the darker members. She said that this was generally true in Jamaica: light family members avoid dark brothers and sisters. This is, it strikes me, a kind of apartheid which is being practiced inside families. I know that when I was visiting India I got to read those famous marriage ads where "light skin" is listed as one of the items which makes the potential mate more attractive to those families searching mates for their offspring. This would indicate that we are a long way off from colour blindness. Too bad! The colour of anyone's skin is just the luck of the genetic deck and not a badge of merit or lack thereof.

My stats when I was banded: 5'6", 195 lbs, 57 years old. I paid for my own operation. My weight gain was post menopausal and getting worse every year. I am glad I was able to get banded when I did and the band worked really well for me as my problem was simple portion control. Exercise just made me firmer but I was still apple-type chubby and we all know that dieting is just a yo-yo trip.

Sounds like he loves you but feels insecure about your feelings towards him.

Oh, I am not that conservative. I just think that people ought to finish their educations and make sure that they have started with their investment plans before they have children. Having a mate in the picture is a really good idea and an investment plan can be very simple: no debts and the habit of saving X dollars per week.

I am conservative ... compared to many people I know and many I don't want to know.

Man, you are lucky! I love airshows. Especially the military jets! I used to build aircraft for Bombardier until I retired. Thanks for posting these.

Because this came from your husband and not a date it is not a promise that you will be stalked for the rest of your life. That is a good thing. I think he is saying that he loves you and wants to remain with you forever even if you think that he is not your soul mate.

With respect to the big items, the cancers, strokes, heart attacks and the like all Canucks will have their treatment paid for. Ontario is nibbling away at some of the small things, though, in order to save a bit of cash. It used to be that physio therapy and eye check-ups were paid for but now we must pony up for this. My work plan pays for 26 sessions of physio/year and we are simply paying for the eye check-ups because this is chump change. Eye surgery does get paid for. Just the prescription glasses biz no longer. As for me, I am now recovering from the radiation sessions. I became very sick at the end of that with radiation poisoning and ended up being hospitalized for a week. I was dehydrated and dropping weight. They are up in the air about whether or when I get a fourth session of chemo due to my weakness post radiation but I probably will once I recover a bit. And there is that trach which is causing me a lot of pain. I see the oncology dentist this Monday and I see both the chemo and the radiation docs next Tuesday. I guess I will hear more about their plans for me. I know they expect me to live but sometimes I find that difficult to imagine. This has not been a walk in the park.

Re the differences between provinces: the provinces are much like your individual states. They have specific powers and do deal with these in different ways. Vague answer, I know, but I can't give you any examples. Too much morphine perhaps.

You might be interested to learn that they did do research into who uses our medical system. It is primarily middle-class families, women with or without children, and seniors. The poor do not tend to use the system much except on an emergency basis even though it is available. The findings certainly make sense to me for it is the middle-class and women in particular who are most interested in physical maintenance of any kind. Men tend to use the medical system on a crisis basis or after being nagged by their women. With respect to senior use, it was commented that senior health issues do drift towards that of crisis by virtue of ageing alone and thus the increased reliance on the medical system. My own doctor is part of a clinic with a common wait area and my informal observations certainly bear out what the results of the research indicate. Although she is in the core of the city I don't see any broken down smelly street folk in the wait area...just folks with kids or like myself or older (even).

The lapband was not covered for me. I paid $16,000 Can bucks for the band and lifetime after care. As many people know, right now I am very ill with cancer, a tumor on my right vocal chord. Here in Ontario, Canada we have universal health care and this has paid for all my visits to the doctors, all my stays in hospital, all my scans, 35 sessions of radiation treatment, home nursing visits 3 times a week, my tracheostomy, my medical supplies involved with the care of the trach including peroxide, cleaning kits, drainage sponges, extra trachs and inner cannulae, dietician care including home visits, all liquid food, the loan of a food pump for the duration, my radiation mask, my shrink - everything except, oddly, my oncology dental work and my drugs. Fortunately I retired with a generous drug plan and I can take advantage of my husband's dental plan. The only cash that my husband has been putting out is for parking and for missed work. The province has covered all the medical stuff. I just show them my card. I have always had excellent care but I live in the core of Canada's largest city and my family doc is well connected. Some folks have no complaints, others do. There are cracks in the system. There are no longer enough family docs to go around; this is the result of retiring docs, ones who have moved out of Canada, and our growing population.

Fluffy puts a cute spin on fat and as ingyrob said, fat and ugly are so often painted as the same, that it may not be a bad idea to accept language which underlines that fat does not equal ugly. Fluffy is good spin and I can live with that.

Tell 'em that it's rude and ask them to back off completely. It is your body and your fight.

She sounds like she is either mean or dumb but I suspect she is dumb. You don't need a dumb girlfriend - they are boring and life is too short - so dump her. I would.

What about Ronald Reagan? He had his path eased because he was an actor.

After I read this thread I threw out most of our extensive collection of suntan and sun block lotions. We had stuff dating back to the 1990s. I didn't tell my mate. He can be a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to the strangest things and suntan lotions and old food both fall into that category. This is because he doesn't burn unlike indoor Green here and he doesn't get sick on icky stale food. When he discovers that the fabulous supply of sun products is all gone there will be weeping but weeping is better than screaming through the pain of a sunburn, eh.

I am under goal and I would love to donate my spare skin to someone needy. I could repave about five normal sized individuals, I am sure.

I really enjoyed reading this post. Thank you very much for posting it.

I mentioned the softer qualities of hipness and looks along with the other qualities which he also has. I am pleased to note that this has occasioned violent laughter in one reader. I am much more impressed by ELyn's earlier post. She has done a lot of research and this is most impressive. I believe that this is a post that is worth reading.

I think a big reason why the media and many democrats have turned on the Clintons is because of the behaviour which they have displayed throughout this nomination campaign. Nothing very mystifying there.

Any atheist who announces that he hates god sounds like an agnostic to me.

Thanks, Ingy.

Terri, is your father alive or dead?

It would be downright disasterous, I think, if Obama were to sign on the horribly needy and extremely greedy Hillary Clinton as his running mate. You Americans would not be getting a Obama presidency but a grotesque rerun of the Clinton Show. The problem would be that you would have the one who has revealed herself as the true moral bankrupt holding the reins this time around. Her behaviour over the duration of this running match has revealed her to have no ethical solidity. A finer individual would have ceded the race to the stronger performer rather than risk schisms which may seriously damage the party. Like a whore she has attempted to morph into whatever character will most satisfy the customer. Thus you saw the old girl, a lawyer and a graduate of an Ivy League sorority school, a woman with a personal fortune estimated a 105 million sucking up to the good old boys of the Pennysylvania heartlands. It's difficult to know who is dumber at this point: her for attempting this or them for buying into it. She had the privileged early years, not Obama. Obama was raised by his white, working class grandparents, worked hard, was born smart, won scholarhips. Good for him. As for those who comment that Osama will be going into the presidency without experience, well, this is true. Everyone who goes into the presidency goes into it without experience. It is a learn on the job deal, isn't it? Although I hear that W has a book coming out: The Yewnited States President for Dummies ~ My Life. As for Obama, don't you Americans want to see yourself as a people in your President - someone who is young, caring, hip, hardworking, very smart, neither white nor black but both and goodlooking as a bonus.