test blog #10

Join us at The Bloor! Special guests filmmakers Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller, and war resister Jeremy Hinzman. Emceed by war resister Chuck Wiley.

Yesterday was a travel day, a short distance that took a long time. If the Oakland Airport wants to be a viable alternative to San Francisco, they have to fix their rental car problem. And PS, don't ever rent from Payless out here. But after the BART to the "Air BART" (bus link between airport and BART), to the insane rental car shuttle, and almost to a second, nonexistent shuttle for Payless, we finally did get a car from National. If Payless wants to try and charge us for the reservation we didn't keep, bring it on. We immediately drove to the nearest In-N-Out , which we had seen from the Air BART bus, and Allan had his first In-N-Out experience. By that time it was late and we were very hungry, and ate copious amounts of cheeseburgers and fries. I've already noted this on previous California posts, but it's amusing that there's a "double double" here, too. As we would say in a Joy of Sox gamethred: In-N-Out Double Double > Tim Hortons' ...

On Thursday I amazed myself by sleeping until 9:00 a.m., something I very rarely do on Eastern time, and never when my body thinks that means noon. Two consecutive nights of very little sleep plus a dark room and an extremely comfy bed worked wonders. By the time we finished breakfast, blogged and organized our day, the morning was over. But hey, it's vacation. First thing, we headed down to the Ferry Building Market , new since the last time I was in San Francisco. The Ferry Building is a San Francisco landmark , more than 100 years old and the survivor of many earthquakes, including "the" quake of 1906. It's been lovingly and impeccably restored (and made accessible), and is now home to a beautiful market, along with commuter and travel ferries to dozens of towns across the Bay. We love markets and like to see them wherever we go, so this beautiful building right on the water was a must. Three days a week there is a farmers' market and street food outside, which...

If you're new around these parts, here's a quick note of explanation. I've kept a travel journal for every trip I've taken since 1982. Since 2006, with my trip to Peru, I began keeping these journals online, on this blog. I write it almost exactly as I would if I were writing for myself. So be warned! * * * * Tuesday was a long travel day, from Buffalo to JFK to Oakland and into San Francisco. Our four hour wait in JFK extended to five, then close to an hour wait on the plane for takeoff. We took public transit from the Oakland Airport into town. If you go to San Francisco, you should always check fares to Oakland. It's usually less expensive and always much easier. So by the time we got into Oakland, with the time change working against us, we were tired and bedraggled. Imagine our surprise when the front-desk clerk told us he had no record of our reservation! The hotel was completely booked, not one unreserved room, and Hotels.com - did you know that is an offshoo...

The good news is the US border guards didn't care about my Canadian passport. The bad news is the US border guards didn't care about my Canadian passport. Several people had warned me that as a dual Canadian-US citizen, I could be hassled, denied entry or - as one person put it - "face certain criminal prosecution" for entering the US without a US passport. I know many dual citizens who hold only Canadian passports, and who regularly travel back and forth to the US without the slightest hitch, so I knew this wasn't true. I understand it may technically be true, a law on the books, but it's obviously not enforced in any way. The only unanswered question was whether my troubles at the border would continue - whether, without my US passport to scan, if I would be flagged. That question has now been definitively answered. Border hassles are now a way of life. The border guard saw the US birthplace on our passports, typed in our names, and we were off to the races...

A team of archaeologists from the UK and Austria have discovered a major monument located less than a kilometre from Stonehenge. While there are standing stone s, stone circles and henges throughout the UK and Ireland, it is very rare for such a large, impressive monument to be unearthed. That is was discovered less than one kilometre away from the most iconic of all stone circles is quite amazing. History is set to be rewritten after an archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometre away from the iconic Stonehenge. The incredible find has been hailed by Professor Vince Gaffney, from the University’s IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, as one of the most significant yet for those researching the UK’s most important prehistoric structure. The new henge was uncovered this week, just two weeks into a three-year in...

Guardian : A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years. . . Tons of links and videos at this Channel 4 (UK) News website: The extraordinary leak made public by whistleblowers' website Wikileaks has lifted the lid on more than 90,000 US military documents involving classified information direct from the battlefield in Afghanistan. ...

We're off today, first to spend the night with friends in Buffalo, then on Tuesday flying west. We'll be in San Francisco two days, then head up to Sonoma County for the weekend for wedding festivities, then down to Yosemite National Park for three days. I wasn't very happy about this trip, being the second consecutive year we've had our destinations determined by weddings. It's not that we don't want to be there; we're close with our nephews and nieces and wouldn't miss their weddings for the world. But this is not the trip I would choose this year, and I can't afford two vacations. (I actually can't afford any.) At least I had never been to New Mexico, so last year's trip had that excitement. I've been to California many times. So I was generally feeling grumpy about this vacation, until last week, when I started getting excited about it. San Francisco - the second best city in the US - is one of my favourite places. For me the cool thi...

In honour of the fact that I'll be in Yosemite National Park the week after next, I'm writing something that has been sitting on my to-write list since last winter: about the documentary film "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," by Ken Burns. This was mostly an excellent film, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history and in conservation - with one big, fat caveat. * * * * Ken Burns is not as well known in Canada as he is in the US, so I'll give some background. Burns is a documentary filmmaker known for his long, multi-part films about different aspects of US history. His films debut on PBS (public television) and have become a staple for PBS viewers, beginning with "The Brooklyn Bridge" in 1981. But he became nationally recognized and achieved an unprecedented stardom with PBS fans with "The Civil War" in 1990, a nine-part series in which he pioneered the use of using sound and photography techniques to create an il...

Call your MP. Email the party leaders. Speak out in the media. We must continue to cry out against the violation of our rights that took place in Toronto at the end of June. In case the enormity of this crisis has faded from your memory, read this. Read the whole thing, and click through for the photos . A 20-year-old environmental activist from B.C. is suing the Toronto Police Service, claiming she was hit by two rubber bullets during a G20 summit protest. "I hit the ground. It's hard to describe how it feels getting shot," said Natalie Gray of Maple Ridge, B.C., about 40 kilometres east of Vancouver. Gray was one of about 150 protesters who marched on a police-approved route to a former Toronto film studio that was converted into a temporary detention centre on June 28, the final day of the G20 meetings. The protest and police reaction were captured on video by the media. Half an hour after protesters arrived at the jail, police moved in. As the demonstrators were shout...

Daniel Schorr, esteemed journalist, died last Friday at the age of 93. Schorr built his career on truth-telling and risk-taking. When the institutions that he worked for no longer employed real journalists, he traded in the mainstream for NPR, where he worked for the last 25 years of his career. There are two excellent pieces about Schorr at NPR, which I'll link to below. But I first want to acknowledge something I noticed in Schorr's obituary in the New York Times : that Schorr was a graduate of City College. City College - technically the City College of the City University of New York , sometimes called CCNY - was the first free public institution of higher learning in the US. In the days when Ivy League schools were the gated playgrounds of wealthy white Protestants, thousands of New Yorkers whose heritages excluded them from those institutions attended City College. This includes people you may now think of as white: Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans. In...

I've been remiss in not posting about the National Peace Conference taking place in Albany, New York, this weekend. It began last night and continues through Sunday. Representatives from the War Resisters Support Campaign will be there, meeting with US peace activists, especially those who work with military resisters, discussing ways we can support each other's work on both sides of the border. The full program is listed here , and you can watch live video of most sessions through this page .

Some people get upset when progressive activists use words like "police state" and "fascism" to describe law enforcement overkill in North American society. I understand the argument. We don't want to exaggerate conditions in our own society and thus minimize the conditions of people who live under extreme conditions, as the Palestinians, Iraqis, and others in occupied or highly repressive regimes. But I often find these and similar words appropriate for several reason. First, fascism, like democracy, is a process. Neither is an on-off, all-or-nothing state. I often borrow Naomi Wolf's concept of the "fascist shift," which describes a process of change through which a democratic state becomes an undemocratic state. There are many historical precedents. Second, I think many people subscribe to an overly narrow definition of these words, leading them to minimize some very grave dangers. If the word "fascism" conjures images only of Nazis ...

This week we learned that Bill C-440 will have its second hour of debate on September 27 . Shortly after that, probably a few days later, the House of Commons will vote on the bill. If it passes, the bill will then be referred to the Citizenship and Immigration Committee, on which the opposition still holds a majority. We know that all three opposition parties support Bill C-440. That much is not in question. But we also know that the Conservative government, especially the office of Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, will do what it can to thwart its passage. We can assume that every Conservative Member of Parliament - that is, every "no" vote - will be in her and his seat on the day of the vote. Our margin for passage is slim, so we'll need every one of our "yes" votes in their seats as well. We'll be calling on our supporters to help make this happen. Of course we know an election may be called before September 27. Since we can do nothing...

It's a very busy week for me as we get ready for our vacation. But I have been remiss: there's a War Resisters Support Campaign fundraiser tonight, and I've only posted about it on Facebook! Oops. If you're in Toronto and don't have plans tonight, please come by. There'll be dinner, a screening of our new film "War Resisters Speak Out," and a legal update from Alyssa Manning, who will speak about the recent court ruling in favour of Jeremy Hinzman and its implications for the Campaign. Plus, of course, socializing with cool people. Dinner will feature a delectable dessert treat from our friends at Sweet Creamery . For a suggested donation of $20, how can you go wrong? WHAT : Dinner, movie, campaign update, fun WHEN: Tonight, July 21, doors open 6:00, program begins 7:00 WHERE: United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street, Toronto WHY: Support Bill C-440! Let Them Stay!

This post is for Amy, as promised. In a Joy of Sox gamethread way back when, Amy asked how Allan and I met. I gave the short version - "on the street in New York City" - and said the long version was too long for comments. Amy asked if I would write it, and I promised I would. Herewith, the detailed version of How We Met. * * * * It was the summer of 1985. I was 24 years old, and I was miserable. In the winter and spring, I had been seeing two men... until they both dumped me at the same time. I hated my job. It was supposed to be a big career move, a step towards being the managing director of an off-Broadway theatre company, which is what I thought I wanted to do. But it was miserable in every possible way. I was spending the summer apartment-sitting in Manhattan, living in an unrenovated walk-up across Central Park from the theatre where I worked. Back in Brooklyn, my roommate wanted to go back to living alone, so even my incredibly inexpensive place in Brooklyn was becom...

I just found out that while I was photographing waterfowl in Stratford , hundreds of their kind were being slaughtered near my former home. New York Times : Second, and Third, Thoughts Over Killing of Prospect Park Geese Globe and Mail : The Cleansing of Prospect Park I understand that geese can overrun areas that humans want for themselves. But there's got to be a better way to deal with it than this.

On this post about my new Canadian passport , a friend left a link about the Iroquois lacrosse team that was refused entry to the UK because they carry passports from their Iroquois nation, not Canada. A few days earlier, I blogged about Oka . And everyone here knows about my troubles at the US border . This excellent Op-Ed in the Globe and Mail pulls it all together. Do I need a passport or a Ouija board? I have a theory, though I can't prove it, based on several recent visits to the United States. Specifically, it's based on going through American customs as you get ready to board a plane for that country. And I wonder if the Iroquois lacrosse team that was stranded at the airport in New York this week is thinking the same thing. On their way to England to play at the Lacrosse World Championships – a game the Iroquois invented, by the way – the 23 members of the team were prevented from boarding the plane because they insisted (as always) on using a passport by the Iroquois...

Rallies, demonstrations and other creative protest events are taking place in many Canadian cities today, as we continue to demand a full public inquiry into the government and police response to the G20 protests. There are events planned in: Bancroft (Ontario), London, Montreal, Nelson, Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Peterborough, Quebec City, St. John's, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg. Information about local events is here on the Facebook page . Let's not let this fade away. It's too important.

From the ACLU: We need you to act immediately to undo a disturbing decision from the Obama administration . Remember all the hard work you and other ACLU activists did to defeat Rep. Stupak's draconian abortion coverage ban during the health care debate? Well now, the White House has decided to voluntarily impose the ban for all women in the newly-created high risk insurance pools. What is disappointing is that there is nothing in the law that requires the Obama administration to impose this broad and highly restrictive abortion ban. It doesn't allow states to choose to cover abortion and it doesn't even give women the option to buy abortion coverage using their own money. [ ACLU info and action here. ] Oh yes, but all we need is a Democrat in the White House, and reproductive rights will be protected. And I have some pristine beachfront property on the Gulf of Mexico to sell you. The New York Times Magazine has a long feature about the new breed of abortion providers, doc...

As Stephen Harper announces plans to spend $16 billion on a bunch of fighter jets that Canada doesn't need , we must refuse and resist this growing militarism. Refuse and resist. It's our duty. Thanks to IVAW and my resister friends.

After watching this, please read my thoughts, below. What happened to Lacy MacAuley was horrific and inexcusable - and criminal. But she says some things are potentially very painful to other survivors. I imagine MacAuley's intentions are good, but nonetheless, it pains me to see these dangerous statements stand unchallenged. Lacy MacAuley was a victim. She had no control over the situation and things were done and said to her without her consent. That's what it means to be victimized. Now she is speaks out as a strong survivor. That is excellent. It will undoubtedly help her healing. But her inner strength doesn't mean she wasn't victimized. It doesn't mean another G20 protester who was similarly victimized and is now depressed or otherwise traumatized is weak or somehow "let" someone into their head. The idea that no one can hurt you without your consent is both false and dangerous. It is a form of victim-blaming. If no one can hurt you without your con...

An amazing find in my hometown. In the middle of tomorrow, a great ribbed ghost has emerged from a distant yesterday. On Tuesday morning, workers excavating the site of the underground vehicle security center for the future World Trade Center hit a row of sturdy, upright wood timbers, regularly spaced, sticking out of a briny gray muck flecked with oyster shells. Obviously, these were more than just remnants of the wooden cribbing used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to extend the shoreline of Manhattan Island ever farther into the Hudson River. (Lower Manhattan real estate was a precious commodity even then.) “They were so perfectly contoured that they were clearly part of a ship,” said A. Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist with the firm AKRF, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to document historical material uncovered during construction. By Wednesday, the outlines made it plain: a 30-foot length of a wood-hulled vessel had been discovered ...

We had a nice, relaxing trip to Stratford, maybe less exciting than last year, but only because my first time was a revelation, and this year I knew what to expect. Stratford is a lovely little tourist town, and I highly recommend the Across the Bridge B&B owned by our friends Eric and Kelly. It's a beautiful old renovated house in a great location; you can leave your car at their place and walk everywhere. But the real reason to stay there is Eric's incredible breakfasts, which will keep you going til dinnertime. Besides theatre, none of our other plans worked out. We didn't meet our friends for dinner and didn't go to St. Jacobs. But we hung out with Eric and Kelly, walked along the Avon River and took photos of birds, browsed in bookstores and generally decompressed. Neither of us particularly liked the production of As You Like It , but The Tempest was excellent, a real treat. The productions couldn't be more different. AYLI was crammed full of gimmicks, m...

Look what came in the mail while we were in Stratford! Whoo-hoo! This is very exciting. We're going to California at the end of this month, flying out of Buffalo. I've heard many different opinions on whether or not our troubles at the border will continue now that we are traveling on a Canadian passport. No one seems to know for sure. But we shall soon find out!

Argentina has become the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage. Way cool! The same law also allows same-sex couples to adopt children. BBC story here.

Today we are off to Stratford, Ontario for two Shakespeare productions and two nights in a bed-and-breakfast. We did this last year during the baseball All Star break, and I liked it so much, I thought it should be an annual tradition. We're staying at Across The Bridge B&B, owned by two great US ex-pats. Last year they contacted me through this blog and we stayed there as their guests , amazingly enough. Now we are regular customers - and friends. I have met the best people through wmtc. In fact, before I got back into activism and met people through the War Resisters Support Campaign and the peace movement, everyone I knew in Canada, I had met through this blog. So while I might write more about wmtc's persistent trolls, the real payoff from wmtc has been an amazing network of friends. We've met great friends through Allan's blog , too, and there's a small subset of folks who read both, or at least read Joy of Sox and are not strangers to wmtc. One of thos...