Rant 20 Obama Care and the Canadians November 23, 2013

This is one of the shortest Rants ever but still a meaningful one.  I got the following email from my Canadian friend and insightful social commentator, 
Eamon Hoey.  Eamon almost always gets to the heart of the matter but sometimes his severe lean to the right causes him to go in circles.  In this case, he is right on the money.

Do you think US Law Schools are graduating too many lawyers with too little to do?

Email from Eamon Hoey to me, November 2013

Robert

I could not help but comment on the political event in the USA over The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or "Obama care".

Obama care runs 11,000 pages. By contrast the Canada Health Act is 3 pages.

Yes, yes 3 pages, can you believe it! We gave up our freedoms etc. based on a 3 page document. Just shows you how flexible we Canadians are.

The history of Medicare starts in Saskatchewan with a person who most Canadians consider to be a National hero, Tommy Douglas. I actually voted for him when he ran for Prime Minister of Canada in the 60’s. While I can get carried away at times with my Libertarian views I would even today walk through a January storm for Tommy Douglas and what he did for Canadians. If only he had not been a Socialist. He was the Premier of Saskatchewan when the most comprehensive health care service was introduced to Saskatchewan. The story of how Canada created a comprehensive universal health care system is detailed below. I do not hesitate to tell you that it was a Conservative John Diefenbaker who got the Federal Government into health care business. It is all detailed below.

A 3 page document can you believe it! I keep on saying Obama should have outsourced his program to the Canadian Government. By now we would have the system up and running. No need for 11,000 pages of regulation. Just get her done – it’s the Canadian way – simple, transparent, efficient. No need to lie to the people.

Eamon

MEDICARE

The Romanow report observed, “Canadians embrace medicare as a public good, a national symbol and a defining aspect of their citizenship.” Medicare, as the national single-payer HEALTH CARE system is called, began in Saskatchewan on July 1, 1962, but operated without federal funding until July 1, 1968. Other provinces and territories joined over the following four years. The steps leading up to the adoption of medicare go back a long way: the idea of national health insurance was discussed as long ago as 1919, when it was a plank in the LIBERAL PARTY platform of that year. Because the Canadian Constitution assigns responsibility for health to the provinces, negotiations with the provinces about some kind of joint funding were unsuccessful until 1957, when the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act was passed in Ottawa. The federal funding was coupled with terms and conditions borrowed from the Saskatchewan Hospital Services Plan, introduced in 1947 as the first universal hospital insurance program in North America. This brought substantial federal funding to help pay for the hospitalization program in Saskatchewan, which had come into effect on January 1, 1947.

The seeds were sown for publicly funded hospital and medical care in the province with the Union Hospital Act of 1916, which was broadened in 1917 to enable municipalities to come together to build a union hospital and to levy taxes to finance its operation. About the same time, the Rural Municipalities Act was amended to give rural municipal councils authority to levy taxes to finance the MUNICIPAL DOCTOR SYSTEM, enabling them to offer doctors an annual retainer fee in order to encourage them to practice in a given community. With the onset of the Depression in 1929, accompanied on the PRAIRIES by a devastating DROUGHT, money was extremely scarce, and little progress was made. However, in 1939, at the instigation of MATT ANDERSON of RM McKillop, the Municipal and Medical Hospital Services Act was passed, permitting municipalities to levy either a land tax or a personal tax to finance hospital and medical services. When the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) a Socialist government came to power in Saskatchewan in 1944, their platform called for comprehensive health insurance. The Hospital Insurance Act came into effect on January 1, 1947, guaranteeing every citizen of the province hospital care without a fee. No other jurisdiction on the continent could boast such a sweeping reform. Tommy C. DOUGLAS insisted on a small annual premium to help finance this insurance. The introduction of hospital insurance in Saskatchewan, and its wide acceptance by the physicians of the province, paved the way for the introduction of medical insurance.

The Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act was passed on November 17, 1961, and after two delays became effective on July 1, 1962. Meanwhile, Douglas resigned as Premier to head up the newly created federal New Democratic Party (NDP), leaving WOODROW LLOYD, who had become Premier, to oversee the introduction of medical insurance. On July 1, 1962, almost all Saskatchewan doctors went on a three-week strike. Only those who lived through those fear-ridden days, when doctors abandoned their offices, can appreciate the pressure that Lloyd came under to capitulate and withdraw the insurance scheme. The Regina Leader-Post was vicious in its attacks; while doctors, with the moral support of the American Medical Association, were merciless, warning their patients that most doctors would be leaving the province if “socialized” medicine were introduced. Patients in turn appealed to their elected members. The Opposition Liberal Party promised to bring in their own scheme, which if it had seen the light of day would have left patients in much the same situation as patients in the USA find themselves today. If Woodrow Lloyd had withdrawn the legislation, the story of national medicare might never have been written. Through the mediation of Lord Taylor, a physician whom the government had brought from England, the strike came to an end after twenty-three days, and things returned more or less to normal.

In 1964 the Royal Commission on Health Services, chaired by Justice EMMETT HALL of SASKATOON, recommended that Canada should adopt national medical insurance; Hall stated later that the demonstrable success of Saskatchewan’s medical insurance system played a role in this decision. When the federal Medical Care Act of 1966 came into effect on July 1, 1968, with the four principles of public administration, universality, portability and comprehensiveness, Saskatchewan began immediately to enjoy joint funding. The formula in effect meant that the costs of medicare would be split approximately 50–50 between the federal and provincial governments. Eventually, however, the federal government became disillusioned with a scheme that continually cost more, while they had nothing to say about how the money was spent. The provinces also found that constraints in the formula prevented them from bringing in needed reforms. In 1977 a new system was agreed upon, called Established Program Financing (EPF). The effect was that the federal government provided support on a block-funding basis, enabling the provinces to use the federal money to finance health initiatives, in addition to hospital and medical services. Unfortunately, annual increases to the federal contribution were tied to the rate of growth in Gross National Product (GNP); since health costs tended to grow faster than the GNP, the result was a gradual decrease in federal support. Later on this system was revised, enabling the federal government to cut support even more drastically. Thus, in the 1990s, as Ottawa cut back in an attempt to eliminate the deficit, the provinces came under severe fiscal strain and the Saskatchewan government in turn began cutting its support for health, introducing the concept of wellness as its rationale.

In 1984, the federal legislation enabling joint federal-provincial funding for hospital and medical services was consolidated under the Canada Health Act. This added a fifth criterion to the Medical Care Act of 1966: services had to be accessible to be eligible for federal funding, and providers would not be allowed to make additional charges (extra billing). By the end of the 20th century, questions were being raised about the need to amend the Canada Health Act, which dealt mainly with hospital and physician services, in order to produce a more seamless health care system, from the nursing home and Home Care to the Intensive Care Unit. Meanwhile, the right-wing press harped on the question of the sustainability of medicare. Because of these two factors, plus the phenomenon of ever-increasing waiting lists, Prime Minister Chrétien appointed Roy G. Romanow, QC, on April 3, 2001, to head up a Royal Commission. Royal commissions are Canada Central Government’s way of shoving hot potatoes off the public agenda. In this case it came back to bite the Federal Government. The Commission was “to recommend policies and measures respectful of the jurisdictions and powers in Canada required to ensure over the long term the sustainability of a universally accessible, publicly funded health system that offers quality services to Canadians and strikes an appropriate balance between investments in prevention and health maintenance and those directed to care and treatment.”

The Romanow Report, published in November 2002, contained forty-seven recommendations which, taken together, presented a roadmap “for a collective journey by Canadians to reform and renew their health care system.” Three of these recommendations, in particular, held out revolutionary possibilities for the sustainability of a reformed system. The first put forward something new, a Canadian Health Covenant establishing governments’ commitment “to a universally accessible, publicly funded health care system.” The second recommended “a Health Council of Canada … to facilitate co-operation and provide national leadership in achieving the best health outcomes in the world.” This one was accepted immediately by the federal government and several provinces; but when the Council was established it was virtually a toothless old lion—a far cry from what was intended—due to differences of opinion among some provinces, particularly Alberta, BC, and Quebec. The third recommendation concerned the dire need to institute Primary Health Care; this idea was also strongly recommended by the Senate findings, known as the Kirby Report, which was published in the fall of 2002. The Kirby Report suggested that properly established Primary Care units could form the foundation required to make the whole system much better organized, bringing seamless health care within reach.

The advent of medicare represents perhaps the greatest test of participatory democracy Canada has ever known. In 1962, COMMUNITY CLINICS sprang up in many districts—the SWIFT CURRENT HEALTH REGION, which began functioning on July 1, 1946, showing the way. Regina, Saskatoon and PRINCE ALBERT still have successful functioning community health clinics. Within such organizations, grassroots decision-making results from community ownership of the system, giving individuals a feeling of empowerment that makes for volunteering services and explains why these agencies work effectively. Primary Health Care is a movement to generalize that kind of decentralized decision-making. At the outset of Saskatchewan medicare in 1962, there were those who believed that centralized control was necessary to guarantee the success of the innovation; whatever the reason, grass-roots community clinics were not encouraged, which set participatory democracy back for more than a generation. The advent of Primary Health Care may well solve the dilemma of how to achieve systematic central control, yet gain the dynamism inherent in local decision-making.

In 1995 a district health board structure was put into place, with the hope of making the administration more democratic and, one suspects, to deflect criticism away from the Department of Health. Thirty-two health districts were created, plus the Athabasca Health Authority in the far north. Two-thirds of the members of the boards were elected, and the rest were appointed to ensure a better balance concerning gender and minorities. Preliminary results suggest that the devolution increased local control; however, the Fyke Report (2001) recommended that the health districts be reduced in number, with appointed, instead of elected, boards. How to organize the administration of health services remains worrisome. Also worrisome is the increasing share of the provincial budget being taken up with public health, including medicare. The fear is that health costs will continue to rise faster than the growth of the economy, and that other services will be crowded out. One solution is to have the federal government accept a growing responsibility for financing medicare, and the other is for provinces to increase revenues; but a combination of both would seem the most likely outcome. The problem is that the federal government and the provinces suffer from insufficient revenue because of the pressure to cut taxes: under these circumstances it remains exceedingly difficult to increase revenues sufficiently to meet the demands of health care and leave enough funding for other essential services such as education, roads, and the environment. With drug costs increasing (cancer drug costs in Saskatchewan go up 22% each year), all governments are faced with some tough decisions. It has been suggested that one way around the dilemma is to raise taxes without appearing to do so, by means of an increase in the provincial income tax devoted to health.

Medicare has come a long way. The steps often have been faltering and there have been stubbed toes, but a system of health services has taken shape that is the envy of many. As it continues to evolve to meet emerging needs, how the system will change or should change in the future will depend on the studies that are continuously commissioned and on the adoption of their key recommendations.

Eamon

Rant 19 November 12, 2013

BEGIN QUOTE:  “The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.

It is the idea, which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.” END QUOTE

I suspect most of you to whom this was addressed will never read this far, but for those of you who have and who recognized the above as an excerpt from a speech by President Jimmy Carter delivered on July 15, 1979: an A+.  For the rest of us, it is enough to simply contemplate that this warning was delivered almost exactly a third of a century ago and its relevance is undiminished.  If anything, things are worse now than then.  Global warming, human population growth, Islamic extremism, shrinking arable land, ocean pollution, diminishing potable water and energy shortages are threats that have become more aggregated while the basic flaws in our social structure are undiminished and in many ways worse than ever.

I guess being able to see the future is no guarantee that it can be avoided.

So what is to be done?

In many of my rants, emails and conversations with many of you, I have expressed my worry and concern about the future and about my shame that my generation is the first in history to have left the planet a worse place for our descendants.  With all the acute problems we face and our apparent inability to form a government that is capable of even administering itself, much less begin to solve problems how can you not despair?  What can an individual do in the face of such monumental and daunting problems?

I have thought a lot about this and have been discouraged by the apparent inability of us as individuals to have much impact on these global difficulties.  Well, I am thought whining and wringing my hands and for me; I am simply going to choose to be more positive.  To take a conscious choice to not give in to despair and not add to the chorus of voices that proclaim the future of doom. 

To believe that things will be better in the future, I suppose is simply a leap of faith. 

The only evidence I have that it is even possibly justified is the simply joy and wonder of living that I see in my grandkids.  There is something inspiring and transcendent about the human spirit.  The joy and native optimism that we all have as children must be nurtured and allowed to displace the cynicism and pessimisms we see all around us.

It may not be much, but I am going to really try to follow the adage of “think globally and act locally”, by being more positive in my everyday life. 

I hope some of you can and will join me. 

I have been blessed with the gift of being able to see my grandchildren grow up without hunger or want and raised by parents of good character who love and nurture them.  I have been blessed with many wonderful friends and acquaintances from around the world who I cherish and whose memories I hold dear.  How can you not be positive in the face of all that? 

I hope you and your loved ones all have the very best of futures.

Rant 18 How ancient are you? August 22, 2013

Not another Rant as such.  I got this from my friend John Cahill and it was just too good not to share with you all.  I too unfortunately got 100% correct but am willing to bet that many of you will not.

Some of these may be culturally specific so your non-rcegnition may not relate directly to your antiquity, however, most certainly do.

It has also been some time since I have expressed how grateful I am to have had such a wonderfully diverse and interesting range of friends and acquaintance.  Thank you all.  You are greatly appreciated.

Hoping this finds you all in the very best of fettle.

Your friend 

Bob 

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THIS ?

WHAT'S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE TWO OBJECTS?

DID YOU EVER RIDE ONE OF THESE???

DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THESE?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?

HAVE YOU EVER SHOPPED AT THIS STORE?

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY WITH THESE?

DO YOU RECOGNIZE WHO THIS IS?

DO YOU KNOW THEIR NAMES?

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A GLASS OF THIS… OR DRINK IT RIGHT OUT OF THE BOTTLE?

DID YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAVE ONE OF THESE?

DID YOU, OR ANYONE YOU KNOW, EVER TAKE THIS CLASS IN SCHOOL?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S HANGING FROM THE CHAIN OR RUNNING UP THE POLE?

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN OR USED ONE OF THESE?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THESE ARE?

HAVE YOU EVER USED THIS?

HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED THIS?

DID YOU OR YOUR MOM HAVE ONE OF THESE?

WAS THERE EVER A TIME IN YOUR LIFE THAT THIS WAS THE ONLY OPTION TO DRY YOUR CLOTHES?

WHAT'S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE TWO OBJECTS?

IS THIS A FAMILIAR SCENE?

DOES THIS BRING BACK GOOD MEMORIES?

DID HE EVER COME TO YOUR HOUSE?

DID YOU EVER HAVE TO SAY "HELLO" BEFORE YOU KNEW WHO WAS CALLING?

DID YOU EVER LAUGH OUT LOUD WATCHING THIS?

Death of a Sibling Carol Sue Hansford 1950-2012 May 22, 2012

Death of a sibling

I know some of you have experienced this but it was a first for me.

My sister, Carol Sue Hansford Campbell 1949 – 2012 died two weeks ago at her home in Denver.  Her death was unexpected; certainly by me.  I had not spoken with her for some time and was not aware she was unwell.  I received a call from my remaining sister Joyce telling me she had talked with Carol’s husband, Doug and he told her that Carol had experienced a tough time getting rid of a chest infection, which led to a heart attack that killed her.  I heard and understood Joyce’s words but it seemed somehow unreal; and that feeling remains.  I had somewhat the same feeling when I heard from Mike Holmstrom’s wife that he had passed away.  Even though I knew he had cancer and was not going to live very much longer, it still did not seem real.  I guess death is just always emotionally unexpected, even when we are somewhat intellectually prepared.

Parents and old people are expected to die along with those of us who have been so unlucky as to contract a serious illness, but to have someone younger than we to be suddenly removed from life seems shocking and somehow wrong and offensive.  It penetrates the veil of denial that we build around the fact of our own mortality.  Death is the ultimate reality.  I, for one, just do not like its realization so forcefully and unexpectedly thrust upon me.

I was not particularly close to Carol but we were not estranged and I knew generally what she was doing and how her life was progressing.  How little I knew of her current day-to-day life was made clear by her friends talking about her at her funeral.  They knew her current reality much better than I but none of them could remember that little blonde haired girl with glasses and pigtails who shared the giddy excitement of Christmas morning with me so many years ago when we were children together.  I will miss her.

Most of my life I have struggled with the concept of faith.  I would like to believe but have generally not been able to truly embrace religion.  I believe there must be some power greater than ourselves at work in the universe but it has never been made personal for me.  My Grandfather was a Methodist Minister and a true believer but that conviction did not extend to my parents, neither of whom wanted any kind of funeral service.  My personal situation has always somewhat colored my infrequent interactions with formal, institutionalized religion.

Carol’s husband remained deeply in love with her throughout their marriage and in some ways was quite dependent upon her.  Both Joyce and I were worried about how hard Doug might take Carol’s death.  As I was traveling to Denver for the funeral, I suspected that he would want the comfort that a formal ceremony and traditional burial might provide.  So I was not surprised to find Joyce and I at a small chapel in the grounds of the cemetery located close to Carol and Doug’s home and not far from our childhood home or the High School that we all three attended.  Carol unlike the rest of the family had never moved from the mile-high city.  She potentially was the most committed Bronco fan who ever lived.

The funeral service itself was conducted by some rent-a-parson who I do not think had ever met Doug or Carol.  There was an open casket.  That I did not suspect.  We had to pass by to give our last respects.  For me, that body was not the animated, joyful person that was my sister.  I do not know what it was but I fear I will have a very hard time getting the image out of my mind. 

Words about everlasting life and recorded hymns of Amazing Grace will not bring back Carol for me or lessen my grief.  I would rather celebrate her life than puzzle over the mysteries of what happens next.  I try to think that if religion brings peace and solace to believers than more power to it.  But I found this whole thing unsettling and slightly unpleasant.

I think I will join my parents in not having any ceremony. 

Mike Holmstrom had his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean and my parent’s are in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  All of our physical bodies are comprised of elements that were originally created in the cataclysmic deaths of stars millions and billions of years ago and far far away.  They will ultimately return to their source.  I guess I do not care where my ashes end up but I would like it to be someplace warm, I really do hate to be cold.

Carol faced challenges in her life and things did not always come easily for her but upon reflection, I think she enjoyed living her life more than most people I have known and she never knowingly hurt a single other human being.  I do not think you can have a much better epitaph than that.

In reflecting on my life, I think I have been the recipient of many more favors than I have bestowed.  I have been lucky in my choice of friends and associates.  My friends may be weary of my continuing dependence on their generosity of spirit.  But, nevertheless, I will make one additional request.  I can assure you, that at the time, it will be the last.

Many of you have never met my family but you are all important to me and I would like them to know you a bit.  Rather than have a funeral or formal memorial service I would prefer to have a virtual memorial. I am going to ask my son Jason to send a notice to this distribution list of my death when it happens and I ask all of you to take a moment and write some brief note to him recalling our best moments.  I can think of nothing better for me at the time I cease to be than to be remembered even briefly by my friends and family.

Hope you are all well.

Bob

Rant 16 December 29, 2011

One of the mysteries that has been with me for a very long time is the fact that I seem to have less musical appreciation than most of the people I know.  My earliest recollection of this was from when I was about 8 or 9 years old while my parents and I were living in East Lansing Michigan where my father was a professor at Michigan State University.  MSU had only been for a short while.  The older MAC for Michigan Agricultural College could still be read on the smokestack of the old campus power plant.  It’s probably faded away long since or the plant torn down.  I can’t imagine it was green enough for modern times.

Somehow my third of fourth grade teacher had let my father know that they suspected I was tone deaf.  My dad, who loved music and almost took a major in it when he was in college, was horrified.  No son of his could be less than greatly talented.  He quickly arranged for a complete battery of tests to be conducted at the University to document the full range of my hearing acuity and musical discrimination.  Sadly for my father, his poor son was only a solid average in all auditory and musical respects.  My consolation was never being pressured to learn to play an instrument. 

Even with the handicap of being only average, I think I grew up as a pretty normal teenager.  Elvis and The Beatles in high school.  The Stones, Janice Joplin, The Jefferson Airplane, Jimmy Hendrix, The Grateful Dead and The Band in college.  Not to mention Dylan, Joni Michel, Peter Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, and Joan Bias.  I purposely leave out the Buffalo Springfield and The Byrd’s although I am sure that I danced to them.

But even with that musical depth, I remember the look of surprise on the face of J Glenn Gray, my Philosophy Professor and advisor at Colorado College, when we were discussing the importance Plato and Aristotle placed on music and I admitted not being quite as moved as many others by its rhythms.  Gray was a brilliant and interesting person.  He wrote a widely praised but not overly popular book entitled, The warriors, reflections on men in battle.  The book dealt with the efforts of his and his compatriots at reconciling their morality with their behavior as members of the US Armed Forces in The Second World War.  Gray spoke German perfectly.  His language skills put him into military intelligence but he was always billeted only a few miles from the front lines of battle where he interviewed many allied and enemy soldiers, often very shortly after combat.  I was surprised when I googled The Warriors and found the book was still available today and had been reprinted as recently as 1998.

After the War, Glenn became an expert in the philosophy of German phenomenologist Martin Heidegger and was his personally authorized translator.  He always struggled to reconcile his admiration for Heidegger’s work with his actions as a Nazi supporter.  Gray was the principle architect and writer of a special course called “Freedom and Authority” that was the College faculty’s response to the unrest running though the US and practically its younger generation during the 1960’s.  The course dealt with the reconciliation of an individual’s understandable desire and need to express their individual freedom with the existence of authority agents necessary to ensure an orderly society.  Every student at the college was expected to attend “F&A”.  For some reason that I now forget, I never did.  On some unarticulated level, I still think I might have greatly benefited from that course.  Particularly given my great respect for Gray as a thinker and an individual.  He was probably as close to a wholly good man as I will ever meet.

Today I do not often listen to Hendrix or Joplin.  In fact I seldom listen to any music.  When in the car, I will sometimes listen to National Public Radio talk shows or simply let my thoughts run along with the passing landscape, but normally when on a long drive I will get audio books including biography, history or scientific titles to play while enjoying the scenery.  I bought an IPOD a few years ago but almost never use it.  I do have friends that really love music.  Mike Bader is an example but his taste in groups would drive me mad.  Every time I stay at his house I have to beg him to turn down the “screaming banshees” a bit.  He’s always accommodating but I do suspect that he actually likes the shit.   Another friend is Michael Savage from Edmonton.  Michael has not only appreciation of music but real talent for it as well.  His taste is much more to my likening and I always enjoy listening to whatever selections he had on in his home.  I stayed a few days with Michael a little over a year ago and really enjoyed seeing him again.  But even on that trip I was into audio books and not sound tracks when I was driving from Edmonton to Toronto.

So I was quite surprised, when at home recently, I felt the need to track down a tune. 

http://youtu.be/B6EWitBW_F4   

 It was, “Mercy Now”, by Mary Gauthier.  Having now listened to the whole thing a couple of times now, I think it may be a bit over the top in terms of sentimentality but its targets are in all the right places and I am still enjoying the music.

I first caught only a part of the song while watching a BBC production of Case Histories.  I watch a lot of video these days but it is mostly movies, documentaries and BBC productions.  Mostly I watch on my computer, sitting in the small office I have made in one of the bedrooms of our very modest home in Reno.  My diminished physical capability and ambitions mean that I spend most of my time sitting in this chair in front of the IMAC looking out the windows at the weather painting the very ordinary cull-du-sac at the end of which our house sits.

My room s actually quite comfortable and I am surrounded by several photos and mementos of past times.   The photographs you cannot make out. over the chair. are from a great ski trip that my guys from Sprint Canada took me on just before I left Toronto to go to work for Fonorola in Montreal.  Warren Harvey and I went heli-skiing on that outing and we both nearly died.  I only went for one day.  Harv had been the day before and when I suggested he could go again, he had lots of excuses immediately available about why he shouldn’t.  He did go however and we had a wonderful day although it ended in a spectacular crash for me on the final run-out to the helicopter.  Our Vancouver rep Ean Jackson made all the arrangements for that trip and he did a great job.  Everyone had a wonderful time and we also got to connect with our friend Andre Tremblay from Montreal for a couple of days.

I need the radiator oil heater in the office since Mrs. Hansford likes to keep the house temperature at what she claims is 68°F / 20°C but which is more like 66°F / 18.8°C.  And the 66 is at the middle of the house where the thermostat is located.  Here at the periphery it is nearer 59°F / 15°C but the heater provides just enough extra to make it fine.

Actually the whole house is just fine and I really do not need a lot more space.  I would like to have an actual guest room where overnight visitors could be a bit more comfortable.  The gaudily patterned couch in the background does make up into an uncomfortable futon.  But that’s it.  The grandkids are young enough that they like to sleep on couches around the house and for them it’s better than camping.  The writing that you can’t read is a sign I got for Christmas that I have not yet put on the wall.  It starts out with, “Life is Short and Break All the Rules”; so you know I must like it. 

I got the smaller IMAC, which in hindsight was a big mistake, but I can’t justify buying the bigger screen just yet.  I am hoping to upgrade next year.  I am so glad I went back to the Apple machines and am not still struggling with trying to keep the PC free from viruses and running smoothly. 

Anyway that’s what is going on with me.  Cannot wait until summer when I can get back on the bike again.  Winters are not my favorite times anymore.   I even see less of the grandkids then as well because Jason has bought the whole family season passes at Squaw Valley and they are skiing every weekend which means they are down to Reno less often than at other times.

Since I have such little confidence in my musical ability, I would appreciate it if you could take a minute to let me know if you enjoyed this song or not.  In any case I wish you all a very Happy New Year.  My country and our planet need a better year now more than ever.

Warm regards

Bob Hansford