Although it takes me longer every morning to engage my mind and anatomy (I’ve intentionally taken to doing so with moderate acceleration to overcome the lack of intellectual and physical exuberance), I nonetheless hold fast to my lifetime ambition of having a fresh start. It reflects the product of a night’s rest and the sense of reinvigoration prompted by any new day really but for whatever reason I always feel the necessity to start afresh. It is a native invitation to paint a new image on the canvass of life. One must dress accordingly. Which means wearing clean clothes and cleansing one’s spectacles, to see and to be seen.

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The way people are talking these days you’d think we were doomed. The current blather among pundits is that right wing conservatives are overtaking the communist leftist pansies. The objective is cleansing the masses and restoring the 17th century monarchical supremacy. Maybe finally we’ll get rid of those damn people! And then get the world back to where it should be!

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I’ve occasionally heard unfavourable things said of me.  I mean, who hasn’t?  Nobody escapes condemnation.  Nonetheless I wasn’t ready for today’s assault. This was a big one, the first of its kind, and pointedly for me the last I shall willingly or failingly expose myself to. I now have it on “reliable authority” that I am a repetitive, tedious bore, not only for himself (which frankly is an isolated characterization I might have tolerated) but also for everyone else (that is, based upon his theory).  And you know what, there is an element of truth to the criticism.  I do repeat myself. A lot.  I have run out of jokes primarily because I haven’t had any new material lately (in the last twenty years or so) and I proudly (or should I say arrogantly) repeat the identical daily habits of cycling, washing the car and writing the same BORING REPETITIVE stuff. I no longer have a frequency of employment or activity which animates me with regularity.  In every respect life is now a pattern of silence, privacy and isolation. Let’s face it, my life isn’t exactly a stage show. I am just an old fogey with a tedious life.  It is a life which, unfortunately for others, I happen to enjoy.  So I am now inclined to keep it to myself.

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Dealing with bureaucracy is never fun. Once you’ve found what you believe is the correct telephone number to call, you first must ensure the office is open.  This excludes weekends and holidays; and never attempt a call within 5 minutes after the recorded opening time. If you connect to a government office for example it is assured that “All of our agents are currently busy; your expected wait time is between 10 and 20 minutes “. Even if you are requested (by a recorded message) to enter banking or social security detail, you’ll be asked to repeat it later (assuming you’re not first told “You’ve entered an invalid number”).

The Western world is reportedly under siege.  The putative invaders are immigrants; the actual infection is myopia and panic. The excuse is protection of one’s religion or culture (itself an astonishingly limited dimension in view of the diversity of existing society and the indisputable adversity to the invasion of religion in the affairs of government). There is baseless suggestion that giving famished people food to eat and occasional hospital care will devastate the economy.

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The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a Requiem Mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year. A completed version dated 1792 by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the piece for a requiem service on 14 February 1792 to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of his wife Anna at the age of 20 on 14 February 1791.

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Earlier this morning the bulbous beads of crystal rain drizzled and languished on the drawing room window creating a chock-a-block cascade of intermingled drops that tarnished the spiralling greenery of the meadow and fields beyond. The damp grey clouds enveloped and smothered the landscape and river. It was a perfect day to remain indoors clad in woollen socks and a consoling sweater. Everything bespoke privacy and retreat. It was Nature’s moment of enforced contemplation and hopeful resurgence from the latest industry wrought by the complications of the summer solstice and unparalleled fine weather; a moment of doubt and doom, reaction and rebound.

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A presidential debate is putatively of interest primarily because of its political consequence (though no one expects to hear specific platforms). What is anticipated with more certainty is the casting of dispersions by one candidate upon the other. The two opposing candidates are predicted to dissolve into confrontation and disagreement. Neither candidate is thought to dissuade or persuade any member of the audience. Instead the so-called debate between the candidates inevitably descends to mere conflict and hostility often without the benefit of either strategic logic or rhetoric argument.

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It is Thursday June 27th, the day before the start of the long weekend.  July 1st Canada Day is on Monday next. The sun is shining brightly and the weekend weather forecast extending into the following week is favourable.  I expect that for many people the holiday weekend starts today. This means leaving work early, pleasing oneself to imagine escaping the brewing holiday kerfuffle which constrains those less fortunate who are bound to wait until Friday afternoon to ignite their gusto. If the bags and trunk of the car are not already packed, that duty will be performed at breakneck speed this afternoon. The ambition is to leave town by 2 o’clock at the latest and head to one’s destination. It is then that the festive spirit fully overtakes one’s sensibilities and the celebratory weekend officially begins. The well-earned sabbatical is time for rejoicing!

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Health care is commonly one of the salient features of life and governance in any community. Lately it has been the subject of controversy arising on the one hand from accusations of regression and on the other hand from debate about looming privatization. I have experienced both public and private health care systems in Canada and the United States of America.

Canada may be able to deliver not only the must-haves like universal primary care but also the nice-to-haves like drug coverage for those currently falling through the cracks. It would just take some courage from politicians.  There is an obvious way to find the money: it would simply require amending the Canada Health Act to make explicit that provinces would no longer be penalized if they allowed a small number of willing patients to buy quicker care so that provinces can loosen their rules. This would then free up scarce resources such that provinces could expand public drug coverage beyond their current programs. One might think of it as a policy swap whereby public coverage would be somewhat curtailed for hospital and physician services and somewhat expanded for drugs.

As anyone who’s seen the subway ads advertising clinics in Buffalo knows, we already have two tiers: those who can afford to leave the country for prompt care and those who can’t.

Josh Dehaas, “The Hub”

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