My family and I have Alberta health care coverage, and supplemental insurance provided through my employer that costs me about $80 a month. For that, we have no co-pays, anywhere, 100% drug coverage, and a private hospital room if I need it. I have an excellent doctor in a clinic two miles from my house, and I have not had to wait more than 30 minutes to get in to see her. (I often wait less than 5 minutes.)

I left Houston early last year, where I was an EMT for four years. I remember two patients, a father and son, who had been badly beaten outside their home. We took them to a hospital where the mother said that she wanted her husband, the breadwinner, treated. She said that she could not afford to have her son looked at, and would not allow it. I could never understand how America could be so advanced in so many areas, and yet so cruel when it came to sharing the nation's wealth.

The airwaves are held in the public trust. In this day and age Imus's remarks are indefensible at any level. I think his suspension should be permanent, if for no other reason than to send a message that people are responsible for what they say on air.

"Maybe the smartest thing to do would be to take all the billions that are going to be spent on border control, and invest it in building roads and schools and other infrastructure in Mexico. A Marshall Plan for Mexico might seem unworkably utopian to some, but at least it would be a way forward built on hope, rather than exclusion."

It sure doesn't seem utopian to me. Can you imagine the goodwill that this plan would buy?

...that what goes around, comes around. And it sure came around for him this time.

When the Dixie Chicks offended Bush supporters, conservatives tried to destroy their careers, gleefully saying that along with free speech came responsibility. Now I hear conservatives saying that Imus shouldn't have to accept responsibility for his free speech.

It won't hurt him anyway: he will be banished to outer space and end up on Sirius. They can have him.

NBC and CBS just sent a clear message about what is acceptable on the public airways. This is a good day.

The blockade of the Strait of Tiran was an act of war, according to international law, not 'just as far as Israel was concerned'.

(See http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Blockade)

If Egypt was so weak in relation to Israel, then it shouldn't have blockaded the Strait and provoked a war.

Mean. Just plain mean.

Great article, and I'm glad you're back in the air. I look forward to your articles.

Years ago a Canadian journalist called Michelle Landsberg wrote an article on the American political system that stated that there was only one party, the Capitalist Party, and that there were two branches, the Republicans and the Democrats. The tension between the two branches let the American people labor under the useful fiction that they lived in a democracy, while the real outcome was never in doubt.

I don't think that the present system is repairable. The US will gradually be left behind as newer 'Democracy 2.0' nations find their stride. The ruling oligarchy would rather that the country declined than take any meaningful action to modernize it.

The American public will be told that the present system is called 'freedom' though, so no one can oppose it without being destroyed.

Live your own life, and enjoy your family. Contribute from a distance. You and your wife have a lot to offer: you didn't get all that education for the benefit of two people. There are a lot of patients and students out there that need your attention too.

Well said. My wife estimates that she does 99.5% of all the work in our house, yet I feel like an inmate in a labor camp.

You've had this goddamned picture on the home page of Salon for several days now. Enough. I am not interested in horror movies, and I am tired of seeing this blood-spattered image whenever I go to the Salon website. There is plenty of content out there, so let's all just move on.

I have no love for the right wing, but in this case I would let it alone. Your column is starting to sound like an echo chamber. Who cares what he wrote? I read this morning that 20 headless bodies were found in Baghdad today. Isn't that a more important story than what a frustrated soldier living in a war zone did or did not say?

There are no 'signficant' questions to resolve. Twenty years from now will someone look back and say that what Colonel Boylan emailed to you was important? Who cares? Is it really important?

And not only do Canadians live longer than Americans, our healthcare costs half per person than US healthcare. Our WHO ranking is a disturbing 30th, but it is better than the US ranking of 37.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Healthcare in the richest country of the world should be a right, not a privilege. It seems to be a right almost everywhere else.

Why do you people put up with it?

Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005.

But never, ever fix his car again. Ever.

I find I read the NYT opinion pages less and less these days. Why they would hire William Kristol is beyond me, and it sure won't bring me back as a reader. The paper used to be a kind of refuge from most right-wing propaganda, and now by hiring Kristol they have lost that attraction.

This column is a terrific idea. Another great reason to read Salon.