What I've noticed about the local high-school Muslim girls:- Molded clothes that reveal T&A to the max...but they wear the hijab, so they're "okay". Some weird kind of compromise...

The hijab is quite definitely oppressive and despite all those reassuring words from Muslim spokespeople in Mississauga, the fact is that "honor" killings are not uncommon, less so among immigrants here (Canada) than in the old country, where they're a matter of course and don't make the news, but they do happen here on a fairly regular basis. Just recently a woman in Ottawa was killed by her brother and in B.C. another young woman killed by her father. (Not hijab-related, but a similar matter of the women acting independently.)

Of course, the regular homicides by husbands against wives who leave or who are perceived not to be sufficiently submissive-wife are so common in our majority culture that they scarcely make the headlines... Though the need for 24-hours news channels are making some high-profile cases, like the Peterson thing in Chicago, impinge upon the general consciousness...

Why don't people who don't like Opus just not read it? There's things on Salon I have no interest in (sports for instance - no problem with the columnist, just zero interest in the topic) and I ignore them.

P.S. "Appendictomy" was pure genius. (Send it to Breathed for the upcoming sex-change strip...)

Candles are hardly obsolete - there's all kinds of them for sale. For ambiance, or something. So we can have paper books for their particular purposes (and pleasures), and ebooks for murder mysteries on plane trips. (I don't want to get rid of my paper books - great insulation.

Anonymous (one of them) summed up my feeling -

One may preach hope, but how does one deliver?

...isn't the way human beings operate. Struggle, fighting (fairly and otherwise). Victory and conquest. Cooperation only among the fighters to try to defeat the other side. Unfortunately we need a fighter, not a let's-all-get-along type.

Hey Heather, how did you access my self-evaluation and new year's resolutions anyway. I'll have to wrap my computer in tinfoil or something...

As another LW said, your comments on The Wire have inspired me to watch it. I had avoided it on the grounds that real life is depressing enough w.o. watching it on TV too, but I think I'll give it a try.

P.S. - Don't let the whiners get you down - this was a wonderful piece of work, which even made me feel better about the human race! *Consciousness* is the only thing that can save us...

Why the gratuitous crack about Wiccans? The ones I know who assist at births are registered doulas or midwives. But that's plonking, really. The point is the gratuitousness ... Is there some kind of epidemic of Wiccan birth activities that I, a long-time and reasonably plugged-in practitioner, haven't heard about? Or was it just an opportunity to insert a snicker into an otherwise serious article? (grumble)

I imagine I'm hardly alone in having a computer connection (I'm in the boonies) that doesn't allow me to watch these video items. However, I figure I get everything I need from the print. (Does Salon provide spoken versions for blind people?)

Abbywood et al - move to Canada.

I don't know why Americans get so uptight about the concept of socialized medicine. Chikalada, you talk of the insurance co. embroiling themselves in every little step. Why is this preferable to "bureaucratic interference" in medical care? The insurance companies are out to make money - the bureaucracy at least is not. And the way it's set up here, the government tells doctors how many patient visits they'll get paid for (apparently enough to keep them very busy), how many hip replacements can be done, etc.(adjusted upwards when the hospitals and doctors complain). But they don't quibble over individual cases (and if your local hospital's hip replacement quota is full, you can find someplace that still have "spares"...or you wait a bit).

I, my daughter, my husband (terminal) have had medical problems in the past few years. One stressor in all this that we DIDn't have was insurance or how to pay for any of this. I have something, I get an appointment right away, doctor arranges tests immediately...had to wait two weeks for a non-urgent catscan is all... And at the end of the year I cough up income tax, and glad to do it.

Seems to me it's a word, not really some sacred principle, that keeps your medical scene the way it is.

OUR WAY IS NOT PERFECT, GRANTED. But no way is perfect. Ours at least allows for all meditation and "magic" work to be concentrated on the condition, not the bills...

Lovely!

But the link did produce a wonderful description of Nicholson.

And what Gonzalez wrote about him, which all looks factual, is very worrisome. I think Salon and, even more, the MSM, should be laying this out to the electorate (not all of whom are swooning).

P.S. - This from someone (a) not eligible to vote, (b) would be viscerally if not intellectually thrilled to see Obama as prez.

Obama would certainly present a new face to the world (and one that is more representative, I feel as a Canadian, after a recent trip to California, where virtually all the service people - those actually DOing something to keep the machinery going - were non-white).

But behind the "diverse" face, would it be Same Old Same Old? (Obama's already talked of invading Pakistan!) And, as another LW said, how much actual change would the establishment let him make? (And how much does he WANT to make? His record is a lot less inspiring than his oration.)