Will a Canadian or two please explain this to me? Canadian Court Chips Away at National Health Care Toronto, June 9 The Canadian Supreme Court struck down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance today, dealing an acute blow to the publicly financed national health care system. The court stopped short of striking down the constitutionality of the country's vaunted nationwide coverage, but legal experts said the ruling would open the door to a wave of lawsuits challenging the health care system in other provinces. The system, providing Canadians with free doctor's services that are paid for by taxes, has generally been supported by the public, and is broadly identified with the Canadian national character. But in recent years, patients have been forced to wait longer for diagnostic tests and elective surgery, while the wealthy and well connected either seek care in the United States or use influence to jump ahead on waiting lists. The court ruled that the waiting lists had...
I have been reading your very intelligent blogging and was wondering...since you are a New Yorker and were there on September 11...what were your feelings on that day?
ReplyDeleteSteve Lee
Steve, wow, what a question. I wrote something about what we did on September 12. Maybe I will post it here.
ReplyDeleteMy feelings that day... shock, fear, pain. Fear of the future, of where this was going, if it was over. Incredulity, disbelief, a feeling of surreality.
When I remember that day, I see myself sitting in front of the television with a box of tissues in front of me, unable to stop crying. Glued to the TV, watching our 24-hour NYC news channel (NY1), just crying and crying and crying.
Everyone was calling each other to make sure we were all there. Allan (my partner) used to work in the World Trade Center, and several relatives, including my mother, forgot that he no longer did, so we got a few panicked calls, too.
A few hours into the day, I knew I had to go downtown, to be as close to the site (not yet called Ground Zero) as I could. Watching it on television, it could have been happening anywhere. I had to see for myself what was there and what wasn't.
Thank you so much for the compliment about my blogging. Maybe tomorrow I'll post my Sept 12 piece.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. Nobody did any work all day, we were all glued to TVs, radios and computers just trying to make sense of it all. I was shocked and saddened, but more than anything else, I was angry. If I was a younger man, I would have enlisted in the army on that day.
ReplyDeleteWe were all New Yorkers on that day.
I don't know, I am a New Yorker, and I wasn't angry. The army, sure, but to fight whom?
ReplyDeleteNew Yorkers in general were not angry. More shocked and very, very sad.
I wasn't very rational on that day. I wanted to make somebody pay. And you're right, I had no idea who exactly. I'm not a very angry person and I'm never violent, but when those planes crashed into the WTC, I was a different person for awhile.
ReplyDeleteI understand completely. It was a day that suspended all rational thought. It's good that you felt that way, really - because your feelings came from empathy and compassion.
ReplyDeletePart of our current problem is that people are still playing on that irrational anger and emotion.