Thanks, Amos, for posting the link to "Ten Reasons Not to Move to Canada." I've been to Vancouver, B.C. more times than I can count (it's a beautiful city and I love the place), and I've also been to Victoria once, and to eastern Canada (Kingston, Ont.) where my sister, brother-in-law, and a whole batch of nieces and nephews hang out. My son works in Ottawa for the Canadian government. I would find it very pleasant to live in Canada.

But Seattle is a beautiful city also (even if traffic gridlock is the third worst in the country and as far as a good public transportation system is concerned, we're thirty years behind the times and the current batches of competing transportation planners are a bunch of blithering idiots), I have family here also, and lots of friends, both new and life-long. It would really be a wrench for me to pull up stakes and leave for somewhere else. Were Barbara and I to do something like that, we'd probably go the whole route and move to England (and wothehell! France is just a chunnel-trip away!).

But we're not planning on leaving. I intend to stick around and do what I can in my own small way to see that this country changes direction to a rational and truly compassionate society, while making life miserable for those who think that the acquisition of wealth is more important than the genuine needs of people. Or that forcing our brand of "democracy" on the rest of the world by use of military power is really going to work. Or that declaring conventional, battle-field style wars pre-emptively and indiscriminately is the way to defeat terrorism. The true test of the success of a society is "how well does it treat its most powerless and vulnerable citizens?" And "how well does it get along with its neighbors?"

Do I think I can change this country? Certainly not by myself. But one does what one can. Far better to give it your all and fail than to say "Ah, to hell with it!" and give up.

Don Firth

(I'm ready to charge. Point me at the nearest windmill!)