What we want, or, Election Day

I want justice. I want peace, order, and good government. I want not to fear injury or illness because we have doctors and medicine to banish sickness, nor to fear living because we have poets and art to dream everything between heaven and earth. I want good schools so that people may see what we've learned about man and the world -- "he who cannot draw on three thousand years..." -- and good academics so that we may know what world we can have and what world we want -- "wir muessen wissen, wir werden wissen" (we must know, we shall know) -- and good government so that we may build it. I want society to make us think it is not so bad to be human. I just wish I knew how to pay for all of it.

Election day comes but once a year. Have you voted? (I did. Last week.)

I'll be watching it on-line, starting from ten o'clock Eastern, live on cbc.ca. They say they'll be streaming their 'election special' video live again, an excellent practice which I commend. It is a little sad that it starts so late. In fact it begins before the polls close on the East Coast, but it cannot be broadcast to those on the West until polls there have closed due to local laws. Probably this is a good law but it makes things a little less dramatic. Instead of hearing about it while there's still a sliver of day's light (there, I mean, not here) we wait until the stars are out to find what kind of government we get. Care to guess?

* * * * *

In the meantime, a pair of pretty pictures for us, just because I said I would.

Last view of Vancouver: twenty-six consecutive rainy days



"Look, Sulu: the sun's come out" no rain above the clouds as the wind brushes the windows clean