How can Americans stand it that they don't all vote the same way? What about those electronic voting machines that can't be trusted, or the chad-producing nonsense that befuddles the vote-counting process? How about the unceasing efforts on the part of each political party to discredit advance votes that are likely to aid the other party? What about all the Americans who are disenfranchised for one reason or another? And the different experience of the poor from the rich when they go to vote?

We just finished an election here in Canada. It was easy to register to vote. When I arrived at my polling station, it was staffed mainly by my neighbours who'd volunteered to participate in the process. I felt reassured that everything was being done to scrutinize and make the vote accurate. My name was checked off in a binder. I was given a voting card. I went behind a little screen, picked up a pencil, and made an X. I came back to the table and deposited the folded card into a box. Afterwards, all the cards with their Xs were counted, and the winner was proclaimed.

If there are any disputes about the vote count, the cards can be recounted. They exist, and provided quality control works, which I think it mostly does, they have not been tampered with. The best process is a physical one, not an electronic one, because that can be carefully watched by concerned local people who care to see that it goes properly. We also have the federal Elections Canada department to help make sure that all Canadians have the same voting experience and that their votes are all counted as equally and accurately as possible.

It's not that we don't have problems here. For example, not enough people vote (only 59% this time around, I feel ashamed to admit). I don't assert that our process is perfect. But it seems to me that Americans are putting up with a deeply flawed process, even if you just look at election day. Why?

America needs some hate management therapy right about now.

For various reasons, I suspect I may be a bit farther through my life, at 44, than many people. That is to say, I should get to the stuff I want to do before I die, rather than deferring it all until some distant putative retirement. For one thing, I'm a freelancer, so when is this alleged retirement anyway? *laughter* But seriously.

Most of my goals involve travelling. In no particular order: I'd like to visit Cuba (I'm Canadian, so no problem going there). I want to go because my husband has been and he says it's great. I also need to go back to France and retrace my visit there in 1987-88, when I was a student at the university in Aix-en-Provence. I didn't see enough of France at the time because I was desperately poor. I want to take my husband to Chicago, a place I love and have visited quite a few times, but where he's never been. And we're also going to do a driving tour of the Canadian maritime provinces, which are among the most beautiful places in the world.

Those are the big destinations. I have some non-travel-related goals, but I must say they pale in comparison. What experiences are on your Life List? Have you given it any thought at all?

Somehow my eyes are on the horizon these days. Not sure why.

I always appreciate it when a knowledgeable author takes a current issue and gives it the proper historical context.

Click here to read an insightful article about current American politics and what America's own political past can tell us about what's happening today.

Here is a cute groundhog that has installed his sleek, furry self in our backyard. He seems a happy varmint, and we are glad to have him amongst us.

Our backyard menagerie this summer has included chipmunks, baby squirrels growing up outside our bedroom window, a flock of northern flickers scrounging ants from between our paving stones, and a Cooper's hawk taking advantage of occasional mourning-dove unwariness. This in addition to the more usual crowd of American goldfinches, common grackles, raccoons, opossums and so on. Who needs the zoo?

I am writing a speculative story about bringing a famous dead person back to energetic life for twenty-four hours and finding out what they'd like to do for the day.

I thought I'd ask wandering Xangans about this. If you could bring someone famous back into the world for a day, how would the day go? As their host and escort, would you tell them about how the world is now, or just ask them how they'd like to spend their bonus hours? Would you ask them some questions about their life, to clear up some mysteries about them? How would they respond? And what does all this say about you... !

I am having fun with this idea -- I imagine disturbing Shakespeare's eternal rest. Bwaha.

My goodness, I haven't been around these parts. I guess there are plenty of excuses, including summer gardening and barbequing, home renovations both by choice and by necessity, and the odd actual paying work project.

However, we went to the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto last week to see this new Welsh singer, she's great! Room-filling, spine-tingling voice. Thought I'd pass along the good news.

Stick with this short clip past your initial reaction of "omg teeny guitars!" -- your reward will be a really funny mélange of songs that proves All Songs Are One. Enjoy!

I was away at a conference last week, and the song "Cheerio! Cheerio!" greeted me on my return, from all the surrounding bushes and trees. Why, you may ask? Because our robins had grown up in my absence, of course.

It only takes two weeks to go from tiny blue egg to frumpy-looking teenager, if you're an American Robin. My husband took some pics which I will share with you here, so that you will see how our nestlings fared while I was away.

The above photo may be slightly out of focus, but then again, these babies are pretty out of it themselves, aren't they. Well, they're on the ball when their mama arrives with a worm, of course, stretching their thin little necks up and opening their big yellow mouths wide. Below is another photo of the nest on that day.

Only a couple of days later, you can really see the change as the nest gets very crowded and the birds' feathers continue to develop. They start to open their eyes and take a personal interest in affairs around them.

My husband missed the actual moment when these messy creatures leapt from their safe platform into the surrounding landscape. Fuzzy new robins abandon their natal homes before they can actually fly, which seems quite inadvisable to me, but they have never consulted my wisdom on this or any matter. They take up stations under bushes, in window wells, in the shadows of rocks, and so forth, and continue to make loud demands for food from their parents.

Robin parents go along with this arrangement and continue to deliver food to their offspring for some days after the nest is empty. Our last view of a given family is often a crowd of them pestering a parent on a tree branch until they get firmly pecked away. Then they start to fend for themselves, and the parents get busy on brood number two. From what I've seen, robins will raise three broods each year if they can get away with it.

I also recently learned that robins flock and are very gregarious during their southern migration and while they are vacationing over the winter. The relatively solitary behaviour I've observed in them is natural to them when they are in their northern breeding grounds.

Here's a slightly clearer picture of our robin acquaintance. She's putting up with us a bit more now that her eggs have hatched.

Robins ignore their first egg or two for a day after they are laid. Then they lay another egg or two. This way, they can be sure that all the eggs will hatch at basically the same time, giving all the hatchlings the best chance of survival. So, a couple of days ago, this situation obtained in the nest:

And then, next time we peeked:

Four absurd hatchlings! Can you even sort them out? They have dark eye capsules and darkish stubs where their wings will be. Have you ever seen such helpless little objects? Thank goodness for the robin mama, is all I can say.

We disturb the robin as little as possible, but once a day I have to open the front door (or come around the front) to get the newspaper and check my mail. So that's when my husband takes pictures. While he stretches up, standing on the porch railing and steadying the camera on the porch ceiling, the robin disapproves of us from a nearby tree branch, as follows:

I feel thoroughly Taken a Dim View Of, don't you?

CG