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It looks like we'll be able to take a good trip next year, and thank goodness, because it's been too long for me. Travel in 2007 was limited to smaller getaways - the cottage in the Kawarthas , our friend's wedding in Vermont , and of course, the Ice Hotel back in January. I also went to California , in addition to our annual New York/New Jersey trips. As fun as these smaller trips are - and I do love them - I missed taking what I consider a "big" vacation, for a longer period of time, someplace I've never been. Nothing does it for me like travel. For a while it looked like 2008 might be our long-awaited dogsledding adventure, but we can't swing it financially, and Dogsled Stacie isn't quite set up for visitors yet. So now we're talking about the Yukon in '09. But, finances permitting, we want to travel in Canada next year, and my first priority is heading east. I'm eager to see Newfoundland, thanks to those beautiful ads that ran during ...

Tom and Emilio are here! Canadian Hope has made it to Canada!! These two men have been through so much, just to try to make a safe home together. And along the way, they've reached out to help others. Tom is always out there, writing letters, being public, eloquently stating their (simple and obvious) case. I say it all the time: the US's loss is Canada's gain. And in this case, our gain, too, as now we have more friends in Toronto. We haven't met Tom and Em in person yet, somehow the timing has never worked out. But now that they're our GTA neighbours, there'll be plenty of opportunity. They're already part of Nick and Mason 's widening circle of friends. Nick and Mason seem to have embraced the role of Welcoming Committee. I just love how this whole thing goes around, each of us helping others along the way. I continue to get emails from Americans making the big move north. I only wish everyone who wanted to move to Canada, could.

I'm getting a ton of traffic from this post at Jon Swift , so I thought you might like to read it. I made a rare appearance in comments. I usually avoid anyplace where I might run into a wingnut, especially where rape is concerned, but there were a few lies I simply had to respond to. I noticed other commenters had done the same. On another note, it amazes at how many people simply do not understand the concept of satire. It's a great post , from one of the very best blogs. Enjoy.

Write any good letters lately? This Wednesday, December 19, you're invited to attend an open meeting of the War Resisters Support Campaign (Toronto chapter). Meet some great people, eat delicious home-made cookies and write letters. We'll be calling on our Members of Parliament, Stéphane Dion, Steven Harper, and various other key officials, to pass the resolution recommended by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. That the Committee recommend that the government immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members (partners and dependents), who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and that the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals. It will be a fun, productive evening, and it...

I had an interesting coincidence of events yesterday. Last night we watched the DVD extras on Michael Moore's "Sicko". There's a lot of good stuff: an extended interview with the great Tony Benn ; interviews with Dr. Aleida Guevara from Cuba and Dr. Marcia Angell in New York; information on HR 676 , John Conyers's and Dennis Kucinich's bill for universal health insurance; Elizabeth Warren explains how even people who pay enormous sums for health insurance and think of themselves as well protected, find themselves bankrupt when they get seriously ill. And of course, there are more heartbreaking stories of Americans who have died because they are not rich. In discussing these pieces, Allan and I agreed that real health care reform - single-payer, non-profit, universal insurance - would first require an entire overhaul of the election system. In order to take on the insurance companies, candidates would have to be free of corporate influence, but still able to...

I told you about my guilty pleasure : watching that 1980s TV relic, the first of the great night-time soaps, "Dallas". I usually indulge in Dallas only while slogging through that other relic of mine, ironing. But yesterday I was exhausted, and I plopped myself on the couch for a mid-afternoon Dallas fix. I saw something unexpected: a bit of queer history. The episode I watched, from the first full season (on DVD as Season 2), must have been a very early, positive portrayal of a gay person on mainstream TV. In this episode of Dallas , young Lucy Ewing is in love with the heir of another oil fortune, Kit Mainwaring. Kit cares for Lucy and tries to make it work, but realizes that he cannot change who he is. In a plea for advice, he first comes out to Lucy's uncle Bobby Ewing: "I can't marry Lucy. I'm a homosexual." Bobby is shocked, but after digesting the news, he tells Kit that's his own business, but why did he have to hurt Lucy? Naturally, it gets ...

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident. Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job. "Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told. In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. "It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I w...