Rebecca Walberg

We’re accustomed to thinking of Canadian healthcare problems in terms of splashy failures and gross inefficiencies - people dying in ER waiting rooms, cancer victims who have to pay for their own chemotherapy, 18 month waits for surgery.  The problems with our healthcare system are pervasive, though, and cause a lot of problems that don’t register on the radar for most of us, but nonetheless cost the system time, money, and sometimes lives.  If all Canadians had an Electronic Health Record - think the medical equivalent of a credit report, with the basic facts easily accessible by anyone you allow to acces it - we’d spend less money, repeat fewer tests, and get treated more safely and effectively.  More on EHRs and the high cost of not investing in our system sensibly here.

Last week, a Saskatchewan aboriginal man pled guilty to neglect causing the deaths of his toddlers when he took them out in -50 winds almost naked and they froze to death.  Although he claimed at the time to have been too drunk to dress them, he managed to dress himself in more adequate clothing, and also to get himself to safety while his daughters were dying of exposure.  Right now, two Manitoba natives are on trial for the murder of a 5 year old girl.  Phoenix Sinclair, the woman’s daughter, was treated with a level of sadism and cruelty that is reminiscent of the worst of Abu Ghraib, by her own mother and her mother’s live-in boyfriend.  There are recriminations flying all around about who is to blame for what, but so far nobody is talking very much about the profound dysfunction that lies at the root of both of these criminal cases, as well as the pervasive child abuse, substance abuse, mental illness and teen suicide that plague First Nations: the collapse of the family.  My column on this topic, paired with two other takes on it, is in today’s Winnipeg Free Press.

One of the challenges facing military thinkers in the 21st century has been how to adapt the model of warfighting that has been developed over the past four centuries to a world in which the biggest threats come from groups that aren’t armies, don’t control a specific territory, and owe allegiance to no nation or government. John Robb, a blogger, ex Special Forces soldier, and businessman, has written a thought-provoking book on this subject, which I review for Canadian webzine C2C here.

Introduction:

The diabolical genius of the 9/11 attacks was the way in which a small and loosely organized group of terrorists slipped around the behemoth of the US military and security apparatus, rather than attempting to directly engage it. The greatest threat to American domestic security and the American military abroad turned out to be not another nation or its armed forces, but a determined consortium using only tools that can be cheaply and easily purchased, such as cell phones and box cutters.

John Robb, a technology consultant with an engineering degree from the Air Force Academy, a business degree from Yale, and years of experience in counterterrorism as a special forces operative, sees a parallel here with the decline of Microsoft. For years, that company was the unquestioned leader in computer software, with competitors such as Novell, Corel and Netscape, which quickly lost out whenever they tried to compete with Microsoft head-on. Instead, the most serious challenger to Windows comes from Linux, an open source operating system which is freely distributed, and improved upon by its users. Robb believes that the future of organized violence will be similar: the age of the colossus is past, while agile, adaptable and only loosely hierarchical organizations will dominate from now on.

After a campaign in which he has been one of the louder conservative voices criticizing Sarah Palin, and at best a muted and reticent supporter of McCain, David Frum writes a convincing post about why he’s voting for McCain and why other American voters who value smaller government, increased freedom, national security, small-c conservatism and politicians with integrity should do likewise.  He also addresses the Palin issue, to wit, why Republicans or conservatives who aren’t delighted with her addition to the ticket should still vote McCain-Palin.

His first point:

10) No elected official in American life has contributed more to the security of the nation than John McCain. Latterly, McCain was the most senior and most forceful advocate of the strategy that has saved the day in Iraq. For that reason alone, he deserves your vote.

Read the rest here.