“Where do you live?
“What were you doing in the States?
“What are you bringing with you?
“Any alcohol, tobacco, or controlled substances?
“Any weapons or firearms?”

Meanwhile, the guy is processing my passport in a reader. The whole interaction was under 20 seconds. Efficient enough, it seems.

When I entered the US on F-1 status, on the other hand, baggage had to go through an X-ray machine, questions were asked about fresh produce (why does that even matter), officers grilled other people for a long time, and the overall trip time gained about two hours from the border.

I don’t think there’s any difference in effective border safety/security on the two sides of this bridge.

My alternative is Student Health Service, on another edge of campus, where there is a comfortable environment, shorter waiting times, and probably better trained personnel.

Instead of taking advantage of the benefits afforded to me by my student health insurance plan, a consequence of my attendance at the University of Pennsylvania, I chose this clinic because I could get the test done on an earlier date. I imagined it wouldn’t be as great of a place as SHS, or the expansive, top-tier hospitals of Penn Medicine, but what I am experiencing has convinced me, even more so than I thought before, of the epic failures of the American health care system.

* This post has since been revised and reformatted, although it was initiated during my time in the clinic.

A comparison

Those who are fortunate enough to have employer- or school-sponsored health insurance may have access to HMO hospitals, clinics, and doctors.

Those who attend a comprehensive university like mine may have access to the combined resources of a student health clinic and a set of university hospitals merely a block away.

Those who are in the lower strata of income and status, or whose recent unemployment leaves them uninsured, are relegated to public institutions such as these health centers, left to understaffed clinics, long wait times, and expensive, unaffordable medications. Some of these people are also caught outside the eligibility criteria of governmental programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

I’m from Canada

If timing weren’t an issue, I would just do this skin test back at home in Ontario, Canada. Sure, the skin test itself might not be covered by the provincial OHIP program, but at least every resident (after a certain number of months of residence) has access to physicians and walk in clinics at no basic charge beyond their taxes; those who are below the low-income cutoff might even pay $0 in federal and/or provincial taxes.

There is no such thing as a general practitioner who will turn you away because you “belong” to another unaffiliated insurance company. Low income citizens do not have to go to a crowded government “health center” for basic medical care; any privately-operated walk-in clinic, or a family doctor who is accepting new patients, will do. The UK also demonstrates how access to prescription medicine can be broadened.

Even those who are insured in the US are shocked when they find the cost of health care to be much higher than budgeted.

• Students on our private university-organized insurance plan still must pay a $100 co-pay to go to the emergency room, although the co-pay is waived under restrictive conditions
• There’s a co-pay of $35 for an X-ray diagnostic test. I had a chest X-ray done as a matter of an annual physical examination over the summer in Canada, and it was covered by OHIP.
• Flu vaccinations are $24 (at least) in the vicinity of this university. While private health insurance may cover the cost, it’s surprising that this basic tool of public health isn’t free; municipal governments in Ontario almost universally administer them at no charge, and they are available through doctors’ offices, public health clinics, walk-in clinics, and even some pharmacies.

Even if we forget entirely about how much this sucks compared to medical care in Canada—which admittedly has its own issues—the disparities in access to, and quality of, health care between classes here in the United States should be appalling.

Dr. David Himmelstein of The Cambridge Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues, authored a paper in the International Journal of Health Services in 2004 on the inefficiencies in the American health care system. One of the most potent conclusions is summarized in the abstract:

The United States wastes more on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all its uninsured … Only a single-payer national health insurance system could garner these massive administrative savings, allowing universal coverage without any increase in total health spending.

He also concludes that, in the US in 1999, “administrative spending consumed at least 31.0 percent of health spending… [i]n contrast, administrative costs in Canada… are about 16.7 percent of health spending.” I imagine some people are profiting from this spending.

Closing

I am a student, who, as a matter of circumstance (i.e. parents’ hard work) and fortune, have access to one of the top hospital systems in America. Not everyone is as fortunate. And it takes a bit of altruism to be able to stand up in a position like this and advocate on behalf of those who can’t.

Experience has shown that a weak populace is easier to rule over. One wonders if the goal of weakening the populace, especially the poor, is the reason that America continues to fail at reforming health care.

Accounting for stops and detours, and the little walk I took at the lake shore, Google Maps estimates a 17.4 kilometre trip, or 3 hours and 32 minutes of walking time if I had walked continuously.

Timeline

According to the audio clips I recorded in Evernote, text messages and instant messaging chats…

• 10:00 exactly — Arrived at Finch Avenue & Yonge Street
• 10:14 — spent almost exactly 15 minutes at Staples, bought a pack of pens
• 10:37 — bought a 1.5 L bottle of water from Shoppers Drug Mart
• 10:40 — reached government office and got out at 10:45
• 10:58 — took a detour around the Yonge/401 intersection because that’s how the sidewalk works on the East side of Yonge Street
• The next half hour-ish — walked through sparsely populated area with huge houses, hills upon hills, and large open green spaces/parks
• 11:38 or so — arrived at Starbucks in an affluent uptown area and ordered a light ice green tea lemonade; by the way, the wifi signal is really weak at this place

Light ice green tea lemonade from a certain Starbucks

Amount of ice left over -- not bad!

• 11:57 — observed person walking by with a Harvard T-shirt
• 12:21 — reached Elginton Avenue & Yonge Street and at last observed lots and lots of people
• 12:27 — light drizzle; first hints of impending rain
• 12:50 — reached St. Clair Avenue & Yonge Street; things are looking okay for a short moment
• 12:55 — suddenly heavy rain begins; ran a distance holding umbrella before pausing under a bridge
• 13:00 — reached another Starbucks; ordered a sweetened iced coffee with soy milk that came in this cup:

Is that blood?

• 13:25 — okay, enough rest (although still hungry!); the rain stopped a while ago, so I returned to walking down Yonge Street
• 13:35 — reached Bloor Street & Yonge Street; this is such a vibrant part of the city
• 13:44 — reached Wellesley Street & Yonge Street
• 13:50 — passed College Park and got to the construction site at Gerrard Street & Yonge Street; the crowd is getting bigger
• 13:56 — beginning of a one-hour–long visit to the World’s Biggest Bookstore and a nifty little place called BMV Books right next to it

A not unordinary sight on a Toronto street

A whole row of APA Publication Manuals!

After I left the bookstore around 14:55, I stopped keeping track of where I was at given points in time. After eating lunch, I proceeded down Yonge Street, used my receipt from a previous Starbucks purchase to buy a light ice black tea lemonade for $2 + tax…

… and walked all the way to the lake, arriving at around 15:40.

Lake shore at Queen's Quay & Yonge Street

I walked around a little near the lakefront area before returning home. There’s a video on Google+ if you’re a friend.

Reflections

Taking this walk through Toronto allowed me to appreciate the city once more for its diversity, its liveliness and the rapidity with which things are changing. This is still a city I love and one to which I hope to return.

It was interesting to note the pockets of activity along Yonge Street: a busy block in North York from North York Centre to Sheppard; an uptown district north of Lawrence; a heavily business-oriented area around Eglinton; general shopping facilities between St. Clair & Bloor; an area of total randomness south of Bloor; huge crowds south of College; even denser population moving about the Eaton Centre; a banking/corporate region near King… Each region gradually faded into the next, with some exceptions. (It was uneventful in some of the areas—especially between the 401 and Lawrence; there aren’t a lot of buildings around in those parts.)

If you’re a Torontonian (or someone who lives North of Toronto) with a day to spare (preferably a weekday…), consider trying this walk. Make sure you bring sunglasses (I forgot them), an umbrella just in case (I had to use mine), sunscreen, water (I bought a bottle and a bunch of drinks) and probably some snacks (I brought along chips).

(By the way, this entire walk is a lot more fun when one has someone with whom to talk! So if I know you in real life, we can try doing another one of these this month!)

Toronto is a city worth exploring. This is just the beginning.

The 29-year-old did exceptionally well in high school. He was at the top of his class at Osgoode Hall Law School. He won summer jobs at Canada’s top legal firms.

But in September, Manilla’s application to become a lawyer was rejected by the Law Society of Upper Canada when he failed to meet its “good character” requirement because of his aggressive and bizarre conduct as a member of his condo’s board.

Imagine studying for 10+ years to enter the profession, and being denied entry! This is a lesson to all would-be lawyers: act morally, no matter what.

Any tier

Yesterday, I got an ad in the mail from them for their digital cable service, offering a free HD receiver. On the reverse side of the ad, it says that I can sign up for “any tier” of their high speed Internet or phone service to get an HD personal video recorder for free.

Sign up for any tier ... get an HD PVR for free.

Apparently, the fine print specifies that “any tier” really means “Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Lite and above”, which excludes the Ultra-Lite tier valued at $27.99/month.

Hi-Speed Internet Lite tier or above also required

I don’t think I’m the only one who would find this a little bit misleading.

While it doesn’t really look good on paper to say “sign up for Lite or above” in the big bullet, it would be a lot more honest than defining “any tier” as “not any tier but this one and above”.

And while I would certainly die of broadband withdrawal if I had the Ultra-Lite package, I still think there are people who will probably sign up for the cheapest tier and discover that they do not, in fact, get a free HD PVR.

Here’s the entire scan; click on the image to view in full size.

Get a free HD PVR!

(As of more than a year ago, I no longer use Rogers cable Internet because there’s something cheaper out there.)

What are the tiers?

On a semi-related note, Rogers seems to be doing a great job at market segmentation. Instead of providing consumers with economical plans comparable to those in France (20-30Mbps connections, VoIP service, and HDTV with a DVR included for just $45 a month), Rogers Communications has decided to split a service as important as cable Internet into… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 different plans.

1. Ultra-lite @ $27.99/month; 500 kbps down, 2 GB limit
2. Lite @ $35.99/month; 3 Mbps down, 25 GB limit
3. Express @ $46.99/month; 10 Mbps down, 60 GB limit
   This used to be the highest plan back when it was only 5 Mbps.
4. Extreme @ $59.99/month; 10 Mbps down, 95 GB limit
   This means $13 extra for 35 GB of transfer.
5. (new) Extreme Plus @ $69.99/month; 25 Mbps down, 125 GB limit
6. (new) Ultimate @ $99.99/month; 50 Mbps down, 175 GB limit

(all plan information current as of April 7, 2010)

Theoretically, creating these tiers of service maximizes revenue by differentiating between groups of consumers with dissimilar willingness to pay for Internet. (There’s also a supposed benefit to charging more for faster speeds and more bandwidth: curb torrenting and illegal file sharing. That’s a more reasonable justification.)

In reality, it just makes consumers jealous of users who can afford $100/month Internet. In addition, I’m rather wary of a company that has the capability to offer faster speeds overall to match the top countries (South Korea has average broadband of 14.6 Mbps, and Japan has an average of 7.9 Mbps), but which suppresses broadband for its corporate gain at the cost of consumer benefit.

This is probably one of many reasons why consumers, particularly Canadian iPhone users (albeit not for cable Internet), despise Rogers. It plays like it dominates the market. After all, broadband Internet in Canada is an oligopoly; Bell, Rogers, and Shaw are essentially the only big players in the market (and Shaw isn’t even available here). We don’t have much choice.

My conclusion

My personal perspective of Rogers, from a consumer view, is that they don’t deserve most of our business.

But a few minutes later, anyone looking out would see an immensely beautiful rainbow spanning the dusk sky. This is the rainbow at dusk, after the storm.

A beautiful rainbow panorama

I don’t purport to be a photography expert, but this is a beautiful rainbow. Click on the picture to see a larger file.

No, I’m not dead. My last post was published quite a while ago, but I’m still alive and well — for the most part.

Concerning the human swine flu, it’s important to note that hype and paranoia may not really be that far from the truth. It is a serious health risk, and the World Health Organization recently issued a level 4 alert.

At least the City of Toronto has no known swine flu cases thus far.

Stay safe and be careful!

That’s the slogan for Mercedes-Benz’s new midsized, premium sports utility vehicle, the Mercedes GLK. This is clearly a car for those who love style, comfort and elegance — concepts shared by Mercedes’ new mini-site promoting the GLK.

The promotional mini-site is actually rather artistic. A fully Flash-based site, it is amazing in usability and experience, as I might expect the GLK to be. The site has a few major sections, which include a place to ‘watch’ — that is, to look at high quality photographs and promotional videos for the car —, a place to learn — that is, to review information about the car —, and a place to ‘create’, which apparently means to answer a very short personality quiz to create a background image that remains consistent throughout the site. (There’s also a feature to download that background to use as a wallpaper image.)

Prospective buyers will get all the technical information and product insights that they need from this GLK mini-site. While being dazzled by the site’s amazing functionality, high-res pictures and persuasive commercials, buyers can still get what they need to know about this new model from one of the world’s most reputable high end automaker.

In times like these, you want a fuel-efficient vehicle that will reliably stay with you for years to come.

My flight to Calgary, Alberta (Canada) leaves at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. There I will be having fun at the National Seminar for debate, a noncompetitive conference for debaters all across the country.

Friday is our recreational day, when we will be visiting Banff and the hot springs pool there. Who knows? I might even have a chance to visit Lake Louise.

I will aim to post Twitter and blog posts every day, in the rare occasion that one of you may actually be interested.

However, if you’d like to keep track of me in a stalker-ish way, follow me on Twitter (it’s even better if you have an account and you click “Follow”). I will use my cell phone to send text messages that will hopefully keep you appeased of what I’m doing and where I am (in a non-specific way).

At the same time, let’s welcome Brandon who is in Canada as part of an exchange program.

If you’re looking for something to read in the meantime, see “Why Kosovo Was And Always Will Be Serbian” or “Georgia-Russia Conflict” from two friends who are ethnically linked to the issues at hand, and who offer insightful perspectives.

Finally, I’d like to apologize for being part of “Western media” when it comes to my podcast’s coverage of the Georgia-Russia conflict. I did try to present both sides or multiple points of view, but I really didn’t know what to believe… thanks to the terribly influential and often deceptive Western media.

Breaking news – Elections Canada claims the Conservative Party violated elections law when they spent money for campaigns in excess of the permitted limit.

This information should be covered by Nikola’s Musik, but it seems he’s not watching the news tonight.

Read more about this at the Toronto Star.

A pro-China demonstration on Parliament Hill on Sunday attracted about 5,000 Chinese-Canadians from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto eager to show support for the troubled Beijing Olympics.

The planning of this event had been orchestrated online, facilitated by thousands of willing volunteers who wanted to show their support for China. There were some hiccups with the chartering of buses, when (allegedly) an opposing entity threatened the busing company. However, sources state that a Chinese-Canadian businessman arranged (out of his own pockets) for more than 30 buses to transport demonstrators and the elderly to Parliament Hill.

This event is an instance of powerful Chinese patriotism which has brought thousands together against “media distortion” and attempts to disrupt China’s hosting of the Olympics.

A few hours ago, approximately 5000 protestors also gathered in Australia for the same cause.

Isn’t it strange, though, that news of these events aren’t on the media… aren’t found on the homepage of Google News (the last time I checked)… aren’t even mentioned?

Interestingly, Jack Cafferty (whom I had respected previously) on CNN made a comment that “…they (Chinese) are basically the same bunch goons and thugs they have been in the past fifty years.” Absolutely intolerable!

Watch him make his offensive comment:

On March 29, 2008, several hundred Chinese students and Chinese patriots gathered in the Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto for a pro-China rally in support of their homeland. Unsurprisingly, regardless of how peaceful this rally was, it was depicted as a conflicting protest by some biased media. Furthermore, a day later (today), few if any major television stations even discuss it.

Yet, a few days prior, another group of several hundred Tibetans organized a “protest march”, walking around the streets of Toronto, and this protest managed to get on the air and stay there. Unsurprisingly, Western media appears to be (and is) pro-Tibetan.

Allow me to first quote a paragraph from an article titled “Over 1,000 Tibetans Hold Protest March in Toronto“:

“Toronto, Canada (AHN) – Over a thousand people, led by Buddhist monks, held a rally at Canada’s capital city (?) Monday to call for freedom for Tibet. To express their strong emotions over the killing of hundreds of their countrymen back home, the Toronto-based Tibetans laid down on the streets, waved Tibetan flags and photos of victims of violence in Lhasa and wore Free Tibet sweaters.”

Maybe the fact that these sorts of protests around the world are led by monks supports China’s claim that the Dalai Lama is orchestrating the riots.

I would then question whether the author of this article knows what the capital of Canada is.

Let me quote some (yes, these are only one side of the story) comments on the CTV web site:

“As a [C]anadian I totally support ‘peaceful’ protest in Tibet, but those violent demonstrators killed innocent people, burning the stores and looting. Those kind of demonstrators should be treated same as terrorists like 9.11 in New York City. I hope that our gover[n]ment should not send any “Tibet statement” to encourage those situation and supports the declared policy of the Chinese government to protect the lives and property of its citizens from violent demonstrators with minimum use of force. We can’t put double standard for the same violent behaviour.” -Peter Kary

–

“If you ask any chinese in Canada, I think most of us will support the chinese government this time. We are coming from China, we all know what is happening in China and the west. We watch all the news reported from China, Hong Kong and the west.

“If you ask the people inside Tibet, over 90% will support one China. The West now only focus on the 10% of Tibetans who want Independence. There are 56 nations in China, Tibet is one of the 56 nations, we all want One China.

“We all sure that Dala Lama is a liar this time.

“We are Not supporting ‘China 1989′, but we ALL support ‘China 2008′.” -A group of people from Hong Kong living in Toronto

–

“Surprisingly the result of ‘Tibet incidence’ is not about Tibet. It has polarized the opinion of Chinese and Westerners. The Chinese (in China and overseas) generally believes that the West is trying to tarnish China’s image. The West is trying to force its opinion on China and Chinese people.” -lianwee

–

“Let’s put away our daggers for China or our reverence for the Dalai Lama and try to find out what the truth is for a moment. In an article titled ‘Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth’ by Michael Parenti, it notes that Tibet was ‘a despotic retrograde theocracy of serfdom and poverty, so damaging to the human spirit, where vast wealth was accumulated by a favored few who lived high and mighty off the blood, sweat, and tears of the many.’” -brian

–

“Do any of you have any slight idea what the old Tibet looked like before 1950? Do any of you know slightly about Chinese and Tibetan history? When Tibet came part of China? … I respect Dalai Lama and I’m amazed on how he’s transformed himself from a Lama to a modern spiritual figure with a huge influence to Tibetans and the world.

I doubt he personally organized the world-wise demonstrations on March 10th followed by the riot. But they were clearly organized events. The problem was that when the riot started to broke out on March 14 in Lhasa, banks, schools and Han people owned stores were either smashed, or burned down. Some of burned properties with people inside! The victims burned to death not only have Hans, but also Tibetan shop clerks. Han people were beaten in the street; a woman’s ear was cut off by a rioter. These were no longer peaceful demonstrations. There are the crimes committed to ordinary citizens. Any country has law and order, these kind of riot have to be stopped. People committed crime will have to face the justice.” -Gordon

–

“Brook, come on, when [was] Tibet a nation or was a country? Tibet was already part of China in Yuan Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, so in recent hundreds years, Tibet has been always part of China. [H]ow much do you really know about the Dalai Lama other than his
displayed charm? It is worth checking out an article by Micheal Backman on ‘Behind Dalai Lama’s holy cloak’.” -AndyToronto

–

“… I’m sorry to say not all monks are true and honest as we like to think them. ‘True’ monks don’t promote their supporters to go around killing innocent people by setting everything on fire and say its a ‘peaceful’ protest.” -Ann

Then, allow me to talk about the real event on March 29. The students here in Toronto decided that they had had enough of the twisted version of events portrayed by Western media, and they wanted to organize a peaceful rally for support.

Patriotic music, Chinese & Canadian flags, chants of “One China!”… totally peaceful and conflict-free until a group of Tibetans decided to organize an anti-protest.

Those Tibetans are the same ones who claim that the students who participated in the rally “are visa students… who are being controlled by the Chinese Consulate…”

What can we conclude? Well, we can definitely see that the methods used by both sides correspond with their ideals.

• The Tibetan monks incite instability and doubt.
• The Chinese students in Canada promoted unity and peace.

The Chinese students didn’t burn down shops, cutting the ears of women, looting stores and businesses, or rioting. They wanted to show unity. At the same time, many other similar rallies are occurring all around North America, where the Chinese population is high.

The message is clear: “Beijing 2008… One World, One Dream… One China.”

Many of us may be wondering, how could Obama possibly be elected to the White House with this less-than-rudimentary understanding of the world? Clearly, this is not an issue with Hillary Clinton, who has travelled to more than a hundred nations, or John McCain, who has decades of experience in politics and the military.

The answer isn’t that he is well-balanced. The answer isn’t that he was less involved in politics prior to his campaign.

The answer is simply that people are disregarding this sort of mistake. They don’t care that a presidential candidate doesn’t know of the political system of the second largest country in the world. They don’t care that this presidential candidate has an unrealistic view of American politics.

What they do see in Obama is:

• youth and energy
• inexperience
• “a [short] history of right choices”
• geek-friendly

He is definitely inexperienced, and that cannot be refuted by anyone on any side. How long has he been in politics? Only since the husband of Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager) lost when his divorce records with Jeri Ryan were involuntarily publicized. In other words, Obama’s sole opponent was involved in a scandal. In such a case, how could Obama have lost?

His short history of right choices doesn’t show that he will make more right choices in the future. This is an illogical connection which he is making, and which he is pushing to his supporters. Simply because he has made some right choices in the previous 5 or so years doesn’t mean that he will deal with the stresses of the Presidency, and does not demonstrate that he is qualified to lead the United States. Certainly, he isn’t the sort of person who would ordinarily be elected to the Supreme Official with Veto Powers.

But what appeals to a lot of younger voters is that he’s geek-friendly. He actually understands technology and the Internet, and supports the net neutrality argument. I’m not going to say much more about this.

You should listen to the LSAT Logic in Everyday Life podcast. A recent episode, “No ‘There’ There” includes analysis of the Spitzer scandal, Ferraro’s comments about Obama’s race, and also offensive remarks from Rev. Wright (with whom Obama is associated).