I've just spent 3-1/2 weeks in Canada - the Maritimes, Nova Scotia to be exact. No TV, no indoor toilet, no computer, just lots of books, my dog and the radio as my constant companions. Let's not forget the eagles, the hawks and the owls.

Let me tell you about the owls. Every time they hooted, my dog felt compelled to answer. Not his normal fluffy, civilized woof, but a great big wolfpack kind of response accompanied by hackles rising and feisty growls. The only other time I heard Bert growl is when we came face to face with a moose.

Living in a one-room cabin in the woods on a small lake in virtual isolation really brings up those middle of the night mortality blues, especially when you have to walk up a steep hill with a flashlight at 2 in the morning in order to pee. There are bear and wild cats in those woods and packs of coyote. We could hear them running around our cabin in the moonlight. I was always scared out of my wits that I would meet a bunch of them on my nocturnal visits to the john.

And then there was the sky. When you are in the woods, with no neighbors for miles, the sky is different, darker, bigger and jammed full of stars. Coming back down that hill after my 2 a.m. pee run every night, I'd have to stop and catch my heart to just stop it from exploding with joy at the sight of such brilliant light.

Swimming was done at 2-mile-long beaches where dogs are allowed and humans use pit toilets. Of course, a busy day at the beach might be 30 dogs and 50 humans and the odd seal or two who would swim up and check out your credentials and pheromones.

The CBC provides outstanding insight and entertainment, far better than anything offered by PBS. One of my personal favorites being "Afganada," a weekly drama about a Canadian contingent (headed by a woman) in Afghanistan. No punches pulled here, just a gritty, honest look at life in the trenches that brought one to tears of anger and sadness.

Listening to both the Democratic and Republican conventions also if not an eye opener (radio only) was a mind bender. If Obama was running in Canada, it would be no contest; the second candidate would just fold his tent and tiptoe away.

I listened to programs about youth and violence. I had to go to Canada to hear an American professor from the University of California at Berkeley talk about the use of the word "academy" to signify a school that would be tough on kids. Don't we have a Schenectady public school that calls itself an academy and takes all the flotsam and jetsom of misguided angry children in town?

I listened to hear about kindergarten kids in Seattle marching in rows, hands behind their backs, to the classrooms. And the story of the 5 year old who had a temper tantrum in school; police were called and they actually put handcuffs on her. Or at least they tried - her arms and wrists were too small, so the cuffs kept falling off.

One of my favorite comedy variety shows, The Vinyl Cafe, talked about a longtime, long distance correspondence between Ontario and Michigan. These were two fisherman talking about the pluses and minuses of their respective governments. And the Canadian gu,y when asked about his national anthem, said he couldn't quite recall it.

"We have 4 versions here" he said, "French, English, native and the new, updated one. We don't sing it that often; most of us keep forgetting the words."

And I thought of all our schoolkids, hands on hearts, reciting the pledge everyday, and the national anthem being sung before baseball games, for crying out loud. I'd never really given much thought to it before; it was just something we did. I'd never looked at this through another country's eyes.

Someone from back home called me to say that Schenectady High School had been placed on a list of 20. What for, you may well ask? It was for violence. Only three schools outside of New York City were put on the list, and we were one.

We have the school dress codes, the Pledge of Allegiance and that "R-word" - you know, respect - and still there is violence, youth violence. You know all that stuff I've been writing about for nigh on 6 months now: youth prostitution, youths selling drugs, youths carrying guns, youths going hungry living on the streets, youths thinking they're men - and women - all grown up and having babies. The Big explosion of HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancies, sxexually transmitted diseases, family violence. All right here, right now, in our hometown.

I listened to a program about dress codes, people slapping their thighs in rollover laughter, "no head scarves." Imagine certain colors not allowed. No puffy jackets, (What the hell is a puffy jacket?) and now they're thinking about banning baggy clothes. Can you believe it?"

I can believe it - banning baggy clothes that is. It is easier, after all, to come up with a list of rules than to look to other causes for problems we don't seem to be able to address. Somewhere along the line, things got a little mixed up and we forgot our job as nurturers and providers. We've become the policemen of the entire Earth, and we treat our children as threats to our homeland, terrorists and insurgents.

When animals though pollution or loss of habitat lose the very ground on which they build their dens and slowly starve, they invade our suburbs and our cities. They are desperate; we call them rogue animals and outlaws. We hunt them down and move them back to the wild or often we kill them. "They are nuisances," we say.

Is that our children's lot? Rogue outlaws, do we move them out to detention cells and prisons? Do we leave them to die of disease and neglect?

I just finished a biography of Einstein; he said, "I come to you today not an American citizen and not a Jew, but as a human being." Most people thought he was a little cracked, a rogue scientist, a genuine crackpot who didn't comb his hair or wear socks.

"Let's not forget that in our haste to being righteous we are all humans together. Every human has a crack somewhere. It's to let the light come in."

Don't let all that sunshine go to waste.