I had a wonderful time in Syracuse. My presentation at Syracuse University went very well and was very well received.

I finally got to meet Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson in person and spent lots of time getting to know her better. Verena has expended a great deal of effort to make sure everything about the visit to Syracuse went smoothly for me.

I met Luvell Anderson in person and sat beside him at dinner after my presentation. We talked about his courses, his family, and St. Louis. I wish that I had asked him more about jazz. I got to meet Corey McCall, who sat on the other side of me at dinner, and talked to me at the reception about his teaching in prisons and losing his job in philosophy. I wish that I had also talked to him more about Foucault. I met Hille Paakunainen, who sat across from me at dinner and we talked about philosophy of disability and what distinguishes it from the study of philosophy and disability. Alex Livingston, who is a co-organizer of the Central New York Humanities Research Corridor that arranged my visit and is Canadian, asked me (in the question period, at the gathering following my presentation, and at dinner) about Bill C-7/MAiD and why it has happened.

I had very delicious vegan meals during my stay in Syracuse. Verena took me to fabulous vegan restaurants and restaurants that have a variety of imaginative vegan options.

The hotel shuttle driver, who picked me up at the train station, also drove me to and from a fabulous vegan restaurant (that Verena recommended) and resolved my most recent computer problems (battery that wouldn’t charge). He did the latter by giving me an adaptor/charger from the hotel’s Lost and Found, which includes a pop crate of tangled adaptors that he took the time to untangle in order to find one that was appropriate for my new (refurbished) Lenovo laptop. So kind!

One very upsetting and indeed frightening moment of the excursion occurred on my return to Canada at “Border Inspection,” on the Canadian side of the border. I have never personally experienced, or even witnessed, anything like it before, neither at train stations nor at airports: passengers entering the country lined up against a wall; guard dogs going back and forth on command, sniffing us and our respective belongings which were placed on the floor several feet in front of each of us. I was near the end of the lineup at the wall. An elder near the beginning of the lineup got very upset and starting yelling that he was “scared shitless” of the dogs and the procedure. As a vegan who strongly objects to the use and exploitation of nonhuman animals (as well as opposes the increasing militarization of so-called Canada), I mumbled my displeasure with what was happening. Two people near me quickly retorted that the dogs were trained for the activity and liked to be useful to humans.

It was lovely to look out the train windows at the blowing snow falling.