Showing posts with label Canadians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadians. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Yes, we ARE Canadian!






































In these times of divisive political strife, resentment against the Machiavellian machinations of the monster soon to become U. S. President, and other things that are just a plain drag, man, my mind attempts to turn to other things.

Like chocolate bars.

The kind YOU guys don't have.

Never has it been more important for Canadians to cleave to a national identity. Almost by definition, a Canadian is "not an American": Robertson Davies once famously wrote, "Historically, a Canadian is an American who rejected the Revolution."

This either makes us a bunch of lily-livered cowards who don't know how to blow a redcoat's head off with a big musket, or - different.





We didn't so much run away from the Revolution as get up and walk until we found a good place to settle. No bloodshed, no battles or wars. Boring as hell, is Canadian history, but I'm proud of it.

"They think we live in a bunch of igloos," my husband rather bitterly said the other day, speaking of the genius executives who tried to make a go of Target stores across this country and failed utterly. Meaning, they had no idea at all of the spending habits of Canadians, and decided they would just take American spending habits (or what they saw as American spending habits) and ram them down our throats.

No thanks. Store by store, the Targets fell down (like. . . targets?), and, shockingly quickly, the company had to admit defeat and withdraw at a gigantic loss. They had misfired because they had misread the habits of the Canadian population so drastically.





Americans think we're funny, with moose wandering down the street (actually, that DOES happen sometimes), winter all year long, beavers in the back yard, saying "eh?" and "aboot" all the time (which, yes, does happen a lot). They think that instead of policemen, we have Mounties in red coats who ride horses. Well. . . sometimes they do, on ceremonial occasions, but the rest of the time they just look like cops.

But there are a few central facts Americans don't know, very simple ones that might help them understand what we are about.

Canada is only 150 years old. It's a young country, much younger than yours, Bucko! So it has had way less time to establish an identity. It has approximately 1/10 the population of the States, spread out over the second-largest land mass of any country in the world. (Only Russia is larger.) Meaning, there are concentrated blobs of population in a few key areas, with almost nothing in between.

This, too, affects our identity. 




We don't have states. We have ten provinces, plus the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and Nunavut. That all sounds very Northern, doesn't it. Plus our flag has a leaf on it and has only two colours. (And by the way, we only got our flag in 1965! Before that we used the British Union Jack and the hideous Red Ensign.) 

Our history is incredibly dull. Virtually no bloodshed, except that Quebecois stuff which has now died down to a dull roar. Quebec hasn't separated officially, but emotionally and spiritually it's a nation unto itself. So within our Little Big Country, we have ANOTHER Little Big Country with a culture all its own.

One thing, a party trick I like to do with Americans (after I've shown them our loonies and toonies and see-through plastic money) is tell them, "You know, I've never seen a gun."

"What? You mean you don't own any."

"No. I've never seen one. Ever. In my life. In fact, I don't know anyone - have never known anyone who has. Oh, except one. A cop."

Does that sound lame, America? Does that sound un-colourful? (Note the "u" which lingers in colourful, along with certain other words which have retained their British spelling.) Don't underestimate us.

You've never had our chocolate bars. 


And they are the finest in all the world.





We don't have "candy bars", by the way, just like we don't have "soda". It's POP, for your information. These things matter to us.

The chart at the beginning of this post pictures OUR chocolate bars, proudly Canadian, and many of which are now "vintage" (no longer made). Seeing this was like Proust's madeleine moment, when biting into a tiny cake released a flood of memory:

"But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."






(Caption: How do you like your coffee? 

CRISP! 

You like your coffee crisp? 

I like my Coffee Crisp!)

I was going to do a roundup or review of all these chocolate bars, one at a time, but there are so many of them. When I look at them now I feel simply overwhelmed. When you see or hear something you haven't even thought about for decades, it gives you a weird feeling. This is a phenomenon closely tied to the internet, social media, and nostalgia sites, which I haunt, dredging for meaning in the past and present.

Somebody will post a picture of something, and I'll think, my God, my God. . .I didn't think anybody else in the world remembered that! 






The most unusual of these was Neilson Treasures, which was really a mini-box of chocolates within a bar. No kidding, all sorts of different centres (note the spelling!): Turkish delight, bordeaux, chocolate, caramel, strawberry cream, and nougat. We had Sweet Marie, which was - well - yes, sort of like O Henry, but different somehow. Nicer name, for one thing. And Smarties: DON'T compare these to those waxy, tasteless M & Ms, please, because they are totally different, with a crunchy sugar shell and a milk chocolate melt factor that makes them ultra-superior.






Mackintosh's Toffee (good Canadian name, with a plaid wrapper) came in a bar, but you whacked it on something, kind of like Bonomo's Turkish Taffy, and it fractured into little pieces that warmed in your mouth, becoming deliciously chewy. I still buy this, but in wrapped kisses that have to be kept in the fridge. These have enough real butter in them that they won't keep for very long.

It's hard for me to believe that Americans don't have Aero and Caramilk and Coffee Crisp, but who knows? (The spelling of Aero might be changed to Arrow.) Crunchie has sponge toffee in it, but do Americans know what that is? Do they have it? The original recipe calls for boiling up a sugar syrup, throwing in some baking soda, running out in the back yard and jamming the pot into a snowdrift. Sounds like a Canadian thing to me.





Only some of these treats are obsolete. I had half a Crunchie with my coffee tonight. Half, because the bar is just too whacking BIG to eat in one sitting. Did the taste of it make me go all Proustian and madeleine-ish?

Not really, but I felt a certain melancholy. I keep thinking of that Joni Mitchell song about the fiddle and the drum, and the way she refers to "America, my friend". I don't hate Americans, but I am NOT friends with what is happening, because it seems evil. And I don't see how anyone can call that stupid, misogynistic jackass they elected "the answer" to anything. 

I just hope you guys, you know, survive the next four years, and for God's sake DON'T re-elect him. And don't try to come to Canada. You won't be able to. We have a strict immigration policy, you know?

I'll bet you didn't. 

50 gifts Canadians gave to the world!



Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Baby, get your gun!



Toddler shooting tragedies could be prevented by arming 2 year-olds, insist NRA



http://newsthump.com/2014/12/31/toddler-shooting-tragedies-could-be-prevented-by-arming-2-year-olds-insist-nra-2/

After a two-year old tragically shot his mother using her legally concealed weapon, the NRA have insisted such tragedies could be prevented if all two-year olds were given their own guns.

The incident took place in Idaho in the US, where children are forced to wait until their 8th or 9th birthday before being given a gun of their own.

The NRA have been quick to offer a solution to such tragic incidents, insisting there is only one way to prevent them in future.

NRA spokesperson Wayne LaPierre explained, “It might have been an accident, but would this toddler have reached into his mother’s bag for a gun if he had already been holding his own gun? Almost certainly not.”

“If the toddler had pointed his own gun at his mother, she would still have had her own gun at hand and would have been able to defend herself, saving an American life right there.”




“Some in the liberal media would say targeting a small handgun called ‘My First handgun’ at children as young as two is dangerous, but I would say the only danger is not targeting them younger.”

“Once again a disarmed American is killed in an incident that could have been prevented had there been more guns available.”

NRA shooting solution

Idaho residents have called the dangerous lack of guns in their young child’s livesan ‘accident waiting to happen’, whilst gun manufacturers have announced a new toddler line being added to their range this summer.

Gun salesman Chuck Williams told us, “You know, ‘My First Handgun’ is great product for the first grader, but it’s too big and bulky for your average kindergarten attendee.”

“We’re working on a new design that comes in baby pink that fits nicely in the palm of your average baby.”

“You don’t even need to be able to walk in order to be able to use it.”

“God bless America!”




BLOGGER'S NOTE. This is yet another example of my stealing an article, but it's too important not to steal, satire or not. Hey, I'm a Canadian and have neither seen nor heard a gun in my entire life. The only person I have ever known who owned guns had an antique rifle collection, and he never fired them. Maybe the majority of Americans are the same. Aren't they? God, how I hope so.

I watched an old Dateline last night in which one man shot another in a Walgreen's parking lot, because he found out the guy was diddling his wife. When he explained the whole thing to police, he said something like, "No, I never meant to shoot anyone. I saw this guy coming for me so I pulled out my gun, and then he pulled out HIS gun. . . "




Like pulling out "my wallet", or "my keys". "My gun". "His gun." The thing I carry around with me all the time. . . for self-defense, of course.

Because this guy was carrying around His Gun as a regular accessory, he had a deadly weapon instantly at hand, so his rival lay dead a couple of seconds later. If neither of these guys had been armed - if they had been dumb old Canadians meeting in a Tim Hortons parking lot to have it out over a love triangle -  this deadly incident would have amounted to a whole lot of  sweater-pulling and missed head-punches, like in an NHL game where the blows don't connect because of the ice. (Come to that, there probably WOULD be ice.) 

We're not "better", but this attitude of arming everyone to "stop gun violence" - I've never heard of it around here. Ever. We feel sadness about all this, along with a lot of distaste. And fear. We fear being swallowed up, as we always have.




Canadians are often denigrated and our nation labelled third-rate. But look at the dynamics here. Canada is almost 100 years younger than the United States. Where was the States in 1876? Not exactly where they are now, at least in cultural sophistication. Canada's population is roughly 1/10 of the States - you heard that right, it's 10%, spread over a much wider geographical area, with a limited number of concentrated areas of population. It's a different setup altogether. Our history is vastly different, and vastly boring, with virtually no bloodshed, at least not among civilians. One of our greatest writers, Robertson Davies, was famously quoted as saying, "Historically, a Canadian is an American who rejected the Revolution". Not wishing to fight, these Loyalists and crazy Quakerish types just pulled up stakes and left. Headed North, like a lot of people do.

Thus, celebrities are already planning their escape to Canada if Trump becomes President. It could happen. Escaped slaves from the American South found safe haven in Canada (though I never learned my own city was a hub of such sanctuary until years and years later: the school system seemed to think there was something shameful about it). And what about the draft dodgers? I know people who are still living here who escaped the draft in the 1960s. "Hey-hey-hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"




We're culturally different, and though (of course) there is violence, there are gangs (who get their hands on guns no matter what), murders, and so on, people are more apt to use clumsy methods like knives and clubs. Not exactly civilized, but a bullet is a bullet: when aimed just right, it is instantaneous death.

Don't arm the kids. Don't arm the men, or the women. Put down your weapons, beat your swords into ploughshares. Listen to us before it's too late. Dorky, powerless, boring old Canada, the nation without an ego, might just be on to something after all.

POST-BLOG REVELATIONS: Yes, there IS violence in Canada! But this is all I could find, one short article that was repeated over and over again. Somehow, "fighting for his life" had morphed into "serious but stable condition" by the end of the article. As far as I know, both men were OK, eh?, but boy were they pissed at each other until the cops got them to make up, and one guy bought the other guy a "donut" and a double-double.





KINGSTON, Ont. — One man is charged with attempted murder and another is fighting for his life in hospital after an early morning knife fight at a Tim Hortons on Tuesday.

Police were called to the coffee shop just after 5 a.m.

They arrested a 30-year-man near the scene with a slew of charges, including attempted murder, weapons dangerous and two counts of breach of weapons prohibition order.

The 39-year-old man taken to hospital with stab wounds is in serious but stable condition, police said.

Police have not released names or what they thought was behind the early-morning coffee shop brawl.





BONUS STORY! No guns in this story at all! (Promise!)

JIM MOODIE, QMI AGENCY

May 22, 2014, Last Updated: 3:06 PM ET

It's the kind of story as Canadian as maple syrup - a northern Ontario man found a two-day-old baby moose on the side of the highway, picked it up and took it to Tim Hortons.

"She still had the umbilical cord and was still wet when I found her," Stephan Michel Desgroseillers of Copper Cliff, Ont., told Shirley Erkila, who posted a video of her petting the calf outside the coffee shop near Sudbury, Ont., on Monday.

"The wolves would have got to her," Desgroseillers said.

In a posting on the radio station Q92 Rocks Facebook page, Desgroseillers said he was the one who picked up the small calf and took it to the Wild at Heart Animal Shelter in Lively, Ont., but not before having to keep it for the night.

On his own Facebook page, he said the moose calf was "the sweetest thing ever except for the crying."

(I think I know how she feels.)



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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Unlucky Charms


Top ten reasons why some Irish Americans have no real clue about Ireland

Loud and too proud many Irish Americans make a very bad impression

By JAMES FARRELL, IrishCentral Contributer

Published Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 7:23 AM

My American friends always tell me how they love Ireland. But when I stayed in Chicago in the 1990s they described an Ireland I never knew existed. On a recent visit back, it seems that little has changed.

Maybe a little self-awareness and education about how the Irish really live might help.

1. We don’t live in thatched cottages anymore -- get real. We’re an urbanized society and have the same living standards as the rest of the world.

2. We don’t say faith and begorrah or chase Leprechauns -- Hollywood has infected the brains of too many Irish Americans. We don’t believe in fairies, banshees, or leprechauns, unless it is for gullible Americans.

3. We don’t drink all day and fight all night. Too many showings of ‘The Quiet Man’ have pickled some Irish American brains. We like a drink but we rarely fight.


4. We don’t hate the British any more. Sure we did once, but we’re best friends for years now since the peace process, the Queen’s visit was totally popular.

5. We generally don’t like American Republicans. We are much more comfortable with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and their nuanced international world view than cowboys like George Bush and Ronald Reagan -- sorry all you Tea Party Irish.

6. We don’t really think you are Irish, the same way as us. If you are not born here then by our definition you are not Irish.



7. We don’t really like "Danny Boy" and all the sentimental songs. Sure, they are fine for a late night sing song for Americans but we are fed up of them.

8. We often tell jokes about you, usually about the phony Irish accents and Aran sweaters

9. We don’t know the Murphys from Cork or the Sullivans from Kerry, there are thousands of them.



10. We don’t want to hear any more Irish drinking jokes -- they are pathetic and demeaning to us for the most part.
*James Farrell is an Irish writer now living in Dublin

Yes! This just about sums it up. It must be irritating for the Irish to be stuck with these mostly inane stereotypes. (Thus the green typeface.) As the illustrations prove, and by the way they are MEANT TO BE IRONIC, FOLKS, NOT LITERAL, SO DO NOT CALL ME AN IGNORANT RACIST, this sometimes took the form of a vicious discrimination so primitive it defies analysis. The infamous "no dogs or Irish" rule proved that white people could treat white people with the same dehumanizing cruelty as blacks and Native Americans.

My own family had a rather ludicrous pride in the fact that we were "Irish", having descended from the Pedlows, which is about as Irish a name as I've ever heard. My mother eventually admitted to me that my "Irish" grandmother had been born in Canada. Though she always said I was "one-quarter Irish", now it seems to be more like 1/8. Are my children 1/16, and my grandchildren 1/32? Am I doing the math right? As Jonathan Winters once said about his Comanche heritage, "One nosebleed and I'm out of the tribe."



I worked all this into my first novel, Better than Life, exaggerating it so that the Connars believed that even a drop of Irish blood (and what exactly IS Irish blood, anyway?) made you a son or daughter of Eire. Erin go Blagggh, and all that stuff.

I had a cousin Eileen, OK. And another, Deirdre, though that can also be English, I think. Or is it Celtic?



I'm not sure why no one thinks of William Butler Yeats or James Joyce when they're rhyming off these Irish stereotypes: the bleak, often hopeless literary genius, grimly foretelling an apocalyptic future, light years ahead of his time but hard to sit next to at the bar. No doubt they went for a pint at the end of a long day of dystopic anhedonia, but not with the suicidal fervor that killed off the Welsh genius, Dylan Thomas, at the age of 39.









(Sorry. I had to throw in a little Separated at Birth.)