HAPPY CANADA DAY!!
Slightly belated.
I'm not Canadian, but these days, I wish I were. Without being overly simplistic or romantic about this (because Canada of course has its share of fools, losers, and perverts, just like everywhere), I doubt that anyone can reasonably argue against this idea: Canada, as a society, embraces principles that are guided more by compassion and egalitarianism than is the United States of America. It's a damn shame, too, because America could have guided the world into a 21st Century much more shining than it's turned out to be.
EVERYBODY SING!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
I'm not Canadian, but these days, I wish I were. Without being overly simplistic or romantic about this (because Canada of course has its share of fools, losers, and perverts, just like everywhere), I doubt that anyone can reasonably argue against this idea: Canada, as a society, embraces principles that are guided more by compassion and egalitarianism than is the United States of America. It's a damn shame, too, because America could have guided the world into a 21st Century much more shining than it's turned out to be.
EVERYBODY SING!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
posted by hokkaidoabbey | 11:09 PM
11 Comments:
happy Canada Day back at ya!
Happy Canada Day, indeed! To celebrate, I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in Windsor, Ontario.
(I had no idea it was Canada Day, and wondered why everything was closed...)
Perhaps Canada will decide to fly out from under the eagle's wing and show the U.S. how it should be done. Of course, that might take at least one working aircraft carrier --for disaster relief, e.g., tsunami-- if nothing else. And it's taking a noticeably low profile in all this talk about poverty relief for Africa. 0h, I know, details...details...you were just stating what you wished, not what actually is.
P.S. Having visited Canada many times, it is a beautiful country with wonderful people. Thank you Canada, for ice hockey, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion and much much more. Je me souviens!
Of course, Saije, Canada wouldn't have to think in terms of removing itself from under the eagle's wing if the eagle hadn't spread it over the land to begin with. I know in a lot of ways that Canada has, with much embarrassed willingness, become "American", and has trouble identifying itself outside of opposition to the big beast down south. It isn't perfect. I'm glad it doesn't have aircraft carriers. Those things weren't built to help tsunami victims; they were built to blow up countries.
ha
P.S. you left out Jim Shatner.
Well, I suppose your sentiment isn't shared by the residents of Banda Aceh. I think they might have been at least a little pleased that someone had the means to provide assistance. Without our aircraft carriers (and the fine military of our Australian friends and a few others), the victims of the tsunami would have had nothing other than good wishes to help them. Other countries were willing to help but do not have the means to do anything practical except talk a lot and wail at us that we aren't doing enough. We are used to that, of course so I'm not complaining. P.S. Canada doesn't need aircraft carriers...she's got us.
Naturally, I'm happy that many countries (Japan and the U.S., especially) offered help to the tsunami victims. Do you think Canadians didn't offer more out of lack of compassion? You could critize scores of other countries for the same thing, then. If aircraft carriers help, great. I'd prefer if my country didn't ALSO use aircraft carriers to attack countries on false pretenses, and use them as well for grotesque and dishonest photo-ops with the president strutting about in a flak jacket, thundering, "Mission Accomplished!" (that was 1,700 American lives ago).
I think he probably regrets the Mission Accomplished routine. But I am not for giving up our aircraft carriers. I think it's just an undeniable fact that while others talk, we do. And yes Japan is one of the countries that has to shoulder the load. I think Japan probably likes our aircraft carriers, too, given the neighborhood it occupies.
I've lived in Japan for six years, and can say pretty confidently that most Japanese people would prefer it if American troops left, although that feeling is mixed up with lots of other concerns. Most Japanese feel something like the American bases are a necessary evil, because of North Korea and WWII. Their feelings toward American soldiers being here would improve greatly if the soldiers would quite raping the locals.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,28600,00.html
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20050704p2a00m0na001000c.html
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041017a7.htm
I've read similar things about our troops in S. Korea. Not acceptable and needs to be dealt with.
I, too, think we think that our troop presence in other countries is a necessary evil. Certainly I would prefer it if every member of the American military was home right now. But that's just not realistic.
I know that when we started talking about pulling our troops away from the DMZ in S. Korea, we stopped hearing about protests by the S. Koreans to accomplish that very thing. And the Germans aren't happy about us leaving there to go to more friendly countries in the former Eastern bloc...apparently our troop presence in Germany has been an economic bonanza for the Germans and they're not happy about losing that. So everyone wants us gone until we actually decide to leave. I guess it's easy for these other countries to yak about wanting us out until they realize it would mean they actually might have to defend themselves against some pretty unsavory characters or figure out a way to survive without our dollars flowing into their economies.
As I think is true of most Americans, I am an isolationist at heart but I accept the reality that like it or not we have to deal with the rest of the world, as unpleasant as it might be for them and as tiresome as it is for us.
I don't know about Germany or S. Korea. From what I've seen on TV here, there's a lot of furious people who want the troops out; I doubt they are the same ones who want the troops to stay.
The American troops are not in Japan reluctantly. They continue to stay by choice. After the latest rape incident, there was a request from the government (I saw this on TV; I'm not sure if this was the national government or local) for the U.S. to reduce their troop numbers here, but the U.S. responded that it couldn't, because it feared that China might invade Taiwan, and wanted a quick way to counter such an attack.
I've been to Okinawa. A large portion of the island (forty percent?) is one enormous military base, so it's not strange that the economy is substantially dependent on it. Most of the poeple who now depend on that economic arrangement were not born when the war occurred that brought it about, and are enraged with the regular string of crimes that American soldiers commit there. I'm not talking about the yearly child rapes. I'm talking about the near-daily drunk driving accidents, the relentless disturbances of the peace, the urinating on the streets, the brawls, the nude bathing, etc., etc. I'm not inventing this. It comes from people who live there now. This is all especially pathetic, because all it would take to fix this problem is for the Americans to behave themselves and respect the ways of the country they're living in. Why don't they?
I don't know. Any soldier committing crimes should be dealt with harshly...we don't seem to have a problem sending those morons at Abu Ghraib to prison.
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