The beam in thine own eye

Wasn't it refreshing yesterday to hear the President of the United States — a man who holds that office in part thanks to his brother being governor of a crucial state, his father's appointees on the Supreme Court, and his cousin calling the shots at the FOXNews election desk — lecturing Cuba on the importance of "free" and "fair" elections? Yeah, God forbid Castro should simply hand off power to a relative.

The Fate of the Union

I caught the last half of George Bush's State of the Union address more or less by accident last night, and ironically, on the BBC. I think it's the first time in my life I've watched a State of the Union address. It was revealing.

I have to ask the question: is there an opposition in the United States? I mean, really? The way I'm used to thinking of an opposition? Because I saw a whole lot of people sitting in a big semi-circle focused on this guy. There was no telling one party from another. Not by where they sat. Not by how they behaved. Not by their reactions to what he was saying. They applauded as one. They rose as one. Honest to God, I was reminded of watching the Politburo under Brezhnev.

I tried to imagine people sitting on opposite sides of the House of Commons behaving as one, reacting as one, during the Speech from the Throne. The idea is chilling. A statement from the executive ought to be a challenge to the opposition... not to oppose just for its own sake, but to criticize, suggest, improve, defend. I saw nothing like that last night. I saw a man call on his countrymen for more money they didn't have to draw more blood that wasn't theirs, and a nation on its feet in the form of Congress in accord. It was evil. I feel that's a fitting word for it. To me, it looked wholly evil.

A man who talks of "tearists" getting "nuculer" weapons purports to lead the Free World, or at least its most powerful member. He does not allow discordant facts to dissuade him from action or threats. It's as though all the world were wed to a man who will not believe in the fidelity of his spouse. "Come on, I know you slept with my brother last summer at the cottage; admit it! Come clean, it'll be alright. What, you just compliment his shirt, and that's supposed to mean nothing? Alright, what about Bob at the convention last spring? What, I'm supposed to believe it's just a coincidence you just happen to like the same wine? Admit it! Why do you lie to me?" But there's no divorcing this guy. And he has a proven predilection for domestic violence.

The US economy is circling the bowl with dollar bill toilet paper, but aside from a few platitudes and the promise of spending more money the US doesn't have, hardly a word of concern. But he really lights up when he talks about putting a glass to the wall to hear what people in other rooms are up to, and asking for more Superman outfits to kick in their doors and set them straight. It was entirely revolting. If the Free World is a gang, does having a bloodthirsty psychopath as a member really qualify as an asset? Especially one who thinks he's running the show and calling the shots for us all?

The torch is being passed to southeast Asia... that was probably inevitable, but George Bush really greased the wheels with oil and blood that his great-grandchildren will still be paying for. I honestly feel we're watching the decline of the United States, and with it, the eclipse of the West as the principal civilization of the world. I think those days are ending. There was probably always a reckoning due. But it probably didn't need to be either this sudden, or this pronounced.

That's the State of the Union, folks.

I think World War II just started! ...'cause I'm dumb as a bag of hammers

I was in the process of looking something up yesterday when I came across this:



In case it comes out too small to read, it says, "World War II December 7, 1941 – September 2, 1945". Can you guess which country this comes from?

I can't decide if this is simple ignorance, outright arrogance, or some combination of both. But it's not the first time I've seen stuff like this. Take, for example, this one:


Again, the dates say 1941-1945. This is from Ken Burns, no less. This is extremely offensive. Now, you can say his documentary was focused on the US experience of the Second World War (yeah, of course it was... I'll come back to that later). But so what? That's not what the title says. It doesn't say anything like that. It just says "THE WAR". 1941-1945.

In the movie Pearl Harbor, as the bombs are falling around him, Josh Hartnett's character Danny actually shouts, "I think World War II just started!" Keep in mind that he's yelling this in the company of a buddy who's just come back from being shot down over the English Channel in a Spitfire helping defend Britain from the Luftwaffe. (Note: according to one site I checked, only ten Americans actually took to the skies in the Battle of Britain. Compare this with tiny New Zealand, whose contribution was an astonishing 98, ten times as many. And yet, the story has to focus on an American. Why didn't they tell the story of the bombing in Hawaii from the point of view of a Royal Navy swabbie on exchange or something?)

I've even seen it suggested — by Americans — that it really wasn't a "world" war until that point, and that no one called it that until then or later. That would come as a surprise to The Calgary Herald, which reputedly used the words "Second World War" on its front page on September 3, 1939. Well... let's consider that claim.

By 1941 (more specifically, by December 7th of that year), Poland had been conquered and divided... France had been overrun and surrendered, the Allied Expeditionary Force barely escaping via the Miracle of Dunkirk... The Blitz was underway, and the Battle of Britain had been fought and won... The Battle of the Atlantic, with its massive losses of shipping and men, had been raging non-stop for over two years... Leningrad had been under siege for three months already, and people were starving... Malta had been under siege; war raged across North Africa and the Balkans... Millions had already died, in dozens of countries in myriad campaigns on a half dozen fronts. And yet, by every indication from the opinions you see above, the Second World War didn't begin until 2,350 people died in Hawaii under forty-eight stars and thirteen stripes.

And on it goes. The public perception, even the rewriting of history, is legion (pardon the pun). In the movie Saving Private Ryan, not a single Allied soldier of any other nation is seen. The only mention of them at all is an attack on the character of Montgomery, and a sly calling into question of the fighting ability and dedication of the British. In the movie The Great Escape, the story focuses largely on an American played by Steve McQueen. The real Great Escape took place in the Commonwealth section of an Allied POW camp; there were no Americans involved. The movie U-571 portrays the capture of the Enigma machine as an American undertaking; an outright revision of history: it was accomplished by a British submarine, HMS Bulldog, in May, 1941, seven months before Pearl Harbor even happened (and the US did not match this feat itself until the middle of 1944). David Ayer, the screenwriter, acknowledged this, but the implication was that an American audience would not be interested in this story if it were not "Americanized". So it's not enough that Americans will tell no one's stories but their own... now they have to steal the glory that rightly belongs to others as well. At this rate, the 7th Cavalry will be winning the Battle of Waterloo any day now.

This is not acceptable. These are insults to millions upon millions, living and dead, military and civilian alike, in other countries.

The smaller dollar

According to the Bank of Canada, the day I started City in the Trees, May 16, 2005, the Canadian dollar was worth 79¢ US. If you had bought something worth a dollar Canadian with a US dollar that day, you would have gotten 26¢ in change (Canadian).

All my life, at least all my economically-conscious life, the Canadian dollar has been worth less than the US dollar. There've been certain advantages to it; it's tended to be good for exports because it made our commodities less expensive to everyone else (in particular, people in the US)... but it had a couple of downsides. First of all, it made it things here more expensive, and that meant that we had to live just a little meaner than our neighbours, through no fault of our own. Secondly, it was faintly humiliating. Who could forget when our dollar was worth 62¢ US just five years ago? Odds are, it will be worth less than the US dollar again, but for the moment... just for the moment... I can think back to when a friend visited from Los Angeles in the mid-90s. He came ready for every contingency implied by crossing the border; he even wanted to know if he had to bring adapters for his electrical appliances (the answer: no). But he could not be bothered, absolutely couldn't be bothered, to change one red cent US to Canadian currency. He simply took it for granted that people here would treat his money as legal tender in a foreign land; indeed, would be damn glad to have it and welcome it in preference to our own. I never said anything to him, he was a guest, but I found his attitude arrogant and insulting... and the thing is, I knew even if I had raised it as an issue, he would simply have thrown the value and international stature of his currency right in my face... he was that kind of guy, unfortunately.

(Allow me to quickly add here that of the several visitors I've had from the US since, not one has had that attitude or come without at least some Canadian money at the ready.)

Well, I've lived long enough to see my dollar raise its head above that waterline and finally take a breath. I don't know how long it'll last, but I did see it. Just a few moments ago, I noticed our dollar trading, momentarily, above $1.05 US. Today, our dollar broke the record it set against the US dollar in 1974, and is worth as much as it was in 1960: in other words, it's worth more than it's ever been worth in my entire lifetime, measured against the US dollar. And how I would have loved to have had that smug Los Angeleno with me on Saturday. I was with P-Doug and MG down at a new Chinese supermarket called T&T at the lake front. As we went through the checkout, I happened to notice pink cards they'd put up at every register, announcing they were accepting US dollars at 90¢. I couldn't help smiling as I tried to imagine his face. Damn, but that felt good.

It won't last... but just for a few moments, this is ours.

You didn't hear it here first, probably

Apparently, US presidential candidate Barack Obama thinks NAFTA is a flawed deal, and if elected, he would get right on the horn and “immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA…”

Ah, after all these years of having idiots who don’t know a thing about the world outside their borders running the United States and ignorantly kicking over bee hives around the world, how refreshing it is to see a presidential front-runner who knows something about the rest of the planet…

Okay, look. I’m not saying that the man is obliged to know what the capital of Saskatchewan is (though it might be nice), or who’s the current mayor of Paris, or anything that granular, but Jesus Christ… we’re talking about winding up President of the United States of Atomic Bombs here. If you don’t even know the basics about the people right next door in the one country on Earth most like your own, I’m sorry, you have no business shooting for the presidency. You just don’t know enough. Aim for Secretary of the Interior or something where you’re not dealing with the other 95% of mankind.

Well, to his credit, at least he knows who’s in NAFTA and didn’t wind up calling for the King of Cuba to come work something out.

A (US) dollar saved is 70¢ earned (2002 vs. 2007)

Every few years or so, we get treated to another dose of this...

Dodge says single currency 'possible'
BARRIE MCKENNA
May 22, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge says North America could one day embrace a euro-style single currency.

But to get there, Canada, the United States and Mexico must first tear down barriers to the free flow of labour, which he pointed out yesterday have "gotten a bit thicker" in recent years...

The idea of a common currency has long been a subject of curiosity, particularly among Canadian academics, who see it as a way to escape sharp gyrations in the exchange rate.

The recent surge in the Canadian dollar to a 30-year high against the U.S. currency makes Canadian products a lot less competitive in Canada's major foreign market. The high loonie also makes Canada a more expensive tourist destination.

Some proponents have dubbed the single North American currency the "amero."

It is more likely, however, that a common currency would mean that Canada and Mexico would adopt the U.S. dollar, giving up significant economic control to a central bank dominated by the United States.

The last time this came up, and in a big way, was five years ago when our dollar tanked at just under 62¢ US. But you know what I've noticed? For some people, the advantages never matter. Only the downside. Back then, it was how Canadians couldn't go abroad, couldn't buy from foreign countries, our companies were getting bought out from under us. Now you would imagine that as our dollar appreciates, those negatives would suddenly be positives: we can afford to go abroad, buy what we want, guard our own companies and maybe start buying up someone else's, but no. No, it's still all bad news, but from the opposite end. Now it's hard for us to sell abroad, now our domestic goods are being out-competed by cheap foreign ones, now Canadian investment is bleeding to other shores (of course, the corollary of all this back a few years ago was that our exports were beating the pants of everyone else's, domestic products were favoured, Canadian investment stayed in Canada and foreign investment poured in...). Jesus, you can't win. And you know why? Because there tons of douche bags in this country who simply get hard at the idea of us joining the United States, always have and always will, and they'll paint any picture in whatever shade of black they have to to make that seem inevitable, and hang it upside down the minute it makes sense to; whatever it takes.

It's all bullshit.

Why on Earth, now of all times, would we even consider hitching our wagon to the American star(s)? For the first time in decades, our trade with them is down and the EU is nicely taking up the slack, ameliorating that terribly large egg in just one basket we've had for far too long. Their economy, largely fueled by $2 billion of foreign borrowing a day and a hideously overinflated speculative housing market, is slowing down in ways not reflected in ours; these same practices are what's propping up their dollar, but the leaks seem to be spring up faster than they can be patched. We have a trade and budgetary surplus; they have monstrous trade deficits and a national debt that will likely approximate $10 trillion by the time Bush heads off to hunt armadillos with Barney for good. You might as well offer to have your circulatory system knitted to that of a 500 lb. guy in need of a quad bypass but no money to pay for it, who's constantly reaching into your wallet to order a meat lover's pizza. Yeah, if you don't care that your life savings will evaporate before your very eyes as other countries flush increasingly huge volumes of up-till-now hidden US assets from their central banks as the rot really sets in, then by all means, be my guest. Just don't ask me to do the same. You go trade your Canadian dollars for US ones; I'll hold onto mine, thank you very much.

The euro makes sense because it's centred on four or five countries of roughly the same size, social policies, wage scales, and economic oomph. There's no such parity in North America on any of those matters. Canada matched to the US alone would not survive in the way Portugal can linked to France, Germany, Britain, and Italy. And there's no way the Americans would yield the kind of sovereignty to a supra-national body required for us to defend ourselves in the way the Europeans have. So it's not on. We swallowed NAFTA, and what do we get? "Do as I say, not as I do." Rules are for everyone else, not Americans. Fine, this far and no farther.

Moore ridiculous news...

I read yesterday that Michael Moore has been given 20 working days by the U.S. Treasury Department, of all things, to ‘explain himself’ for a recent trip to Cuba. It seems Moore was down there to investigate their health care system in conjunction with his upcoming documentary Sicko, purportedly about the inequities of the current American health care system. It seems that going to Cuba without Uncle Sam’s official or at least tacit okey-dokey is a violation of the Hyper Super-Duper God Bless America Act or something.

Ironies abound here.

Think about it… these days, if Moore cannot or will not explain himself to his government’s satisfaction, he might just wind up being sent to Guantanamo in Cuba… for going to Cuba.

Also, it seems to me that if only he hailed from, say, Sarnia, Ontario, instead of Flint, Michigan, he wouldn’t have to ‘explain himself’ to his government for having visited any foreign country he chose, Cuba or otherwise, to make a movie about his country’s health care system leaving millions of people uninsured. But then, if he were from Sarnia, he wouldn’t have to make such a movie in the first place…

Finally, there’s the odd emphasis on freedom in the US… missing the forest for the trees. I can remember being condescended to by Americans who were ‘shocked’ by anti-hate speech legislation here in Canada and elsewhere. No such thing could exist in the US, I was told, where freedom of speech is absolute. Yes, Americans are free to shout from the rooftops that the Holocaust never happened but that if it had, Hitler had a great idea — though not one in ten thousand of them would exercise such a ‘right’. But travel 90 miles to a country whose government your own doesn’t like in order to make a point that could potentially help tens of millions of your fellow citizens live longer, better lives? Oh, no. No, we can’t have people doing that, uh uh. It makes you wonder if these folks understand the difference between the product and the packaging.

Sam, don’t help!

[A small, quiet room, containing a few chairs and a table at which an Iranian man is seated. A door opens, and two Anglos enter.]

John (sitting at table, reaching across to Hassan): I’d like to thank you for agreeing to see me today.

Hassan (shaking hands with John): It is my hope that we can resolve this issue between us… uh… who is this gentleman with you?

John: Oh… um… that’s Sam.

Hassan: I don’t understand… why is he here?

John: Well, he sort of insisted. Just got in the car when I was heading over.

Sam: Listen, Hadgi—

Hassan: My name is Hassan, actually…

Sam: When you mess with John, here, you mess with me! Got it?

John: Sam, please. You promised.

Sam: Just watchin’ your six, Johnny.

John: I appreciate it, but it might help if you were to sit down and try to be pleasant.

[Sam sits, folds his arms, scowls at Hassan.]

John: Now, as I understand it, you feel that some of my crew were on your property…

Hassan: Your people are everywhere, John. If I don’t take a stand, no one’s going to respect my property. I mean, are they?

John: I understand that, old chap, and you’re perfectly right about that. It’s just that my crew are adamant that they did respect your property and the fellows you have hadn’t—

Sam: Hand ‘em over, ragtop! We’re not telling you again! Next time we’re talking with knuckles, dig?

Hassan: Who is this man?

John: Sam, please, this isn’t constructive!

Sam: You want constructive? How about I use my boot to construct a shoeshine box out of his ass?

Hassan (rising): I feel that we are finished here…

John: Hassan, please, wait! Sam, for the love of God, shut up! You’re not helping!

Sam (sitting, fuming): Cripes, John, you didn’t actually check your nuts at the door, did you?

Hassan (sitting again): Perhaps the dialog would be more fruitful if your friend were to wait in your car.

Sam: Plenty fruity already, I’d say.

John: Sam, I’m trying to get my boys home to their families. Please. I appreciate your support, but it’s not your place to involve yourself.

Sam: I don’t need your permission anymore, Your Majesty. For nothing. Remember that.

John: Yes, how could I possibly forget. You make me watch The Patriot every time I come over.

Sam: Masterpiece of historical accuracy.

Hassan: Perhaps you gentlemen could first come to a consensus and inform me when you’re ready to talk with one voice.

Sam: We’re ready to talk anytime you like, towel boy! Just ask your neighbours!

[Hassan leaves.]

Sam: Are you just gonna let him treat you like that? That guy has no respect for you, you pipsqueak! No respect for you at all.

John: I wonder why.

Tune in next time when Sam borrows billions of dollars from Chang and Kenji to kick Hassan’s ass, same stupid time, same stupid channel!

A long train runnin'...

P-Doug and I met up again yesterday and went back to The Bishop and the Belcher. Towards the end of our sojourn there, I noticed they had some encyclopedia yearbooks on the shelf behind him. He hauled down the one for the year 1972. We read the section on Canada... we read Mike Pearson's obit and reflected on just how much the country had changed thanks to the changes he had (quite recently, back then) instituted... entirely for the better, in my opinion.

But what really caught our eye was a mention, somewhere, of Ralph Nader. A picture of him as a younger man, still fresh from his struggles with GM. The caption under the photo said that he was warning of a dangerous trend in the United States Congress to knuckle-under to the Executive branch, and forecast an increasing usurpation of congressional power by the Presidency.

This was 1972. Before Watergate had played out, before Reagan, before Bush-Cheney. It was like finding out Teddy Roosevelt had warned of a coming attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor.

Letter to Polt: Metric On the Empire

[This started off as a response to Polt in a recent post... I thought I would expand on it.]

Polt: Thanks for the conversion from Celsius, your non-Metric American readers appreciate it. :)

Actually, as I was remarking to P-Doug the other day, in spite of the fact I was educated from start to finish in Metric, Celsius temps only "work" for me when it's cold. Zero is freezing? That makes sense to me. But 20... is that really warm, or do I need a jacket, or what? But I know 60 in Fahrenheit is about when I can go bare-armed, 70's pleasant, 80's hot. So I fall back to what Bob and Doug told me years ago on The Great White North album: "double it and add 30". 20, 20, 30, that's 70. Okay, jacket stays home. :D

I find my life is a curious and often contradictory mix of Metric and imperial. The imperial I come by strictly culturally; from the very first day I started school in the early 70s, I was taught in Metric and Metric only. I undertand the Metric system and I've often said "I have no sympathy for anyone who can't count to ten," but that said, I am in practical terms unfaithful to the official measurement system of my country...

I think this can be generally said of Canadians, though. I remember that in the 70s, for a while, it was actually illegal to put imperial weight and volumes on products, but evenutally the government relented and said it was permissible so long as the official Metric measurements were included. Now if they hadn't done that and they'd stuck to their guns, I probably wouldn't have the practical experience with imperial I do have, and I might not rely on it as much as I do.

Here's how it works for me. (Temperatures are discussed above, so I'll avoid redundancy on that score.)

Linear measurements: I tend to reckon speeds in kilometres, but distances in imperial: inches, feet, miles. Something about the direct proportion of 60 miles in 60 minutes is just too convenient to shake off, and I find myself multiplying kilometre measurements by 0.6 to get an idea of how many minutes that's going to take me to cover... what I'm really doing there is figuring out how many miles it is.

Volumes: litres work just fine for me for milk and gas, and pretty much anything else. But when it comes to beer and booze, you're talking ounces and pints (real pints, not those pissy little ones they have in the States). This, I think, is extremely common in Canada. Beer and pop are sold in 355 mL cans, but in reality, that's exactly 12 oz (US). There are some Metric sizes, of course, like litres and 750 mL bottles, but some 'comfy' standards die hard.

Weights: pounds. Pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds. I can picture holding a pound of butter in my palm; I know that that is. Kilograms... I don't know, I just never latched onto the concept. I know what I weigh in pounds (don't ask), I know how far a pound of meat goes, I know what a quarter pounder is, I know how many ounces an average chicken breast is.

The weight thing brings me to the heart of the matter. I think the reason I have such trouble really, practically adopting so many Metric measurements is that they seem divorced from everyday use. Metric was formulated out of scientific principles, usually tied to water (1 cubic centimetre of water at a certain temperature is 1 gram; it freezes or melts at 0 Celsius...). And on a logical level, I deeply admire that. But it results in measurements that don't seem practical to me. They're either too large, or too small. A gram is too ridiculously small. A kilogram, on the other hand, is too large. Conversely, an ounce is something you can typically hold in your fingertips; a pound, in the palm of your hand. A foot is easy to visualize; hold your hands out in front of you a comfortable distance, and that's about a foot. A metre is a little harder to visualize; again, it's just too big somehow. Even when I was a kid learning Metric in school, all the "Metric" rulers were 30 cm long... in other words, a foot. A square foot is easy to picture; a square metre rather more elusive (more on this in a moment, though). The only everyday Metric measurement I'm at home with is the litre, and that's probably because, by sheer serendipity, it's nearly the same as a quart... milk cartons got a little skinnier when I was a kid, enough that I could tell, but not enough that it made a difference carting it home from the store. So, all things considered, it's hard for me to imagine a time when imperial will be behind me.

Housing standards, even now, seem to have stayed almost completely imperial, though. But that said, something interesting happened several years ago when my parents put their house on the market. I was helping them measure the square footage of the rooms, and they told me that the Toronto Real Estate Board wanted the measurements in square metres. And I thought, who the hell wants to know the "square metreage" of a house? But when we came to do the math, I suddenly realized why they suggested it, and why we use Metric in the first place. Multiplying 387.4 cm by 258.5 cm is a piece of cake. Trying multiplying 15'9¼" by 11'3¾" sometime. But if you get the m², all you have to do to get the evil square footage is multiply by 10.7639104 (call it 10.75 and be done with it). 19.25 m² is about 207 square feet; two measurements, two math chores and you're done. Okay, sometimes, Metric wins. :)