Having actually managed to get up at 4 a.m. I can enjoy a leisurely breakfast, made enjoyable, I hope by finally getting to read Saturday's National Post, only two days late.
As an addicted newspaper reader (three subscriptions) I should know better--reading the news just entangless you hopelessly and uselessly in world affairs--reaally, what damned bit of difference would one more drop of commentary in the vast ocean of punditry make?--while personal jobs from taxi-driving to house-renos lag. This day is no different: reams of stuff about the start of Winter Olympics (from wireless-safety to Putin's prospects), another molestation charge against Woody Allen, Conrad Black harumphing about the economic non-recovery, Robert Fulford contemplating Japan and its recurring Yasukuni furore...
But the first thing that really grabs me is a letter to the editor about Mackenzie King's racism...
yet, yet another ongoing...
Showing posts with label nationalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nationalism. Show all posts
Monday, February 10, 2014
Friday, September 6, 2013
Tailoring Canada's national anthem to various cranks and agendas
Picking up the August edition of our community paper Rat Creek Press, I notice a quarter-page advertisement from my MP Peter Goldring with the somewhat awkward heading, "O CANADA 'IN ALL THY SONS COMMAND'" and arguing in nine paragraphs that: "The current anthem is politically correct and is gender neutral."
Wow, good to see that all the bases are covered, Mr. G! But, as many a furious controversy over the national anthem has raged north of the 49th Parallel, even to violent barfights, mayhem and editorials (note to Americans: joking here) it may be worthwhile to address the burning question of the anthem's social adequacy in that cool, rational and faintly neurotic way that typifies the True North.
Mayhaps it is even more worthwhile to address it in a ribald and iconoclastic way. I mean, this isn't the Excited States, where people get lynched for not saluting the flag. We DO get a bit choked-up about the anthem, but not to that degree...
Wow, good to see that all the bases are covered, Mr. G! But, as many a furious controversy over the national anthem has raged north of the 49th Parallel, even to violent barfights, mayhem and editorials (note to Americans: joking here) it may be worthwhile to address the burning question of the anthem's social adequacy in that cool, rational and faintly neurotic way that typifies the True North.
Mayhaps it is even more worthwhile to address it in a ribald and iconoclastic way. I mean, this isn't the Excited States, where people get lynched for not saluting the flag. We DO get a bit choked-up about the anthem, but not to that degree...
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Hey, are we immigrants great or what?
Ah!--now here is the June 2011 Walrus with a treatise on nouveau Canadians, adorned with a truly cute headline: "Arrival of the Fittest." Whoa!
You can almost hear the right-flappers screeching, "You wouldn't DARE say Europeans are the fittest, would you? Would you?! You'd have a freaking CONNIPTION if we boosted western values, wouldn't you?!" Etc.
Heck, les editors de Walrus may even have placed the allusive cherry atop the article with the mischievous intention of thus stirring up the animals. Such things do happn when the ideological undergarmets begin to knot...
You can almost hear the right-flappers screeching, "You wouldn't DARE say Europeans are the fittest, would you? Would you?! You'd have a freaking CONNIPTION if we boosted western values, wouldn't you?!" Etc.
Heck, les editors de Walrus may even have placed the allusive cherry atop the article with the mischievous intention of thus stirring up the animals. Such things do happn when the ideological undergarmets begin to knot...
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