Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, an appropriate time to take stock of one’s blessings. But were I to say grace at the Thanksgiving table, one shout-out I would not issue would be a big hosanna to the Lord God, thanking Him for making the United States the greatest country on Earth, and praying to Him that other countries might recognize and accept our moral superiority, and emulate us in everything they do.
OK, first, I’ll concede that it’s difficult for me to envision any scenario in which I’d be leading a group of diners in prayer, unless the invocation were to be something vague, light and rhyming—like, say, “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub!” I’m an agnostic at best who thinks the Creator of the Universe, if there is one, likely isn’t so closely engaged in our lives that He/She/It is monitoring our dinnertime patter (let alone willing our various sports teams to victory). I might as well note, too, that Lynn and I will be joining friends tomorrow for a meatless, dairy-free Tofurky Day feast, and that your typical lefty-vegan gathering isn’t, frankly, a big Jesus fest.
But be all that as it may, what I mean to say here is something I touched on in my November 5 post about Lynn’s and my recent vacation trip to Toronto and what makes Canada, to my mind, a very different country from the United States—despite many Americans’ tendency to view it, if they think of it at all, as little more than a colder, sparser variation on America. I cited then a number of differences between the two countries, ranging from the substantive to the silly. My wide net pulled in everything from Canada’s national health care system and strict gun laws to the fact that I’d never heard so many Guess Who and Rush B-sides on “classic rock” radio. My focus today, however, is this passage from my earlier post about what makes Canada “foreign”: “the self-denigration and national inferiority complex that turns America’s belief in its own exceptionalism on its head.”
Now, I’m not here to psychoanalyze Canada and determine why I returned there after many years absence to find that national defensiveness and insecurity still seem to reign supreme. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when you share thousands of miles of border with a swaggering world power that’s constantly waving its cajones in your face, you’re either going to unzip your national pants and try to fight balls with balls or, noting that America’s about a zillion times more populous and brash and relentless, shrink back and meekly protest that you never wanted to play in the stupid bully’s league, anyway.
Let’s stop here for a second and define “exceptionalism.” TheFreeDictionary.com calls it “an attitude toward other countries, cultures, etc, based on the idea [that one’s own country is] quite distinct from, and often superior to, them in vital ways.” More than an attitude, it has become a political philosophy for a certain subset of Americans who hold that America, as only they define and envision it, is the Way, the Truth and Light. That philosophy consigns fault-finding with this vision to that despicable group that the most Exceptional of politicians, Sarah Palin, would call the “haters.”
There was a great op-ed piece on this subject recently in the Washington Post, written by Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the (hater-funded and -backed) Center for American Progress. Headlined “Ohhh America, You’re So Strong,” it led by asking, “Does anyone else think there’s something a little insecure about a country that requires its politicians to constantly declare how exceptional it is?” He added, “A populace in need of this much reassurance may be the surest sign of looming national decline.”
“American exceptionalism,” Miller observed, “is now the central theme of Sarah Palin’s speeches. The supposedly insufficient Democratic commitment to this idea will be a core Republican complaint in 2012. Conservatives assail Barack Obama for his alleged indifference to it. It’s part of their broader indictment of Obama's fishy cosmopolitanism, his overseas ‘apology tours,’ his didn’t-wear-the-flag-lapel-pin-until-he-had-to peevishness. Not to mention the whole anti-colonial Kenyan resentment thing the president’s got going.”
While emphasizing that he loves his country and the ideals on which it was founded, Miller noted, quite reasonably, it seems to me, that the United States is hardly without faults, and that it is, rather, continually and endlessly evolving toward that “more perfect union” described in the Preamble to the US Constitution.
“You can tell a lot about a country by what it requires its politicians to do to win,” Miller pointed out. “In Switzerland, do candidates have to proclaim that ‘Switzerland is the greatest nation ever created in human history’? In Brazil, do ambitious pols insist that 'Brazil is the most special country ever to grace the world’? Isn't ‘great’ or ‘really, really great’ enough?”
“Not in America, dammit,” he answered his own question. Miller quoted from the recent victory speech of Republican US Senator-elect Marco Rubio of Florida, a Tea Party darling who some political handicappers already are adding to the short list for GOP presidential nominee in 2012. Savoring his big win, Rubio declared that “Americans believe with all their heart that United States of America is simply the single greatest nation in all of human history, a place without equal in the history of all of mankind.” He described his Senate race as “a referendum on our identity” that “forces us to answer a very simple question: Do we want our country to continue to be exceptional, or are we prepared for it to become just like everyone else?”
Wait a minute! According to my birth certificate, I’m an American. But, while I appreciate the American democracy’s pivotal place in world history and global thought, and while I do think we deserve some credit for having tried much harder than have many other countries to Do the Right Thing, domestically and internationally, throughout our existence as a nation, let’s face it, there’s a lot about America that is far less than exemplary. I doubt we’re even the greatest nation of the year 2010, let alone through the history of all of mankind, though I’m too ill-traveled and not well-read enough to assert with complete confidence which nation or nations I’d deem more deserving of the title.
I mean, c’mon! Just look at our unemployment levels, income gulf, crime rate, gun use and abuse, historically unjust health care system (no matter what Mitch McConnell says), environmental irresponsibility … you name it. Not to mention our vastly inconsistent and contradictory foreign policies that often result in everything from needless tragedy to well-meaning but poorly executed actions that contribute to our pariah standing in much of the world. Anybody who thinks America doesn’t have problems is refusing to pay attention.
Miller has a theory about what’s going on here. “The conservative use of American exceptionalism as a political sword today is perversely revealing,” he wrote in his recent op-ed piece. “There’s something off when the first generation of Americans that is less educated than its parents feels a deep need to be told how unique it is. Or when a generation that’s handing off epic debts and a chronically dysfunctional political process (among other woes) demands that its leaders keep toasting its fabulousness. Especially when other nations now offer more upward mobility, and a better blend of growth with equity, than we do—arguably the best measures of America's once-exceptional national performance.”
It’s Miller’s conviction that what America needs, rather than to have its ego constantly stroked by pandering, self-serving politicians who have no constructive blueprint for improving the national performance (hence the “Ohhh, America, You’re So Strong” headline), is some “real answers” from its lawmakers and self-styled Big Thinkers. “Wouldn’t we be better off striving to be exceptional at solving our common problems?” Miller asks.
I have to think we would. I have to think, furthermore, that if we’re to make any progress addressing, let alone solving, the many challenges we face as a nation, we’d do well to stop questioning the loyalty and patriotism of those who suggest we can do better, to avoid getting so wrapped up in the flag that we restrict our ability to respond to real problems, and to focus not on some exalted, static sense of greatness but, rather, to strive for the future that the "angels of our better nature" (per Lincoln) envision.
I’m as thankful as is any Tea Partier to live in a stable democracy with a high standard of living. But I guess I would hope that anyone who feels tempted to thank God for America’s exceptionalism at the Thanksgiving table instead would consider the many definitions of the word “grace.” They include “a disposition to be generous” and “a sense of fitness or propriety.” What could be more fitting for a global role model than to learn from its mistakes and share that wisdom with the world?
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A follow-up to my November 12 post, “She Done Him Wrong”: I was surprised that the DC jury found Ingmar Guandique guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of first-degree murder in the 2001 death of Chandra Levy, given the complete lack of direct evidence. I was not surprised, however, by the post-verdict comments of Bert Fields, ex-Congressman Gary Condit’s lawyer.
“At least Gary Condit can [now] find some measure of closure to this nightmare,” said Fields, whose boss was mum on the subject—presumably so as not to steal thunder from his forthcoming book about how Levy's disappearance in effect ruined his life. “[The verdict] is a complete vindication, but it comes a little late," Fields sighed. "Who gives [Condit] his career back?”
Not to rehash everything I’ve already written, but, again: Whose nightmare, exactly, was this horrific slaying? What caused the career implosion—the rush to judgment by the police and news media, or the immensely unsympathetic public persona Condit presented? Finally, does “vindication” mean Gary Condit never was, and isn’t now, a self-centered ass?
Yes, the career is gone. But the Passion of the Christ continues.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
She Done Him Wrong
With the trial of Ingmar Guandique for the 2001 slaying of Chandra Levy well underway here in DC, former California Congressman Gary Condit has been back in the news. This past week we learned two things: that the FBI found his semen on a pair of Levy’s panties following her disappearance, and that Condit is working on a book about what his son calls the “bad deal” his father got from the police and the press in the months before 9/11 swept the scandal from the national headlines.
I’m struck by the juxtaposition of those two pieces of information.
The broad outlines of the case are well known: Attractive Washington intern goes missing. It then turns out that her home district’s (married) “man in Washington” was in fact servicing his much younger constituent. Washington, DC, police focus almost exclusively on Condit as the suspect in the intern's disappearance rather than the young Salvadoran with the criminal record who’d assaulted other women in the park that is the primary search area. The congressman is hounded by police, vilified in the press and ultimately booted from office by his constituents.
On Good Morning America the other day, Chad Condit lamented to host George Stephanopoulos that his father “didn’t deserve what happened,” and complained that the Condit family has been “dealing with [this] for 10 years.” When Stephanopoulos asked whether the former lawmaker perhaps had contributed to his woes by consistently declining to speak publicly about Levy, Chad Condit said no. His father had cooperated fully with police, the son said, but had felt the details of his relationship with Levy were irrelevant to the criminal investigation and need not be shared with the public.
“We hope people will understand that in this country you are entitled to certain level of privacy,” the younger Condit said. “If we lose that, we’re going to lose the very essence of what we are as a country.” Well, it seems to me that what the Condit boys would do well to understand is that, had the congressman in 2001 shown a fraction of the concern for and interest in Chandra Levy’s fate that he’d shown for his own reputation and hide, he might today be seen as a sympathetic figure, rather than as just another disgraced politician who’s now out to make a buck from his infamy. Condit’s philandering still might have gotten him kicked out of Congress, but his name might not now be synonymous with “self-centered ass” by those of us who remember the angry vehemence with which he sought to distant himself from the missing and presumed-dead young woman with whom he’d been amorously linked.
I followed the story closely in the local news in 2001, and what I saw in Gary Condit then was a righteous indignation so consuming that he scarcely could bring himself to concede he’d known Levy, let alone slept with her. Though the police consistently described the relationship as sexual, Condit never would publicly confirm that. He clearly hated being asked about Levy, or even mentioning her name. At one point, as I recall, he managed a perfunctory, lip-service expression of concern for her fate and sympathy for her parents. But when the Levys—not knowing what to think, and having been egged on by the bungling DC cops—themselves began questioning Condit’s innocence, the rage in his face implied that he now hated them nearly as much as he seemed to hate their daughter for having ruined his life by disappearing in the first place.
What both Gary and Chad Condit still don’t seem to get—although to his credit, the son expressed more genuine sympathy for the Levy family’s grief in five minutes this week than his father has in the past nine-plus years—is that, while a rush to judgment on the parts of the police and the press unquestionably made Condit’s life miserable for a while, he never was the real victim in the Chandra Levy affair. It was Chandra Levy who was murdered in Rock Creek Park, after all. And it was she who was slandered in a way by Condit, whose stonewalling about the relationship only solidified her public image as simply another foolish young woman who’d bought into a married man’s promise of divorce. What I truly despise Gary Condit for—and I suspect I’m not the only one—isn’t so much the abuse of power that facilitated the affair as the utter lack of any tenderness, any grief, any acknowledgement on his part that this tragedy was about Chandra Levy, not Gary Condit. Had she meant anything at all to him, other than the obvious? It’s there that his silence was, and still is, deafening.
Now that his renegade semen has been cited in official court testimony, Condit presumably will at last cut the crap in his book. If he’s smart, he’ll say some nice things about Chandra Levy, portraying her as a real flesh-and-blood woman who had feelings and attributes—as more than simply a quick you-know-what. But it will be up to readers to parse how much of that is heartfelt and how much is belated damage control. Regardless, Condit’s history suggests that Levy still will be little more than a bit player in the bigger story of how a stellar lawmaker was grievously and outrageously, if you'll pardon the expression, screwed.
I’m struck by the juxtaposition of those two pieces of information.
The broad outlines of the case are well known: Attractive Washington intern goes missing. It then turns out that her home district’s (married) “man in Washington” was in fact servicing his much younger constituent. Washington, DC, police focus almost exclusively on Condit as the suspect in the intern's disappearance rather than the young Salvadoran with the criminal record who’d assaulted other women in the park that is the primary search area. The congressman is hounded by police, vilified in the press and ultimately booted from office by his constituents.
On Good Morning America the other day, Chad Condit lamented to host George Stephanopoulos that his father “didn’t deserve what happened,” and complained that the Condit family has been “dealing with [this] for 10 years.” When Stephanopoulos asked whether the former lawmaker perhaps had contributed to his woes by consistently declining to speak publicly about Levy, Chad Condit said no. His father had cooperated fully with police, the son said, but had felt the details of his relationship with Levy were irrelevant to the criminal investigation and need not be shared with the public.
“We hope people will understand that in this country you are entitled to certain level of privacy,” the younger Condit said. “If we lose that, we’re going to lose the very essence of what we are as a country.” Well, it seems to me that what the Condit boys would do well to understand is that, had the congressman in 2001 shown a fraction of the concern for and interest in Chandra Levy’s fate that he’d shown for his own reputation and hide, he might today be seen as a sympathetic figure, rather than as just another disgraced politician who’s now out to make a buck from his infamy. Condit’s philandering still might have gotten him kicked out of Congress, but his name might not now be synonymous with “self-centered ass” by those of us who remember the angry vehemence with which he sought to distant himself from the missing and presumed-dead young woman with whom he’d been amorously linked.
I followed the story closely in the local news in 2001, and what I saw in Gary Condit then was a righteous indignation so consuming that he scarcely could bring himself to concede he’d known Levy, let alone slept with her. Though the police consistently described the relationship as sexual, Condit never would publicly confirm that. He clearly hated being asked about Levy, or even mentioning her name. At one point, as I recall, he managed a perfunctory, lip-service expression of concern for her fate and sympathy for her parents. But when the Levys—not knowing what to think, and having been egged on by the bungling DC cops—themselves began questioning Condit’s innocence, the rage in his face implied that he now hated them nearly as much as he seemed to hate their daughter for having ruined his life by disappearing in the first place.
What both Gary and Chad Condit still don’t seem to get—although to his credit, the son expressed more genuine sympathy for the Levy family’s grief in five minutes this week than his father has in the past nine-plus years—is that, while a rush to judgment on the parts of the police and the press unquestionably made Condit’s life miserable for a while, he never was the real victim in the Chandra Levy affair. It was Chandra Levy who was murdered in Rock Creek Park, after all. And it was she who was slandered in a way by Condit, whose stonewalling about the relationship only solidified her public image as simply another foolish young woman who’d bought into a married man’s promise of divorce. What I truly despise Gary Condit for—and I suspect I’m not the only one—isn’t so much the abuse of power that facilitated the affair as the utter lack of any tenderness, any grief, any acknowledgement on his part that this tragedy was about Chandra Levy, not Gary Condit. Had she meant anything at all to him, other than the obvious? It’s there that his silence was, and still is, deafening.
Now that his renegade semen has been cited in official court testimony, Condit presumably will at last cut the crap in his book. If he’s smart, he’ll say some nice things about Chandra Levy, portraying her as a real flesh-and-blood woman who had feelings and attributes—as more than simply a quick you-know-what. But it will be up to readers to parse how much of that is heartfelt and how much is belated damage control. Regardless, Condit’s history suggests that Levy still will be little more than a bit player in the bigger story of how a stellar lawmaker was grievously and outrageously, if you'll pardon the expression, screwed.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Foreign Concepts
My fascination with Canada predates even the Dave Thomas-Rick Moranis “Great White North Skits” on SCTV decades ago, during which the home-grown comedians spoofed their native land as a nation of flannel-clad, tuque-topped, beer-swigging, hockey-playing “hosers” who end every other sentence with the word “eh.”
I’d first ventured north of the border, if just barely, on a family vacation to Niagara Falls when I was maybe 8 or 9. I don’t remember much about that visit except the magnificence of the water—especially Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side—and the vague sense that I’d left the United States and set foot in a new place that closely mirrored my own country, but wasn’t. There were Maple Leaf flags all over the place. The coins and paper currency were different. The accents were flatter, and some people spoke French. I may or may not have noticed then that various written words featured an extra “u” or a transposed e-r, as in “centre.” Regardless, I clearly wasn’t in America anymore. There was a skewed familiarity to everything that made Canada different without being scary to my young, provincial self.
Now I’m 52 and have been back to Canada several times—most recently in late October, which I’ll get to shortly. Because our neighbor to the north is chilly and under-populated—two qualities Lynn and I prize in vacation destinations—we’ve been to the Canadian Rockies and Vancouver on one trip and to Newfoundland, Labrador and the Maritime provinces on another. To me, there’s so much to love about Canada: the natural beauty, the vastness of the land, the lack of bluster and self-importance compared to what I see every day in this country, the national health care system and tough gun laws.
I was impressed, too, when Canada approved gay marriage nationwide a few years ago. But I think it was really the security measures enacted after 9/11 that iced the cake for me. Now Americans need a passport to cross the border, which is extremely important to someone like me who’s still seen little of the world. The passport requirement means, to me, that I’ve now officially been to three foreign countries—Iceland, Japan and Canada. Before, when Americans could gain access to Canada simply by producing their driver’s license and assuring the border guard there were no explosive devices in the trunk, Canada’s legitimacy as a sovereign nation for travel-resume purposes seemed vaguely questionable. Sure, Canada had different laws and other political and social quirks, but so did, say, Utah and Texas—US states that also weren’t quite like mine. The passport lent Canada an extra layer of exoticism.
It was with even greater anticipation than on previous visits, then, that I prepared to cross the border this time. Lynn and I were bound for Toronto, where neither of us ever had been, and it would be our first border crossing since enactment of the passport requirement. On the morning of Monday, October 25, with great pride in my worldliness, I handed over our proof of US citizenship to the Canadian official on that country’s side of the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario. That he turned out to be kind of a hard ass who chastised me for failing to heed some stop sign neither Lynn nor I could recollect having even seen took nothing away from my excitement as we proceeded by car into the land of metric highway signs and throwback Esso gas stations.
We would spend most of that day and two full ones in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, before returning to the US on Friday the 29th. During our stay we had a fantastic time walking the city from our centrally located hotel—some highlights included the top of the CN Tower, the Royal Ontario Museum, much gluten-free vegan fine dining (emphatically not an oxymoron in Toronto, Lynn delightedly discovered) and a couple of hours at the Hockey Fall of Fame (OK, maybe more a highlight for me than for Lynn). But what I’d really like to share with you in this post are three specific ways in which, I observed during this trip, Canada is so not the US, should any readers still need convincing—the passport thing notwithstanding.
· I was struck almost immediately by the complete and utter lack of bumper stickers. In fact, it got to the point that I was thrilled we’d valet-parked our car upon arrival at the hotel and only reclaimed it when we left town. My rear bumper area features not one, not two, but four stickers—promoting the Human Right Campaign (the “equal” sign), Amnesty International, vegetarianism (“Veg”) and the greatness of cats (“Meow”). Here in this country, I like displaying them, because I feel they project to the driving public that I’m a fan of social justice who’s comfortable with his feminine side. In Ontario, though, the bumper stickers made me feel garish and loud. They seemed the visual equivalents of screaming my opinions in Canadian ears, thus finding yet another way to be the Ugly American foreigners love to hate. What was this utter dearth of sticker mania? Was it a manifestation of Canadians’ stereotypical politeness, not wanting to offend those with opposing viewpoints and allegiances? Was it the pointlessness of “I’m the NRA, and I Vote” belligerence in a country with no gun lobby? Might it be welcome modesty about their honor-student kids? Was it the problematic distance to long weekends at “OBX”? Whatever. Once you zero in on it, as I did, you know this ain’t America.
· Being the technological caveman I am, I’d brought an old-school transistor radio with me so I could listen to music while in the shower, as I am wont to do. I found a Toronto classic rock station, which I then listened to for a total of maybe 45 minutes over those few days. I was stunned and overjoyed not to hear a single song by Boston during that time. Instead, the gaps between the standard Stones, Clapton and Tom Petty tunes were filled by unfamiliar offerings that turned out to be lesser hits by the likes of Canada’s own Rush and the Guess Who. I was completely flummoxed by the DJ’s mention at one point of the Jeff Healey Band. Playing a hunch, I Wikipedia’d the group on our laptop computer. This was the first sentence: Norman Jeffrey “Jeff” Healey (March 25, 1966 - March 2, 2008) was a blind Canadian jazz and blues-rock vocalistist and guitarist who attained musical and personal popularity, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Not in the US, he didn’t. Now, that’s what I call foreign classic rock.
· Canada’s Election Day had just been held when we arrived in Toronto. Toronto had elected as its new mayor a city council member named Rob Ford. His relatively easy victory had been deemed surprising—not only because Ford is a member of the Conservative Party in a Liberal-leaning city, but also because he’s fat and undiplomatic. Many Torontans were concerned that his protruding gut and blunt, take-charge attitude—qualities that characterize many a successful US politician—would ill-represent their cosmopolitan and polished city. The Toronto Sun quoted a local dietician as advising that Ford, whose unintentionally ironic campaign slogan decrying profligate government spending had been “The gravy train stops here!”, had “better have waist management on his agenda.”
There’s a lot more about Canada that’s “foreign,” of course—from the “loonie” dollar coin and those wacky Celcius temperatures, to the self-denigration and national inferiority complex that turn America’s belief in its own exceptionalism on it head, to the mistaken belief (per Lynn) that tights and leggings look good on all women regardless of body type, to a military policy that favors peacekeeping over war-making, to an endearing lawfulness that seems to preclude pedestrians crossing against a traffic light even during lengthy windows of opportunity, to the iconic status of “Hockey Night in Canada” as not only a television broadcast but as a national description of Saturday evenings everywhere from St John’s in the East to Yellowknife in the West.
Still, it seems to me there’s no better definition of "foreign country" by American standards than one in which one might never know a motorist would “Rather Be Golfing,” might never hear “More Than a Feeling” or “Peace of Mind” on the radio, and might seldom see and hear a lawmaker with a piehole as huge as his belly.
I already can’t wait to go back. I'd better keep my passport current.
I’d first ventured north of the border, if just barely, on a family vacation to Niagara Falls when I was maybe 8 or 9. I don’t remember much about that visit except the magnificence of the water—especially Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side—and the vague sense that I’d left the United States and set foot in a new place that closely mirrored my own country, but wasn’t. There were Maple Leaf flags all over the place. The coins and paper currency were different. The accents were flatter, and some people spoke French. I may or may not have noticed then that various written words featured an extra “u” or a transposed e-r, as in “centre.” Regardless, I clearly wasn’t in America anymore. There was a skewed familiarity to everything that made Canada different without being scary to my young, provincial self.
Now I’m 52 and have been back to Canada several times—most recently in late October, which I’ll get to shortly. Because our neighbor to the north is chilly and under-populated—two qualities Lynn and I prize in vacation destinations—we’ve been to the Canadian Rockies and Vancouver on one trip and to Newfoundland, Labrador and the Maritime provinces on another. To me, there’s so much to love about Canada: the natural beauty, the vastness of the land, the lack of bluster and self-importance compared to what I see every day in this country, the national health care system and tough gun laws.
I was impressed, too, when Canada approved gay marriage nationwide a few years ago. But I think it was really the security measures enacted after 9/11 that iced the cake for me. Now Americans need a passport to cross the border, which is extremely important to someone like me who’s still seen little of the world. The passport requirement means, to me, that I’ve now officially been to three foreign countries—Iceland, Japan and Canada. Before, when Americans could gain access to Canada simply by producing their driver’s license and assuring the border guard there were no explosive devices in the trunk, Canada’s legitimacy as a sovereign nation for travel-resume purposes seemed vaguely questionable. Sure, Canada had different laws and other political and social quirks, but so did, say, Utah and Texas—US states that also weren’t quite like mine. The passport lent Canada an extra layer of exoticism.
It was with even greater anticipation than on previous visits, then, that I prepared to cross the border this time. Lynn and I were bound for Toronto, where neither of us ever had been, and it would be our first border crossing since enactment of the passport requirement. On the morning of Monday, October 25, with great pride in my worldliness, I handed over our proof of US citizenship to the Canadian official on that country’s side of the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario. That he turned out to be kind of a hard ass who chastised me for failing to heed some stop sign neither Lynn nor I could recollect having even seen took nothing away from my excitement as we proceeded by car into the land of metric highway signs and throwback Esso gas stations.
We would spend most of that day and two full ones in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, before returning to the US on Friday the 29th. During our stay we had a fantastic time walking the city from our centrally located hotel—some highlights included the top of the CN Tower, the Royal Ontario Museum, much gluten-free vegan fine dining (emphatically not an oxymoron in Toronto, Lynn delightedly discovered) and a couple of hours at the Hockey Fall of Fame (OK, maybe more a highlight for me than for Lynn). But what I’d really like to share with you in this post are three specific ways in which, I observed during this trip, Canada is so not the US, should any readers still need convincing—the passport thing notwithstanding.
· I was struck almost immediately by the complete and utter lack of bumper stickers. In fact, it got to the point that I was thrilled we’d valet-parked our car upon arrival at the hotel and only reclaimed it when we left town. My rear bumper area features not one, not two, but four stickers—promoting the Human Right Campaign (the “equal” sign), Amnesty International, vegetarianism (“Veg”) and the greatness of cats (“Meow”). Here in this country, I like displaying them, because I feel they project to the driving public that I’m a fan of social justice who’s comfortable with his feminine side. In Ontario, though, the bumper stickers made me feel garish and loud. They seemed the visual equivalents of screaming my opinions in Canadian ears, thus finding yet another way to be the Ugly American foreigners love to hate. What was this utter dearth of sticker mania? Was it a manifestation of Canadians’ stereotypical politeness, not wanting to offend those with opposing viewpoints and allegiances? Was it the pointlessness of “I’m the NRA, and I Vote” belligerence in a country with no gun lobby? Might it be welcome modesty about their honor-student kids? Was it the problematic distance to long weekends at “OBX”? Whatever. Once you zero in on it, as I did, you know this ain’t America.
· Being the technological caveman I am, I’d brought an old-school transistor radio with me so I could listen to music while in the shower, as I am wont to do. I found a Toronto classic rock station, which I then listened to for a total of maybe 45 minutes over those few days. I was stunned and overjoyed not to hear a single song by Boston during that time. Instead, the gaps between the standard Stones, Clapton and Tom Petty tunes were filled by unfamiliar offerings that turned out to be lesser hits by the likes of Canada’s own Rush and the Guess Who. I was completely flummoxed by the DJ’s mention at one point of the Jeff Healey Band. Playing a hunch, I Wikipedia’d the group on our laptop computer. This was the first sentence: Norman Jeffrey “Jeff” Healey (March 25, 1966 - March 2, 2008) was a blind Canadian jazz and blues-rock vocalistist and guitarist who attained musical and personal popularity, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Not in the US, he didn’t. Now, that’s what I call foreign classic rock.
· Canada’s Election Day had just been held when we arrived in Toronto. Toronto had elected as its new mayor a city council member named Rob Ford. His relatively easy victory had been deemed surprising—not only because Ford is a member of the Conservative Party in a Liberal-leaning city, but also because he’s fat and undiplomatic. Many Torontans were concerned that his protruding gut and blunt, take-charge attitude—qualities that characterize many a successful US politician—would ill-represent their cosmopolitan and polished city. The Toronto Sun quoted a local dietician as advising that Ford, whose unintentionally ironic campaign slogan decrying profligate government spending had been “The gravy train stops here!”, had “better have waist management on his agenda.”
There’s a lot more about Canada that’s “foreign,” of course—from the “loonie” dollar coin and those wacky Celcius temperatures, to the self-denigration and national inferiority complex that turn America’s belief in its own exceptionalism on it head, to the mistaken belief (per Lynn) that tights and leggings look good on all women regardless of body type, to a military policy that favors peacekeeping over war-making, to an endearing lawfulness that seems to preclude pedestrians crossing against a traffic light even during lengthy windows of opportunity, to the iconic status of “Hockey Night in Canada” as not only a television broadcast but as a national description of Saturday evenings everywhere from St John’s in the East to Yellowknife in the West.
Still, it seems to me there’s no better definition of "foreign country" by American standards than one in which one might never know a motorist would “Rather Be Golfing,” might never hear “More Than a Feeling” or “Peace of Mind” on the radio, and might seldom see and hear a lawmaker with a piehole as huge as his belly.
I already can’t wait to go back. I'd better keep my passport current.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Creepshow
Usually I carve a pumpkin for Halloween, and it’s glowing through a window of our darkened house when trick-or-treaters walk up our driveway and front steps to the screened-in front porch. Typically we drag down from the attic every plastic skull and paper skeleton we can find, and prop or hang them forebodingly on the porch swing, a pedestal table and other available surfaces.
Traditionally our front porch has lent itself well to the occasion, since—with its cobwebs, dead bugs, withered flowers, filthy plastic chairs, chipped paint and other indicators of manifest neglect—it has more closely resembled the entryway to the Munsters’ place at 1313 Mockingbird Lane than anything a suburban kid might expect to encounter in our pricey Bethesda zip code.
This year, however, we’d been on a vacation trip until the day before Halloween, and a social engagement that afternoon that had kept us away from the house until about 5 pm. Also, a month or two earlier we’d had the front porch painted, after about a decade’s worth of increasing shame over its appearance. The floor was so badly chipped by that point that the few times I vacuumed it each year, the bag quickly would fill with floor fragments. It had seemed only a matter of time until some barefoot neighbor kid soliciting funds for a school project would splinter his or her way to a huge lawsuit filed against us by litigious parents. Frankly, if we hadn’t cleared and tidied the porch for painting when we did, we might just as well have moved a rusty refrigerator and assorted hubcaps out there and hired a banjo player to complete the picture of utter indifference and dilapidation.
What I mean to say is, while our porch at last was fit for the eyes of polite society by this past Sunday night, it was considerably less ideal as a gateway to Halloween than it had been in past years. There not only was no glowing pumpkin in the window this time, but no cobwebs, no insect carcasses, no pealing porch swing perfect for the Crypt Keeper and a date. We’d hung a wreath of skulls on the front door and set a line of three wooden Jack-o-Lanterns on a low table, but that was about it. It isn’t like we get a ton of trick-or-treaters—generally between 30 and 50, most within a 90-minute window—but I felt like I was letting down those youngsters who are familiar enough with our house of planned and inadvertent horrors to have expected more from us. When the first group of kids arrived at around 6:45 and I opened the front door, I could see and hear in the distance eerie flashing lights and disturbing shrieks coming from a house on Wagner Lane. It made me feel rather like a wallflower at the Monster Mash.
At least we had good candy, and plenty of it, I consoled myself as I sat at the kitchen table. It overlooks the driveway, and I had the TV on AMC (American Movie Classics), which was showing the 1996 roadhouse-of-the-undead flick From Dusk Till Dawn. Before our vacation, Lynn had stocked up on multiple bags of Snickers, Reese’s, Milky Ways and Butterfingers. The kids who arrived periodically in groups of three or five over the first hour or so seemed pleased enough with the ambiance when I produced the candy basket and told them to take “a couple” of pieces. Which more often than not meant three or four, not that I balked.
But even the kids’ apparent satisfaction with their haul and the between-knocks distraction of the rampant gore and pixilated nudity on the TV screen (damn basic cable!) couldn’t keep me from feeling a bit like the Grinch who’d unduly sanitized Halloween. Until, that was, about 8 o’clock, when I opened the door to a trio of boys who were maybe eight or 10 years old. One was dressed as a pirate, another as a ninja and the third as Batman.
Each took several candy bars from my basket—I no longer was issuing instructions, as surplus inventory was assured at that point. They muttered their thanks and were turning to leave when Batman suddenly paused and squinted his eyes in my direction. At that point I’d returned the candy basket to its perch on the radiator beside the door, leaving my truncated-since-birth right arm entirely exposed, since I was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. The transfixed Caped Crusader nudged Jack Sparrow and Ninja Man, then, pointing at me, said with a mixture of fear and disbelief, “It looks like your arm’s cut off!”
In retrospect, what I should have done at that moment was malevolently cackle, and perhaps order them to accompany me to the kitchen for similar amputations courtesy of my butcher’s knife. But in truth I was momentarily taken aback by the fright I now saw in all three kids’ faces, as they realized this wasn’t a gag and I really had no right hand. I managed to muster a disarming smile (OK, pun intended) and cajolingly assured them, “It’s a birth defect. No big deal.”
But Batman was not mollified. With his friends already hightailing it down the front steps, he left me with the parting exclamation “Eww!” before turning to join them.
I closed the door and returned to my post at the kitchen table, feeling a bit shaken as I numbly watched George Clooney and Juliette Lewis on the TV, subduing grotesque vampires with rifles and stakes fashioned from chair legs. But then, a few minutes later, I suddenly appreciated the true legacy and import of my doorway encounter. At that precise moment the undead were vaporizing before my eyes, as Clooney’s bullets brought vampire-killing daylight streaming into the seedy Mexican bar—deadly dusk having given way to sweet dawn.
I smiled, having at last realized that, far from having failed Halloween in some way, I’d actually succeeded in making it more terrifying, at least for one group of young boys. I’ve since made a mental note to keep a rubber knife by the door next year. By then, too, our housekeeping record suggests the porch will again look pretty damn scary.
Traditionally our front porch has lent itself well to the occasion, since—with its cobwebs, dead bugs, withered flowers, filthy plastic chairs, chipped paint and other indicators of manifest neglect—it has more closely resembled the entryway to the Munsters’ place at 1313 Mockingbird Lane than anything a suburban kid might expect to encounter in our pricey Bethesda zip code.
This year, however, we’d been on a vacation trip until the day before Halloween, and a social engagement that afternoon that had kept us away from the house until about 5 pm. Also, a month or two earlier we’d had the front porch painted, after about a decade’s worth of increasing shame over its appearance. The floor was so badly chipped by that point that the few times I vacuumed it each year, the bag quickly would fill with floor fragments. It had seemed only a matter of time until some barefoot neighbor kid soliciting funds for a school project would splinter his or her way to a huge lawsuit filed against us by litigious parents. Frankly, if we hadn’t cleared and tidied the porch for painting when we did, we might just as well have moved a rusty refrigerator and assorted hubcaps out there and hired a banjo player to complete the picture of utter indifference and dilapidation.
What I mean to say is, while our porch at last was fit for the eyes of polite society by this past Sunday night, it was considerably less ideal as a gateway to Halloween than it had been in past years. There not only was no glowing pumpkin in the window this time, but no cobwebs, no insect carcasses, no pealing porch swing perfect for the Crypt Keeper and a date. We’d hung a wreath of skulls on the front door and set a line of three wooden Jack-o-Lanterns on a low table, but that was about it. It isn’t like we get a ton of trick-or-treaters—generally between 30 and 50, most within a 90-minute window—but I felt like I was letting down those youngsters who are familiar enough with our house of planned and inadvertent horrors to have expected more from us. When the first group of kids arrived at around 6:45 and I opened the front door, I could see and hear in the distance eerie flashing lights and disturbing shrieks coming from a house on Wagner Lane. It made me feel rather like a wallflower at the Monster Mash.
At least we had good candy, and plenty of it, I consoled myself as I sat at the kitchen table. It overlooks the driveway, and I had the TV on AMC (American Movie Classics), which was showing the 1996 roadhouse-of-the-undead flick From Dusk Till Dawn. Before our vacation, Lynn had stocked up on multiple bags of Snickers, Reese’s, Milky Ways and Butterfingers. The kids who arrived periodically in groups of three or five over the first hour or so seemed pleased enough with the ambiance when I produced the candy basket and told them to take “a couple” of pieces. Which more often than not meant three or four, not that I balked.
But even the kids’ apparent satisfaction with their haul and the between-knocks distraction of the rampant gore and pixilated nudity on the TV screen (damn basic cable!) couldn’t keep me from feeling a bit like the Grinch who’d unduly sanitized Halloween. Until, that was, about 8 o’clock, when I opened the door to a trio of boys who were maybe eight or 10 years old. One was dressed as a pirate, another as a ninja and the third as Batman.
Each took several candy bars from my basket—I no longer was issuing instructions, as surplus inventory was assured at that point. They muttered their thanks and were turning to leave when Batman suddenly paused and squinted his eyes in my direction. At that point I’d returned the candy basket to its perch on the radiator beside the door, leaving my truncated-since-birth right arm entirely exposed, since I was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. The transfixed Caped Crusader nudged Jack Sparrow and Ninja Man, then, pointing at me, said with a mixture of fear and disbelief, “It looks like your arm’s cut off!”
In retrospect, what I should have done at that moment was malevolently cackle, and perhaps order them to accompany me to the kitchen for similar amputations courtesy of my butcher’s knife. But in truth I was momentarily taken aback by the fright I now saw in all three kids’ faces, as they realized this wasn’t a gag and I really had no right hand. I managed to muster a disarming smile (OK, pun intended) and cajolingly assured them, “It’s a birth defect. No big deal.”
But Batman was not mollified. With his friends already hightailing it down the front steps, he left me with the parting exclamation “Eww!” before turning to join them.
I closed the door and returned to my post at the kitchen table, feeling a bit shaken as I numbly watched George Clooney and Juliette Lewis on the TV, subduing grotesque vampires with rifles and stakes fashioned from chair legs. But then, a few minutes later, I suddenly appreciated the true legacy and import of my doorway encounter. At that precise moment the undead were vaporizing before my eyes, as Clooney’s bullets brought vampire-killing daylight streaming into the seedy Mexican bar—deadly dusk having given way to sweet dawn.
I smiled, having at last realized that, far from having failed Halloween in some way, I’d actually succeeded in making it more terrifying, at least for one group of young boys. I’ve since made a mental note to keep a rubber knife by the door next year. By then, too, our housekeeping record suggests the porch will again look pretty damn scary.
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