Nixon's Head
06-20-2007, 11:24 AM
With only two weeks to plan for Independence Day, I would like to begin the preparations with a ceremonial alienation of our allies, as we are now fond of doing.
I hate Canada, Canadians and everything they stand for.
Fueled by a belief that no one will possibly have any reason to hate them if only their citizenship is made clear, they iron The Maple Leaf to their backpacks, wear their raised diphthongs on their sleeves, and traipse across the globe boldly reminding the world that 1 out of every 11 people between the Rio Grande and the North Pole celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October.
A cab driver in London once told me that whenever he picks up passenger with a North American accent, he always asks them if they’re from Canada because Americans don’t get mad when he guesses wrong.
Yet, for all their indignation, the rest of us still think their capital is Toronto. Clearly, the joke’s on them.
This bit about hating Canada and its people isn’t true at all, but thanks to their superb national sense of humor, I do love to make fun of our Canadian friends for their extreme displays of patriotic flair in foreign countries like cloves of garlic to ward off the vampire of anti-Americanism.
In fact, I think Americans have the most exaggerated fears regarding the global opinion of Uncle Sam resulting from frequent footage of rallies staged by extremists specifically for television cameras. Personally, I’m not that worried because lawless rural Pakistan isn’t exactly a tourist hotspot.
Many citizens of other countries claim they can distinguish between U.S. foreign policy and Americans as individuals, and international opinion can frequently be summarized as “George Bush bad, George Clooney good.” In Thailand, even when I assigned college students essays on international relations, the papers I received were about Brad Pitt.
I’m not planning on heading to Iran or Syria in their current political incarnations, but my brother-in-law recently returned from a visit to Venezuela with stories of those taking out their discontent on Hugo Chavez by showering him with acts of hospitality.
Though Carson Daly claimed he was removed from a Parisian restaurant around the start of the war in Iraq for being American, I question his perception of events as I, too, would kick him out of a restaurant as punishment for the poor quality of his talk show.
Every time I see it, I’m just amazed at how awful it is.
Then, last summer, we flew to Hanoi. On the plane from Singapore, my wife began half-joking that we should have attached Canadian flags to our luggage, but it was clear she was also half-quite-serious.
By the time we had landed, I was beginning to get nervous, especially after thinking of the time my mom was once briefly “led to a room” by Chinese authorities thanks to a Priceline glitch. Soon, I handed my passport to the Vietnamese official, making it clear I was an American, and expected an interrogation below some kind of heat lamp.
Instead, he stamped and returned my documents and pointed me towards the taxi stands.
That night, I strained to stay awake through the World Cup final, but fell asleep just minutes before Zidane’s head butt and awoke to the sounds of mopeds circling the streets and honking in celebration of the Italian victory over their disliked former French colonial rulers.
The next day, we left the hotel for our first daylight vision of the capital and were struck not only with an oppressively humid heat and the somewhat unrealistic murals of chiseled workers sporting the proportions of Shaquille O’Neal but with the stunningly inexplicable scene of moped driver after moped driver adorned with American flag handkerchiefs.
That’s right, Le Canada, the Vietnamese were sporting the Stars and Stripes, but as they did so while wearing pith helmets and running their thriving businesses under posters of communist propaganda; at least, the course of history appears to have your sense of humor.
And now, America, it is time to begin purchasing plastic silverware and novelty paper plates to celebrate our independence with abundant violations of the Federal Flag Code.
Source (http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/06/20/column.qp-3272473.sto).
I hate Canada, Canadians and everything they stand for.
Fueled by a belief that no one will possibly have any reason to hate them if only their citizenship is made clear, they iron The Maple Leaf to their backpacks, wear their raised diphthongs on their sleeves, and traipse across the globe boldly reminding the world that 1 out of every 11 people between the Rio Grande and the North Pole celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October.
A cab driver in London once told me that whenever he picks up passenger with a North American accent, he always asks them if they’re from Canada because Americans don’t get mad when he guesses wrong.
Yet, for all their indignation, the rest of us still think their capital is Toronto. Clearly, the joke’s on them.
This bit about hating Canada and its people isn’t true at all, but thanks to their superb national sense of humor, I do love to make fun of our Canadian friends for their extreme displays of patriotic flair in foreign countries like cloves of garlic to ward off the vampire of anti-Americanism.
In fact, I think Americans have the most exaggerated fears regarding the global opinion of Uncle Sam resulting from frequent footage of rallies staged by extremists specifically for television cameras. Personally, I’m not that worried because lawless rural Pakistan isn’t exactly a tourist hotspot.
Many citizens of other countries claim they can distinguish between U.S. foreign policy and Americans as individuals, and international opinion can frequently be summarized as “George Bush bad, George Clooney good.” In Thailand, even when I assigned college students essays on international relations, the papers I received were about Brad Pitt.
I’m not planning on heading to Iran or Syria in their current political incarnations, but my brother-in-law recently returned from a visit to Venezuela with stories of those taking out their discontent on Hugo Chavez by showering him with acts of hospitality.
Though Carson Daly claimed he was removed from a Parisian restaurant around the start of the war in Iraq for being American, I question his perception of events as I, too, would kick him out of a restaurant as punishment for the poor quality of his talk show.
Every time I see it, I’m just amazed at how awful it is.
Then, last summer, we flew to Hanoi. On the plane from Singapore, my wife began half-joking that we should have attached Canadian flags to our luggage, but it was clear she was also half-quite-serious.
By the time we had landed, I was beginning to get nervous, especially after thinking of the time my mom was once briefly “led to a room” by Chinese authorities thanks to a Priceline glitch. Soon, I handed my passport to the Vietnamese official, making it clear I was an American, and expected an interrogation below some kind of heat lamp.
Instead, he stamped and returned my documents and pointed me towards the taxi stands.
That night, I strained to stay awake through the World Cup final, but fell asleep just minutes before Zidane’s head butt and awoke to the sounds of mopeds circling the streets and honking in celebration of the Italian victory over their disliked former French colonial rulers.
The next day, we left the hotel for our first daylight vision of the capital and were struck not only with an oppressively humid heat and the somewhat unrealistic murals of chiseled workers sporting the proportions of Shaquille O’Neal but with the stunningly inexplicable scene of moped driver after moped driver adorned with American flag handkerchiefs.
That’s right, Le Canada, the Vietnamese were sporting the Stars and Stripes, but as they did so while wearing pith helmets and running their thriving businesses under posters of communist propaganda; at least, the course of history appears to have your sense of humor.
And now, America, it is time to begin purchasing plastic silverware and novelty paper plates to celebrate our independence with abundant violations of the Federal Flag Code.
Source (http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/06/20/column.qp-3272473.sto).