Predictable horrors.

The LA Times published a piece this morning stating that terrorist organizations are now considering the surgical implantation of explosive devices into their agents in order to thwart the increasingly stringent security measures employed in American airports.

While I know, logically, that all terrorist bombers are, by definition, disposable people and that their intention is to destroy whatever they can and die in the process, it still creates a visceral disgust in me to hear that anyone would consider degrading human life to such a degree.

It's stomach turning.

Once the nausea passes though, you have to ask yourself what all of this means. In my lifetime I've watched the attitude of nations change from a sensible assumption that most people are relatively innocuous and those that aren't benefit by being treated with respect and kindness when they cross the border into a "civilized" nation to an attitude of absolute terror based on the assumption that most people are monsters just waiting to pounce and we should all be suspicious and terrified of each other at all times, in all ways and do whatever we can to be sure that we stamp hard on everyone we meet to be sure all the spine is squished right out of them just in case they might decide to act on what we assume is their natural, evil disposition.

Am I the only one who finds this discouraging?

Am I the only one who notices that it seems to be making things much, much worse?

The thing is, there are people, like me, who feel so wounded and offended by negative assumptions and false allegations that they will live up to those assumptions just to prove a point.

When I was a teenager, my father told everyone I was stupid. They believed it, I believed it and I acted on it. I was Queen Airhead, I was frivolous, mindless and devoid of ambition, then one day I woke up. I went away to school and came back to town loaded down with accolades and awards, nationally published, on the Dean's list, you name it.

It gave me nothing but pleasure to see how stupid people felt to have misjudged me as they did. Of course, I never bothered with them again, why would I? But it was nice to be right for that moment.

However, a terrorist is not a misjudged teenaged girl. When you put a terrorist in that position, they'll prove you right and die doing it - that article in today's LA Times proves that just as it proves one other critically important thing: the object of terrorism is to waste the time, resources and energy of your enemy on fear. They're succeeding.

Canada Day

Been a while since I've posted. Of course there are reasons, there are always reasons but it's Canada Day and it seems to me that even if I weren't revving up the creative engines again, the day would call for an entry.

Somewhere around 200 years ago, a bunch of Americans decided the independence thing wasn't going so well. They looked north and saw a vast open expanse of rocks and trees and snow they could reclaim for England and there, they could live as the English did with a class system and a King and the force of the British Empire behind them both economically and militarily. For a while there were struggles about it between the "sensible" Canadians who knew Democracy could never work and the upstart revolutionaries living out their nutso ideas of equality and civil rights in the south. Maybe some of them thought they'd take the south back. They were wrong about that but I hear they made a pretty good stab at it, even managing to burn down the Capitol and the White House - they were that pissed off.

If you don't believe me about that, look here or, if you'd like to hear about it in song, here

Really. Canadians did that - cause they weren't too big on the whole freedom thing. Still aren't.

Anyhow. Canada is my country and today is its day so - what to say about that?

We have lots of open space, lots of water and ice. If you want to experiment with mixed drinks, Canada seems like a pretty good place to do that.

We're polite but not actually friendly, we'd appreciate it if you'd keep the friendly stuff below the 49th parallel. As a group, we seem to have thought George Bush (both incarnations) was a pretty good idea since we've re-elected Robo-George three or four times now and in Canada that gives him as much power as the Queen in 1800. (he's about that weird too) What makes that safe is the fact that the population of Canada is about the same as Texas and with a population that size you can be completely out-of your-mind-Conservative and it doesn't change much in the scheme of things.

We make pretty good music. Arcade Fire and The New Pornographers are from Canada, so are Stars, Final Fantasy and, to be fair, Celine Dion and Justin Bieber (sorry about that, really.)

We produce terrible, inscrutable films that make people feel smart and superior (see Atom Egoyan) and endure six month winters and more cowboy hats than Texas, Colorado and Wyoming put together. We have chuck wagon races and Vancouver (which pretends the rest of the country does not exist) we also have creton (look it up - too gross to describe) and poutine, (similarly disgusting but mandatory) and tourtiere which is actually pretty good and makes salad much more desirable than usual.

Some of us have British accents, even after 6 generations or more. Really. We are stubborn and slow slow slow. Daily newspapers feel they need a two or three week lead, at least to produce a feature.

We don't like enthusiasm and we think the internet is moving way too fast.

So happy birthday Canada. Hope everyone there is enjoying the day. I'll raise a glass of sparkling water to the great white north and plan to see a baseball game and fireworks in small town America while I think about degrees of liberty and freedom from creton.