Dobbs Town
22-03-2005, 05:53
http://www.cbc.ca/mondayreport/videos/paul_cellucci.mov
Goodbye, Paul. And best wishes for the future. It hasn't been as easy as you thought it would be, has it? No...
Til you showed up, I'm sure most Canadians didn't even know the name of any one American Ambassador to Canada. We're under no illusions - it's not a glamorous diplomatic post by any stretch of the imagination. But yours became a bit of a household name up here - but not with any positive associations. No matter what the topic, you always came out strongly in opposition to the clear wishes of the political majority in our country. In some ways, you became even more of a lightning rod for headshaking and general disbelief than the current American regime itself - an achievement in and of itself, congratulations.
A lot of people, myself included, tend to think of Mr. Bush as being a little disconnected with reality, as he's getting his information through a number of filters and handlers. None of that uncertainty with Mr. Cellucci. He was blunt, loud, and definitive in his message, which just happened, more often than not, to be the total polar opposite of what was in the natural offing. That you continued to show up unbidden on our news broadcasts making veiled and sometimes, not-at-all veiled threats to our sovereignty, our economy, and our social net is a leading contributing factor to the continuingly chilly relationship between our two peoples.
I very recently spent a week on a holiday cruise that was catering mostly to Americans, by the way. I feel lucky I wasn't lynched - at that was with me on best behaviour, not even going near politics or religion or anything. A number of times, my fellow passengers' distaste for anyone remotely foreign surfaced before I'd even finished the uttering the third syllable of 'Canada' in reply to the usual holiday question, 'so where you from?'. From my experience there is definitely an underlying American perception of Canada and Canadians as being inherently undesirable, items deserving of contempt. Or outright anger.
My time in the Caribbean just served to confirm what I've known or suspected all my life about America, but I won't address here in this thread. I don't feel the need to get into shouting matches.
Oh, and it's a shame about Zepp and Steph. I'd wondered what'd happened while I've been mostly away. Steph was the one who first posted the URL for another funny moment from the Mercer show, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she'd done it. When Pierre Berton passed away late last fall, there was a video of him on Mercer's show taken a few weeks before he died, teaching young Canadians 'the proper way to roll a joint'...and I so wanted to share that with you at the time. But I couldn't fiigure it out, and...well...
Tonight I gave it a few more concerted tries, and I got a working URL (or so it seems to me at any rate. I'm not you, I don't have your computer or browser. But there's a very high probability the URL provided will work, so yippee!) together for a bit from Monday night's show.
Well, I missed the two 'stans by about a month. Oh well. Steph, wherever you are, the Mercer bit is in your honour. Belated thanks to you both and hale & hearty farewells as well.
As to the rest of NS, you've heard me every so often, making the occasional noise, stepping on the occasional toe, and occasionally finding out firsthand what my own toejam tastes like. Sometimes I'd share recordings, or Jack Chick spoofery I put together, make amusing polls and sometimes I'd tell stories, too. I think those were the most fun, telling stories.
But somewhere along the line, it just got kinda stale. Thread after thread on the same apparently unresolvable issues, with the same gang of usual suspects lining up on given issues and firing off all-too familiar rounds of verbal ammo in an almost 'parody' of debate...
A while back I read a comic strip by Tom Tomorrow entitled 'How To Argue Like A Conservative', and, thinking it funny, posted it on NS. It got mixed reaction, and the last time I was poking through some of my old threads, I couldn't find it, so presumably one of you glum Republicans or eager beaver junior hall monitor types went shrieking to some mod or other about it. Anyway, I'm sure if you Google it, you'll find the strip I'm talking about - but honestly guys, in the past few weeks of mostly lurking, I've seen nearly every one of the tactics referred to in Tom Tomorrow's funny little comic in actual use in the debates on NS General - no, I haven't seen them used by so-called 'liberals', either. Just conservatives.
In fact, from what I've seen, this place has become very wrapped up in itself - a whole lotta back-patting and mutual admiration - and frankly, it makes me want to regurgitate, violently, in a projectile manner. Maybe it's just me. I dunno.
And maybe some junior hall monitor wannabe will run off bleating if he or she reads the word 'fuck' somewhere in my post.
Well, fuck that noise.
Be seeing you,
Dobbs Town.
Goodbye, Paul. And best wishes for the future. It hasn't been as easy as you thought it would be, has it? No...
Til you showed up, I'm sure most Canadians didn't even know the name of any one American Ambassador to Canada. We're under no illusions - it's not a glamorous diplomatic post by any stretch of the imagination. But yours became a bit of a household name up here - but not with any positive associations. No matter what the topic, you always came out strongly in opposition to the clear wishes of the political majority in our country. In some ways, you became even more of a lightning rod for headshaking and general disbelief than the current American regime itself - an achievement in and of itself, congratulations.
A lot of people, myself included, tend to think of Mr. Bush as being a little disconnected with reality, as he's getting his information through a number of filters and handlers. None of that uncertainty with Mr. Cellucci. He was blunt, loud, and definitive in his message, which just happened, more often than not, to be the total polar opposite of what was in the natural offing. That you continued to show up unbidden on our news broadcasts making veiled and sometimes, not-at-all veiled threats to our sovereignty, our economy, and our social net is a leading contributing factor to the continuingly chilly relationship between our two peoples.
I very recently spent a week on a holiday cruise that was catering mostly to Americans, by the way. I feel lucky I wasn't lynched - at that was with me on best behaviour, not even going near politics or religion or anything. A number of times, my fellow passengers' distaste for anyone remotely foreign surfaced before I'd even finished the uttering the third syllable of 'Canada' in reply to the usual holiday question, 'so where you from?'. From my experience there is definitely an underlying American perception of Canada and Canadians as being inherently undesirable, items deserving of contempt. Or outright anger.
My time in the Caribbean just served to confirm what I've known or suspected all my life about America, but I won't address here in this thread. I don't feel the need to get into shouting matches.
Oh, and it's a shame about Zepp and Steph. I'd wondered what'd happened while I've been mostly away. Steph was the one who first posted the URL for another funny moment from the Mercer show, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she'd done it. When Pierre Berton passed away late last fall, there was a video of him on Mercer's show taken a few weeks before he died, teaching young Canadians 'the proper way to roll a joint'...and I so wanted to share that with you at the time. But I couldn't fiigure it out, and...well...
Tonight I gave it a few more concerted tries, and I got a working URL (or so it seems to me at any rate. I'm not you, I don't have your computer or browser. But there's a very high probability the URL provided will work, so yippee!) together for a bit from Monday night's show.
Well, I missed the two 'stans by about a month. Oh well. Steph, wherever you are, the Mercer bit is in your honour. Belated thanks to you both and hale & hearty farewells as well.
As to the rest of NS, you've heard me every so often, making the occasional noise, stepping on the occasional toe, and occasionally finding out firsthand what my own toejam tastes like. Sometimes I'd share recordings, or Jack Chick spoofery I put together, make amusing polls and sometimes I'd tell stories, too. I think those were the most fun, telling stories.
But somewhere along the line, it just got kinda stale. Thread after thread on the same apparently unresolvable issues, with the same gang of usual suspects lining up on given issues and firing off all-too familiar rounds of verbal ammo in an almost 'parody' of debate...
A while back I read a comic strip by Tom Tomorrow entitled 'How To Argue Like A Conservative', and, thinking it funny, posted it on NS. It got mixed reaction, and the last time I was poking through some of my old threads, I couldn't find it, so presumably one of you glum Republicans or eager beaver junior hall monitor types went shrieking to some mod or other about it. Anyway, I'm sure if you Google it, you'll find the strip I'm talking about - but honestly guys, in the past few weeks of mostly lurking, I've seen nearly every one of the tactics referred to in Tom Tomorrow's funny little comic in actual use in the debates on NS General - no, I haven't seen them used by so-called 'liberals', either. Just conservatives.
In fact, from what I've seen, this place has become very wrapped up in itself - a whole lotta back-patting and mutual admiration - and frankly, it makes me want to regurgitate, violently, in a projectile manner. Maybe it's just me. I dunno.
And maybe some junior hall monitor wannabe will run off bleating if he or she reads the word 'fuck' somewhere in my post.
Well, fuck that noise.
Be seeing you,
Dobbs Town.