Monday, May 01, 2006

“Oh Say Can You See…”

“Oh Say Can You See…”
Or
“The US Wants to Give Canada BO

The Boundary Bay Morning Steamer®
Boundary Bay, B.C. (bbmornsteamer@dccnet.com) Sunday April 30, 2006

Editor: Roderick Whitney Stillwell
Senior Staff Writer: 00Buck

You never know what will get you going; eh? Most of the people I admit to knowing only know of Bill O’reilly by hearsay. To those of us with basic cable (we don't get him... no pun intended) , he’s a bit like the invisible man of lore:

“The other day upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
Oh dear; I wish he’d go away.”

One web site I frequent, http://mediamatters.org/, enjoys making sport of this imperfectly formed quackfish. I credit them for their pains; the same way I give credit to vice cops who have to watch child-porn videos when following the trail left by the 'slithies' that produce them. I am also grateful for MM’s dogged coverage; otherwise I might squander my equanimity when I could be discovering things going on out there that I want to be offended at.

Hosts of the MM site describe their mission thusly:
“Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”

I infer from the way the US Media slings their lingo, that Americans employ a modified form of the word “conservative” from the one ‘brere’ Noah [Webster] bequeathed to them. Either that or they have surrendered the theatre of the “preposterous misinformation in the U.S. media” to a bigger army.

I really didn’t give a hoot about what BO was reported to have said about us [Canada], he doesn’t know enough about Canada or Canadians to have an opinion, and his apparent burden of information about his own country appears to be a poorly executed illusion created by being orally ‘sumpted’ by station interns; who can read. Such a waste of potential; if only he had applied himself as a youth, he could have been an accomplished punk, instead of just a mediocre one.

What was interesting were comments about the piece provided by other Media Matters 'aficionados'. Unfortunately, the thread had already been archived, and I blithely proceeded to bash out a comment of my own by way of improving upon one that I liked. What follows are the original lump of hurl offered up on BO’s radio vomitory last Thursday, the comment that got me started, and lastly my languishing repost.

Media Matters headed the thread:

“O'Reilly failed his own "civics test"; will he deport himself to Canada?”

“Summary: On the same edition of his radio show in which he misidentified the energy secretary, Bill O'Reilly proposed a "bill" to deport to Canada "high school kids in this country [who] couldn't pass a civics test," because they "don't know what the House of Representatives is; they don't know what the judicial branch is."
[.....]
“So, I have a bill that would throw all those kids out. All right? Let's do that. Let's get rid of all these dopey kids. OK? Y'all with me on that one? Can't pass the civics test, Seymour? Say hello to Canada.” J.M

pleindepoisson commented:

“People joke, but...

People say they're going to move to Canada, but usually it's humorous. “As soon as I finish college, I'm moving to Canada”. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm going to go live somewhere in the US for a year and hold a job, then move to Canada. It's easier to get in that way, if I have a year under my belt.”
Posted by - pleinedepoisson Thursday April 27, 2006 06:00:05 PM EST
http://mediamatters.org/items/200604270011?offset=20&show=1#comments


Bonjour pleinedepoisson;

True American Patriots ARE moving to Canada; more than many realize. Most do it quietly; keeping a low profile so's not to startle our bureaucrats and complicate the formalities. They aren’t doing it as protest; they’re doing it because they’re ashamed, afraid, and demoralized. Mention the likes of Bill O’reilly, Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan or Tucker Carlson to them and they get this baleful look of despair; as if you’d inadvertently reminded them that their children have turned out to be crack whores and pimps: and have syphilis.

One exception to those flying in under NORAD radars is the great x? grandson of Francis Scott Key, Christopher Key [1]; Viet Nam vet and unabashed lover of the America that was. In a TV interview with Vicki Gabereau in March, he cited 3 reasons for his decision to immigrate:

Ø the level of intolerance,
Ø widespread pathological ignorance, and
Ø omnipresent violence

According to Chris, all of these have become accepted norms all across the US.

Mr. Key’s laments and observations came as no surprise. I live ON the 49th and schmooze with friends and acquaintances in Point Roberts, WA daily. Our (grand)kids play together on the beach in Summer and we routinely chat thru the "fence" while our pooches swap salutary ‘notes’;… all of us regarding the border with a kind of abstract bemusement like students on adjacent university campuses.

At least it was that way before Bush.

Now, instead of chats about the tides, the kids, and the cheapest side to get gas on today, our encounters usually invoke at least one sheepish ,’quasi-casual’, query about getting a job in BC and how that might help in settling here permanently. Although the rush is over, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) web site in November 2005 cited 115,000 inquiries a day from the States. The last figure I saw cited 21,000 a day.

Six years ago, summer homes I see from my dining room over on the US side, sold for 1.3 times what my house was listing. Now, abodes in that same neighborhood might languish on the listings at a quarter to one third that of mine; some haven't even been occupied in 1-2 years. Although such discrepancies are not the rule, 2-3 years ago, they were unheard of.

There are other economic incentives for those contemplating “Movin’ On Up”. US financial papers are understandably mum on the subject, but; even though Canada is still way behind the US in terms of productivity, and even though our transportation, heating and material goods costs are considerably higher, the US dollar has dropped by 40% against the Canadian dollar in just 5 years. Media ebullience about US financial health is baffling; like the pet shop owner in the Monty Python skit, blithely assuring John Cleese that the parrot he fobbed off on him wasn’t really all that dead.

Invoking a different metaphore: the Bush Administration acts like a football team’s Front Office, bruiting the wondrous health and vitality of the squad, while the coroner is arguing with the team doctor about taking it’s liver temperature to estimate the time of death.

The American Corporate Media Ensemble (ACME) financial journalists seem mesmerized by the Front Office PR. Their hype would make anyone think they were having an ‘apple pie’ flashback; verily transporting readers into Norman Rockwell’s “Thanksgiving” on the front page of the Saturday Evening Post. Other sources [2], arguably more objective ones, show that the US has fallen to 37th in the world in terms of ability to deliver quality health care, one in five Americans is functionally illiterate and lacks basic math skills (four times the Canadian illiteracy rate), the standard of education provided by US public schools dropped to 18th among English speaking countries in 2004, and the Real National Debt is not the $8.3 trillion cited most often in the Press; its $46 trillion [3] (GAO Treasury Report, Dec. 2005).
The Trade Surplus forecast by Treasury Secretary John Snow in 2004 for 2005 turned into a Trade Deficit of $756 billion according to the same GAO report.

Every baby born in the United States today comes with an FOB bill of lading for $156,000, and the nation’s debt is mushrooming by $2 billion every 24 hours. The wee thing hardly needs a slap on the bum to start crying. Yet the front pages of the financial papers would have Americans wax rapt over a growing GDP and (artificially) low interest rates! ‘Hell’s Bells’; what 'company' couldn’t increase production if it was borrowing $2 billion a day to do it?

This isn’t a Norman Rockwell print; it’s a chalk outline.

If Christopher Key’s granddad was writing the “Star Spangled Banner” today, he might well leave off after the first line; “Oh say can you see…..” pour out the jar of Kentucky mash and reach for the “Canadian Club”.

A word of caution to anyone thinking of moving North; the lot we’ve got on Capitol Hill isn’t anything you’ll want to write back home about; either. If you could persuade Colin Powell to come along with you, there is a good chance we would waive the usual residency and citizenship folderol and proclaim him king. Its not that we lack excellent and worthy minds among our available representatives; its just that we could really use a competent leader.

roderick whitney stillwell

The Boundary Bay Morning Steamer

[1] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0208-02.htm
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2004/12/30/MoveToCanada/
http://bc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/247/index.php

[2] http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/7/20486/49640

[3] “Including these items, the federal government’s fiscal exposures now total more
than $46 trillion, up from about $20 trillion in 2000. This translates into a burden of about
$156,000 per American or approximately $375,000 per full-time worker, up from
$72,000 and $165,000 respectively, in 2000. These amounts do not include future costs
resulting from Hurricane Katrina or the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing on
this unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security"
David M. Walker
Comptroller General
of the United States
http://www.gao.gov.

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