Politblogo

Toronto: mediocre; or, the scales slowly fell from my eyes

So I am now in le vrai Toronto, technically, and I've been in the GTA for a couple of days.  I used to have stars in my eyes about Toronto.  I had and still have a lot of friends and relatives there, and for that reason alone, I will probably be visiting it regularly until Peak Oil makes it too expensive to travel there or anywhere and I will be stuck Victory Gardening in a dystopian cross between Mad Max and Anne of Green Gables. 

But...as a city, now that I'm older and have lived in various places and seen various things, well: I've decided that it's surprisingly mediocre.  No offense Torontonians.  I have to tell the truth, however.  Now that the scales have fallen from my eyes.   

Take restaurants.  I've harped on this before, but Toronto restaurants are on average...surprisingly mediocre.  I mean, any city its size will have some truly bright spots, like Indian-style Chinese restaurants or Korean restaurants, which are pretty good in Toronto.  But the signal-to-noise ratio is just so oddly...low; i.e., if you walk into any random restaurant with a "Pass" rating (one of Toronto's better ideas, by the way), you are likely to be bored by the cuisine.  I've said this before, and I still have to say it: the culinary life in my own hometown of Ottawa is just less mediocre on average.  I find it much harder to have a mediocre dining experience in Ottawa, no matter what the snobby Torontonians say. 

Now, of course, GTA food is a welcome change from Niagara Falls, where there appears to be a 90% concentration of repetitious American chain restaurants.  Which aren't necessarily bad, of course, but it's still true that I can eat at those places no matter where I go these days.  Even stodgy London, Ontario has a better culinary scene than Niagara Falls, which as a tourist town, I'm afraid to say, is surprisingly devoid of anything interesting.  Or maybe that's not so surprising, considering that it's a one-gimmick tourist trap.   But, as usual, I digress.

Back to Toronto.  Even in terms of things to do, however, well, maybe I've just visited it too often, but it's awfully easy to run out of Torontonian entertainment options, especially in the daytime.  Sure, it has a nice musical scene, but what major city in North America doesn't?  The museums are costly.  You say: but New York City has expensive museums too.  That's true, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that Toronto's museums are themselves individually surprisingly easy to exhaust.

Maybe I am being unfair to Toronto, because a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, it was probably fair to say that Toronto occupied more of a symbolic place in my mind than the reality of any city actually ever merits.  It's maybe like one of those cliché stories where someone falls in love with an idealization of someone else rather than a real person, because they already know too much about the person they're supposed to love.  So maybe from the vantage point of living in Ottawa, I expected too much.

But now that I have the benefit of a year or three of another city in another country (and said city has some pretty good eating too!), I can honestly say that Ottawa stands pretty tall in comparison with Toronto, given the fact that it's 4-6x smaller.  Toronto will always have more, much more, because it's bigger, but quality is easier to find in Ottawa.  I still love Toronto, don't get me wrong, as I love the Big City and any place that has so many people that have been part of my life.  But not enough (no longer enough?) to make it as a city into any sort of personal cynosure. 

Oh, and, I have found an abomination to replace Mississauga in the ranks of abominated "cities": Milton*.  Milton, you are abominable.  I abominate you, Milton.  Somebody has to put a stop to all this cheap exurban real estate.

*For the nigletizers, it is perfectly possible to abominate a city without abominating the people who live there, thank you very much.

Québec election: not very interesting

I was just looking at the Grope web site, and I notice that not a lot of attention is being paid to the Québec electoral process.  This is very interesting to me, because I do recall in previous years, Québec elections occupy a lot of space in the Canadian establishment's psyche.  And what is (or once was) the Grope but the Canadian establishment's hypothalamus or limbic system or what have you.

I did catch a glimpse of the debate a few days ago.  Unfortunately, due to travel, I didn't ultimately get Internet access until it was over, or I might have liveblogged it.  Too bad---or was it?  What little of it I watched was, well, banal.  André Boisclair does not cut a very impressive figure and, while he is a sovereigntist, the phrase "impassioned sovereigntist" doesn't seem to apply to him.  Mario Dumont, was...well...need I say more?  And Jean Charest, well, considering that he insisted on Mulronifying his entire first time, it's a bizarre miracle that his electoral corpse has risen from the dead to walk among Québec politics as more than just a moaning undead skeleton.

But am I mistaken about the lack of interest in the ROC?  What does it mean?  Could it just be fatigue, or is it some deeper indication that the Great Menace of the ROC psyche has been in some way materially defanged?

Liberal Party bloggers, gaze upon the zombie rictus grin of your party!

Once again, we are back on the My Blahg treadmill.  It's rare that I link to or even pay attention to the foul miasma that regularly belches forth from Warren Kinsella's virtual mouth, but his column today in the Notional Pest obnoxiously outdoes some of the worst that his slavish imitators have accomplished.  And it's even more rare that I link to the Pest, which, for my American readers, is the Canadian newspaperly equivalent of Faux News.

And we do not have to look far for signs of verbal putrefaction:

National Post - The NDP's blog blow-back [alliteration, how creative of the Pest headline writers!]:  One month ago, at an Ottawa gathering of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), Ed Broadbent stood before the hundreds of Jews in attendance, and wept.

The former New Democratic Party leader was present to receive the first annual David Lewis Memorial Award on behalf of his deceased wife, Lucille. As current NDP leader Jack Layton stood by to give support, Broadbent cried, thanking CIJA for recognizing the work of Lucille on behalf of oppressed Soviet Jewry. He, and Lucille, received a long standing ovation.

It was an extraordinarily emotional moment, and one that signalled -- some hoped -- the beginnings of a rapprochement between Canada's political left and those who support Israel. In recent years, and as the National Post has reported many times, there has been an undeniable and yawning gap between Jews and the left. As prominent NDP supporter and lawyer Clay Ruby has observed, "Some critics of Israel conveniently focus on Israeli wrongdoings to mask their blatant anti-Semitism." Too often, these days, this sort of criticism has emanated from the left.

The emphasis is mine.  Take a look at the utterly dishonest slight of hand he demonstrates right there:  Lucille Broadbent worked laudably on behalf of oppressed Soviet Jewry.  She won a posthumous award for this.  To receive this award is presented without evidence is a sign that Ed Broadbent is reconciling with "supporters of Israel."    "The Left" is personified in the figures of Ed and Lucille. Since Ed and Lucille accepted an award for work on behalf of oppressed Jews, we are expected to indicate The Left is now "supporting Israel."

Of course, we can take this further, and in doing so, we see that this is merely a repetition of the Standard Calumny.  What is this "support Israel" thing, anyway?  Why, it presupposes, in the standard lawyerly have-you-stopped-kicking-cute-puppies way, that The Left, that great unified colossus, previously "opposed" Israel.  Of course, any rational person would recognize that one does not "oppose" or "support" a geographical demarkation, such as Israel---any more than one supports or opposes the North Pole.  Instead one supports or opposes a political position and/or state ideology.  So what could Mr. Kinsella mean by this obviously calculated presuppostion?

He means, of course, that The Left, this single nefarious body represented by Emperor Layton and symbolized in the Broadbent Caliphate, is a Nazi.  And in doing so, he delegitimizes any robust support of the Palestinians in their plight, a cause to which Lucille Broadbent's laudable work is more similar than to the cause of the Israeli state.

The rest of the article is a hatchet job on the Canadian left blogosphere, which Warren Kinsella has always hated, even as he promoted himself as an anti-racist activist and a punk rocker---hilarious given the fact that he helped Jean Chrétien, symbol of The Establishment, retain power by performing the hilarious but trivial task of squashing Stockwell Day like a bug in a wet suit.  What McLelland said was clearly offensive---abusing Holocaust imagery in the case of Jews---but Kinsella takes what is a heartfelt negative reaction to McLelland's words and mendaciously turns it proof that The Left is recovering from its previous evil ways and will henceforth cast the Palestinians under the bus.

Finally, he reveals the hatred that certain brands of political operatives have for self-publishing media like blogs.  First of all, he makes a snide reference to pseudonymous bloggers.  That's because Mr. Kinsella has a deep love of destroying people, and it annoys him when their identities aren't ready on hand to destroy.  And then he describes his desire for the blogosphere to be controlled by organizations (he is also clearly aware that most blogs aren't party-endorsed, but he loves to smear the NDP even more than he loves to smear the Reformatories):

The McClelland incident is a cautionary tale, for political parties and the media alike: Each of these cases testify to the need for increased reputational vigilance. As the popularity of blogs has exploded, many corporations and political parties have scrambled to ensure their presence in the blogosphere. But they have not been as watchful as they should be.

Finally, in case my American readers don't understand the ways in which him and his adoring groupies like Jason Cherniak (who repeats an old slander against Noam Chomsky) are a pustulent boil on the face of Canadian politics:

For example, John Edwards' presidential campaign recently endured a withering blow when two women who contributed to the Democrat's campaign blog -- Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan -- attacked Catholics, and referred to opponents as "Christofascists." Unfortunately, Edwards did not ask for Marcotte and McEwan's resignations, although both apologized.

So whenever I hear that well-intentioned people join the Liberal Party in the belief that they are assisting progressive politics in Canada, I mentally welcome them to a front row seat at Warren Kinsella's lower intestine.

Intellectual giant waxes wroth against fantasy novel character

Anh Khoi Do's inner self, determinedly marching forth to smite the pseudonymous Internet hordes.

I'm sure my recent posts on Anh Khoi Do, "secularism", and race---really a case of majoritarian wannabeism if you want it brought down to a nutshell---are still fresh in the minds of my multitudinous throngs of adoring, adoring fans (posts first here and then here).   Woe unto me, for I have awakened an intellectual giant, a figure of true blogular prowess and courage.

Finally, unlike you, Mandos, I have enough courage to publish my works with my real name. Now, who’s the one who doesn’t have guts and balls, eh?

I actually anticipated most of his responses on my subsequent post.  For instance, I do, in fact, think France is a racist country, in the sense I think that this planet is swaddled in a somewhat uneven blanket of racism among other ills.  But the purpose of this paragraph mystifies me.  I never questioned the "guts and balls" of the great eponymous orator Anh Khoi Do.  I never mentioned anything about his or my name.

From my "pathetic blog brimming with weak analysis," I merely pointed out the ideological consequences of Anh Khoi Do's stand.  And behold his truly glorious riposte.

Racism, secularism, and "secularism"

I recently wrote a post containing a strident but brief critique of a position by a Progressive Blogger named Anh Khoi Do, whose writings I had only just encountered.  I critiqued primarily his desire to copy the behaviour of certain European countries in what is to him an unwillingness to accomodate religious minorities in the public individual compliance with their own beliefs; in fact, I critiqued it as a form of racism, which in the present context it can only be.

Not surprisingly, I received a few irate comments from random visitors (who curiously appeared to write in a style and form very similar to each other).  One such commenter, Pipi---with the charming fake email address of [email protected] the following, apparently entirely without irony:

Moreover, a secular country doesn't entirely "make people's personal choices of dress extremely inconvenient". It only says that you can't wear religious symbols in public places. In fact, France doesn't forbid people to wear their religious symbols in religious places. By implying that European countries are racist, you definitely show an extremely weak analysis.

Of course, I believe that any robust analysis would demonstrate that European countries all have components of racism, as racism is ubiquitous, and recent former imperialists must necessarily have more racism than their fair share. 

But let's look at this odd comment more seriously.  I definitely contend that these sentiments are well contained in any serious and robust understanding of racism, in particular this individual's concept of "secularism", which appears to be congruent with that of the works of Anh Khoi Do.  In order to do this, however, we need first to define our terms, in particular, racism and secularism.

Racism

First of all, it must be immediately understood that a standard English dictionary is totally insufficient for giving us definitions of overtly political concepts like racism.  A dictionary serves as a guide for those unfamiliar with terms to gain a grasp of what they are reading; it cannot encompass a term like racism.  The act of racism emerged in a particular and evolving social context.  The description of racism continues to evolve with that act.

When most people think of racism, they first and foremost think of skin colour, as this is how it emerges in North American society in particular (but also elsewhere, of course).  It is not hard to see how the differentiated treatment of individuals based on their skin colour leads to a concept of race as a biological characteristic.   (The act of that differentiation---the act of racism---creates the concept of race in a real way.) 

But when we look at history, biology as the marker of race and the trigger of racism is insufficient.  In relatively recent and shamefully long-running European history, the act of being Jewish was frequently made criminal to the point that the death penalty was imposed on millions for that "offence."  We remember most recently that this was justified due to biology, but it was earlier justified due to the cultural characteristics of Jews.  Fairly innocent Jewish beliefs and rituals were retold to the masses as lurid, disgusting fabrications in the service of what we call now anti-Semitism. 

But even those who did not follow those rituals, of course, were subject to the stigma.  Consequently, racism is not defined in terms of biology or even culture---it can only be best encompassed by a relation between identity and culture.  To be racist is to laud or enact oppression on the bases of that identity.  Thus it is a racist act to discriminate based on an identity and, by implication, on the visible display of that identity.

There is an implied ingredient in a robust concept of racism that I have not yet directly exposed: that of privilege.  This ingredient is essential.  For an act to be a racist act, it must be an exertion of power from a position of privilege, in addition to being an attack on individual (and perhaps collective) identity.

One of the most common forms of privilege is that which accrues from being a member of---or incorrectly imagining that one is a member of---the majority identity.

Secularism

Like racism, secularism is a present-day political concept that is best treated by direct analysis of present-day events in the context of history rather than by dry prescription from a dictionary text.  As an English word, it reflect the ideology that the state should be neutral on matters of religion.  American idiom often cites the "separation of church and state" as the mark of secularism.  By this, it means that the state should not interfere in the practice of religion by its individual members.  It is easy to extend this concept using the principle behind it: the state should be neutral on the matter of identity and the expression of identity.  This is the same principle that underlies the Canadian government's present-day attitude towards those of the homosexual persuasion as prescribed by the courts. 

There is another concept, laïcité, that is often considered to the French equivalent of secularism.  It emerges, I am given to understand, from movements in France and in Québec to decenter the power of the Catholic Church. which stood as a colossus on the neck of political dynamism.    It is not quite the same as secularism, because it appears (from the present day debates ongoing in francophone media) to encompass the possibility that society may choose to decenter the church by diminishing or abolishing its public identity.

"Secularism" as racism

Now we return to the question of the comments made by Pipi and, by extension, the ideology of Anh Khoi Do that they appear to reflect.   For convenience, I reproduce the words of Pipi yet again:

Moreover, a secular country doesn't entirely "make people's personal choices of dress extremely inconvenient". It only says that you can't wear religious symbols in public places. In fact, France doesn't forbid people to wear their religious symbols in religious places. By implying that European countries are racist, you definitely show an extremely weak analysis.

So Pipi equates a "secular" country with one that prevents the wearing of religious symbols in "public places" (by this I assume he/she/it means "public institutions"), but, ever so kindly, permits them in religious places.  Religious symbols, however, are often an expression of religious and cultural identity, an identity that often happens to differ with that of the majority community that often controls the state.  Given that it is necessary to make use of public institutions in order to be a functioning member of society, it is doubly clear that Pipi's injunction permits the majority to use its racial privilege (given that religious and cultural symbols are subsumed under racial identity) to exert power via the identity of the minority community.  This is racism.

Pipi also offers us a standard majoritarian objection:

A secular country is a country that strictly separates religions from the state. Therefore, religiously accommodating minorities is a complete violation of the principle of secularism. In fact, while the state refuses to accommodate Christians, it grants prerogatives to religious minorities. As a result of that, the only way to treat people equally is to copy France, which means that nobody is to be treated on religious consideration by the law.

But far from granting "prerogatives to religious minorities"---a hilarious phrase that brings to mind images of religious minorities eating bonbons in bed fed by long-suffering Christians---"religious accomodations" merely acknowledge that the majority community's privilege is that it lives in a society that is thoroughly defined by its history and identity, and that to force this identity on others is a racist act.  As such: an act of illegitimate power.  Even applying the history of laïcité to the present context is an expression that power: the power to apply what was necessary for majority society steeped in Catholicism to what are recent immigrant communities.  And make no mistake; that's what this is all about.

It must be noted that Pipi's views are contained strikingly well in what has been expressed on Anh Khoi Do's blog, which furthermore appears to express a racist ideology that minority identities should be subsumed by the majority, which can only happen because the majority is privileged.  And both in France and in Canada (and elsewhere) this issue has come up in a certain context: the context of Muslims.  Consequently, it is fair to say that this ideology is inescapably racist against Muslims, because it cannot be held in this present context without that logical consequence and connection. 

(It is fascinating that a subsequent commenter and apparent supporter of Anh Khoi Do, again very similar in style to Pipi, writes,

I agree with Inaritu and Pipi. It looks like you're an offended Muslim who is desperately looking for attention, Mandos. If Anh Khoi Do was so racist, he would tell Muslims to leave.

By the way, stop playing with the words. Anh Khoi Do is not an "extremist", because he never said that he wants to kill people for a "Holy War".

This commenter seems to set a very low standard for Anh Khoi Do.  For him to hold a racist and immoral view, it would require for him to advocate the worst kind of violence, clearly encoded in the phrase, "tell Muslims to leave."  Also fascinating is his association between the words "extremist" and "Holy War", when the English language---both in common usage and in the dictionary---requires no such association.  I leave what this means as an exercise for the reader.)

A caveat

I have spent most of this post discussing why Anh Khoi Do's views and the views of a couple of commenters are actually racist opinions.  Now I would make one final cautioning statement: nowhere in this post have categorically denied that the collective sometimes has an interest in limiting some of the practices of its individual members; it should go without saying.

Stabbing your fellow in the back

This gentleman's blog ("Anh Khoi Do's blog") is part of the Progressive Bloggers aggregator, and yet his take on religious accomodations in Québec is bizarre and ugly and extremist, and the fact that he belongs to a racial/cultural minority in Québec does not excuse it.   Let's face it: the argument over religious accomodations is an argument about Muslims, and that's all it's really about.  Yes, a very conservative fringe was a little bit scared of Sikh turbans in the RCMP, but it hardly generates the angst that this does.

And it's not just about Muslims, but about Muslim women.  Muslim women who wear the hijab.  The hijab is involved in a complex conversation and conflict which the gentleman completely fails to understand, but he can be forgiven that.  There are issues about it that can be discussed and are among Muslims in the West.

But what must be understood: he hates the woman who wears it.  To argue against "religious accomodations" is exactly to argue that it is legitimate for the state to tell a hijab-wearing Muslim woman that she just take her hijab off when she attempts to make use of the services offered to citizens.  That is hatred.

Liberal Party dodges a bullet

I'm willing to bet that most of us, especially the Tories among us, only recall a recent and embarassing period of relatively recent Canadian history as though it were a rather surreal dream or nightmare.  Yes: I am indeed talking about the time of Stockwell Day.  It seems so distant and bizarre now, but I remember when newspapers all the way through TV promoted him as enthusiastically as a spammer touting PeNNi ST0X.  From embarassing, obsequious glamour photo shoots to fawning interviews to the grotesque but hardly unusual effusions of Ezra Levant ("stockaholic!"), we were treated to images of this dashing (huh?) sportsmanly conservative, ready to reinvigorate poor old Manning's dead-end party and bring it to the pinnacles of political power.

And not whispered but shouted was the absurdly earnest comparison of Day's obviously forced vigor and playfulness to that of one P. E. Trudeau, as though by wishing loudly enough it would make it so. 

One practically hear the Liberals covering their mouths with their hands and choking while trying to stifle giggles. "Oh please,. oh please," they prayed as quietly as they could, and their dreams came true: he was selected leader of the Reform Party or whatever transparently dishonest nominal variation they had invented at the time.  Then when it came time for an election, the Liberals gleefully opened Warren Kinsella's little cage, and the rest is history.

I basically agree with Kevin's assessment here.  It's bizarre enough that the Liberal Party almost fell into such a transparent trap as is embodied by The Ig.  At least Stockwell Day had a base: wingnutty troglodytes on one side and the more conservative wing of resentment-laden alienated Westerners on the other, as I recall.  Who was Iggy's base?  Were they thinking that Iggy could court the massive pontificating sophist vote? 

The real sign of political emptiness is when you major selling point happens to look like this: "The next politician X!"  It's even more obviously bad when X happens to be PET.  As Day, absurdly, was to be the heir of Trudeau's fun-loving side, so The Ig was supposed to be the heir of Trudeau's intellectual side.  If that's your major selling point, it's a sure sign that you have nothing to offer than a weak comparison to the memory of a dead politician.  And it became painfully obvious when Iggy brought up the Matter of Québec but couldn't follow through.  Too soft, too easy, too empty.  No wonder that there was an "anybody but Iggy" movement, and the Liberal Party should breathe a sigh of relief that it won.

Liberal leadership excitement: I don't get it

My mother just called me from Canada to tell me how exciting the Liberal convention is.  Now, I recently visited Toronto and southwestern Ontario, and I'm a news junkie, and I know that there's a lot of excitement.  And the ProgBlogs site is going wild with pollerific pollishness about it.

But I don't get it.  We have

• a tedious pontificating sophist.
• a failed Ontario premier who sold out principle for power in the deepest and most obvious way.
• a man who is so tainted by the ideology and behaviour of the previous Liberal regimes that he cannot get a majority in his own province.
• a gaggle of no-hope nobodies (some of whom are admittedly well-meaning).

And who is this Ken Dryden guy, and why do I care?  Seriously, is the convention that interesting?  Well, I suppose if you're into horse races...

Québec un nation?

I have so far avoided commenting on the Liberal Party leadership race and in particular the debate it has engendered about Québec and its status in confederation, but the debate has hit home in a more direct way when people I generally like start fighting with each other and creating further rifts in groups that (to me) have sadly lost cohesion over other issues. 

An unfortunate example of this has occurred on a site that I consider to be a blogular ally, pogge.  The thread starts with something that's not very interesting to me, which is th effect that the debate has had on the prospects of some of the candidates.  But then it continues with a Québécoise Internet-friend of mine firing a shot across the bow:

The depth of anti-Québec bigotry even among many otherwise progressive people in English-speaking Canada really astounds me.

Of course we are a nation. And as Jean Charest, who is anything but a supporter of independence - on the contrary, a strong federalist - don't need to ask anyone for such recognition.

Why do they confuse a "nation" with a "sovereign state"?

The answer to the first (implied) question is that rejection of Québec's nationhood comes, if anything, most strongly from a goodly segment of the Canadian left, the nationalist-patriotic left that incorporates its leftist sentiment into its view of the essential character of the Canadian state and people.  Uncertainty in and destabilization of the structure of the Canadian state is thus a threat to the character of Canadian society and hence a threat to the values and perceived benefits derived from that society and state.  (Sadly, I see this the ultimate expression of this view as the paralytic status-quo liberalism of right edge of the NDP and the left edge of the Liberal Party.)

It should be noted that there is almost no overlap between the Québecois political left and the anglo-Canadian political left.  The anglo-Canadian-nationalist unwillingness to engage in these allegedly/potentially destabilizing conversations is surely a contributing factor.  By contrast, there is and has been a far greater overlap between the anglo and francophone right, embodied in Mulroney and perhaps today in people like Charest.

Unfortunately, the thread descends from there.  Poggster mahigan makes this unfortunate comment, eventually:

I can just as easily turn that around and say:
"The depth of anti-Anglophone bigotry even among many otherwise progressive people in French-speaking Canada really astounds me." That assessment is every bit as valid as yours.

This cannot possibly be the same thing.  Even if it were factually true, its place in this discussion is extremely problematic.  For political progress to occur, we cannot recognize an equivalence between the racism of the dominant people and that of the subject people.

Further,

I understand Francophone Quebecers belief that they are entitled to special consideration as "one of two founding peoples" is based in history. The rest of Canadians who see Quebec as "one of ten provinces" are more likely to see that view as living in the past.

A lot of people in Quebec (and Ontario) seem to have a hard time realizing this isn't 1850 anymore and the country has changed. Like it of not, Calgary and Vancouver rival Montreal in population and rival or surpass it in economic activity. Get over it.

Accusations of living in the past are at best only partially true and display, I'm afraid to say, a thorough ignorance of the social and cultural transformations through which Québec has gone in recent history.  And whence the implicit accusation of jealousy---which can only serve to inflame, and does?

mahigan also uses my comments in ways I don't intend.  When I point out common English uses of the word "nation", I intended to point out the absence of the necessary vocabulary and frame of reference to discuss intelligently the issues of Québec's place in Canada. 

Thing is, it's possible to discuss these matters and even disagree with Québécois(es) without inflaming that passion that comes from the form of categorial negation that I think lagatta was experiencing on that thread.  The biggest issue of consequence is, ironically, the issue that informs the blind spot of the Canadian nationalist left: the fear of the destabilization of the Canadian welfare state.  What is the implementation of such a declaration of nationhood to be?  Once we get into the solutions and the consequences, we have a proposition worth discussing, but discussions are always stalled by the red siren that seems to go off in the average Canadian nationalist's mind whenever the status of Québec in Canada is questioned.

I have met the philistine, and he is us

Apropos of my previous post, I got a couple of comments on that video so far on the YouTube site, and, well, let's just say that they were rather negative reviews.  One of them (in French) claims that the author is from Québec and wishes "DEATH TO SEPARATISTS!!1!!1!11!!!!" or something like that. 

I know that these are just random YouTube commenters---the requirement for which is having the IQ of a snail and a lemur's appreciation for art---and not the erudite readership I cultivate, but still.  These are supposed to be fellow Canucks!  The very people who are supposed to be masters at self-deprecating ironic humour or something.  The people who are to political tolerance as Tycho Brahe was to drunken brawling.   Is there no detached appreciation for artistic merit?  The speed at which those comments came is pretty astonishing.

I bet these people pride themselves on how much more politically sophisticated they are than their fellow-travellers south of the border.