BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom

Subject: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: jimmyt
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:26 PM

I would like to start a thread to thank Canada and the United Kingdom for being our allies by and large for the last 100 odd years. Before someone starts throwing insults, barbs or complaints in this thread I would appreciate it if you would keep those comments limited to the large number of other possibilities out there in threadland. I am really tired of reading what people write about how rude, stupid, warmongering, moneygrubbing, Biblethumping, Or any any of the myriad of other insults about America that I have read in the last few months here.

I think Canada is a wonderful country. Have been there a number of times, will go back again as soon as it is possible. I love England, Scotland and Wales. Have travelled there ten or twelve times in the last decade. Positively delightful countries, people are great! Have I ever encountered a rude Canadian? Well........yes, I have on a couple occasions, but I don't let that affect my feelings toward the entire country.

What about a bitchy English person? One that is rude in a shop? a loud drunken soccer houligan? Yeah, sure all of those things. But, by and large, they are nations which I very much love and will return time after time. You see, I am not going to make a judgement about an entire people based on what little information I have that is negative.

It seems that we all share so very very much here in mudcat, that why don't we concentrate on what we agree on, what we have in common, what we can be positive about, rather than digging away at how we may be different. Maybe I am just sensitive, but it seems only good manners to not be insulting to your friends. I have a sister-in-law who is from Russia. I would never tell her things that would insult her or hurt her about her homeland.

Please comment if you have something positive to say about anything. It can be how much you like your cat, hell I don't care. Just keep your insulting rude comments about my country or anyone else's to your self. Better yet, why not concentrate on the positive for a change? rant over

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:46 PM

I've met all kinds of really nice folks from all over the world!

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:57 PM

Anything I'd ever say that might seem disparaging against the USA is the kind of thing I'm likely to have heard said by Americans who love their country too much to feel happy about what they see as wrong with it; and the same goes for just about any country, when you get down to it.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:24 PM

Well, I've never been in a better Neolithic flint mine than one in East Anglia....

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peace
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:30 PM

You're welcome.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: jimmyt
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:39 PM

Rapaire, Have you been to Flint RIdge in Ohio? ALso quite a quarry for flint Beautiful flint churches in Eastanglia!

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peace
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:42 PM

jimmyt: The greatest difference I see with the countries you mentioned is their respective views of what is meant by football. I will die a happy man if I can get that figured out. And I would like to thank you for this thread. I hope you have a wonderful new year coming up. And may the world find peace.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peace
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:51 PM

Hey, Rapaire--is your name still Rapaire? I was reading another thread and the intimation was that you were changing your name. Have I got it screwed up? Also, I still haven't broken the code. But I'm getting there. I'll have it before the New Year. And if I don't I'll call you at 4:30 am to let you know. Have a good Christmas.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: jimmyt
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:53 PM

don't forget the temperature they like their beer, Brucie! Our British cousins like it slightly warmer than we do in America, and you north of the border are even more likely to have it served nearly freezing. ( it is all good though) I also think a wider football field makes for more excitement. The world would be far worse off if the English hadn't perfected the cream tea too!

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:55 PM

Call away; I'll be in DC by tomorrow evening. And I won't be back 'til later. But I'll be monitoring this, so keep pluggin' away at the code or crypto or whatever you want to call it. Let me know if you'd like another hint.

Oh, heck, here's a hint:

"...work and pray, liv on hay
There'll be pi in the sky when you die."

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:01 PM

And yes, I've been to Flint Ridge and other such places. I just wanted to see a real flint mine, so there was this flint mine.... Best flint mine I was ever in. Not a quarry, a real, underground flint mine.

Of course, Castle Riding was nice, as was Ely Cathedral and that big aerodrome outside Cambridge and Cambridge itself and Skye and Inverness and Dundee and Edinburgh and Glasgow and even what I saw of Lunnon even though I didn't see much of it cause Princess Di had gone and gotten herself killed and I was lucky to have a room and Toronto and Montreal and Quebec and BC and Vancouver and Vancouver Island and Queen Charlottes and Alberta and Nova Scotia and Halifax and St. Jean Port Joli and Ottawa and Mont Tremblant and Les Filles des Roi restaurant and the rest of Canada and the UK and a lot of places and things unmentioned.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:35 PM

Always happy to agree about what a great place the USA is - so long as that doesn't involve running down other places, such as France or Cuba. Which it never should.

In the same way that saying what a great place the United Kingdom is shouldn't imply that it necessarily has to stay united to be a great place.

I belueve all real patriotism is fully compatible with all other real patriotisms.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:37 PM

Rapaire...coming to DC?..Holiday stuff, I suppose. Say hello, if you have a chance...

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peace
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 07:14 PM

Rapaire: A gentleman and a scholar, as always. Have a good trip. Take care. BM

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: jimmyt
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:09 PM

Mc Grath, I have travelled to France 2 times and Belgium and England once in the last year. They are wonderful places. Great food. great pace of living, terrific vibrant people, as they always have been. Actually I have heard more British people running down France than Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: pdq
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:33 PM

Thanks to Canada? OK, thanks for Ian Tyson, Sylvia Fricker, Gordon Lightfoot...er, Lorne Green, Joni Mitchell...well, have to get back with ya on those two. Ah, hell, if Canada weren't just to the north of us it would be really cold in N. Dakota and Montana. Why, our northern border would be in the Arctic Circle, right next to Siberia! Right next to Russian Commies! Whew, thank God for Canada!

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:10 PM

Responding to pdq -- I've always thought it would have been far more equitable for Canada and the US to have split the continent on an east-west divide instead of a north-south one. We could have run a line approximately through Manitoba, straight south. Then each country would have a share of miserably cold climate, miserably hot climate, well-matched resource bases, etc. But I would want Canada to get the western half, for the climate I prefer.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:14 PM

"Actually I have heard more British people running down France than Americans. "

You're quite right there, jimmyt, and I had them in mind too. A nasty habit, because even when it starts as a joke, which it often does it tends to turn nasty.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: pdq
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:17 PM

Nah, we need a buffer zone between us and the crazed Siberians!

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peace
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:22 PM

You are right about that. Them dogs is BIG.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peace
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:24 PM

. . . and so's them tigers.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Hrothgar
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 05:34 AM

pdc,

Which poor bastards would be stuck with California?

Ducks, runs, weaves ...

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 11:11 AM

America is a wonderful country, virtually all the people I have met are great -- generous, free-spirited -- the landscape is inspiring, the creative writers and artists and singers and you name it are second to none in the world. I loved living there: noisy, dramatic, beautiful, dark, light. That its politics should now be degenerating so dramatically under the influence of greed, fear, and stupidity is first a local, and now more and more a global, tragedy. It makes one sick at heart. One can only hope that the spirit of liberty will rise again from its self-inflicted tyrannies -- it has before under similar grim circumstances, but it is a long haul up an ever-steeper hill.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 11:14 AM

Peter:

Sweetly put. Personally, I have always believed that what the USA really needed, more than anything, was the civilizing influence that Canada could afford it. In light of this, I am very much in favor of a proposal penned into fiction by Clive Cussler: the creation of a joint nation, to be known to the world as the United States of Canada. Sure there would be some rough spots, but we could work it out.

A

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Raptor
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 11:41 AM

We love you too!

Now come on up for a frosty "True North Lager"

Best beer in the world!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 12:00 PM

Amos,

Sure, but what would we do with Quebec?   ;)

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Dead Horse
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 03:37 PM

Give it back to those buggers, the French!
France was deliberately put next to Britain, as was Canada next to USA, so we could gripe about our respective neighbours.
The rivalry betwixt France & us civilised, superior, & more intelligent Britons, has always been good natured, even when we were at war with each other.
Just remember that if it were not for that rivalry, the French would never have given the Statue Of Liberty to those rebel yankee personages. It was a calculated insult to us Brits. So there!

P.S. I'm off to Louisiana next April, so I'm boning up on my schoolboy French.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Cobble
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:00 PM

Nice and positive jimmyt a refreshing change best thread for some time.

                Cobble.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdo
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:12 PM

Bah. Humbug. Hate these self congratulating lovey dovey threads...;-)

(Seriously - Thanks jimmyt - bit of back patting never did anyone any harm.)

Moving slightly into music (sorry - I know it's a BS thread!) I was thinking today that I have never met anyone, from any country, inferior or superior to me. Different maybe but... Anyhow. What is the lyric that puts that far better than me? Possibly Dylan or Cohen?

Hopefuly I will be visiting the US next June. 'Doing' route 66 as far as time lets us. And missionary work to make sure you Yanks know your proper place:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 08:28 PM

DtG: Gonna get your kicks?

Gawd, does that make me feel old!

Merry Christmas to you.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: pdq
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 09:09 PM

...and don't forget Wynona...er, out of here at a Gallup...

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 10:17 PM

Route 66 is a tricky thing to follow these days...it has been replaced or re-routed most of the way. But that makes it fun to research, hmm? Have fun!

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: pdq
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 05:49 AM

A business man calls a friend to talk about the stock market.

The man's secretary answers and says that Mr. Johnson is
unavailable, having gone to the United Kingdom.

The first man replies "I can't believe it. I just played golf with
him last week and he seemed in perfect health!"

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: Raedwulf
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 06:09 PM

Football - The game where the ball is struck almost exclusively with the foot. So that rules out all of you colonial beggars then (no, the English Rugby Union team doesn't count, not since the days of Rob Andrew...). Problem #1 sorted.

Beer - The point of beer is that you are supposed to be able to enjoy the flavour. The point of lager is that it's disgusting, so they chill it to the point where you you can't taste it! Hence lager is served at @4C & beer at @13C. There is no such thing as "warm beer" (unless someone got really careless) - that's the temperature it's supposed to be served at!

Patriotism - Patriotism = "I am proud of my country because...". Bigotry = "We're better than you because...". Spot the difference! Nothing wrong with patriots; bigots can...

Having set the world to rights (& incidentally established that "The English, the English, the English are best; I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest", vice Flanders & Swann)...

Myrge Geol!

;)

Rædwulf

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: GUEST,pict
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 11:53 PM

Why should you be proud of the country you were born in?I don't understand how people can be proud of achievements that they themselves made no contribution to.

I think patriotism is merely a tool used by governments to create consent for their often murderous actions.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: C-flat
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 07:40 AM

Thanks for the positive input, Jimmyt. Likewise, on the many occassions I have visited your country I have found the people most welcoming. I still find it disarming to be unexpectedly engaged in conversation (us Brits can be a bit insular) whilst waiting in line, or, on one occassion in a Manhattan deli at 2.30am, finding myself in animated conversation with a concert pianist(in full dinner-suit) and the deli owner. One minute total strangers, the next, exchanging numbers.
I speak as I find and, politics aside, I like America and it's people. You're welcome over my way anytime.

C-flat.

Subject: RE: BS: thanks for Canada and The United Kingdom
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 08:07 AM

Patriotism is really local. When it gets extended to the rest of the country there's a kind of grudging quality to it.

The "real" Ireland, England, America or whatever is in the place you belong in - city, neighbourhood, town, village - and the rest of the country is OK because it's got a fair amount in common, and is linked in various ways.