Attacking our

[Argus]

I'd like to know from what source Argus copied that cute little compilation.

Go and search for it Uboy. I went through school before the WWW. We actually learned to write our own stuff instead of cutting and pasting off the internet. That's stream of consciousness of someone who types at 100 words per minute and hasn't been raised as so many of your generation have, as an emotionally crippled, imaginatively barren, spoiled vidiot whose jaded nature comes off comic books instead of the life experience he hasn't yet had.

[scribblet]

Personally I find little difference between the everyday American and the everyday Canadian. What is distinctly Canadian is the attempt to belittle and demonize everything the U.S. does out of malice more than anything else. Our culture is not much different to theirs the only difference is that Canadians are unarmed. Their melting pot concept actually works better than our state funded multicult, which only serves to divide.

Basically we all want the same thing, have the same goals e.g. a decent job, a home, one or two cars etc. , Oh and one more, we have a higher alcohol content in our beer, theirs is just training beer.

P.S. I never did like Margaret Atwood that much

[Hicksey]

Ever wonder if a country that tries to be all things to all people is in danger of meaning nothing to most of them?

That day isn't far off.

[uOttawaMan]

I'd like to know from what source Argus copied that cute little compilation.

Go and search for it Uboy. I went through school before the WWW. We actually learned to write our own stuff instead of cutting and pasting off the internet. That's stream of consciousness of someone who types at 100 words per minute and hasn't been raised as an emotionally crippled, imaginatively barren, spoiled vidiot whose jaded nature comes off comic books instead of the life experience he hasn't yet had.

Your insecure prattle serves as a stark example of why I find your comments highly amusing. Noone respects you for trying to insult a person based on age, claiming that because you have lived longer, you somehow have a monopoly on being right. You say you are an expert at being snide, but you just come across as being a raging, impotent, bitter man.

I'm sure you will attempt to trivialize my post, by further insulting my intelligence, citing my age as a reason for why I could not possible have anything valuable to say, and that's fine, its an e-forum, absolutely nothing of any real world importance could ever come from your, mine, or anyone's rants here.

So go ahead, flame on.

[Spike22]

Where did he copy that from?

Whatever it is from Argus I hope it isn't catching. Please hand me the barf bucket that is nauseating drool.

[Argus]

I'd like to know from what source Argus copied that cute little compilation.

Go and search for it Uboy. I went through school before the WWW. We actually learned to write our own stuff instead of cutting and pasting off the internet. That's stream of consciousness of someone who types at 100 words per minute and hasn't been raised as an emotionally crippled, imaginatively barren, spoiled vidiot whose jaded nature comes off comic books instead of the life experience he hasn't yet had.

Your insecure prattle serves as a stark example of why I find your comments highly amusing. Noone respects you for trying to insult a person based on age, claiming that because you have lived longer, you somehow have a monopoly on being right. You say you are an expert at being snide, but you just come across as being a raging, impotent, bitter man.

I was honestly not, in fact, referring to you personally above, but to the attitude you display in your assumption I had plagarised my post. It was more in the nature of a casual swipe at the world-weary, jaded cynicism of twentysomethings who've never held a job or gone far beyond their mom's basement. I apologise if you took it personally. It was not meant to be so taken, but when one writes hurriedly before work, one is not always as careful of ones words as one should be.

I'm sure you will attempt to trivialize my post,

You've beaten me to the punch, I'm afraid.

by further insulting my intelligence, citing my age as a reason for why I could not possible have anything valuable to say,

On the contrary, I fully admit the possibillity exists you will one day have something valuable to say.

[Argus]

Where did he copy that from?

Whatever it is from Argus I hope it isn't catching. Please hand me the barf bucket that is nauseating drool.

I have no doubt you would be capable of far, far better if only someone had taught you to write... and think. And if you were a little more intelligent, and better educated, and had some life experience.

[BubberMiley]

Maudlin, sentimental drivel.

[Argus]

Maudlin, sentimental drivel.

Maudlin and sentimental... yes, I suppose. One tends to be that way about ones youth, were it happy, and in speaking in general terms of nostalgia. When is nostalgia not sentimental and maudlin.

Drivel it wasn't, but even if it were, it would still be proudly head and shoulders above anything you've contributed to discussions around here. The most creative thing you seem to do is select whichever smiley will contribute most to the impression of sneering contempt you appear to be going for.

[BubberMiley]

My smileys never indicate contempt. Just stoner delight at our lovable yet wacky world, dude. You're looking at the world through contempt-coloured shades and you think everybody else is too.

But they're not.

[RB]

uOttawaMan

You wrote- " Lol and please explai to me what Canadian culture and idenity is because as far as I can tell in English Canada, it's Tim Horton's, hockey and anti-Americanism."

Well, you almost got it right except for the anti-Americanism bit which is flavoured more in Quebec.

What's the matter with mirroring the American culture as both countries were born of the same Queen and stock?

My whole point was referring to Argus, who seems to believe that Canadians actually have a national identity and culture, to which he thinks that all immigrants should be forced into.

I remember the flicker of sadness and anticipation at the smell of a chill autumn breeze at night....

We were Canadians, with an amazing degree of confidence in ourselves and our country, and that was all the world that really mattered to us

Well done Argus - I also believe that immigrants can only strive and become successful if they assimilated into a Canadian culture.

At first year university they told us about much love and that people need to go back to their roots and find their identity otherwise they are disconnected from themselves. I think that if you go searching elsewhere for identity, practice your own culture or try to deviate from mainstream it is very difficult to be an "immigrant" in Canada.

I believe that immigrants need to come to Canada with an attitude of being proud Canadians and adapt to what Canada means to them prior to their arrival. It means making themselves at home in a land of hope, boundless opportunities, being peaceful people, and adpot to a system that leads the way by advancement of civilization.

I meant folks should get with the program of stuff that is already working.

[geoffrey]

I think most immigrants do.

For example, the Tim Hortons commerical during the olympics with the recently immigrated Asian old guy. Brilliant.

More of these people please!! It's a great mix of multiculturalism, but peopel that accept that they are now Canadian's, and not bringing their homeland across the pond too!

Less of the people that still want to dress up in their ancient costumes 24/7, less of the people that think our society should change for them.

If you are an immigrant I welcome you as long as you adapt to the Canadian way of life.

[GostHacked]

Argus, I do not care where you got that from or if you wrote it yourself. A chill went down my spine in every paragraph. Reminding me of my childhood. That. Was. Good. To. Read. PERIOD.

To the rest of you haters who just want to bash on the 'plagurism' and not read and understand the message. How bad was your childhood to miss the message and hate the messenger?

I remember going to the Pop Shoppe with my parents and my sister every week, and I would get really territorial on the root beer. NO ONE touches my root beer. I remeber those winter nights in the small hills in behind our houses where we took the sleds/taboggans/gt snow racers at night during cloud over to reflect the light back down from the city. I remember cramming as many as we could on ONE SINGLE TABOGGAN and seeing if we could all make it down together. I remember summer road hockey, hide and seek, and impomptu baseball matches.

I remember me and my sister running down the camp road together screaming and yelling and just having fun, and exploring nature. Being in awe of so many things. I remeber thinking, who the hell would want to live without snow. I remember an RV with a ski rack on the back with Florida plates pulling over and asking me why there is no snow and asking where the nearest ski hill is. It was July.

I remember the water fights we used to have that got the whole neighbourhood involved. I remember the old grumpy guy down the street calling the cops on us. I remember the cops wanting to rip the uniforms off and join us in a lazy hazy summer afternoon care free fun.

I remeber Cape Breton Island and the awe of the pure beauty of the national park. I remember PEI, Anne of Green Gables and potatoes and jelly fish.

I remember out west riding a farm tractor with my uncle in Saskatchewan, and remeber being really thirsty.

I remember Prism, Rush, Brian Adams, Toronto, Honeymoon Suite. I can go on and on and on....

I remember discovering as a young kid for the first time that Canada is home and is very special to me. And that the Maple Leaf on that flag just looks and feels like home.

Je me souvien. And thanks to Argus, I remember well.

[BubberMiley]

Oh man, I didn't care for Honeymoon Suite at all.

[August1991]

Argus, I do not care where you got that from or if you wrote it yourself. A chill went down my spine in every paragraph. Reminding me of my childhood. That. Was. Good. To. Read. PERIOD.

I have given some more thought to Argus' post. It reports honestly the memories of a man who grew up in Ottawa (or the Ottawa Valley) in the 1960s and 1970s. [A while ago, I copied a similar heartfelt post of Kimmy's about Alberta. Both were an Anglo-Protestant/Slavic version of a cri de coeur.]

Argus' post is nostalgia and while it tells the truth from one perspective, I think it lacks the complete humanity of a Mark Twain.

Ontario in the 1960s was a repressed society on the verge of breaking out. There were many secrets, most unspoken. Unhappy, sham marriages with profoundly lonely people. I suspect that many adults who lived through those years took to their graves untold inner feelings they never expressed.

Ontario was WASP, in the purest sense of the term. People, both men and women, were prisoners of a self-imposed convention. (BTW, Quebecers were prisoners in a different sense and Newfoundlanders in a different sense again. In this regard, I have generally found Americans to be too adolescent.)

The 1960s and Trudeau and the 1976 immigration act liberated Toronto and Ontario. The liberation was perhaps inevitable. Argus' post is a romantic paean to a pre-liberation life, as remembered by a child of the time.

With all of that said, I sometimes fear that English-Canada (Ontario) has simply replaced pre-1960 Protestant Convention with, since the 1970s, modern federal Liberal Party CBC Political Correctness. There is an authentic English-Canada in Ontario but it never gets the chance to speak freely its mind. How sad.

Canada is a strange country and the people of its various parts have their own commonality, or conscience collective.

Canada.

Like others, I'm still trying to digest the Conservative Party success in Quebec in the past federal election.

[Argus]

Argus, I do not care where you got that from or if you wrote it yourself. A chill went down my spine in every paragraph. Reminding me of my childhood. That. Was. Good. To. Read. PERIOD.

I have given some more thought to Argus' post. It reports honestly the memories of a man who grew up in Ottawa (or the Ottawa Valley) in the 1960s and 1970s. [A while ago, I copied a similar heartfelt post of Kimmy's about Alberta. Both were an Anglo-Protestant/Slavic version of a cri de coeur.]

Argus' post is nostalgia and while it tells the truth from one perspective, I think it lacks the complete humanity of a Mark Twain.

I don't pretend to be Mark Twain, August. Nor did I put a lot of time into it. You're partly wrong, though. Most of the memories are from the Ottawa valley (70s), but many are from Quebec (late 60s). I could have also written about seeing "FLQ" painted on the sidewalk outside my school, for example, or how the "frenchies" lived up the street, but that was more political than mood. I guess my main point is that the culture of a nation is the shared history of those who reside within its borders. That shared history doesn't get passed in an envelope from immigration when your plane touches down. It's a part of growing up here together. It's what makes a people what they are - our notorious politeness, for example, and not being as loud as the americans, our (former) sense of self reliance and quiet pride. I can't say I ever remember feeling particularly repressed by anything. We were a helluva lot more innocent than kids are today. I can tell you that.