They Shoot Canadians, Don’t They?

I’ve often joked that if I ever travel abroad in a non-English speaking country, the first phrase I want to master in that country’s language is “don’t shoot, I’m Canadian”.

With other countries wearing their disdain for all things American on their sleeves, pretending to be Canadian while traveling seems smart.  It seems like the easiest way to get out of all sorts of unpleasant scenarios while traveling, from snobbish waiters to bloodthirsty mobs. We Americans look the same as our Canadian brethren (albeit tanner), we dress pretty much the same (maybe a little less flannel), and apart from a slight difference in our accents, it’s a deception we might just be able to pull off. Plus, I remember just enough of my high school French to make the story seem plausible.

Some of my fellow Americans might take issue with my plan. These are the same folks who will tell you that America is the greatest country on earth, bar none. Parenthetically speaking, it’s always interesting to note how many of those uber-patriots have never traveled abroad. They seem to view their neighbors to the north with a mixture of envy and disdain. They’ve got that health care system that supposedly puts ours to shame, for one. About 90% of the Canadian population lived within an hour’s drive of the U.S. border, so they’ve viewed as Fred and Ethel to America’s Ricky and Lucy: familiar, but not always welcome.

Canadians aren’t lightweights, to be sure. First off, they’re in Canada, one of the coldest countries in the world. That’s pretty badass right there. These folks host the Yukon, for crying out loud. So I have a ton of respect for them just for that. I’m nowhere near as tough. I’ll take the freeway debacle that is southern California, earthquakes and all, if it means never having to shovel snow again. Also, these guys love beer and hockey. You can call these folks a lot of things, maybe, but “wussies” is not on that list. This is a hardy bunch of folks.

As far as how I’m viewed by others when traveling abroad, I worry that whatever faults people in other countries would have with America, they would see personified in me. Americans traveling abroad have the stereotype of being loud, rude, and generally ignorant of other cultures. We almost never learn the languages of the countries we visit in advance, insisting that they all should speak English to us. And to our detriment, they agree. But that doesn’t mean I want to be beheaded because of my country’s foreign policies. It’s not like they ever consulted me.

One of the big differences between Canada and the United States (and there are many, to be sure) is that their government doesn’t seem to go around upsetting other countries. Canada may be far from perfect, depending on how you define the word. But can you name any countries Canada has invaded? They’re a democracy too, but they don’t feel the need to defend democracy in other countries, just their own.

It’s not that Canada doesn’t have an army or a Navy – they do. How do they compare to the U.S.’s army and navy? Well as an American I’m conditioned to believe that our armed forces are the best in the world, so maybe I’m not the right person to ask. In truth, I don’t know because I’ve never seen the Canadian military in action. The send in troops for U.N. stuff, but in general terms their military seems content to stay home and defend its own country. Easy work, too: I’m not aware of any country planning a full-scale invasion of Canada.

As a result, the world’s terrorist organizations seem to leave Canada pretty much alone. Seriously, when was the last time saw al Qaeda or any other group on TV marching in the street chanting “death to Canadians”? It’s not that Canada hasn’t had its brushes with terrorists: I looked it up, and in the last 25 years, four people were attacked and two killed by foreign terror groups, and there were seven attacks (mostly firebombs) attributed to domestic terrorists organizations and individuals. There are rumors of terrorist groups are lurking in Canada. But based on what we’ve seen, it’s more likely that they’re just trying to get close to America. I mean, really, why attack Canada? To what end?

So what I’m saying is, there seems to be a direct correlation between Canada’s foreign policies (live and let live, basically), and how their people are treated while traveling abroad. All things considered, if I make any trips to the Holy Land, Egypt, or anywhere else that they’re burning effigies of Uncle Sam in the streets, I’ll be sure to pepper my speeches with “eh?” at the end, just to throw them off the scent.

Gratitude

I love to complain.  I really do.  I’m good at it.  It’s one of the few talents I have.  I can rant and rave, whine, mutter, grumble, and rage with the best of them.  I’ve been trained well by my movies, TV programs, and songs.   I watch the news, and it seems only the bad things ever get our attention.  I watch stand-up comedians, who teach us to laugh at their grumblings over life’s little inconsistencies and letdowns.  Commercials teach us to be discontent with our lives to the degree that we buy whatever solutions they peddle.  All around us, resentments abound.

So when you start talking about gratitude, it usually gets relegated to Thanksgiving.  I like Thanksgiving because it forces us to quit our incessant whining.  We have one day where it’s just not cool to complain.  But carrying that attitude past the point of turkey leftovers is a challenge.

Recently I was stuck in traffic.  In L.A. this is no rare thing.  Traffic was backed up for what seemed like miles.  And like most of us, I had somewhere to be.  So there I sat, pondering the injustice of it all, and basically thinking what everyone else was thinking: “why does this happen to me?”  Eventually, the traffic crawled along to the point where we could see what the problem was: a terrible traffic accident.  On the shoulder of the road, crews were doing their best to handle two crumpled cars.  No sign of crumpled bodies, but you just knew that whoever had been in those cars was having a worse day than me by now.  As I passed by in my non-crumpled car, enjoying the climate-controlled air and free to go about my business, I was humbled.  Here I had been whining this whole time about “why do bad things happen to me”.  I had myself convinced that I was the victim.  But would I trade my car for theirs?  Would I trade my physical condition for theirs?  Would I trade my eventual insurance rates for theirs?  Would I trade the rest of my day for the rest of theirs?  In a word, no.  Chastened, I sped along to my appointment and on with my life.

Based on this, I had an epiphany: anything you can complain about, you can find a reason to be grateful for, too.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  Now, this is a challenge, and it takes some practice.  Let me give you some examples:

• “I have to work today” or “I hate my job” becomes “I have a job, and others are not so lucky”.
• “I’m fat” becomes “I live in a country where food is abundant”.
• “My car sucks” becomes “I have a car”.
• “My parents/kids/spouse/in-laws/family are jerks” becomes “I have a family”.

And so on.  The common thread here is that it could be worse, and you need to see that. 

I learned something else that was nice: whenever you’re feeling cranky, irritable, or put upon buy life’s little injustices, a good exercise is to start making a list of things you have to be grateful for.  And I’m not talking about the big, platitude-sounding stuff, like “I live in a free country” or “God loves me”.  If you are willing to sift through the details, you can probably come up with a few things at any given moment.

Here’s mine:

• Today, I got to work on time, or close enough that no one complained.
• The weather today is gorgeous.  Here it is, mid-January, and I’m wearing a short sleeved short outside with no jacket.
• I just finished a week-long cleanse diet with almost no cheating, and I think I dropped a few pounds without suffering.
• During my diet, I developed a taste for tea without sugar.  This is a good thing.
• As this week-long diet is over, I can have a nice lunch.
• My work day is halfway through, and I have no plans after work.

Thinking about what doesn’t suck in my life helps me to take what does suck and see it in perspective.  It helps me see that when I choose to dwell on the constant stream of negativity in my life, I’ll never take the time to see what is good, what is working, and what could be worse.

I’m just saying, it could be worse.  My challenge is to see it, recognize it, and live as though I understood it.

New Year's Resolutions

Like most of us, I'm not big on New Year's resolutions.  I mean, I get the reasoning behind it: New Year's falls just a few days after Christmas.  At Christmas time, we all pretend to be a little bit more decent to one another, and we get all optimistic.  Then we got our presents and think about all the stuff we should have asked for instead.  The end of a year has many of us looking back with regrets over missed opportunities and "what might have been", which inevitably leads us to resolutions to correct whatever mistakes we've made in the last twelve months.  "This year", we tell ourselves "things are going to be different".

We promise ourselves we're going to lose weight, start exercising, quit eating junk food, watch less TV, quit smoking, you name it.  And based on the statistics related to America's growing epidemic of obesity, I'd say we're having a hard time following through on those resolutions, no matter how well-intended or medically necessary they may be.

But I have to say, my 2010 hasn't left me with too many feelings of remorse.  Could I have done things better?  Probably.  Could I have tried harder?  Certainly.  But would I trade my 2010 for some of my previous years, or for anyone else's 2010?  Probably not.

I am still married, and happily so.  I moved into a bigger, nicer place.  I got a good job this year that I like doing, with co-workers I don't feel like punching.  I'm still pretty healthy, albeit a little fat.  I have good friends.  My life does not suck as badly as many others, and nowhere near as bad as it used to.  Believe me when I tell you, these are huge gains for me. 

It has been suggested that happiness is not necessarily having what you want in life, but rather wanting what you already have.  With that in mind, I hereby resolve for 2011:

• Not to screw it all up too badly, if I can help it.
• To tell my wife I love her every day, even when I'm grumpy.
• To let my friends know that they're important to me.
• To not do anything too terribly self-destructive.
• To appreciate what I've got, while I've still got it.
• To try to be more aware of the fact that I've got it pretty good.
• To try to take care of what I have.  It was not earned easily.
• To take criticisms with grace and humility, and to criticize other less.
• To distance myself from anything ugly, pointless, or draining.
• To make efforts to fix the things in my life that are broken, or at least not make them any worse.

That's my list.  I'll probably stay fat, so why make promises to the contrary?  I'll still yell at the jerks on the freeway to whom merging is a foreign concept.  I'll still put off things that I really should have done yesterday.  I'm not proud of these things, but then again I'm not going to make a list of promises that I have no intention of keeping, to myself or anyone else.  That's just bad karma.

I hope to end 2011 as I ended 2010: not completely smug and satisfied, but not prostrate with regret and guilt either.  I did the best I could (usually), and the results speak for themselves.  Here's hoping your 2011 doesn't suck either.

A Few Words on Ettiquette

Whatever happened to manners?

I hate to sound like an old grouch, but it seems like people today - young and old - have completely lost sight of all social proprieties.  And to be clear, this is not some "can't we call just get along" whine fest.  I acknowledge that we're never going to see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues.  But we are stuck with each other, differing opinions and all, and we have two choices: kill each other or figure out a way to get along despite these differences.  We don't have to agree to be falsely sweet to each other.  We don't even have to like each other.  I can hate your guts and still carry myself with a little dignity.

So here are a few observations on social graces that we could all stand to revisit:

1. "Please" and "Thank you" go a long way.  It was true when mom and dad told us years ago, and it's still true.  You'd be amazed how much you can accomplish when dealing with others if you pepper your speech with these magic words.  And please don't say them with dramatic sarcasm.
2. Don't insist on going first.  You may be the most important person to yourself, but you can't expect the rest of the world to see it that way.  Yield the right of way in traffic once in a while.  Allow others to order first at restaurants.  Hold the door open for others.  When you're in a slow moving line, shut the hell up with the complaining.  This includes traffic jams.  Deal with it.
3. Being loud doesn't make you right.  Save the shouting for concert.
4. If someone disagrees with you on something, let it slide.  You're not going to change their mind any more than they're going to change yours.  Learn the art of saying "I respectfully disagree".
5. You're not supposed to like your job.  That's why they pay you to do it.  So save your complaining for when you get home.  They don't care.  Just be glad you have a job.
6. Address people formally (Mr. This and Ms. That) until you have been told specifically to do otherwise.  Disrespecting people doesn't make you cool, it makes you an ass.
7. Unless someone tells you to "make yourself at home", don't.
8. Acknowledge the fact that you may be wrong, even if you are 99.999% sure you're right.  Don't assume the other guy is wrong just because they see it differently.
9. Avoid the following topics in general conversation (as they tend to bring out the worst in people): politics, religion and sports.  Simply put, we all root for our own teams.
10. The world doesn't owe you a damn thing.  Act accordingly.

Can we all agree that these are pretty good rules to observe?  I promise to do my part.  Okay?  Okay.

Christmas in the Poorhouse

This holiday season many of us find ourselves in a quandry.  How do we celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, whatever with all its gift giving while in the midst of a lousy economy?  I don't care what your politics are, or who you think is to blame.  That's irrelevant.  Right now Christmas et al is looming.  Gifts are expected.  And many of us are broke, and worse, unemployed.

I've given this some thought.  My first thought is: why should the retail behemoths necessarily have to cash in?  Christmas has been celebrated for years before there were such things as Wal-Mart, Target etc.  They see this time of year as one big cash pinata.  They herd us in on Black Friday weekend, queuing up at ungodly hours to save money.  And by save money, I mean of course spend money.  It's enough to make a person jaded.

So this year, I have a proposal.  Maybe it will catch on, maybe not.  I don't really care; it's my way of making the holidays special for the folks I love without going broke, or spending the rent money on someone else's "must have gift".  Here's what I plan to give: myself.

See, I'm good with a few things.  I can fix busted computers.  I can cook a little.  I can clean.  I can wash a car or mow a lawn (come spring of course).  I can split firewood.  I can carry heavy things, reach tall things, and be useful in general to those who need that sort of thing.  I can put together things that require assembly.  I know a little about carpentry, a little about electricity, and a little about a lot of things.  I'm no polymath, more like a jack of all trades. 

So this year, I am offering, in lieu of gifts I can't afford, to give you something you really do need: a little help.  Because you're my friend, because you can't do it all on your own, I am giving you the one thing I can afford.  I will offer each friend one full day of my time, to help them out in whatever I can.  There is no need to pay me, no need to even thank me.  Just let me know when and where, and I'll be there. 

And if it's true what they say, that time is money, I'm giving you something valuable indeed.

Merry Christmas.

Mel Gibson Needs to Cool Off

I spend more time than I should paying attention to "entertainment news", which isn't really news. It's gossip, and juicy details about the various meltdowns of celebrities from all walks of life. Whatever an actor does when they aren't acting falls under the category of "entertainment news". Whatever a professional athlete does besides athletics usually does too. Admittedly, it's more interesting than a lot of what you'll watch on C-SPAN.

One of the more recent meltdowns (or re-meltdowns) has been Mel Gibson's. Remember a few years ago? He got arrested on a DUI and proceeded to tell the arresting officer why Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world. Back at the station, he addressed a female police office as "sugar t*ts". Part of his damage control was to point out that he was a family man and a good Catholic. Exhibit "A" was his wife of thirty years and their bah-zillion kids. Take THAT, Brad and Angelina!

He had the good sense to shut the hell up for a little while after that. He released "Apocolypto", which did okay considering nobody spoke any English. Then he left his wife and took up with a Russian model, and had a kid out of wedlock. Since then, he's been recording verbally abusing her, wishing she'd get gang-raped and telling her she deserved to get hit.

Yawn.

What got me writing today wasn't the need to parrot back what you could have read anywhere. Believe me, I just glossed over the highlights. If you want the real dirt, visit any one of a hundred different web sites, all dishing the dirt. What got me writing was in the comment section, which read in part " the real reason this article was written, is that the writer and the elitists in general hate Christianity (which Mel Gibson represents...)"

Wow. Really?

Let me say first, that I am not a Christian. I was once, but I'm not now. (Long story, ask me later.) It seems as if the person who made that comment feels the anti-Mel writings have more to do with settling a score with Christianity in general and uses its most public representative, Mel Gibson, to make that happen. It makes me wonder if the commenter was hinting that the anti-Mel backlash in the press recently isn't some cleverly orchestrated comeuppance by the Jewish community.

What bugs me is the idea that anyone can represent a religion. In the case of Christianity, you've got Jesus, and then you've got everybody else interpreting who Jesus was, what Jesus was all about, and doing their best to emulate that. Because as Christians - followers of Christ - one would think that you could gauge your performance as a follower by how well you emulate the leader. Now apart from laying hands on the sick or walking on water, I think the best way one could emulate Jesus would be to attend to the sick, to feed the hungry, to offer encouragement to the downtrodden, to not sit in judgment of others, and so on. But don't take my word for it - if you really want to know how best to emulate Jesus - in other words, to be a Christian - then get it from the source. Read the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. That ought to be enough to get you started. Do what he would do, say what he would say, and avoid doing or saying stuff he probably wouldn't have done or said. From what I've read, there isn't a lot of mystery to it. You can take what you see at face value.

Understand that to me, it makes no difference if you're a Christian or not. I just don't care. But it seems to me that if every self-proclaimed "Christian" out there were to suddenly and genuinely dedicate themselves to be as much like Jesus the man as they possibly could, there would be a lot less war, a lot less televangelism, a lot less judging, a lot less violence, a lot less homeless, a lot less racism, a lot more caring about the environment, a lot more concern over health care (especially for the young and the poor), a lot less corruption, and a lot less Mel Gibsons in general.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Greasing the Wheels

So now oil is starting to wash up on the beaches in Texas, thanks to the never-ended bad news that is the BP Drama. For those of you living in a cave until just now, back in April a BP drilling facility in the Gulf of Mexico fell to pieces about a mile underwater, and has since been spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate that makes the Exxon Valdez spill look like a bad day at Jiffy Lube. Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states, just now emerging from the carnage of Katrina a few years back, are now losing the fishing and tourist industries thanks to zillions of gallons of greasy goop washing ashore. I pause at the news that Texas is now affected, only because it will be telling to see how the state known for its love of oil wells will react to this. That and the fact that Texas' governor hates Obama and the federal government, and I'll love to see him changing his tune when he asks, ten gallon hat in hand, that the feds step in and help the good folks in Texas clean all this up, or at least help pay for it.

That aside, I saw an article on CNN.com about 6 alternative cars to the Mini Cooper. The idea was to showcase the other little, fuel efficient go-devils currently on the market. Of the six alternative to the German Mini, only one was from an American car company (Ford). The others were all Asian - Honda, Nissan, Suzuki, Kia and Scion (Toyota).

Now, it doesn't surprise me that out friends in the Far East set the pace for peppy, high-mileage cars. But it does disappoint me that our auto industry here in the U.S. seems oblivious to the realities concerning oil and gas. It is common for addicts to live in a state of perpetual denial about their addictions, so allow me to attempt an intervention with a few reality bombs. Please note the following for the record:

• Gas is expensive. Granted, we pay less for our gasoline in the United States than a lot of other countries. But in the last few years, as our economy has circled the drain and jobs are evaporating, filling the gas tank is a bigger deal now than ever. Americans may be encouraged to "Buy American", but when we have to choose between treason and bankruptcy, then we are ultimatelty capitalists - which means we go where the bargains are. American car companies, in ignoring this, jeopardize their futures with the one captive audience they have.
• Oil supplies are not endless. Ask a scientist. We, as a country consume more oil now than ever, and the earth isn't making more at a rate that can keep up. Simple mathematics dictate that we will, at the rate we're going, run out before we've had a chance to phase ourselves into a more viable long-term alternative. We do ourselves and our children a grave disservice by not acknowledging this.
• It's only going to get worse. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the 80's, we sat shiva for months, thinking that this was surely as bad as it could ever get. But in light of this current BP nightmare, we're almost nostalgic for that bush-league whoopsie. We are going to pay the piper on this one for decades to come. It's fair to say that the reality, the full reality of this has not yet landed on our collective consciousness. And we cannot afford to tell ourselves "surely this is as bad as it can get", as if the gods themselves would surely intervene to prevent anything any worse in the future. It is our job to draw the line in the oil-soaked sand and say to the big oil companies "this far and no further".

So to the American auto makers, please understand I am on your side here. I want you to succeed. I hate the thought of you sending your executives back to Washington (in your private jets) to ask for yet another bailout. You want to compete globally? You want to win back the hearts (and loyalty) of the American car-buying public? Acknowledge that our oil supplies are not infinite, and we're being pretty poor stewards of what little we have. We, the buying public, will always love that Detroit gave birth to the throaty "vroom" of the V8, and gave the world the Mustangs, the Corvettes, and the GTOs. But the rules of the game have shifted, and this is no time to wax nostalgic. Start dedicating yourselves to cranking out, en masse, fuel-efficient cars, hybrids, and other vehicles designed to take both the environment and the economy seriously. Maybe when we get the Gulf mopped up and the economy rebounds, we can talk about the possibility of making more useless money pit cars like the Humvee. But now, in light of the Gulf and my wallet, it's just in poor taste.