Oh Say Can You See By The Screen's Eerie Light

Yesterday I paused to take pride in my country, now I’m going to pause and take pride in the country Canada shares a continent with.

Thank you, United States of America, for the many things you’ve given us. Your friendship, your vast miles of unprotected 49th parallel borders, the print-saving option of dropping U's from words like colour and neighbour, your network television, (with a few exceptions like that whole Daytime Talk Show fiasco that passes for entertainment); your concept of the American Dream and the simpler things like apple pie and The Waltons; for Silicon Valley and for Hollywood (without which we couldn’t call Toronto Hollywood North -- it’d just be North, I guess). Thank you for people like Hemmingway, Stan Lee, Stephen King and Matt Groening not to mention thousands of other creative minds, dreamers and visionaries that have allowed us to willingly suspend our disbelief and dream and laugh along with them. Can I go out on a limb and dare to judge a country great by its plethora of imaginative minds? I could go on and on, but these are just a few of the things off the top of my head when I think about the good old U.S. of A.

So, Happy Independence Day, my friends. I do have faith that your President Bill Pullman will be a strong leader and be a driving force behind sending those aliens back to their home planet with their tails between their legs. No wait a minute, there I am confusing your television and movie culture with reality (damn you, reality television, for blurring the distinction). I mean, congratulations on Geena Davis as your first female President. I was rather partial to Martin Sheen’s administration, but Ms. Davis is doing a remarkable job, despite the fact that Canadian Donald Sutherland is making things miserable for her. Gee, you’d think he’d spend less time trying to get her booted out of office and more time worrying about his son who spends 24 hours a day trying to keep America safe.

In any case, Happy Fourth of July! God Bless America! (And I'm won't make any underhanded attempts to rub in the fact that, just like with Thanksgiving, we did ours first, we did ours first, nah, nah! No, I won't do that. That wouldn't be very neighbourly)