Why Corner Gas is Profound....

I've neglected my favourite show, next to The Rick Mercer Report. That would be Corner Gas. This show is about small town life in the flattest place on earth, Saskatchewan. (Hope I spelled that correctly...) Anyway, I've haven't laughed so hard for such a long time until this show came along. I am faithfully getting the series DVD's as they become available...I'm that serious about how funny it is. I'm so interested in this show that I've suggested that we tour the town where it's filmed. Maybe we will visit Dog River!

This show does have uniquely Canadian references in it, too, which my wife has to explain to me, but I find the humor so universal. It is more 'small town humour' than Canadian humor. You'll notice as an American in Canada, I sometimes put my 'u' into words like 'humour' and sometimes I don't. (I love Canadian spelling!)

The main characters are:

*Brent - Owner of Corner Gas.
*Lacy - Brent's next door neighbor, owner of the diner, The Ruby
*Hank - Brent's best friend and rarely employed layabout (he must have inherited the house)
*Frank - Brent's crusty, cranky old dad
*Emma - Brent's wise-cracking, eye-rolling mom
*Davis - The cop who likes to 'be real' and relax
*Karen - The newer cop who likes to be careful to follow regulations.

The writing on this show is fantastic and the characters are so small town. There is so much recognition of basic human foibles and follies hiding in this show too. It demonstrates, as true comedy should, how people can sometimes just be plain silly about their obsessions and priorities. In that way this show is more 'real' than the shows that call themselves 'reality'.

The show is proof of that famous quotation: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Corner Gas demonstrates that we can either laugh at this foolishness, or go insane. I'll go for the former. See you at The Ruby!

History - A New 'Hobby'

"Perserverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages."

~ General George Washington



I've just finished reading 1776 and it got me to thinking about how moving to Canada has really made me more interested in history. I think what really got me started was when I had to take two courses in order to get my permanent teaching certificate here in BC. The two courses were basic, 100 level courses in Candian geography and in Canadian history. Now, there were other teachers in the courses who were from other provinces here in Canada and they were bored out of their gourds because they had heard most of this stuff before. Me, I loved it. I didn't know any of this stuff and I really enjoyed learning about the history of Canada. I especially was interested in how Canadian and American history intertwine with each other. You can't really have one without the other and, you really couldn't ask for better neighbors. (Despite that softwood thing. For the record, though, cough up the money US - you owe Canada a bundle.....but I digress)

I really enjoyed reading A Short History Of Canada by Desmond Morton. Then I couldn't resist Canadian History for Dummies by Will Ferguson. I loved that the US tried to invade Canada at least 4 times in the early years. Lincoln actually contemplated fighting the Civil War on two fronts - and Canada's birth year, 1867 is not coincidentally located closely to the end of the Civil War....

Which makes me think of 1776, which prompted a question from my wife: "What's that about?"
I looked at her blankly: "Well, 1776...." I'm thinking it should be obvious. She basically replied with "Fine, don't tell me then..." I did very nicely explain the significance of the year.

Now, 1776 was not a year of triumph. It was a year of hardship and defeat for the American forces. It's amazing (and this is what intrigues me most about reading history) how just a little more effort from one of the sides in a different direction could have changed the course of history. How close the battle was. As an American, I tend to associate 1776 with the year (singular) of the Revolutionary War, but it was just the beginning. The Treaty of Paris ending the war was signed in 1783 - a little more than 6 years later.

That quote above is significant, McCullough indicates, because that was kind of George Washington's theme throughout the war:

"Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perserverance - for 'perserverance and spirit,' for 'patience and perserverance' for 'unremitting courage and perserverance.' " (p. 293)

I have read elsewhere, perhaps in McCullough's book, John Adams, that somewhere along the way Washington realized he did not actually have to win battles to win the war. He had to keep fighting until they couldn't afford to fight any more. He knew that eventually, the British had to realize it wasn't worth it. So perhaps it was perserverance, and not brilliance strategies that one this war. There's a lesson in there somewhere...

Immigration

I was watching "Face the Nation" yesterday. They had two US senators on arguing about the latest immigration bill that either passed or didn't pass. There has been so much heated debate about illegal immigrants and the implications of allowing them to live and work in the US. It all comes down to money, though, whole businesses would shut down if they had to hire only legal immigrants - they couldn't afford all workers. It is a complicated issue, but I was sitting there realizing that it's not such an issue with Canadians, only Mexican or Latin Americans mostly. Why? Canada's lifestyle is so close to the US lifestyle - economically speaking.

These people are desparate to feed and care for their families - they'll do anything. The low pay they get seems like a fortune to them. It occured to me that the only real way to solve the problem is to improve living conditions in Latin America and Mexico. Hey! You think that's expensive - I find it hard to believe that the huge wall or fence that some are proposing would be at least as expensive, if not more. I wonder how much it would cost to make the majority of Mexicans lifestyles better. That way they won't be so desparate for jobs in the US. Lets create jobs in Mexico...put the billions of dollars we want to spend on keeping "them" out and improve their lives instead. $5 billion to improve the Mexican lifestyle will be a better idea than $5 billion on a fence!

Oh, wait...we don't want to interfere in their country's affairs....like we haven't interfered in Iraq, Afganistan, etc......

That is something that I would love to hear debated by politicians of a country one day. How can we make the other countries better? Yup, that would be neat to see!!