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Ogden Nash was an American Writer/Poet.

 

That explains it. In French Canada, I was learning about French Authours, and in English Canada, about Shake-A-Spear.

Oggy never came up.

 

Did the spear?

 

Ogden Nash was born in Rye New York.I have no idea how close that is to Canada.He was famous for his wry sense of humor.It is said he wrote the shortest poem in history.it is called Fleas and goes like this,"Adam hadam."...His bios said all of his stuff rhymed,so I do now believe it was either e.e. cummins or samuel clemens that said that about women.

 

Believe it or not, I failed English because when we moved from Quebec to Ontario, I had never heard that England had anybody that could write! (Actually we moved to Quebec when I was 10 from Ontario, so I knew about Superman, Mark Twain, The Shadow, etc.) but back then Quebec wasn't teaching any Classic English authours.

I got into a real nasty argument with this self-inflated English teacher who felt the same way about French Authours, and walked out of his class, and quit English highschool, on the spot. Joined the Army with my French Highschool diploma, and finished English highschool in Adult nightschool, then went to Engineering and Business.

This same English teacher came to my Grad Ceremonies. I saw him in the audience. I was the President of the Student Union, and the Valedictorian, sitting next to the Dean on the stage. I told the Dean that I wanted the guy out. The Dean agreed. I got two of my buddies to 'escort' him out.

Later, I learned to appreciate Shakespeare, but the guy tried to be too mystical and not artistic enough for my taste.

 

those prejudices

In the early and mid-80's,I became highly interested in my own ancestory and the history of Rennaissance Britain.Ended up reading several books(about eighty to a hundred years old)at Los Angeles libraries,that had originally been text books in England.They came with little prefaces inside,about how they weren't supposed to be brought to America and be allowed to be read by Americans...The implication being we were either not worthy enough to learn these things and/or they didn't want us learning these things...That teachers would limit curricula is actually a given.You're not going to find out about Picasso at a class about Italian Rennaissance Art.But that classes in different areas of Canada or America would make exclusions because of language or culture seems a bit too highbrow and elitist to me...I'm fairly sure Frenchies in France learn about Shakespeare---and Limeys in England learn about Moliere...I have also been made aware that one of the stumbling blocks to the North American Union thing is;Quebec doesn't really want to be a part of Canada,much less the NAU.(there are similar movements afoot in Mexico,from what I've been told).So,maybe this elitist,seperatist stuff is just par for the course among those pretending to be educated and well-informed.

 

It's kind of sad that they were like that. The Colonies were screwed over intellectually, but they made up for it with Ingenuity.

I was in junior high in Quebec when General DeGaulle came to Quebec and made his famous "Vive le Quebec Libre" statement, in 1964. Not a good time for a primarily English-speaking Canadian to be in a French Catholic highschool.

Lucky for me, that I learned French Canadian history from the English system first. I could understand the dichotomy. But the Quebec version was just as blind. It's always been a field of interest for me to sort out the truth from the bias.

Canada has been crippled and divided by this bias. When the ruling party doesn't have enough support in Quebec, they pour polit-bucks in to get votes. When the party does have it, they pour more polit-bucks to keep it. Meanwhile the rest of the country just steams over it. Now, its almost open warfare - East vs. West in our politics, at least with the current government.

Quebec has the language advantage. With French, they actually learned to diversify their industries and exports all over the world. The rest of Canada is almost trapped into the 80% trade within NAFTA. Quebeckers aren't locked into the huge NAFTA cycles that happen when the NAFTA partners cycle up an down. There's almost 25% of the planet that uses a latin-based language (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Tagalog) and that is a big advantage in doing business globally. Face-to-face trade relations last far better.

I'll bet most Canadians and Americans don't know that they can avoid registering their exports under NAFTA, by keeping the orders under $2,000. That means export tarrif advantages and avoiding the constant involvement of the Foreign Relations departments in your small business. Who needs the overhead of producing documents they never read anyway?

 

I have long been puzzled by these things.A lot of modern day troubles can be traced back to the Normans...The English vs French stuff?..Started with the Normans,,,when the Normans were both the English and the French...The Troubles in Ireland started,when Normans sent to Ireland,to conquer it and convert the people there to Normanism,ended up "more Irish than the Irish".They were all Catholics back then.Back then,it was about being Norman---or traitors to the cause...Those internal conflicts within Normanism have brought us lots of other conflicts,down thru the ages.The French and Indian Wars,as we call them down here in America,were all apart of that.The modern day political battles you described fit right in...As does the the debate,who makes the best TV shows in Canada?Montreal(The Highlander TV series,etc) or Vancouver(several seasons of The X files TV series,etc)

 

X-Files wasn't my fav. Highlander was better.

At some point, we better get some leadership that unites us to go forward. Too much momentum has been lost in Nation building for political Posturing and sword-rattling.

 

Speaking of which...

Reading one of our national papers this morning, the writer washes the partisan laundry and the money laundering that goes with it. Seems its even affecting the Auto Bailout in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090325.wcosimp25nation/BNStory/National/home

Normanisms, eh? Never heard of that term. I'll stick with Stormin'.

 

Hadn't meant to hurt your feelings,honest,with all that talk about Normanism.Was just saying...One of the things I learned from one of those English textbooks that wasn't supposed to end up in my hands was;among the Norman hierarchy,there was the philosophy that Normans were the new Israelites.England was the new Israel and London was the new Jerusalem.The Anglo-Saxon English were the new Caananites.And the reason the Normans went to England to take over,was because of this philosophy.Once they had England,they had to go save the old Israel and Jerusalem.Those Crusades and all...Haven't noticed you displaying any such philosophies,other than stationwagons are the new Chariots of God....Back when the auto-bailout was first announced,here in the USA,it was also announced that Canada was kicking in a bunch of money too.An anamoly that only got casual discussion on the TV news.One of those;just our nice neighbours to the North,helping us out,kind of thing.My brother-in-law and I realized that,because of their close proximity,and likely tie-ins to the industry,Canadians probably appreciate American cars and it's car industry.And,that they don't want it to fail either...Simple stuff,really,but Americans don't always "get" the simple stuff,they're always looking for the convoluted stuff...I too liked Highlander,more than I liked the X Files.And I really liked the X Files.Mostly because of Gillian Anderson.

 

No, no. I didn't take it personal at all. In fact, you're closer to the truth than you know. My folks named me Normand because we apparently were descendants of a Duke (Duque de Guilderie) in Normandy, when Napoleon noticed their nice little castle on the Ocean shore. He expropriated their land and shipped them to Canada (New France) in 1686. Later when the French Government was properly formed into a Republic, the French Government listed the property as owned by the Descendants, IF they wanted to pay the backtaxes to 1686! Right. Over $4 million on 10 acres of shoreline.

You recall the 1965 Autopact? Part of it was so that we'd get the same models that were sold in the US. Like the Big-A$$ Bonnevilles. We got the badges but not the widetrack or the engines.

The second part, was that we'd be legislated to adopt all the same polution gadgets, including Catalytic converters, etc. But nobody here had the training to do analysis. The Feds couldn't force the Provinces to legislate them either, since we are a Con-Federation. Any Province can withdraw from the Union.

And last, but not emphasized, was the Union deal. The Canadian division of the Union (UAW) wanted independence. So the CAW was formed, because the Canadian division of the UAW was forcing them to go on Strike, whenever they needed more crunch in their deals in the US.

GM 'borrowed' most of the Union pension and owes them $3 billion, protected under Federal Law. Most of the first downstroke is to refill the pension fund. Since GM and Chrysler are both tied at the hip with their Car Financing arm (CEREBUS owns Chrysler and CEREBUS financed GMAC), our Feds are waiting to see how your Government works it out, before they jump. It got too political, because the Towns and Cities would almost go bankrupt with every strike.

X-Files went to Cable, and we figured we had enough Dick shows to watch, Highlander just disappeared off the scene.

 

Jeezes wheezes...So,Canada was for France,what Australia was for England?A place to send the banished...What a merry olde whatever the heck!..Didn't know too much about the Canadian car industry,thanks for the fill-ins.So,there's more to Canada than Sunbeams? And I like Sunbeams,Sunbeams aren't bad.One of my mothers-in-law has one.I think her daily driver is a Saturn or something,but she's got a mint condition Sunbeam in the garage.Did Sunbeam ever make wagons? I realize they'd be a lot like VW Squarebacks(not too big,not too zoomy)but that'd be something,wouldn't it?

 

Succubus,hecubus,cerebus...Doesn't sound Good...

 

I thought the Sunbeams were a British car. Didn't know they were built here. huh!

Oh man, here's some history for ya. Eastern Canada was called 'L'Acadie', When the French had it, they stocked it with French folk, and they shipped some down south. When the English started to take over, they shipped the French settlers down to... New Orleans and Louisiana (named after King Louis of France). These Acadians got the southern nickname Cajuns, over time.

Also, your Pentagon is based on the Pentagon Fort in Nova Scotia. Been there, and it is really neat.