Kobayashi Maru

So I was walking through the thought fields over at The Blog o’ Seth the other day when I ran across his Friday book review post. After all it was Friday and he was reviewing a book. The title makes it sound like those two things happen every week, but only one of them actually does. (Give me a little credit, I would never tell you if I went to some blog every week simply to read book reviews.) Now normally at the Blog de Seth you would find, and I quote “missives that enkindle his psyche”. That alone drew me to read his blog (had to cause the title - while direct and to the point, did not draw me in by its nature alone). I have rarely heard folks use the word missive properly, much less in such a context. I SIMPLY HAD TO READ. Then I find out that my friend is Orthodox. (there is this really funny inside joke about “Orthodicks” that I made once to him in a group and it is such a shame that you wouldn’t get with out the context…sigh) Anyways, after the Theology on Tap night in Vancouver a while back I realized that there is much to be pondered and thoughtfully considered about Orthodoxy (as well as Catholicism actually) and that was another point in favor of reading the Seth de jour. Plus, he is part of this Virtual Office that I virtually work in and as he is co-CEO we have had occasion to interact virtually fairly often. PLUS, he is on facebook and keeps me fairly amused with the constant changes to his profile - it’s like he’s a new person every day. PLUS is the first person to ever buy me a scorpio drink, and I still don’t know what that is.

So Seth lives in Atlanta, but is by lineage a northerner in reality. A Tribe fan too. Neither of these things score him points, but I like to think that I am above making quick judgments on people just because they were born in an unfortunate place and they have poor taste in ball teams - also, I do have to confess to a secret love for Chief WaHoo. How cool is he?

All this to say, that baseball allegiances aside, this Seth blogger is a decent fellow. It would be a shame to kill him. So I read his blog. And I get theologically and philosophically challenged. And sometimes I just get stunned. This book review post was one of those stunning times. (Some of you may have already read it. I do put those links on the side because they are worth going to. I would expect dedicated passengers to take advantage of all the amenities on the Maru including links - but only after fully partaking of my missives first.) But just reading it yourself offers you none of my personal opinion and perspective and hell, that’s what we come here for right? Well, yeah, screw you. It’s what I come here for. (I kid I kid, you’re a big star. You’re a big star. You’re like the star of “American Idol.”)

So the gist of his post was really to give the rest of us a glimpse into this young author.

One of the quotes from her book that he posted reads thusly: Always, always, there was the obsession-as my friend Lynn puts it- “the need to find someone who loves as passionately as you do,” who has the full force of emotions that you have, directed towards you, so for once you are the god of their idolatry…so that you are cherished, treasured, loved.

I was personally blown away by that. This girl was 17 when she wrote this book! Seven - frickin - teen. God I hate people who write better than I do…who have more depth to their soul than I do…who can say what we are all feeling and thinking with better linguistic panache than can I. Sure this means, by default, that I hate a large portion of the planet’s population - but I really love the rest of them, so karmic-ly it all balances out. Which would mean more if I were like Buddhist, for sure - but today I take what I can get. I am digressing here aren’t I? Ok, back to this being what it is…a personal opinion based explication of a single sentence from this chick’s book.

I think that we as Christians (or those of us who are - I am not assuming anything as passengers of all faiths are welcome here) are often a little too tentative in our word usage. I personally love the imagery and connotations she evokes with the idea that in love we long to be the “god of their idolatry.” That phrase will offend the sensibilities of far too many people. I don’t think she is saying that she want someone to make a small gilded statue/figurine of her with a suction cup on the bottom so it can be affixed with equal ease on a personal alter as well as on the dashboard of their car, thus providing continuing opportunity for the full range of “bowing” possibilities: from full body prostrating to quick genuflecting in front of her sculpted form.

I think she means all the connotations of that. That someone would “worship” at the alter of us in terms of love. We long for that - all of us. I know that I am continually working on new and somewhat creative ways of letting Ferf know how much I love her, and she is doing the same. Every time I tell her that I love her - which is honestly a dozen or more times a day easy - I am “placing a love offering at the altar of my love for her” or “making a deposit in the love account in our marriage bank” or “planting seeds of love that will grow into a marital garden.” Ok, that last one was WAY over the top, and I would never actually use that of my own volition, but I did hear a man say that once (yes, I said man - it shocked me too, in fact it was worse for me cause I was standing there in front of him. You just had to read it and could run to a trashcan and vomit and then come back to finish this and no one would be the wiser. Me, I had to nod subtly to the man in a way that implied I was tracking with him on his badly derailing thought train and act like this train wreck of similes was not going to have a huge casualty list that included me suffering from acid reflux for the rest of my life from a repeated forced swallowing of bile while he continued on in his monologue). My point is simply that this particular simile that she uses is about as perfect as it could be - and that perfection scares people. I think it is that we feel guilty about wanting that from someone. We couch it in terms like idolatry and outwardly blanch at the thought that we want someone to make us the single most important priority that they could ever have and feign horror at the thought of it. We might even cower under the weight of those dreaded words “thou shall have no other gods before me” and part of us might even believe that there is the slightest chance that we are going straight to hell (not passing go and not collecting $200) for even considering the fact that we might possibly want this in the least little bit.

Let me be the first to say aloud, “THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT!!!!” Call me arrogant. Call me a horrible person. Call me shallow. Call me whatever you want. But you can also call me honest. Having a 17 year old girl say it breaks the seal for all of us. It`s like the little kid yelling out “THE EMPEROR IS NAKED!!!” Isn`t it time that we admitted it and stopped pretending that this is not the deepest desire of our hearts (outside of loving Jesus of course, for those who feel the need to insert a Sunday School answer whenever they can). I look forward to reading the whole book to see what else she says. Sure I`ll hate it - and her the whole way through just because she is a punk kid with no life experience who has no f-ing idea what she`s talking about but still says it so much better than me. But even with that, I will read the book. Or at least wait until Seth does and tells me what else is in it. I`m not above blatant laziness either!

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SO I am sitting in Oliver, BC (near Osoyoos – if that is any help). Ferf is doing a party and I am her designated driver for this portion of her life. I haul in the heavy stuff and then get kicked out to enjoy I mean find any night life in Oliver.

There is none. I checked. So I went through the local drive through coffee shack called Bean and Gone and parked behind a less than stellar hotel that looks like it has wireless and can’t be bothered to encrypt it. AND WALAH – I am surfing the net on someone else’s dime. You gotta love that. I brought the laptop so I could play solitaire if I got really bored, but then once I got here I thought to myself, “self, WWBD?” As in what would the Badger do? And I remembered – he would steal bandwidth from stupid people. And so in the spirit of the Badger I am here having pilfered some WiFi. Though I am at low connectivity at 1mbps so if you lose me, know that I am still here in Oliver behind the rooms by the half hour motel. Drive on by and say hi. I’ll buy you a Bean and Gone (if they are still open – they didn’t look like they were the type to stay late.)

So today was what I would call a pretty unusual day. Two (that’s one more than one, and one less than three) friends from my past showed up on the radar. DC from my Texas collegiate days found me on facebook, then I got a phone call from a guy I have been looking for since 1993. I shite thee not. I know 14 years ago he dropped off the face of the planet and went off the grid. I’ve googled him like he was a naked picture of Anna Kournakova for the last 5 years and have never seen hide nor hair of him anywhere in cyberspace. Then today I decide to give it the old college try one more time and this time I went after him according to what I knew about him. This is the guy that introduced me to fantasy baseball and so I started searching fantasy sporting sites. This was not easy at all – make no mistake. I had some threads of info on him from over a decade ago and used that (cause really, how much does a guy change in 10 years!?). I remembered that one of his favorite MINOR league baseball teams was the seadogs and I went from there. Next thing I know..I found him. Sure enough he had been using that as a team name for his online fantasy teams for quite some time (only changing the location when he moved around). The latest team from last year (he came in 2^nd if anyone cares) had a city I had never heard of, but through the oracle of all knowledge Google, I found that it was in Missouri and then I could do a nasty little hard target search through a couple of search engines that I have paid access to, and it was but a matter of time that I found him outside of St. Louis. I found his address and phone number, his email address and the name of the company that he runs with his dad (plus, just for kicks a quick Dunn and Bradstreet report on how well the business was doing – again, it’s good stuff and he’s been there for 9 years – GOD I LOVE THE INTERNET).

I left him a message on his phone and a few hours later he called me! We were both deeply amused at where each other was (actually he was WAY more amused that I was in Canada – cause Missouri just isn’t that funny when you think about it). He’s got 2 kids (boy and girl – complete set) and I have to admit that I am really happy at the thought of connecting with him. As we were driving to Oliver, Ferf and I were talking about it – cause she has been knowing about my looking for this guy for a while and as heard many a story about what she had before today considered a mythological creation likened to my adult imaginary friend – and I told her that it is so cool that I found him. But weird that I have on and off again looked for him for so long. I met him at a summer camp that we both worked at and then I transferred to the college that a bunch of the counselors went to (him included) called Northeast Louisiana University. I was there for one school year (2 semesters) and then transferred to Uni of Texas in Arlington. I kept up with him for a short while after that and then he was back back back back back back back GONE. So in the grand scheme of life we didn’t even hang out that long and I am not sure he would have categorized me as a best friend at any time (though we were both thick as thieves while I was in Lousy-ana). And yet, it has always been important for me to find the turd and catch up on his life. We were so damn similar in who we were, and yet I knew that we would do different things with our similar giftings and talents. I think I was desperate to see who and what he (I) would be having made different choices. It’s like he is my “other me” that did not go not-for-profit and overseas missions work, but went corporate instead and talks with a Louisiana accent. I wanted to know how it turned out for me…

I suppose it will take a few more catch up calls and at least one of us making a cross border trip to know how I really turned out in his reality. I know I sounded good on the phone. It is kinda funny how after a decade and a half, we can pick up the phone and remember so much of each other - even when we are trying to catch up.

So Ferf just called me. $1300 later, she is done with another stellar party - this one was a wedding shower. She is rocking in her chosen field and I am desperately proud of her. I gotta run pick her up and drive the long an winding road back to K-town. Thanks for joining me on my first trip to Oliver. And, um, stay away from the nasty motel here.

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For those who are newer to joy-riding on the Maru, I want to link you back to a previous post I did (simply for reference). My father’s day post. I do that simply for background so, in case you are interested, you will know who I am talking about when I talk about my Uncle Bobby.

I just got a phone call from my brother who is keeping me in the loop with regards to Uncle Bobby and the health issues he and his family are struggling with. Uncle Bobby had a kidney transplant some few years back. As anyone who knows anything about transplants of any kind knows, health is forever a major concern for those with organ transplants - not to mention spontaneous organ rejection. Recently, Uncle Bobby has been having some issues with his heart (not the organ he had replaced, but a fairly vital one nonetheless). They were scheduled to go to the doctor last Friday for some minor procedure regarding that, but when they go there his creatinine levels were high (2.6 - for reference a normal value is 0.8 to 1.4 ) so they had to postpone the procedure until Monday. But on Saturday, his blood pressure was high 215 over 105 - that and the high creatinine level are both idicators of a possible rejection episode of the transplanted kidney. So he was taken to the emergency room in Texarkana Saturday.

Since this happened,he went back to the transplant hospital in Little Rock yesterday to get checked out. There they found that the issue is not a rejection of the organ, but rather a reaction to the fact that he had an aneurysm near or in his heart. That was causing the high blood pressure which was causing the high creatinine levels.

Here is the current situation:

• it would appear that he will indeed lose the kidney and have to go back on dialysis
• before they can even deal with the kidney, they have to deal with the aneurysm
• to deal with the aneurysm, they have to run a line up through the valves in his heart
• doing this could conceivably dislodge plaque and that could cause a stroke while he is on the table
• all this has to be done on a patient who has been on immunosuppresion drugs that reduce the activation or efficacy of the immune system because of the transplant

I am hoping that this gives you an understanding of how much I would like the prayers of any of my readers who are inclined to pray. Pray for wisdom. Pray for courage. Pray for healing. Pray for him. Pray for us. Pray for everyone who has to face these types of things. Pray hard and pray often - anytime you think about me, this, or him. I would appreciate it more than you know and more than I could properly communicate.

If you don’t pray - think about starting, it helps. Otherwise think positive thoughts or whatever it is you do if you don’t pray. I’ll keep you updated as I hear things.

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July 14th is the day that the French stormed the Bastille in order to celebrate the eventual birth of my brother. I figured if the French could rise up in violent revolution to commemorate it, then the least I could do is acknowledge it in a post.

Happy Birthday Marvin. You are older than me, still. Much love to you on this the 38th anniversary of your emergence from our mother’s womb.

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I got an email a little while back from a friend of mine, Roomdog is his name. Okay, so actually the email came from his wife, cause he never emails me. OKAY, so actually the email was sent to my wife. But whatever, the point is that Roomdog and I totally keep up with each other through our wives. Guys understand that this is the same thing as direct communication most of the time. This whole exchange could easily have been a phone call between us, and since this is almost the same as that, we can get the same results without expending all the energy - good for us! Therefore, I could have started this post by saying I was “talking with my old college roommate the other day” and really it would have been, for all intents and purposes, the same thing.

That being said, this story came to my attention. The story is about Roomdog’s eldest son Joshey.

Now, at 9, Joshey is way too old for him to think it is cool that I, or anyone else really, still calls him Joshey, but since it’s my blog and he never reads it anyway - he is henceforth Joshey for the purposes of this post (and any future posts relating to him or his family - so says me). Now that we have the formalities out of the way, I continue…

The gist of the story is that Joshey went on a missions trip with his youth group. This alone is not really blog worthy as everybody does that when they are in a youth group. (if any of my readers did NOT do a missions trip while in a church youth group, I can only offer my condolences that your youth pastor obviously sucked at his job and probably only went into the ministry because he was afraid of failing in the real world and was only using the position of youth pastor as his required service time before he could get his own pulpit and preach from a position of total authority and dreamt at night of being lead pastor in a church that was not elder led and he was the ecclesiastical equivalent of a benevolent dictator. That or the church didn’t have the budget for a trip - either one really.) As I said, the offspring of someone I know doing the mission trip thing is really not that exciting. Sure other people might blog about such things, and then send out a mass email to everyone related to said kid mostly so they could pump up their stats on how many people visit their blog in a vain attempt to substantiate their fragile belief in their own writing skills. HOWEVER THAT IS NOT ME. I have to have something of substance or I don’t bother. Short posts of simple pictures that I found amusing notwithstanding, of course. This story actually found me touched by it and so I share it with you. Word for word (mostly) with my thoughts on it afterwards…

Joshey, age nine, went to Reynosa, Mexico with a team from his church last week. He, like the other 20 people on the team, helped feed children and teach VBS in the colonia where they always go. The hope is that as they keep returning to the same area, which is basically a subdivision of low income housing in Reynosa, they will build ongoing relationship and with that, rapport that allows Jesus to be revealed. So mostly they go and do their best to love people.

When Grace Vineyard started taking these trips to Mexico two summers ago, the youth pastor went on the first trip with her brother, who was 11 at the time. After that trip they decided to invite kids to participate whenever they went to Mexico. Like any other team members, they have to fill out an application and find a way to finance the trip. This summer they had nine kids go. The youth pastor likes kids, so it is natural for her to work with them right alongside of adults. Their church has long invited kids to participate in whatever ministry is going on, so it makes sense for kids to go with them

I quote from her email now:

Someone at some point in last week’s trip mentioned that some fathers in the colonia don’t stick around and others don’t treat their families very well, leaving few families in tact. I’m not sure when it happened, but I remember it being said.

Josh listened when that someone spoke, and somewhere in his nine-year-old heart, he caught a glimpse of his Heavenly Father’s heart. I know this because I heard Josh pray.

Every night we debriefed the day as a team, ending the debrief with a time of prayer. Anyone could pray. Josh’s prayer one night was that the boys in the colonia would grow up to be fathers who stayed. He prayed that they would love their kids, that they wouldn’t leave, and that they would care for their families.

I keep thinking about Josh’s prayer. It has made my eyes well up every time I think about it.

My brother Jay was on the trip with us. He and I stood in the doorway of the classroom where kids were attending VBS one afternoon, a toddler in my arms. I passed him to Jay at some point, and the little boy’s reaction made me wonder if he’d ever been held by a man. His eyes widened, and he cried out as he reached for me. He was happy to play peek-a-boo with Jay with my baseball cap, but that was about it.

Often in the church when we think of missions and mission we talk about big picture stuff, but sometimes it’s the details that help me to grasp the reality of Jesus and the way he changes the world. Josh’s prayer was for a kind of redemption that rewrites the DNA of whole families; that rewrites the DNA of little boys who grow up fatherless into men who stay, into men who love their kids. And this is what Jesus does when he gets inside of our lives. He puts faith inside of one little boy to pray a prayer to change the lives of hundreds of others.

And that prayer put faith inside of me.

I think that is pretty amazing. How is it that a 9 year old can grasp truths that we as adults can so easily miss? For him it was a pretty easy equation - the dad’s there leave, the kids need their dads, so pray that these kids would grow up and not leave their kids. (I am sure there is a mathematical equation for that, like knowing A to be factual and considering B to be truth, it stands to reason that C is the obvious need - but I always sucked at math and evidently this is not inherently obvious to even the most casual observer, because if it were, the youth pastor would not have felt compelled to tell the story and I would not have been morally obligated to share it with you) Amazing how children can strip away all the political and cultural facades and just see the truth behind all the bullshit. Somebody has to break the cycle and God Himself needs to step in and help these boys, while they are still boys, see the role of fatherhood for what it is and what it entails - even if they don’t experience it themselves. They can be more than their fathers were.

I think this is what struck me most about this. The truth behind the story. We are, all of us, to an extent products of our environment - our family history, our social networks, our choice of friends, etc. We base so much of what we judge to be right and wrong on a moral code that is set through so many things that we have very little say in (at least to begin with). All of us need to have someone praying for us that we would grow up to love our families and that we would not leave. Someone praying into the very fabric of our souls that we would see the truth and not simply give into the culture that we are surrounded by. That we could be counter-culture when the situation calls for it. That we would be different from our history where we need to be. That we can step outside our place and our own understanding and that God would step in and shine just enough light, through divine appointments and interventions - maybe even through kids on missions trips - that we could walk on the the straight and narrow path and make the world better for all those who follow than it was left for us by those who went before. I hope to God that I have people that I don’t know praying that very thing into my life and my situation and my culture. Somewhere I hope there is a Joshey that doesn’t even know me, but prays truths about me and for me and for everyone like me.

That is redemptive enough to make my blog every time.

And if the story wasn’t enough to touch your heart, they sent a picture of the kid who liked to play peek-a-boo:

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Sometimes I wish I could get this printed HUGE and plaster a wall with it. Or put it on t-shirt. It’s amazing how we can get confused as to our own self-worth. We connect our worth to so many things that are, in the end, worthlessj Job, money, status, what kind of car we drive, how big our house is, or even some strange vicarious connection to everything our children do. (My kid is brilliant, and therefore I must be special because my kid is S-M-R-T smart.)

This is where I feel compelled to go on a slight tangent about bumper stickers that read, “My child is an honor student at *insert name of elementary/middle/high* school .”

I am all for celebrating children’s successes for sure. But that is a bit over the top for me. I loved the ones that spoofed those and read things like:

and just for those driving used cars…

So, back to my original premise - which was…ummm…scrolling back up…yes, there it is - how we define our worth. I think this bothers me mostly because, whether we consciously realize it or not, how we measure ourself is the same way that we measure the worth of other people. It is what we judge other with / or how we judge others. And I have actually heard someone justify this by quoting scripture Matt. 7:1-2 Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Their justification was, if I judge myself that way, then I can judge others the same way. If I say I am worthwhile because I’m rich, then I can judge others based on their wealth too. Lord help us and God save us all from poor interpretation and logic leaps with scripture. (Seriously, I am so not making that up - it was really said to me with the utmost sincerity. Sad really.)

I say all this to say that I think we have such a skewed understanding of how to measure worth. What makes us worthwhile is who we are, not what we are. We all have intrinsic value because we are. I am therefore I am worthwhile. It always never ceases to amaze me…yes, I said always never. It makes sense if you read it as one thought. Trust me on this. Anyway, it always never ceases to amaze me how often we end up measuring ourselves in a comparative mode to others. We have something innate within us that drives us to do the compare/contrast against others. He is richer than me. I am prettier than her. You are dumber than a stick. Oh wait. That last one just slipped out - I didn’t mean it. We should all be thinking about us in the context of us. As in, I am being as smart as I am able to be. I am doing the very best that my abilities will allow. I am as good as I can be. And other things that sound like platitudes when I write them out, but have substance when focused on inside your mind. I am not necessarily trying to re-preach the concept of the power of positive thinking here. What I am saying is that we need to focus on “judging” ourselves based on ourselves. If you could have done better on your last thing you did, then you need to focus on that. You ought not to be truly happy with your performance if you could have done better. But if you did your best and little Johnny scored 2 points higher, so what! Who cares, and why are you comparing yourself to little Johnny. It’s great that your kid is an honor student, but if they pulled A’s by coasting when they could have made A+’s by trying a little harder, then it doesn’t matter if they have higher GPA than little Johnny. Who is this little Johnny kid and why do we care so damn much about him!?

There always seems to be this “grass is always greener” philosophy in our lives. For example, and I give you a personal one, because you as loyal passengers on the Maru deserve that kind of transparency from me. So, when I was a young warthog kid growing up, I had (and come to think of it, I still do) an older brother, Marvin. He was a fairly exceptional athlete. He was all-state in everything he frickin did and there was no sport that he competed in that he did not make it to a State Championship in as a starter. In some of them he was a 4 year letterman. I always wanted so desperately to be an all-state athlete. I wanted to be that guy. Needless to say…I was not that guy. I was a decent athlete. I was not some kind of band geek mind you (oh, wait - that sound dangerously close to doing the very thing I have been railing about in this post. In fact, I think it might be exactly what I have been talking about. Why I am comparing my childhood self to band kids? So I can make myself feel better about my pathetic and futile attempts to be an all-state athlete? Geez, I am a seriously screwed up guy.) That being said, I was not a band geek. I was one of those guys that you would think of as a key cog in the machine, but not the star of the show. But damn did I want to be the show. I wanted all the attention that came with that. The entourage, the screaming fans, the recognition over the loudspeaker during announcements in homeroom. All that stuff seemed like it was the proverbial shit. And I so wanted to be the shit. Alas, I lived a somewhat “the shit” free life. Now, i can admit that I was a standout student. I did above average on the skill testing questions that classroom teachers like to throw at you. Hell, I was on TV for a while in academic competitions. But at the end of the day, chicks didn’t dig academic decathlon champions like they did all-state athletes. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but you are just going to have to take my word for it. Instead of spending my time as a high school student really enjoying the successes I had, I spent an inordinate amount of time wishing I was as MORE athletic than Marvin. I just wanted to be stronger, faster, quicker and more agile, have better eye-hand coordination, a sweeter swing and a better arm than him. (Now, in retrospect, I should have been content with being smarter and better looking - but when you are a kid, you don’t appreciate that stuff.)

Later in life he and I sat down and reminisced about high school - not in a Glory Days kind of way, but in a let’s compare notes about our childhood in a semi-adult kind of way. I admitted to him that I had been willing to trade everything I had achieved for what he had achieved - in fact had done a lot of reading in the Faustian tradition to see if there was anything to be learned and applied in my situation. He nodded and said something along the lines of, “yeah, I can see where you would.” I kid, I kid. Actually he said that he had always wanted to have what I had in high school. (I took that at face value then, but now that I am a little older and a little wiser, I know that he was trying to be kind and that he was full of shite. Still, it was the thought that counted.) But my original point still stands - no matter how successful we are at being who we are, we are drawn to compare it with how well someone else is at being who they are and to use that as a measure of success or failure. What’d you make on the SAT? What university did you go to? How long did it take you to graduate? What was your class rank? Did you play competitive sports? How hot was your girlfriend? Who do you work for? How much do you get paid? What do you do? The list could seriously go on and on. We ask some of these questions as “get to know you” conversation questions (well, not the “how hot was your girlfriend” one but some of the others for sure) and that’s fine. God knows how much I hate small talk, but it’s what we do with the information inside our own heads that is critical. Can you process it without it somehow using it in your personal, internal sequence of validating or invalidating what you have done in the same area?

Well, can you? Cause I can, and that means I am more self-aware than you and therefore higher evolved on my personal journey than you are…go me.

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Ok. Tell me that is not an inspiring image. Nothing against the Canadian flag from a couple of days ago, but seriously, if you superimpose that flag on the right eye of their national animal (the beaver, a truly brave and noble animal for those who do not know) it would not be as visually stunning - let’s leave it at that.

Americans know how to inspire and kick a little arse. It’s who we are and what we do. You want to run an empire - get the Brits. You need a little nation building - call the French (or at least if you want some good pastry call them). If you need some state police action - call the Germans (but don’t leave them alone to do it). If you need some nice polite negotiations - the Canadians are your people. But if you need a little ass kicked and you need it done in a hurry with malice - the Yanks are your boys. And with that comes patriotic music, images and pride. We do that better than everyone too. I submit the above picture as exhibit one.

Not to be mean but really, compare it to this:

Any more questions? I thought not.

But we are not here to compare national images from both my countries. Rather we are here to do a little history lesson on the 4th of July since I did one for July 1st.

In the United States, Independence Day (commonly known as the “Fourth of July,” “July Fourth,” the “Glorious Fourth,” or simply the “Fourth”) is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain.

Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, picnics, baseball games, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Fireworks have been associated with the Fourth of July since 1777.

John Adams, wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Adams was off by two days, however. Certainly, the vote on July 2 was the decisive act. But July 4, 1776, is the date on the Declaration itself. Jefferson’s stirring prose, as edited by the Congress, was first adopted by the July 4th vote.

Observance

• In 1777, thirteen guns were fired, once at morning and again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island. Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white and blue bunting.
• In 1778, General George Washington marked the Fourth of July with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute.

Way back in 1778 we were already mixing alcohol and firearms to celebrate. You gotta love the principles that this country was founded on. You just gotta. Seriously, I could say more, but it doesn’t get any better than that…and besides Ferf is starting to molest me as I type. lkjelf,,,,,,rASOPADNDNDNNKWEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL Happy Independence Day everyone!!!!!!

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Canada Day marks the creation of Canada as a dominion through the British North America Act on July 1, 1867, uniting three British colonies—the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada. The three colonies united to form one country divided into four provinces. The Province of Canada became Ontario and Quebec.

A proclamation was issued by Governor General Lord Monck, on June 20, 1868, asking for “all Her Majesty’s loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1.”

The holiday was formally established by statute in 1879, and was originally called Dominion Day, making reference to the term “dominion“, which was first used to describe a political union within the British Empire for Canada as a former colony granted a large measure of self-government but still subject in some degree to British rule.

Dominion Day was not a particularly prominent holiday in its early inceptions; in the late 19th and early 20th many Canadians continued to think of themselves as primarily British, and were thus less interested in celebrating a distinctly “Canadian” form of patriotism. No official celebrations were held on July 1 from confederation until 1917, the golden anniversary of Confederation, and then none again until ten years later. This trend declined in the post-war era. Beginning in 1958, the Canadian government orchestrated Dominion Day celebrations, usually consisting of Trooping the Colours ceremonies on Parliament Hill in the afternoon and evening, followed by a mass band concert and fireworks display. Canada’s centennial of July 1, 1967 is often seen as an important day in the history of Canadian patriotism, and Canada’s maturity as a distinct, independent country. Post-1967, Dominion Day became far more popular with average Canadians. Into the late 1960s, nationally televised, multi-cultural concerts were added, and the fete became known as “Festival Canada.” After 1980, the Canadian government began to promote the celebrating of Dominion Day beyond the national capital, giving grants and aid to cities across the country to help fund local activities.

The name was officially changed to Canada Day on October 27, 1982, largely harking back to the adoption of the earlier Canada Act 1982. However, many Canadians had already been informally referring to the holiday as “Canada Day” for a number of years before the official name change.

WOW! Now if that little bit of info (provided by the oracle Wikipedia) doesn’t get your fires stoked about being Canadian, then really - what could?  WooHoo!

Oh yeah…I was going to post this amazing video of the incredible fireworks display that K-town holds to celebrate this amazing day…but, uh..they cancelled the fireworks.  No seriously.  They cancelled them because a critical piece of equipment went missing - like maybe a lighter???  Yep.  Welcome to Canada Day.

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