Oh, dear, and here I was all set to with my Canadian friends Happy Canada Day on the first and I spaced it. (Okay, I was distracted by writing a story but that's no excuse...)
I plan to celebrate American independence today by eating veggie summer rolls and deep fried tofu at Zao (http://www.zaonoodle.com/), and then watching an old friend go Imelda at
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [...] dsw</a>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
Oh, dear, and here I was all set to with my Canadian friends Happy Canada Day on the first and I spaced it. (Okay, I was distracted by writing a story but that's no excuse...)
I plan to celebrate American independence today by eating veggie summer rolls and deep fried tofu at <a href="http://www.zaonoodle.com/">Zao</a>, and then watching an old friend go Imelda at <a href="http://www.dsw.com/"DSW</a>. Then I plan to come home and turn on everything that can possibly make enough noise to mask the sounds of the neighborhood kids going bugfuck with illegal fireworks until sunrise (since today is Friday, the parents will turn into kids, too, I'm afraid, and it'll go on all night...)
here I was all set to with my Canadian friends Happy Canada Day on the first and I spaced it. (Okay, I was distracted by writing a story but that's no excuse...)
It's a wonderful excuse - the best. Go with it!
veggie summer rolls
What are they?
deep fried tofu
Yum!
to mask the sounds of the neighborhood kids going bugfuck with illegal fireworks until sunrise
Wow - that makes things here sound so tame. You people are wild and crazy!
1. Today is the anniversary of Hattin. Spare a thought for the Outremer bunch.
2. I was horrified when a colleague said a neighbour of hers was having a 4th July party. A radio station was also doing 4th July promotions. Why are people here pretending to be Americans? They're dancing on the graves of our own people. Of people I love. Of a member of my family who was tortured and forced to become a refugee (a story many Canadians share). But there is silence on their stories over here.
Today is the anniversary of Hattin. Spare a thought for the Outremer bunch.
Always.
And it's the birthday of Horatio Hornblower, so I give a smile and a wave to one of my older fandoms.
Why are people here pretending to be Americans?
I've no idea. As far as I know, everyone here more or less ignores the occasion, except to wish American friends well. Maybe it's the 'any excuse for a party' syndrome? Or a kind of perverse fascination? Or the ubiquitous presence of US culture?
On oltramar, I've posted a link to a good article on Hattin by Benjamin Kedar.
I've no idea. As far as I know, everyone here more or less ignores the occasion, except to wish American friends well.
I find that a tad perverse, given how long the bastards kept trying to invade you folk!
Maybe it's the 'any excuse for a party' syndrome? Or a kind of perverse fascination? Or the ubiquitous presence of US culture?
I think that a lot of our history is glossed over deliberately, so that we will be good little poodles in their foreign policy ventures, and not kick up a fuss about airbases & c in this country over which our Ministry of Defence has no control at all… People aren't taught about our side of the American War. Had I not had Loyalist ancestors, I wouldn't have known anything about it. Schools peddle the US version of events: whoever wins is 'right'. Statues get put up to people like the religious nutjob Witherspoon, who went to Princeton to get away from people like Hume, while the likes of Pattie have no memorial and are pretty well forgotten outside the realm of military history enthusiasts. Nor is there any memorial in Edinburgh to Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe, the Massachusetts Loyalist who, as a General in the British Army, saved Canada at Queenston Heights, after Brock fell: he retired to Edinburgh, and is buried in Calton cemetery. His relatives (Australians) sent me pics of his grave a few years ago: it was in very poor state.
I'll e-mail you a piece I wrote for The Loyalist Gazette about the manipulation of 18C history in the interests of the tourist trade over here.
I've posted a link to a good article on Hattin by Benjamin Kedar.
Excellent. Thank you.
I find that a tad perverse, given how long the bastards kept trying to invade you folk!
American/Canadian relations are a complex and often touchy subject. Americans generally don't notice Canadians much and Canadians feel safest that way.
People aren't taught about our side of the American War.
That seems bizarre. We got it all from the Canadian point of view.
'll e-mail you a piece I wrote for The Loyalist Gazette about the manipulation of 18C history in the interests of the tourist trade over here.
That seems bizarre. We got it all from the Canadian point of view.
At high school in England in the late '70s-early '80s, we never even heard that there was a British or Loyalist viewpoint. And things haven't changed: several years ago, I was discussing the subject with an acquaintance who was a high school history teacher (I was explaining to him what I was researching at the time - I was then working on the Pattie book and Willie Leslie article). He was teaching the American War as a Sixth Year special subject (for 17-18 year olds), and even encouraging them to identify with the Rebels. He had no idea about the Highland Loyalist communities in New York and the Carolinas, or about the major role of Scots servicemen (a quarter of the army at the time). Quite simply, he did not know they existed. And he was teaching the subject!
It says a great deal about the poor quality of history teaching here. The gap between school level and university level is enormous (or was, in my day: these days, I fear that undergraduate standards have declined, too – students are not expected to be able to read another language (and can't), and many of them can't even be bothered to use the library).
Part of the problem with this subject area is that the majority of books available on the subject at a popular level (most likely to be used by teachers) are US-produced, and tend towards the flag-wavy. Canadian books such as Moore's The Loyalists don't tend to make it into British bookshops. The irony would be funny if it wasn't so damaging. I'm a European: I have no wish to be part of "the 51st state", but it seems that a lot of the popular press and other media here want to brainwash people into that.
I'm a European: I have no wish to be part of "the 51st state"
Bravo. I certainly felt, when I was living in England (Gloucester & Bristol, between late 2003 and Aug. 2005) that the media was doing exactly that, and it bothered me. I get the impression that all (or almost all) of the media in Britain are run by Americans.
I had a (probably idealized) view of Britain from what I knew of it during the 60s and 70s. Actually seeing it when I lived there was a surprise and I felt rather sad. I also felt (though I could be wrong) an under-current of resentment towards this Americo-centric view point, but it was definitely hard to detect from the media.
OTOH, my accent was irredeemably North American and everyone I knew thought I was a Yank, except for a few who could recognize a Canuck accent.
When I was in England in the 1970s I didn't see this trend at all, though American TV had its presence. It could be that, being a student in a residence, having no easy access to television and not really wanting it, I was just oblivious. I was too busy seeing live theatre to watch TV anyway. It was heaven.
In Academic circles, American scholarship was not admired, but I couldn't tell about popular culture. The only aspect of American culture I wanted - and craved, and sought out with a passion - was American comic books, which I had some trouble finding - this being before the days of having a Forbidden Planet on Oxford street. Aaah, how we had to rough it in those days.
I've just e-mailed you An Invisible History: Loyal America (un)seen from Scotland, from The Loyalist Gazette, Spring 2000, and Alumni at War in America, which I wrote for the alumnus magazine of my old university, but which they refused to publish because it was "too controversial". Apparently, they thought that even outlining the careers of several alumni (and children of alumni) who served their country, rather than one drop-out who was in the Rebel congress (and died in America while being investigated for dodgy financial dealings in 1798!), might put off donations from American alumni. (Of course, the university is massively in hock to overseas student fees, and money talks louder than facing the past honestly.)
which they refused to publish because it was "too controversial".
Scholars aren't supposed to be controversial?
they thought that even outlining the careers of several alumni (and children of alumni) who served their country, rather than one drop-out who was in the Rebel congress (and died in America while being investigated for dodgy financial dealings in 1798!), might put off donations from American alumni.
So it might, but I hate it when money is the determining factor, rather than the scholarship or the historical truth.
Hope you don't mind I was eavesdropping. With fascination. And I am surprised and a bit upset to hear that the American take on the... um, we call it the Revolutionary War? Well, I have always just assumed that England would feel differently about it than what I was taught in my history classes in gradeschool. Quite startling!
The tales of loyalists are not quietly ignored, here; it's fairly well known that one-third of the population of the Colonies was loyal to the King, and only about one-third wanted to separate, with the remaining third being uninterested or just otherwise neutral. We do use "Benedict Arnold" as a catch-all insult for someone who's a traitor, but that's just to be expected, no?
Perhaps I am fortunate to live in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which has a thriving element of re-enactors, all of whom are slavishly devoted to historical research. I myself am partial to not just the Revolution, but also to the earlier colonial period and, especially, the French & Indian War (sorry, couldn't resist! I mean, the Seven Years' War). And I know people whose loyalist ancestors were in those North Carolina enclaves.
I am most fortunate of all to be in a place where alternative religious communities are pretty commonplace; Amish folks live eight miles up the road from me, Mennonites too, Jacobite Brethren, you name it. I'm Evangelical United Brethren, myself, which basically puts me one step away from Quaker. Thanks for a fascinating discussion! Bye now.
Hope you don't mind I was eavesdropping. With fascination. And I am surprised and a bit upset to hear that the American take on the... um, we call it the Revolutionary War? Well, I have always just assumed that England would feel differently about it than what I was taught in my history classes in gradeschool. Quite startling!
It's alarming, in both England (where I attended high school) and in Scotland (where I've lived since 1983 – my father is Scots). (Something that permanently bugs me re: the way some – not all – Americans regard the war, is that they seem to think 'Britain' is synonymous with England, and express surprise when I point out the role of the Scots servicemen, colonial administrators and Loyalist settlers.)
We do use "Benedict Arnold" as a catch-all insult for someone who's a traitor, but that's just to be expected, no?
No, not necessarily. I think in part it's because (despite its size and power) US identity seems quite an insecure thing. It frets about not being liked, and in popular discourse, it treats the war more as a foundation myth, or a pantomime, with capital-letter Goodies and Baddies, than as history. It also has to keep repeating the myth, to initiate new generations of immigrants into the identity, so the past never gets time to 'settle'.
By contrast, something that may seem bizarre here is the fact that James Graham of Montrose, who changed sides in mid-Civil War (1640s) and sacked Aberdeen twice, with a different army on each occasion, is popularly regarded as a "romantic hero" (except possibly in Aberdeen! ;-D). I suspect having a flattering Honthorst portrait and a few romanticised historical novels about him has something to do with it. I always preferred his rival, then opponent, Archibald Campbell of Argyll: less glamorous, but culturally more interesting, as a traditional Highland chief who also ended up effectively running all of Scotland.
Interestingly enough, I also crossed swords with Ian (the history teacher) over Montrose. We were on the committee of a Scottish cultural society together in the 1990s. The town of Montrose was getting a statue of the man, and Ian said that was the kind of initiative we should be supporting. I pointed out his dubious track-record. Ian (definitely of the "wrong but wromantic" Cavalier persuasion) said, "he didn't really" change sides (the implication being they changed around him, and he was passive. Yeah. Right.). However, much to my amusement, the delegate from Aberdeen was nodding sagely at my objections!
And as to the American war, it's alarming how much attention is spent fussing over a few prominent emigrants on the Rebel side (even ones of dubious character), while our own guys are ignored. It's about tourist dollars, essentially. Popular history here, especially in Scotland, is primarily geared to giving tourists what they want, not necessarily anything connected with reality: look at the way Stirlingshire has milked the loathsome Braveheart cash-cow for all it's worth.
I hate to say it, but my ancestors in Scotland were among the Children of the Mist, and therefore don't have anything positive to say about "Campbell of Argyll."
I'm more likely to admire the Scotsman who helped Charles II in the Restoration about fifteen years later. As a consequence, the new king promptly cancelled all the proscriptions against that clan in Scotland. [But they were, sadly, restored when James II was kicked out by the so-called "Glorious Revolution" in 1688.]
I was told that that might be acceptable in a scholarly journal, but not in an alumnus magazine. (Which is read by graduates?!)
So it might, but I hate it when money is the determining factor, rather than the scholarship or the historical truth.
When I remarked publicly on the irony/poor taste of commemorating Wilson (who, as part of the Congress, refused to talk to the Peace Commission – the secretary of which was another alumnus – in 1778) with a peace-themed event, the US postgrad who was organising it told me that the university's dependence on American student fees gave them the right to dictate which parts of its history it celebrated. (Said student was the bridge-partner of the then-Principal's wife.)
Thank'ee. I just celebrated my day of independence by working. Now I'm going home to contemplate free will.
Actually, I had a couple interesting conversations with coworkers today. One was with a fellow whose dad emigrated from Nicaragua, who is visibly Latino, and who is a hellfire right-wing capitalist by-your-own-bootstraps-or-starve kind of guy. He's a decent fellow under all that, but his politics confuse me. As Dave was preparing magazines for the sorting machien I was running, I was chatting with him about his kids (both doing well, one graduating this year as a civil engineer and the other working on a degree in drafting), and he'd just commented that you always want your kids to do better than you have done, and even though we have good jobs we technically work in unskilled labor... and a union magazine fell into view, next in line to be prepped. Obama was on the cover. Suddenly our nice chat turned into a political tussle, with me spending the next fifteen minutes (or longer) trying to end it and get out of range before I got too mad to be civil. Eventually my machine jammed, and I simply had to walk away. Meanwhile, Dave kept bringing up half-thought-out points about Obama being a socialist (which he isn't; I know plenty of socialists, and Obama is much too mainstream!) and other areas of thouight, and I kept pointing out that I didn't know the data and would have to research it before I could answer him. I also pointed out at least three times (sincerely) that I didn't agree with him at all, and didn't care, as that's what our country embraced: diverse opinion, free speech. Dave seemed to keep getting more upset. I was confused.
Later on, I chatted with Burlyn for about fifteen minutes. Quite a difference. Burlyn's family has been in the US for over 200 years. I dunno how we got on the exact topic, but tonight I further learned that his mother's grandmother had been freed in Houston, and others in his mother's line had made landfall at Galveston. I'd mentioned the weird chat with Dave to him, I think that started us talking. Burlyn and Dave are coworkers and pretty much friends. Burlyn wears an Obama button on his hat! Dave is a Rush Limbaugh "ditto-head"! Burlyn mentioned to me that Dave gets louder whenever he isn't winning the points in the conversation -- that sure explained why Dave wouldn't let me just "agree to disagree" and walk away: he had to keep trying to win. Well, I wasn't in it to fight, so what was there to win?
The neatest thing of the evening (apart from gaining that insight, thanks to Burlyn) was that I learned that Burlyn's dad's family -- the great-great-whatever grandfather -- had never been anyone's property. He'd been a soldier in Napoleon's army, and when Napoleon left for Egypt, his enlistment had been up and he opted to stay in New Orleans. Which is where Burlyn's family mostly resides, and has resided for generations. He has the niftiest accent. And very dark skin indeed. He said his father's great-great in Napoleon's army had been from a French colony in Africa. I think that's pretty cool. I now have a friend with a known Napoleon connection! Whoa!
Actually, Burlyn and I got started on our odd conversation because I told him about Dave's unwillingness to let me stop talking, hoping to find that he had some insight, and he ended up telling me that another coworker, a woman married to a Christian minister, had once gotten annoyed with him and told him to go back where he came from. Which surprised me, even knowing the source, an airhead if ever one walked the earth, but still! So I just laughed and said to him, "Where, New Orleans? Have a nice trip! Where'd her people come from, England? And how long ago?" And then I found out Burlyn's folks are older in this country than mine (1797, for me).
Yeah, it takes all kinds to make a world. And I, for one, won't try to stop the rest of them from speaking their piece... well, not unless I have to go tend my machine! And not unless they try to force me to agree with them. Yeah, Dave's still a friend, but... come on, now. What a boring world it would be if we all thought the same way.
They try to say America is a melting pot, but it's more like Stone Soup.
Interesting commentary on things American. It's particularly interesting, as I used to be very right-wing as well, though I tended to "live-and-let-live" as far as political issues are concerned. [It doesn't help when one set of relatives are Bible-thumping fundamentalists, which I am not.] In recent years, I have become rather more liberal, but I still have Libertarian leanings at times. However, I utterly detest what the neo-conservatives have done to politics (and philosophical debates) on *both* sides of the border; I regret voting for Mike Harris (I only did it once) and refuse to vote for the modern Canadian Conservatives (who are now a mere replica of the US Republicans).
My actual transformation from mirrored-thinking to my own thinking came between 1976, when I was one year too young to vote in the presidential election but would have voted for Gerald Ford, the Republican, over Jimmy Carter, who won that year; until 1980, when I voted for Carter over Reagan, but Carter lost. And since then has become a great man indeed, while Reagan's legacy is the current socio-economic disaster of the American lower classes. Read Naomi Klein -- Disaster Capitalism.
Libertarian, I can respect. Current conservatives, I think are ostly fools. You have working-class people voting to keep millionaires in public office so that they can keep giving government contracts to their cronies. Duh!
Racially speaking, any First Nations person will have had ancestors who were 'here' a lot longer than any white or black person. And even so it doesn't matter in the least, or at least, not to me. Which is not to say that the first people here (by, oh, 10,000 years or more) shouldn't be treated as well as anyone else - in both countries.
I love any kind of tie to the Napoleonic era. A long time ago now. 200 years. Cool.
This message seems so very long ago. I've had so much happen since we wrote all this.
I like the simple and sensible idea that First Nations people were simply here earlier, period. I was miffed at the news, not that long ago, that some tribes in the Pacific Northwest were trying to block scientific study of the skeleton known as Kennebec Man because it might show that he was not born there, but came from somewhere else, and that that would make the natives... uh, not native after all. What an insipid idea, fromn start to finish! The thing is, there are sonme dunderheaded bigots who would latch onto that to prove that the natives don't really deserve any "special treatment." Not that the special treatment that they've had at the European immigrants' hands has been stellar anyway.
Yeah, Napoleonic era. Burlyn is one cool individual. Plus, he still has his Louisiana accent. He's just about the darkest-skinned person I've ever met, too, apart from a foreign student from Niger, back when I was an undergraduate.
I like the simple and sensible idea that First Nations people were simply here earlier, period.
Well... they were. What other ways are there of looking at it?
We all deserve 'special treatment', which is to say we deserve our invidual rights. The problem is in determining what those rights are. And of sorting out individual needs vs. group needs, which is usually impossible.
Yeah, some folks in my country seem to be trying to say that "here first" has to mean "always here," or I don't really know what the big fuss is all about. And, yeah, we all do deserve basic rights -- that, again, is a hard idea for some people to get their consciousness around, alas.
I was watching Obama's big speech last night. He hit all the points that the Republicans will be attacking him on. One of the points: non-het people need to be respected, and protected under the law, and allowed basic human rights such as being allowed to attend to lvoed ones in the hospital. And the camera panned (as it had been doing) to one face, and I was quite surprised that the woman just mouthed the word "No" and kept a steady gaze on Obama. Well, bigots exist everywhere, eh?
One thing: the audience at that convention was as diverse as the human race. Every age, skin color, and other variation -- all were there. I doubt that the Republican convention will look so diverse, more's the pity, as it's still my party and I long for the days of Lincoln, or at least for the days before the extremists took it over....
Logically speaking, no one - no group of people - was 'here first' unless we're talking about the Olduvai Gorge. And even if we are - there's always some protohumanid or amoeba who was earlier. I don't see the point in worrying about it!
bigots exist everywhere, eh?
I'd like to think they don't. And that their numbers are shrinking.
Why do you think of Republicans as your party, when you don't believe in anything they say?
I'd also like to believe that bigots are fewer in number now. I certainly have fewer of them to deal with at work -- so few that I could name each one, were I that indiscrete.
Why do you think of Republicans as your party, when you don't believe in anything they say?
I don't think of current Republicans as my party. I think of the Republican Party as my party. The current loud-talking, backward-thinking, exclusive and judgemental "Republicans" are not my party. My party is the party of Abraham Lincoln! I want my party to remember itself and throw out these narrow-minded bigots.
I just found out that McCain's vice president pick, Gov. Palin of Alaska, is so totally anti-choice that she does not even approve of abortion in the case of rape or incest. And she thinks that abstinence-only sex education should be the only thing taught in schools. And that creationism should be taught in schools. And this is the woman that they are trying to tell us we should vote for if we wanted Hillary Clinton as Democratic nominee, and hate the idea of Obama? Hillary is totally pro-choice, and not a nitwit. I still have no idea why she accepted the endorsement of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper, owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, who spent ten years of his life trying to dig up dirt on Pres. Clinton -- just a right-wing ploy to confuse all of us. Working, too.
I don't know what that means. I don't know anything about mid-19th-century American history, except I know Lincoln was around for the Civil War, and was assassinated, and had a good hat. I know he is revered by Americans. I didn't know he was Republican and I'm really sure what a Repubican is (in the abstract or in theory) compared to a Democrat.
I don't know what that means. I don't know anything about mid-19th-century American history, except I know Lincoln was around for the Civil War, and was assassinated, and had a good hat.
Well, there you go. It's the hat.
I know he is revered by Americans. I didn't know he was Republican and I'm really sure what a Repubican is (in the abstract or in theory) compared to a Democrat.
He was the first Republican president. He stood for universal (man) suffrage, and total abolition of chattel slavery. And he was murdered for it.
These days, the two major parties are mostly alike. Except that, recently, the Republican Party has gone over to right-wing intolerant so-called Christianity and anti-choice and pro-capital-punishment and, most upsetting indeed, betterment of the monied classes instead of helping everyone try to get level in life. The Democratic Party is accused of being socialist (amusing, that) because they want the lower classes to be given help, and want universal health care, and want the rich to pay fair taxes so that all the government programs for the lower classes are funded.
Palin sounds kind of weird.
Yeah. I'd say. And she's now on the cover of this week's People magazine with her "baby with Down Synsrome," which reminds me that I want to check out what the disability rights people have to say about her. It seems she's in the "pity me, I'm doing such a commendable job pretending that my Down baby is human too" frame of mind, and I was very disgusted to see the cover story. Ugh.
I'm glad I don't have tv sservice: these next two months, I don't wanna have to deal with the campaign ads!
Democrats sound good to me. I don't understand why your whole country isn't rioting in the streets to demand health care. Why they don't even seem to think it's a good thing, let alone their right as a human and a citizen. I guess I don't need to understand.
I wouldn't want to see the campaign ads either. With any luck, if they come my way, I can fast-forward through them. I'm sure that I'll hear more than I want to about it all anyway.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 03:19 pm (UTC)I plan to celebrate American independence today by eating veggie summer rolls and deep fried tofu at Zao (http://www.zaonoodle.com/), and then watching an old friend go Imelda at
I plan to celebrate American independence today by eating veggie summer rolls and deep fried tofu at <a href="http://www.zaonoodle.com/">Zao</a>, and then watching an old friend go Imelda at <a href="http://www.dsw.com/"DSW</a>. Then I plan to come home and turn on everything that can possibly make enough noise to mask the sounds of the neighborhood kids going bugfuck with illegal fireworks until sunrise (since today is Friday, the parents will turn into kids, too, I'm afraid, and it'll go on all night...)
I hope you had a great Canada Day.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 08:32 pm (UTC)It's a wonderful excuse - the best. Go with it!
veggie summer rolls
What are they?
deep fried tofu
Yum!
to mask the sounds of the neighborhood kids going bugfuck with illegal fireworks until sunrise
Wow - that makes things here sound so tame. You people are wild and crazy!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 06:09 pm (UTC)2. I was horrified when a colleague said a neighbour of hers was having a 4th July party. A radio station was also doing 4th July promotions. Why are people here pretending to be Americans? They're dancing on the graves of our own people. Of people I love. Of a member of my family who was tortured and forced to become a refugee (a story many Canadians share). But there is silence on their stories over here.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 06:40 pm (UTC)Always.
And it's the birthday of Horatio Hornblower, so I give a smile and a wave to one of my older fandoms.
Why are people here pretending to be Americans?
I've no idea. As far as I know, everyone here more or less ignores the occasion, except to wish American friends well. Maybe it's the 'any excuse for a party' syndrome? Or a kind of perverse fascination? Or the ubiquitous presence of US culture?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 06:59 pm (UTC)On
I've no idea. As far as I know, everyone here more or less ignores the occasion, except to wish American friends well.
I find that a tad perverse, given how long the bastards kept trying to invade you folk!
Maybe it's the 'any excuse for a party' syndrome? Or a kind of perverse fascination? Or the ubiquitous presence of US culture?
I think that a lot of our history is glossed over deliberately, so that we will be good little poodles in their foreign policy ventures, and not kick up a fuss about airbases & c in this country over which our Ministry of Defence has no control at all… People aren't taught about our side of the American War. Had I not had Loyalist ancestors, I wouldn't have known anything about it. Schools peddle the US version of events: whoever wins is 'right'. Statues get put up to people like the religious nutjob Witherspoon, who went to Princeton to get away from people like Hume, while the likes of Pattie have no memorial and are pretty well forgotten outside the realm of military history enthusiasts. Nor is there any memorial in Edinburgh to Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe, the Massachusetts Loyalist who, as a General in the British Army, saved Canada at Queenston Heights, after Brock fell: he retired to Edinburgh, and is buried in Calton cemetery. His relatives (Australians) sent me pics of his grave a few years ago: it was in very poor state.
I'll e-mail you a piece I wrote for The Loyalist Gazette about the manipulation of 18C history in the interests of the tourist trade over here.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 08:39 pm (UTC)Excellent. Thank you.
I find that a tad perverse, given how long the bastards kept trying to invade you folk!
American/Canadian relations are a complex and often touchy subject. Americans generally don't notice Canadians much and Canadians feel safest that way.
People aren't taught about our side of the American War.
That seems bizarre. We got it all from the Canadian point of view.
'll e-mail you a piece I wrote for The Loyalist Gazette about the manipulation of 18C history in the interests of the tourist trade over here.
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 09:21 pm (UTC)At high school in England in the late '70s-early '80s, we never even heard that there was a British or Loyalist viewpoint. And things haven't changed: several years ago, I was discussing the subject with an acquaintance who was a high school history teacher (I was explaining to him what I was researching at the time - I was then working on the Pattie book and Willie Leslie article). He was teaching the American War as a Sixth Year special subject (for 17-18 year olds), and even encouraging them to identify with the Rebels. He had no idea about the Highland Loyalist communities in New York and the Carolinas, or about the major role of Scots servicemen (a quarter of the army at the time). Quite simply, he did not know they existed. And he was teaching the subject!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 08:54 am (UTC)Part of the problem with this subject area is that the majority of books available on the subject at a popular level (most likely to be used by teachers) are US-produced, and tend towards the flag-wavy. Canadian books such as Moore's The Loyalists don't tend to make it into British bookshops. The irony would be funny if it wasn't so damaging. I'm a European: I have no wish to be part of "the 51st state", but it seems that a lot of the popular press and other media here want to brainwash people into that.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 04:22 pm (UTC)Bravo. I certainly felt, when I was living in England (Gloucester & Bristol, between late 2003 and Aug. 2005) that the media was doing exactly that, and it bothered me. I get the impression that all (or almost all) of the media in Britain are run by Americans.
I had a (probably idealized) view of Britain from what I knew of it during the 60s and 70s. Actually seeing it when I lived there was a surprise and I felt rather sad. I also felt (though I could be wrong) an under-current of resentment towards this Americo-centric view point, but it was definitely hard to detect from the media.
OTOH, my accent was irredeemably North American and everyone I knew thought I was a Yank, except for a few who could recognize a Canuck accent.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 06:27 pm (UTC)In Academic circles, American scholarship was not admired, but I couldn't tell about popular culture. The only aspect of American culture I wanted - and craved, and sought out with a passion - was American comic books, which I had some trouble finding - this being before the days of having a Forbidden Planet on Oxford street. Aaah, how we had to rough it in those days.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 12:59 am (UTC)Scholars aren't supposed to be controversial?
they thought that even outlining the careers of several alumni (and children of alumni) who served their country, rather than one drop-out who was in the Rebel congress (and died in America while being investigated for dodgy financial dealings in 1798!), might put off donations from American alumni.
So it might, but I hate it when money is the determining factor, rather than the scholarship or the historical truth.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 03:43 am (UTC)The tales of loyalists are not quietly ignored, here; it's fairly well known that one-third of the population of the Colonies was loyal to the King, and only about one-third wanted to separate, with the remaining third being uninterested or just otherwise neutral. We do use "Benedict Arnold" as a catch-all insult for someone who's a traitor, but that's just to be expected, no?
Perhaps I am fortunate to live in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which has a thriving element of re-enactors, all of whom are slavishly devoted to historical research. I myself am partial to not just the Revolution, but also to the earlier colonial period and, especially, the French & Indian War (sorry, couldn't resist! I mean, the Seven Years' War). And I know people whose loyalist ancestors were in those North Carolina enclaves.
I am most fortunate of all to be in a place where alternative religious communities are pretty commonplace; Amish folks live eight miles up the road from me, Mennonites too, Jacobite Brethren, you name it. I'm Evangelical United Brethren, myself, which basically puts me one step away from Quaker. Thanks for a fascinating discussion! Bye now.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 09:50 am (UTC)It's alarming, in both England (where I attended high school) and in Scotland (where I've lived since 1983 – my father is Scots). (Something that permanently bugs me re: the way some – not all – Americans regard the war, is that they seem to think 'Britain' is synonymous with England, and express surprise when I point out the role of the Scots servicemen, colonial administrators and Loyalist settlers.)
We do use "Benedict Arnold" as a catch-all insult for someone who's a traitor, but that's just to be expected, no?
No, not necessarily. I think in part it's because (despite its size and power) US identity seems quite an insecure thing. It frets about not being liked, and in popular discourse, it treats the war more as a foundation myth, or a pantomime, with capital-letter Goodies and Baddies, than as history. It also has to keep repeating the myth, to initiate new generations of immigrants into the identity, so the past never gets time to 'settle'.
By contrast, something that may seem bizarre here is the fact that James Graham of Montrose, who changed sides in mid-Civil War (1640s) and sacked Aberdeen twice, with a different army on each occasion, is popularly regarded as a "romantic hero" (except possibly in Aberdeen! ;-D). I suspect having a flattering Honthorst portrait and a few romanticised historical novels about him has something to do with it. I always preferred his rival, then opponent, Archibald Campbell of Argyll: less glamorous, but culturally more interesting, as a traditional Highland chief who also ended up effectively running all of Scotland.
Interestingly enough, I also crossed swords with Ian (the history teacher) over Montrose. We were on the committee of a Scottish cultural society together in the 1990s. The town of Montrose was getting a statue of the man, and Ian said that was the kind of initiative we should be supporting. I pointed out his dubious track-record. Ian (definitely of the "wrong but wromantic" Cavalier persuasion) said, "he didn't really" change sides (the implication being they changed around him, and he was passive. Yeah. Right.). However, much to my amusement, the delegate from Aberdeen was nodding sagely at my objections!
And as to the American war, it's alarming how much attention is spent fussing over a few prominent emigrants on the Rebel side (even ones of dubious character), while our own guys are ignored. It's about tourist dollars, essentially. Popular history here, especially in Scotland, is primarily geared to giving tourists what they want, not necessarily anything connected with reality: look at the way Stirlingshire has milked the loathsome Braveheart cash-cow for all it's worth.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 05:04 pm (UTC)I'm more likely to admire the Scotsman who helped Charles II in the Restoration about fifteen years later. As a consequence, the new king promptly cancelled all the proscriptions against that clan in Scotland. [But they were, sadly, restored when James II was kicked out by the so-called "Glorious Revolution" in 1688.]
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-06 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-06 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 08:58 am (UTC)I was told that that might be acceptable in a scholarly journal, but not in an alumnus magazine. (Which is read by graduates?!)
So it might, but I hate it when money is the determining factor, rather than the scholarship or the historical truth.
When I remarked publicly on the irony/poor taste of commemorating Wilson (who, as part of the Congress, refused to talk to the Peace Commission – the secretary of which was another alumnus – in 1778) with a peace-themed event, the US postgrad who was organising it told me that the university's dependence on American student fees gave them the right to dictate which parts of its history it celebrated. (Said student was the bridge-partner of the then-Principal's wife.)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 02:41 pm (UTC)I would think intelligent literate adults could handle it, whatever the venue!
(Said student was the bridge-partner of the then-Principal's wife.)
Faugh. A sell-out.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 09:08 pm (UTC)Thank you. I am excited to see friends and fireworks and be proud of my nationality, with all its flaws and honors, as should we all.
Happy belated Canada Day!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 10:43 pm (UTC)And so it might, poor thing!
Have fun.
All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-07-05 03:26 am (UTC)Actually, I had a couple interesting conversations with coworkers today. One was with a fellow whose dad emigrated from Nicaragua, who is visibly Latino, and who is a hellfire right-wing capitalist by-your-own-bootstraps-or-starve kind of guy. He's a decent fellow under all that, but his politics confuse me. As Dave was preparing magazines for the sorting machien I was running, I was chatting with him about his kids (both doing well, one graduating this year as a civil engineer and the other working on a degree in drafting), and he'd just commented that you always want your kids to do better than you have done, and even though we have good jobs we technically work in unskilled labor... and a union magazine fell into view, next in line to be prepped. Obama was on the cover. Suddenly our nice chat turned into a political tussle, with me spending the next fifteen minutes (or longer) trying to end it and get out of range before I got too mad to be civil. Eventually my machine jammed, and I simply had to walk away. Meanwhile, Dave kept bringing up half-thought-out points about Obama being a socialist (which he isn't; I know plenty of socialists, and Obama is much too mainstream!) and other areas of thouight, and I kept pointing out that I didn't know the data and would have to research it before I could answer him. I also pointed out at least three times (sincerely) that I didn't agree with him at all, and didn't care, as that's what our country embraced: diverse opinion, free speech. Dave seemed to keep getting more upset. I was confused.
Later on, I chatted with Burlyn for about fifteen minutes. Quite a difference. Burlyn's family has been in the US for over 200 years. I dunno how we got on the exact topic, but tonight I further learned that his mother's grandmother had been freed in Houston, and others in his mother's line had made landfall at Galveston. I'd mentioned the weird chat with Dave to him, I think that started us talking. Burlyn and Dave are coworkers and pretty much friends. Burlyn wears an Obama button on his hat! Dave is a Rush Limbaugh "ditto-head"! Burlyn mentioned to me that Dave gets louder whenever he isn't winning the points in the conversation -- that sure explained why Dave wouldn't let me just "agree to disagree" and walk away: he had to keep trying to win. Well, I wasn't in it to fight, so what was there to win?
The neatest thing of the evening (apart from gaining that insight, thanks to Burlyn) was that I learned that Burlyn's dad's family -- the great-great-whatever grandfather -- had never been anyone's property. He'd been a soldier in Napoleon's army, and when Napoleon left for Egypt, his enlistment had been up and he opted to stay in New Orleans. Which is where Burlyn's family mostly resides, and has resided for generations. He has the niftiest accent. And very dark skin indeed. He said his father's great-great in Napoleon's army had been from a French colony in Africa. I think that's pretty cool. I now have a friend with a known Napoleon connection! Whoa!
Actually, Burlyn and I got started on our odd conversation because I told him about Dave's unwillingness to let me stop talking, hoping to find that he had some insight, and he ended up telling me that another coworker, a woman married to a Christian minister, had once gotten annoyed with him and told him to go back where he came from. Which surprised me, even knowing the source, an airhead if ever one walked the earth, but still! So I just laughed and said to him, "Where, New Orleans? Have a nice trip! Where'd her people come from, England? And how long ago?" And then I found out Burlyn's folks are older in this country than mine (1797, for me).
Yeah, it takes all kinds to make a world. And I, for one, won't try to stop the rest of them from speaking their piece... well, not unless I have to go tend my machine! And not unless they try to force me to agree with them. Yeah, Dave's still a friend, but... come on, now. What a boring world it would be if we all thought the same way.
They try to say America is a melting pot, but it's more like Stone Soup.
And Canada is the Great Mosaic [g]. I like that.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-07-05 04:58 pm (UTC)YMMV, of course.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-07-06 04:54 am (UTC)Libertarian, I can respect. Current conservatives, I think are ostly fools. You have working-class people voting to keep millionaires in public office so that they can keep giving government contracts to their cronies. Duh!
Yes. YMMV, indeed. Thanks for listening!
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-08-14 07:58 pm (UTC)Racially speaking, any First Nations person will have had ancestors who were 'here' a lot longer than any white or black person. And even so it doesn't matter in the least, or at least, not to me. Which is not to say that the first people here (by, oh, 10,000 years or more) shouldn't be treated as well as anyone else - in both countries.
I love any kind of tie to the Napoleonic era. A long time ago now. 200 years. Cool.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-08-27 04:08 am (UTC)I like the simple and sensible idea that First Nations people were simply here earlier, period. I was miffed at the news, not that long ago, that some tribes in the Pacific Northwest were trying to block scientific study of the skeleton known as Kennebec Man because it might show that he was not born there, but came from somewhere else, and that that would make the natives... uh, not native after all. What an insipid idea, fromn start to finish! The thing is, there are sonme dunderheaded bigots who would latch onto that to prove that the natives don't really deserve any "special treatment." Not that the special treatment that they've had at the European immigrants' hands has been stellar anyway.
Yeah, Napoleonic era. Burlyn is one cool individual. Plus, he still has his Louisiana accent. He's just about the darkest-skinned person I've ever met, too, apart from a foreign student from Niger, back when I was an undergraduate.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-08-27 01:23 pm (UTC)Well... they were. What other ways are there of looking at it?
We all deserve 'special treatment', which is to say we deserve our invidual rights. The problem is in determining what those rights are. And of sorting out individual needs vs. group needs, which is usually impossible.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-08-30 06:31 am (UTC)I was watching Obama's big speech last night. He hit all the points that the Republicans will be attacking him on. One of the points: non-het people need to be respected, and protected under the law, and allowed basic human rights such as being allowed to attend to lvoed ones in the hospital. And the camera panned (as it had been doing) to one face, and I was quite surprised that the woman just mouthed the word "No" and kept a steady gaze on Obama. Well, bigots exist everywhere, eh?
One thing: the audience at that convention was as diverse as the human race. Every age, skin color, and other variation -- all were there. I doubt that the Republican convention will look so diverse, more's the pity, as it's still my party and I long for the days of Lincoln, or at least for the days before the extremists took it over....
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-08-30 11:46 am (UTC)bigots exist everywhere, eh?
I'd like to think they don't. And that their numbers are shrinking.
Why do you think of Republicans as your party, when you don't believe in anything they say?
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-09-04 11:12 pm (UTC)Why do you think of Republicans as your party, when you don't believe in anything they say?
I don't think of current Republicans as my party. I think of the Republican Party as my party. The current loud-talking, backward-thinking, exclusive and judgemental "Republicans" are not my party. My party is the party of Abraham Lincoln! I want my party to remember itself and throw out these narrow-minded bigots.
I just found out that McCain's vice president pick, Gov. Palin of Alaska, is so totally anti-choice that she does not even approve of abortion in the case of rape or incest. And she thinks that abstinence-only sex education should be the only thing taught in schools. And that creationism should be taught in schools. And this is the woman that they are trying to tell us we should vote for if we wanted Hillary Clinton as Democratic nominee, and hate the idea of Obama? Hillary is totally pro-choice, and not a nitwit. I still have no idea why she accepted the endorsement of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper, owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, who spent ten years of his life trying to dig up dirt on Pres. Clinton -- just a right-wing ploy to confuse all of us. Working, too.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-09-05 01:04 pm (UTC)I don't know what that means. I don't know anything about mid-19th-century American history, except I know Lincoln was around for the Civil War, and was assassinated, and had a good hat. I know he is revered by Americans. I didn't know he was Republican and I'm really sure what a Repubican is (in the abstract or in theory) compared to a Democrat.
Palin sounds kind of weird.
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-09-06 12:29 am (UTC)Well, there you go. It's the hat.
I know he is revered by Americans. I didn't know he was Republican and I'm really sure what a Repubican is (in the abstract or in theory) compared to a Democrat.
He was the first Republican president. He stood for universal (man) suffrage, and total abolition of chattel slavery. And he was murdered for it.
These days, the two major parties are mostly alike. Except that, recently, the Republican Party has gone over to right-wing intolerant so-called Christianity and anti-choice and pro-capital-punishment and, most upsetting indeed, betterment of the monied classes instead of helping everyone try to get level in life. The Democratic Party is accused of being socialist (amusing, that) because they want the lower classes to be given help, and want universal health care, and want the rich to pay fair taxes so that all the government programs for the lower classes are funded.
Palin sounds kind of weird.
Yeah. I'd say. And she's now on the cover of this week's People magazine with her "baby with Down Synsrome," which reminds me that I want to check out what the disability rights people have to say about her. It seems she's in the "pity me, I'm doing such a commendable job pretending that my Down baby is human too" frame of mind, and I was very disgusted to see the cover story. Ugh.
I'm glad I don't have tv sservice: these next two months, I don't wanna have to deal with the campaign ads!
Re: All Kinds of American Stuff!
Date: 2008-09-06 01:53 am (UTC)Ah - I suspected as much!
Democrats sound good to me. I don't understand why your whole country isn't rioting in the streets to demand health care. Why they don't even seem to think it's a good thing, let alone their right as a human and a citizen. I guess I don't need to understand.
I wouldn't want to see the campaign ads either. With any luck, if they come my way, I can fast-forward through them. I'm sure that I'll hear more than I want to about it all anyway.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-06 04:00 am (UTC)