Sunday, October 11, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canucks!

To my American pals, sorry you have to work tomorrow ☺

Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!
Remmi
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9 comments:

  1. MariannaOctober 11, 2009 at 5:21 PM

    HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

    It's a beautiful, sunny fall day on the west coast!

    M.

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  2. AnonymousOctober 12, 2009 at 6:00 AM

    Canucks,

    Happy Thanksgiving!!!! I LIVE for Thanksgiving. Totally. I love it.

    And, today in the States, we celebrate "our founding father", Columbus (gag). Some peeps have the day off. I now do. Part of it will be spent snuggled in my bed. :)

    Eat lotsa yums food for me (if that's your tradition...)

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  3. MariannaOctober 12, 2009 at 10:47 AM

    Happy Columbus Day, Leen. At least Columbus made an understandable error, believing himself to be in India. A couple of years before he became Prime Minister of Canada, when he was the leader of the Conservative party of Canada, Stephen Harper made this 'Columbesque' gaffe:

    Article:

    Conservative Party leadership candidate Stephen Harper had some apologizing to do after wishing an Ontario aboriginal organization a happy India Republic Day.

    "This is 2004, Mr. Harper, not 1492 -- the last time a man got lost looking for India," said Rick Lobzun, president of the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, in a letter dated Wednesday.

    "Look what has happened to the aboriginal population ... since then."

    India Republic is celebrated each Jan. 26 to mark the when India's constitution took effect, making it fully independent from British rule.

    In India, it is an occasion used to celebrate the achievements of Mahatma Gandhi and other nation-builders.

    There is no connection to First Nations peoples in Canada.

    "As you partake in cultural festivities and events, which honour your ancestors and celebrate your heritage, I am pleased to pay tribute to the members of the Indian community in Canada. I salute you for your important and long-standing contributions to the economic and cultural vitality of our wonderful country, and offer you my best wishes for the year ahead," Harper wrote Jan. 26 on House of Commons letterhead.

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  4. MariannaOctober 12, 2009 at 10:49 AM

    Oh and, yes, we eat traditional 'yums': Last night we had roast turkey with all the trimmings and pumpkin pie!

    M.

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  5. AnonymousOctober 12, 2009 at 1:03 PM

    Even if I don't eat turkey, doesn't prevent the large puddle of drool that's now on my table :) Ya know I'll be wrting a full post about Thanksgiving come November ;)

    M, your article reminds me of a book, The People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Sometime in the late 90s, a few American scholars decided to set history straight that, to date, had often, if not only, been told from the white male's perspective. The gross exaggerations and mis-attributions our history gives to the white male at the expense of minorities was staggering.

    Included in said book is a not so glamorous pic of Columbus. He not only missed India by a long shot, he missed moral rectitude by a solar system. Granted, it was guts-out competitive back in the day when the earth was flat. I'll give him that.

    Eat some pumpkin pie for me. Yesterday, I traipsed through pumpkin vines with little kids in tow. Pretty great day.

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  6. tall oakOctober 12, 2009 at 8:07 PM

    While we're on the topic, consider the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen. He is a historian who reviewed all the major high school U.S. history textbooks and concluded that they were not only wildly inaccurate but deliberately deceptive, always with a white pro-American bias. It's a disturbing read.

    As for the "flat Earth" myth (no mariner has believed that for thousands of years), it's interesting to see globes created at the time of Columbus. The width of the Atlantic is roughly accurate and on the other side of it is Asia! Some geographers miscalculated the circumference of the Earth by a large factor.

    I hope all our northern friends had a good Thanksgiving!

    Jim

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  7. MariannaOctober 13, 2009 at 7:41 PM

    Interesting book, Jim! I googled it and read part of it. It's on my "to-read" list -- which is getting longer as my free time shrinks...

    Interesting conversation about heroes and character flaws. Not condoning the morally bankrupt behaviour of people we classify as heroes; just saying that every hero we have is human and therefore cannot help but be flawed.

    Even Gandhi was not the best father and husband and Mother Theresa revealed that she had lost her faith in God.

    Do we separate the hero from the person or do they come as a package deal?

    M.

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  8. tall oakOctober 13, 2009 at 8:40 PM

    There was a trend many years back for biographies to debunk heroes as unworthy of our admiration. About ten years ago a batch of excellent biographies became popular in the U.S. about the American Founding Fathers. These books took lengths to give balanced treatments of their lives within the cultural and historical context they lived in. It was a welcome change.

    On the other hand, Columbus really was a piece of work. From all I've read he was cruel even by the particularly low standards of adventurers of his day. I lost all interest in celebrating a holiday in his honor.

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  9. MariannaOctober 15, 2009 at 6:47 PM

    Hi Jim,

    Agreed about Columbus.

    I think it's okay for heroes to be human and therefore, flawed, but low-lives cannot be and should never be idolized.

    He can be famous for accidentally 'discovering' America but let's not put him on a pedestal, then.

    I don't think he is a hero to Canadians at all. We don't have a day, or anything, in his honour, as far as I know.

    M.

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