Worst cabinet since Caligula

Notes from the once-friendly North

This cheeky political commentary on the marquee of The Penthouse led to the suspension of the strip club's X account. Read the story.

How do you get a bunch of Canadians out of a swimming pool? The answer is simple: you ask them politely to get out of the pool.

That’s “Canadian nice.”

But you know what happens if the nicest, calmest, most forebearing person in your life gets really mad. They get really, really, really mad because it’s something that is a really big deal.

My friend Marius Grinius, who was once Canada's Permanent Representative to the UN, has been sending news and commentary from across the border. This seems the right day to share some of it, since the new Liberal prime minister Mark Carney is calling the next election.

I knew Carney’s name before he ran for Liberal Party leader because he is the author of Value(s): Building a Better World for All, which I ordered when it came out. The blurb intrigued me: a former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor writing about the “Global Financial Crisis, the Global Health Crisis, Climate Change and the 4th Industrial Revolution.”

Perhaps more to the point today is the fact that carney played hockey for Harvard.

Hockey is, writes Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic, “a sport that would have pleased the emperors and blood-crazed plebeians and patricians of ancient Rome if they could only have figured out how to build an ice rink in the Colosseum.”

Marius explains “‘gloves off’ as the technical description of a frank and fraternal disagreement between two hockey players. Now to that hockey folklore add ‘Elbows up, Canada,’ as recently raised by Canadian Mike Myers on SNL and attributed to Detroit Red Wings hero Gordie Howe.”

A few more tidbits from Marius:

On Trump's choices for various Secretary positions: "The worst since Caligula.” —Andrew Coyne, CBC and Globe & Mail

Anti-US rallies in Canada have popular support. The Cdn cry: "Elbows up, Canada."

Letters to the Ottawa Citizen (right of centre and normally Trumpist populist):

• "The US is not a trusted partner and there is little evidence that this will change soon."

• "Americans slipping into dictatorship."

Other letters recommend attracting more US professionals to Canada. British Columbia is setting up a program to entice US doctors and nurses.

Some Cdn pundits think that Trump's dismantlement of the Department of Education is a great move. Americans, already known for their lack of foreign languages and geographic knowledge, will now have a problem to take over Canada because they will not be able to find it.

Back to the US, how is a claim, by a New York Times columnist no less, that Canada should accept the inevitable and be absorbed by the US different from Putin’s claim on Ukraine?

Old Gray Lady Experiences Incontinence. Again

And this from a Republican congressman:

Baumgartner weirdly defended the idea of seizing Canada and Greenland because we’re in an “arms race versus China on artificial intelligence.” “ The AI stuff takes an immense amount of power … much more than we can supply now,” Baumgartner said. “ And so what I think is the reason that Donald Trump is so interested in talking about Greenland and Canada is because it’s with an eye on the immense amount of power that’s going to happen to all highways and to the hydro resources.”

History is instructive here: “Invading Canada Is Not Advisable. We’ve tried before. It didn’t work out,” writes Eliot Cohen in a lengthy history in The Atlantic.

Having been denied the easy way of absorbing Canada, therefore, the United States might have to try the hard way, conquering the country and administering it as a territory until it is purged of Liberals, Conservatives, and whatever the Canadian equivalent of RINOs turns out to be.

Unfortunately, we have tried this before, with dismal results. In 1775, before the United States had even formally declared independence from Great Britain, it launched an invasion of Canada, hoping to make it the 14th colony. The psychological-warfare geniuses in Congress ordered that the local farmers and villagers be distributed pamphlets—translated into French—declaring, “You have been conquered into liberty,” an interesting way of putting it. Unfortunately, the Catholic farmers and villagers were largely illiterate, and their leaders, the gentry and parish priests who could read, were solidly on the side of the British against a bunch of invading Protestants.

There were moments of brilliant leadership in this invasion, particularly in a daring autumn march through Maine to the very walls of Quebec. There was also a great deal of poltroonery and bungling. The Americans had three talented generals. The first, Richard Montgomery, got killed in the opening assault on Quebec. The second, John Thomas, died of smallpox, along with many of his men. Inoculation was possible, but, like today’s vaccine skeptics, many thought it a bad idea. Read the whole thing.

Puzzling over this bizarre piece of the spectacle that used to be US foreign policy, I came across a suggestion that Trump’s Canada obsession is the result of his being mocked the first time he brought it up. The writer thought that Musk’s obsession with Social Security was also the result of his having been mocked about the false claims and stupid errors made by his groupies. Is there any historical example of an unrelated pair like this? Even related co-leaders seem to fall out, with one having the other beheaded or thrown to the dogs.

Thinking locally, there’s a controversial memorial stone in front of the town library referring to those early battles: “Great Barrington’s Laura Ingersoll Secord: Heroine or traitor?”

Previously on The Way We Live Now

How to think globally

The World Looks at America