Happy Simcoe Day, everyone!

Since those of us with cottages get to stay at them an extra day this weekend, I figure we should at least take a moment to understand why. And thanks to Craig Marlatt’s helpful page on the subject, I can tell you this:

• Toronto City Council came up with the idea of a midsummer holiday in 1869, beating England to the inauguration of their national bank holiday by two years.
• In 1969, two anagrams later, it was officially renamed “Simcoe Day” after Major-General John Graves Simcoe (above), who among other things helped to abolish slavery in this country, almost a quarter-century before the Brits and more than fifty years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the States.
• Though most of Canada has the day off—sorry Québec—the holiday goes by different names in different provinces. As a matter of fact, the “Simcoe Day” moniker only applies to the city of Toronto proper.

So if you’re outside the GTA today you can avoid any faux pas by honouring the local excuse to skip off work and drink beer.

I’m off to Bermuda for the double-holiday weekend; while I’m away I’ll leave you with the results of this University of Chicago report on the differences between patriotism between Canada and the U.S.

If you’re too lazy to click, here’s the gist of it:

Canadians rank higher regarding pride in their social security system and their treatment of different groups within their society than on any other dimensions. They ranked relatively low in their pride for their sports, arts and literature, military and history.

I’d say they’ve pretty much got our number. For me, what I love about Canada is:

1. We’re generally more tolerant and—let’s face it—smarter than Americans.
2. We wouldn’t dream for a even a moment that we’re the center of the universe.

And here’s what I hate:

1. Like Americans (and others), we’re generally complacent and lazy, too self-absorbed in the myopia in our everyday lives to care about big important stuff.
2. When it comes to our art and culture we have a huge inferiority complex, and neither our broadcasters or government are doing much to help.

How about you? Share your loves/hates in the comments section, and lets see what we can do to make our goddamn beer-drinkin’, butter tart-eatin’, hockey-watchin’ country an even better place to live!

I was a little surprised to see this covered by an organization that also falls under the Bell Globemedia empire; nonetheless, yesterday’s Globe & Mail carried news that Bell Sympatico is logging the internet activities of its users, and has been doing it since June 22nd!

As a subscriber to the other media empire’s internet service I can’t be too smug, as Bell’s snooping is apparently in advance of a Canada-wide Internet Surveillance Bill coming down the pipe. Of course such legislation will protect us all from terrorists and pedophiles—oh, and perhaps make Steven Harper and his cronies some extra cash when they sell our individual surfing habits to advertisers and data-mining companies…

(I was going to use the headline “Chart the Future Course of Canadian Politics for Ten Bucks”, but “Save the World” had a little more ‘zazz…)

Both The Al Gore Movie and a television documentary by Polar Guide Paul Rose that was on last night carry the warning that a sudden global rise in temperature of just two degrees will have a catastrophic effect on our planet, including but not limited to the decimation of coastal urban centres like Manhattan and Shanghai by massive flooding.

So what can you do?

Well, lots of things, but the easiest way to get started is to join your local Green Party. Doing so will put you in the exclusive company of hyper-intelligent and mega-relevant members of society, like me! Plus, if you live in Canada and join by tomorrow you’ll have a say in our leadership election next month. It’s worth participating in, as the race is shaping up to be a close one between Elizabeth May and David Chernushenko.

After watching the English leadership debate over the weekend via CPAC, it became apparent to me that third candidate Jim Fannon has pretty much taken himself out of the picture, using most of his on-air time as a drive for new members. As for the front-runners, Chernushenko is certainly as slick as any of the “big four” party leaders, while May has the pedigree of almost two decades of service in The Sierra Club of Canada.

So who will I be voting for? Could the link at the top of this post be a clue?

Today’s your day to hassle to RIAA!

Defective by Design is today organizing “Freedom Rings”, a worldwide campaign against restrictive copyright on music purchases.

Click here for their list of phone targets, keeping in mind that a carefully thought-out voicemail will probably have more impact than leaving the message “you suck”.

I’ll be calling Graham Henderson of the CRIA later this afternoon, from my local HMV…

No, it’s not a porn site!

In addition to my continuing duties at iLaugh.com I’ve been tapped by CoEd Communications to participate in the redesign of EcoVoyageurs.ca, the environmental impact site for kids that’s part of the middle school curriculum in many provinces across Canada.

It’s a noble endeavour that will hopefully keep me from reneging on my promise to be carbon neutral in my air travels this year…

Well, at least we’ve saved the planet from Luba Goy…

Today’s National Post—a newspaper that nobody even in Canada reads—has some telling statistics about Canadian culture as perceived by the rest of the world:

When asked the cultural products and services most often associated with Canada, the top six responses were: sports (22.2%), films (18.2%), museums (17.1%), pop videos (16.3%), classical sculpture (8.7%) and the circus (6.5%).

It’s too bad that such bad news was included in an otherwise positive report on our Great White North being the third most popular destination for international tourists. I guess they really do come for the maple syrup, eh?

I’ll say right up front that I was already a bit fired up from last night’s viewing of Why We Fight when I took to this morning’s news. And yet I still can’t believe that nobody’s making a bigger deal about this…

Buried deep in this CTV Story following up on Ontario’s worst-ever mass murder is the bombshell that after tailing the eight soon-to-be-victims to the farm where they were later executed, Durham Regional Police officers simply up and left.

Once again, after previously targeting this group as having ties to the Bandidos biker gang, and suspecting that a major drug deal was about to take place, the Durham Regional Police decided to leave.

The explanation given was that the cops assumed the bikers were attending a party; the only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that they were paid off to look the other way. Of course that’s pure speculation, but if I were covering this story I don’t think I would accept such a lame excuse by law enforcement without at least a follow-up question or two!

Chalk it up to our trademark Canadian apathy, I guess… We’ll bitch and moan about anything, but when it comes time for action or accountability we fall inexplicably silent.

We think that when we kill enough Canadians, they will quit.

… Works for me!

I started thinking about this on my flight back from Bermuda. Part of the on-board “entertainment” was tech-head Dave Chalk (above-left), blathering on about the latest product from Telus—funny how most of the gear he features on his show is from Telus. Anyhoo…

When it comes to reading a teleprompter this guy is a machine. The only distressing thing about watching him is that he barely stops to take a breath, making me wonder if one day he’s just going to forget to breathe altogether and explode on-air.

I get a similar reaction watching Global Weather-guy Michael Kuss (above-right). He’s not bad-looking as far as weather-type people go and he apparently does up his own meteorological reports, which is impressive.

But the deep furrows in his brow belie his calm on-air demeanor. Through his forecast his brain seems to be elsewhere: “You people just don’t get it, do you? The fools at the Weather Academy didn’t believe me… Nobody believes me… But I tell you, global warming will kill us all!”

Maybe so but dude, relax!