A List Apart is called The Web Is Like Canada, by Joe Clark. I loved the title of course, but he’s right as well – the web can often be defined by what real webfolk know it isn’t. He makes a great distinction between who runs web companies and who knows the web the best.
Official Site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games
Official Site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games! It hardly suits a cynical bastard like me to love the Olympics, but I do. Winter, Summer, whenever. The more obscure the sport the better! Luckily in Canada the CBC has tons of live coverage, not just a bunch of overproduced vignettes. And we cover all the sports, not just ones that Canadians are in – which is a whole lot of fun to watch – cause some of the other sports are unknown here (mostly).
I would love to see
MTBE banned, for sure. Based on what I’ve read, it’s nasty stuff – a gasoline additive that pollutes the water supply. But the story in the Environment News Service: Billion Dollar NAFTA Challenge To California MTBE Ban ignores a salient point. A US firm sued the Government of Canada two years ago on the exact same issue – a plan by Canada to ban another additive, MMT. The US firms used NAFTA to halt the new legislation in its tracks. They also threatened to sue the gov’t for billions on the same grounds as the Canadian firm is suing the Government of California. The story as it’s now being reported is smug and self-satisfied, painting Canadians as evil foreigners who aren’t quite as sensitive as enlightened Californians. Which is bullshit, just like it’s bullshit that the US is full of greedy opportunists who want to dispense with others’ national sovereignty while holding their own sacred and inviolate.
I think it’s
interesting that so many (now) San Franciscans who keep weblogs like Canadian music like Sloan and the Tragically Hip. Although both are fine bands with long histories, in general they are very poorly known and appreciated in the US. I wonder if I can read anything deeper into the coincidence? Probably not a good idea.
My brother, who lives in New York, told me a funny story about going to see 54:40. They were just at the tail end of a long tour – and in Canada they’ll easily fill a large hall with 2000 people or more. So they show up at a smaller place and start setting up – and their guitar techs and roadies and whatnot (not a ton of these guys, but enough) worked hard to get it all set. They’re an all-pro band. My brother was there early and overheard the bartender say, “who the fuck do these guys think they are with their entourage?” Which was pretty funny, and somewhat telling.
A huge band here (the Hip will sell out arenas and stadiums, no problem, and charge just less than Sarah McLachlan for a night) often books a 200 seat bar in many cities in the States.
In Canada many
people have, for a long time, insisted that the act of telling one’s stories is an essential part of what it is to be Canadian. I don’t know if that’s why a site like Fray makes so much sense to me, but it might be. The Great Canadian Story Engine is very different than Fray, but interesting nonetheless.
