The result of which being that my visit to Boston, though short, was packed, and that I don’t know if I can fit it all in one entry (also, unlike my visit to New Haven two years ago, I wasn’t limping on a still-sprained ankle the whole visit).

Anyway. A cloudy day in Boston…

After finding the luggage claim area at the Boston bus station, and grabbing something to bite (a spinach/feta croissant), I head out in the streets of Boston. At this point, I’m, if not hopelessly lost, at least a bit perplexed as to my location. I’ve never been here, and I have only a vague idea (I did look at Google Map first, obviously) where I want to go. There are a few guides with what passes for maps in the train station, but they’re less than ideal.

I end up wandering my way down a commercial street past a Macy and some other stores, until I get more or less where I wanted to get, which is Boston Common, the green/park next to the Massachusetts State House. It’s a rather nice sort of park: several monuments (one particularly memorable one honoring the first regiment of black volunteers who fought in the Civil War), decorations, etc. Some of the trees have started turning red, but not so many.

Also, a rather nice-looking Merry-go-round. (One of the figures, not pictured here, is of a black cat with a fish in its mouth. Cute.

There are quite a few sights around the commons, too: a number of old buildings,offices, churches (including one that has the infamous “No, Obama is not a brown-skinned Anti-War Socialist who gives away free Health-Care…you’re thinking of Jesus” banner hanging in front of it), and the offices of the local Fox Channel (a woman – who works there, I think – stops me in the street as I’m taking picture around to ask if I’m trying to get a picture of one of the channel’s local celebrities. Quite nice woman, too.).

There’s also the State House and its surrounding monuments to a variety of people (including Daniel Webster, of “The Devil and…” fame (also various political accomplishments), and Mary Dyer, best known for being hanged in Boston over the highly reprehensible act of being a Quaker in a land full of Puritans). Like every state house in New England I’ve seen so far, it has a big golden dome. (To be fair, googling it indicate that the other two are more sensible about architectural choices like that).

It was tacky when Connecticut did it, and it's still tacky when you do it, Massachusetts.

Around that point I notice the lines on the ground indicating what I figure (rightly, it turns out) to be the Freedom Trail. Since that’s where all the cool historical monuments of Boston (including the one that tops my must-see list) are, I figure I might as well follow the yellow red brick road.

It takes me straight to an old (very old chapel, and, far more fascinating, the burial ground next to it. And the next several pictures in my camera are all pictures of the tombstones to be found there: they’re fascinating. Near all of them have some representation of death carved on them: here, a skull with wings blowing water from the top of its head (as in, like a whale),  and some far more elaborate. Several figures (the skeleton, obviously, but also a winged figure with a beard that looks like tentacles right out of a Lovecraft novel, an hourglass in hand) appear quite repetitively. Presumably the second figure represent Death, but if so it’s quite different from the images of Death I’m used to.

Here: A skeleton, chained flowers, and angel cthulhu with an hourglass.

The trail goes on, past the old city hall (and a statue of Ben Franklin), and a strange statue representing a donkey on the one side, and a pair of footmark in the ground on the other, in which an elephant is carved. I’m still debating, months later, whether the message is A) “Stand upon the elephant and resist the donkey” or B)”Trod the elephant underfoot to show your allegiance to the donkey.” Given the openly avowed political nature of the work, I’d rather not know which it is. There are more monuments, too: one to the Great Potato Famine and the Irish immigration to the New World that followed.

The road moves on, past many other historical monuments (seriously, you can’t walk go a street corner without encountering two monuments along the Freedom Trail), a tourist information center with a nice collection of revolutionary era flags (cool), and actual useful maps of the Freedom Trail and Boston in general (genius!).

The OLD State House. Note the absence of tacky golden domes.

I go on, through Quincy Market (which is a suitably huge market, considerably larger than Byward Market in Ottawa. Of course, Boston is about four time the size and three time the age of Ottawa, so this likely explains that. There are plenty of other interesting little things here: assorted old (very old) taverns and restaurants, including an Oyster House that’s been in operation for near two centuries by now).

On the other side of the Rose Kennedy Greenway (a large belt of parks along major streets/higways) the trail enters North End, a district that’s both the oldest part of Boston (it’s where Paul Revere lived, among others – his house being, of course, on the trail), and also (somewhat later in history) Boston’s version of a Little Italy (which can mostly be seen today by the large number of Italian restaurants).

The presence of a church named "Sacred Heart Italian Church" is also a tip-off.

Further along the way is a mall (not a shopping center; a park) named for Paul Revere. While the park is named for him, it honors far more than just him: there are plaque and signs honoring nearly every famous Bostonian of the first few centuries of the city, as well as plaques honoring the people of the North End who fought and died in the Revolutionary and Civil War. There is, of course, also a statue of Paul Revere riding, positioned so that the trees lining the side of the mall point straight toward the bell tower of the Old North Church (which is where the lanterns were reportedly hung to signal whether the British were coming overland or by sea). Today, the bell tower (pale white) is barely visible in the mist and clouds.

There is another memorial in this mall, and it’s by far the most touching, in my opinion. It consist of several posts strung in the ground, cords or ropes hanging between them. From each of the cord or rope hang dozens if not hundreds of blank soldier identification tags. I’m not absolutely certain, but I think it may be one for each life lost in Afghanistan and Iraq (it’s definitely honoring the dead of those two wars). One way or another, it strike me as perhaps the most tasteful way I’ve seen of honoring those who die on the battlefield.

Not a great and flashy monument: but a powerful reminder of war's cost, and a stirring memorial to those who paid it.

Past another, much larger (but with fewer of the truly fascinating sort of tombstone seen earlier) graveyard (that hold the grave of, among others, Cotton Mather), and a house right along the road with a small Quebec flag stuck to the window above the street number (I can’t help but notice that sort of thing!),  the road reaches and crosses the Charles river, giving me a first good glimpse, through the fogs and clouds, at the chief reason I decided to walk this trail.

Who, me? A naval history geek? Filthy lies!

I was going to stop this entry here, thinking, “well, this is about midway through my visit”, only looking back at my picture collection, it turns out that this was roughly three-four hours into the visit, with six-seven yet to go, so I’ll actually finish the freedom trail in this entry in that case, and keep next entry for my further wanderings in Boston (the second entry may be shorter).

In any event, the ship is, for those not familiar with Boston’s famous landmarks, the USS Constitution, one of the last few sail warships still in existence, a few day shy of its 214th anniversary as of this visit (it was launched on 21 October, 1797). It’s possible to actually visit the ship, but doing so require going through security measures that look a lot like getting on a plane, and a waiting line that’s fairly impressive, so since I want to see as much of Boston as I can, I decide that visiting the ship itself can wait until next time I’m in town.

I still, of course, spend a long time visiting the docks, admiring the ship. It’s a beautiful, black, white and silver, and also quite impressive – much larger than what I used to  have in mind when the term “sailship” is thrown around. It’s one thing to read descriptions in books, and quite another to see the real thing up close, and realize that there is no comparison between the everyday sailship we’re familiar with and the great sailships that used (see the above picture, compare the ships in the foreground with the masts of Constitution in the background). In a way, that we were able to build ships this large that moved only on the strength of wind and were actually (largely) seaworthy is more a testament to human ingenuity than the massive oil and nuclear-powered vessels of the modern day.

Is she not beautiful?

There’s also a World War II destroyer next to Constitution. This one actually has no waiting line and no security screening to visit it (it’s a full museum ship, unlike Constitution which is still an official ship of the United States Navy). It’s an interesting visit, but much as World War II naval combat interests me, it just isn’t the constitution, in terms of history, in terms of looks, or in any other way you could put it.

After a brief visit to the nearby Constitution museum, it’s back to the freedom trail, on which there is only one landmark left, which I may have mentioned in passing earlier. It’s the sort of landmark that’s visible from quite some distance away, because 1)It’s a huge obelisk, and 2)It’s built on top of a hill.

Rather hard to miss.

As can be seen above, there’s a window atop that obelisk (which is the Bunker Hill monument, again for those unfamiliar with Boston), 294 steps on a narrow stairway above the hilltop.

What happens next is fairly obvious, at least to anyone vaguely familiar with me, or who has read my past entries:

294 steps later, looking down toward the Harbor. Note the Constitution (and its size relative to everything else).

And, since this is the last monument of the Freedom Trail, it’s just as good a time as any to end this entry. Join me again, next time, as I continue to explore Boston.

As with Fayeteville back in 2008, the reason for the journey was a friend’s wedding, on the coast of Maine. Not a friend I had never met before (he came up to Montreal to visit me in early 2011, with his fiancée), but a long-time online friend all the same, Matt. (one of many Matts around me these days). Plane (price) and train (doesn’t go there) were not options, so it was time to try yet another way of long-distance travel, the bus.

Since the only bus from Boston to Brunswick run in the evening, and since on the whole I prefer leaving at eight PM than leaving at four AM, I decided to spend a day in Boston along the way. (on the return trip, I spent  only a few short hours, because I thought a daytime journey through the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont would be good thinking. Which I was right about.

For obvious reasons, the first several hours of the trip are going to be light on pictures. Aside from the stopover at White River Junction, and a few pictures taken in the gray, rainy light of dawn, I just couldn’t take much. On the flip side, I could probably fill several entries with Boston alone, and the return journey (in broad daylight from Maine til the valley of the Winooski (see : half a dozen other entries)) also has a great deal going for it.

I’ll admit outright that there is little to say on the first leg of the journey, from Ottawa onward. The road from Ottawa to Montreal is one of the most boring in this part of Canada even in full daylight when you can actually see what’s around you; at night, when the sky is covered, there is fundamentally nothing once you leave the city lights of Ottawa behind, until you reach the outskirts of Montreal. Not even a car on the road: at this time of the day, three sets of car lights on the road is already a lot. The island of Montreal at least offer many strange buildings to gaze at, and the occasional plane flying low as it come for a landing at Dorval airport: still largely boring, just…less so.

At this point, my attention is mostly on the internet, and discussion with my mother via MSN. You see, it so happens that while I was moving to Ottawa a month before, I accidentally left my dress pants at my parents. As I rather need them. fortunately, I have a 1:10 layover in Montreal (half an hour’s drive from my parent’s, and a mother who’s the very soul of generosity, so she agrees to catch up with me in Montreal with the pants. Admitedly, I think that “seeing my son whom I haven’t seen in a month” featured in her reasoning somewhere, too.

The meeting goes without a hitch once we’re in Montreal: she stays around for maybe half an hour, then leaves. I spend the rest of the layover re (re-re-re…etc) reading the Lord of the Rings, while listening to various recording of Tolkien reading his own writing – I have a collection of them on my iPod. It’s a rather interesting experience to be reading Tolkien’s words while hearing his voice at the same time.).

It’s honestly not long before we’re off again, down a somewhat more interesting road (keeping in mind that in the middle of the night, “more interesting road” remains a very relative term). We head out of Montreal, past the grain silos of Five Roses flours with their immense red neon signs, over the immensity of the Saint Lawrence, which is a good two miles wide at this point. The other bridges, and the lights of the city, are visible in the distance, some reflecting in the cold water. Then, we speed past the suburban shopping districts, the empty fields broken by the occasional used car store (with neon pink signs!) or roadside motel, past the Richelieu river and down its length until at last (loooong last), after many stretches of pitch darkness, we come to the American border.

Crossing the border is a complicated ritual that involve making sure to take all our things off the bus, go through custom on foot, then step back in the bus on the other side of the border, after anything forgotten on board is left at the border. Despite many questions from the custom officer, I’m allowed through (as is everyone else on the bus).

The road goes on through darkness, only broken when we stop in one American town or another. Burlington (Which I had the chance to visit again over the summer, and would visit again again at the first sign of a chance. I just love that town), where we stop twice, by the University and outside of town by the airport; Montpelier (which, in the darkness, reminds me a great deal of a miniature version of Ottawa) where the bus stop is right in front of a theater putting together a play of Metamorphosis. I doze off past Montpelier, and back again, sometime chatting with friends on my computer (to resolve this or that crisis involving them).

Finally, sometime past three in the morning, we reach White River Junction, where we have a half an hour pit stop at the local bus station. A welcome stop, as I ran out of bottled water some hours ago, and also on the account that, the station being lit and vaguely interesting, I can finally share pictures. As far as these things go, it’s not a bad bus station (beats the Horror in Ottawa, anyway): it has a nice convenience store (Ottawa does not), large photos representing the history of the region (Ottawa doesn’t) and the customary benches (Ottawa has them, miraculously enough). One of the pictures even depict a visit of Amelia Earhart to the White River Junction region way back when).

White River Junction station. It's actually decent as far as bus stations go (see: Ottawa)

(Also of note: judging by the local bathrooms, there have been Quebecers through since the last time the place was cleaned. There’s a huge “FEAR MTL 514″ in big black letter on the paper distributor. (For those not from the region: MTL is the usual three-letter code for Montreal, and 514 the phone area code).

It’s still very dark when we leave, going over the Connecticut river into New Hampshire, along winding paths at the foot of steep slopes topped by rows of red lights (I don’t know what they are). I nap a great deal more as we head through the mountains (I promise, I’ll have a lot more to show on the way back). By the time I wake up, we’re staring at the control tower of the Manchester airport in New Hampshire, lit blue under a hard rain.

This is more or less what the thing looks like. Or fails to look like.

Darkness finally gives way to a gray dawn, somewhere near the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, around the time we cross a darkened river (which I’m guessing might have been the Merrimack, but that’s no more than a guess). It’s still hard to get good pictures with so little light, but finally we get to see something: thick growth covering the roadsides, dripping with rain, still rich green despite the fact that the autumn has begun.

A roadside in Massachusetts, early in the gray morning

We’re in more urban areas now, by which I mean it’s not long before we get caught in traffic, long line of cars crawling down the roads to Boston (one has to admit, a crawl is still faster than what you’d usually manage during heavy traffic around Montreal). More to the point, there are countless houses and churches, schools and factories along the road.

Eventually there are even monuments, like a great obelisk, followed three seconds later by a trio of wooden masts (not pictured…yet) that makes me realize we’ve actually been in Boston for a while now. (I knew we were in Bunker Hill a little earlier, but in my mind Bunker Hill was more outside Boston than right next to downtown Boston).

Further (tragic) evidence of actually being in Boston.

Having finally reached Boston, under (very, very, very, very, very) low clouds, here ends this first part of the journey, to be continued whenever I have time to recount (possibly over multiple installments) my adventures in Boston.

Pictured: low clouds. (You may notice the vague outline of a few buildings)

First observation:  a year ago, as of my last blog posted here, I was a visitor in Ottawa. I loved the place, but it was a detached, visitor sort of love. That’s no longer true. My life’s here now, something that becomes more obvious each time I go back to my parents’ in Beloeil for a visit. This is where my friends are, where my home is (I’m now renting an apartment with two friends instead of renting a room in a stranger’s house), where my haunts are. While life still has a way to go with me before I can settle down, I’d strongly consider remaining here for good if I can find a job.

Second observation: I’m good at Law. Without going into details, as of the last two sets of grades I got in (the two terms of my first year), I’m every inch as good a student as my sister ever was. Given how much of an inferiority complex I used to have toward my sister results-wise, that’s huge for me.

Third observation: I can write.I mean, I’ve won NaNoWriMo a few times before, true, but hitting 50 000 words within the first week, finishing the novel before the end of the second, and despite the insane speed ending up with (of all my NaNo works to date) the one I’m most comfortable sharing with others (though it still needs work)…that’s a new one.

Fourth observation: I lost track of letting go of frustrations (that is, forgiving and putting them behind rather than letting them pile up until they come off as snide bitching) a few times in the last several years, mostly involving American politics. It cost me my dearest friend (although said friend added me back on Google+ several months after the incident, so go figure. I am mildly perplexed). It’s something I should be good at (God knows I wouldn’t have gotten through high school without being good at it), and I need to remember to do it.

Fifth observation: there was, about last month, a huge outcry about bullying in Quebec following a suicide. Lots of people came out with videos and what not denouncing bullying, and many of them stating they had themselves been bullying victims. A lot of (other) people, including some quite close to me, dismissed many of those videos as stars trying to get some sympathy capital by joining the “cause”, and people who really had no clue what bullying is. I was a bullying victim (big time – not in a “jocks picking on nerd” sense, in a “the guy the nerds thought was godawful) and frankly, I don’t give a damn why they are doing it. They could be taking up the cause for money for all I care. So long as they speak about it. It’s too easy a topic to forget about.

(Fifth and a half observation. I went to my high school reunion, as discussed in a post way down the archive.At times during the evening there was virtually a line-up to apologize to me, including both bullies themselves and the people who stood aside and did nothing)

Sixth observation: a lot of teens and young adults of Quebec reacted to the above suicide by hounding the bullies on facebook and bullying them in turn.

As I phrased it on facebook then: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and it won’t be long before all that’s left is assholes.

Nobody, ever, deserves bullied.

Last, and not least observation: my soon to be eight months old niece is awesome .

A lot of people have been blaming “the political climate” for the tragedy down in Arizona, making it clear that by political climate they mean “Sarah and pal using gun imagery in their politics”. A lot of other people have been denouncing that, pointing out that there is no evidence Lougher, the shooter, was in any way influenced by Palin. (Correctly, one might add).

But Palin & Pals’ use of violent imagery to illustrate their positions isn’t “the political climate” – it’s (rather) use of a long-standing imagery. Sarah may be the first politician to use rifle scopes in her imagery, but she’s hardly the first to use THAT image to mean “this is our target”, without any implication (and any understanding by anyone) that they meant “Shoot at ‘em!”. Granted, not all of Sarah’s friends have this defense (Angle’s “Repeal via second ammendment” moment is…kinda hard to interpret any other way), but still.

The political climate was illustrated to me, I think, about two years ago in a lengthy and at times a little bitter debate between one of my closest friends and I, concerning Obama’s inauguration, and the participation of a baptist pastor known for his support of anti-gay positions, whose name escape me right now. My friend argued that, due to his opposition to gay marriage et al, the said pastor – and all who thought like him – should be rejected, ignored. That because their opinion differed from his, they were not worthy of consideration from Obama. Coming hot on the heels of years of the Bush administration (and we all remember how terms like “Unamerican” were abused in those eight years), it struck me as wrong-headed: just because you disagree with someone’s opinion on one point, doesn’t mean you should reject them on everything.

There is such a thing as “Agreeing to disagree”, and it doesn’t prevent people from working together.

Except, it seems, in America, where people who disagree with you on politics aren’t simply people who disagree with you, but enemies. Traitors. To be rejected, to be shoved aside, to be ignored (and, if possible, mocked at, or gloated at, or otherwise reminded of how badly they’re losing – “Never have so many been so wrong about everything” being a Cheney that’s still stuck in my throat several years down). In other words, to be treated as less because of their opinions.

This is what I’d call the political climate in America. Not the more out there imagery, but this trend, pervasive to the point where many, even people on both side of the spectrum who are in no way likely to call for violence, and whom I would describe as very intelligent, consider it the normal course of things.

And, unlike Palin’s gun imagery, which remain just that (imagery), and unlikely in and of itself to have much political impact, this mentality strikes me as a breeding ground for “lone nuts” (Lone being an exceedingly relative term in the internet age). The jump from “She put gunsight on a map targeting this congresswoman, I must shoot her!” require a pretty unbalanced mind (they do exist, but it’s likely something else would have triggered them – maybe Jodie Foster, and if we start removing everything from public consciousness that may trigger a lone nut…well, okay, we’d have to wipe out humanity to do that).

The jump from “These people are the enemy, whose opinion should not be considered” to “These people are the enemy, who should be shoved aside”, to “These people are the enemy, whose influence should be removed” to “Remove your enemies” to killing people…how easy a jump is that? It’s a tragically natural progression (regression, perhaps) of thoughts, where each step naturally follow from the last. It’s happened before, countless times. It will happen again, so long as humanity remain human.

Not everyone will do it, of course. “Killing is wrong” is also deeply ingrained in a lot of us, so even if the above steps feel natural, most people will stop short of the precipice even if they otherwise subscribe to the general philosophy. Nor will every killing be blamable on the political climate and the hate & loathe rhetoric both sides have been gleefully engaging in.  It is, in fact, quite possible that this tragedy belong in the later group, and would have happened even in the most quiet of climates.

But what I am saying is…the rhetoric both sides have engaged in is the sort that should make a good breeding ground for lone nuts. Lone nuts who, thanks to the magic of the internet, will only be “lone” in a relative sort of way (although that may not always be a bad thing – see last point – it will be the moment a lone nut gets encouraged into acting by other lone nuts online, but plot out their move on their own). Lone nuts who, thanks to the magic of modern armament, will have the power to do single-handedly a great deal of damage. And lone nuts who, thanks to generally acting alone, and often being very dead-set on accomplishing their goals, will be exceedingly difficult to stop.

-Tolkien, JRR;  the Silmarilion, 1977 Allen & Unwin printing (Already had the US first ed, this one is the original-er UK first ed).
-Swift, Jonathan; Gulliver’s Travel, 1912 hardcover edition by Rand McNally (with color illustrations by Milo Winter. And “Happy eighth birthday” note on the front page by the loving grandparents of one Barbara, dated to 1923)
-Milton, John; Poetical Works, 1925 Oxford University Press edition (including, of course, Paradise Lost)
-Goldsmith, Olliver; The Deserted Village, the Traveller and Other Poems, 1894 Hougton Miffin Edition. A former owner was apparently afraid of book theft: a note in the book read “This book is one thing, my toe is another, touch not this one for fear of the other. – JR Stevenson”.
-Stevenson, RL; Merry Men/Dr. Jekyll, 1905 Charles Scribner Edition (with frontispice photo of Stevenson)
-Benham, Canon (rev.) and St. John (alleged); The Johannine Books (Gospel, Epistle I-II-III, Revelation), 1906 Lippincot Third Edition
-Stevenson, RL; The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Vol I: Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, The Story of a Lie, 1912 Nelson and Sons Edition.
-Kipling, Rudyard, Plain Tales from the Hills * Soldier Three and other stories, 1927 Doubleday edition (complete with pre-Hitlerian use of Swastikas as Indian-themed decoration)
-Andersens, Hans; Fairy Tales, 1914 Blue Ribbon Edition (Color Illustrated), given (according to the note inside the book) to one Norma Reynold in December 1933 as thanks for modeling dresses at Freiman’s – one of the major stores in Ottawa back then – it has a wiki article.

And, my latest and favorite find, soon to be mine (or already mine, depending on what gifts we end up locating for me tomorrow):
Cooper, James Fennimore; Les Pionniers ou Les Sources de la Susquehanna, 1830 French Second Edition.
(It’s not the first edition I was hoping for, but still, a second edition of Fennimore Cooper…and a 1830 printing of just about any book…is by any definition an awesome find)

The military is not responsible for the invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was a political decision, taken by your democratically elected chief of state (can the crap about Florida. Evidence since then has shown that Bush would have won that recount), with the backing of your democratically elected representatives. You (the American people in general) elected them.

You, the american people, not the military, not even the government, are to blame for their actions (Of course, I’m aware that many of you specifically were too young to vote, perhaps not even in school back then). The blame belongs to your parents, to your relatives, to your teachers, to anyone you know who was old enough to vote in 2000 and 2002, and either didn’t vote, or voted for those who supported the war (which includes a lot of Dem representatives), or even those who voted against them, but didn’t try hard enough to get other people to do the same.

You are a democracy. The fate of your country is in your hands, no one else’s. Trying to hide behind claims of corrupt government and beltway separation is just a pathetic smokescreen. They are you, and you are they.

Of course, while the above was written addressing Americans, the general sentiment is hardly America-specific. People think democracy just means popular vote, and if you lose then it’s “the other side”‘s fault if anything bad happens (and if you win, and bad stuff still happens? Why, that’s politicians having lied to you! Not your fault!) but it does not.

Democracy means that ultimately, responsibility for your government lies with you. It means that the healthcare bill is not “Democrat Healthcare” or “Obamacare”, it’s “Americanpeoplecare”. The invasion of Iraq was not Bush’s decision, it was the American people’s decision (it’s not like Bush had trouble getting congress support on it). It means that ultimately, it is not Harper, but the Canadian people who violated their constitutional obligations to Omar Khadr; who prolonged the Afghanistan mission beyond 2011. Ultimately, the Canadian people suspended the country’s democracy for the duration of the Olympic games and more to avoid questions about how the Canadian people handed detainees over to the Afghans knowing full well how they’d be treated.

Because, ultimately, how many of us can say they absolutely could not have done more against Harper? I could have done more, for one. I voted against him every time, but I wasn’t out there trying to convince people to vote against him – because I felt there were more important or more interesting things I could be doing, each and every time. It was a legitimate choice. For many of us, there are more important things in our life than politics. Just because we could have made sacrifices to try and stop Harper (or Bush, or Obama, or Chrétien, or Sarkozy, or Blair, or Brown, or Whoever…) doesn’t mean we were in the wrong to not make them.

But at the end of the day, even if it was a perfection rational, reasonable and logical choice not to make those sacrifices, the fact is, we still chose not to make them, and for that, we cannot pretend we’re not responsible for the actions of our governments, because ultimately, we chose to allow them to have power, even if we didn’t vote for them.

Perhaps – perhaps – there are a handful of people out there, a tiny handful, who really did give their everything, sacrificing anything that could be sacrificed, to winning their side the election and still lost. If such people exist, hell, if you can stand and honestly, truthfully say “I never once chose to stand aside, to do something else, when I could have been winning more votes against this”, then perhaps you do not deserve the blame.

But even then, it’s still your country, and your democracy. Losing your elections doesn’t change that.

So, out of curiosity, I took the quiz again, to see how different my results would be, two years later. The results were…interesting.
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%) (Exact same as in 2008)
2. Liberal Quakers (97%) (3rd, picked up 10%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (91%) (7th, picked up 14%)
4. Secular Humanism (86%) (5th)
5. Neo-Pagan (80%) (6th)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (79%) (4th)
7. New Age (77%) (8th)
8. Theravada Buddhism (77%) (2nd, lost 14%)
9. Reform Judaism (75%) (10th, picked up 13%)
10. Taoism (70%) (11th)
11. New Thought (61%) (16th, picked up 12%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (59%) (14th)
13. Jainism (59%) (9th)
14. Baha’i Faith (57%) (18th, picked up 15%)
15. Scientology (56%) (17th, picked up 11%)
16. Nontheist (55%) (13th)
17. Sikhism (51%) (12th)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (45%) (19th, picked up 10%)
19. Hinduism (39%) (15th, lost 11%)
20. Orthodox Judaism (38%) (20th)
21. Islam (35%) (21st)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (32%) (22nd)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (28%) (23rd)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (26%) (24th)
25. Eastern Orthodox (21%) (26th)
26. Roman Catholic (21%) (27th)
27. Jehovah’s Witness (15%) (25th)

Interesting results. Of course, several religions are missing, and some religions definitely need flavoring (a Quebec – or New England – Catholic would be…unlikely…to place anywhere near “Catholic” in that quiz…). But they fall in line with my own observations on the topic: my Asian religious leanings have dimmed a lot more, while on the other hand, I’ve come to identify more and more firmly as an independent/non-denominational Christian. And to become quite sympathetic to any number of Quaker views, though as with any other organized religion, I don’t necessarily agree with all their views.

In short, I love it here. In slightly longer form, I really love it here.It’s just a great all-around town. It has the great scenery and landscapes of Québec City without the archetypal Parisian wannabe Better-than-thouness. It has the multiculturalism of Montreal without being grossly oversized. And it’s quite the bilingual town (unlike Montreal, which is two unlingual cities who refuse to talk to one another and usually throw cutlery at each other). And people here actually realize pedestrians and cyclists exist. Which is like…well, nowhere in Quebec.

(Seriously. Quebecers with cars are on the same level of psychopathy as Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il, except in every last way more likely to actually maim or kill me).

My room is even better than I could possibly have imagined: it’s right where everything is : A walk twenty minute, get anywhere important sort of place. Ottawa’s downtown public market is just five hundred meters (if even that) from my place (and they have the best grapes I’ve ever tasted…among other things. Other things including fish, pastries, bread, and also cheese. And more cheese.). Just on the other side fo the market is the Rideau Center, (the main downtown mall), and the local Chapters, which dwarfs the one in Montreal (n.b.: a bookstore). There are at least two used bookstores within a five minutes walk, including a four-floor one. And I’m not even getting into the number of cafés and restaurants (which I’ve been largely avoiding anyway).

The classes have been a little boring (that’s what I get for having already done most of them), but the teachers in general are great, and I like the people I’m in class with, even if they’re quite a big younger than I am in general. Haven’t made too many friends yet, but that’s slowly changing (I had a massive cold the first two-three weeks, which made it rather hard to socialize).

All in all, Ottawa has been immense fun so far.

I’m looking forward to it, to be honest. This is something I fought hard to make happen against the odds (against the odds because my early life grade just weren’t very good at all, so getting into law was a very far shot), and a much needed change of scenery – after all those years in the Montreal suburbs, being pretty much in the middle of Ottawa will be a very significant change.

I’m also looking forward to it because the room I’m renting, in the middle of Ottawa, is perfectly placed – in the middle of everything, closer to the National Gallery than my house in Beloeil is to the local grocery (for those not aware: the local grocery is on the same bloc as my house) , just north of the main market, and within maybe a 15 minutes walk of just about everything in Ottawa and most of Gatineau (the town on the Quebec side of the Ottawa river) as well. It should be perfect for discovering a new city…which is one thing I love to do.

Plus there’s the whole “A new life with new people” angle. The last twenty-nine years have been largely defined by the one group of people, with very few changes; it’s time to find new people (while still keeping in touch with the old, of course), and university should be a great place for it (it would have been, last time around, perhaps, if there had been any stability to my classes group, or programs lasting more than a year).

Still a few things to fret over – I’m leaving a few people behind that I’d rather be there for if it could be helped at all (I’m not giving names as I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want to be identified as such), and I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to communicate with the owner of the house I’ll be living in (he’s still living in it too) – my spoken english has limits, and his apparently carries a heavy spanish accent according to my father who has met him (I’ve only met his wife). Then again, maybe that will be an occasion to learn some Spanish. We’ll see.

Both sides have good points. Both sides have bad points. On the whole, Tierney’s point would be much better made if he focused on the lack of recent immigrants (a serious problem with how the growingly integrated immigrant communities still don’t make the silverscreen)  than on the lack of anglophones,  where I think Tierney is fundamentally missing the boat about the nature of Québec, and indeed North American, cinema as a whole.

The first point to be made with regard to Québec cinema is this: Canada as a whole is very deep into the shadow of Hollywood.  In 2008, Canadian films (Quebec and otherwise) occupied 3% of the total Canadian box-office.

That 3% is misleading, too, because two-thirds of it is Quebecers going to see Quebec movies. The actual market share of English-Canadian movies in Canada is 1% (with even high-grossing Canadian movies making only a fraction of what Hollywood blockbusters make – Canadian-made Passchendaele made 4.4 millions in English Canada in 2008; In 2009 Transformers 2 made 34.4).  At the Quebec box office, the actual market share of Québec movies ranges from 9% to 15% depending on the year, with Quebec movies finishing the year #1 at the provincial box office twice in the past five years (2006, 2009) or taking three of the top-5 spots in 2005 despite competing with major blockbusters like Da Vinci Code and Dead Man’s Chest (2006), Revenge of the Sith and Goblet of Fire (2005) or Twilight and Half-Blood Prince (2009).

That’s not to say that Canada doesn’t have great filmmakers and actors and that Canadians don’t know how to make popular films (there’s this guy, you may have heard of him, James Cameron? highest grossing second highest grossing Both of the two highest grossing movies of all time?). They most certainly do – it’s just they do it in Hollywood.

And that is what I’m getting to. Geographic borders don’t exist in North American cinema. Everything north of the Rio Grande is Hollywood’s “domestic market”, as much for filmmaking as for releasing the films. People who want to make blockbusters, in North America, go make them in Hollywood. People who want to view blockbusters, in North America, watch Hollywood fares.  Cities who want to draw in blockbuster filming try to draw in Hollywood. Outside Hollywood, you have indie filmmakers, and niche industries, which often overlap. Niche industries exists because there are realities that Hollywood movies tend not to depict.

The Québec film industry is one of those niche industries – it exists because the francophone reality doesn’t really have a place in Hollywood (for fairly legitimate reasons – North America, Mexico aside, is after all by and large an anglophone continent), either in the actual movie, or among the movie crews. It’s a niche that’s all about the francophone reality.

That’s not to say that authors who want to talk about Quebec anglophones reality shouldn’t try to make movies about Quebec’s anglophones. If they want to, why not? Tierney himself (to his credit), did, and I applaud him for doing so. In the same vein, I certainly have no problem with such films receiving funds from the government of Quebec, like any other Quebec-made film can (Tierney, as far as I know, did get Quebec money).

But attacking Francophone movie-makers because they chose making movies about francophones instead of anglophones is just plain…wrong-headed?

Which is a shame, because when it comes to the issues of the place given to immigrants in Quebec movies – immigrants who, more and more, become part of the Francophone reality of Quebec – Tierney is very, very, very much right – Quebec movies are, in fact,  whiter than Francophone Quebec reality (largely because Quebec movies tend toward the historical, whereas non-white immigration to Quebec is fairly recent, but still) – but that gets lost in the “Anglophone” part of his message.