The biggest problem with mankind is, well,
mankind. Or more specifically, man. Make that men… gender specific. Being one,
I may be uniquely unqualified to comment on what is unquestionably the biggest
problem facing mankind but if history proves anything — and I’m not
suggesting it does — it proves I have absolutely no hesitation when it
comes to commenting on things I know nothing about and have few, if any,
qualifications regarding. Having established my lack of credentials to proceed,
I’ll proceed; consider this a binding disclaimer.
Almost a year ago, I became a Canadian. Not,
according to my Perfect Partner, a Real Canadian but a sufficiently faux
Canadian that I can carry a Canadian passport when it seems appropriate and I
can slip in French words like “faux” without italicizing them since they belong
to one of the two official languages of Canada and are, therefore not
considered foreign. Suspect, to be sure, but not foreign. Given the hit or miss
success I have with italicizing words in Pique, that alone was worth becoming
Canadian.
I’ve been led to believe Real Canadian-ness
may be afforded to me when I can remember all the words to Gordon Lightfoot’s
Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Nice as that song is, I’m not planning to listen to
it enough times to remember the words. Besides, I’m pretty sure if I actually
learned all the words — it’s a really long song, eh? — the bar
would be raised and I’d have to learn all the words to all Gordo’s songs and
Bud the Spud by Stompin’ Tom for good measure. I think the truth about becoming
a Real Canadian lies somewhere closer to when hell freezes over. I can live
with that. Faux Canadian is good enough for me.
But there was a time in this fair land when
the railroad did not run. Given CP’s predilection for derailments, resulting
environmental disasterettes and total disdain for passenger rail service, that
time may well be considered the Good Old Days. But I digress. Okay, I was
showing off.
I became a Canadian in the eyes of Immigration
Canada for several reasons. Having lived half my life in Canada I felt I should
be able to vote for the lesser of two evils in my adopted country as well as my
birth country. I know that’s a dubious kind of honour — distasteful
responsibility? — but as enlightened feminists used to say about the Pope
when the subject came to birth control and abortion, “You no playa the game,
you no maka the rules.”
I was also planning some international travel
and, once again, U.S. passports have lost some of the cachet they used to have
in international circles when the U.S. was a shining light of freedom and
democracy. It’s also worth noting that terrorists who storm cruise ships
— not that I ever intend to set foot on one — tend to kill
Americans first and, like most of the rest of the world, don’t have a clue
where Canada is or what significance it has in the overall scheme of things so
generally leave Canadians alone. Given a choice, I’ll always choose obscurity.
I was dared to become a Canadian by Doug
Forseth, who said he would if I would in much the same way a friend and I used
to dare each other to jump off the roof to see which of us would get hurt. We
hedged our bets by sucking Scott Roberts into playing the game, perhaps hoping
if we found another patsy we’d escape unharmed ourselves and he’d end up in the
metaphorical cast.
But foremost on my list of reasons I became
Canadian was because my fellow Americans re-elected George Bush and his
immoral, bankrupt band of grim reapers to run my country-in-absentia for
another four years. I was able to salve my wounded disbelief when he “won” the
election in 2000 by believing he’d stolen it in both Florida — with the
duplicity of his brother, the guv — and in the Supreme Court. It meant
there was still hope, assuming he didn’t outlaw hope during his first term,
which I’m sure he would have had he not been so busy dismantling the
Constitution, marginalizing the UN, making the rich richer, instituting a
military first-strike doctrine, revisiting the quagmire of Vietnam in Iraq and
turning America into a rogue nation in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Having done all of that, and more, I
reluctantly abandoned all hope when my fellow Americans re-elected him in 2004
without the help of the Supremes. What clearer sign did a liberal,
left-leaning, ex-hippie redneck need that he could no longer find a home in a
country that had, albeit by a slim margin, completely lost both its mind and
its moral compass?
It’s been two years and slowly, I’ve grown
more hopeful. I’ve begun to watch the news again. My spirits have rallied along
with the likelihood the Republicans might lose control of at least one of the
houses of Congress. Ironically though, those nascent hopes have been dashed by
this week’s events that have given rise to the prospect of Republicans losing
both houses of Congress. It’s not the American people’s distaste for the
ill-conceived war in Iraq that’s raised the spectre of a Democratic rout. It’s
not the death of
habeas corpus
, the
unconscionable tax cuts, the burgeoning deficit, the about-to-fall-over-the-cliff
housing market. It’s none of those.
It’s another insignificant sex scandal.
A congressman from Florida — how sweet
is that? — sent provocative e-mails to House pages, young boys. His
inappropriate actions were brought to the attention of the Speaker of the
House. Following the well-trodden path of the Catholic Church, nothing was
done. Now, all hell’s about to break loose and the scandal could, quite
possibly, determine the outcome of the midterm elections next month.
It doesn’t matter that the men in charge have
reduced the U.S. to a ghost of its former self. It doesn’t matter that the
ideological misadventure in Iraq has spawned a powerful new breeding ground for
terrorism. It doesn’t matter… well, let’s fact it, nothing of substance matters.
Sex matters.
And that is why men are the biggest problem
with mankind. No matter how old we get, no matter how wise we get, no matter
how powerful we get, no matter how rich we get, we never stop thinking with our
dicks. It’s a lot easier and probably more accurate to explain things like the
war in Iraq, conservatism in general, racial, religious and gender intolerance,
the Olympics™, fast cars and big trucks, our general disregard for what is
quickly becoming an environmental disaster, and just about every other ill of
mankind as the result of men thinking with their dicks than it is any other
explanation.
The solution is obvious. It’s time to step aside boys and let the girls run the world.