Let's be honest: We have our fun with Canada. Who among us has not cracked wise about its cleanliness, its polite folk, and the fact that it has its own brand of French people perhaps even more annoying than the original?
I'm an experienced Canadian hand, having visited not one, but two Canadian "places," including both a large Canadian city and a famous Canadian canoing venue. I have the phone numbers of at least three Canadians in my Outlook files, though for reasons of national security I don't call them often. I count among my favorite bands Doug and the Slugs, an obscure outfit from Vancouver that admirably -- and I think Canadianingly -- slipped the phrase "climb a telephone pole with a pail of pelican bait" into a love song. I think of Canada as America's great back-up refrigerator, standing stoically in wait should some malady infect all the coolers down here where stuff doesn't stay cold on its own.
"Honey? I'm going to Canada for a beer. Would you like one?"
But now I must get used to thinking of Canada a new way: As our superior. That's because, in these days of America's decline (at least in approval rating terms) in the eyes of the civilized world, there is conclusive evidence that Canada is going to be looking down on us soon. Canada, for heaven's sake, right up there in North America's attic.
I base this on this article from the Chicago Tribune, an otherwise reputable newspaper that has long showed a certain irrational and perhaps disloyal fondness toward our pasty-white neighbors to the north. Here is the ugly truth, reported by Seth Stein, a Northwestern University professor of geological sciences. North America, according to Stein, is tilting.
"Basically, everything north of the Great Lakes is going up, with the speed of that uplift increasing the closer you get to Hudson Bay," he said. "All of Canada's going up.""The U.S.," he added, "is going down."
Leaving aside, for the moment, the temptation to make a joke out the phrase, "The U.S. is going down," it seems the southern United States is sinking at the rate of approximately 1 millimeter a year. Canada, correspondingly, is rising at an equivalent rate, especially far north near Hudson Bay. Which means, if you can accomplish the kind of higher math for which kindergartners are well known, that the net change in the relationship between Canada and the US is an incredible 2 millimeters a year. It's surprising our ears aren't popping. At this rate, in about 3,000 years basketball goals in the United States will be at ground level in Canada, giving the Canadian National Team a huge advantage in international competition.
In the article, Stein explains all of this with some kind of scientific mumbo jumbo, but I know the real explanation. The rise of Canada and the fall of the United States are due to a convergence of two otehrwise unrelated factors: Old people and global warming.
Global warming, of course, is causing the non-beverage-related ice that covers much of Canada even in the summertime to melt, which means that Canada is getting lighter even as our drinks grow weaker. Stein, at least, touched on this. But he completely missed the critical second cause of American Tilting: Old people flocking south for their retirements, including, despite the existence of the Department of Homeland Security, Canadians. Congregating on the Gulf Cost, they and their golf carts and their little cut-glass bowls of peanut M&Ms are weighing down the southern portion of North America. The end result: The rise of Canada and the fall of the United States.
I, for one, want to declare at this time that I'm in this to the finish. No waffling here, no cutting-and-running. The United States, high or low, is my country, and I intend to stick it out until it tilts like an inner tube and we all slide off into the Gulf of Mexico. That is a courageous stand, I know. I'm not afraid to say that I'm a courageous man and a proud American. No matter what the future holds, I'm staying put, even if that means having to look up to Canada.
For now, I'm going to wear my golf shoes all the time so I don't slip.
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