A Very Big House In The Country

I came across the existence of Longleat Safari Park in England. It’s one of those drive-through safari parks. What's weird about it is that it's on the grounds of a historic stately mansion. Of course, you have to wonder how that happens: A safari park isn't really what you associate with British aristocracy. Okay, you might imagine a rich British person with a private collection of exotic animals, but that's not what this is. Picture a huge and luxurious Victorian house in the English countryside; then imagine the camera shifts a little to the side and you see a middle-class family in their sedan watching the monkeys converge on the car looking for handouts, and the family is going from delight to a slight panic as more and more monkeys show up.

And yet, this cultural juxtaposition isn't that unusual. I remember going to an amusement park called Alton Towers, which is also on the grounds of an old estate. It seemed a little weird; I mean, I realize they need to put the theme parks and Safari parks somewhere in England, and they also have historic Manor houses. And since there's not much room, they could be side by side. But you'd think the historic Manors would want nothing to do with the entertainment of the common people. You know, build a tasteful wall between them. At the very least, don't name the park after the house.

But apparently, running a massive luxurious house is all fine and dandy when it's the nineteenth century and you have tenant farmers paying rent, and you're not paying any taxes, and there aren't many factories to outbid you for your workers. But in more modern times, these big houses became unaffordable even for the wealthy, and many were torn down or sold off. Others had to find new sources of income, and that's how a few of them came to have attractions for the masses on their grounds. Even at Alton Towers, the amusement park wasn't enough to make ends meet: the interiors of the house were sold off, and only the stone shell of the building remains. 

Anyway, part of the reason for my interest in this concept is that I just read Pride and Prejudice, which mostly takes place in such homes. One of the odd aspects of the setting is that the heroine’s family, the Bennetts, are on the poor side of rich. They may lose their house and their income, and probably end up in a Dickens novel. So you have to keep reminding yourself throughout the book that even though their cohorts look down on them, they're still much better off than most in that era. 

But now that I've seen the fate of such houses, I can't help but wonder what became of (spoiler alert) Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's descendants. By now Mr. Darcy's estate at Pemberly is either gone, or maybe  home to Europe's third largest water park. 

Yes, I know, it's actually a good thing that these houses are no longer focused on a wealthy few. And this is a win for society: the welfare state and market forces combining to deliver a deserving comeuppance to an exploitative system. 

Maybe it's my English blood, but it still feels sad to see an end as undignified as Pemberly Splash Xtreme (Liz Darcy VII, proprietor.)

The Future Names Of London

Here in Canada, there are a lot of places named after other places. London, Ontario, is probably the most famous, but also within a short drive of my home, you can visit Paris, Stratford, New Hamburg, Vienna, Cambridge, and Delhi. I’ve always found these weird. First, from a standpoint of culture: a borrowed name means that the identity of your place is tangled up in some other place. And secondly, from a standpoint of convenience: you’re forever saying, “I’m from London…no, not that London.”

But of course, that’s looking at it from my perspective in a country where many people live in settlements named for other, much older and more famous settlements elsewhere. It occurred to me recently to wonder at the mentality of those people who gave these sites their names in the first place. For each of those places, somebody thought it was a good idea to give it an already-used, already-famous name. I can’t really imagine what would make a person think that’s a good idea.

First of all, what inspired the names? Some British settler came across a small encampment in the middle of a forest and said, “You know what this reminds me of? London!” I suppose you could say that the name is more of an inspiration: they’re not saying it’s like London, but that it aspires to be like London. But still, that’s kind of setting it up for disappointment. Surely they’d give it a more attainable goal. I don't know, Sheffield? 

It seems a little odd today to call a city of half-a-million by the name of one of Europe’s largest cities, but how did folks in the early years call this collection of houses, “London,” with a straight face? As an early English settler in southern Ontario, you know London as this huge city, and now you’re using the name to refer to a little hamlet. “I will journey to London on the morrow. By Jove, I would that there existed some manor of hand-gesture to indicate that one uses a name of such ridiculousness with a sense of reluctance, as if it were in quotes.”

Secondly, why do they reuse the name exactly, without any changes? I mean, I can understand calling it “New” something. You know, don't confuse us with York; this is New York. Then you’re paying tribute while giving it individuality, and you’re explicitly saying it’s a new version of that old place. The Americans have plenty of “New” places, but Canada doesn’t have many, we prefer just reusing names. So in addition to not understanding why that old explorer decided to associate the rudimentary settlement with the grandest city of his homeland, I also don’t understand why he felt no need to distinguish it from its namesake. 

I guess there's a parallel with people's names: we often name people with the same name as a parent. But then we invented the word, “junior” to avoid confusion. Reusing place names is like naming a kid after his father but insisting that you not call him junior. Who would do that? 

“I’m Frank, and this is my son, Frank.”

“Ah! Frank Junior.”

“No! Frank!”

Then, years later, the kid introduces himself, "I'm Frank, no, not that Frank."

But here's another way of looking at this: To better get inside the head of those early place-namers, let’s say we Canadians were exploring space. We’re colonizing a new planet, and we’ve just established a settlement. It’s only three habitation pods and a greenhouse, but we then say, “And we’ll call it, Toronto.” Okay, that’s a bad example, Canadians wouldn’t feel right naming things after ourselves — we’d probably just name that settlement, “London.” 

So let’s say it’s the Americans establishing a space colony, and they have to come up with a name. They wouldn’t use New York, since that’s already a borrowed name. But would they call their new settlement something like, “Los Angeles” or, “Chicago?” I can’t imagine that, since those names have — for both good and bad — a lot of emotional connotations. They wouldn't feel right calling a place “Chicago” when it doesn’t have L trains, disappointing baseball teams and ketchup-less hot dogs. They’d either fall back on generic American names (Columbia, Freedom, Liberty) or name it after a person. Which brings up the question: how could you journey across the Atlantic and half of North America — in the eighteenth century — without anyone in your party doing something that deserved getting a small town named after them?

"So I'm from London...No, not that London. How about you? "

"I'm from Pickles The Ship's Cat. It's a long story."

The Twenty-First Century's Yesterday

Comic book author Warren Ellis pointed out something interesting. He's looking forward to next year, because it was the year when the original Blade Runner took place. No, it's not because he's saving up for one of those cool florescent light umbrellas. He points out that it is the last thing in science-fiction. We all lived through 2001 without any monoliths, and went right through 2015 without hoverboards. But next year will be our last future year. I would point out that it's not just Blade Runner: Akira also took place that year. That will be -20 geek points, Mr. Ellis.

Of course, it's not really the last sci-fi future: Buck Rogers is still waiting for us in the twenty-fifth century. And all of Star Trek has yet to happen, even Khan conquering a quarter of the world. That was supposed to happen in the 1990's, and he's really taking his time about it. The point is, when it comes to near-future science-fiction stories, the predictions run out after the first couple of decades of the twenty-first century.

That's not too surprising. Back in the twentieth century, 2000 was pretty much what people thought of when they thought of the future. There wasn't much need for a sci-fi author to set a story any further into the future. That would be like saying that the story took place the day after the future. So now those of us who lived in the twentieth century have to get used to the idea that we're living beyond what was once our future.

(As an aside: I referenced the light-up umbrellas in Blade Runner above, even though I was pretty sure that I remembered seeing that someone was actually selling them. So I looked it up, and found that they were available, but are no longer being sold. So that seals the argument that we are now ahead of the future.)

Ellis thinks that this development will be liberating, because there are no longer any expectations handed to society by our fiction. That's good, because it's always been disappointing when we cross one of these future anniversaries. Above, I referred to how 2015 didn't measure up to the future depicted in Back To The Future II. And to me, the big symbol of disappointment in the future was 2001, which represented incredible discovery as a movie, while the real-life year will always be associated with a shocking act of terror that represented humanity at its worst.

So I'll also look forward to not having it occasionally shoved in my face that the world's future is not as good as I was promised. I'll miss the invitations to nostalgia, but in today's world, that's hardly a problem.

My Least Favourite Year

I was thinking of titling this entry as just, "Fuck You, 2016." But it seems somebody beat me to it. It was a really bad year. When people have mentioned that it was a bad year, some have tried to dismiss the concept by saying that it was just a bunch of celebrity deaths. If you are one of those people, I invite you to contemplate how you came to ignore the world beyond celebreties, yet dismissive of their mortality.

But was this really the worst year? On the scale of human history, clearly not. There were no plagues. There were no world wars. No major cities burned to the ground. No civilizations collapsed. Well, one began collapsing, sure. But still, this is no 476 (fall of Rome,) but a mere 330 (partitioning of the Roman Empire into East and West.)

So let's limit this discussion to my lifetime. With the help of Wikipedia, here are the contenders for Worst Year In My Lifetime, along with their credentials for the title.

1979

• Iran revolution, hostage crisis
• Sid Vicious dies
• Mardi Gras is cancelled due to police strike
• Salvadorian civil war begins
• White Night riots
• Margaret Thatcher takes office
• Skylab crashes
• Jimmy Carter's "Malaise" speech
• Lord Mountbatten assassinated
• The Who concert crush in Cincinnati
• USSR invades Afghanistan
• Chinese One Child policy is introduced

1985

• New Coke
• Ozone hole discovered
• Bangladesh cyclone
• Air India flight 182
• Brixton riots
• Mexico City earthquake
• Steve Jobs leaves Apple
• Volcano in Amero, Colombia
• Dian Fossey murdered
• Numerous plane crashes

1994

• Nancy Kerrigan attacked, media loses its shit
• Silvio Berlusconi elected
• Rwandan Genocide
• Kurt Cobain dies
• Ayrton Senna dies
• OJ murder/arrest
• Andres Escobar murdered (Colombian footballer who scored own goal in World Cup)
• Baseball strike
• Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's announced
• Newt Gingrich becomes Speaker of the House
• Russia enters Chechnya
• Whitewater investigation begins
• Mexican Peso crashes

1995

• OJ trial begins, media really loses its shit
• Cult attack on Tokyo subway
• Selena murdered
• Oklahoma City bombing
• Christopher Reeve paralized
• Busiest hurricane season in 62 years
• New Jersey Devils introduce the Neutral Zone Trap
• Srebrenica massacre
• Steve Forbes runs for President - is unsuccesful
• Second Quebec referendum
• Yitzhak Rabin assassinated
• Calvin and Hobbes ends

2001

• George W Bush takes office
• Earthquake in Gujarat, India
• Taliban destroys Buddha statues
• Mir crashes
• Berlusconi re-elected
• Aaliyah dies in plane crash
• September 11
• Anthrax attacks
• Patriot Act
• Enron goes bankrupt
• Shoebomber incident

2016

• Numerous celebrity deaths
• Ammon Bundy and friends occupy federal wildlife refuge
• North Korea gets into space
• Siege of Aleppo
• ISIS bombs Brussels
• North Carolina bathroom bill
• Panama Papers
• Syria/Libya refugee crisis
• Rodrigo Duterte elected in the Philippines
• Flint water crisis
• Zika virus
• Bastille Day attack in Nice
• Dallas police shooting
• Brexit
• Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando
• ISIS bombs Istanbul
• Numerous black people shot by police
• Colombian people vote down peace treaty with rebels
• Hurricane Matthew hits Haiti
• Berlin Christmas market attack
• Donald Trump elected President

So I think you have to agree that 2016 was, indeed, the Worst Year Ever (in my experience.) Because the Wikipedia year-in-review was still incomplete at the time of writing, I had to complete this list by adding more events from memory. It was truly depressing how many times I thought the list was finished, only to remember, oh, right, that happened this year as well.

But it's over now. So I want everyone to try harder next year. 2016, don't let the metaphysical door hit your chronological ass on the way out. 2017, you may have a low bar, but we're still expecting a lot from you; you have a lot to make up for.

Ad Rock

In the past I've mentioned how video game ads often have incongruous music. But previously this has usually been to contrast beautiful music with gritty fighting. For instance, there's a Playstation ad now set to a choral rendition of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This.)"

(Off topic, but has anyone ever successfully performed that song to make it sound like "made of this" rather than "made of these?" Since "dreams" is plural but "this" singular, the correct lyrics don't even sound right spoken, nevermind in the song.)

But the latest head-scratching musical combo is the ad for Battlefield 1 - a WWI game - with Smashing Pumpkins' angst-rock classic, "Bullet With Butterfly Wings." I've tried to figure out how a song about the exhaustion of unfocused anger could be applied to a hellish conflict that changed how the world looks at war. Sure, "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" could be a poetic description of a WWI fighter plane, but that's stretching it. Online I found ads set to "Seven Nation Army" which at least makes sense in a super-literal sense. I don't know why they didn't go with that song for the TV ad. I guess they decided their demographic needed to be a decade older.

For that matter, who wants a game set in World War I? If it's realistic, it will be hours of trying to avoid rat bites in the trenches before going over the top and getting gunned down to end the game. My condolences to history teachers everywhere who are currently trying to figure out how to convince kids the war wasn't about dramatically batting people off horseback.

Personally, I've never been a war game guy. I'm not trying to put the concept down: I'm open to the idea that you can make a game that both entertaining and respectful of the reality of war. But going all the way back to the Platoon tie-in game, I've been skeptical of the game industry's ability to deliver them. I'm inclined to keep that opinion, since someone at Electronic Arts thinks war is comparable to Billy Corgan's angry pet rat.

How Soon Is Now?

I notice that a lot of people are focused on what kind of future we live in, and how far along we are in getting there. For instance, I’ve confronted the why-don’t-we-have-flying-cars question. And it seems as though more people are looking in amazement/frustration at how our world has changed from the world we were born into.

I'm wondering why we care so much about that. I mean, I don't remember in, say, the 80’s, people talking about whether or not they were living in the future imagined by people in the 30’s. I suppose that could be because, for people in the twentieth century, the future officially started in the year 2000.

Of course, that brings up the question of whether people in the nineteenth century looked to 1900 as "the future" and if so, how long after the turn of the century did people still think they were living in the future. They had certainly stopped by the time I was born.

It could be that 2000 was special because it was a turn of the millennium rather than just a century, but I suspect it has more to do with people's attitudes. If you remember the story of the patent officer who thought everything has already been invented, it seems people didn't really think they were living in an age of technological progress.

I just looked for a link to the story of the patent officer, and discovered that - surprise, surprise - it's a myth. Further, it turns out that the man in question was actually very optimistic about the many innovations coming in the future.  So that totally undermines my assumption.

Though I don't know if his certainty about the future of invention was shared by everyone at the time. Certainly, by my time in the late twentieth century were keenly aware of the movement of technology. In fact, we took it for granted, and were disappointed when it didn't love up to our expectations, or simply didn't go in the direction we expected. And that's exactly what happened: people of a certain age were promised flying cars, and instead got iPhones. Even someone like myself, who grew up after the period of greatest optimism about the future, still had his expectations coloured by those optimistic assumptions about the future.

Yearly reminder: unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.

— Kyle Marquis (@Moochava) July 10, 2013

I realize this is pretty far down the techno-cultural rabbit hole, even for me. But thinking about ourselves as living in “the future” is probably going to have a big effect on how we look at things. You’d think that would be good; if we think of our world as something we’ve made, perhaps we’ll take a more active and thoughtful role in crafting it well.

From Russia With Insecurity

When the Soviet Union collapsed, i was still in high school. I had just learnt about World War II in history class, and it seemed there was a disturbing parallel: we learnt about how the Treaty of Versailles, which ended WWI, had set punitive terms on Germany, and that sense of victimhood had fueled the nationalism the Nazis drew on.

The Russians hadn't lost a war, nor was there a one-sided treaty. But they were plunged into hardship and weakness just months after being a world power. It seemed there was fertile ground for extremist politics there. I was quite disappointed that there wasn't more concern over this in the west. I wasn't expecting a new Marshall Plan or something, but it seemed to me that offering the Russians a little help making the transition to capitalism would have been a wise investment in world stability.

When hard-right Vladimir Zhirinovsky appeared on the scene in the mid 90's, I thought my worst fears were playing out. Fortunately, only a few Russians took the bait.

But now, it occurs to me that I was right, it's just that Russia's lashing out wasn't nearly as dramatic as I had assumed. Instead of a transition to radical politics, it has played out as a angry streak in their dealings with others.  Putin seems to understand this, and is good at exploiting it.  If the results never get worse than the Crimean invasion, we'll be pretty lucky overall.

Cold Olympics

It's too bad we never got to see a real U.S./USSR Olympics. There were only two summer games in the superpowers during the cold war. And both of them (Moscow 1980 & LA 1984) were boycotted by the other superpower. Yes, I know, the USA hosted the winter games a couple of times (Squaw Valley 1960 & Lake Placid 1980) but the winter games have a modesty that tends to defuse nationalism. It's hard to chest-thump over your superiority in events that are, to quote Seth Meyers, 48 different kinds of sliding.

I wish there had been a Cold War Olympics. It would have been entertaining to see each side pretending to play nice, taking subtle shots at each other, and trying to extend each success into a national victory. But more than anything, it would have been good for us. Because at a big event like this, no matter how well scripted it is, humanity will leak out, and the rivals will see each other in a better light.

The upcoming Sochi Olympics may be the closest we'll get to seeing major players at the games really angry at each other. I’m trying to be optimistic and see it as a good thing. Like a lot of people, I disagree strongly with Russia’s new anti-gay law, or their treatment of Pussy Riot and other dissidents. So I don’t like the idea of the country being “rewarded” by hosting the Olympics. But I don’t think it’s really going to benefit them much. In the modern world, a major event doesn’t allow a country to cover up its flaws, it puts them under the microscope.  It would be nice if everyone would figure this out, and only bid on Olympics or World Cups if they have nothing to hide.  Start building that Stadium, Reykjavik.

What Else Do I Have To Say?

I was surprised at the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination. I wasn't looking forward to all the self-important reminiscing. Indeed is all seemed quite subdued. I'd even say Doctor Who won this weekend's battle of the incongruous fiftieth anniversaries. 

There was less of that usual "do you remember where you were when..." As there seemed a tacit acceptance that most of today's population wasn't anywhere. I actually felt sorry for the baby boomers for once.

But as a student of twentieth century history, I was disappointed in the superficial rehashing of Kennedy's life. According to today's media, there are two views of his legacy:

• He didn't really do much, and people's memories of him are just their projections of their own hopes and dreams.
• He did do something: he gave lots of speeches and gave people hope.

I'm sorry, am I the only person who remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis? It was one of the most difficult situations the U.S. has ever been in, and Kennedy managed to defend American interests while preserving the peace.  Moreover, the strategies recommended by virtually all other American politicians and military leaders would have been disastrous.  First, we all owe him a big thank you on that.  And second, it compares well with recent American actions which seem to be the opposite: failing to keep peace, and failing to make the country safer.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Everyone says history repeats itself.  That's a good thing.  Not that everyone says it - that's kind of annoying - but it's good that it repeats, since we can be a little more ready the next time.  But the other advantage of history repeating is that it allows us to understand the past better.  We can understand the emotions and motivations better by seeing them in light of current events.

In other words, I'm not going to waste time admitting I don't know what to do about Syria. Instead, let's use this opportunity to better understand Rwanda.

First of all, let me say that in Hindsight, we (the West) should have intervened.  Not even wussy limited I-promised-no-boots-on-the-ground kind of intervention; I mean something decisive, likely at great cost to everyone involved.  So to the many people who have criticized the West's actions (or lack thereof) I'm not going to disagree with that basic premise.

What I do have a problem with are the many people who turn that retrograde regret into a moral condemnation, implying that the correct course of action was obvious, that our inaction could only be due to apathy, self-interest, or racism.  We should have known what was going to happen, so that proves the West doesn't care about Africans.

To anyone who still hangs on to that idea, I invite you to look at Syria today.  See the confusion:  We don't know how far each side will go.  If we intervene on the side of the rebels, what will they go on to do?  How much time does Assad have left, and how far will he go to keep power?

That uncertainty is how Rwanda looked twenty years ago.  The powers that were at the time made a decision based on the situation and it turned out to be horrendously wrong.  We should examine that incident and learn from it, but a wrong decision based on an uncertain situation is not an indication of laziness or prejudice.

What Would Caesar Do?

When we think of countries declining, we might think of Britain and its end of empire.  Or we might look at the USA and its seeming ineffectuality.  Personally, I've always thought the exemplar of decline would be Mongolia.  They used to control all of Asia, now they have trouble putting a soccer team on the field.

But we have a new contender: Italy.  They've had a pretty bad century: Recently I've been following the WWII in Real Time twitter account (which is recounting the entire war, as it happens, 72 year later) and we're at the point where Italy is trying to hang on to Greece and the Balkans, and getting pushed back by Greek militias.  So in that battle of the has-beens, Greece is the easy winner.

What else has Italy done to embarrass themselves?  The legal system isn't helping - first they charge scientists with not warning of an earthquake on spite of that not actually being possible.  Now recharging Amanda Knox with murder, lets everyone on earth know they have no double jeopardy protection.

And then there's politics.  Electing Berlusconi looked bad, nearly re-electing him after all his indiscretions looks pathetic.  They also gave a quarter of their votes to a comedian.  Okay, I can respect that; but he turns out to just offer simplistic populist ideas not unlike the unrealistic policies of every opportunistic far left/right parties in Europe right now.  It would be like the Americans vote for a comedian and they pass up Jon Stewart for Jay Leno.

But the final blow is that the leftist party has come out and said that only a crazy person would want to govern Italy right now.  Normally I'd congratulate someone on their candour for saying that.  But as a party leader, he's essentially labelling himself as crazy.  It often seems like politicians are trying to out-crazy each other, but this is the first time I've seen it happen so openly.

Might I Have Some Time Alone

Today, many a media personality has been pointing out - with varying levels of deadpan irony - that we are still here.  That small subset of Mayans who believed the world would end today were wrong.  What a surprise. 

This non-story about a story that we knew would not be a story might have you lamenting all the time wasted on this issue.  But think of this: we're about to start 2013.  Yes, a year with a famously unlucky number in it and I haven't heard a thing about it.  The whole world's superstitious population has been successfully distracted by the end-of-the-world fear.

But what caught my attention today was the stories about the descendants of the ancient Mayans celebrating.  Even though most Mayans didn't really expect an apocalypse, it was still the end of one of the cycles of their calendar; I suppose that's the equivalent of the turn of the millennium.  To them it was a great moment of reflection and rebirth.  It might have been nice if the rest of us could have participated in that celebration, but no, we advanced nations were too focused a prophecy of disaster that hardly anyone ever believed.

Arrhythmic Nation 1812

Great, 2012 is almost over and I still haven't said anything about the War Of 1812 Bicentenary.  Yes, I know, the war lasted into 1815, so I still have plenty of time to talk about it.  But I'm sure the anniversary hype won't last that long, so here goes...

It reminds me of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to the Americas.  Remember how awkward that was?  This anniversary isn't nearly as bad - we don't have to dance around any genocides this time.  But there's still plenty of pretence nonetheless.

First of all, there's the strange way both Americans and Canadians think they won, because each think they were provoked by the other, and thus won because they successfully defended themselves.  In a lot of the world, that sort of disagreement would lead to hurt feelings at best, another war at worst.  But not here, because of the next weirdness: we're each trying to draw esteem from a war we fought against a country that's now our close friend.  I mean, if we looked back on the war with regret or as an event we'd outgrown, that would be understandable.  Lots of countries have eras they've come to regret.  But we still look back on 1812 as a meaningful achievement, not the unnecessarily triggered and incompetently fought incident it was. 

The Canadian government has been running TV commercials publicising the anniversary, and glorifying it as a defining moment of Canadian history.  If the Americans saw these ads, I'm sure they'd be so angry they'd quit arguing with each other and find something Canadian to boycott.  Say, Blackberrys.  Well, something they aren't already boycotting.  The point is, they might actually have justification for being angry.  As we seem to be doing more often, Canadians  are taking a self-important attitude we'd find infuriating coming from Americans.  And I'm sure Native Canadians loved that friendly nod between Sir Isaac Brock and Tecumseh implying such a wonderful sense of togetherness.

One ad carried the implication that the war was "to keep us free."  Let's think about this: at the time, Canada was a colony in an empire that was still (at least partly) ruled by an unelected monarch.  And that's before you even get to the fact that the elected officials in Canada in the early 1800's were horribly corrupt.  But the country we got invaded by was democratic.  We were hardly fighting to keep free.

And this is a big problem with Canada's attempts to build a national story: our antagonism with the Americans wasn't due to any desire to be free, or anything associated with today's Canadian values.  It was blind loyalty to an archaic institution that was already outdated.  It may be true that most Canadians are in favour of the monarchy today, but that's the symbolic museum-monarchy we currently have.  The idea of siding with an unelected leader against a democratic government is a decision hardly any modern Canadians would choose.  Yes, in retrospect most of us (myself included) are glad we're independent.  But that was really just a lucky accident; eventually we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that our predecessors didn't defend the country so they could achieve universal health care and tolerance to immigrants.