Translating Measurements

Yesterday I gave a temperature in degrees Celsius and then in "American." Yesterday was also the 25th anniversary of a famous incident (that could have been a horrific accident) caused by a mistake of measurements: the Gimli Glider. Look here for a picture and another telling of the story.

On July 23, 1983, a Boeing 767 took off from Montreal, taking 61 passengers to Edmonton. (Nowadays they'd cancel that flight for lack of passengers.) It ran out of fuel over Red Lake, Ontario.

Completely.

Ran out.

Of fuel.

Talk about a nightmare: Runnin' on empty at 41,000 feet is right up there.

The pilot managed to glide the aircraft to a safe landing on an abandoned runway at a former airbase in Gimli, Manitoba.

In the process, he narrowly avoided running over several teenaged boys who were goofing around, riding their bikes on the tarmac. Why didn't they get miles out of the way, you ask? Answer: they couldn't hear anything. The plane was gliding. Apparently 767's don't have a horn to honk. The kids did turn around and see this plane coming. Nobody got hurt.

The problem, apparently, was two-fold. The gauge indicators weren't working well. And the plane had been filled in the metric system's liters, though it was built for the U.S. gallon system.

So when I translate degrees celsius into "American" or mention the difficulty in figuring out how much our cost per liter translates into cost per gallon, just remember that bad stuff happens when you mis-translate. Our two countries may be separated by an invisible line, but some differences have huge consequences.

Geographically Challenged

If you're not sure where Thunder Bay is, you're not alone. (That's a nearly re-roofed camp, left. All except the roof part.)

And if you live in the U.S., you at least have an excuse. How many Canadians could pinpoint the location of Downey, a city of about 100,000? It's the same size as Thunder Bay, roughly. Give up? I consider myself to be a fairly well-educated person and I had to look it up--and actually, all I know is that it's in California.

Still, one expects some people to know where cities are located. Those who deal with maps every day, for example.

This morning I discovered a geographically challenged person where I least expected it: doing weather on national television. Jeff Hutcheson talks about weather in various locations throughout the country most days and has been doing so for a very long time. Yet he doesn't seem to know where Thunder Bay is.

A reminder: Thunder Bay is in central Canada. When Jeff talks about the West, we're just off the map. Then the map rotates to show the Eastern half of the country, out through the Maritimes. We get a glimpse of Thunder Bay as it rotates, but once the map comes to rest, Jeff stands in front of our spot to talk about weather elsewhere.

All of which is fine, really. We catch our glimpse of the icon for the day, it's usually out of date, and otherwise, we're ignored. That's OK. Often, when you're ignored by the weather person, that's a good thing. No hurricanes.

But today, Jeff said--at least twice--something slightly disturbing. As the map rotated past him, he actually mentioned Thunder Bay and gave our forecast (sunny) and predicted high temperature (25, which is upper 70s in American). And then he said, "And in Ontario..." and described forecasts for other cities.

Jeff: Thunder Bay is IN Ontario. Southern Ontario (including Windsor, Toronto, greater and lesser suburbia, up to Ottawa and Kingston--those "important," or self-important, places) is not a separate province.

Except that it sorta is. Or rather, Northwestern Ontario is.

One of the cottage industries up here (or should it be "camp" industries, that being what people up here call what people in Toronto call "cottages") is complaining how Toronto, specifically the provincial government, is ignorant of Thunder Bay. Solutions to civic problems in large metro areas don't work up here; costs are different; infrastructure needs, as in highways and mass transit, are different; power needs are different; delivery of health care is (or should be) different. Et cetera.

And of course, there is truth in those statements--things up here are different. They're different all across the province. Communities in the far north of Ontario, along Hudson's Bay, face similar yet also different challenges.

And yes, Toronto thinks it's the hub of the universe.

But we're all in one province. Which I'm sure Jeff knows, if he stops to think about it.

Mostly, I think I'd prefer to be ignored. Limbo isn't a particularly comfortable place.

Madness, Deux

Yesterday I mentioned that the CBC is paying $100,000 for a new hockey "anthem" and suggested they kick in $100,000 to create a prize for a novelist.

Today I remembered that CBC does have its own literary awards. The total purse is $60,000--that's $6000 for winners of six categories (3 French, 3 English) and $4000 for second place in each category.

The money doesn't even come from CBC. It comes from the Canada Council for the Arts. CBC administers it, perhaps taking some money for that administration (which is fair).

Still. There's room for a $100,000 prize for a novel.

Hockey Madness

You can tell a country's values by what it's willing to pay its artists.

Earlier this year, CBC TV lost the rights to the theme song for Hockey Night in Canada.

The tune was written in 1968 (by a woman, Dolores Claman) and bears some resemblance to the "Magnificent Seven" theme--it's the brass. Anyway, you can buy the theme, "Canada's Second National Anthem," in arrangements for various combinations of instruments (played on football fields at halftime from sea to sea to sea) and find out more information about it here.

About 5 years ago, CBC started balking at paying the composer the appropriate fee for use. The composer eventually took CBC to court; problems and wackiness ensued. Finally, CBC dropped the theme this spring. In an incredibly wise marketing move, CTV, the "other" Canada-wide network, immediately snapped it up and will use it for its hockey broadcasts.

So, starting this fall CBC has the NHL contract and no theme to attach to it. It's like watching the Patriots run onto the field to utter silence instead of the (probably rhetorical) question, "Are you ready for some football?" Even non-musicians rely on songs to help set a mood, particularly in relation to sports.

What is CBC doing? Why, running a contest, of course. Instead of asking for a "theme song," they want an "anthem." They'll pay $100,000 and half the royalties and give "bragging rights" to the winner.

You can't imagine that I care about hockey, and you're right. Here are my two reasons for bringing this up at all.

First, if they can cough up $100,000 for some Joe-eh Basement Musician to write a theme on his electronic keyboard, why on earth did they not just continue to pay the professional musician who wrote an incredibly popular theme? I suppose someone somewhere has run some numbers, and starting from scratch will build awareness of their programming and this option will end up being cheaper. (Hello, CBC? Someone there has run those numbers, right?)

Second, one of the rules for the new anthem says that it has to boil down to 30 seconds and build excitement for a game that's about to start. Thirty seconds, and $100,000 plus half the royalties.

Meanwhile, Canada's most lucrative prize for literature is the Scotiabank Giller award for the best novel or short story collection; the winner gets $50,000 (raised this year!!) and each finalist gets $5,000. That's for an entire novel. Presumably, the back cover or flap copy boils it down to an equivalent of 30 seconds.

Yes, I know it is at some level impossible to compare creative pursuits. A three-minute (or 30-second) song, a poem, a painting, the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, War and Peace, a new approach to teaching that finally reached the next Einstein--which took the longest to produce? What was the payment per minute? Which will have the most positive effect on the world in the future?

Those questions are impossible to answer. But of $50,000 and $100,000, $100,000 is bigger.

C'mon, CBC--how about equivalent awards for artists in other media? A novelist could live a long time on a $100,000 prize and "bragging rights," if she ever got the chance.

Home Grown Heroes

In case you missed it, drug charges were recently filed against Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page.

For Americans: You remember the Barenaked Ladies from about ten years ago, right? "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a fur coat (but not a real fur coat; that's cruel)." They've sung other stuff, too. They're certainly no competition, earnings-wise, for the cast of "High School Musical X" or the Jonas Brothers, but they're a respectable goofy band.

Unfortunately, this charge comes just after the band released a CD aimed at children. Since most of the band members now have families, and since they have many of the sensibilities of tall children themselves, it seemed a natural transition. It seems that at least one band member also has the sensibility of an adolescent, too. Too bad.

To many Canadians, the Barenaked Ladies are "our boys." About ten years ago, the worldwide Boy Scout organization held some kind of jamboree here in in Thunder Bay. Some of the church ladies volunteered at the event. It was a little odd to hear these very proper Canadian ladies talking about the Barenaked Ladies at all, much less with such affection and approval.

For sure, Canadians are proud of comedians that become famous South of 49. Mike Myers, Dan Ackroyd, Jim Carrey, Rick Moranis (hoser!) are examples. And quirky humo(u)r is often mentioned as one of the characteristics that make the Barenaked Ladies so "Canadian."

However, it doesn't take much to become "Canadian." Canadians are very protective of celebrities who have any tie (however nebulous) to Canada. Kiefer Sutherland, for example, is the son of a Canadian (Donald) who made it big in the U.S. I'm not sure Kiefer is even a Canadian citizen, but up here, he's golden.

Anne Murray? She hung the moon. Randy Bachman, from Bachman Turner Overdrive? He's a a legend and he's one of us. Pamela Anderson Lee/Whatever? OK, she's a little wacky, but look at her! Celine Dion (at the other extreme)? You can't argue with success, and what fun she is to spoof!

Get this: Canadians even get all "awww" about two actors I can't stand to watch, Hayden Christianson and Keanu Reeves. "Yeah, they're dumb as rocks," my neighbors seem to say. "But they're our rocks." (Perhaps Pam falls into this category, too.)

Many movies choose to film in Toronto and Vancouver, and Canadian TV contains breathless reports of stars shopping, having lunch, or walking dogs.

I don't really know what conclusions to draw from all of this. I do know that Canadians love their fellow citizens who make it big in the U.S., in a sort of "Yeah, stick it to The Man!" way.

And there's probably something to the whole "rock" thing, too, in relation to the Canadian Shield, and exporting natural resources. There's a joke there, I can just feel it. I'm just not Canadian enough to make it.

Pronunciation III

And while we're at it...

What do you put cut flowers in?

Where I grew up, we put them in a "vase," which rhymed with "face." Recently, which is to say in the last seven years or so, I have heard more and more people calling that thing a "vahz." Where I grew up, we found all that there fake French stuff mighty pretentious.

However, it has crossed my mind that perhaps "vase" is another word that's pronounced differently here. In fact, I started wondering if it's another word with regional pronunciations in the U.S. (Not much happening on the roof; lots of thinking time.)

Yes, Virginia, what you call the "vase" Santa brought you may vary throughout the U.S., according to dictionary.com. Apparently you can rhyme "vase" not only with "face" but with "phase" as well as "paws." We Oklahoma hicks need to get off our high horses about faux French things.

For "vase," the Canadian dictionary (not online) lists two variations of pronunciation--one with the "a" sounding like that of "barn" and one with the "a" sounding like that of "hot." In both pronunciations, the "s" sounds like a "z."

And how did you mentally pronounce that "z"? Aha! That's a "zed" on this side of the border! What I find most interesting about this pronunciation is that they still sing the alphabet song, and in spite of singing about "gee," "pee," and "vee," not to mention going on to sing "Now I've said my A-B 'sees.' Next time won't you sing with 'meeeee,'" they don't feel the need to rhyme that last letter. They happily sing "double-you, ecks, wye, and zed."

To me, that's just silly. But what do I know. I rhyme "route" with "doubt."

Pronunciation Woes

Sometimes it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

One of this summer's projects is re-roofing the 83-year-old summer place. As you can see, we're taking off green rolled roofing tarpaper stuff (technical term) to expose boards that used to serve both as ceiling and as roof. When we're done with them, they will be merely ceiling. We're putting in a layer of plywood and then more rolled roofing.

My pronunciation problem is with "roof" because I am "supposed" to pronounce it with the "ooo" as in "ooo la la." In contrast, I drop the vowel in "roof," not to the point of "ruff" but somewhere between "ooo la la" and "ruff." I catch crap for it up here, in much the same way I catch crap for pronouncing "route" to rhyme with "doubt" instead of "boot."

So (having enough crap in my life without catching more) I am trying, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, to adjust my pronunciation. (I tend to talk like the people around me, which can get embarrassing when I travel, especially in the Deep South.) In any case, my vowel is ascending. But I stutter with it: "re-roofing," in particular becomes "we-woofing."

This past week or two, I've been pursuing my new hobby of "de-roofing" (I love to pull nails out of boards), also known as "pre-re-roofing." It's a lot of time in which not much is happening in my brain, which has taken the opportunity to go on walkabout and bring back things for me to ponder.

Something that surfaced recently is another "problem" word: niche. I grew up pronouncing it "nitch," but then again, I grew up in Oklahoma, where "route" rhymes with "doubt" and the word "root" doesn't sound like "boot" but instead has a lower, nearly "yuh" sound in the middle. Anyway, "niche": In the U.S., I used to hear more "nitch" than "neesh," but then again, I left as "oh MAJ" (grr) became popular. Up here, I've heard only "neesh" and no "nitch," which one might expect in a country where some people actually learn French.

I recently checked pronunciation guides. In the U.S., "nitch" is preferred, followed by "neesh." And according to my Concise Canadian Oxford Dictionary, "neesh" is the ONLY way to pronounce it up here.

This means that every time I say "niche," I tell Canadians yet again that I am not from around here. Fortunately, it's not a large part of my vocabulary. Plus, I think they can somehow tell I'm not from around here just by looking. I'm still working on exactly how they do that.

Fragrancing, Deux

Just when you thought it was safe to buy a plug-in air freshener again...

This morning I mowed the path from our smaller camp to the road. The grass was pretty long, and what with it being July and all, I expected to encounter a bug or two.

So before heading out, I sprayed Deep Woods Off into my cupped palms and wiped it all over my face, neck, throat, ears, and hair. I then got another dose and wiped it down my forearms before putting my long-sleeved denim work shirt back on. I even sprayed some around my ankles on top of my socks, having learned the hard way that black flies consider fabric simply a really neat challenge to be overcome if the reward is an ankle to bite.

And then I wondered, why can't they make Off smell good?

It is the essence of summer, the ultimate in fragrancing. It lingers. Showers do not always conquer it, though sometimes I wonder whether I just think I still smell it--or, if I'm feeling less neurotic, I wonder if the scent is still somehow up my nose, though the rest of me is clean.

There's probably a real reason for making a bug repellant smell slightly, well, repellant. Like the fact that it has deadly active ingredients. You don't want to mistake it for a scent of choice, in much the same way you don't want to mistake a stash of Flintstone vitamins for a bag of candy.

But still, it would be nice to have it smell better. Maybe I'll get those experts in "fragrancing" to work on it right away.

A Promotion?

President Bush is at it again. This is from The Progress Report, a daily roundup of news published by The Center for American Progress.

And finally: President Bush "kept up his tradition of informal relations" with world leaders by casually summoning Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, "a rather stiff and shy figure." Footage of a G8 lunch "showed Bush talking to Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua and saying 'Yo Harper! The president of Nigeria,'" Reuters notes. At a 2006 summit, "Bush landed ally Tony Blair in some trouble by calling out 'Yo Blair!'"

Hey, Prime Minister Harper was summoned to the Cool Kids' Table! Canada's in the news in the U.S.!!

But wait--is being treated like Tony Blair a promotion for "Steve"?

Claim It

One of the professional organizations I belong to recently discussed, in the context of the written word, the proper way to refer to the people who lived on this continent before the great influx of Europeans in the late 1400s.

Of course, the U.S. and Canada have different practices. Native American, Native, Aboriginal, Indian, as well as the names of specific groups of people (Inuit, Mohawk)--all are in use in different ways in the two countries.

The advice and consensus was to ask the person you're writing about what reference she prefers. Common politeness wins again.

That got me thinking about how immigrants to Canada think of and refer to themselves. My husband's parents were Finland-Swede immigrants; my husband spoke Swedish until he went to elementary school. When I asked him how he thought of himself, he said "I'm Canadian."

Then I asked if his identity is a fact or if it has emotional content. He said that if he were talking with a person from, say, Italy, saying "I'm Canadian" would be a simple fact. But if he were talking with an American, saying "I'm Canadian" would be an emotional statement, a flag planted, a line drawn in the sand. So for him, saying "I'm Canadian" is saying "I'm not American."

Back to me (it being my blog)--I say "I'm an American." (Let's set aside for a moment the need for a term equivalent to, but less bulky than, "a United States of American," as considered here and in the article to which it refers.) That's, first, a factual statement.

It's also a claim of responsibility. I participated, and still participate, in the public life of that country and have benefited from all the rights and privileges of doing so, and therefore bear some responsibility for what the heck is going on down there.

But I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. I'm also not comfortable saying "I'm an American," and I'm uncomfortable with it regardless of the political party in power or whatever the heck is going on down there.

I have wondered if saying "I'm American" is more accurate. It feels more equivalent to "I'm a U.S. citizen," but it's also slightly harder to say. And in speech as well as print the two statements are barely distinguishable.

But, come to think of it, splitting those hairs might help. When I hear "I'm an American," I inevitably think of the song "I'm proud to be an American," and that's something I definitely can't say categorically. It's NOT "my country, right or wrong." Which I guess is pretty evident, since I choose to live here.

But I'm not Canadian. That's a legal statement, a statement of citizenship--and of course, that could change. But I don't know that I would ever feel like a Canadian. I don't know that I would ever feel entitled to call myself a Canadian. Hmm. That all feels very Canadian.

All of which makes me wonder if Groucho Marx, the man who wouldn't belong to any club that would have him as a member, was some part Canadian.

A Previous Perspective

I've been trying to bring a little order to the chaos of my computer files. Not much, just a little. In doing so, I ran across this essay, which I wrote--wow--three years ago. I can't even remember what I was going to do with it, but I wrote it.

I am half Canadian. My mother was born Jeanne Starrett LeCaine on May 3, 1917, in an upstairs bedroom at 414 Dufferin Street, Port Arthur. The family spent summers at a camp on Lake Superior’s McKenzie Beach. My mother graduated from PACI and left the lakehead for Queens in the early 1930s; Harvard-bound, she left Canada in 1937. Opportunities, circumstances, and my American father conspired, benignly, to prevent her from returning to live permanently, though she worked in Ottawa and Montreal during World War II while my father was stationed in Hawaii.

As college professors in Oklahoma, my parents saw five children grow to adulthood, or what passes for it these days. Every summer, during the few August weeks between their summer and fall teaching sessions, the overloaded station wagon labored up I-35 to the camp on the lake. We kids loved the respite from summer in Oklahoma; my mother craved her time in the Land of Possibilities. When she returned to teaching each fall, was was refreshed and invigorated.

As I grew up, I shared her need to be here every summer, even if all I could manage was one week. I needed to see different newspapers, the headlines full of names I rarely heard the rest of the year – Mulroney, Chretien, Terry Fox. I needed to hear Canadians talking after church about GATT and NAFTA, Eaton’s closing, the new Magnus Theatre. I needed to understand how a two-lane highway could be the country’s only east-west artery and see lines of transport trucks moving Canadian goods to other Canadians.

My mother’s last summer at the lake was 1998, two years before Alzheimer’s claimed her permanently. She stood on the beach she’d known for more than 70 years and said to me, “I’ve been here so much, I don’t know whether I’m really here now or just dreaming.”

I know just how she felt. After 40-plus years of idle daydreams, I moved to Thunder Bay last fall. Yes, there are technicalities to straighten out. Until my permanent residence is approved, I’ll be doing the Visitor Visa hokey-pokey – you get your six months in, you take your six months out. Still, I live here. In October, I stood in front of the camp my grandfather built 80 years ago. The islands in the bay were splotched with gold as the birch leaves turned, becoming a scruffy calico when the leaves dropped. For the first time, I walked on ice in the bay. After some time in the States, I’m back to see the birches explode into green.

Before this fall, I spent about 15 years as a public servant, writing and editing in education and government, and about 10 years in private business, both at a publishing company and freelancing as a writer and editor. When I lived in the States, I always felt slightly apart, especially during Independence Day celebrations – the fireworks were pretty, but “God Bless America” and “Stars and Stripes Forever” made me squirm.

In fact, the moment that I felt most like a real American, a real citizen of the United States, was the November evening in 1991, when Bill Clinton was elected president. I had lived in Arkansas and worked in state government when he was governor. I knew his many strengths and I knew his Achilles heel. Full of hope and dread, I stared at the TV screen showing fireworks exploding over the Old Statehouse in Little Rock. He was a member of my own generation. One of us had become President – and we were now responsible.

A day in September of 2001 permanently changed my future. No, not September 11 -- a few days later, the day President Bush responded to the attacks on the U.S. by bombing Afghanistan. I had hoped that the fluke of his first election would be followed by four quiet years and a timely return to rural Texas. In that moment, those hopes disintegrated. His determination to revel in his cowboy ignorance, dispensing “justice” and encouraging Americans to go shopping to keep the terrorists from winning, revolted me.

Slowly, I started listening and thinking. Small steps toward major life change became bigger ones. Finally, I moved to a country that is starting to feel like home. My family’s past is here, and my heart is here. My future is here, too.

A few years ago, I met a Canadian living in the States. “Oh, I’m half-Canadian,” I exclaimed. “Surely it’s your better half,” he responded. Surely, it is.

Safe to Say This...I Think

Now that Senator Obama is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party and Senator McCain is ditto for the Republican Party, I think I can blog about one of the BIGGEST differences I've noticed between Canadian and American politics.

It's the skinny-dipping. Also the nudity. And yes, that takes some explanation.

In the fall of 2006, the Liberal Party of Canada elected a new leader, Stephane Dion. He currently is the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and would be Prime Minister if the Liberal Party won the most seats in the next election and had enough support from other parties as necessary. (For a primer on the parliamentary system of government, go here.)

What would a race be without candidates? And this race had several, all with personality to spare. I won't dissect the entire Liberal leadership race, but it was pretty interesting.

Here are two highlights that, in my mind, would never happen south of 49.

During the race, one candidate, Scott Brison, posed nude for a calendar.

Another candidate, Bob Rae, went skinny-dipping on The Rick Mercer Report. (If you feel you must see this for yourself, go here and look for the week of October 10.)

As you might suspect, Rick Mercer isn't the Canadian equivalent of the late, lamented Tim Russert. I don't think Mercer has an equivalent (nor does Russert, but that's another story). Some have called Rick Mercer "Canada's Mayor" but he's not a politician. He's a comedian with a half-hour TV show, mostly focusing on politics and social issues. He's smarter than Letterman or Leno and, being Canadian, much less likely to tell you so. He's a big supporter of the military and skewers politicians without regard to party. He's gay and nobody cares, this being Canada.

Surprisingly--or not, this still being Canada--both Brison and Rae continued to be serious candidates right into the election itself. Brison fell out early, possibly because of his relative youth, but Bob Rae was there until the last ballot (and was, in my opinion, a pretty sore loser for no good reason that I could tell--hmm, like McCain in 2000 and 2004?). The point is that appearing nude on walls and televisions across Canada didn't scuttle their political careers.

And thus, back to the U.S. I won't complete this sentence, out of respect for those who are adept at creating mental pictures, but can you imagine if the candidates for U.S. president in 2008 were to.... Got it?

Here's how the arithmetic works out south of 49: skinnydipping on TV = political suicide.

But I waited until now to blog about it because I didn't want any of the longshot candidates getting any ideas. Mike Huckabee? Dennis Kucinich? Now there's a mental picture. (Brrrr.) And you can bet that the presumptive nominees won't be doing any nudity any time soon.

So what Useful Lessons can we draw from this? It's possible to argue that American politicians are more serious and Canadian politicians are more wacky--though no one would call Prime Minister Stephen Harper "wacky."

You could say that the U.S. President is much "more important" to the world than the (potential) Prime Minister of Canada and thus the presidential race must be conducted with essential gravitas that Canada's leadership doesn't require. Certainly politics in the U.S. is a serious, self-absorbed business, but so is everything else. And Canadians take politics seriously, too.

You could say that Americans are uptight about sex and Canadians aren't. Maclean's magazine has a recent survey saying much the same thing. But that's a huge generalization and you know how I feel about those.

Perhaps the important thing is not deciding a Useful Lesson, but instead simply noticing that there is indeed a difference. Yep. Two countries. Different.