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    Welcome to Canada, Mr. President: a quiz

    By acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:40pm |

    Next Thursday, President Obama will make his first foreign visit since taking office. It will be to Ottawa, resuming a tradition that George W. broke by visiting Mexico first. Obama's visit is billed as a bare-bones, working meeting -- a mere five hours, no overnight stay or joint address to Parliament. No chance for mass adulation.

    But we're glad he's coming anyway. To mark the occasion, here's a trivia quiz about presidential visits and general U.S.-Canada relations. Try to answer without peeking at the answers; sorry if they're so jeezly long.

    1. The visit may be low on pomp and ceremony, but the first thing to occur when Obama steps off Air Force One will be unprecedented. What is it?

    2. There is one Canada-U.S. issue that the Prime Minister's Office has announced beforehand will not be discussed. What is it?

    3. In 1985, President Reagan paid an official visit to Quebec City. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney welcomed him warmly; they even sang a duet together. What was the song?

    4. In May 1961, President Kennedy visited Ottawa. What occurrence during that visit may have played a role in his assassination two years later?

    5. A Canadian connection proved problematic during one president's election campaign. Who and why?

    6. I've run out of presidential trivia, but the Arthur story reminds me of another odd bit of Canadiana. Which bona-fide icon of the American West was actually born in Canada?

    7. Almost exactly half a century ago, something in the air caused Canada-U.S. relations to nosedive. Huh?

    8. We Canadians sometimes criticize the Patriot Act and other aspects of the Global War on Terror as overreactions to 9/11. How did our government deal with its big terrorist scare in October 1970, when the Front de Libération du Québec kidnapped a British diplomat and a Quebec cabinet minister?

    Comments

    1. The visit may be low on pomp and ceremony, but the first thing to occur when Obama steps off Air Force One will be unprecedented. What is it?
    If protocol is followed (and it will be; we're Canadians, after all) a black Canadian head of state will welcome a black American head of state. Before Quinn jumps in, yes, as the queen's Canadian representative, Haitian-born Michaelle Jean is only de-facto head of state. But the image of them sharing a two-cheek kiss will still be mind-boggling.

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:41pm

    2. There is one Canada-U.S. issue that the Prime Minister's Office has announced beforehand will not be discussed. What is it?
    No, not the "Buy America" provision in the stimulus package; we'll make do with the new clause saying it can't be applied in violation of NAFTA. It's Omar Khadr, the last western citizen still held at Guantanamo. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has resisted widespread calls for his repatriation to Canada. Once here, he would almost certainly walk free, since the terrorist act he is accused of -- killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade during an Afghanistan battle -- occurred when he was 15, and the case against him is shaky to begin with. 

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:42pm

    3. In 1985, President Reagan paid an official visit to Quebec City. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney welcomed him warmly; they even sang a duet together. What was the song?
    When Irish Eyes Are Smiling; the get-together was quickly dubbed the Shamrock Summit. The overly cozy duet began Mulroney's slide in popularity, accelerated by corruption scandals plaguing his gov't. Mulroney won re-election in 1988 (with a reduced majority: 169 seats out of 295), but was forced to step down by the next election, when voters reduced his Progressive Conservative Party further to two -- just TWO -- seats. It proceeded to be eclipsed and absorbed by its rival on the right, the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. The monster that emerged took over the Conservative brand, dropping the "Progressive" part. It now, unfortunately, runs the country. It's unfair to blame the whole debacle on the Shamrock Summit, of course; Mulroney's botched attempt to rewrite the Constitution helped a lot.

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:43pm

    4. In May 1961, President Kennedy visited Ottawa. What occurrence during that visit may have played a role in his assassination two years later?
    Someone had the bright idea of a tree-planting ceremony. Although he gave no indication at the time, Kennedy reinjured his always wonky back, and so was wearing a rigid brace when his limo made that fateful turn in Dallas. He couldn't have ducked, even if he had the quick reflexes to. YouTube has a clip of the actual tree-planting:

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:44pm

    5. A Canadian connection proved problematic during one president's election campaign. Who and why?
    Chester Arthur. His father was an Irish immigrant who initially settled in Dunham, Quebec; his mother was born in Vermont. It seems that at the time of his birth, the family still owned a farm on the Quebec side. Since Arthur was somewhat fuzzy about the exact year of his birth, and no birth certificate was apparently ever produced, opponents alleged he was in fact born in Canada and therefore ineligible to run for president. (The definition of "natural-born" citizen was still vague at the time.)

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:45pm

    The original "Manchurian" canadiandidate.


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 12:43pm

    6. I've run out of presidential trivia, but the Arthur story reminds me of another odd bit of Canadiana. Which bona-fide icon of the American West was actually born in Canada?
    Bat Masterson. His family lived in the small Quebec town of Henryville, later moving on to New York state, Illinois, and Wichita, Kansas, where he presumably picked up his affectation of wearing a cane and derby hat. Don't know if locals called him Bat (short for Batholomew), or if he picked up that monicker while he and Wyatt Earp hung out in Dodge.

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:45pm

    Who's Bat Masterson. You guys need a better cowboy.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 1:28pm

    You're showing your age, Genghis. And by that I mean your callow youth.

    The TV series ran for years, and made actor Gene Barry famous. I know, that's a lob.


    by acanuck on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 3:13pm

    The only cowboys Genghis has ever seen were riding mechanical bulls in Chelsea.


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 9:58pm

    Fat lot you know. I was born in AZ, weaned in OK (where my folks now live), and spent my formative years in IA. But I note that Gene Barry was born in NYC of Russian-Jewish immigrants.

    PS I will ignore the gender preference innuendo


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:23pm

    No induendo, that is just where the mechanical bulls are.  Seriously, no offense intended... I was mostly accusing you of being a New Yorker, which I am too (and equally not a native one).


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:45pm

    No worries, I am very difficult to offend. I've never seen the wild bulls of Chelsea but will plan a pilgrimage.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:51pm

    We kept the good ones. We only sent you guys the cowardly, drunken ones. Mat Basterson, for instance. Now THERE was a cowboy. Keeper. Still alive, ole Mat. 172 years old. Just yer average Canuckian Cowboy.

    by quinn esq on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 1:57am

    I think you misspelled Bastard'sson


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 9:52am

    7. Almost exactly half a century ago, something in the air caused Canada-U.S. relations to nosedive. Huh?Nothing to do with pollution. I'm thinking Avro Arrow, the ambitious Canadian-designed interceptor that has become the stuff of legend. I was an aviation-obsessed kid at the time, and even sitting in a hangar the Arrow was the most beautiful thing I'd seen: http://www.militarypictures.info/airplanes/avro_arrow.jpg.html. Acting on U.S. advice that the era of the manned interceptor had passed, the John Diefenbaker gov't literally scrapped the project, putting even the flying prototypes to the blowtorch and ordering the blueprints destroyed. The U.S. then sold Canada the crappy Bomarc missile system to shoot down intruding Russian bombers, and kept on building its own interceptors. Many Canadians blamed Dief, and those sneaky Americans. The myth is that the Arrow (CF-105) was so good, it could hold its own with today's F-16s and F-18s (and so outperformed every U.S.-made fighter of its day). Well, it was pretty advanced -- and would have been even faster if fitted with the Orenda Iroquois engine that was being developed specifically for it -- but not that good. And the impetus for killing the project came in part from an unlikely source -- the Canadian air force, which was being saddled with the plane's ever-expanding costs. What is undeniable is that in the 1960s, many of the Arrow's engineers and designers went to the States to find challenging work, such as sending a man to the moon.

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:46pm

    I was sure this was going to be when Margaret Trudeau was reported to be at a New York party without undies, unknowingly acting as the role model for Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.  Although, I admit this wasn't really quite a half century ago.


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 9:39pm

    When I say "almost exactly half a century ago," I mean that the 50th anniversary of the Arrow's abrupt cancellation is this coming Friday. It's considered the darkest day in Canadian aviation history. Thousands were instantly thrown out of work. Several dozen of the country's best engineers went south to work on the U.S. space program. And if the Concorde looked a little like a scaled-up Arrow, it may be because expatriate Avro designers helped build it.


    by acanuck on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 3:53am

    The famed undieless photo may have been a mere 40 years ago...


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 9:21am

    8. We Canadians sometimes criticize the Patriot Act and other aspects of the Global War on Terror as overreactions to 9/11. How did our government deal with its big terrorist scare in October 1970, when the Front de Libération du Québec kidnapped a British diplomat and a Quebec cabinet minister?
    By invoking the War Measures Act, effectively putting the country (especially Quebec) under martial law. Tanks parked on Parliament Hill; soldiers in battle gear patrolled the streets of Montreal and Quebec City. More than 450 suspected FLQ sympathizers were arrested without warrant and held without trial. A reporter asked our Liberal (and otherwise liberal) prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, how far he was willing to go. Trudeau's chilling answer: "Just watch me."
    Fortunately, it emerged there were only two FLQ cells, not the mass conspiracy the group pretended to be. The smart members traded their hostage for a plane ride into Cuban exile, and the others served lengthy sentences for murder. The War Measures Act was eventually seen as an overreaction and scrapped.

    by acanuck on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:47pm

    Anyone who doesn't know what 'jeezley' is, isn't worth talking to, acanuck.

    These people appear to me to be hopelessly inbred.

    Worse, they're all broke.


    I told you, we should just kill them and be done with it.


    Jeezley.


    by quinn esq on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 1:54am

    Never seen you use the word, creep,  and I hope you spend rest of the morning looking through your posts all over the net for when you did.

     


    by Bluesplashy on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 9:26am

    I didn't say I used it, just knew it. There are certain words, so secret, so powerful and sacred, they are only to be spoken at the ceremonies of Highest Solstice, and acanuck just goes and... WRITES IT DOWN! Blood sacrifice is required. Jeezley.

    Seriously, Bluesplashy, I started laughing like hell when Marquis dropped it into that Dark/Stormy night post at the other place. It's a word we all grew up with Down East, but to suddenly see it in print just made my eyes cross, like "where the HELL did he get that?" One of those words churchgoing people make up when they can't swear, but need to. So I usually heard it applied to broken down things on our farm - tractors, cattle that wouldn't get up, tools that broke. My favorite is the way "ignorant" had every meaning except the dictionary one. To be ignorant usually meant to be arrogant, "That boy is some ignernt." Or to be enraged. I wonder sometimes who starts these things.

    Probably that jeezley Marquis. ;-)


    by quinn esq on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 10:25am

    Well, sounds like to me you need to do something about that acanuck anyway. 

    I just love learning slang words like jeezley and where they come from.  Years ago I got busted on for using "Heavens to Murgatroid" a lot.  I went looking for where it came from and every place I looked takes it back to Snagglepuss (but I did find that snagglepuss using it came from Bert Lehr using it in a movie).  What makes this interesting is I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child so where did I pick it up?  And if a cartoon character that 4/5 of the american population grew up used it, why don't I hear it more? 

    I didn't realized marquis was one of yourn, I be more careful, thank you for the warning. ;)


    by Bluesplashy on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 11:01am

    One thing I iz not is a Canukistandaburglandiastadtistanbullshitter!  Heavens to Murgatroid!  What are you a Jeezly Californian?


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 11:38am

    You've blown your cover, dude.

    Anyone that can spell "Canukistandaburglandiastadtistan" is clearly a Canukistandaburglandiastadtistanbullshitter.

    Now. Sing the anthem for the nice people, and we'll give you some nice, juicy, seal fat.

    Don't sing, and we beat you with a mukluk.

     

    Oh... Stop blubbering.


    by quinn esq on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 11:58am

    Now I know you love me as you are claiming me as one of your own Embarassed.  For the health benefits I would almost wish it were true! Innocent But I have crossed over into Her Majesty's Dumping Ground only twice in my life.  Sorry.


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 12:39pm

    I love learning new slang too--especially in foreign languages and especially if it's profane.


    by Orlando on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 12:35pm

    Bring it on, Canukistanadaburglandiastadtian! We'll tell our rednecks to stop drinking Molsens, stop watching unfunny comedians and stop listening to unmusical bands, then your whole economy will collapse... um... er... just like ours.


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 9:44am

    Jeezly?!! Where did you get that word?  Did you make that up?  Why haven't I seen that before.  I LOVe that word anut, just wonderful.  Can I use it?  Fantastic, thank you thank you thank you, thank you!! Jeezly oh man  I can think of about 6 things right off the bat that need to be jeezuled!  This is great!


    by Bluesplashy on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 6:36pm

    Seems to me I've been using "jeezly" forever, but you've inspired me to look it up to see if it's even recognized as slang. OK, here's a definition:

    jeezly \'jeez-lee\ adj/adv - Modifier used most often as an exclamation of frustration or emphasis; "That jeezly tractor better start in the mornin' or I'll be some ignernt." Sometimes the constant inverse "jeezless" is used instead; "It's some jeezless cold out tonight." See also: Geehover, jeez.

    That's from http://www.dooryard.ca/indexIntro.html, a collection of Atlantic Canadian (specifically New Brunswick) colloquialisms. Derived from the interjection "jeez," a contraction of Jesus.

    Yet another (unintentional) bit of Canadiana.


    by acanuck on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 7:31pm

    The jeezly tractor won't start? I prefer "the [trifl]ing tractor won't start." But I'm kind of a traditionalist.


    by Orlando on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 9:16pm

    It's the conditional form. While the speaker holds out hope it might start, it's "the jeezly tractor." In the morning, when it actually fails to do so, it becomes "the fucking tractor." Very nuanced in their vocabulary, those New Brunswickers.


    by acanuck on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 9:37pm

    Your jeezly links don't work.


    by Marquis de Sea ... on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 9:55pm

    Right. I guess those are internal links within the dooryard site. Go there first, use the side letter tabs to get to "jeezly," then click on from there.


    by acanuck on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 11:03pm

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