Old Gray Lady Experiences Incontinence. Again

The New York Times are a-changin'.

Pixabay’s top suggestion for “old gray lady.”

If there’s one thing Canadians love more than when major US media outlets notice us, it’s when they get things wrong and we get to make fun of them for it.

One of the worst repeat offenders is America’s second-largest newspaper although it’s usually harmless, like the time they ran a photo of random baked goods to go with a recipe for Nanaimo bars or the Jayson Blairesque fabrication we celebrated something called C-Day when cannabis was finally legalized.

(Canadians instead mark C-Day when one of our seven remaining NHL teams pick a new captain, which is something I also pulled out of my ass but at least has a whiff of plausibility.)

It was bad when the New York Times tweeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was suspending civil liberties through the invocation of the Emergencies Act when dealing with the Convoy clown show in Ottawa three years ago, but they at least offered a correction, and it’s not like anyone invaded Iraq or anything because of it.

The latest example of NYT fact-checkers asleep at the switch comes from a recent op-ed from Ross Douthat with the headline “O Canada, Come Join Us” where a mistake was missed in the very first sentence of his argument the Great White North should try to get in on Gilead’s ground floor.

“My great-great-grandmother was born in St. John, New Brunswick, and first saw the United States as a 10-year-old,” Douthat began in open violation of Stylebook guidelines to never abbreviate the name of Canada’s oldest incorporated city. This isn’t nearly as egregious as, say, claiming an American ancestor was born in Seattle, DC, but it’s close enough to be kissing cousins.

As someone who grew up in Saint John, I’m under no illusion most people are aware the foggy NB port city is a different place than the more picturesque foggy port city of St. John’s, Newfoundland — more than a few residents of both are surely oblivious to the correct spelling or that the official provincial title is Newfoundland AND Labrador — but this is why newspapers of record employ fact-checkers. Or used to. Maybe some of the ones Zuckerberg obediently shitcanned can score a new gig there.

He continues:

My great-grandfather was an Irish Canadian who married a Maine girl. My wife’s father was born in Ontario, descended from a long line of Newfoundlanders, and a print of skaters on Ottawa’s Rideau Canal decorates our pantry even now.

I offer these bona fides, proofs of a current of maple syrup running through my children’s veins, as a preface to a controversial claim: that Donald Trump’s kidding-or-is-he suggestion that Canada belongs inside our union is not a threat but an opportunity, that Canada might be better off joined to our continental Republic, with the wintry 1775 defeat of Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold finally reversed.

Sorry Douthat, we don’t wanna do that. The last time this fellow blogger appeared in Wonkette was while being wrong about abortion and he’s continuing the streak by being wrong about the nature of the bilateral relationship with the country’s largest trading partner.

Oh Boy, Ross Douthat Is Going To Tell Us All What 'Liberals' Believe About Abortion!

There’s always been an opportunistic segment of Canadian society open to being gobbled up by the USA — often but not always limited to Albertans — but this was before America’s collective C-students gave a passing grade to the rapey mob boss with obvious dementia. He’s simply not a big sell in a country that doesn’t get Fox News with their cable packages, and the latest polls suggest only 20 percent of voters would be open to hooking up. Maybe put someone nice in again and we’ll think about it?

And fanboying the country’s second-most famous traitor was a choice, although I’ll buy Douthat’s bona fides as a descendant of Newfoundlanders as he does look like one. I’ll bet he’s never kissed a cod though.

‘I's the b'y that casts the pods, I’s the b’y that sells them…’ (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Douthat continues by arguing our “not-Americanness” is no longer a viable option and we should accept the inevitability:

The problem is that it’s hard to see how Canada can successfully renationalize. The country isn’t going back to some Tory past, there’s no clear narrative of assimilation for the millions of recent arrivals, and the only viable nationalism is the separatist spirit in Quebec. […]

Which is the simplest case for just becoming American, for adding some number of new stars to our flag. As the Canadian political theorist David Polansky puts it, “Why shouldn’t a country that abjures all national identity and interests seek advantage in a kind of geopolitical merger?” Because there would be clear advantages: to participate in the great drama rather than watch from across the border, to shape the imperium rather than negotiate a position in its shadow.

If I were a young Canadian, especially one outside the Laurentian heartland, I think I would feel this vision’s pull. And yes, even if I were a young left-leaning anti-Trump Canadian — because what better way to serve those causes than to actually pull Washington leftward, to add your votes to the coalition that just failed to defeat Trump?

Sure, what better way for Tom Sawyer to get Huck to whitewash his fence than convincing him it’s in his own best interest? Or, while we’re at it, paint “N-word” Jim as a hapless DEI hire rather than a towering figure of American literature.

Leaving aside Canadian political theorist David Polansky’s own bona fides as a self-described “American living in Toronto,” Douthat makes a fair point about “the only viable nationalism is the separatist spirit in Quebec.” Although some First Nations would like a word. Overt displays of patriotism are typically confined to international hockey tournaments, Deadpool movies or sporadic visits from hotter members of the Royal family, but it hits different when the next leader of the free world is trying to impress his boss Vladimir Putin with his own concept for a plan for annexing a neighbor with a far less powerful military.

You might’ve already seen Green Party leader Elizabeth May reading That Awful Man for filth while suggesting the governors of progressive states might want to put it to a referendum with citizens about joining forces with a nation that has free healthcare, abortion access, sensible gun laws, and proper Nanaimo bars, but it’s worth another watch to enjoy a strong, possibly tipsy woman speaking truth to power. Especially today on the eve of destruction. Fox naturally went after her for it so there’s a chance the Fuhrer-elect might’ve even seen it.

It’s worth reminding this absurd “51st state” narrative is happening at a time when a whole bunch of Canadians are actively risking their lives helping to contain the hellfires in LA. Quebec sends their amphibious water bombers to California each year through a longstanding agreement because they aren’t needed up here during winter, although one of them was recently grounded for repairs after colliding with a drone presumably operated by a nitwit hoping to go viral on TikTok or, to be fair, someone trying to check if their home had burned down. As if flying Super Scoopers in hurricane force winds wasn’t dangerous enough.

Although it’s better than being strafed with AR-15 fire for rudely interfering with God’s plan to punish heathen Los Angelenos for insufficiently voting for Trump.

[CBC / Global News / Ici Ciel Bleu]