RIP: To remember those lost to us, whether close or at large

[secundem_artem]

Mulroney's death has been commented on by many Canadians and those knowledgeable about Canada, and he does not seem to have evoked neutral views in more or less anyone.  What really is the truth about him and his admin/ policies?

When I was still working in T.O. one of my colleagues was an American woman who had married an Canadian.  Her take on Canada was that Canadians only have 2 ways of looking at the US.  (1) They're ignoring us.  (2) They want to take us over.

Muldoon was instrumental in passing the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement.  That later expanded into NAFTA by including Mexico.  Certainly proposing getting into bed with the Americans over trade (which also included some immigration and other considerations) got those who believed in option #2 above pretty riled up. There were posters of an American flag, only with a Maple Leaf replacing one of the stars.

Lyin' Brian was also remarkably close with both Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.  This did not sit with with a lot of people either.  Pierre Trudeau (Justin's papa) used to say that living beside the Americans was like a mouse sleeping next to an elephant.  No matter how good natured the pachyderm, if it rolled over in bed, the mouse was in deep trouble.

Canadians have long lived with the question of what it means to be a Canadian.  Were we significantly different from Americans?  How?  Trudeau père did a lot in the 70's and 80's to try and forge a Canadian identity.  At some level, I think a lot of us saw Muldoon as undoing that work - not necessarily deliberately - but undoing it nonetheless.

I think it was the Toronto Star that once held a contest to complete the sentence, "As Canadian as........".

The winning entry was "..... possible under the circumstances."

Mulroney also did a number of things that were varying degrees of questionable/corrupt/crooked but I don't think that was what actually got him disliked so thoroughly.

We moved to the Excited States over 30 years ago.  And I suspect that the Canadian identity has become firmer over that period. But certainly, in our time in the Great White North, Muldoon was thoroughly polarizing figure.

Not sure who else on here is/was Canadian.  Any different thoughts on the topic?

[dismalist]

Mulroney's death has been commented on by many Canadians and those knowledgeable about Canada, and he does not seem to have evoked neutral views in more or less anyone.  What really is the truth about him and his admin/ policies?

When I was still working in T.O. one of my colleagues was an American woman who had married an Canadian.  Her take on Canada was that Canadians only have 2 ways of looking at the US.  (1) They're ignoring us.  (2) They want to take us over.

Muldoon was instrumental in passing the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement.  That later expanded into NAFTA by including Mexico.  Certainly proposing getting into bed with the Americans over trade (which also included some immigration and other considerations) got those who believed in option #2 above pretty riled up. There were posters of an American flag, only with a Maple Leaf replacing one of the stars.

Lyin' Brian was also remarkably close with both Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.  This did not sit with with a lot of people either.  Pierre Trudeau (Justin's papa) used to say that living beside the Americans was like a mouse sleeping next to an elephant.  No matter how good natured the pachyderm, if it rolled over in bed, the mouse was in deep trouble.

Canadians have long lived with the question of what it means to be a Canadian.  Were we significantly different from Americans?  How?  Trudeau père did a lot in the 70's and 80's to try and forge a Canadian identity.  At some level, I think a lot of us saw Muldoon as undoing that work - not necessarily deliberately - but undoing it nonetheless.

I think it was the Toronto Star that once held a contest to complete the sentence, "As Canadian as........".

The winning entry was "..... possible under the circumstances."

Mulroney also did a number of things that were varying degrees of questionable/corrupt/crooked but I don't think that was what actually got him disliked so thoroughly.

We moved to the Excited States over 30 years ago.  And I suspect that the Canadian identity has become firmer over that period. But certainly, in our time in the Great White North, Muldoon was thoroughly polarizing figure.

Not sure who else on here is/was Canadian.  Any different thoughts on the topic?

Yes, when K-16 raised the question, the first thing I thought was that the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement made him unpopular, at least in certain circles. Don't know more about Mulroney than Wikipedia tells me. But at the time, it was part of my job to stay informed of international trade matters.

What is amazing is how popular opinion can vary from reality. "Getting into bed with the Americans" was surely the way it looked to the uninitiated. In fact, it was getting out from under the thumb of the Americans in trade!

Canada was rightly pissed off that US corporations were able to induce so called "anti-dumping duties" -- in fact just extraordinarily high tariffs on many countries' goods, including Canada's, just by administrative fiat. Canada sought a way to stop this nonsense. To get you gotta give, so what came out of that was the Canada US Free Trade Agreement which didn't just reduce tariffs to zero, but added Canadian representatives to the US quasi-judicial procedures in awarding anti-dumping tariffs.

The extension to NAFTA was the will of each country; it was not one agreement, but rather three pairs of agreements. No one would say Canada got into bed with Mexico, but on the naive observer logic, they could.

That's the opposite of what it might look like. This is not unusual in economics.

[little bongo]

Comedian Richard Lewis, on February 27. Very funny man.

[EdnaMode]

My high school math teacher, Mr. N. His daughter just called me to let me know. We had remained close over the years. Even in his last days, he was writing out math problems for his children, grandkids, and even the staff at the nursing home to solve. He was a patient, kind, and caring teacher. A good man. And very, very smart. I told him when I went back to visit during my undergrad days, that college math was relatively easy for me because he'd done such a good job of teaching us in high school, all the way up through calculus. I will miss him, may he rest in peace.

[little bongo]

Great character actor M. Emmett Walsh passed at 88.

[fishbrains]

A colleague's son. 21 or 22. I've known him since he was born. Except for maybe younger siblings and the odd cousin here or there, you shouldn't know someone for their entire life span . . .

[Wahoo Redux]

Russia is not my favorite country right now, but thoughts and prayers to the Russian people killed in the Crocus City Hall atrocity and their friends, families, and the survivors. 

[AmLitHist]

Colleague's father, who also taught here for 40+ years, passed last week. It was a blessing, as he'd had multiple serious health problems in recent years, but it's never easy. I enjoyed talking with him in the few years our tenure overlapped, and his daughter is one of my few friends, and one of the very few people at work that I trust. His wife also worked as an adjunct and tutor in my dept. for many years.

[spork]

Danny Kahneman, age 90. Wicked smart and by all accounts a very nice guy, too.

[Langue_doc]

Not everyone's cup of tea, but RIP David Breashears.

David Breashears, 68, Who Braved Everest to Capture It on Film, Dies
He risked death on the slopes of the world's highest mountain to produce the highest-grossing IMAX documentary of all time.

[Langue_doc]

Richard Serra, Who Recast Sculpture on a Massive Scale, Dies at 85
His tilted walls of rusting steel, monumental blocks and other immense and inscrutable forms created environments that had to be walked through, or around, to be fully experienced.

A controversial sculptor, but I liked his Schunnemunk Fork at The Storm King Art Center, which I think is the perfect background for gigantic works of art.

ETA:

Schunnemunk Fork, a site-specific commission, is installed in a ten-acre rolling field with a natural border of nearby woods, which, at the time of the work's construction, was the southern edge of the Storm King property. When Richard Serra surveyed Storm King's grounds and chose the site, it had never before been considered for its artistic potential. He arrived at his final composition through a complex process that involved consulting both topographical maps and a surveyor, as well as walking the grounds with his wife, Clara Weyergraf-Serra. The work consists of four weathering steel plates set lengthwise and inserted into the ground at designated intervals. Each plate is eight feet high and two and a half inches thick; lengths vary from thirty-five to almost fifty-five feet. Roughly a third of the length of each rectangular plate is visible; the remainder is buried in the earth. The visible angles correspond to eight-foot drops in the terrain. The title refers to the four-pronged scheme of the piece and references nearby Schunnemunk Mountain.

[hmaria1609]

Former Senator Joseph (Joe) Lieberman at age 82
I met then Sen. Lieberman during a Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore to Manchester, NH. It was spring 2002. I had been home for spring break and was heading back to my college. Some well-wishers greeted him at both airports and a NH state trooper met him at the baggage claim.

[fishbrains]

O.J. Simpson. At 76.

"Go, O.J.! Go!"











Sorry, sometimes you gotta go for the low-hanging fruit.

[Langue_doc]

Faith Ringgold Dies at 93; Wove Black Life Into Quilts and Children's Books
A champion of Black artists, she explored themes of race, gender, class, family and community through a vast array of media and later the written word.

I had the privilege of sitting around a table listening to her talk about one of her books. This must have been two decades ago. I've also seen her works in more than one museum.

[Hegemony]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear about Daniel Kahneman.