Today in my quarter Canadian caveat:

Pictured: ermine-trimmed, porphyria-
addled last King of America and 18th
century dreamboat King George III.

I am, as I may have mentioned before--and frequently, and unsolicitedly--a quarter Canadian. My grandmother and great-grandmother, for whatever reason, quasi-legally immigrated back in the twenties or something, but my Canadian-ness actually comes with an asterisk. My Canadian ancestors were themselves Americans who fled to Canada during the Revolution. Yup, they were on Team George III and wanted nothing to do with ungrateful colonists whinging on about their stamp tax or whatever. 

It's basically phrenology, which
 is also famously racist. 

I mention this because while I put zero stock in the idea that someone's ancestry confers certain personality traits--because that's like, textbook racism--I do feel a certain eye-rolling annoyance at certain American traditions, particularly on a day like today, where were all supposed to feel, I don't know, patriotic of something? I guess I'm glad we won the war and don't have to curtsy whenever Charles III and Queen Camilla happen by, but I'm also not going to put on a stetson and listen to Lee Greenwood.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that the political right has un-ironically coopted most of the traditional symbols of American culture despite being the book-banning, trans-bashing, gun-humping examples of everything wrong with our culture. The flag, the bald eagle, 9/11. Those weird 9/11 t-shirts with bald eagles crying while a flag waves in the background, it all screams "lock her up" and Let's go Brandon memes.

I mean, are eagles even biologically capable of shading tears?

Pictured: kids playing with fireworks.
Because freedom or something.

The other part of it is that some of our traditions, particularly around the Fourth of July are, and I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way, dumb. Just, aggressively dumb. Take fireworks for example. They're bad for the environment, can start fires, freak out pets, and can seriously upset people suffering from PTSD. Not to mention the fact that they're incredibly dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and most of the people setting them off in their back yards don't know what they're doing.

In fact, it's illegal to sell them in a lot of places, but people just drive somewhere they're not illegal, drive home, and blow their fingers off. 

This terrifying mishap is from 2022, but I mean, I'm sure
someone's going to be reckless with explosives this year too.

The challenge: tell me I will fundamentally
disagree with you about everything
without opening your mouth.

And you know what else is dumb? The clothes. I know it's the same mentality behind wearing Christmas sweaters or sweatshirts with a turkey on them, and that's whatever. I've always thought dressing up in themed holiday ware was at best a red flag, but when I see someone decked out head to toe in the Stars and Stripes, there just this vibe that they think they're somehow more American that the rest of us. Like it's a contest of something. But I mean, money says they can't name all the State capitals. Oh, and it also suggests that they're going to want to tell me about the dangers of vaccines.

And lastly, though perhaps dumbestly, the hot dog eating contest. Did you know that this was an annual tradition? Because it is and I can think of nothing more American than a competition to see who can force down the most processed pork tubes while school lunch programs go dangerously underfunded. Except perhaps that same competition having separate categories for men and women. 

This year's winners of the men's and women's divisions: Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo
respectively. Although, in many ways, everyone one. And in many more ways, this contest
makes me incredibly grateful to be able to claim to be at least partially Canadian.