Rush Hour

I was recently on holiday in the southern States, enjoying their warmer weather and hospitality when I saw a bulletin board sign in front of a church that took me aback. Normally these signs say something in code for the worshippers, like John 2:9 but this was obviously meant for the general public and non-believers like me.

IF YOU DON’T STOP USING MY NAME IN VAIN, I’LL MAKE RUSH HOUR LONGER, the sign said. Surely not more Rush Limbaugh, I said to my wife. I think they mean longer traffic rush hours, dear, she corrected me. (I’ve reached that age when store clerks call me ‘dear’, a term previously only used by my wife in a loving way, not the patronizing tone she just used.)

Now anyone who has taken Marketing 101 at Cambrian College would have said: IF YOU WILL STOP TAKING MY NAME IN VAIN, I’LL MAKE HAPPY HOUR LONGER. But this was the typical Old Testament thinking that seems to be growing in the United States of America. That very evening on the news we heard how President Bush wants to give the churches more tax breaks and by doing so, encourage more people to attend and strengthen their faith.

Some Canadians have been looking down their noses at Americans since the last presidential election, but the Americans we met on holiday were just the same kind of folk that we are. They are informed about events outside their own county and state, even though local TV news is simply reporting on one crime after another. I admit we may have been mixing outside the general milieu because no one we met had voted for George and tricky Dick. Those who watch PBS get to see world events as we do, but then not everyone watches Public television, even here in Canada. Pity.

The big difference, and it seems to be growing, is that Americans seem to rely on God more than we do. Half of the cars have stickers asking God to look after their troops. They seem to be asking God to do everything, including reducing rush hour traffic. Unfortunately they are turning to the Old Testament instead of the New for their guidance in voting to stop same-sex marriages, homosexual rights and abortion issues. And leading this rush is their President.

It seems that George wants his people to have faith in God who will solve all their crises. I am unsure what he thinks God has to do with trade deficits and a weakening dollar, but he must be getting some more good intelligence reports from the CIA. What ever happened to good old American know-how and initiative? Here in the north we have long learned to look after ourselves. It is everywhere in our literature, music and art and it is known as the Survival Theme.

Our environment was so harsh that we did things differently to survive the long cold winters; trekking to school through snow up to our waist - uphill both ways; the hordes of gnawing blackflies in summer and the short growing season we had in which to gather food. Our writing, painting and vocabulary all reflect this survival theme. We long ago learned that praying for rain to ease a summer drought did no good whatsoever. We learned to cover ourselves in furs and to wear toques. We learned to dance energetic jigs to keep warm instead of stately waltzes. We learned to develop and plant drought-hardy seeds and to use the land more wisely.

When it comes to rush hour traffic (that’s a southern Ontario phenomenon where there are so many cars on the road at once that traffic comes to a smog-emitting crawl for up to an hour twice a day) we avoid it by phoning in sick, moving north of Muskoka or taking the Go-train. Some of us may resort to taking the Lord’s name in vain when stuck in the five o’clock rush on Trout Lake and the Bypass, but most of us just say, Get moving, eh? Please.

This passing of the buck to God by George Bush is taking the most powerful nation on earth down a treacherous path. The most powerful being the one that has the most nuclear weapons, not the strongest economy. As the fanatical religious right gains more support in politics, the American way of life is being changed through their legislation and courts. The lack of tolerance for people who no longer fit the new model of the American citizen is going to spread to other nations as well. If you do not have their version of democracy, you need to change. Will it soon follow that if we do not have their version of religion, we will have to change?

Americans need to get back to our northern survival thinking and start looking after themselves, not relying on God to fix rush hour traffic. They need to start exporting, not importing; they need to get back into the study of science, not shying away from it because of Evolution; they need to fix their health care system from the most costly to the most affordable and they need to switch more funding from defense to education.

Other than these few needed minor fixes, the United States is quite a pleasant place to spend a few weeks avoiding our harsh northern climate. It is a matter of survival, eh?