Well it’s Thanksgiving again, the time to get together with our families and reflect on all our blessings. This is a uniquely American holiday, one shared by no other nation but Canada, who celebrates it on a different day. Leave it to Canada to to be almost exactly like the United States, but not quite. You could say Canada is just like the USA, but without all that distracting excitement and vitality.

Their talented people certainly recognize where the action isn’t and come south to get famous. Canada, get a lifestyle! Sorry once again, Canadians, but if you really want to be something other than America Lite, do something different other than refusing to pronounce the word “about” properly. That’s the lamest claim to national identity ever.

But I digress, and I am being unkind to our esteemed neighbor to the north, our plodding and stoic provider of cold fronts, maple syrup and toothless ice skaters, but I’m working on it. This is about giving thanks, not my human failings. Let us review the many things we have for which to be humbly grateful and join together in prayer of thanks to our Creator.

We’ll start with the menu:

Oh Lord, we are your humble servants and thankful we only have to eateth this ponderous provender but once a year. If there is a drier, more tasteless bird in all Your vast Creation, oh Lord, we thank Thee for revealing it not to the Pilgrims. And Lord forgive us for stuffing this mound of meat with more meat, inventing sweet potato and marshmallow concoctions, mince pies and fruit cakes. We solemnly vow to consumeth these nominally edible dishes but once a year. Grant us the wisdom to remain faithful to these abstentions on all the days saveth Thanksgiving.

Now we thank the Lord for our precious family:

Let us prostrate ourselves before thee in humble thanks that Aunt Greta finally had that sizable goiter removed from her neck so there will be no squabbling over who must sit opposite her at the table and lose their appetite for Thy wondrous bounty. And we beseech thee, oh Lord, for all our sakes that Cousin Roger’s latest stay at rehab takes, and he consumeth not half his weight in beer and tequila before collapsing into his plate.

And Lord, in your infinite wisdom, provide Grandpa with a decent battery for his hearing aid so that he belloweth not at his progeny. And we beseech thee oh Lord to allow Uncle Milton to recall a different topic of conversation than his many surgeries or failing bodily functions.

And Lord we beg thee not to let cousin Belinda stray too close to the kitchen lest the refrigerator magnets cling to her many facial piercings again, and allow little Billy to see the light when it comes to fiddling around with electric outlets and butter knives, thus sparing us another holiday visit from Thy blessed ambulance technicians. And may Mama and Papa call a truce to their decades-long feud over who else they should have married. At least for this one day, oh Lord, that our ears be spared this vitriol.

And we beg thee oh Lord to convince Aunt Lorraine that the days of mini skirts and exposed cleavage are long behind her and while you are at it, oh Mighty One, perhaps you could persuade Uncle Jack to lose the combover and ponytail, the skull and crossbones earring and the leather pants into which he fitteth not anymore, as thy generous bounty has increased his girth immeasurably over the years.

And since Thanksgiving is our own invention, it is only right and proper that we give thanks for our wonderful country:

And now Lord, we thank thee for this wonderful nation unto to which our ancestors arrived and wrested from the Godless savages who sustained us in our first vulnerable winters. We complement thee, oh Lord, for giving these Godless savages many gambling casinos as compensation for having given us their land, upon which they had not the wisdom to build a single strip mall or drive-through fast food emporium.

And let us thank thee for providing us our black brethren, who gave us their cheerful assistance in dominating this land with their free labor and servitude for 400 years. Let us pray for all our brethren whose skin is a slightly different shade than our own, that they do not wisheth to reside in our neighborhood.

Oh Lord we thank Thee for our national institutions like Congress, the Supreme Court, Reality TV and the many fine Law and Order programs. We thank Thee for our wise leaders and thank Thee further for term limits. Lord, we pray that half as many of us vote in our next election than for an episode of American Idol.

And Lord, we beseech thee to open the eyes of the blind who worship not at the altar of Thee, the One True God, and alloweth us the serenity to smite them not unto dust.

And let none of us assail the caretakers with whom You, in your infinite wisdom, have entrusted almost all of our nation’s bounty, thy worthy wealthy servants. Let not our hearts turn bitter when those servants giveth our jobs to nations that need them more than we do, drain our treasury and sendeth our children to wars for reasons we cannot hope to understand. Alloweth not the sheep to question the shepherds.

Maketh us not envious of the many fine homes owned by our shepherds while so many of our own brethren are losing their modest shelter to banks. Let us instead rejoice over being relieved of our heavy labors and our burdensome mortgages, and be thankful that our clothing is now sewn by industrious Chinese children and the cars that are now our homes are so sturdily assembled in Mexico.

Let us not wax melancholy that our dear nephew Ralph cannot find any gainful employment with his expensive college business degree save that of a busboy in one of the many fine corporate executive dining rooms, and allow us not to indulge in petty irony. Alloweth Ralph to accept his station in life. And Lord help sister Jane and her many unruly children hang on to their little house, lest they moveth in with us.

And one more thing, Oh Lord: Please make this year’s football game an exciting one and not a lopsided stinker that’s pretty much over at half time and alloweth Thy windy sports commentators much leeway to blather on and on about many strange and wondrous things having nothing to do with anything. We remain your humble and grateful servants. Amen.

Well, there’s good news and bad news from Canada. First, the good news is that Canada is generating news of any sort. Okay, Canada, we know you’re a shy country not given to flashy self-promotion like some North American nations (ahem!), but the rest of the world was thinking about checking your pulse. Everyone knows you’re America Lite, which isn’t such a bad thing, really.

Canada gets to unload all their pesky talented people that tend to draw a lot of attention to themselves on the USA, where that sort of thing isn’t frowned upon. Our second-tier entertainer and B-list celebrity rosters are teeming with Canadians, who we’re fairly certain would have enthralled and enlightened us with their unique artistic visions if Canadians were permitted to have such things.

The bad news from Canada? The Canadian telecommunications giant (now there’s a phrase you don’t hear everyday), RIM, the makers of the very expensive and popular (there’s one that you do) Blackberry phones, just surrendered to the censors in Saudi Arabia. How very Corporate American of them!

It seems that the Saudi Thought Police had already gotten the giant internet servers to aid and abet their interception of personal computer messages, but the advent of smart phones and their e-mailing capabilities made it harder for the minions of the royal family to eavesdrop on their subjects.

Now, Blackberries aren’t the only smart phone on the market, and the Saudi market is a lucrative one, so the head honchos at Blackberry surrendered the necessary codes to Saudi authorities rather than lose market share.

Blackberry’s American competitors have been adept at pretending to resist censorship while cutting back room deals with tyrants and kings, so the RIM Corporation cut right to the chase and just gave it up without any tedious hand-wringing or comment, Canada style, if utter lack of style can indeed be called a style.

So that’s it for news from Canada until this nation that is defined by Winter loses every event at the next Winter Olympics, even at the oddball quasi-sports like curling and ice hockey that they invented. Other than the cold fronts that blow down from there every December, you’re more likely to hear Botswana mentioned in the news than Canada before then.

Well, the New Year isn’t new anymore, Life’s Rich Pageant is marching earnestly along, and news of great and small portent flows like lava from an angry volcano, showering all of us and demanding our attention. Well, so what? That, my friends, is the essence of Not Caring: so friggin’ what? There’s all sorts of new and exciting developments to not care about, a veritable Cornucopia of Callousness to stir our deep-seted apathy. These are exciting times to be alive and ambivalent, indeed. Let’s just scrape the tip of the Iceberg of Idiocy, if you will, and review the contenders for The Rat’s Ass Awards:

The Winter Olympics: Always a reliable finalist for a Rat’s Ass Award, as in “who gives a,” these Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada are especially uninteresting since they are being held in, well, Canada, aka The Country That Wasn’t There. Now that they are almost over, can anyone remember who won what in any category? Of course not! And why would anyone care? What usually takes days to forget now happens instantly. But we will remember the pretty blonde woman curler who cried. Crying? There’s no crying in curling! It’s the  unavoidable Canada (non) Factor, and the usual Rat’s Ass Award in the Bad Cabin Fever Category to The Winter Olympics.

American Idle: Who is Simon Cowell and what’s the big deal with him going away? When you don’t know or care about some super wealthy guy who seems to be famous (you’re not quite sure) for being nasty, you just sort of shrug it off. Since actually finding out anything about the guy would entail watching some episodes of America Idle, it’s best just cut to the chase and maintain your ignorance. A Rat’s Ass to Mr. Cowell in the Go-ahead-and-let-the-door-hit-you-in the-ass-on-the-way-out Category. You’re a bazillionaire. Who cares?

Tiger Woods’ penis: Not since President Clinton was running the country with a huge smile on his face have we been accosted with 8 pages of details about the adventures of a famous penis in mainstream newspapers. As far as Mr. Woods’ character is concerned, why would anyone be surprised (or even mildly interested) that he cheated on his wife when his whole life was a fraud? You see, the only reason that he was the best golfer ever is because he was an athlete! In all of recorded history, there have never been any athletes involved in professional golf, so it stands to reason that even a mildly talented athlete would beat the pants off the assortment of fat guys and scrawny geeks that are professional golfers. That’s like letting LeBron James compete in the Special Olympics. Of course he’s going to win all the prizes and make everyone else cry! So Tiger Woods’ penis gets a Rat’s Ass Award in the Boring Fraud Category.

Mark McGwire: Does anybody anywhere think that Mark McGwire did not pump himself full of steroids in order to hit 70 home runs one year? No, no there is not. All anyone had to see is him embracing the entire family of Roger Maris like Paul Bunyan scooping up a bunch of puppies to realize that this guy was one temper tantrum short of becoming the Incredible Hulk and wrecking a significant portion of St. Louis. Beside, Mr. McGwire got his comeuppance just 3 years later when his home run record was broken by another Incredible Growing Steroid Man, Barry Bonds. Now Mark McGwire returns to baseball as the batting instructor for the St. Louis Cardinals and we’re supposed to be interested in this personality-free Uberjock? And the Rat’s Ass goes to…

Guns in National Parks: There’s a big hoopla going on about people carrying guns in National Parks. Should they or shouldn’t they? Is it ethical or a danger to children? Well, there have been people with guns in National Parks forever. They’re called Park Rangers and every so often they have to shoot a bear or a wolf who’s eyeing someone’s chubby baby as a potential meal, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea for people dim enough to bring small children in close proximity to vicious predators to be heavily armed. Its not the kids’ fault their parents are so friggin’ stupid. But then again, what are the odds of these kids growing up to be any smarter than their peculiar progenitors? Further, what are the odds that their goofball parents will be any more skillful with a rifle than they are with the lives of their children, especially when drinking a lot, which seems to be an integral part of the Nature Experience for so many of us loyal citizens? Probably quite small on both counts. This is an especially rewarding problem to not care about due to its complexity and the existential questions about the thinning of the herd it does not raise in our jaded and apathetic minds. Hopefully, it won’t take too many “hunting accidents” to convince the authorities to reevaluate that whole Armed Drunken Tourist notion before sensible people start getting slain along with the dim. What the hell, let’s just have done with it and give The Big Rat’s Ass in the Scary-Morons-With-Rifles Category to those park patrons who come loaded for bear, in more ways than one! So What?

Lifetime Achievement Rat’s Ass Award: For consistently maintaining low standards, demanding attention for pedestrian concerns and dubious achievements, the Rat’s Ass For Lifetime Achievement goes to… Donald Trump, world class bore and serial trophy wife collector!  We salute The Donald for never ever saying anything interesting or displaying the slightest interest in anything that does not revolve completely around Donald Trump. Poorly done! Unbrilliant! How very sad! Go away! Forgettable! Pathetic! How trifling…

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO), in our only capacity, that of drawing attention to what should need no explanation, cannot help but notice that the nation of Canada has emerged briefly from its self-imposed exile to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. For two weeks, Canada will occupy a most unaccustomed position, the world spotlight. While many people were under the impression that Canada had entered some sort of International Witness Protection Program, in fact they are alive and, while not exactly kicking, which would be unseemly for a Canadian, breathing.

Senior Department Analysts have long been aware of Canada, even if much of the rest of world has not, and that seems to be just the way Canadians prefer it. For the second-largest nation on Earth, Canada has been remarkably anonymous, even to the point of insisting that their most talented and ambitious citizens leave the country to gain fame and success. The fact that they share a 3,000-mile border with the squeakiest wheel on the planet, The United States, has only served to strengthen their xenophobia and made them more determined to isolate themselves, even though their nation is the mirror image of America.

A dull, awkward and shy mirror image, to be sure, as if America consisted only of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but nearly identical in culture, architecture, political structure, language and diet. At least Minnesota gave the world Prince and Jesse Ventura, and Wisconsin… well, there’s Liberace and lots of cheese… but the point is made. They gave us, who, Celine Dion? Canada, for all it’s interesting history, breathtaking landscapes and potentially fascinating internal conflicts between French-speakers and Anglophiles, has been for over a century the dullest place on earth. DOPOTO researchers and analysts have confirmed this through extensive studies of the place, and have filed the requisite reports, that is when they could keep their eyes open.

So it seems that hosting the Winter Olympics would be a natural for Canada to gain her place on the world stage, being that much of that nation enjoys perpetual winter. Two staples of the Winter Games are sports invented by ice-bound Canadians, hockey and curling. Unfortunately, hockey has been assimilated and dominated by the United States and Russia, and curling is a bunch of people (!) pushing a stone around a sheet of ice with a broom. Very few people on Earth, including the participants in Curling, have any idea what the object of the game is other than to generate enough body heat to avoid freezing to death.

To add insult to tedium, a Canadian Olympic team hasn’t dominated the Winter Olympics for decades. That would be like Australia getting soundly defeated in Australian Rules Football again and again. Well, this year, the Canadian Olympic Committee has vowed to try to win more gold medals than any other nation. Unfortunately for them, however, no one on the Olympic Committee gets to compete, and most winter sports experts deem this an impossibility, and Canada is not even expected to medal in Curling. The games also opened with a tragedy, the death of a luge sledder practicing on a Luge Run designed by someone unfamiliar with the sport.

While the opening ceremonies were conducted under flags flown at half mast, technicians were earnestly duct-taping wresting mats from a local high school to the sharp steel columns that line the Luge Run. And so the “quiet competence” that Canadians were so proud of turns out to be another illusion on their part. At least they can go back to their “prosperous anonymity,” somewhat of a national motto, when the games are over and Canada once again enters the International Witness Protection Program and the rest of the world goes back to conjuring up fuzzy images of Canada involving maple syrup, mackinaws, moose, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and pictures of another country’s queen on their currency. Then, The Country That Wasn’t There will return to their accustomed place – out of sight, out of mind, and quietly shivering.

This was a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious

Well, it’s official. The sports writers and sports announcers are all of a sudden yammering about people no one ever heard of, and that can only mean one thing. That’s right, sports fans, it’s almost Winter Olympic time! Skiers, Bobsledders and the like. Then these sports people, who you read and listen to all year long and who never once mention Winter Olympic sports, all of a sudden become word class experts on the Luge, Curling, Snowboarding and whatever the hell they call that stupid event where a guy on skis shoots up the place with a high-powered rifle. Why more Americans don’t take to that sport is a mystery. Throw in a deer hunting license and a case of beer and we’d dominate.

At any rate, the same guys who prattle about prevent defenses, the pick-and-roll and the infield fly rule now would have you believe that they give a crap about figure skating, which hasn’t been any fun at all since Tonya Harding kneecapped the competition back in ‘94. Literally. Like they know or give a rat’s ass what’s the difference between Speed Skating and Short Track Speed Skating. They do a nice job of trying to get us interested, though, usually by focusing their attention on some obnoxious extreme skier with a few screws loose. Sorry, but Tonya is still the most exciting thing to hit the Winter Olympics. Ever.

Outside of that skate and punch fest called Hockey, there’s not a sport in the whole bunch that either doesn’t require a lot of money to learn or are best performed by people like Canadians and Scandinavians who grew up in chest-high snow. Basically what you see for two weeks on the winnners platform are the blonde-haired, blue-eyed sons and daughters of affluence, not a single one of them other than a handful of the Hockey players and figure skaters who have a shot at earning a living at their sport. No one packs an arena to watch Skeleton, which is a guy on a tiny replica of a toboggan, more like a welcome mat with handles, hurtling downhill on his belly, face-first, at 80 MPH. Only those who attend Nascar races hoping for a fatal crash could appreciate this semi-sport.

Fittingly enough, this year’s games are in Canada, as perfect a symbol for the earnest and energetic ennui that is the Winter Olympics as could be, a marriage made in Dullness Heaven. If Canada did not exist, we’d have to invent it to serve as the living embodiment of boring, but God in His wisdom was, as always, a few steps ahead of us. How could He have known there would be Winter Olympics Games and where best to hold them? Thank Him that at least we’ll have the Super Bowl to quench our thirst for real sports until after the Winter Olympic Games go away and take their so-called athletes with them for another four merciful years. This will be a good time to hibernate for two weeks.