Time to get tatted up

It's once again that time of year in Nova Scotia, the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo is in town.

I attended my first tattoo related performance on June 30 in a nearby grocery store parking lot. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the prominence of the location, I was one of the few people who showed up to see the performance of the pipe band scheduled to play. After a few minutes, once it became clear that they were just going to play Scotland the Brave again and again, I made my way back home. This was a less than overwhelming and endearing concert experience.




Today, I decided to take in another performance. This time the performance was scheduled to take place on the Grand Parade and it was to included appearances by the National Band of the Naval Reserve (Canada) and the Paris Fire Brigade. Soon after Jeannette and I arrived on the scene things began to look amiss. The only performers we saw congregating near the performance area were members of the Naval Reserve band, the firefighters were nowhere to be seen. After about 40 minutes of band content it was clear that the firefighters wouldn't be showing up and that performance would consist entirely of the Naval Reserve band. While the band wasn't bad, they really weren't the reason I made my way downtown in the middle of the day.



I was really hoping to see something like this, or at least this kind of strength turned into a performance:



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I am thinking about attending another lunchtime show on Thursday, though now that I have seen two somewhat disappointing performances I am a little worried that the Thursday trip may not be worth my while. In case you are curious, the act drawing me to Thursday's show is the Juliana Bicycle Team, a group from the Netherlands.

Apparently this is the kind of stuff they do at the main tattoo performances:



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Tonight Jeannette and I are hoping to score some last minute 50% off tickets to the main tattoo performance. The only problem with our plan is that we won't know until just before the show is to start if we have tickets or not. If we don't get tickets tonight we will probably try again tomorrow night. I know it is a little sad, but the firefighters and the bicycle team are really two of the main draws to the full-fledged tattoo performance. I hope they are worth it (or at least worth 50% of regular admission).

The Land of Freedom

A few years ago, because of some great and important slight, there was a movement in the US to re-name all things with the word 'French' in their name. 'French' was replaced with the word 'freedom.' Though on its face, this seems rather petty and childish, in reality it was quite masterful and a very advanced PR technique. The only problem with this plan was that it was lacking creative energy and burned out after changing 'french fries' to 'freedom fries' and 'french toast' to 'freedom toast.' We shouldn't have stopped there when there are so many more phrases that could be modified to really drive home the point about French cowardice (especially after we saved their asses in WWII).

I have come up with a few more terms that I think we should modify so that we can really drive the point home.

'French bread' should become 'freedom bread.'

'French wine' should be come 'freedom wine.'

'French kisses' should be 'freedom kisses.' (I don't know about you, but I know I don't feel free until there is at least a little bit of tongue).

In a similar vein, 'French ticklers' should become 'freedom tickers.'

On maps we should replace 'France' with 'Freedom' and then refer to the country formerly known as 'France' as 'freedom' or 'the land of freedom,' and if I know freedom-mens this will really get under their skin.

One of the most important changes is to turn 'French class' into 'freedom class.' No longer will people speak 'French,' now they will speak 'freedom.' Some might even have a freedom accent, presumably this is likely if freedom is their mother tongue.

A little more controversially, I think we should change 'French-Canadian' to 'Freedom-Canadian.'

Let's not forget that we need to modify the 'French Foreign Legion' so that it is the 'Freedom Foreign Legion.'

Most importantly, 'Frenchy's' should become 'Freedomy's.'

Some of you may think that it is a little odd that we might want to associate our most prized value with everything associated with the group we are trying to slight. Though the logic is not necessarily intuitive, it really does make sense. Through osmosis the French will eventually learn to value 'freedom' and understand that instead of making their own decisions and standing up to a more powerful state that they should actually do what they are told (don't they know what's best for them?). Only by associating 'freedom' to all things 'French' will the residents of France ever come to truly understand what 'freedom' means in our modern world (hopefully people in the US don't make the reverse association and connection all things French with freedom).

Surely we should now redouble our efforts to make up for lost time. Only through vigilance and continued effort will we ever be able to make sufficient progress on this front.