Proud To Be a Canadian?

Rice Introduced to "Double-Double" Diplomacy
Tue Sep 12, 4:50 PM

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice started the second day of her visit to Nova Scotia with a cup of Canadian culture - popping into a Tim Hortons in Pictou with Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay. MacKay included the coffee stop as he escorted his U.S. counterpart around the northern town early Tuesday before a scheduled speech.
"She learned about important things like a double-double," MacKay, the MP for the region, later told an audience in nearby Stellarton.
However, Rice eschewed the iconic Tims drink - with two creams and two sugars - in favour of a black coffee with sweetener.

That reprinted news report is the kind of thing that makes me cringe. Canada could be a great country, would be a great country if only we stopped caring about what (despite ourselves) we know is a great country just south of the border or rather stopped caring about what its citizens think of us. Condoleezza Rice coming here to speak 5 years after 9-11 is news but a pit stop at "T Ho's" is not. Who among us can read this story though and not feel a patriotic twinge...."we'll show her what a real doughnut shop is, those yanks can keep their Dunkin Donuts!!" Perhaps we're secretly hoping that Condee's visit will spur more U.S. interest in our doughnuts and maybe, just maybe, that interest will lead to more love and acceptance(envy even???) from ourAmerican brethren and sistren. I was feeling it.....that swell of pride knowing that only in Canada can you get a "T Ho's" treat by driving at most 5 minutes from any given point in our great nation. Finally....proud to be Canadian and then in an instant that pride turned to anger and resentment. She spurned a double-double....that BITCH!!! Talk about a slap in the face, the symbolic importance of this act was not lost on anyone with even an ounce of insight. I saw the scene play itself out on TV and MacKay, still reeling from being dumped by Belinda Stronach and fresh from having introduced Condoleezza to his dad (there will be many jokes about him being minister of foreign affairs...all lame) was clearly embarassed as his U.S. counterpart insisted on picking up the tab. Her no-nonsense approach to coffee selection; black, half decaf, sweetener contrasted with our traditional fat and sugar laden beverage as if to say "I'm American...all business...there's important and productive work to be done. You Canadians are just too soft. Keep on drinking that crap and collecting unemployment. See y'all in 5 years....maybe"
Cynics may feel that her visit and rare overnight stay are The U.S. government's way of throwing the compliant Canadian Conservatives a nice juicy bone. It's only reasonable to assume that with our troops lending a hand (often severed) over in Afghanistan the Americans will be caving on the softwood lumber negotiations any second now. Not gonna happen.
We're doomed to second banana status. Like Ed MacMahon; large, affable, vainly fighting for a place in the spotlight, we soldier along. We know it and they (the U.S. of A.) know it so I ask
you....Would it have killed her to order a friggin' double-double?? Eh!!??