“You know, we don’t have to be your friends”

Varifrank has posted a very good piece about the current state of affairs between the u.s. and europe. he's not as pessimistic as i am, but he does in fact lay out some well thought out and presented analyses regarding the european view of us, and our country. one quote i thought telling was

I was joking with someone the other day that the way things are going, I’m more likely to get mugged for being an American in Paris than I would be as an American in Beirut.

i felt that a lot in canada when my dad and i took a rental from seattle to anchorage via the alaskan highway. the locals were friendly, and genuinely seemed to enjoy our conversations. the imports from other parts of canada, such as the lady working in one of the tourist spots we stopped off in, seemed to wish we would just go away, and make room for the tour group from calais. i talked to her for a while, and the upshot of the conversation was that in toronto, the u.s. has taken on the role of the great satan. that might be an exaggeration, but it's close. the western canadians seemed to identify more with us than they did with the eastern canuks, and the easterners all seemed to identify with europe. one gent apologized to me (imagine that) for canada not having troops in the coalition in iraq. he said the problem was ottowa and the "freakin' leftists" running the country.