Blogs of Note

National Anthems My wife and I were discussing National Anthems the other day, as we watched a friend of ours gain citizenship. Part of the ceremony is to sing the national anthem. I didn't recall the national anthem of Guyana - my country of origin ... so I looked it up. Although I sang that anthem every morning when I went to school as a child, I can no longer remember how to sing it. Good thing I'm now Canadian. Which brings me to the point of our discussion - the Canadian national anthem. It needs some work. For one thing, the French version is too different from the English version. Do we really need two national anthems? I take exception to the following verse from the French as well:

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, Il sait porter la croix!

I don't get it. We have a separation of church and state in Canada. The PM recently reminded us of all this by keeping his religion out of the issue of gay marriages, and doing the intelligent thing. The French version in my opinion, needs a complete rewrite. I'm not sparing the English version either. What's wrong with this line?

True patriot love in all thy sons command

I think we have more than just sons. On a whole, the Canadian national anthem is ... well ... Canadian. It shows a little pride, but it's not what you would call patriotic. Now the US national anthem ... that's patriotic. There's a lot bad you can say about the Americans, especially with the present government, but if it's one thing you can't fault them for, is their love for their country and their expression of it.