Canadians

Dear Nurse Dave:

What are your thoughts on Canadians? And the use of "$" in Ke$ha's name?

Best,
Amy (Dearborn, MI)

I think I speak for all Americans when I say I have very few thoughts on Canadians but I've heard they get upset when you use the term American to exclude Canadians. They claim to also be American. Their claims stem from being a part of the North American continent but so is Greenland and they certainly don't claim to be American. Greenland doesn't really claim anything not even Bjork, she's from Iceland.

Some thoughts I've had on Canadians include: socialized health care, pronouncing "about" as "aboot", beer, niagra falls, ice hockey, frenchcanadian, canada dry ginger ale, that John Candy movie Canadian Bacon, Neil Young and why is Arcade fire considered a canadian band if they are really from Texas? In general Canada feels like a person you meet once and the person seems friendly enough but you just don't really care if you speak to them again. In fact that person makes you feel a little uncomfortable due to a strange way of saying "about" and the fact that he/she really really likes ice hockey.

As for Ke$ha. I just want to say thank you. Thank you to Ke$ha for showing me that putting a $ in your name can be socially acceptable not only acceptable but in fact celebrated. In fact I'm now in favor of putting symbols in names in general, as well as intentional mispelling of names and a huge fan of mixing animal names with money terms (Chamillionare, Cashmonkey, Dolladuck and Nickleback). How are we going to know how far we can take it until we go there? There have to be pioneers like Ke$ha to push the envelope and then maybe we'll finally be ready for this.