WASHINGTON, DC—After nearly nine years of construction, the Mexi-Canadian Overpass, the controversial $4.3 trillion highway overpass linking Guadalupe and Winnipeg, was finally completed last week, drawing harsh criticism from U.S. citizens and officials alike.
| "If you're a Mexican who regularly commutes to Canada, or vice-versa, this is great. But what about all of us poor Americans caught in the middle?" said Dallas resident Tom Hitchner, one of an estimated 850,000 U.S. citizens forced to evacuate their homes to make room for concrete supports for the 1,600-mile, 18-lane overpass. "For Mexico and Canada to do this without any concern for all the Americans whose lives this affects, well, the arrogance is just unbelievable." |  |
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"We just recently installed beautiful picture
windows in our home," said Fargo, ND, resident Judy Renata, whose house
is situated beneath the overpass. "Now, instead of sunlight, we have to
look at that monstrosity. We'd sell our place and move elsewhere, but property
values have plummeted. I don't know what we're going to do."
In addition to facilitating trade between Mexico and Canada, the overpass is expected to increase tourism in both nations by as much as 60 percent. Boasting hundreds of restaurants, gas stations, and hotels, the state-of-the-art overpass will render it unnecessary for Mexicans or Canadians ever to touch U.S. soil when traveling to and from their respective homelands. |
"It would be one thing if we somehow benefited," said Junction City, KS, business owner Neil Grandy. "But because of the way stations, we don't get anything out of it and have to deal with people tossing garbage out of their windows at 80 mph. You wouldn't believe what we've found some mornings. Everything from tamale husks to broken hockey sticks. The people on that bridge are animals."Americans' hostility toward the overpass only intensified when it officially opened to traffic Monday.
"The noise and dirt of the construction was one thing," said San Antonio, TX, resident Floyd Paymer. "But now, with all the traffic, it's just unbearable. The honking, the chickens, the sound of thousands of cars going back and forth to Canada and Mexico is more than I can take. I can hear those goddamn radios blaring Mariachi music and Rush all day and night."
Despite the public uproar, U.S. leaders say they are helpless to do anything to stop the international project.
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"I called up the governments of Canada and Mexico,
and, after a lot of runaround, I was informed that the overpass was 'regrettable
but necessary,'" Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "We have a petition
circulating in the affected areas of the U.S., but since the overpass is
already complete, I doubt it will do much good."
The overpass is expected to significantly strengthen Mexican-Canadian relations. |
"We thought it would be easier to facilitate cultural and economic exchange if the hassle of driving through the U.S. was eliminated," said Mexican president Vincente Fox, downing a shot of Labatts tequila, a new product from the Canadian brewer. "After we started discussing the overpass, it didn't make sense not to do it. Now that it's finished, I can't believe we didn't think of it years ago."U.S. opposition to the overpass began even before construction began in the summer of 1993. Protests have ranged from thousands of residents linking arm-in-arm in front of bulldozers on both borders to a strongly worded 2001 condemnation from President Bush.
Bush later reconsidered after meeting with Fox and Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien.
"I don't know what happened in that meeting," Vice President Dick Cheney said. "One moment, George is talking about throwing everything we've got at Canada and Mexico. The next thing you know, he's walking out of the meeting, muttering something about how it looks like we're just going to have to get used to the idea."
Fox said the damage to relations with the U.S. is "lamentable" but "inconsequential when compared to the benefits."
"The Mexi-Canadian Overpass is not merely a bridge made of concrete and steel, but a metaphoric bridge bringing our two great nations together," Fox said. "At long last, the people of Canada and Mexico can finally begin to forge the sort of friendship and understanding that was impossible as long as the U.S. stood between us. This is the dawn of a wondrous new era for the people of Canada and Mexico."
You know you're living in the 00's when: -1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail your buddy who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
6. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
9. Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
10. Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
11. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
12. Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
13. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
14. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.
15. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
16. Interviewees, despite not having relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
17. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
18. Your supervisor gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours boots up.
19. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital.
20. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department desperately needs, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.
21. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".AND THE CLINCHERS ARE..
22. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.
23. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "friends".
24. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this list already, but you don't have time to check so you forward it anyway.
25. You got this email from a friend that never talks to you anymore, except to send you jokes from the net.
26. This email has 20 different disclaimer notes at the bottom, telling you that the information is confidential, but you forward anyway.
1. Smarties
SO, WHAT DO CANADIANS HAVE TO BE PROUD OF?
2. Crispy Crunch, Coffee Crisp
3. The size of our footballs fields and one less down
4. Baseball is Canadian
5. Lacrosse is Canadian
6. Hockey is Canadian
7. Basketball is Canadian
8. Apple pie is Canadian
9. Mr. Dress-up kicks Mr. Rogers ass
10. Tim Hortons kicks Dunkin' Donuts ass
11. In the war of 1812, started by America, Canadians pushed the Americans back...past their 'White House'. Then we burned it...and most of Washington, under the command of William Lyon McKenzie who was insane and hammered all the time. We got bored because they ran away, so we came home and partied...Go figure..
12. Canada has the largest French population that never surrendered to Germany.
13. We have the largest English population that never ever surrendered or withdrew during any war to anyone, anywhere.
14. Our civil war was a bar fight that lasted a little over an hour.
15. The only person who was arrested in our civil war was an American mercenary, who slept in and missed the whole thing... but showed up just in time to get caught.
16. We knew plaid was cool far before Seattle caught on.
17. The Hudsons Bay Company once owned over 10% of the earth's surface and is still around as the worlds oldest company.
18. The average dog sled team can kill and devour a full grown human in under 3 minutes.
19. We still know what to do with all the parts of a buffalo.
20. We don't marry our kin-folk.
21. We invented ski-doos, jet-skis, velcro, zippers, insulin, penicillin, zambonis, the telephone and short wave radios that save countless lives each year.
22. We ALL have frozen our tongues to something metal and lived to tell about it.
23. A Canadian invented Superman.BUT MOST IMPORTANT!
24. The handles on our beer cases are big enough to fit your hands with mitts on. OOOoohhhhh Canada!!Oh yeah... and our elections only take one day.
SO, YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE TOUGH ENOUGH TO TRY
TO LEARN ENGLISH?
This little treatise on the lovely language
we share is only for the brave.
Peruse at our leisure, English lovers.
Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.?????
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick?
GENDERFrom the Washington Post Style Invitation, in which it was postulated that English should have male and female nouns, and readers were asked to assign a gender to a noun of their choice and explain their reason.
The best submissions:
SWISS ARMY KNIFE - male - because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.
KIDNEYS - female - because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.
TIRE - male - because it goes bald and often is over inflated.
HOT AIR BALLOON - male - because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it ... and, of course, there's the hot air part.
SPONGES - female - because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.
WEB PAGE - female - because it is always getting hit on.
SHOE - male - because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.
COPIER - female - because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.
ZIPLOC BAGS - male - because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.
SUBWAY-male - because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.
HOURGLASS - female - because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.
HAMMER - male - because it hasn't evolved much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.
REMOTE CONTROL - female - Ha! You thought it would say male. But consider it gives man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.
