The Canadian government parades the soldiers through main street at rush hour; the Republican U.S. government sneaks the dead into the country as if they’re if they’re ashamed. Either way it gets made into a political statement. Isn’t there a happy medium?
My preference is that they are given their parade on a Saturday or Sunday, when people might actually attend and pay their respects.
That doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s gibberish from beginning to end.
Look, the OP complained about some people not following a certain practice. Many agreed. When one person objected, she got piled on with some pretty vile insults. A few of us said that we shared her viewpoint. You responded with some clearly insulting stuff towards an entire country. When called on it, you backpedalled (I meant “some”, not “all”) then turned around and insulted people again. And then in a swift move of projection, you said that people were insulting your country, when no such thing happened. And now you’re complaining about a pile-on?
You brought it on yourself.
You might want to review your logic and consider offering an apology.
You make some good points. If people could have gone a few blocks to avoid disrupting it, then they should have done so.
Then again, I’m getting around on two broken feet these days. The thought of going that far out of my way fills me with owie.
For the record, tdn is much nicer than I am. 
This is where the “stupid” remark came from.
The OP posted a good rant. CCL posted in an insulting manner, IMHO and others too I might add. When she was called on it, she posted in an even ruder fashion.
I didn’t “backpedal” I clarified. CCL is of the opinion that our traditions and ways of honouring our dead is “stupid”.
So if you can’t see why I am “outraged” at her, then yes, go fuck yourself.
Let me make this clear. I have the utmost respect for American citizens in general. I have 100% respect for American soldiers.
I love the way we Canadians, and our politicians honour our war dead. I take it personal when people from other countries shit on our traditions.
I am in no way bitching about a “pileon” I am just wondering what you are blathering on about.
So, is that your version of an apology to tdn and me, neither of whom used the word ‘stupid’? Falls a bit short. And, by the time CCL used the offending term “stupid clusterfuck” (which she said her fallen relatives would use), she’d already been the recipient of a fuck of a lot of over the top bullshit. In her first post, she seemed to wonder why it had to be at rush hour, a valid (to me) question. Are they less honored at 11:30 am? 6:00 pm?
Thanks for clarifying. The way you posted it, it looked like you were accusing wring.
Is that your definition of rude? Really? No, seriously… really?
No, you backpedalled. You accused all Americans of a certain behavior, then later said that you obviously didn’t mean all.
Yeah, well, give me time to buy myself dinner and a few drinks first, OK? I’m going to bugger myself raw.
Because I have no idea why you’re so outraged. She didn’t insult anybody until after she was piled on. She asked an honest question, and was told – literally – to go to hell for it. Her question was an honest one, and the responses to her were FAR out of proportion. Yours more than anyone else’s.
You might want to keep those perspective pills for yourself.
It was only an avoidable ten-minute delay once it got downtown. For lots of people it was an extra hour in traffic - they were the ones stuck behind the procession on the highway, just as they get stuck behind the procession on their way home from work every time they do this. This is one of the busiest routes into the city, and what with the procession on the highway, and the spectators lining up on bridges, and the drivers trying to avoid the mess, the eastern half of the city is completely clogged up during evening rush hour. My poor dog waited 1.5 hours extra for his afternoon walk; this is fine for him but I think of all the kids waiting to be picked up at daycare while their parents are stuck in gridlock somewhere.
Surely we can come up with a better way to do this.
I was on the fence about this issue until I read this (yes, we should honour the dead, but no, they aren’t getting any deader…), but if this is the official policy, then yes, that is the way it is and it should be respected.
You’ve also mentioned that it is possible to find out when a military motocade is going to happen - I guess commuters should probably make the effort to find out about that, if you know you are on a route that might be affected, just like you check the weather before heading out.
Sure, except that the frequency of those events is so seldom that I wouldn’t bother checking, ever. I never check the schedule of ball games, and those disrupt my commute just about every other day in the summer. At least when the local university has football games, my landlord posts notices in the hallways and elevators. If Toronto could do something like that, then it might be much less of an issue.
You guys would obviously never cope with dealing with all the motorcades in downtown Washington DC. I worked right on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House for several years, and not only did motorcades of every size, shape, and variety pass through pretty much any time they wanted to, and it’s not for any good cause like fallen soldiers. Hell, I once saw a presidential motorcade going by and Bill Clinton, with his window open, was eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger. It was really wonderful to know that the president’s cheeseburger was more important than anybody else. Especially since in DC, even fire trucks responding to a fire or emergency have to wait for the motorcade to pass.
That used to piss me off regularly. But a few minutes’ inconvenience for soldiers who have died fighting in Afghanistan? It seems to me to be the least we can do.
Maybe they do - our OP has mentioned that it is posted in the newspaper. I guess my point is that if it disrupts your life enough so your child might be waiting an hour and a half to get picked up from daycare, you should probably make some kinds of effort to find out about it instead of just railing about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Yeah, but that assumes daily newspaper readership. I don’t think I’ve bought a paper even once in this millenium. I certainly wouldn’t want to buy one every day on the off chance that there might be a motorcade. If it were also posted on the 'Net, then that would make it all the easier, though I still think I couldn’t be arsed to check it every day.
In fact, now I’m wondering how I get through life at all. If it’s not posted to the Dope, I’ll never know about it.
We Amercuns are obviusly a insullated, nucular group, far inferior to our friends up north.
I live in Victoria, BC and I knew the soldiers were coming home today. I think we generally are aware each time a few soldiers die - it seems to make front page news each time. I don’t buy a physical newspaper either, but I do generally check the headlines on globeandmail.com every morning. Hell, it wasn’t about the motorcade in particular, but my Facebook page had a few articles related to Afghanistan posted this week in response.
I do feel bad for people kept waiting for an hour and a half on the highway, if that is indeed the case (I don’t know - is it the 401?) but 10 minutes is a minor fraction of a downtown commute. I got more annoyed in Toronto at the annual “OMG it’s snow what do I do?” day, when the first snowfall of the year inevitably causes everyone to forget how to drive and crash their car on Yonge Street.
See, I never realised how bad it would be along parts of the route that overlook the 401 in the east. I can agree that an hour doesn’t count as a minor inconvenience.
The thing is, going out to the bridges to welcome the motorcade has become an integral part of the process… I think they’d get a fair bit of flak if they were to try to drive the motorcade through at 3am now, because some people would feel disappointed if they couldn’t come out to pay their respects anymore.
And that’s not to say that they do it at rush hour every time, since I’ve seen them pass by at least once during regular working hours, but I don’t think they can always avoid it. It’s probably quite hard to schedule a plane taking off from an active war zone, a welcoming committee comprising of several high-ranking officials, and a 2 hr drive from point A to point B even if you don’t factor rush hour into the equation.
It’s mostly the Don Valley Parkway, of which Wikipedia says: it’s “Toronto’s busiest commuter route (along with the Gardiner Expressway), connecting the city to its northern and eastern suburbs via Highways 401 and 404 … The most congested section is between Eglinton Avenue and Highway 401, often well beyond rush hours, although the highway is sometimes congested along its whole length. This situation has not changed since the 1980s.”
Heh, I lived in Richmond Hill (northern suburb) for most of my life, but have never, ever willingly driven downtown. I suppose I would have taken the DVP if I had been that insane. 
Well, i agree with that part.
It is, really, just about the very least we can do. The importance that some people attach to this empty gesture is rather puzzling to me.
No, the least we could do is leave their bodies wherever they fell and forget all about them. We are choosing not to do that because we honour and commemorate our war dead. I can’t speak for any families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, but I imagine that seeing strangers lining the route their loved one’s hearse is taking to pay their respects is not empty to them.