Well, there was lots of personal good news this weekend, but that doesn’t really matter at the moment. I was appalled last night to watch the video of the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota and I’m even more appalled at my inability to do anything about it.

I left the United States long ago. I haven’t lived there since I left in 1997. This was a choice made by me when I was a young man. I was a proud American when I left, filled with the vim and vigor of being a patriot (though a liberal patriot, even back then). The United States of America, despite its flaws, was my home country and we had done good in the world. All my life, I was led to believe that my country was the beacon for democracy around the world, that we were the leaders of the world, and that those that did not look up to our standard of living were merely ignorant.

But I was the ignorant one.

Meeting my wife was the best thing to ever happen to me, but let’s focus on one aspect of that right now. Tracey was Canadian. Like most ignorant people in the United States, I didn’t think much about Canada. I mean that literally…I didn’t think about Canada at all. Wasn’t it just a country up north that was little more than a vassal attachment to my own country? Wasn’t it just the 51st state?