A column written in today's Toronto Star (of all papers) sums up my view of Canada's mission in Afghanistan. I cheered the columnist along to myself as I read it.

Canadian pettiness is showing
Feb 08, 2008
The Toronto Star - Rondi Adamson

The "deploy more NATO soldiers to Kandahar or we quit in 2009" threat contained in the Manley report strikes me as a sad reflection on current Canadian attitudes. It isn't that more troops would not be desirable. But what if no NATO country sends us a military "partner"?

According to the report, in spite of the ongoing violence, the Afghan economy has been growing, millions of refugees have returned, more children (of both genders) are in school, child mortality rates are improving and infrastructure is being built.

Are we so small-time and penny ante in our world view as to dismiss the progress made? Do we tell the unprepared Afghan forces and population, "Sorry, you're on your own"? Do we allow Afghanistan to again become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, again a threat to us and others?

I hope not, because another thing we would lose in the process is our reputation. I would argue that it has improved internationally due to our involvement in Afghanistan.

Far from the myth that most of the world used to view us as benign peacekeepers and now view us as pawns of the Great Satan, it is more likely that most of the world either never thought twice about us, or simply viewed us as an extension of the United States.

Now we are included in adult discussions and asked, in return, to behave like adults, responsibly and with integrity.

Instead we – not our soldiers, but citizens and leaders – behave like accountants with calculators in hand, tallying up every percentage, dollar, headline, slight or snub (real or imagined) and counting every sacrifice as a cause for indignation and (more) anti-Americanism, rather than as, well, a sacrifice.

Canadians like to believe they are broad-minded global citizens. But the pettiness on display when we complain about the "disproportionately" large load we are carrying in Afghanistan shows us to be self-absorbed, miserly and ignorant of history.

Venturing into the debate over "disproportionate" contributions is dangerous. A small number of countries (including Canada) carried a disproportionately great burden in defeating Nazism, fascism and the Soviet empire. Should those countries have not done so, crying foul instead?

Washington could point out that our military is disproportionately small, given our population and economy. In fact, for our military to be anywhere near – proportionately – the size of the U.S. military, we would have to double it.

It could also be pointed out that we have given disproportionately little in previous decades, in terms of NATO commitments and international conflicts. During the years leading up to 9/11, our armed forces were effectively defanged, making us unable to contribute proportionately to just about anything.

One of Jack Layton's wishes is that we abandon Afghanistan in favour of "saving Darfur," which, if it could be done, would necessitate doing things (invading, killing, getting killed) Layton objects to when done in Afghanistan. That aside, if we had a military proportionate to our size, we could contribute to both wars.

Many Canadians seem to have forgotten two things about Afghanistan. The first is that the 9/11 attacks were attacks on the West. Osama bin Laden himself said as much. This is our battle.

The second is that our military presence in Afghanistan has been authorized under international laws we purport to respect. The Manley report reminds us of this. It also offers a realistic assessment of what it calls a noble mission. Not rosy, not hopeless, but one that requires our continued and valuable (be it disproportionate or not) presence. Rondi Adamson is a Toronto writer.

So what's with this cartoon, anyway, you ask?

While I was in the midst of a family trip to Walt Disney World a battle brewed back home between a Montrealer living in Hamilton who was enraged over the fact that a supermarker chain dared to claim one of the bagels it sold was "Montreal style". Here's the Montreal Gazette column which put words to print on the issue. The Fortino's store owner ignored the potential legal argument over the name and went further to suggest his bagels were better than Montreal's. This inspired the Gazette columnist to challenge Hamilton to a bagel taste test to see whose was better.  (Which was probably unwise, given he'd never even tried a Viateur or Fairmont bakery made Montreal bagel -- silly man.)

A day or so later the Hamilton Spectator accepted a challenge (2) to do a taste test and the plans were put in place for a review.

Meanwhile, comments on a Montreal messageboard filled up in defence of their beloved dough and the usual, tired jabs were made at Hamilton's expense. The Gazette wrote that it was looking forward to the contest. Back here at the Spectator, the best defence to Hamilton's bagel came from an ex-Montrealer, which was basically no defence. A messageboard from the Hamilton Spectator seemed to only attract comments from irate ex-Montrealers, with one rather over-the-top comment from an angry, yet predictable, Hamiltonian who felt the need to lambaste everyone for arguing over bagels when we should be discussing ...oh good grief... everything from Al Qaeda Caledonia to Afghanistan instead.

So came the Hamilton Spectator bagel review, which didn't include the real Montreal bagels (due to shipping issues etc.), but a ranking of the bagels available in the Hamilton area. You can even watch a video of it, which I choose not to watch because I'm in it and I hate seeing myself on tv. In the event they remove the story from the Internet you can read it here:

A panel puts Hamilton bagels to the test

January 24, 2008 -- Mary K. Nolan -- The Hamilton Spectator

Oy vey!

Such a shemozzle over a roll of dough with a hole in the middle.

The City of Montreal is throwing a complete hissy fit at the gall of a Hamilton grocery chain that bills its bagels as "Montreal-style."

At the centre of the kerfuffle, as you may know, is a mild-mannered bagel that was minding its own business in a breadbasket at Fortinos when it attacked a horrified Montreal visitor with its very existence.

The affronted shopper whipped out his camera, zoomed in on a cinnamon-sugar number and posted the pic on the foodie website chowhound.com. "A bastardization," he declared. "An abomination," said one observer. "Sacrilege," huffed another. Next thing you know, it's all over the papers as if there's no other news in La Belle Ville. What's next -- litigation?

Chillez-vous, nos amis! It's just a bagel.

The sign at the store doesn't say "Genuine Montreal bagels." It says "Montreal-style."

That means they're sorta like Montreal bagels. Like Chicago-style pizza. New York-style cheesecake. Buffalo-style wings.

You can buy Belgium cookies in Hamilton, too, New York Fries, Irish coffee, English trifle, Hollywood Bread and blow them all a raspberry with a big Bronx cheer. You don't hear Boston whining about exclusive title to baked beans, or Philly getting all proprietary about steak sandwiches.

Besides, where does Montreal get off claiming to be the grand pooh-bah of bagels? According to various and possibly dubious Internet sites, the first bagel was baked in 1683 by a Jewish baker in an Austrian bakery for a Polish king. Another claims the bagel originated in Poland in 1610 to help women prepare for childbirth. (Yeah, that'd be a big help.) Someone else posits the bagel came from Russia, where it was known as bubliki.

So whither the Vienna bagel? The Krakow bagel? The St. Petersburg bagel?

And another thing: Why did the Montrealer who was grocery shopping with his camera (and you have to wonder about that, eh?) focus on the cinnamon-sugar bagel instead of the pumpernickel and plain and poppyseed and all the rest that were labelled as Montreal-style?

The bottom line is: Who cares?

If you live in the bastion of bageldom, you can hit St-Viateur Bagel or Fairmount Bagel Bakery or Real Bagel and get your genuine, top-of-the-line Montreal bagel any old time. If you live in Hamilton, you can order them in, but really ... is there a reasonable facsimile in Hamilton?

Well, yes, as The Hamilton Spectator's esteemed panel of judges determined this week after an hour of squishing, sniffing, chewing and swallowing. And no, according to one intransigent taster at the table.

"They're not bagels," insisted Spec photographer Sheryl Nadler, a native Montrealer who was weaned on Montreal bagels and loads up at Real Bagel every she goes home to visit. None of them? "No."

Of the eight samples presented ever-so-elegantly on plastic plates and punctuated with a palate cleanser of spring water, most got a dismissive sneer from the purist panellist, one or two were deemed edible, and several actually elicited howls of derisive laughter.

"I had to chew it for 20 minutes before I could even swallow it," she said with some hyperbole. "It's stale."

The panel for the completely unscientific and subjective study also included Marc Albanese, artisanal baker and owner of Burlington's PaneFresco; Spectator new products reviewer Linda Ricciardi; the paper's resident food guru and winophile, Dan Kislenko; and editorial cartoonist Graeme MacKay, who has been fielding taunts from Terry (Aislin) Mosher, his colleague at the Gazette in Montreal.

Mosher's Tuesday cartoon (or, see below) depicted a Hamilton bagel in one of those impossible-to-open plastic packages with the caption: "However, there is some good news regarding those impossible-to-open plastic packages ... ," suggesting that any bagel from Hamilton should be thus entombed forever. Listen buster, we're from Hamilton. It was a bit cerebral. Or maybe just obtuse.

In any event, the results of the taste test were remarkably inconclusive. None of the panellists knew where the bagels came from or which one was which. The judges, with the exception of the dulcet-tempered Ricciardi, were not exactly filled with the milk and cookies of human kindness.

"This one reminds me of a kaiser roll," said Kislenko. "There's not enough crust. You should be able to snap a bagel and hear it crack."

"What?" Nadler snapped. "Bagels don't snap."

"This could be from a mix," Albanese mused. "I guess it's OK."

"They all look like inner tubes," commented MacKay.

The only consensus was on Weston Bakeries' Old Mill brand, which came in a plastic bag of six. In a word: stale. In Kislenko's words: "These have been hanging around a few days."

Still, from the pool of "doughy," "undercooked," "tough" and "crumbly," there emerged a shaky winner: The Great Canadian Bagel bagel. Close on its heels was -- ta dah! -- the plain Montreal-style bagel from Fortinos, followed by the kosher bagel from the Westdale Delicatessen.

So there you have it. Take your pick -- or move to Montreal.

Here's Terry Mosher's take:

So there you have it. The great Bagel war between Montreal and Hamilton has pretty much fizzled out. If anything was proven in this is the fact that Montrealers are pretty passionate about their bagels. But as Dan Kislenko mentioned after the taste test, there are such things as bad bagels available in Montreal and when it really comes down to it, the Fairmont, and St. Viateur bakeries are two of the few places in Montreal that bake up a great bagel. And great they are. Whenever I get them it's when I'm on my way home, and my wife will attest to the fact that before we get home to put the dozen bagels in the deep freeze to preserve their freshness, the dozen has dropped to 8, thanks to our eating them when they're warm out of the oven. After they're gone I'm stuck eating the big old inner tubes they call bagels around here. But as my cartoon suggests at the top, Montreal may have the best bagels, but Hamilton's got the best donuts, born from a bakery that had its start here and became so popular it's now a national sensation. But we Hamiltonians don't need to gloat about it.

Hockey great, lawyer, one-time federal cabinet minister, past Liberal leadership candidate, and now roving anti-poverty advocating MP Ken Dryden came to the Spectator to speak before the ed board.

I've drawn him only once before in an editorial cartoon. I don't know if my sketch will come in handy for future depictions of the man.

I'm just back from a horrible ear infection, followed by a week on vacation. Forgive me if I seem a bit rusty. Here's one of those cartoon progressions:

    

   

It's not too difficult, given the length of time consumed discussing the future of Hamilton's Lister Block, to shrug one's shoulders and wish they'd just tear the damn thing down. End the on going ups and downs we've all be reading and hearing about for the last 8 to 10 years and just get rid of it. Get rid of that decaying purple bricked building you'd see in a city like Detroit sitting in the heart of downtown Hamilton. It can't be doing anything good in terms of attracting business to the downtown. Indeed, many have said it's a symbol of the rotting downtown core and the lack of leadership on the part of city hall to get things moving. Time has run out! It's do or die time!

Or is it?

First thing that comes to my mind is the urgency of all this. Beyond all the politics of lease rate increases and provincial grant money and deadlines for action there sits a rather ramshackle looking building to be sure, but it's still a solid steel framed concrete and brick building of the 1920's that really isn't going to fall over if left alone for many more years.

What's rather maddening, and completely underplayed in the media, are the owners of the building who have left it open to the elements and riff raff and have done nothing to keep it clean and respectable looking since taking ownership 10 or so years ago. For everyone who has been turned off by the site of the Lister Block only its owner, LIUNA, not city hall, carries the blame. If, by leaving it to look so decayed is the impetus to provoke action on the site, well good, the point has been made by LiUNA. Obviously, not even council is going to be duped into forking over loads more money to a landlord that has done a great job of making a gem of building look so awful.

We're looking at several more months or years of talk and debate on the building's future. The people of this city are stakeholders in the future of this building and it is up to the people and the council they elected to demand owners clean and maintain their properties. A few thousand dollars is really all that's needed to properly board and polish up a once proud building in the downtown. It's time to clean it up now if only to show that it cares about the image of downtown Hamilton.

A great Lister Block photo gallery by Lopix.