Another thing I'm thankful for...

...The backup country. Yes, everyone should have a backup country. History has proven this over and over again. When your country is overrun by genocidal maniacs, wrung dry by debilitating drought or disease, unable to provide basic economic security for its citizens, or co-opted by war-mongering fundamentalist idiots - you need a Plan B.

My backup country is Canada. (THANK YOU, Dad.) Some of my foremothers and forefathers came to Boston in the 1600s and decided they liked the English monarchy, thank you very much, so when things heated up over this whole revolution thing, they headed north. They were too polite for revolutionary war. It's the Canadian way. Eventually they got their independence, too. The Daily Show's America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction explains this in one of their handy little comparative sidebars on Canadian history:

"Our style of revolution centered less on bloodshed and guerilla warfare and more on the time-tested strategy of 'not making a fuss'...And our patience ultimately paid off, for in the glorious year of 1982, we took the bold step of getting permission from England to amend our constitution so we could amend our constitution - without getting permission from England. Let freedom ring!"

While I have my Canadian citizenship card, I don't yet have a passport. I went through quite a few hoops to document my Canadian citizenship. I didn't have to apply for it, mind you - I have always been a citizen - but I did have to bring myself to the attention of the Canadian government, as a long-lost citizen separated from the flock. It involved a great many notarized documents.

I figured the passport would be a breeze in comparison, but no. My passport application has to be signed by a doctor, veterinarian, judge, police officer or notary public who has known me for at least two years and is willing to attest that I am who I am, and the passport photos (a special size, available through exactly one photography studio in this Canadian-friendly city) are actually of me. I'm trying to get all this together before my friend Julie, a doctor who has known me for 26 years, comes for a visit next weekend. She's very excited to be certifying my passport application. She doesn't have a backup country. She's envious.

As I type this, Enrico is saying to me: "Do you really want to blog that you have Canadian citizenship? Some Homeland Security twerp is probably trolling the blogs for disloyal and ungrateful Americans, and he'll trace your identity and cause you all kinds of problems."

And that, my friends, is exactly why we all need a backup country. And I don't give a crap who knows about it.