Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason (Paperback)

by Steven Edwin Laffoley (Author)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Pottersfield Press (Sep 1 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1895900751
ISBN-13: 978-1895900750

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #421,631 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Six months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Steven Laffoley stood at the edge of Ground Zero in New York City. Having emigrated from America 20 years earlier, he had travelled to New York in an effort to find meaning in the terrible event. However. Rather than finding meaning, , he found the absebce of meaning. In the months to follow he watched as the American government created its own meaning for the event and used it to usher in a new age-The Age of Unreason. As he bagan to write and publish his thoughts oin the political and cultural events of this Dark Age, he also began an unexpected journey; a journey to undertand his own relationship to America and Canada. To find answers, Steven travelled to New York, Boston and throughout New England; to Paris, London, Verdun, and along the roads of Northern Europe; to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and deep into the boreal forest at the heart of Canada.

About the Author

Born near Boston, Steven Edwin Laffoley moved to Nova Scotia in 1982 where he worked as a curriculum writer, a university professor and a school principal. He has written dozens of articles and essays for magazines and newspapers and appears regularly on CBC radio. He lives with his wife and daughter in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Book Review from Atlantic Books Today, Spring 2006, April 23 2006

By	Shirley de Kock Gueller, writer and editor (Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada) - See all my reviews

A watershed for the west, 9/11 was a wakeup call for Haligonian teacher Steven Edwin Laffoley to reflect on the Zero that Ground Zero signified: an absolute nothing; an absence of meaning; rather the ushering in, as he put it, of the Dark Age of Unreason. For him, the halogen lights on Manhattan site illuminated an emotional void and not the image of good and evil that television drummed out minute by minute. So he embarked on a journey of reflection. In the process, he looked at how he was shaped by American values wrought by birth and upbringing, twinned with Canadian values adopted over 20 years. His journey takes him from the American undemocracy of dissent to the calmness of Canada, through the territory of the supersized where less is not more, and along the way he tweaks a number of nerves in his personal and personable anecdotal style.

Laffoley meanders delightfully from Plymouth Rock and Champlain through places and people to art, poetry and teaching typing without a typewriter in a reserve in northern Ontario. He goes right back to William the Conqueror, who he pairs most gloriously with his current counterpart, George Bush, and the selective truth of the Bayeux Tapestry plundering and what he says will be the Baghdad one. He writes of bridging the 20th-century abyss which crossed from Verdun and Vietnam, pogroms and Auschwitz to reach 9/11; and says, chillingly, that it is dark in America. Canada, a better option by far, is not left untarnished... the fact that more children exist now in poverty than they did in 1989 or the consequences of Canada's third-highest ecological footprint are targeted. His easy style is seductive, but you know he has counted every word when he tells you the new wide-screen television screen on which he has been watching images of killings in Iraq cost an arm and a leg.

Laffoley's arresting and penetrative observations are often searing, but for all the darkness of his topic this is an entertaining and enlightening read. While Bush appears often (have you ever thought of the choice between Bush and Kerry as that between Bush and Bush Light?), don't hold your breath waiting for Angus. He only appears at the end, as the person who epitomizes the Canadian moment-the ability to disagree about something and still be civil.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Book, Feb 1 2006

By A Customer

Weaving together interesting observations, amusing stories, and intriguing ideas, the author offers both a fascinating study of post-9/11 politics and culture, and a revealing personal journey that explores what it is to be both an American and a Canadian -- in an age of unreason. A great read!

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4.0 out of 5 stars A Minor Correction, Jan 30 2006

By A Customer

On page 53 the author writes, "Ronald Reagan also died last week. Born in California,...."

Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois, not in Calfornia. He died in California and is buried there.

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4.0 out of 5 stars A Moving Experience
This snapshot of one man's experience in the US and in Canada provides a refreshing and honest, if troubling take on how strange the world can be, especially in the time of G. Read more

Published on Nov 26 2005