American-ness [was RE: even my dumb nontechnical anime group gets it -- why don't we?]

[Michael Watson]

>>     M> -- Kids in the Hall
>>
>> See what I mean?  Now, /there's/ a troupe who have never strayed 40m
>> outside Toronto without being wrapped in a tour bus.  There's more
>> to Canada than the corner of Church and Wellesley.
>>

I'm partial to the Buddy Rich character. :-)

>From the Feb 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly: 
Oh, Gods! An explosion of new religions will shake the 21st century by Toby
Lester

Religion didin't begin to wither away during twentieth century, as some
academic experts had prophesied. Far from it. And the new century will
probably see religion explode -- in both intensity and variety. New
religions are springing up everywhere. Old ones are mutating with Darwinian
restlessness. And the big "problem religion" of the twenty-first century may
not be the one you think.

The Toronto Blessing. An unorthodox new evangelistic Christian Charismatic
movement, based in Canada, the movement emerged in 1994 within the Toronto
Airport branch of the Vineyard Church (itself a remarkably successful NRM
(new religious movement)  founded in 1974), after a service delivered by a
Florida-based preacher named Rodney Howard Browne. To date about 300,000
people have visited the movement's main church. Services often induce "a
move of the Holy Spirit" that can trigger uncontrollable laughter, apparent
drunkedness, barking like a dog, and roaring like a lion.

Hmmm... sounds like my kind of old-time religion. See you in Toronto.

michael