Email from K.

["K" is an American artist with whom I have had discussions about art and Celtic coins -- she has a Celtic name. The following is reproduced with her permission.]

One of the world's most beautiful places:

Spirit Island, Maligne Lake, Alberta, Canada
photo: leftantler

subject: Celtic Immigration

"Dear John,

I'm sure that it's been difficult to avoid the dog and pony show that is the US presidential race.  Things have mushroomed here to a lunacy that is difficult to fathom.  In light of that, I would like to ask you to marry me.  I am healthy, have pretty good teeth, and I am a hard worker.  I also possess a bit of talent and would come with a modest dowry.  What prompted this outrageous proposal, you might ask?  

Voila.  (Oh, yes, a smattering of French in the mix, too).

The real winner of Super Tuesday is Canada

Have a mindboggling day,"

[Name omitted for this blog post]

The text of my reply (reformatted for the blog style and omitting the salutation):

Well, I must admit to the double-take (or was it triple-take) your message gave me! Let me explain: I had stayed up until 1 a.m. last night, got up at 5.30 and wrote my blog (which took a lot of thinking), and then went grocery shopping (all before I ate anything). Finally it all caught up with me and I fell asleep watching a show on Netflix. When I awoke (groggily), I checked my email...

Not only that, but being completely apolitical, I knew next to nothing about both Canadian and American politics and gave up my TV cable subscription a few months ago after about a year of not watching TV (don't like commercials or blood-chilling "news-breaks"). It was only recently that I heard someone say something about Justin Trudeau being the new Prime Minister. I did like his dad way back when -- he had flair.

So the subject line of your email confused me at first and it was not until I read half of the content that I got it.

I read the Washington Post article, but the first video, unfortunately, would not play, perhaps their server was overloaded. The comments were certainly varied! One omission in the Canadian tax

rates comment was that there is a substantial amount of money automatically not listed as taxable income, so people with lower incomes often do not pay any tax at all, and even a moderate income

person is not paying that percentage on their real earnings.  Being an artist, this should be good news because artists make a lot less in Canada than they do in the U.S. the main reason being that art is far

more regional here than there. Your market is most likely to be only the city or town where you live. An artist I knew many years ago would move to a different part of the country every couple of years in an effort to become a national artist. It sounded to me a bit like the joke about the thin person who had to run around in the shower in order to get wet.

It is very true about Canada mainly being friendly to people of every colour or religion. Perhaps it is little known that most Islamic terrorist are either new to Islam (converts) or have destructive

psychological problems. The average person, anywhere in the world, is a decent human being, and that includes the U.S. Mind you, it has always struck me that American politicians and other American people act very differently from each other, but I'm not prejudiced -- I dislike politicians of all nationalities. I met one once, though, who was also  a very decent human being. Probably a mutant.

All in all, I found your email most entertaining and it brought a smile to my face. In fact, it must rate as one of the most entertaining emails I have ever received. Accordingly, I would really love to get your permission to copy it with the link to the Washington Post article as one of my blog entries next week, and will include this reply. It is just too good not to be shared. Needless to say, I will omit your name from the post!

Tomorrow, the discovery of another sword pommel from Dobunni territory gives a precedent to the basic form of the one from the artist who changed the direction of British early Celtic art (Important new example of British early Celtic art)

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