Canada, Mexico Plan to Erect Wall Around ‘Petulant Teenager’ U.S.

By Tom Hagy

Mexico and Canada, in their first major collaboration since putting Canadian bacon into breakfast tacos, have become increasingly disturbed by recent statements made by U.S. leaders and political candidates. Following the North Omit Maniacal America Summit (NOMAS) last month, the group announced its unanimous decision to construct walls along the two nations’ borders with the United States.

According to a press release, written in code most American leaders will not be able to decipher (called “Spanish” and “French”), the wall will be constructed of things considered repulsive by the majority of Americans, such as green leafy vegetables, gluten and lucid discourse. 

There also will be a technological deterrent. The wall will be surrounded by a “No Wi-Fi Zone,” an additional measure to keep mobile-device-addicted Yankees inside their own borders. “No red-blooded American will tolerate a space where they cannot update their Facebook pages, access Spotify or watch cat videos,” the statement read.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced plans for the Canada-Mexico Incontinent Walls making only brief statements and shaking hands for press photographers.

“We have our problems, God knows,” President Peña Nieto said, “My country has drug cartels and Señor Frogs, and Canadians have Rob Ford and an uncontrollable need to apologize. But America has become that brother everyone pretends to love while, in fact, he scares the living s#@t out of us.”

“It’s like this,” President Harper said. “When it comes to the relative maturity of nations, all three of us are teenagers. Sure, America has grown faster than we have. It’s big and strong and all that, but the testosterone is raging and, as with any teenager, it’s just not tapping into its frontal lobe as often as it should. Plus, it’s a little sex crazed and when is it going to do something about that skin?”

Parallel Behavior

I took the idea of “America, The Teenager” to some experts to see if the comparison held true. I spoke with Dr. Francis Hanson, a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital in Boston, who told me that if the U.S. were a teenager, it would “dye its hair black with red stripes and lurch off to school wearing studded leather pants and platform shoes.” And yes, she confirmed, its grades would “go south.” Sounds about right.

And the consequences wouldn’t simply be found in fashion. Dr. Jodie Levine, a neuroscientist at the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia University, said the brain grows and shrinks, becoming more efficient and shedding the neurons it doesn’t need. In the process of this “pruning,” as she called it, boys will do “really, really stupid things,” adding, “really f&%$#g stupid.”

The conduct of American politicians, Dr. Levine told me, has its equivalent among male teens, who can go “toe-to-toe with the current slate of candidates in the Bat-Shit-Crazy Olympics.”

She pointed me to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, released by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, which found there has been an increase in idiotic behavior among male adolescents, perhaps taking their queue from the young nation’s would-be presidents, or “more than likely predicting behavior when they themselves become political candidates,” Dr. Levine told me.

Sadly, I wasn’t shocked at some of the examples, but I could see these young men in Congress one day, or even the White House, but most definitely on the campaign trail.

• A 17-year-old Ohio boy had to be rescued when the shopping cart he was strapped into sunk into a lake. While he was intoxicated and nude, the boy was released unharmed. His friends had to be hospitalized, however, after seizure-like fits of laughter ruptured their bowels.
• A 17-year-old freshman at a college in West Virginia landed in the intensive care unit of Wheeling General Hospital with multiple fractures, including a cracked pelvis. Friends of the young political science student were attempting to lower him in a shopping cart from the top of the liberal arts college’s iconic clock tower. When the rope they were using snapped, the poli-sci major sped downward, screeching for the entirety of his 200-foot freefall, landing in the middle of a comparative European literature class being held outside. When asked why, one English student said, “because it was too nice to have class indoors.”
• A 17-year-old Missouri boy was found unconscious in a shopping cart in the parking lot of the Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis, apparently left there by friends who, according to a note taped to the young man’s forehead, hoped he would receive medical attention. He was nude except for a leaf covering his genitals, positioned in the way a modest Adam sported a fig leaf in the Old Testament. However, witnesses said, the leaf must have been poison sumac since a “gory looking rash radiated from the young man’s nether regions.” His blood-alcohol level was three-times that considered to be drunk in the State of Missouri. And that’s saying a lot.
• A 17-year-old Oregon boy caused a multi-car collision when he fainted after attempting to hold his breath for the full length of the 1,400-foot Knowles Creek Tunnel. Police have not ruled out foul play since the boy was fully clothed and sober. They are canvassing the area for a stolen shopping cart, said one source, who wished to remain anonymous.

Predictive Capabilities?

Dr. Morton Bordeaux, Dean of Faculty Development for the Political Science College at Akron University, told me that by looking to the development of the teenage male brain we should be able to accurately predict the development of policy proposals from American politicians. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we still have the equivalent of a young single man in his 20s to look forward to.” For example, he said, “We can expect a string of broken treaties, reckless behavior and a general disdain for prophylactic measures. Long-term trade relations may be cast aside for trade agreements with newer, better endowed nations.”

In the meantime, presidents Harper and Peña Nieto are planning simultaneous groundbreaking ceremonies which will be broadcast live via CBC in Canada and Univision in Mexico.

I caught up with Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump as he was descending a 14-mile-long escalator in Atlantic City.  He said the two presidents were “losers, rapists and dumb and rapists,” adding, “but I assume they are nice people.” He told me to “go back to Univision,” even though I don’t work there. He said that, even though it’s not built yet, “the wall is a loser and if it had a penis it would be a rapist.”

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When Heroes Become Tools for Racism in the Afterlife

It's one thing to honor a fallen hero. It's another thing to use that hero's name to promote views you won't even admit you have -- especially when you're a "living room racist" -- a phrase I take from Philip Roth in Plot Against America.

One of the truly Great American Writers who still happens to be alive, Roth used the phrase to describe the variety of antisemitism that involves derogatory speech shared among friends over cigars and brandy, but not carrying out actual acts of genocide. In Plot Against America, FDR is not elected for a second term.  The Presidency instead goes to aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. He was an incredible aviator to be sure. He was also a high flyer in antisemitic circles, something that became public in 1938. Lindbergh, unlike others of his time, was more of a "living room antisemite," Roth wrote, meaning he was not someone who necessarily would cause harm to Jews, "But, hey," might have been this Lindbergh's attitude, "if that's your thing, who am I to judge?"

What I am writing about is one of those stories circulating in the free-wheeling world of social media, that calls conventional media on the carpet for failing to write about dying heroes. Instead, the post says, the media covers other less worthy developments playing out on the American stage. To be fair, in some cases the stories aren't worth writing on a soaked napkin or are really too prurient for anyone's good. Others, however, are serious stories about law enforcement's treatment of minorities, particularly young black males. As much as no one will admit it to your face, by sharing this tale in this way they are perpetuating racist views. In essence, they are using a fallen hero's death as the vehicle in their anti-minority parade. 

In this case it's "cut and paste racism."  They cut and paste the story of an amazing couple of Vietnam War helicopter pilots who braved heavy machine-gun fire and wounds to make several flights into the battlefield to carry their pinned-down brothers to safety. There aren't enough words to describe their actions. Incredible. Selfless. Courageous. Two of the men -- Captain Ed Freeman and Major Bruce Crandall received the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military honor. 

People are using a clip of this story to express some misdirected indignation at the media for allegedly not reporting the news of Capt. Freeman's death, and instead "wasting ink" of the stories of Travon Martin and Michael Brown, two unarmed black men who were killed by police. According to Snopes.com, this is a story that is paraded out every year or so, each time with a different shade of lipstick. In prior years, before the killings of Martin and Brown, the post claims the media ignored Capt. Freeman's passing so they could fully cover Michael Jackson's death, then it was the charges that rapper Chris Brown assaulted then girlfriend, singer Rhianna, then it was Kim Kardashian's "blink and you'll miss it" marriage to NBA star Kris Humphries. In some cases mention is also given to some caucasian shenanigans, like Lindsay Lohan's sad and public displays of addiction, or former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's decades-long sexual encounters with boys. 

Wow. Wow. And wow. What more could you want in a remembrance of your almost unbelievable acts of heroism than mentions of senseless murder, barbaric treatment of women, out-of-control addiction, and pedophilia. Please don't write my obituary. If you remove Lohan and Sandusky, you're left with, you guessed it African Americans. 

Not only does the post go out of its way to pick on the media, entertainers and blacks, but it goes out of its way well after the fact.  As Snopes points out, Capt. Freeman died in August 2008, way before any of these incidents took place. This story gets carted out and refreshed with "Mad Libs" style insertion of the murdered or disgraced entertainer or black person of the day. Apparently 2008 was the last time a fallen hero was covered less than any other story in the U.S. media. 

Capt. Freeman and Maj. Crandall -- you, sirs, are true American heroes. I hope you and your families will forgive this ignorant use of your sacrifices. I also hope you have better things to do with your time than read forwarded emails and cut-and-pasted posts on Facebook.

Hate Mongering for Profit: Another Crazy Website's Clumsy Attempt to Distort the News

By Tom Hagy

So there is this website – Wounded American Warrior (dot com) (WAW) – another in a proliferation of phony news sites that generate ad revenue by playing on fear and hatred. Like any good propaganda service, it takes a grain of truth, mixes it with lies, and serves up a heaping pile of incendiary waste.  All in the name of Free Speech. Hoorah. Yes; these sites are really out there, in more ways than one. 

In this case, the site posted an “article” with the headline: “Islamist set fire at Florida church, write ‘Allahu Akbar.’” Accompanying this post was a photograph of a church engulfed in flame (see above).

The facts are astoundingly, if not comically, different than what this site has posted.

First, the police nor the FBI know who started the fire, so no one knows the arsonist’s faith, or whether he even has any.  

If it weren't so despicable it would be funny.

Second, the flaming church depicted in the photo is not the church where the fire was set. The photo shows a Presbyterian church, whose steeple and cross rise above the blaze (but probably not for long given the progress of the conflagration). The Shiloh Christian Center has no steeple, is not Presbyterian and remains standing.  It’s a Christian Center whose congregation appears to be predominantly, if not entirely, African-American. They believe in “The Trinity; The Father God; The Son Jesus; and The Holy Spirit.” 

Third, the fire – while a serious and terrorizing event for the members of the church – was a relatively small blaze that caused an estimated $5,000 in damage – not the destruction of the church. Granted, a chair was ruined.

Fourth, the graffiti also included a swastika, which is not a symbol associated with radical Islamists. It is more in line with the angry clowns who would commit heinous acts against African-Americans, or someone who wanted to mask both their identity and mission. Or someone who is a fan of right angles.

The WAW website also does a disservice to wounded veterans, playing off the name of the respected Wounded Warrior Project, which gets an 86-point rating from Charity Navigator on a 100-point scale. The charity gets an honorable 96-point rating in the accountability and transparency category.

The site also does a huge disservice to the Shiloh Center itself since it was targeted by ignorant vandals, or someone with some other criminal intent, or someone with racist beliefs.  Disservice, of course, is done to any peaceful Muslims in the U.S. or abroad who will [continue to] be looked upon with suspicion by the deliriously and proudly ignorant. If there is anything positive about the graffiti, it also does a much deserved disservice to any neo-Nazis who may be goose-stepping around the Sunshine State. In reality, it was probably a bunch of dumb kids showing off their geopolitical acumen.  

What’s sad is that people believe this stuff, and share it with their friends, and use it to further fan the flames of hatred. Then the most looney among them goes out for a night on the town with some spray paint and a cigarette lighter. Like we need that.