Wednesday 1 February 2012

BEND OVER AND SHOW ME YOUR SHOVEL


I’ve decided that every week I shall focus on an unbelievable news story. ‘Disbelief Wednesday’ we shall call it…or maybe ‘Dubious Tuesday’….or ‘can you freaking believe this, Thursday’…the possibilities are endless. Anyway, the latest comes from my dear U.S of A – yes we rank up there as one of the producers of the unbelievable headline. Recently, two British tourists, a man and woman in their twenties, were barred from entering the United States after joking on Twitter that they were going to, and I quote, ‘destroy America’ and dig up the icon Marilyn Monroe.’

Before you ask if they were armed at the border with Grenades, a shovel and a manifesto about the evils of America, the answer is an emphatic no. They were your run of the mill young adults looking to get their party on during an American holiday. You see, the term ‘destroy’ in English (UK English that is) vernacular means to get trashed and party. And even when explaining to this to Homeland Security officials – whilst holding back their laughter – that this was just a manner of speech, they were both interrogated and then handcuffed and kept in holding cells with a group of Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in America. The woman was also questioned in regards to her tweet about digging up Marilyn Monroe, because who doesn't come to America to dig up famous corpses after going to the beach and knocking back a few cocktails; funny enough (at least to her) her tweet was a direct quote from an irreverent American comedy, ‘Family Guy.’ Apparently Homeland officials are not partial to this television program.

After searching each of their suitcases in pursuit of, yes, you guessed it, spades and shovels to dig with (I’m not joking), they did full body searches on them, because what better place is there to hide a shovel than up your rear end. What kind of shovel did they think one could carry on their person anyway?? Haven't they been to Home Depot lately? After twelve hours in custody where they were treated like terrorists, they were returned to the airport where they were told that they would be shipped back to the UK to prevent them from committing any violent acts on American soil.

Yes, this is what we spend our hard earned tax dollars on. This frighteningly short-sighted and literal thinking on the part of Homeland Security is what is enabling real terrorists, who vacation in Yemen, to sneak right by them wearing shoe bombs and board planes during the Christmas season. Not to mention this fabulous system they have in place to flag words in emails/twitter/Facebook and the like, that include such terms as: 'outbreak, drill, strain, collapse, recovery, and Trojan' (really, Trojan??). This system is really going to catch...well just about everyone in the general public from the looks of it.

So, for example, if I were to type the following sentence in my twitter, apparently I’d be in a heap of trouble… ‘A nasty outbreak of this flu strain that the King so kindly passed onto me is drilling my brain and I think I’m going to collapse like a broken down Trojan horse.’ I’m thinking a number of flags just shot up on the Homeland Security’s computer system about one big bad dangerous Mother sitting over here in Britain planning to come and wreak havoc in America with her 18 month old toddler. Oh, by the way, Homeland Security, you have NO idea what a toddler could do to your neat and tidy interrogation offices. The King also packs a mean spade. Lookout!



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