PROGRAMMING NOTE

These hurricanes are sucking my life into their eye. No time to write.

OH, CANADA?

These are times of great peril for our country. Terrorists are trying to blow us up. Hurricanes are trying to blow us down. Exotic viruses are trying to… um… make us blow our noses. But one forgotten threat to our country and our very way of life is immigrants.

No, no, not the immigrants who built the Erie Canal, or the ones who built the railroads, or the scientists who came here to escape oppression and wound up giving us a technical advantage over other nations. I’m certainly not talking about your relatives who came here to escape famine, or persecution, or foul-tasting communist food.

All those immigrants came here on boats, they way they were supposed to. But now there’s a new type of immigrant. And by “new” I mean, “It’s been going on for about 300 years.” This immigrant drives across the border. Some even walk.

These selfish new immigrants come here because they want to support their families back in Honduras or wherever. They do this by taking jobs from Real Americans. I think all of us know someone who was fired from their job picking oranges, cleaning toilets, or selling peanuts on the side of the street because some immigrant was willing to work for less money.

Something needs to be done, so the Minuteman Defense Corps has come to the rescue. The Minutemen believe the government is unwilling to protect our borders, so it is the job of patriots everywhere to do the job instead. Last April, hundreds of armed Minuteman volunteers patrolled the Arizona-Mexico border and managed to detain hundreds of journalists.

But the Minutemen know that our immigration problem extends far beyond the Rio Grande. That’s why they (the Minutemen, not the immigrants) have founded a new branch of their organization to patrol the Canadian border.

For years, Canadians have been streaming across our borders in an attempt to escape the free health care, abundant natural resources, and a standard of living consistently ranked as one of the highest in the world. Many say the cancellation of last year’s NHL season caused many Canadians to lose a vital connection with their homeland.

When they arrive in America, many Canadians can find easy work doing things Americans just won’t do. Some become scientists, while others become cast members of Saturday Night Live.

When you look at it that way, it’s hard to blame those Canucks for trying to come down here. Some bleeding-heart types have even been putting six-packs of Molson’s in the north woods of Washington so fleeing Canadians can renew their strength as they make the long trek to Seattle. But they’re breaking the law, and they must be stopped.

That’s where the Minutemen come in. They’re organizing armed patrols of 200 roads where Canadians can cross the border with impunity. Organizers say they’re not going to confront the Canadians, but they’ll be packing heat just in case.

"You don't go near that border out here without being armed to defend your life," said one Minuteman. "We've got chaos going on."

In time, the Minutemen may be able to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit maple syrup imports that now make Canadian border cities violent, lawless hell-holes. Until that day comes, keep a concealed weapon nearby, and be vigilant. Because the person sitting next to you on the bus could be… a Canadian.

IN THE FACE OF A NATIONAL TRAGEDY

Over the past week, our nation has seen a tragedy that strains the boundaries of human imagination. The toll in human lives, property, and misery may never fully be known. When hurricane Katrina closed in on the gulf coast, all reporters at our station started working 12-15 hours a day, seven days a week.

Soon, refugees from the storm began arriving in Texarkana, and it was my job to talk to them. Invariably, these people would ask me the same question, “How are you?” The truthful answer to that question is, “I’m tired and I’m hungry. I haven’t had a day off in a week, and I don’t know when I’ll ever get my life back.”

Of course, I don’t say that. You can’t really say that to a person who just lost their home, job, and everything they own. Clearly they’d trade places with you in a heartbeat, even with your insane work schedule. So instead I shrug weakly and say, “I guess I’m OK.”

When the September 11th attacks happened, I was performing with a sketch comedy troupe in Los Angeles. In the weeks that followed, nobody wanted to take the stage at comedy clubs. People started asking that tortured question, “When can we laugh again?”

(The answer turned out to be, “When ‘Zoolander’ is released,” but that’s another subject.)

Now that it’s clear this disaster and its aftermath will be with us for months, perhaps even years, another cry is heard, “When can we whine again?”

Clearly not yet. In a town overrun with Katrina refugees, whining about anything seems inappropriate and undignified. But check his out:

I’m at Wendy’s last week and I order some fries. I’m presented with a cold, flaccid pile of potatoes utterly unfit for human consumption. I dump them out on my tray and paw through them hoping at least a few are crispy and perhaps a little warm. No luck. I dump the fries back into their container, present them to the cashier, and request a fresh order of fries. The cashier shrugs, takes my cup of fries, AND DUMPS THEM BACK INTO THE PILE OF UNSOLD FRIES! I WAS JUST TOUCHING THEM! NOW THEY’RE GOING TO SELL THEM TO SOMEBODY ELSE! IT’S EASILY THE MOST DISGUSTING THING I’VE SEEN IN A RESTAURANT, AND I’VE DINED IN KOREA BEFORE!

But wait. That guy at the next table, he was one of the people evacuated from the Superdome. People there would have done just about anything for a cup of soggy fries last week. Well, I guess I won’t fill out that comment card and try to get that no-good cashier fired. It’s no big deal, really. I guess.

But here’s another thing, those ants that I wrote about last week, they’ve gotten more aggressive. Despite an aggressive campaign of spraying deadly chemicals around the house, taunting the ants at every turn, and leaving stacks of anti-ant literature around the home, the insects are still under the misapprehension that they are welcome in our home. Last Saturday they even defiled A PERFECTLY FRESH PILE OF CLEAN LAUNDRY! CAN YOU IMAGINE SUCH A THING? YOU DO A LOAD OF LAUNDRY, PUT IT IN A BASKET, LEAVE TO DO SOME SHOPPING, THEN RETURN TO FIND THEM COVERED IN ANTS! MY SKIN CRAWLS AT THE VERY THOUGHT OF IT!

But, well, that guy you interviewed today has no home at all. He slept on the streets and has insect bites all over him from the exposure. OK, I’ll shut up.

But it’s not easy. Whining is second nature to me, and probably to you, too. Also, there is comfort in the petty and mundane. Last spring, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill prohibiting sexy cheerleading. (Take comfort, sexy cheerleaders; the bill was killed in the Senate.) When I heard news of the bill, I took courage. Clearly, the state had figured out how to fix their school finance problem, pay for mass transportation, and deal with a growing water shortage. How else could they find time to debate the merits of sexy cheerleading?

It turns out they didn’t fix all those other things, but I’m going to gloss over that because it ruins my point.

When we whine about our jobs, or our homes, or our expanding waistlines, it silently points out the fact that we actually do have jobs, and homes, and enough food to expand a waistline.

So we must dare to whine again soon if we are to recover from the tragedy that has us in its grips. We must elevate pet peeves to a level of national importance. We must find the juvenile, the impertinent, and the daffy, then magnify it.

Unless we do, the terrorists have already won.

Oh wait wrong tragedy…