July 4 – Geraldo Rivera gets the Untitled School of America

As a Canadian, rarely directly impacted by the goings-on of my southern neighbors, it occurred to me that the United States have always reminded me of an overcrowded junior high public school classroom, with each of the fifty states as a different student, seated in their Mercator map arrangement.

• The Southern states all hang out together in back of room, talking about how great school was when they were in kindergarten and all they had to worry about was how to jump over a stick.
• The New England clique thinks they have it all figured out, but it’s only because they’re insulated from a lot of the class politics since their helicopter parents run the PTA.
• The Four Corners are the two insufferable couples who make out behind the bleachers during important football games.
• Michigan and Illinois think they have more important things to do than sit down all day listening to stuff that’ll never help them in the real world, and they’re not all wrong.
• Wisconsin and Minnesota and the northest of Dakotas are the goody-too-shoes sitting at the front, attentive but still a little behind.
• Bubbly California is either staring out the window or annoying Oregon with talks of starting her own classroom with less people in it.
• Big fat real man Texas, whose twin Oklahoma had the cord wrapped around its neck a little too tight on its way out, is on his last warning from all the yelling.
• Nebraska and Kansas are hiding in plain sight, unnoticed and unobtrusive, never to amount to anything more than middle-of-the-class, middle-of-the-road, middle-of-the-cookie average regulars.
• New York is texting her older friends, mostly about cool stuff like smoking and swearing.
• Hawaii is suspended, for bringing a bit of pineapple to school when they were CLEARLY told that pineapples are basically durians which are basically weapons which basically means they’re a mass murdering school shooter.
• Alaska is gone to the bathroom (#1), but they’re treating the hall pass as a golden passport, so they better be careful or the hall monitor (Puerto Rico?) will slap them.
• Utah is the foreign exchange student nobody else talks to.
• Florida’s been trying to get her bookbag in a cubby that’s far too small for her backpack since first period, but no one else has the heart to let her know she needs a new knapsack.

So I guess the current president is the substitute teacher who can’t control the class and doesn’t know how to deal with everyone. He’s doodling boobs on the blackboard hoping no one will ask him to do anything, waiting for Mr. Obama to come back from holidays so he can go back to looking at trucks and other larger trucks.