The Slackers Guide to U.S. History Part 6

13. The country most similar to Canada in terms of population is: a. Afghanistan.

b. United Kingdom.

c. Cambodia.

d. Pakistan.

Answers 1.

B. Michael J. Fox, the popular star of the hit situational comedies Family Ties and Spin City, measures in at a less than average 5' 4.

2. C. Currently, the Archers of Woodstock, Ontario, is the only black family living in Canada.

3. B. Although scores of American woman marry older influential men, Canadian-born Grammy award-winning artist Celine Dion proved that even Canadians are willing to sell their marital pride for their own economic benefit when she wed her manager, who happens to be twenty-six years her senior.

4. C. Only in America would meteorologists say the outside temperature will be a high of 77 degrees today.

5. D. It is a real hit to the Canadian ego but their most identifiable beers are now owned by foreign companies. Labatt's Brewing Company, Ltd. is now owned by the Belgian brewer Interbrew. Molson Coors Brewing Company is now less Canadian and more American. Sleeman's Breweries, Ltd. is now owned by j.a.panese beer makers Sapporo Breweries. This leaves Moosehead Breweries Limited as Canada's largest Canadian-owned brewery.

6. A. Tiffany Towers was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1971, making her surgically enhanced 70FFF b.r.e.a.s.t.s ancient by the p.o.r.n industry's standards.

7. B. Unofficially it might be hockey, however, in an effort to keep peace with the Indian population the government agreed to keep lacrosse as the official sport of Canada, recognizing its Native Canadian heritage.

8. False. The statistics don't lie. Americans have more s.e.x. On average, Americans have s.e.x 138 times a year, compared to the 105 times Canadians get busy annually. It is believed that the real reason for the disparity is the promiscuous nature of American high schoolers.

9. D. No doubt about it. Almost instinctively, a Canadian will apologize for getting in your way.

10. False. King is afraid that once he went Canadian he would never go back, and as he enjoys getting married often, he does not want to limited his applicant pool.

11. False. Depending upon the manufacture of the skate, most hockey skates run at least a size to a size and a half smaller than your shoe size.

12. True. On average, the Canadian teen pregnancy rate is significantly less than that of Americans.

13. A. Canada's human population is 33,487,208 and Afghanistan's is 33,600,937. If you marked "b" you are wrong, as the population of the United Kingdom is 61,113,937. If you marked "c" you are about equally wrong, as the Cambodian population is 14,494,293. And for those who marked "d," you are real wrong, as the population of Pakistan is a staggering 176,242,949.

After you have graded your test please proceed to the chart on the following page to determine your readiness to be Canadian.

03 correct answers: Yikes! You are not ready to eat gravy with your fries. However, you will now recognize July 1 as your new Independence Day.

48 correct answers: Nice effort. You can order Canadian bacon at a restaurant and your Thanksgiving is now celebrated in October and has nothing to do with the pilgrims.

913 correct answers: Outstanding. It is time to work on your Canadian accent to ease your a.s.similation into the Canadian culture. Hockey Night in Canada is now mandatory television viewing during hockey season. You understand that "G.o.d" can mean either G.o.d from heaven G.o.d, or Wayne Gretzky. Christmas is now a two-day holiday, as you will begin enjoying Boxing Day.

Regardless of your score, you must now end most sentences with the word "eh." It might seem awkward at first, but with enough practice it will become more natural. For those who struggle, it is suggested you practice in front of a mirror.

1814 FRANCIS SCOTT KEY WRITES "THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER"

Key's request to lay an urban beat underneath his poem was emphatically denied.

F.S.K. the Attorney.

Before guys like Francis Ford Coppola and James Earl Jones discovered that women love a man who is cool enough to use his whole name, there was a thirty-five-year-old hotshot named Francis Scott Key who had figured it all out.

Key was a successful lawyer who had made several arguments in front of the right-leaning advocacy group known as the United States Supreme Court. He was a perfect wingman at a bar and just the kind of guy you look for when one of your buddies gets picked up as a civilian by the British military and consequently made a prisoner of war. Dr. William Beanes was that buddy who was inconveniently taken into British custody after General Ross of Britain finished burning down nearly every political building in Was.h.i.+ngton including former President Bill Clinton's and Jenny Craig spokeswoman Monica Lewinsky's favorite White House venue, the oral office.

As Ross and his men were heading toward Baltimore harbor to catch a Ravens game and inflict additional casualties on the U.S. armed forces, Beanes's friends had FREE BEANES T-s.h.i.+rts designed and printed and then pooled some cash together to hire Key to seek his release with the help of Colonel John Skinner, the U.S. prisoner of war exchange agent. Shortly after Beanes's friends' retainer check cleared, Key found himself on a truce s.h.i.+p with Skinner, attempting to secure Beanes's release. After the successful negotiation, the three American amigos were detained on the s.h.i.+p, anch.o.r.ed eight miles from land, until the British attack was over. It was on this s.h.i.+p that Key the attorney became Key the poet, as he was inspired to write the words for what is now our national anthem.

Slap the Flag and Ride the Wave In.

Four hundred five dollars and ninety cents went a long way in inspiring Key to write our sports pregame anthem. In the summer of 1813, major George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, wanted a flag so large that not only could a well-fed Kirstie Alley wrap herself in it but also any British naval s.h.i.+p could not miss his position. Mary Pickersgill, seamstress for hire, was contracted to make a 30 42 flag. For her efforts, she was paid the tidy sum of $405.90.

In addition to making the huge garrison flag, Pickersgill also made a smaller yet still plus-sized 17 25 storm flag for $168.54 to be flown during inclement weather. Key was able to draw much of his inspiration for the writing of our national anthem from the construction of the ma.s.sive flag.

Gave Proof Thro' the Night.

With Key and the other two non-Mexican amigos sitting on the truce s.h.i.+p outside the harbor, the British began bombing Fort McHenry at 6:30 a.m. on September 13, 1814. Over the next twenty-five hours, the British pounded Fort McHenry like Jenna Jameson with heavy artillery and Congrove rockets. Key referenced the Congrove rockets' red glare in the sky with the line "and the rockets' red glare." Armistead had been flying the smaller flag throughout the rainy night of September 13, 1814. But on the morning of September 14, 1814, after Armistead and his men had taken the best the British had to offer, he ordered the larger garrison flag raised in an act symbolic of pointing an American middle finger at the British. It was on that morning after the brutal a.s.sault by the British on Fort McHenry that the $405.90 garrison flag inspired Key to write a poem about what he had witnessed over the preceding twenty-five hours.

The Poem That Became Our Anthem.

Witnessing that the flag was still there after the British version of shock and awe tapered off, Key was so o.r.g.a.s.mically excited that Fort McHenry did not fall into the hands of the British he began to write a poem with the dry and unpoetic t.i.tle of "The Defense of Fort McHenry" on the back of a letter he was carrying. THE POEM WAS FOUR STANZAS LONG; HOWEVER, IT IS ONLY THE FIRST STANZA THAT WAS WORTH THE Sc.r.a.p PAPER IT WAS WRITTEN ON, AND IT HAS COME TO BE RECOGNIZED AS OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM.

Since peace with the black man was even further removed than peace with the British, Key's request to lay an urban beat underneath his poem was emphatically denied by the hip-hop community of 1814. Instead, his words were later placed to the tune of a British bar song t.i.tled "To Anacreon in Heaven." It quickly gained Obamamania-like popularity, and the name was changed to "The Star-Spangled Banner." This catchy tune officially became our national anthem in 1931,when President Herbert Hoover signed a bill into law making "The Star-Spangled Banner" our official Olympic gold medal podium song of choice.

1830 INDIAN REMOVAL ACT.

Ability to bring a gun to a tomahawk fight was not impressive.

This Land Is Your Land.

After months of strategizing with key political confidants, tarot card readers, and a talented but unemployed horse whisperer named Shh-neigh-neigh, President Andrew Jackson, friend of the white man, orchestrated a plan.

His plan of presidential influence would earn him the love and adoration of screaming teenage Caucasian girls who were fearful of men with names like Bull Head, Catch the Bear, and Red Tomahawk. Jackson had long recognized that Euro transplants and their offspring deserved something special for making the long and difficult journey from the other side of the pond. They deserved what was already someone else's. They deserved to own the land that was inconveniently t.i.tled to men and women who were unaffectionately known as Indians.

These Indians had proven to be quite a pain in the a.s.s when it came to providing the round football loving new arrivals with the means to make their economic dreams come true. In 1830, at a nationally televised debate against Chief Squatting Bull, Jackson effectively argued outside a popular Manhattan delicatessen that the United States could not be the land of opportunity if it didn't have any land to give away. THIS ARGUMENT INSPIRED THE WHITE TELEVISION AUDIENCE WATCHING AT HOME LIKE A DAVID Ha.s.sELHOFF CONCERT INSPIRES GERMAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS.

This Land Is My Land.

Prior to impressing debate monitors Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper, hosts of Squaw Box, with his oratory skills versus Chief Squatting Bull, Jackson was winning millions upon millions of acres of Indian land as a respected military leader a decade and a half earlier. Those critical of Jackson's Indian bullying argued that his ability to bring a gun to a tomahawk fight was not impressive. Jackson's success over the Indians allowed white-skins in the South to start job programs for captured black Africans. The same black Africans whose egos were fed by the fact that white Americans cared enough to purchase them and provide them and their descendents with lifetime job security.

Riding the wave of enthusiasm from land hungry whites, Jackson ushered legislation through both the House and the Senate that gave him the authority to trade unsettled, undeveloped, and difficult-to-farm land west of the Mississippi River for the lush, developed, and agricultural friendly land owned by Indians east of the Mississippi River. Using the same algorithm that China uses to ensure that trade with the United States is not fair and equitable, Jackson began negotiating with the major Indian tribes to trade his desert for their arable farmland. Despite Jackson's one-sided good faith negotiations with America's original settlers, many of them showed a total lack of appreciation for Jackson's land swap and refused to move.

Please Relocate in an Orderly Fas.h.i.+on.

Despite Jackson's willingness to include colored beads in his crafty negotiations, there were some tribes who refused to play ball. This defiance left Jackson with no choice but to order General Petraeus to forcibly remove every Indian living east of the Mississippi. After years of indifferent results, the savvy Pe-traeus ordered a surge of military fighters. This surge in troop numbers proved to be the difference, as white America was able to rid itself of its pesky Indian problem and acquire the land they so richly deserved.

1836 THE ALAMO.

Back like Montezuma's revenge.

In Remembrance of ...

Americans are lucky in that our country has a rich tradition of inspiring historically accurate stories to swell our pride to John Holmes proportions. Countries like Burkina Faso, Mauritius, and Kiribati exist in an environment void of any real significant reason to inspire national pride. Here in the United States, a young and attractive woman can truly achieve the American Dream by starting with nothing and achieving success. Starting as a Hooters waitress, wearing a tight-fitting tank top with skin-tight orange nylon shorts, to a s.h.i.+rt-removing, lap-dancing stripper, to a well-compensated international p.o.r.n star, no mountain is too high. As for Kiribati, the women can't even find a Hooters, or even the poor man's equivalent, Wing House, to ignite their own inspiring tale. From U.S.-born-and-bred p.o.r.n stars to gold medal Olympic efforts to military heroics on the battlefield, there are more chest pounding American events than we can ever be expected to remember. However, since 1836, we have been asked to remember to wrap it up when having s.e.x with an evolved former Hooter's waitress and to remember the Alamo.

When it comes to Hooters girls it is best to form good habits. Wrap it up early and often. Get in a condom-wearing routine until it becomes second nature for you. As far as remembering the Alamo, dial back a hundred and seventy years or so as even back then thousands of unruly Mexicans were causing problems in Willie Nelson's home state of Texas.

The Battle Royal.

In December 1835, Ben Milam led Texan troops against Mexican combatants stationed at the former home for missionaries and their converts known as the Alamo. After several days of intense fighting, the Texans were victorious. However, by February 1836, the Mexicans were back like Montezuma's revenge. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna brought his alternative late army to San Antonio, ready to attack.

Early on, the Texans made a unanimous decision (including the handful of nonvoting black slaves that were at the Alamo) that they were not going to surrender to a general with a girl's name. William B. Travis, mediocre warrior, but great community organizer, sent couriers out to ask for help, and with the few men who enthusiastically returned, the defense total reached approximately 200 versus around 8,000 Mexican troops.

Legend has it the motivational Colonel Travis drew a line in the sand and said all who wanted to stay and fight with him should cross it, and if there were any yellow-bellied sellouts, they were free to leave. Of course, the only one who did not cross the line was Moses Rose, who, naturally, was French. HIS LEGEND QUICKLY BECAME THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS, OR JUST "CHICKEN s.h.i.+T" FOR SHORT.

Once the Alamo fell into Mexican hands, the final death toll was estimated at 189 Texan defenders, at least 1,600 Mexicans, and 208 Chihuahuas. Unable to find a battle in which 95 percent of their combatants died, in order to instill some reason for national pride, the governments of both Burkina Faso and Mauritius have applied for Hooters franchises to be built in their humble countries.

18461848 THE MEXICAN WAR.

Without a Republican-inspired fence to keep them out.

American Invasion.

As Jose sipped away on his sweet tea he turned to look at the tavern door. "Oh, it's them again," he mumbled as the dirty Americans made their way into the bar. He didn't really like the Americans. Oh, they kept the neighbor's yard well landscaped and they were able painters, but they stilled annoyed Jose. They were probably here in the great territory of Texas illegally, he thought. Jose's government had encouraged some of these Americans to come in and make themselves at home, but this was getting out of control.