Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Commodore Trump and the Evil Canadian Cattle Rustlers

Commodore Trump and the Evil Canadian Cattle Rustlers

Last updated on: April 25, 2017 at 11:47 pm by Mary Pezzulo

Commodore Trump and the Evil Canadian Cattle Rustlers 2017-04-25T23:47:12-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

battleship-1688093_640 (1)

I don’t often read the president’s twitter feed. If I want to read other people’s stream of consciousness, I’ll read Proust, and frankly I usually don’t usually want to read other people’s stream of consciousness in the first place. I can barely manage my own.

Still, I tend to see tweets by the president circulating around, another one just as soon as I’ve stopped wondering about the last. The latest tweet I’ve noticed from our president was made at one-thirty this afternoon, and it sparked my imagination. The explanation for it is likely mundane, but it sounds like Donald Trump is going to war with Canada over Wisconsin’s dairy farms.

The president writes:

Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!

I was intrigued. I’ve never really thought of Wisconsin as a “border state.” Yes, it’s technically the last piece of land before Canada, but there’s a Great Lake between the two. I myself have lived in Ohio for more than three decades now; it is also one Great Lake away from Canada, but I’ve never thought of Ohio as a border state either. You can’t even see Canada from Ohio. On clear days you can stand on the pebbly shore of Lake Erie, which we call “the beach,” and see about four miles to Kelley’s Island. Kelley’s Island is the property of Ohio, technically part of Erie County; from the far side of Kelley’s Island, it’s something like three miles to the Canadian border, and longer before you hit land.

In my experience, Ohioans just don’t think about Canada very much. The last time we looked to the north in fear of an invasion was in the war of 1812, when the British navy was repulsed on the lake by the brilliant Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. There’s still a monument in his honor at Put-in-Bay, though it looks nothing like him. These days, the only time Ohioans fret about Canada is when swarms of mayflies blow south across Lake Erie, and have to be swept off the walls of our summer cottages with brooms. People call them “Canadian Soldiers” in Northern Ohio, because that’s where they invade from.

Lake Erie is a lot smaller than Lake Superior. Mayflies have such a short lifespan, I don’t know if they’d survive a jaunt across Lake Superior. So my guess would be that Wisconsin residents think even less about Canada than those of us in Ohio do.

How could Canadians possibly disrupt the dairy farming business in “border states” like Wisconsin? Do Canadian marauders come across Lake Superior in galleons? Do they sneak into the pasture to milk the cows by night, and then smuggle the milk back home in weighted barrels towed behind the ship, like tea and sugar smugglers of the eighteenth century? Do the farmers come out the next morning to find their cows mysteriously dry? Is this the equivalent to waking up to find the gas siphoned out of your car, in Wisconsin?

Maybe it’s the cows they steal. Maybe Canadian cattle rustlers attach the cows to pontoons and float them back up north. Or perhaps they just engage in regular raids, sailing down from Ontario in dragon-headed ships, burning the seaside farms, slaughtering cattle and carrying off the Wisconsin dairy maids as chattels. It could be that they they dump inferior Canadian cattle into the pasture to mate with the cows and produce weak offspring.

Maybe Canadian and Wisconsin ranchers keep getting into spats about which cows get to graze on the surface of Lake Superior, and Canadians have subtle ways of changing the brand on American cattle in order to claim them as their own. Perhaps Canadian dairy farmers hire women to stand on the shore of Lake Superior and Kuln at American cows until they wander into the lake and are drowned.

These are the things that ran through my own stream of consciousness, as I attempted to decipher the president’s tweet.

I googled around for awhile and finally found something about a Canadian tariff– Canada has high tariffs on dairy imports, and that’s probably what the president was trying to say. But I can’t see that in this age of refrigerated transport it makes much difference whether milk comes from a ‘border state” or farther south. The Canadian Prime Minister insists that global dairy overproduction, is the real problem with America’s dairy farms, but then again that’s just what a cattle rustler would say.

So, as far as I can tell, it seems Canada is not actively meddling with Wisconsin dairy farmers after all, just declining to buy even more milk it doesn’t need from the whole United States. I suppose Trump is going to sign an executive order intended to force Canadians to buy unwanted milk from “border states” just as he’s going to force coal to become profitable again and force consumers to buy and hire American. And all this force will no doubt be viewed as a restoring of free trade, so unlike the meddlesome, regulation-loving Democrats.

Perhaps he’s going to send the military across the Great Lakes and forcibly sell Wisconsin’s surplus dairy products to Canadians. Perhaps the next naval monument on the Great Lakes will be built on the Canada side, commemorating that day when a brave Canadian commodore sunk a marauding fleet of milk-laden ships from the dreaded ports of Wisconsin, and all the waters of Lake Superior turned creamy white. Perhaps the Canadians will stage an uprising and raid the American ships, throwing milk into the harbor. Perhaps, within our lifetime, we’ll be using our brooms to repel actual, human Canadian soldiers from our summer cottages on the shores of Lake Erie.

I certainly hope not. But wars have been fought for less.

As the president himself so eloquently stated: watch!

(image via Pixabay)

preferential option for non-violence

Previous Post

April 24, 2017

On John Paul 2's Consistent Ethic of Life

Next Post

April 26, 2017 Poverty Is Not Simple

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Jesus teach about serving others?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Serve only family Whoever wants to be great must be a servant Only serve the rich Never serve