You Can't fix Stupid!

       Let's play a guessing game. Who are Caitlyn Coleman, Joshua Boyle, Jean and Scott Adam, and Otto Warmbier, and what common factor links them?  If you said they're all Americans, you're close; Boyle is Canadian. If you guessed that they're all dead, that's incorrect, The Adams are, Boyle and Coleman might be, but Warmbier is still alive. If, however you said they all are (or were) terminally naive and stupid, you win the prize.

        All these intrepid travelers  went near or into  places where   indigenous folks are overtly hostile to the United States and ran afoul of circumstances into which they intentionally placed themselves. At this juncture, allow me to say that they were not government contractors, aid workers, medecins sans frontieres, or involved with any organization which would have, rightfully or not, sent them there.

        Coleman and Boyle were honeymooning (she very pregnant) in the mountainous region of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban, against the advice, wishes, and pleadings of their respective parents. The couple decided to set off in the summer of 2012, going from Russia through several Central Asian countries and then into Afghanistan. Coleman was pregnant. That was about four  years ago. They and, presumably, their three year old child,  are still captives as of the most recent video released by their captors.  

        Jean and Scott Adam were killed by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Two passengers on board their yacht were also killed. The Adams were distributing Bibles around the world, seemingly whether people wanted them or not.  They were in some of the most dangerous waters in the world, and apparently, although Mr. Adams had worked in the film industry, had not seen, "Captain Phillips."     

        Otto Warmbier, 20 year old UVA student,  seen  Thursday  evening on the nightly news bawling his eyes out in a courtroom, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years at hard labor for removing a poster from a hotel wall - IN NORTH  KOREA!!  This is a rogue nation which has hacked US government computer systems, threatened a US movie studio and tested IRBms and nuclear weapons. You know, all those militaristic things the Far Rightists have said Iran will do, but never has? I am at a loss as to why any respectable American tour company would patronize this country, given the horrid state of relations existing between the  US and N. Korea, and the insanity evidenced at every opportunity by their lunatic leader.

        Ron White must have had the fate of these imbeciles in mind, when he coined those gospel like words, "you can't fix stupid!"