One shared yesterday was a recording of the Tsarnaev brothers’ carjacking victim. He has escaped and is seen pleading for help at a convenience store. I imagine many of you have seen this. We are all used to seeing video surveillance footage.

But look again! We all know the Tsarnaev brothers as murderous Chechens, allowed to live among us. But would you believe that this part of the Tsarnaev saga is foreigners only? None of the players (victim, attacker, bystander appealed to for help) is actually an American!

Watching the footage and listening to the audio reveals that the car jacking victim is himself an exchange student from China. Not surprisingly, the clerk at the gas station/convenience store speaks in the unmistakable lilt of the somewhere South of the Hindu Kush variety.

See the clerk’s bored incomprehension as the desperate Chinese student tries to make himself understood. Then listen to the 911 operator’s repeated attempts to understand either the clerk or the student’s excited gibberish in response to his questions.

If either could communicate in English it is possible that the brothers could have been caught before the shootout. They were gassing up the stolen SUV all the while this linguistic farce took place.

This is our future, a land of the disconnected and the rootless, making our lives ever more interesting.