2003-12-05

I go through periodic spurts of being political. I get all determined to be �aware� of the �issues,� and I read Chomsky on Alternet until my teeth hurt and then I start making with the �Pretty hypocritical of the US government to declare a �war on terror� when they ran the fucking School of the Americas for fifty fucking years and if they really wanted to crack down on terror, where�s the focus on the Tamil Tigers? Huh? who statistically commit the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts every year, including suicide attacks? What, you�re not a real terrorist unless you�re Muslim?� and generally I end up with indigestion and it�s no good for anyone.

In one of these manic spurts of armchair activism, I was brushing up on current armed conflicts around the world (specifically to avoid descending to the depths of stupidity plumbed by an acquaintance who had recently remarked in my presence that �The world has been pretty peaceful for the last decade, hasn�t it?�), and I learned about the armless refugee children in Sierra Leone. Quick lesson in current affairs for those readers too pathetically slothful to clickity click: rebel forces in Sierra Leone have the quirky habit of lopping off children�s hands and feet with machetes.

Handless refugee children! Man, in the game of life, they just don�t deal out hands (so to speak) much crappier than that. Like, when god was handing out good fortune, these kids were off shoveling the septic tank. Fuckity! What are you going to do with no hands? You�d have to pay off a monkey just to masturbate! (�That�s it, boy � just like peeling a banana. No, wait! It�s not REALLY a banan�AAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGHH!�)

The Sierra Leonean armless refugee children have stuck in my mind as the iconic epitome of the shit deal. I may bitch like a mighty wind, but whenever I�m about to really complain about something I think, �Well�at least I�m not a fucking refugee with no hands.� I could be trapped in an outhouse with a duffel bag full of fire ants and still be better off than a starving orphan amputee. I could come down with a raging case of face-eating leprosy and still have an easier go of it than poor little No-Hand McStumps. Makes it easy to count my blessings, anyway � I can do it on two hands. Ha ha!