May I Preface That I AM NOT ACTUALLY SERIOUS (but if poverty is to be alleviated in Africa I’m not against manipulating Western governments)

There was a great article in last week’s Economist about the Central African Republic entitled “Beyond a Failed State.” Wow, that’s not good. I was actually planning on writing about disparities in aid money amongst African countries, and had elected to use the Central African Republic as the basis for my newest off-the-wall, not actually serious idea. Since The Economist, once again, beat me to it, I’m going to highlight another country that gets comparatively little aid, largely because of its minor international profile: Zambia. Zambia is your prototypical landlocked Sub-Saharan African country: poor as dirt, not so Democratic, not a whole lot of food and potable running water. They’re governed by a real tool named Mwanawasa (I forget his first name, but its something surprisingly Jewish sounding) who, like most African prespots (a portmanteau for president and despots) is guilty of election fraud and dishonest accounting. However, since he’s never attempted anything radical as Mugabe’s reverse imperialism program (expelling whites from their plantations and bestowing the land to blacks), commited genocide, or deported the foreign media corps en masse (if there even is a foreign media presence in Zambia), his country remains under the radar. As a result, aid to this country is significantly lower than countries like the Sudan. What I suggest (in jest and in a very Machiavellian fashion) is that an unscrupulous African leader manipulate the media in order to garner considerably more television coverage of the destitution in his or her respective country and thus drastically increase aid money, and since Mwanawasa clearly isn’t burdened with a sense of morality, he would be a perfect candidate. What gets international attention faster than a US Senator’s airport bathroom stall gay sex scandal? Genocide. Obviously, I don’t advocate perpetrating genocide. But what if a leader like Mwanawasa were able to hire the services of a technology consulting firm, pay them a handsome sum to ensure non-disclosure, and engineer videos of what appears to be genocide in, say, the remote northeast jungles of Zambia committed by a rebel minority faction (Like that movie Wag The Dog, except instead of public distraction for the sake of political preservation, the deceptive images would actually be used for the greater good of the country)? Leak the video to the press, and before you know it, every world leader will condemn the supposed atrocities in Zambia and third graders throughout the United States will be donating a dollar to help Zambian children through these tough times. What about evidence you ask? Simple. For a few weeks before the “discovery” of the slaughtering of innocents, have trusted aids, covertly in the middle of the night, empty the unidentified bodies from the Lusaka morgue (Zambia has an astronomical AIDS rate, even for African standards, leaving countless dead), drive them to an obscure patch of jungle in the country’s scarcely inhabited northeast, riddle their long dead bodies with bullets, and bury them in a shallow grave (Sorry if that’s too graphic). It’s not as if CSI is going to show up looking for semen samples. Create a couple of primitive forts and weapons caches to be found and no one would even consider the possibility of an intricate ruse. As long as evidence of the genocidal insurgents exists, at least for a while, people won’t question a lack of POWs. African rebel groups have a long track record of avoiding detection in the depths of African jungles. Hell, some of the generals responsible for the carnage in Rwanda have been hiding out in Eastern Congo for more than a decade without being captured. So, before long, the aid money would enter the country by the millions. While a lot of that money would reach the Zambian people, Mwanawasa and his cronies would benefit too from the myriad bribes that are requisite for NGO’s to conduct their affairs in countries rife with graft. As Kanye West informed us that Fitty Cent once told him: “Go ahead, switch yo style up, if they hate, then let ‘em hate, and watch the (aid) money pile up!” That’s all you gotta do, Mwanawasa, switch yo style up! Clearly, I don’t actually advocate any of this, but I am surprised nobody has tried something similar yet…

Droppin’ Bombs

As is custom amongst English speaking youths, we’ve created a number of euphemistic abbreviations for curse words that involve the word “bomb,” in order to avoid saying particularly awful expressions in order to not offend the delicate sensibilities of polite company (or to avoid being labeled as a racist/misogynist/physicist so that you can still score some hot liberal chick..I mean, what?). Par exemple, the c-bomb (rhymes with runt), the n-bomb (think of the country Niger, then add a ‘g’), the h-bomb (hydrogen), and of course, the infamous f-bomb. Within the white American community at least, the two former expressions are considered extremely offensive (and, of course, when a white guy drops the n-bomb in front of a black person…not good. Very very not good. However, when used within the black community, the n-bomb is relatively inoffensive), but we’ve become so desensitized to the f-bomb, I feel it no longer needs to belong in the explosion category. I mean, I use the f-word in front of my parents; my mother even uses it on occasion when peeved (this would have NEVER happened ten years ago). If someone I just met refers to some mutual friend as a “fucking douchebag,” I’m not offended that he dropped the “f-bomb.” I’m usually just thinking, “yeah, that guy is a douchebag.” This is not designed to be a rant lamenting the waning significance of a great word (Fornication Under Carnal Knowledge baby!), but, rather, a proposal. There’s another f-word that really does startle me. It makes my skin crawl. It chills my bones. And every now and then, it will even offend my own robust sensibilities. That word is fiancé. Whenever a girl drops this f-bomb, and especially when a guy does, I instantly freeze up. I immediately forget the topic of conversation. A horrified expression overwhelms my chubby face. To me, this word is far more terrifying than fuck. In the words of Eric Cartman (sorry for the overload of South Park quotes, but they’re just too pertinent): “What’s wrong with fuck? Fuck doesn’t hurt anybody! Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck!” Fiancé, on the other hand, is mortifying. Please, at least around under-25 year old, commitment-phobic males, utilize the f-bomb. Our virgin ears can’t cope with the alternative.