i guess you had to be there

it's a bad news day for the horn.

the horn of africa, that is.

things are kicking off in somalia again. i know, i know, you're saying, "somalia? isn't that a kind of girl scout cookie? i want one!"

you're wrong, though. it's not a cookie. somalia is a country that's not really a country. somalia is the national equivalent of a pre-op transvestite in rural alabama. we're just calling it a country because it makes everyone else more comfortable. it's really a hodge-podge of armed teenagers with a passion to change in competing directions, but little resembling a plan to do so.

that's nothing new for somalia. what's new is that in this latest battle between the islamists and the puppet government, ethiopian troops have proved to be the deciding factor in routing the islamic attack.

which will piss six kinds of hell out of the islamists. they've already been threatening ethiopia with war unless they butt out. and now not only has ethiopia not removed its troops, its troops have kicked ass.

so why do you care?

maybe you had to be there? maybe you had to have wandered the streets of addis ababa. suffered through the bus rides and watched the fields full of rocks not grow. 'cause having done that, and thinking about what happens to ethiopia if the islamic somalis decide to join the never-ending ethiopia-eritrea war, well... it's depressing.

that's a whole corner of the world that is turning, literally, to dust. things are bad in lots of places. but in zimbabwe the land is fertile. niger and sudan have oil. there's nothing in ethiopia but qat, tef, and the ark of the covenant.

and you don't know what qat and tef are, probably, and no one is allowed to see the ark.

writing this now, what occurs to me is this:

it is absolutely unbelievable that today, in 2006, what we're looking at for our future is a worldwide religious war.

people who believe in god A vs. people who believe in gods B and C.

what a waste.

how did everyone get so confused?

everyone loves a crusade. some things never go out of style.