Colonels and Gentleman

Anyone who knows me even moderately well should be well acquainted with my fascination in the human rights movement. If it were possible to hear all regular readers of this blog collectively roll their eyes, then I am deafened. Of course, I hear you thinking, your bleeding liberal heart is all but bled out Alex. I know and am only partly sorry for the hours of soapbox ranting and raving, mouth a'foamed, entreating all who are too glazed over and no longer listening to help me build a better world. Ah, but to be emperor but a while...I would have it all fixed tomorrow.

Well I wholeheartedly admit it. My heart is bleeding and I am positively bought in on the whole human rights ideological framework. To tell the blunt truth, I just wouldn't be a respectable politically savvy human rights advocate if I didn't have "the list." All of us who are contemplating a tattoo of the UN Declaration of Human Rights on our backs have a similar list. You don't want to be on our list because it is reserved for the worst of the worst. The scum of the world whom good leaders like George W. Bush and Joseph Stalin denounce from high upon their pulpits of moral excellence. "The List" starts pretty universally: Adolf Hitler...and then the rest are to the list-compiler's own personal persuasion. The names are usually the same: Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Donald Rumsfeld, and that freaky clown in the dream from the Brave Little Toaster. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries' finest dictatorial selections, the names may be similar, only the ordering differs.

So perusing the headlines today I was, as always, attuned for any happenings or doings from any member of my own personal list. Today proved a fruitful day; a personal fave, Muammar Gaddafi, decided that he wanted to spend some of the oil money he's been rapidly accumulating since #4 on my list (Bush 44) on something to cool his desert parched mouth. What better treat to salve the sun-burnt tongue of a maniacal, ruthless, and falsely apologectic dictator's mouth than...gelato!!! And hell, why not get it from the source. A short call to Berlusconi who is in dire need of something to make him forget his football team's recent losses or a high-profile divorce and the artist formerly known as G-daffi was on a plane to Rome. To round out the perfect trip Gaddafi would make Berlusconi buy all the damned gelato Gaddafi could eat because that unfortunate jaunt Italy did in its poorly managed colonial days at Libya's expense is a debt as yet unpaid.

Bono Meets 4-Star General

Really? The man who is linked with Pan Am Flight 103, a violent represser of political opposition, a guy pretends to be Muslim as well as Simon Cowell would enjoy my rendition of Godspell tunes is being welcomed with open arms into the western world that so recently thought him a veritable despot? For shame, for shame...I was saddened and searched for a reason to explain this peculiar development.

All roads in my life lead back to Sam, and this proved no different. To be certain, the Colonel must have realized that even with improved relations that he was unlikely to be ever allowed into the U.S. to meet the most eminently charismatic Samuel...and besides DQ cones just aren't gelato. So once he heard the rumblings from Rome he seized the only chance he had to kiss the hand of a man with the voice of an angel.

It saddens me to think that my brother can stir even sleeping demons from their slumber while I strain and strut in vain as an armchair activist to bring about their demise. One vacation/study-abroad from my brother brings tyrants flocking and I can't do so much as get them to respond to e-mails (you hear that Wolfowitz?) My brother is not even trying and is successful, I'm killing myself and only diving into the deep end of the fail-pool. You've heard life isn't fair? Nor are brothers.

When that fateful meeting happens and Gaddafi looks deep into Sam's eyes while the first tears of redemption start to stream down his cheeks and he drops to his knees knowing that finally salvation will cleanse his soul...I hope Sam sings Yoko Ono.