American.

American.
by james bezerra



Do you think the President of China

would be offended if he came and saw ya’

and you set out your fine china?



Like how that one cold night in Afghanistan

you asked an Afghan to pass you an afghans

to warm your frozen feet.

And he told you to beat a quick retreat,

because there it’s just called a ‘blanket’.



Or would the Chinese President

shrug and slyly grin

and tell you that when

China takes over the planet,

making an insensitive social miscalculation

will just be called an “American”.

 
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Afghanistan Quicksand.

Afghanistan Quicksand
by james bezerra

What is it
about Afghanistan
that make everybody want to be in it
even though they have no plan
for how to run it?

It’s like an endless parade
of crap and sorrow: Soviets and Talibans
and Americans
all fighting over a nation with no shade!

If I were in the mood to invade,
I would find a place with more oil
and less prone to violent turmoil,
then I’d have it made!

Sure, sure, I know
America had no
choice but to go
and I agree we had to blow
the hell out of Osama’s hole.

But I just don’t understand
what about Afghanistan
makes it like quicksand
for every nation
that invades that land.
So let’s just all agree to stay away;
it’s just a bunch of rocks anyway.

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Like I Always Say: Fungus is Mightier Than the Sword.

So apparently there is some kind of fungus ravaging the opium fields of Afghanistan. Which means that your Mom’s heroin is going to get more expensive, so you had better chain up your TV like it’s the beginning of Requiem for a Dream (you should seriously get your mom some help).

Read the BBC article all about it.

The thing that I like about this story is that NATO is getting accused of having caused the fungus (somehow). And you know what? I wish that we had, but I think that we all know that we’re not that smart.

This is exactly why I believe that they should put me in charge of stuff. All stuff. I would put together a crack team of awesome people (I would call them my “Awesome-neers” [like engineers or imagineers, only of awesome!]). The team would have the world’s most talented hacker, a muscley european getaway driver, a sexy safecracker, a good all-around funny and cool black guy (like Mos Def maybe). I would get us all Mini-Coopers to zip around in.

Anyway, a bunch of NATO guys would come into the office and be all like, “We have this problem, the Taliban has an endless income because so many Americans are buying their drugs. They use the money to kill our boys. It is a vicious circle. You have to help us. Please The Awesome-neers!”

And then I would rub my chin with my thumb and forefinger (I will have grown a Van Dyke beard by this point) and then I will wink at the sexy safecracker and then I will look at the NATO guys and be all like, “Fungus!”

If we lived in the world that I want to live in, that’s how it would have happened. But since we live in this world, I think it is all just a happy (though mysteriously awesome)accident.

P.S.
Although, now that I think about it, in the early 1960s the CIA tried to implode the Cuban economy by killing off the sugar and coffee fields with chemicals sprayed from crop dusters and also with bugs dropped from airplanes (the CIA spent $30 million designing and producing tiny parachutes for locust and cicadas. True story!).


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