LOLSkool Catz II

The Racial Geography of American Justice/Injustice

Free States and Slave States, 1854


Segregation, 1950
(National Park Service)

Incarceration Rate, 2011


Death Penalty by Statute and Executions, 1976-2011


Res Ipsa Loquitor.

On Presidents, Palestinians, and the Jewish Vote

This is an election year, so it should come as no surprise that presidential aspirants are busy pandering to every strategic voting bloc, including the large populations of Jewish voters in New York, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Appealing to Jewish voters on the subject of Israel is nothing new – shtetl politicians have campaigned on this salient issue as long as there has been a Zionist movement. However, what is new in this election cycle is the unprecedented degree of gutter politics and general nastiness that the discourse on Israel has acquired.

At the Republican Jewish Coalition forum, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann thundered that Israel should cede “not one acre, not one square foot, not one inch” to the Palestinians in order to make peace.

Governor Rick Perry declared that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are actually legal, “and I support them.”

Newt Gingrich claimed that the Palestinians are an “invented people” – with the implication that if the Palestinians are not a true nation then they cannot have a nation-state.

Rick Santorum went even further, claiming, “All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They are not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian. This is Israeli land.”

Putting these statements together, one sees a Republican foreign policy platform which does more than simply repudiate the “Land for Peace” premise of U.S.-led peace negotiations between Israel and her Arab neighbors – it repudiates the very notion of a peace process altogether. The GOP presidential aspirants wish to reverse the longstanding U.S. policy of opposition to the illegal Israeli settlements in West Bank territory and now actively endorse continued colonial expansion. The foreign policy which these candidates espouse is a radical abandonment of U.S. policy for the past 45 years – including the foreign policies of the Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush administrations – and a substitution of the religiously and racially exclusivist ideologies of Revisionist Zionism in its place.

Why would candidates for leader of the free world stoop to such lows? Karl Rove and the greater Republican National Committee believe that by making Israel into a wedge issue, GOP candidates can peel off some of the 78% of Jewish voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. GOP strategists believe that they might have found a winning strategy in pandering to the basest fears of the collective Jewish psyche: our instinctive paranoia of Arabs, Muslims, and anyone otherwise resembling Yasser Arafat. Such Palestinian-bashing is a reprehensible tactic which all advocates of tolerance and basic decency must condemn. Tragically, it might win Mitt Romney a few votes, it might even flip a few Hasidic communities to the GOP tent for good.

One should expect such below-the-belt jabs from the folks who brought you the “White Hands” ad and Willie Horton. But what is concerning is that the Democratic National Committee might take the bait and try to out-pander the panderers. One might hope that Democratic candidates will not join this race to the bottom in Palestinian-bashing because they are too good for that kind of gutter politics.

One might even hope that the enlightened Democrats might get the memo that the State of Israel is not the only matter of interest to each and every one America’s 6,544,000 Jews. It is insulting to think that a politician can buy our votes with a pledge for more reflexive embrace of everything the Netanyahu administration says and does in the same manner as, say, one stumps for votes among Iowan farmers by promising more subsidies for corn.

Zionism and diplomatic support for the State of Israel have always been an undercurrent in Jewish-American politics, but it was never the end-all-be-all until relatively recently. Not too long ago, candidates campaigned in Jewish neighborhoods in Park Slope and Brookline by stumping on the issues most relevant to a then-largely working class demographic; unionism, wages, and pensions, immigration reform, civil rights legislation. However, with the passing of generations, the bulk of us have moved from the ghettoes to the wealthy suburbs, and there is no longer a distinct economic pitch to appeal to both the seamstress in South Williamsburg who makes $22,000 a year and the bond trader in Greenwich who makes $2.2 million. Thus Jewish-American politics has been reduced to Israel: the one issue which (ostensibly) unites us all.

Nevertheless, in our day-to-day conversations, American Jews are more concerned about the job market, fairness in the tax code, the cost of health insurance, the quality of our environment. We are disproportionately in favor of taking measures to curb global warming, reforming our criminal justice system, and creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Why don’t candidates for public office come to our congregations and campaign on these issues which actually affect our lives, the lives of our friends and family members a whole lot more than a foreign country two continents and an ocean away? Of course, we will always have a special sense of sympathy for the Jewish State. But if we are going to speak about foreign policy, Israel is but one of 195 foreign countries (196 if you count Palestine) with which we are concerned.

If presidential candidates are going to speak to a Jewish audience on Israel and Israel alone, then they might as well appeal to our greatest hopes instead of our darkest fears. According to a 2011 J Street poll, the vast majority of American Jews want a U.S.-brokered solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (83%), and for the Obama administration to offer a peace plan that proposes set borders and security arrangements (70%). A healthy majority of American Jews even back a peace plan based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed-upon land swaps (57%). If politicians are going to campaign for Jewish voters on Israel, they ought to pledge to sit down with Netanyahu and Abbas and hammer out a peace deal for once and for all.

Sure, 17 percent of American Jews are opposed to the Middle East peace process - just as 18 percent of American Jews are opposed to equal rights for gays and lesbians, 22 percent of American Jews thought that Sarah Palin should have been the Vice President, and there are even some of us who think there should be segregation on public transportation. But Democratic politicians have no obligation to kowtow to these forces of reaction, the very most closed-minded minority of my people - because they're Republicans. The DNC ought to accept this reality, move on, and campaign to the vast majority of Jewish voters who support a U.S.-brokered peace process.

Making peace in the Middle East is not a campaign liability which candidates ought to run away from – it is a badge of honor which Democratic Presidents ought to embrace. The legacy of Democratic administrations vis-à-vis Israel is not limited to Harry Truman’s recognition of the Jewish State in 1948. The greatest foreign policy achievements of Democratic administrations include Lyndon Johnson’s support for Resolution 242 in the United Nations, Jimmy Carter’s brokering of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, Bill Clinton’s facilitation of negotiations over the Israel-Jordan peace treaty and the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. The majority of Jewish voters want to see Barack Obama live up to this long legacy of Democratic achievement and oversee peace negotiations leading to a two-state solution in which the nations of Israel and Palestine are living side by side, in peace and security. That’s the kind of change we can believe in.

It's Time to End the Embargo on Cuba

“I think it’s time for us to end the embargo on Cuba”, Barack Obama declared as he was running for the Senate in 2004, “The Cuban embargo has failed to provide for the sort of rising standard of living, has squeezed the innocents in Cuba, and utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro – who has now been there since I was born. So it’s time for us to acknowledge that that particular policy has failed.”

Since Obama recognized this matter-of-fact truth, the embargo on Cuba failed to overthrow the Castro regime for an additional 8 years, thusfar failing for a grand total of 52 years and achieving the dubious distinction of being the longest-running blockade in in the history of the world. It would be fair to say that the U.S. embargo on Cuba has been the worst trade policy ever made.

So why don’t we just call a spade a spade and finally open up trade with Cuba? Now more than ever, American businesses desperately need to access new markets and increase our exports to other countries. As the Obama administration has sold free trade agreements with Panama and Colombia as part of the Recovery Agenda, it’s time to repackage trade with Cuba as a means of expanding markets for American farmers and manufacturers and creating more American jobs.

Trade sanctions are more than just a means of making a statement; they are economic policies with real world ramifications for the markets of the United States, the targeted country, and third party markets as well. Trade sanctions must be subject to the same cost-benefit analysis as any other economic policy. If Congress were to ban the export of tear gas to Bahrain, that would have a targeted effect on the abilities of the Bahraini state to repress its own people and only a minimal effect on the U.S. economy. The benefits would far outweigh the costs.

However, if you compare such a nominal targeted sanction to our comprehensive embargo on Cuba which prohibits almost all economic activity with the island nation, this policy cannot withstand the scrutiny of any rational analysis. The costs of the United States' self-abnegation from the Cuban market disproportionately outweigh the benefits – that is, if there are any benefits at all.

In the 1960s when Castro was harboring Soviet nuclear weapons and threatening to foment Communist insurrection throughout the Americas, the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were arguably justified in restricting trade with Cuba. At a time when Pentagon hawks were advocating for a ground invasion to topple the regime and all-out war with the Soviet Union, economic blockade was a reasonable alternative to gambling with nuclear Armageddon.

But half a century later, the Cold War is over, the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam are among our most important trading partners, and the strategic value of containing Cuba is paltry-to-nonexistant. Uncle Fidel is 85, ailing, and has relinquished all official powers; his anti-American subversion now consists of writing the occasional editorial on his sporadically-updated blog. In the year 2012, Cuba is no more a threat to the national security of the United States than the left-wing Caribbean nations of Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.


On the other hand, the costs of the embargo on Cuba to the U.S. economy are enormous. Cuba is a market of 11 million consumers and a GDP of $57 billion. The island nation needs to import $9 billion worth of mostly food, refined oil, farm machinery and chemicals every year. And because of the Helms-Burton Act which codified the embargo into law, this promising market only 90 miles from the Florida coast is all but completely off-limits to American businesses, taking $9 billion in potential U.S. exports, untold billions more output from the ancillary commerce which could result, and effectively flushing them down the toilet.

It is still fair for observers of objectively-discernible reality to decry the Republic of Cuba's contemptible human rights record. The government remains a dictatorship which muzzles opposing views, jails political prisoners and the like. There is a convincing human rights-based argument that we shouldn’t sell them tanks, helicopters, rifles and bullets that could be used in the act of political repression.

But now that Communism is an anachronistic novelty, is there any reason why we shouldn’t be able to freely sell the Cuban people American-made food, clothing, medicine, and toys? Is there any reason why the U.S. should single out Cuba’s lack of multiparty elections to maintain the most restrictive trade sanctions on the books? Even in our own hemisphere, why is Cuba more deserving of embargo than, say, human rights abusing Venezuela ($55 billion in trade in 2011), Colombia ($35.7 billion), or Bolivia($1.5 billion)?

The U.S. embargo of Cuba is so severe that it severely infringes upon the rights of American citizens. Section 515.204 of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations prohibits any person subject to U.S. jurisdiction from engaging in any transaction relating to any product which is of Cuban origin. Section 515.204 doesn’t prohibit the travel per se of U.S. citizens to Cuba, but it does make it a crime for U.S. citizens to so much as pay the bill at a Havana restaurant without an elusive license from the Treasury Department. Any U.S. citizen found guilty of making such a transaction can be fined up to $250,000 and/or imprisoned for up to 10 years.

The cold winter of the unilateral U.S. embargo is beginning to thaw. In January 2011 President Obama quietly issued an executive order easing the travel ban to Cuba – allowing the Treasury and State Departments to authorize “purposeful travel” by academic, religious, and cultural groups to the island. Obama’s executive order also allows for the transfer of funds to Cuban religious and civil society groups – but pointedly refrained from allowing the unrestricted flow of remittances from Cuban-Americans to their family members on the island.

Imagine the possibilities for the U.S. economy if President Obama were to go further and act on his campaign pledge to completely do away with the draconian ban on travel, if he were to use his executive power to eliminate Section 515.204 of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations so that any American citizen could come and go as they please…

Analysts from the Cuba Policy Foundation estimate that if the federal government were to completely lift the travel ban, approximately 1 million Americans would take advantage of their newfound liberty in the first year alone. This would not only be a boon to the Cuban economy, but to the American tourist economy as well. Lifting the travel ban would create thousands of additional jobs at US airlines, cruise ships, tour operators, travel agents, hotels, restaurants, etc. The CPF estimates that in the first year the U.S. economy would grow by about $545 million in GDP and 3,797 new jobs in the first year. As business becomes more established we could be talking about the range of $2 billion in additional economic output and 12,180 new jobs in the United States alone.

Why stop there? Raúl Castro has taken significant steps to liberalize the Cuban economy by allowing private citizens to own their homes and establish small businesses. Why doesn’t the Obama administration allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba to meet aspiring entrepreneurs who might want to take out a micro-loan? If a Cuban guy in Holguín wants to open up a pizzeria, why should U.S. trade law prevent him from importing Cabot cheese and Hormel pepperoni?If a lady in Camagüey wants to open up a beauty parlor, is there any logical reason for the U.S. Treasury Department to prevent her from importing Revlon makeup and Pantene shampoo? As it now stands, draconian U.S. trade regulations are stifling Cuba’s transition to a market economy!

Thanks to a crack in the embargo enacted by Congress in 2000, the Treasury Department now allows a modest amount of food exports to Cuba for “humanitarian” reasons each year. Embargo notwithstanding, many Cubans are voracious consumers of American-made rice and beans, mayonnaise and hot sauce to the tune of $560 million a year. Nevertheless, these food exports are subject to extremely stifling banking regulations which prohibit direct wiring of money for transactions. Any wiring of funds must be conducted through third-party countries, and much of the transacting is relegated to cash. If Congress were to relax the Cuba-specific banking regulations to the same level as regulations on money transfers to, say, the Dominican Republic, American farmers could be making between $200 to $300 million in additional revenues.

The Cuban market imports $9 billion of refined oil, food, farm machinery and chemicals every year. It should be one of the greatest markets for U.S. goods. But U.S. goods now constitute only 6.3% of the country’s imports because the market is dominated by the Venezuelans, Chinese, and Spaniards whose governments allow essentially free trade to the country. Even the mighty Canadians are beating us in the competition to meet the Cuban market. We could add billions of dollars to the United States GDP by simply deleting a couple of antediluvian trade restrictions from the U.S. Code.

So why doesn’t Congress simply repeal the Helms-Burton Act and allow Americans to trade with Cubans? There remains the disproportionately powerful bloc of Cubans émigrés still smarting from the events of 1959. Both parties see Florida as the sine qua non of victory in the presidential and Congressional elections, so most "serious" candidates are scared of casting a vote that might let their opponents cast them as “soft on Communism.” Moreover, now that Cuba hawk Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl.) is the Chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the prospects for reform are stalled so long as the Republicans maintain a majority in the House.

But yesterday's electoral calculations of Cuban-American/Floridian politics are now as relevant to modern needs as a VHS rental store. Nowadays, a clear majority of Cuban-Americans are in favor of ending the embargo and normalizing relations with the Cuban government. Indeed, many second- and third-generation Cuban-Americans are willing to rethink the embargo because - historical injustices aside - they realize that they would stand the most to benefit if it were curtailed. Fluent hispanophone Cuban-American youth are going to be the most valuable employees in boomtown post-embargo Miami.

The embargo on Cuba has never been an effective means of strangling the Communist regime into submission, it never will be, and it’s about time that Congress finaly adopts a trade policy with Cuba which reflects the facts. It's also about time that Congress adopts a trade policy with Cuba which reflects the needs of the United States economy. The Cuba hawks who vote to uphold the 52-year-old embargo are like the Imperial Japanese soldiers found guarding Indonesian islets well into the 1970s because they never got the memo that their war was over. We can no longer afford to continue humoring the old Cold Warriors’ delusions. It’s time to finally open trade with Cuba.

Evolution

Eating in Mali is – like all other basic life functions – tremendously more difficult and infinitely more times likelier to get you sick. There is an entire ceremony to every meal; the men sit around their communal food bowl on the ground and the women sit around theirs. Starting with the oldest man, the men pass around a tin can full of water to “wash” their hands i.e. dunking them in a basin of increasingly dirtier and dirtier water. The eldest man says a prayer, and in unison all the men plunge their right hands into the food bowl which is usually full of either toh or rice. Everyone squeezes their clump of food and shoves their entire hand into their mouth up to the knuckles to ingest every last morsel. If there are any pieces of meat or vegetables in the sauce, they are usually left in the middle for it is considered rude to gobble up the solid matter – in fact, it is considered polite to grab the chunks of sheep tripe and toss them towards the other side of the food bowl and insist that their guest eats the good stuff. “A dun, a dun” No one talks, the men just stuff their faces until they can eat no more, at which point one licks their hand clean, says “Barika” (thank you) to each and every person sitting around the bowl, and walks away.

Only after the last man can eat no more, the women and children may begin this procession on their own. Often a family only owns one bowl, so the women and children essentially eat leftovers for every meal. And anything the women and children don’t eat goes to the dogs and the cats. The animals know that they are served last, so they put up a fight to not be forgotten.

It goes without saying that Malian men have everything going against them when they try dating American women.

All of this pomp and ceremony notwithstanding, eating in Mali is really animalistic. I say this not because we are eating with our hands and without conversation, but because the whole time we are surrounded by very hungry animals. Dogs have learned to wait for their human masters, but cats have no patience and so we have to put a grass basket on top of them while we eat. But the one species which no one in this country has ever figured out how to keep from the communal food bowl is the chicken... Until now.

I fucking hate chickens. They are the worst animals ever. They are not cute, they are not cuddly, and they do not ever appreciate the company of humans. Chickens cannot be tamed, they have no respect for their human masters, they are dirty, filthy animals which eat carrion and garbage and they carry all sorts of parasites like worms and giardia cysts and amoebas which they can transmit to people. The only reason why God put these obnoxious creatures on this Earth was so that humans could chop their heads off, pluck their feathers and slow roast them over a fire with a garlic-pepper glaze so that we could savor the flavor their succulent breasts and chew the dark meat on their haunches.

Having lived amongst locally-raised, organic, free-range chickens for almost a year now, I can personally attest to the value of factory farms. By letting these awful beasts enjoy their natural liberty and walk wherever they like means that they too swarm around the communal food bowl when tigadegana is served. I have to swat cocks away with my left hand while I eat with my right, and these persistent fuckers cannot take no for an answer and try to make a run for my rice and peanut butter sauce over and over again. I don’t care what miniscule emotions might be felt in these vermin’s pea-sized reptilian brains – it is within the rational interests of human beings to cut off chickens’ beaks, cut off their claws, and force-feed them cornmeal in 12” x 12” chain-link cages so they become delicious sacks of plump white meat via minimal interaction with man.

A week ago something ticked as I was trying in vain to eat my tigadegana while simultaneously swatting away ravenous chickens. I had had enough.

“Ça, c’est absolument ridicule! J’en avais assez!” I proclaimed, stormed over to a small wooden table, brought it back to the circle of men and put it under the food bowl.

Karitie apparently thought this was a pretty ingenious idea, “If you raise the food on a table, … then chickens can’t reach it! Why haven’t we thought of this before?”

And from that day on, we have always eaten from a table.

And the world will never be the same.

A Malian Perspective on President Obama

Though Barack Obama has yet to take the oath of office as President of the United States, it seems this election has already made immeasurable progress in America’s standing with the rest of the world. Why do I think this? Because people tell me so.

Now when I walk down the street, people randomly come up to me and say "thank you". Thank you for what? “Thank you for voting for Barack Obama! America used to be very bad, but now you are my friend!”

Despite the general disapproval of our foreign policy in the Middle East and our occasional kooky outbursts of Christian supremacy, every Malian I talk to has an effusive attitude towards America per se. A common conversation starter here is “America… it is… Good!” I try my best to explain in Bambara income inequality and xenophobia, but it seems that nothing will shake the belief that America is a virginal exception to the Old World tradition of colony and empire.

Though Malians have their doubts. A general rule of thumb is that the more literate a Malian is and the more they identify themselves with Islamic culture, the more likely they are going to have an ax to grind with America. If they can pronounce “Abu Ghraib”, I brace myself for an uncomfortable feeling of personal responsibility for the collective sins of my countrymen. Unlike most governments in African history, America is a democracy whose faults cannot be ascribed to one man – if the government does something bad it is all the people’s fault.

No one in Mali other than President Toure has ever actually met George Walker Bush, but they know enough about the archetypical Tubabu to have a very negative view of him. “Joje Boosh is racist!” I am told, “Joje Boosh kills Muslim people in Iraq and Palestine because he thinks that Jesus is the prophet and Muhammad is a liar!” We have eight years of serious damage to control.

Some people have a few kind words to say about the incumbent administration, “Joje Boosh buys chemicals to kill mosquitoes and kill malaria banakise – but he wants us to become Christians because he thinks that Islam is a terrorist religion!” I do not know how much of these views are formed by al-Jazeera a few madrassahs removed, how much they are simply products of homegrown prejudice, or how much they are based upon an objective analysis of discernible reality. But I can say for sure that the negative attitude towards the President who said that America was fighting “a crusade” is somewhat related to generations of Malian interaction with well-meaning missionaries whose handouts have been laced with ulterior motives.


But no matter how many bones they can pick with America, all eyes light up upon the mention of Barack Obama. “Barack Obama… is… Good!”

Part of it is simply because Barack Obama is black… well, he’s actually half black, but he’s more black than any other President of the biggest most powerful white country in the world. Also, many Malians believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim. You see, unlike America where calling someone a Muslim is tantamount to slander, in Mali it is a praise of a person’s ethics and morals. In an Islamic country, boys are regularly named Hussein after the grandson of Muhammad who rebelled against the Umayyad dynasty’s tyranny and injustice.

Some people here have an interestingly self-interested perspective on Obama’s victory; “Now that America has a black skinned president, America will give more money to black skinned Africans!” When I am told this I explain that yes, the Obama-Biden ticket did in fact pledge to increase the budget for foreign assistance – some of which might be allocated to Mali’s irrigation projects. But the understanding assumes more of an iron law of wages, “The black president is going to take money from the racist white people and give it to his brothers and sisters in Africa!”

Other people have a more comprehensive understanding of the history of American race relations. “You Americans used to own slaves from Africa, and then you freed the slaves. But you were still racist for many years…” I am lectured by shriveled old men. “But now you have a black President, and Barack Obama is going to smack the racists hard like a dirty old donkey!” Right on, brotha (terrorist fist jab).

I think there might be something a little more profound to what has happened, something with a connection to what I am doing here right now which I am still digesting. I think that after eight long years of insularity and fear of foreign-sounding Muslim people, America is – like Kevin McAlastair and the furnace in his basement – not afraid anymore.

I think that what America just did has something to do with why I left my comfortable, air-conditioned existence in New York and decided to spend the next two years living in a mud hut in a village of peanut farmers who eat millet porridge with leaf sauce and pray to an almighty Allah whom I can only begin to comprehend. I think that maybe it has something to do with the fact that instead of sitting by myself all day behind a locked gate, I have finally worked up the courage to invite my neighbors over to my garden to sip hibiscus tea and tell me their life stories. And the more that I hang out with the people in my village and listen to their fart jokes, the less anxious I feel about locking my gate all the time.

I think most of all, it has something to do with the fact that I spend each day walking the dusty, filth-ridden streets of my village, walking into people’s yards and simply having a chat about developing water infrastructure. People here think that their village is dirty and crumbling, though for years they have had the tools and the capacity to improve it. It just seems as if everyone has just always accepted malaria and gastrointestinal disease and poverty as immutable constants – and if anything could be done about it, it could only be done by white French people beyond their control. My job in the Peace Corps is really to explain to people that they don’t have to sit idly as they wait for the Messiah to return, that they have always had the power to change things themselves, so let’s turn off the boob tube, get off our butts and get to it.

If anything, the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States has demonstrated to the people of Mali that change is, in fact, possible.

As I explain in Bambara, “Owo, an be se.”

Yes we can.

The Obama Administration is Already Thwarting Germ Transmission in Mali... and Injuring my Prostate

So every day that I am walking through the streets of Sinsina, it takes me maybe half an hour to get from one place to another only a block away - because in Mali, you have to greet every single person you walk past and have an extended conversation inquiring about the status of every individual member of their family. Since most men have multiple wives, and all women have many, many, many children, this takes a very long time. How are you? And your wife? And your other wife? And Bagary? And Bintu? And Adama? And Moussa? And Salif? And Umu? etc. etc. etc. If you walk past someone and don't have this conversation - even if you just had it with them 15 minutes ago - then people will think that you are extremely rude. And thus I have the same conversation maybe 100 times every day. Its endearing that the Bambara people are so sociable, and at times I wish Americans would care so much about their neighbors, but when you really have to go to the bathroom in a very explosive manner and there are a dozen women sitting in the street cooking millet between you and your designated bodily waste receptacle area who all want to know about each and every one of your 13 siblings, this institution of Malian culture is often very... inconvenient.

And also, while I am standing there in the musty road greeting people, every 20 paces or so I am mobbed by a crowd of children. And they all want to shake my hand. It wouldn't be so terrifying if kids' hands weren't as a rule absolutely filthy all the time. You see, the kids in my neighborhood really like playing with dirt, mud, dried cow pies and dead animals. This one kid was taking a whiz on the side of a wall, sees me, and comes over squealing with delight that he was going to have a chance to shake my hand. Ew. And if I didn't, then he would tell everyone in town how rude I was - so I had to think of a really crafty solution.

Hm... I eat food with my fingers. Little kids' pee on his fingers, transmitted to my fingers - Bad. What part of my hand never goes in my mouth... Um... My knuckles! Hey, I wonder how Barack Obama's speech in Denver went last night? Mmm... Barack Obama... THAT'S IT!!!!

So, I taught the little kids in Sinsina about Barack and Michelle Obama's "fist bump", otherwise known by FoxNews as a "terrorist fist jab". "This is how the new President of America shakes hands! He only touches other people's urine-free knuckles!"

So now all the kids know that if they want to shake hands with me, they have to punch my fist. The kids really seem to love it, because the Tubab is letting us punch him! This is ten times more fun than handshakes! It worked really well, until a mob of kids are punching my fist giddily and one 3-year-old girl 2 feet shorter than all of her peers joins in in. And she runs over and punches me right in the balls.

I did my best to explain in Bambara that Barack Obama doesn't punch people below the belt. Only Republicans do that.