Hunters

He rode his beautiful dirty black mountain bike over to "old" student street in Utopia for a 60 cent dumpling lunch. Delicious.

He prefers the "old" to the boring "new" commercial student campus street. He enjoys mature green leafy trees filled with small wild sparrows darting down to feed in garden patches. He savors a wide blue sky and orphaned clouds.

He always sits outside swallowing sky, well removed from blaring omnipresent bland TV soap operas and cell phone addicted youth.

"Text me baby! Reveal your passion in 5,000 characters. Say things with electronic letters and symbols you'd never find the courage to speak out loud. Your silence is deafening! Hold my hand.

"Better yet, when we walk covered in our innocent adolescent shyness, slowly rub your elbow against my skin so I know you care, reveal your shy desire with deference and longing. Our skin pours hormonal activity into the possibility we may eventually dance. Text me baby!"

A boy approached the table.

"May I sit here?"
"Sure."
"May I talk with you?"
"Sure. You talk and I listen."
"I don't know what to say."
"You will think of something. You are developing an English mind."
"Yes, maybe."

"What's your name?"
"Francis."
"That's a great name."
"All the good English names were taken by my classmates. I found it in the dictionary."
"I see. It's a fine and strong name. My name is Nature."

"Oh. What's that for?" he said, gesturing at my worn Moleskine notebook.
"I am a writer. I make notes when I travel."
"Where are you going?"
"Here."
"I like to travel," he said. "I am a hunter of foreign teachers."

I smelled raw instinct. "Interesting. How do you hunt?" 
"Do you know the gate near the teachers' apartments?"

This place was surrounded by walls, sleeping guards and gates.

"Yes."
"Well, I go there and wait. When a teacher comes out I talk to them while we walk. Then, when they say good-bye I return to the gate and wait for another teacher."
"You are a clever hunter."
"Maybe. But I don't know what to say."

"Talk about the weather."
"We don't talk about the weather here. We ask people if they have eaten."
"I know," I said, pointing at his noodles and sliced vegetables. "Your delicious food is getting cold."

Silence welcomed two hunters.

A Little Zen Tale

Only the dead know the end of war. - Plato

*

“We storytellers, enchanters and teachers,” said Omar, “know the world is made of stories and not atoms. Here’s one for your history. Or is that hiss-tree said the snake?”

Somebody told a story about somebody telling a story in a story.

“It came to pass an old woman seer who shared the beauty, magic and mystery of life with friends and strangers took a pencil in her bone white hand on a cold, snowy evening and looked into flames of creation. Embers smoldered in front of her crystal glass. She dreamed she loved a blind stranger. Her friend and lover were spirit guides, blind shooting stars. They flew away from their village with a tribe of survivors.

“They left behind skeptics, cynics, frauds, charlatans, liars, cheats, fools, scoundrels, knaves, demons, and ghost shadows. They dissolved taxicab drivers, beauticians, janitors, doctors, and lawyers, Indian chiefs, cooks, nurses, busboys, lackeys of every sort of makeup and verifiable description including animal trainers and circus performers.

“They moved through the wilderness of their youth, following Raven, their spirit guardian. They carried provisions to satisfy hunger, thirst and desire. They never knew, appreciated or realized desire until they were tricked into eating a piece of fruit. They scattered seeds at an oasis in the desert.”

“What happens next Omar?” said a kid.

“It was raining in the desert before Christmas as Gulf Air Flight 212 departed Kuwait. We encountered gray turbulence in neutral airspace where Islamic law against the consumption of alcoholic beverages had no influence. I savored a cold Carlsberg. By Carlsberg numero dos we were at 25,000 feet in blue sky and white thunderheads. Airmobile again.

"In Bahrain I collected a visa stamp, took a cab to the Diplomat Hotel and room 621 with an excellent view of the aquamarine Gulf and new civic center construction project. I opened windows, an ice cold beer, calibrated rock and roll music on the radio and ordered a three-egg omelet with hash browns, whole-wheat toast complimented by thick Turkish coffee. A Filipino waitress in pink room service motif brought it up.

"The next afternoon I took Taxi #1 into Bubba Bahrain, a maze of haphazard streets. I bought vitamins at a pharmacy and escaped expensive shopping zones entering the old suq lined with herbs, spices, textiles, fruits, vegetables, secondhand watches, goats, sheep, brooms, tea and ancient emulations.

"From an inside secret pocket of a worn olive drab photographer’s vest, I pulled out a very small, simple and technically precise European designed 35mm rangefinder camera loaded with 125 ASA black and white film. A gift from gods of optical ingenuity. A well-designed tool. A work of art.

"I started with an image of a donkey’s head covered by a burlap feed bag to prevent attacks on unsuspecting humans. Down twisted alleys I wandered, shooting old men and women, trapping their spirits on negatives. Children’s faces wearing cartoon character masks with innocence preserved behind wide glowing eyes were captured forever. Delicate eroding architecture, thatched reeds on woven bamboo poles embedded in mud, iron grated windows and intricately carved balconies made of blue and white mosaics were threaded into a black canister.

"In early evening out of curiosity I stopped at a Persian carpet retailer to learn about his business. Over endless cups of tea he shared these facts.”

1. There is a difference between “expert” and “well knowledged (sic).”

2. Carpet making is based on tradition, history, quality and time. Takes 14 months for some carpets.

3. Design and a particular technique is required to produce a good quality carpet.

4. His carpets were woven and stored in a warehouse in Iran before being smuggled by dhow to a Dubai wholesaler. A buyer in Bahrain purchases them by the bundle paying a single price for the lot before shipping them to the shop.

5. Cotton costs BD (Bahraini dinar) 2/lb.

   Neck wool BD 7/lb.

   Silk BD 9/lb.

6. Good prices were available now with the recent devaluation of the Iranian Real.

7. One needs to be aware of specifics. Is it pure silk or combed wool? What is the precise number of knots per square inch?

“I thanked him and walked to the Dolmen Hotel, an old foreign oasis constructed for air crews. Interior pseudo classic Arabic architecture featured vaulted windows, wattle thatch and poles on low ceilings. Dave, from the Twin Cities, sat at the bar complaining about needing a third operation to correct poor metatarsal bones in his left foot. He said Saudi doctors messed him up twice so he came to Bahrain for, hopefully, a final operation.

“I saw three Filipino males have their right hands cut off in Riyadh for stealing,” he said, meaning Sharia law. “Justice is served every Friday at high noon in the town square. Authorities tied their arms down on boards to support the wrists.”

 “Amazing,” I said.

“Yes,” Dave said. “The multawa, an official, approached one man, flashed his sword into the air and severed his right hand off. He screamed. The multawa moved down the line doing his job. Another man carrying a blazing torch applied fire to the stump to cauterize the wound.”

“Lynnette, a 31-year old Filipino waitress at the Dolmen was pleasant, lonely and bored. After five years doing cashier work in Manila she found a job in Bahrain.

“My dream is to save money and buy a house back home.”

“Do you like it here?”

“Not really. The wages are poor, they give us lousy Indian food and there’s no social life.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hotel management locks us in at 7 p.m.”

“Sounds like slave labor. Been going on in the Gulf for a long time.”

“Well," she sighed, “it’s just a job. It's not forever.”

I wandered away.

“At happy hour, the Intercontinental Hotel was jammed with Arabs, English investment suits and punkers. I ordered a beer at the bar. A small Bahraini man crowded next to me started asking questions.

“Where are you from?”

“Everywhere. I am the mother of all grasshoppers.”

“What do you do?”

“I kill people. I'm a mercenary.”

“I don't believe you,” said his eyes. 

“Yes. I kill people with kindness. It’s a living. I am busy 24/7. It’s a job. It passes time. People pay good money for me to take care of their problem. I’m paid to clean up other people’s messes. No women or children.”

He wanted to know something about his life. I predicted his age, family history, occupation and future. He left me alone.

“Outside the Kuwait suq battered red and white rusting water trucks with chipped paint stood idle inside a wire compound leaking their loads into dust. Two solitary Bedouins sat on metal folding chairs with crushed plastic buckets and sacrosanct rags collecting dust near the Fifth Ring Road waiting for drivers needing a car wash. Waiting was their patient life in the desert, waiting for dusty cars, waiting for oil to be discovered below sand, waiting inside an omnipresent yellow haze swallowing everything.”

Weaving A Life, V1

Hagoshrim Kibbutz

We flew to Israel and tight security at Ben Gurion airport. Arrived at dawn, walked down stairs past soldiers, across the tarmac to a black van with open doors flanked by soldiers with machine guns. A man sat with his pistol on a desk. We showed him our passports. He checked for Arabic visas. He scrutinized our faces.

“Why are you coming to Israel?”

“To work in a kibbutz.”

“How much money do you have?”

“A couple of hundred dollars.”

“Do you have a return ticket?”

“Yes,” I said pulling out a ragged open ticket from Air Icelandic marked Chicago. He looked over our papers, opened an inkpad, hammered a stamp on a page, placed an entry visa in our passports and handed them back.

“Ok. You may go.”

We walked cross the tarmac, placed packs on a conveyor belt and followed a maze of chest high metal anti-bomb partitions. A female soldier scanned our luggage for explosives. She marked them with chalk, checked our papers, peered into my typewriter and waved us through.

We grabbed a bus into town past fields and industrial zones. We had an address for a kibbutz office.

“Welcome, or Shalom as we say here. My name is Sharim. We are pleased to have you come to Israel and volunteer to experience the beauty, joy and culture of living and working on a kibbutz.”

Bleary eyes looked at a map with colored pins showing settlements. “What are the pins for?” I asked.

“They designate types of kibbutz and locations.” Red, blue, yellow and green pins pricked a weathered map with a heavy concentration in the north.

“The red pins are religious kibitzes, the blue ones are agricultural farms, the green ones are primarily factories. Yellow pins designate combination farms near the border with Lebanon.”

“What kind of farms?” asked Joan.

”Oh, all kinds. Most produce their own food. They grow fruit and vegetables and have fish farms with a combined industrial production kibbutz operation.”

I pointed at a red pin up north. “What’s this one?”

“That’s Hagoshrim. It’s an old kibbutz. There are about 200 families, ten kilometers from the Lebanese border and twenty east of Syria.”

“How is the life on the kibbutz?” Joan asked.

“It’s straightforward,” he said. “Volunteers usually stay for six months. They are given a place to stay, meals and encouraged to join in the daily activities. They have duties on the kibbutz, usually from early morning to noon and then for a few hours in the afternoon. We organize cultural tours to parts of the country for volunteers. They meet many people from other countries while also gaining a deeper understanding of the Jewish faith. The experience makes a deep impact on many people’s lives.”

“Can we work on more than one kibbutz?”

“Yes. That’s possible after you stay and work the minimum of six months in one location.”

We chose Hagoshrim. He called the kibbutz and gave us bus fare and directions. We thanked him and went to the crowded central Egged national bus station. 

The bus skirted brown fields, lush green agriculture and desert wasteland. Fatigued soldiers with grease guns and collapsible stocks napped.

We passed tilled soil, fruit trees and villages. We bounced along awkward roads past the Sea of Galilee. A nervous girl, 23, twirled a yellow Kleenex into a knot with long red fingernails.

We rolled into Kiryat Shimona, a town of 20,000 in the north tucked into a corner near Lebanon and Syria. Famous for rocket attacks at night. Sounds familiar.

We hitched a ride on a fruit truck full of soldiers doing their two-year compulsory service passing ochre colored fields of fruit trees and olive orchards.

At Hagoshrim we registered, heard pre-induction volunteer procedures and were assigned separate sleeping quarters in basic army barracks from 1948. We sat in a well-manicured garden with flowers and fruit trees.

A thin gray haired man explained how their society worked.

“Welcome. Shalom. This is one of the oldest kibbutz in Israel. You will be assigned daily and weekly jobs by the volunteer coordinator. We are a multi-purpose kibbutz. Everything you see around you has been planted, grown, built and developed over the last twenty years. When my parents came here there was only desert and we were fighting wars against our enemies. We stayed. We dug the ground. We planted. Our parents had children and they built schools and bomb shelters.

"We are always ready to defend our land. Our families converted the desert into productive land. We grow fruits and vegetables, harvest them, keep some for our own consumption and sell in the market. We have fish farms providing a source of income. Everyone takes meals in the cafeteria, volunteers and families. It’s good food and you will not be hungry here. Work starts at 5:30 a.m. when it is cool. We take a midmorning break with lunch at 12:30. The afternoons are for personal activities although there are some afternoon assignments.

"Saturday is the Sabbath when no work is done. This is not a religious kibbutz, which means you have the choice of taking part in our ceremonies from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. In exchange for your labor you receive accommodations, clothing, food, free international postage and a small amount of payment in the form of a card which is used in the small store for essentials like toilet paper.”

“What kind of jobs do you have?” Joan asked.

“We are totally self sufficient. Volunteers work everywhere and do everything but pull guard duty. We take care of the children, staff the nursery, kitchens, and tend gardens and farms. It’s comprehensive.”

The kibbutz segregated children from parents and allowed visitation rights one night a week.

“Hey this is great,” I said to Joan walking to an old wooden building.

Joan was enthusiastic. “It’s not bad, plenty of sun. That’s probably why we start work so early in the morning. It must get pretty hot here in the afternoon."

Weaving A Life, Volume 2

A Century is Nothing

Centuries earlier or later depending on reference points along time’s thin line on an event horizon as infinity and eternity played post 9/11 dirges, fugues and blues with a full orchestra in the pits Ahmed resumed his story in the Sahara.

“Fate bites you when you least expect it,” he said waving his hands like wild kites. “Her appetite is insatiable.”

I was so far removed from 9/11 reality I took no possession of the event. I read Ahmed’s open palms and eyes. My facility for unspoken tongues was legendary. It was all body language and I was fluent in every language.

Gestures were a work in progress.

Gestures used people.

Ahmed described airplanes and two tall towers. “I’ve read Superman by Nietzsche in Arabic. He said 'God is dead' and God said, 'Nietzsche is dead.'"

He waved his arms like a Moroccan eagle condemned to freedom yet a prisoner of the sky. He raised a hand indicating height and smacked his flying hand into his stationary hand. The impact echoed across caramel dunes. He smiled through black teeth. His dark eyes held all the world’s secrets.

I had no idea where, who, how, why, or when Ahmed received his information. Perhaps from slave and gold trade caravans, perhaps through osmosis.

“Yes,” Ahmed said, “2,974 people from 80 countries died.”

“I see.” We were just two nomads in the desert. We did not talk about Being and Nothingness. We tweaked reality by breathing.

I handed Omar’s book to Ahmed. “Have a look-see.” Ahmed read Tifignagh words.

“He was not as surprised, stunned and scared as all the well meaning myopic tax paying, allegiance singing populace would have the world’s citizens believe in their us or them attitude. He knew they’d be catapulted into a new heavy deep reality, grounded fast, sifting soil, searching for answers, breathing through death masks, deconstructing and revising history while pleading for meaning to their existence. Postmodern dialectics.

“Now they had to figure out the big answer to the big question. Why? It’d keep them busy for life. Their children taught them to ask why? Being extremely impatient and under extreme pressure to be successful in their all-consuming reality, they became extremely frustrated with the “why” question from their children. Parents wanted to be the boss, the grown-ups in complete control. They figured they had all the answers.

“Whoops!

“In the BIG game people with a long history rolled their dice when it was their turn to play and everyone had to go back to the start. They had to read the rules. The small print. The details they casually accepted carte blanche, data they skipped because they didn’t think it was important, the stuff made in Hollywood, the fictional entertainment stuff with happy endings. They were well conditioned to violence, sex and reality television. Now they tasted so-called reality television in real time.”

I pointed to a faded yellow page marked “Empirical Evidence” for Ahmed’s crash course in documentary fiction techniques.

“Somebody off stage had triggered the light switch and their fragility was exposed. Evaporated their sense of humor. The audience sat stunned in silence when the curtain came down. It was full of holes, loopholes and wormholes. The apple was rotten. Survivors needed a card from the deck of life and did not want to see the one with the guy wearing the funny hat with bells. A small minority studied history. They knew, in a vague way, being experts on vagueness, how history repeated itself. They’d supported totalitarian regimes in the Persian/Arabic Gulf for decades burning imported Middle Eastern oil well past their bedtime.”

Only the fool spoke the truth. This was a sobering reality. Ahmed continued reading.

“It was extremely frustrating. People in their illusionary magic kingdom assumed they were always supposed to be going forward to bigger, better, faster things. There was talk about a shift in Teutonic plates of awareness. Many plates showed their age being cracked, badly needing repair, requiring immediate unequaled madness assistance or UMA. Someone tried their cell. It was busy, snagged on assorted Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The big F.U.D.

“Connections were a flashback to a simpler existence of peace and prosperity with model tract homes, two car garages, appliances, fast and faster food, weapons of mass destruction in the closet, renewable bonds, treasury notes, love notes, and notes on the edge of a cliff waiting for patients streaming out of their personal and collective asylums on holidays as prescribed medications rendered them insolvent, compliant and mute. Very compliant.

“A secure line of clear communication was caught in the undercurrent, the violent raging delight of human nature doing her infinite playful thing below the realm of consciousness. She stirred things up in a big way.

“Humans had a lot of explaining to do. Explaining how the world worked. Explaining all the moral ambiguities, all the fill-in-the-blank final exams. They were in big trouble.

“‘Because I said so,’” was their old standard refrain when their sweet, ever-so-kind little monsters asked “why” for the umpteenth time. Their ignorant facades had developed huge cracks. It was time to straighten the whiners out once and for all. They went shopping to satisfy their fear of poverty, to overcome their fear, a small fear growing stronger day by day being fed by hysterical know-it-alls in ivory soap towers of higher intellectual reasoning based on empirical evidence.”

“More channels!” someone screamed. “We need more channels!” There was a preponderance of rumors. Part of the evidence was charred beyond recognition. It would need DNA analysis and carbon-14 dating.

According to Omar, “Teams of social workers swarmed across the land extolling virtues of well being, hope, trust, and bravery in the face of adversity, values, free choice, and impending sales at outlet stores. People seeking outlets and outlet stores found solace in their ignorance of how the world worked on molecular, political, religious, economic, philosophical, and cultural levels. Long festering animosity and cultural bias had come full circle. An invisible Orobus constricted their heart. Their myth was part idealism and realism standing on its head.

“Their socially, culturally, geographically and emotionally deprived children listened, shaking their heads, learning a very hard life lesson. One that escaped their well meaning parents. Kids knew when adults were bullshitting them.

“Scholars educated at global universities started speaking Arabic, reciting Sufi poetry, and 1,001 stories about the rise and fall of civilizations written before their time with hieroglyphics and cave paintings. Survivors filled caves. Candles sales were brisk.”

“A tisket a tasket we need a casket,” sang multi-lingual children.

“Historians, political scientists, talk show experts, taxi drivers, fortune tellers, beauticians, and morticians took hotline calls. The number of callers increased exponentially. Suicide search and rescue teams were put on alert. Citizens packed hospital emergency rooms. Medical schools increased graduation classes to meet the growing need. Demand outstripped supply when it came down to fear and consumption.”

“Wow, that's some heavy sociological shit, Ahmed,” said I.

“Get this next part,” said Ahmed, turning a page.

Get is the joker word in English.

“What happens when they run out of insecurity control programs?” a child asked her mother. She was the mother of all answers.

“Don’t worry my sweet,” said the anxious neurotic mother living her worst nightmare, “they’ll invent something new and improved. The manufacturing sector will rebound when shelves are empty. We’ll always have sugar and we can always go shopping.”

“How long will it take?”

“Hard to say. Could be we won’t live to see it.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“There is only F.U.D.,” said her mother twisting her hair until it caught fire.

“What is F.U.D. mother?”

“Fear, uncertainty and doubt. Been with us a long time and now it’s back with a vengeance.”

“How long?”

“You ask too many questions child,” she said fanning her daughter’s flame. “A long time. A Century is Nothing.”

“It’s good to know some things,” said the girl.

“A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I’ve already told you a lot.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Tell me the truth,” mother. “I want to know the hard irrefutable truth.”

“The truth is, it’s all a lie. Everything we know is a lie. Our insecurities are evolving. I believe in my heart-mind that life is a celebration. It is beautiful, harsh, nasty and short. A Hobbesian dream scream. There’s no rhyme or reason or social contract. It’s about realizing peace in your heart and community. Inhale suffering and exhale healing. Cultivate heart awareness.”

“I will be authentic and mindful mother. May we go out and play now? May we take the day off and be creative?”

“Yes, let’s invent a game theory my sweet daughter.” They went out into the world.

Omar knew children suspected parents, teachers, social workers, bureaucrats, philosophers and homeless people living in cardboard shelters did not control the market on clearly defined answers. Adults searched for the remote. They knew something better just had to be on the idiot box.

Families of big brown rats scrambled out of dark dens scurrying through dead matter looking for food. The little animal named Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt was starving. It had a vociferous vain appetite for glorious political/economic systems. It ate it’s young, with relish at picnics. It had no principles or 20th century rationale, no religious ideology or neo-conservative agenda. 

It was not a vegetarian or a peace activist burning candles, sitting around wringing their bloody hands mumbling, “Oh what a pity,” or, “Somebody should have seen this coming.”

FUD avoided focus groups like the plague, read Arabic history and poetry by Rumi. Their appetite was legendary and tremendous.

“Such a true story,” said Ahmed closing the book. He pointed at the sky. “Look, the north star.”

A Century is Nothing

1st International Children's Conference

“We are not here for a long time. We are here for a good time,” laughed Meaning, a twelve-year old survivor wearing a ragged Beware of Land Mines skull and crossbones t-shirt and prosthesis leg scampering a random life pattern across fields near a stilted bamboo home in Cambodia.

“Are you with us?” pleaded a landmine child survivor removing shrapnel with an old rusty saw after stepping in heavy invisible shit, “or are you against us?”

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper ironing imported Egyptian threaded 400-count linen. No lye.

The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

She’s one of 26,000 men women and children maimed or killed every year by land mines from forgotten conflicts. Reports from the killing fields indicate 110 million land mines lie buried in 68 countries.

It costs $3.00 to bury a landmine.

It costs $300-$900 to remove a mine. It will cost $33 billion to remove them. It will take 1,100 years. Governments spend $200-$300 million a year to detect and remove 10,000 mines. Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Laos are the most heavily mined countries in the world.

40% of all land in Cambodia and 90% in Angola go unused because of land mines. One in 236 Cambodians is an amputee.

Expanding her awareness of mankind’s genetic stupidity, Lucky showed Zeynep a Laos map illustrating Never-Never Land.

Lao Please Don’t Rush is the most heavily bombed country in history.

25% of villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO.

Upwards of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate.         

80 million unexploded bombs remain in Laos.

More than half of the UXO victims are children.

Meaning hears children crying as doctors struggle to remove metal from her skin. She cannot raise her hands to cover her ears. Perpetual crying penetrates her heart. Tears of blood soak her skin.

The technical mine that took her right leg away one fateful day as she played near village rice paddies expanded outward at 7,000 meters per second. Ball bearings shredded everything around her heart-mind.

It may have been an American made M16A1, shallow curved with a 60-degree fan shaped pattern. The lethal range was 328 feet. Or maybe it was a plastic Russian PMN-2 disguised as a toy.

She never saw it coming after stepping on the pressure plate. Fortunately or unfortunately she didn’t die of shock and blood loss. A stranger stopped the bleeding, checked her pulse and injected her with 200cc of morphine. Strangers in a strange land carried morphine.

*

Cut the heavy deep real shit, said a female Banlung shaman.

Fear is a tough sell unless it’s done well, well done, marinated, broiled, stir-fried, over easy, or scrambled.

Fear is blissful ignorance.

*

Meanwhile, the 1st International Beggar Conference convened in Toothpick, a wasteland near Bright Hope - a rusting rustic dream of exploratory ways and means with scientific cause and effect and logical rational certainty.

It was chaired by a distinguished group of Cambodian orphans.

NGO Fascists rented 12,000 orphans out to fake humanitarian organizations. Abandoned youth pleaded with ill-informed rich donors for marketing and branding money to feed international guilt and shame.

“Let’s eat,” said a fat banker moments before his yacht hit an iceberg in 2008.

“What you don’t see is fascinating,” said Zeynep, “like roots below the surface of appearances.”

“We have so much ice and they have so little,” said an Icelandic chess player attacking Death.

“Everyone comes to me. My patience is infinite,” said Death. “I make only one move and it’s always the correct one.”

Beggars, landmine victims, genocide survivors and sick and tired dehydrated dying starving neglected humans from 195 countries convened in sequestered committee rooms filled with suits, scholars, academics, UN personnel, CIA analysts, NGO profit motivated scam reps, IMF bankers and plastic ornamental steering mechanisms.

“We agree to disagree,” said Rich Suit.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Wage Slave.

Orphans, beggars and children spoke about:

slave labor, hunger,

exploitation, corruption,

human trafficking

and the terrorism of economic poverty.

 “Bad luck,” said a rich slave. “That’s a you problem, not a my problem.”

Children addressing global media held press conferences focusing jaundiced eyes on lenses, recorders and bleeding pens. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Sound bites sang starvation’s misery.

If it bleeds it leads.

Incoming! Bleeding hearts ran for cover.

Orphan motions for adjudication, arbitration, fairness, equality and equity were tabled for further deliberation and discussion nowadays.

The average monthly wage was $96 in a Bangladesh clothing factory.

Cambodian women making $190/month stitched garments for export companies.

Give someone a sewing machine and with a little luck they’ll feed their family.

Let’s Eat.