I was about to write something, but then I suddenly decided to go on an Icee run instead. Oops. More news as events warrant.

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LATER...

Piña colada Icees aren't that great. Definitely not to be consumed in great quantites, at any rate. Informed.

Anyway, there isn't much in South Dakota I can really talk about with all sorts of linky-things underneath them, so I'd like to talk a little more about how screwed up the world is. Now, there are a lot of wars going on out there. A lot of people die every day, not just of the good old 'hunger and malnutrition' routine, but also of being shot in the head by a kid with a Kalashnikov. I've been thinking about buying a wall map and then sticking pins on it wherever people are firing guns at each other or blowing each other up on a regular basis. This is something I will probably do once I move in to the new place in August, and the first pin I place will probably be in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which will probably still be labeled 'Zaire' on whatever map I buy.

Active fighting in the DRC has been under way for about five years now. The CIA World Factbook sums it up pretty well, though it leaves out the fact that the middling estimate of the death toll is at about 4 million, which would make the fighting in the remote Ituri province in northeast DRC "the deadliest conflict on the globe since World War II," as WPR correspondent put it in article in this month's edition of that periodical.

What makes the conflict in the DRC so troubling is that there is very little anyone can do to stop the fighting from inside the country itself. The fighting in its current form is, as I understand it, a two-sided conflict between the Lendu and Hema tribes. The Lendu are being backed by the country of Uganda, and the Hema militants are supported by the government of Rwanda. The international community did help the fighting by encouraging peace talks that seem to have succesfully removed actual Ugandan and Rwandan military personnel from DRC soil, but the alliances are still there, fueling the bloodshed. So many people have died that even the warring factions aren't really independent anymore--the foot soldiers doing battle are mostly young children, and enough military leaders have perished that the Lendu forces are basically run by Ugandan officials, with the Hema in a similar situation. Without major political intervention, it is only a matter of time before the fighting stops because no one is left to keep up the killing. It could be a long time, as over two million people still live in the Ituri province and the birth rate is incredible--about half the country's population is under the age of 14--but this constant influx of new blood only serves to fuel the grim war machine that has been set in motion.

Anyway, this is what I mean when I say world is pretty screwed up. I guess there isn't so much I can do as an engineer, besides make some money and give it to Doctors Without Borders or something. I'll probably keep writing about it all, if only so I have handy, concise summaries to refer to later.

Oops, the kitten is meowing at me. This means I must go play with the kitten right now or be hated forever. By a kitten. So... I am off.