Dawn of the Pirate

(title and photo taken from the drudgereport...because they are both awesome)

I took the night bus back to Cuernavaca and arrived in the morning with a pretty severe infirmity. And by severe, I mean vomiting uncontrollably in the streets…trying to make it past the highly-populated tourist area but not getting there and saying "I'm sorry" to all the people sitting around having a nice breakfast as I scrambled around puking in the most acceptable spots I could find. Not the best way to pass a morning.

A three hour culture class and an hour of group work in the afternoon/evening didn't seem to help much either. I finally arrived home at 8:00 with a 101F fever and an aching everything. I decided I might need to get some rest. And I did.

Today I'm feeling much better, but I  figured it would be good to take it easy. After meeting with a few unsavory Mexican classmates at school to finish a project from a far more unsavory teacher, I've retreated back home to relax and have been sifting, wide-eyed, through stories of these Somali pirates and their lastest take, a Saudi supertanker...by far the largest vessel ever to be taken by pirates ("about three times the tonnage of a US aircraft carrier"). Whoa.

 

Those of you who've seen me around in the past few years may be privy to the fact that I fell into a pretty serious pirate phase from which I never really escaped. I mostly just wanted a pirate ship....hek, I still want a pirate ship. But I was certain that the time of bounty-hunters roving the high seas (and actually making a living off it) was over and done.  Guess not.

The fact that these guys can hijack a boat full of $100 million of oil and bring it home to chill off the coast of Somalia with the entire world watching and remain untouched is pretty incredible . I've heard rumors of Somali fishermen/militiamen-turned pirates before, but with this high-profile job I think we've seen the rebirth of the pirate. I mean, when merchant ships start mounting guns on their decks for the first time since WWII and top US Admirals start advising that big freighters to hire mercenary commandos you know something's going down. All I can say is, it's exciting.

Perhaps I'm just nostalgic for the violent and debaucherous past. But seriously, all those legends of pirates plundering the world's richest ships and then retreating to their secret and unassailable hideaways to live as kings…that's exactly what's going on around the Horn of Africa right now. Tactics and weaponry have changed, but the buccaneer ethos seems to have remained intact after all these years.  Jimmy Buffet sings a song called "A Pirate Looks at Forty" in which he says "Yes, I am a pirate…200 years to late." Turns out he could have said 20 years too early. The only question I have is will RPGs diminish or augment the allure of piracy?

Signs point to augment.