Africa

I don't know much about Africa except what I see here and there, I've never studied it. I haven't wanted to. For the most part, it disgusts me. Yes, yes, I know, it is where humanity started and spread out from. Part of the reason for my disgust. It is the origin of the most destructive creature on earth.

Africa is mired in poverty and misery.

Yeah, but isn't it the fault of white people that Africa is such a mess?

Is it all the results of European colonization that continues today in the form of unfair trade practices?

(update 10:58 AM 7/21/2008 EU offers to cut farm tariffs by 60 percent

Is it US food aid combined with US agricultural subsidies?

Is it the history of Arab slave traders?

Is it the history of the Atlantic slave trade?

Enslavement went both ways.

It still does, although I have not much sympathy for women who marry these schmucks. Why any woman shoud have to deal with what is legally allowed in the grey area of this map is beyond me. Don't tell me culture has nothing to do with fertility rates . How do you bring a culture into the 21st century? How do you encourage birth control in cultures that value children more than the abilty to take care of them? Part of the failures are
cultural, part are history, and part are simple ecology. Something that global warming will exacerbate.

We ignore the lessons of Africa, especially here in the dry, western part of the US, at our own peril.