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“So is anti-Americanism just an exercise in onanistic hypocrisy, or does it have a real-world cost?”

Read on. (Thanks to Arts & Letters for this one)

Today’s the 10th anniversary of the start of the massacre in Rwanda, an atrocity that beggars description.

Over the course of 100 days, nearly one million people were murdered, which means almost 10,000 people were killed each day because of their ethnic/tribal descent. International response was minimal, and leading to after-the-fact hand-wringing about how the developed world just doesn�t care what happens in Africa (unless oil or other strategic resources are involved). This man did all he could to stop it.

When I think about what happened there, I’m filled with shame. It isn’t shame at being an American, because many other institutions completely failed to do anything while the massacre went on. I guess it’s shame at being part of the civilized world in general, where this sort of thing never truly enters my life, in a sense.

The biggest personal shame I have about what happened there is that I can’t tell you if it was Hutus massacring Tutsis or Tutsis massacring Hutus. I know how pathetic that sounds, but it’s just never meant so much to me that I bothered to remember it. And it’s that very mindset that shames me the most.

Samantha Power implores us not to let it happen again.

I thought you could only find this level of venality from, say, the IOC.

“A compelling look at the lives of two electric fan salesmen”? And I thought I wrote bad sales copy!

That said, Seth is one of the better cartoonists working nowadays, so Clyde Fans is probably a pretty good collection of his recent serial. I quit reading it after an issue or two, figuring I’d wait till the collection.

I don’t know anything about this book, though.

Looks like my commentary and links about the war on terrorism, the pharmaceutical industry, independent publishing, snuff films disguised as religious commentary, and ape breakups (which help explain the profusion of gorilla rampages in zoos across the country) are growing in appeal. March was another record month for visits to Virtual Memories.

However, the entry that garnered the most e-mail feedback from readers was this one. Why? Because I wrote the words, “I have a new girlfriend.”

So, to satisfy my readers’ desire to know more about my private life, I post here a pic of the little lady.

In other news, I’ll be over at the Hi Life Bar & Grill in NYC tonight (SE corner of 83rd and Amsterdam). Any NYC/NJ VM readers interested in dropping by for a drink (and impromptu 1980s karaoke on top of the bar)?

There’s a magazine of that title, published by the U.S. Air Force Academy. The new book by Paul West that I published last year was just named Editor’s Choice in the current issue. I’m proud of that.

Reviewer Lt. Col. James M. Meredith writes, “Paul West’s fiction stunningly and perpetually deals with violence, trauma, the conditions and nature of evil. The Immensity of the Here and Now does not shy from exploring and deciphering the vicious and randomly dangerous world that surrounds us.”

He adds, “West is a writer who still believes in the transcendent power of literature and art, which is why I join many in considering him our most vital living writer.”

New documents show that the Clinton administration knew about the massacres in Rwanda much earlier than it officially claimed to, and hid its collective head in the sand to avoid getting involved in another Somalia.

Plus, here’s a piece on the UN’s stonewalling of the plane crash that helped instigate the massacres. This one utterly boggles the mind.

I would love to hear from Samantha Power on this stuff. Anyone know how to reach her?

Talk about “No Child Left Behind” . . .

(Warning: You are SO going to hell if you laugh at this one)

Kudos to South Park for its take on The Passion last night, even if its rendition of Mel Gibson was a little, um, cartoony.

Here’s a 2003 graduation speech by the president of Principia College. It’s about how busyness keeps us from truly living. Now, because the college is affiliated with Christian Scientists, the tenets of that faith really fill up the second half of the speech.

Still, it’s got a lot of good points about How We’re Living nowadays, regardless of religious affiliation (or lack thereof). As my buddy Jack, who forwarded the speech to me, wrote, “If you don’t relate to the religious references, substitute ‘human being’ wherever you encounter ‘Christian Science’.” Sounds like a plan.