Kip by Avedon

Peace out.


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Does anyone else have prescient nostalgia?


I have this condition like a motherfucker. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with longing for this exact moment, as if I am visiting it from thirty years from now, looking back on it and missing it terribly.


The cool part about it is running around and hugging everyone you see, just like Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life!"


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"Hello, Bedford Falls!"



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Those Mai Mai in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo.


Man alive.


Did you hear about them on NPR yesterday? Kabila's government armed them as part of a "local peacekeeping group" to help repel invaders from Rwanda in the late 90's. They liked being armed and after the Rwandans were mostly taken care of they kept their guns and started taking over all the little villages they could.

In the villages they took over, no one was allowed to wear clothes. There were strict rules about what foods could be eaten and which days they could be eaten. Disobediance was punished with death.

They became cannibals.


They believe that they are immune to bullets. The name "Mai Mai" means "Water Water." They got this name from chanting "Mai Mai" as they attacked their enemies. This powerful magic chant turns the enemy bullets into water in the middle of the air.


There is now another local group that is trying to fight the Mai Mai. They are not armed with guns, but with "Batons Magic" (imagine a french pronunciation here).


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This is happening right now.


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I don't mean to say by using the African subcontinent as an example that these kinds of things are only happening "somewhere else." There is shit going on right now in one of your neighbor's houses that would flip you right the fuck out.


Unless you are that neighbor, in which case, knock it off, you're creeping me out.


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