Cutting Edge Fashion

i don't get it? where have i been? when did the machete make it as the weapon accessory of choice? i tell you, it's like i blink and i miss ten trends. back in school i learnt about machetes, as the instrument sugar cane growers used to cut down the cane. but that was back in the day before combine harvesters and stuff. machetes were a part of history and good riddance too. that word flummoxed me; was it a mah-shet or a ma-shet-tee? thank goodness i only had to read and write the word in class - it had no use in everyday conversation.

but i should have known that if bell-bottoms could make a comeback, so could the machete. first, in rwanda, people were massacred using machetes. and i wondered - where did they get so many? was someone planning on starting a massive plantation?

then recently a football player was shot and killed in his home in south florida. apparently he heard people breaking into his home, so he dove under his bed, grabbed his machete and tried to go out to investigate. machete? under his bed? really?

a couple of weeks later, i am watching a documentary about skinheads. 4 youths went out in search of a black drug dealer to beat down and instead came across a drug user in an alley. when they stepped forward to beat him with the baseball bats they were holding, he pulled out a machete. on the streets, machete beats baseball bat. isn't a machete kinda large? when ambling around dark alleys, how does one casually holster a machete?

and now in kenya, the machete is all over the place, and not in a good way either. reporters all over the world are having to learn how to pronounce the word. machete has entered everyday conversation. along with non-sensical phrases like ethnic cleansing - used in sentences by world leaders in sentences like "there is a lot of violence, but we will not go as far as to call it ethnic cleansing."

well now in kenya they are in the middle of "hard" talks. i am not sure if that means that talking will be difficult in between the tea and sandwiches and committee-forming that comes with talks or that the talks will be hard on the exploding new fashion trend. but i am recommending that the chadian rebels hold out on their action for a few days - they may be able to get a great deal on used machetes - more money for campaign phone calls and pamphlets.