Dean Farisian

a regular writer for Polo's Bastards.

Becoming the Dictator – Preparing yourself for the role

So it all rolls down like this. You side with the rebels, against some idiot who thinks he has the authority to run this country because of some stupid ritual called an “election’ – the nerve! You know you can do better, people’s will be damned, once you’re in the driver’s seat this backwater of a country can get where it’s supposed to go.

Getting High With Piracy on the Seas

So, you look to the sea. Oddly enough you ain’t ever eaten fish, certainly not the swimming sea-going type, having goats all at your bidding for your entire life. But there is this vast thing on the horizon, a big blue undulating mass, beckoning you. You can stick some wood in it and get happiness – which is sort of similar to a goat, but just a little more complex.

Ripping off locals: a handy guide

You’ve all done it before, been there done that, gotten bored, got the “mzungu” t-shirt and picked a few tourist pockets yourself while hanging out in the African market. Hey, things do go both ways in these places, damned straight, and it’s worth your while to understand that the local yokels can be hosed out of their money just as effectively to them as they do it to you. My good old friend George W. Bush used to call this a “pre-emptive strike” or something to that effect, but I just call it by that good old fashioned British English word, pragmatism.