Joint Contrast

Carjackers and petty thieves run rampant in the states, among other forms of amateur and professional criminals. But abroad, original gangsters still prowl the high seas. Joint Contrast contributor Craig Mazer uncovers pirates of the modern day…

  – Photo by J.C. –

Are you kidding me? There have been 109 attacks on boats off the Somali coast in 2008 as of November. Forty-two have actually been successfully hijacked (read article) and dozens more have occurred in other parts of the world.

Fucking pirates?! Not patch-wearing, workout-instructor pirates (yeah, that’s me) or weird octopus-face-having pirates (totally not me) or one-legged pirates of adventure fiction fame (arrgh!). These fucking pirates look more like terrorists (today’s pirates), but they are driven to commit a crime usually associated with 17^th and 18^th century figures like Black Bart and Captain Kidd.

So what gives? Is the lure of a patch, peg leg and a talking parrot driving thrill-seekers along the African coast to steer away from the land-locked kidnappings of yesteryear and embrace a good ol’ fashioned open-sea hijacking?

Here’s what I think. Bush did it. Not intentionally, maybe. But I’m trying to find something else to pin on that asshole. In some ways, I wanna thank him, ‘cause I can actually ask, “mother fucking pirates?!” And it seems more relevant than any other time in my life when I may have wanted to ask such a thing. Now I ask it and I think people care. Their ears perk up. “Pirates?” someone might question out loud as they pull their loved ones closer to them. “Pirates? Here?”

Ok, not yet. You don’t need to be worried about pirates fucking up your honeymoon cruise to the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico or the Bahamas. As a matter of fact, there were only eight pirate attacks in the western hemisphere in all of 2008 (map ‘em all).

But damn, it seems to me that it’s only a matter of time. A lot of these pirates have been successful in hijacking ships loaded with oil and, even more frightening, kidnapping crews for ransoms (which are often paid).

So what’s stopping Joe Blow carjacker from taking things to a new level? Why knock off the local Kwik-E Mart when you can hijack a cruise ship full of Americans off the coast of Florida? Seems like a lot more money to be made there than from the pocket change in a cash register.

Okay, maybe I’m just speculating haphazardly. I am. Maybe there’s no threat ‘cause we’re perfectly safe. Maybe. And maybe this has nothing to do with George Bush redirecting military resources to a bullshit war in Iraq while the area just south of the Middle East has become a hotbed for pirating. And certainly, there’s no reason to fear local criminals will embrace such dated criminal tactics even during a recession that is costing Americans their jobs at a frightening rate. Right?