Dear Africa,

I'm writing to congratulate you on the fabulous success of your story depicted in the full feature film Hotel Rwanda. It had all the elements that make a smash-hit from the start with suspense, action, tear-jerking emotion to the nines, a moving cast -- just a great movie. It even managed to cause a bit of a stir for a month or so stateside as people began to wonder what our country is doing to help, what the real condition of African nations is, etc. That is, until oil prices topped $50 a barrel and we moved on to more pressing matters that affect us directly.

Of course, America is the most generous state on earth and collectively our governments gives billions of dollars to your nations in the hope that it will trickle down to the people who need it. Our charities are huge and active in your countries. We hope you understand that these things go on in the background of our psyche -- it's much too guilt-inducing and heavy to be spoken about in public. Besides, the situation seems to be under control. President Bush was on tv just yesterday saying that America already gives enough money, that significantly more aid is really going over the top and most of it ends up in the laps of corrupt governments anyway. Besides, if there was a real crisis it would be on the evening news. Seriously, if 3.6 million people were starving in Niger alone or 166,000 children died every year from preventable diseases in that country* -- it would at least make the front page of the newspaper. Heck, it would probably be there everyday considering the sheer numbers of human suffering. They would urge us to action, to volunteer, to give more to private charities. Millions of people dieing of disease, starvation, or ethnic cleansing and civil war? If that were really happening, to real people, in a real place we would spare no expense to help those people. I think we can all rest easy -- pretty sure that our tax dollars are enough to help you out, as I'm sure you agree.

Anyway, stay in touch. We might contact you again in a few years to see if any of the over 15 million people who have died of AIDS** have any good stories we can make a movie about. O, and if you could please call off all these noisy protestors who keep claiming you can't take care of yourself. They're ruining our economic summits and making a scene.

Best Wishes,

The Free World

*Stat: World Vision

**Stat: lifeissues.net