A bad day for tyrants

For those of you who knew him and knew of him, my prized goldfish and longtime companion, Saddam Hussein, has sadly passed. My parents told me the news. He's never been apart from me for so long, and perhaps he missed me. I don't know. All I know is that he had a mild infection again, and this time, he just gave up. May he rest in peace. My father wants to bury him under the garden gnome.

For those of you who didn't know him, I named my goldfish Saddam Hussein as a joke, thinking that he was going to die overnight. He didn't, and instead, he helped me finish my thesis, he graduated with me, he made the long trip down from Boston, he lived in Arlington, and then finally ended up in suburban Fairfax, VA. I bought him almost exactly 3 years ago for 10 cents from Petsmart.

It's funny how attached you can become to a little fish.

So no, this isn't a post about Rwanda, but it's the first time I've felt truly homesick.

I called this post "a bad day for tyrants" because of my dear companion, but also because Milosevic was found dead in his cell yesterday (he left a note saying he was poisoned, but I think it was suicide) and there was an assassination attempt on Robert Mugabe.

And perhaps it was just a coincidence that the real Saddam Hussein's trial resumed on the day that my fish passed.