For the last several months, I’ve been struggling to come up with interesting things to say about the increased activity of Somali pirates in the Gulf of Arden. On the surface, this seems like an easy topic. Pirates are exciting, hostage situations are exciting, and high-seas combat with warships from half the world’s nations is exciting. How could writing for the pirate beat be a boring endeavour? And then, a few weeks ago, it hit me: the reason that modern pirates are inexplicably boring is that there are no compelling characters.

Think about it: classic pirate stories are loaded with well-defined, relatable people. Some are fictional like Captain Hook, Long John Silver and Jack Sparrow, while others are based in fact like Captain Blackbeard and Calico Jack. They had larger-than-life personalities, notorious exploits, and colorful subordinates. Now, compare those classic pirates to news reports you’ve seen of our modern African pirates, and it becomes clear that the new batch are virtually faceless. Their captains’ names are never mentioned, their factions’ names are never mentioned, their ships’ names are never mentioned, and reports are typically kept generic with lines like, “pirates on a seized Saudi-owned oil supertanker.”

The conclusion to this puzzle was clear: if we’re going to keep pirate news exciting, we’re going to need to know more about the individual pirates. So I began combing the articles, looking for proper names. My search led me to a pirate named Libaan Jaama, who, it turns out, is kind of a total douchebag.

Our story starts with a Saudi oil tanker called the Sirius Star, which was seized by Somali pirates on November 15. Among the crew was one apparently very talkative pirate by the name of Libaan Jaama. For the tanker, they demanded a ransom of $25 million, and were eventually talked down to $3.5 million. The money was eventually delivered, but reporters noticed some commotion in the midst of the hostage release. So CNN’s David McKenzie took it upon himself to find the right people to bribe to score a telephone interview with notorious swashbuckler Jaama. I’m already starting to realize that the more I talk about this guy, the harder it’s going to be to come up with new ways to try to make him exciting.

It seems that once the pirates received the ransom money, some other pirates showed up and wanted a cut. In classic pirate fashion, the second group of pirates attacked the first, and in a panic, the first group of pirates attempted to retreat. Their boat capsized, and all five drowned. Which would be sad, if they weren’t murdering thieving bastards. The nice thing about pirate stories is that you don’t have to feel bad for enjoying the carnage, because all the characters are bad guys.

Jaama told McKenzie that he was sad to lose his comrades, but soon cheered up as he related the joys of pillaging for fun and profit:

“We have the best way of life. We drive in white SUVs, we enjoy driving them and there is absolutely no difficulty in our life.”

You know those rap videos, where artists grandstand about how supposedly neat-o it is to shoot their neighbors and sell crack and disrespect women, all while driving around in Impalas? I get the feeling that Jaama’s version of piracy is a lot like those rap videos. Granted, rap artists are musicians who spend most of their time writing satire and commentary: in other words, they’re big nerds. Which is cool. The fact that some people don’t get the satire element and assume the artists are actually advocating such a meaningless existence is, lamentably, just one of those things that the Avant-garde must contend with. Jaama and his colleagues, however, appear to be the real dickish deal.

Now, we don’t have any photos or recordings of Jaama’s interview, so there’s no convenient image to help you connect with our unpleasant protagonist. He could be a ruthless authority figure in an anarchist hierarchy, or he could simply be the Somali pirate equivalent of Scott McClellan. Actually, that’s the image I’m going go with, for the sake of spicing up this article. Think of Libaan Jaama as a frumpy, doughy, much-trod-upon subordinate pirate with a lumpy nose and vague discomfort at the knowledge that his mother would probably disapprove of the poor life choices he’s made. He boasts and brags, and pretends like he’s having a great old time terrorizing innocent sailors and shooting hostages. But deep down inside he can’t help but think, “I should have been a farmer.”

See? See how much more exciting pirate news is with three-dimensional characters? And now you “better know” a pirate.

In 1996, a young Barack and Michelle Obama were interviewed as part of a project on couples in America. They had their picture taken on the sofa, said lovely things about each other, and generally gave off the same smart-people-in-love vibe that we get from them today.

This is just the latest effort to humanize the new President, remind everyone that he’s just a normal person like us, and hopefully dispel any lingering rumors of a hidden radical agenda. Like all the previous efforts, it will mostly fail, not because he actually is a secret radical, but because his detractors are too committed to hating him. A handful of people will say, “Well, I guess he’s not so bad after all,” but many more will see this as another PR stunt, possibly planted by agents of the Obama Conspiracy.

So. If a few cute photographs won’t sway the die-hard haters, why does the media keep putting them out there? My first instinct was to assume they were acting out of white liberal guilt, but that seemed too obvious. No, they’re trying to bring about a phenomenon that I’ll call the Huxtable Paradox*.

I takes its name from the family featured on the Cosby Show, which many critics regard as the series that truly humanized African-Americans in the mind of the average viewer. The question is, why this show? Since the 1970s, there had been plenty of shows whose casts were mostly (and in some cases, entirely) African-American, but they aren’t treated as revolutionary. It’s not as if they were too “edgy” for the average viewer; if Richard Pryor could sell as many albums as he did, then white America could handle George Jefferson’s insults.

The simple answer, and the foundation of the Paradox (which I swear I’m getting back to) is that Cliff Huxtable was a doctor married to a lawyer, while Fred Sanford ran a junkyard with his idiot son. The Huxtables weren’t just an atypical African-American family; they were an atypical American family, period. Disregarding race for a moment, how many affluent medical/legal power couples do you know? And how many of them have time to be the World’s Greatest Parents for five kids?

Exactly!

And therein lies the Huxtable Paradox: in order to be accepted as real human beings, minorities must often transcend mere humanity and demonstrate superhuman talent. Probably the same deal for women, too, and if Hillary Clinton had won the primaries, I’d be writing that post right now.

We’re witnessing this phenomenon play out in much of Obama’s press coverage. As much as George W. Bush relied on his regular-guy image in 2000, I don’t recall hearing much about George W. Bush, the regular guy. He’d had his “youthful indiscretions,” and he cleared a hell of a lot of brush after he got elected, but I’ve never seen his baby pictures. I’ve seen tons of Obama’s baby pictures (seriously, scroll down to the one where he’s dressed as a pirate — so cute!). I’m sure pictures of Baby Dubya exist, but they were never considered newsworthy.

Barack and Michelle Obama are moving into the White House in less than a week, and one could argue that they’ve bested Cliff and Clair Huxtable in terms of superhuman feats. To a certain portion of the population, the Obamas will always remain too “unknown,” too “distant,” and too “foreign.” For many others, though, seeing Obama as President has finally allowed them to admit that yes, they would probably enjoy hanging out with that guy.

And who knows? Maybe, on some glorious day in the future, Americans will also be capable of being friendly and open-minded to non-Presidents.

*Distinct from the Huxtable Effect, which claims that the Cosby Show laid the groundwork for America’s acceptance of Obama.

While we like to keep our options open, there are a number of topics which, when news happens, it’s reasonable to expect The Beak to have an opinion on. These topics include: prehistoric animal cloning, crazy preachers, Devangelism, Mars, Titan, the Large Hadron Collider, New Media trends, dumb youth trends, cheap shots at Sarah Palin, electric cars, and Chewbacca. There is, however, one topic which we have neglected against all reasonable expectations: Pirates. I’m not talking about Johnny Depp movies, or Steampunk airship bandits, or data thieves, or the preferred ceremonial garb of the Church of the FSM. I’m talking about real twenty-first century pirates operating off the coast of Somalia and throwing global shipping lanes into chaos. They’re the closest thing to classical pirates the real world has to offer, and they actually make for exciting news on a regular basis.

First, a little history:

Since the ousting of President Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has existed in a state of perpetual civil war and chaos, with no central power strong enough to govern effectively. Somalia has since experienced all the usual problems that come with lengthy unrest; including anarchy, starvation, violent deaths, warlords, and unstable land-grabs. But Somalia’s troubles also produced a rather unusual by-product, in the form of a culture of piracy, often supported by the sort of warlords who like a diversified portfolio.

Geographically, it makes sense. Somalia lies in an area known as the Horn of Africa, at the center of global shipping lanes that go through the Gulf of Arden, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean. The area is essentially the only way to move a ship from a variety of places in Asia and Europe to and fro without going all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. Cargo ships from dozens of nations pass through the region every day. With no government to tell them otherwise, Somali fishermen took the initiative to make a buck off the situation; stealing goods and holding international prisoners for ransom.

A note on semantics: Let there be no confusion in terminology; as vicious as they are, these are definitely pirates of the truest kind, ruthlessly seeking treasure. They’ve admitted as much in interviews with The New York Times. In other words, the Somali pirates aren’t terrorists, killing people out of some demented ideology. Oh, they inspire terror, but only as a means to profit. And while that’s still an incredibly shitty way to behave, it’s at least rooted in some form of rational thinking.

So there’s your long-winded introduction. Now then.

This week in Pirate News!

Things are heating up at the Horn of Africa this week, as Russia has announced that it is sending additional warships to join the frigate Neustrashimy, already operating off the coast of Somalia. Though officially an independent Russian operation, the crew of the Neustrashimy has cooperated with other ships in the past:

“In September, [Admiral Vladimir] Vysotsky said Russian ships would be operating on their own. But the crews of the Neustrashimy and the British frigate HMS Cumberland teamed up to chase off pirates who attacked a Danish ship in the gulf earlier this month.”

The new Russian ships are expected to arrive soon.

Meanwhile, representatives from a group of Arab League nations, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, met in Egypt this week to coordinate their own anti-piracy offensive. They issued a condemnation of all pirate activity, and discussed open cooperation with any other nations willing to help in the pirate crackdown. Which is fine, but policy debates really aren’t as exciting as Russian warships. Seriously, somebody get a fucking camera crew down there!

And literally as I’m writing this, Jon Stewart and John Oliver are talking about the Somali pirates, too. I guess we’re not the only ones who were a little late to the bandwagon. More to come.

Ahoy! ‘Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day, the most beloved and most neglected holiday on the seas.

For even the scurviest o’ dogs can’t be bothered to remember every little thing, and most years the nineteenth day o’ September has long since sailed by afore they even remember what they was meant to be celebratin’. ‘Tis a damnable shame that, though the fangirls be lovin’ me seafaring brethren, they can’t be bothered to remember this one day outta the whole year. Is it because we ain’t got Johnny Depp? Or that wee pretty-boy Orlando Bloom? Bah!

Piratin’ ain’t about lookin’ fancy. It’s about drinkin’ rum and sailin’ the seven seas, and possibly stealin’ tobacco and spices or something. Mostly it be about the rum, though.