Snowfall in Kinshasa

Chosen One

October 26th, 2009

You know the commercials. Crying, fly ridden African children in front of mud huts; Bellies protruding because of starvation, not obesity. Perhaps even a tear running down a cheek in slow motion. How can you resist helping? And look! It’s less than a cup of coffee a day.

Well, I did. And instead I adopted an African Giant Pouched rat. His name is Chosen One, like Harry Potter, or Anakin Skywalker before puberty. He’s pretty freaking awesome:

So why would I adopt a giant, potentially plague-ridden rodent? You see, Africans are starving because of overpopulation. When governments and charities pump money into Africa it allows more people to be fed, which increases the carrying capacity, which leads to even more overpopulation. You might be helping one sick child, but what you’re really doing is raising the carrying capacity to even more unsustainable levels. Is anyone going to adopt all the dying children when a pandemic restores the balance?

Anyways, Chosen One is a HeroRAT who detects landmines in sub-saharan Africa. He does this by walking over a grid and sniffing for them, up to 100 square meters in 30 minutes. The landmines wont go off because of his small size. In other words, he makes a real difference. You can adopt your own HeroRAT here.