On the Sunday after Valentine's Day, Parade Magazine always has an article about the world's worst dictators.  I read it every year to find out Who Is The World's Worst Dictator?  This year the winner is Kim Jong-IL from North Korea.  Last year, Mr. Jong-IL was only the second worst dictator.  Sudan's Omar Al-Bashir won top honors in 2007. Among his many atrocitites, Mr. Al-Bashir dines on the testicles of his tortured prisoners.

I wonder what Mr. Jong-IL eats?  His citizens have no access to any information, except for government propaganda.  He has over 200,000 of his citizens in labor camps.  He captures, tortures, and jails those who try to flee to China.  Hu Jintao in China is the fourth worst dictator on the hit list this year.  Mr. Jong-IL must be a ringdinger of a monstrous monster if his people risk their lives to get to Hu Jintao.  Mr. Jintao forces women to have abortions.  I don't want to know what he eats for dinner.

Why are all these horrible men in power?  There must be an army of horrible men behind these horrible men, keeping them in power.  The United States is linked through oil to many of these brutes, and for the three billion dollars worth of cotton clothing, another link, that we import from Mr. Musharraf in Pakistan who is the eighth worst dictator this year. 

Why am I interested in reading about these stinkpots?  Is it this: what humans will do to other humans for the sake of power?  In the 20th century alone, humans have killed over 100 million fellow humans.  I used to believe in evolution.  I wonder.

On the cover of Parade Magazine: the faces of three of the world's worst dictators.  I stare at them.  I am connected to these men.  I am part of the human family with them.  Cold, reptilian eyes; mouths hard, thin lines.  Their eyes say, "I will do anything to get what I want, and I want more, I want it all."

Greed runs in their veins, and the world is drenched in blood.