Sap, and saps, rising.

So, Tuesday marked the official beginning of Spring, which has gotten me to thinking about one annual rite of spring: the sap rising in trees.  Could it be that a similar springtime phenomenon occurs in a country's national bloodstream, when a kind of unstoppable current rises to the surface?  Consider that on this day in 1919 Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist movement, and on this day in 1933 the Reichstag signed the Enabling Act making Adolph Hitler Germany's dictator.  The saps--the deluded idiots who thought those two thugs were real leaders--rose up quickly in support in both cases.  Also, on this day in 1991, the United Revolutionary Front, backed by support from Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia, invaded Sierra Leone, setting off a bloody and protracted civil war. 

In that war, it wasn't only the saps who rose up to fight, it was children conscripted as soldiers.  The problem of child soldiers in Africa is perennial, something we Americans tsk over and then basically look away from.  It is too painful to consider the horrors these children have undergone.

But this weekend, adults and YA alike will rise contentedly from their movie seats, having seen an exciting movie about lovely and well fed white children soldiers slaughtering each other, a film which despite its subject matter has earned a PG-13 rating that will send it on its way to upwards of a half a billion dollars in grosses.

Let's compare real Appalachian poverty with the Hollywood kind.  No flawless bronze complexion and no plush lips--probably a lack of teeth.  That's what real hunger and lack of dentistry do to you.  Here's another thing about child soldiering:  it doesn't seem to lend itself to love of any kind, much less love triangles. 

Still, I understand why we're supposed to cheer The Hunger Games, because it's supposed to remind us of the horrors of a decadent society.  So I will drop the crabbycakes--it isn't like I'm going to solve the problem of children soldiers this weekend--and offer this recipe from Tyler Florence for Decadent Chocolate Cake from the Food Network website:  http://tinyurl.com/7zobpb  Somehow it seems appropriate.

Child soldier photo from http://slaveryinthe21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/11/worldwide-child-soldiers.html

Walker Evans Appalachian photo from http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/walker-evans-let-us-now-praise-famous-men

Triumph of the Will photo from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/12/918928/-The-Most-Controversial-Films-Of-All-Time-