Don’t Become Hostage to Somali Pirates

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I have read 135 pages of The Desert and the Sea sitting here just yesterday and tonight. It’s the frightening memoir of Michael Scott Moore’s time as a hostage in Somalia. Sample quote, from being driven around in his captors’ khat-infused paranoia on a particularly bad night:

“The sheer alarming stupidity of breaking off a wheel in the middle of the desert while running from a plane, or a drone, or nothing at all, made the blood pound and slosh in my head.”

Mr. Moore’s hostage experience chimes with the way others have defined war: “months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.” Don’t try this at home, in Somalia, or anywhere else.