Allllllllllright already! At some point, that vagary, that… thing, we sometimes confuse as siliTanE but is often a sign of mndrrrnewsmu … whachamacallit oh, yeah, Farinet has got to stop! And, what the hey, why not give ourselves until 2015 to wean Faraitis from our be indod yetaTebe , be aja yetegaate , be grrrssli yetashe , be Langano (or Dessie cake bEt)yetemolaqeqe , be qebelE yeteseqayE , be INS yarrere , be corporate ladder yetenTeleTele , be IRS yekesere , confused, discontented, disenfranchised, bewildered, befuddled Diasporized self!

Abo beqa !

We at SELEDA, the public servants that we can never be, have taken the liberty of identifying some of these tell-tale signs of frrrrrrirrrrrr-yalu Fara behaviors so that, come 2015, you won’t miss the mass gela metaTeb that will finally purged ET society from chronic, congenital Faradissimo.

a) Bemejemeria, in 2015 there shall be no concept thereto known as “ ye Abesha qeTero ”… If you insist on being an hour late to an appointment, you shall be known as he/she who is on FPT.. Fara Peoples Time. Eventually, you will understand that tardiness is neither charming nor does it make you an interesting personality. Erediyaaa!

b) You know how you:
- can recite the Iliad
- sit through four performances of Lucia di Lammermoor
- have spent hours analyzing “Woman with a Parrot”
- can’t stand people who mistake Gothic architecture for Romanesque
- think The Petrified Forest is the best play written ever….

You know how you do all that? Don’t get us wrong. It’s all cute.

But, you know how you think that Solomon Deressa is the name of the big swimming pool at SoderE, and that Zerihun Yetimgeta you swear was the name of your favorite zebeNa ? And you know how you refuse to listen to the words of Mary ArmidE’s ingurguro and how you say, “Kassa Tessema..? Like, who dat?” And you know how you have not picked up and read an amariNa book since… when was it… since that time… since never? And you know how you think that qinE mezreff is a misdemeanor? And you know how the only “ Gungun ” you know is the one you got by the only black stylist at Frederic Fekkai? UfffffffffffffoyE …. Well, Fara land called. They want their leader back! ItyoPiyawinet is not just showing up at church during mesqel . Learn the tools of the trade… otherwise you are what they call a classically trained Fara..

c) Hey, you… Retro Fara s… A word, if we may… Yes, you who took MengE seriously when he labeled you CHqun Hzboch. Here’s an anqliba to help you carry that chip on your shoulder, because, oh ferchrissake, atdebirun. You want to deal with your “disadvantaged” childhood and upbringing? Get a shrink like everybody else! The moja/feudal/ bezbaj song has lost its thunder, although you are welcome to sing it even though those of us who don’t speak whine might just look at your contorted face and think, “That boy done gone wrong. M’Ts !” Was it Homer who said that “Those who don’t learn from history are serial gaddEm yehonu negeroch ”? Oh, no. That was Upper Management in response to our request that we be allowed to take a day off to celebrate ye SenE Mikael. Ah, well. You get the sentiment. It’s all Fara behavior unbecoming of the new ET in Year 2015. And the whining officially ends ezzzzzzich gar. Besides, the whole “ adhari ” finger mawleblebing is so out. Outer than last year’s Prada stilettos. Gebachiu … ? ( Gebtwachew y’hon?)

d) Guess who’s been spotted splish-splasing in the Fara Sinkhole, albeit with their selkaka noses up in the air? Yep, the CFOs (Chief Fara Officers). CFOs still count what bones you have in you and the purity of your blood and lineage. Oh, for heaven’s sake! If you are still pruning and fertilizing the family tree and screening potential branches for blue blood by the time 2015 rolls around, we hate to tell ya, but you are a bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool Fara. Don’t flaunt your grandpappy’s name in vain, ‘zall we are saying. As long as you don’t think that you are a notch above the rest of us humanoids by virtue of a slew of Fitawraris, Ras ’ and Lij s accompanying your genes, all is well. Pedigree should be seen and not heard. We believe that it was the late, great Aristotle who said about superiority complexes, “Oh, just get the hell over it.” No. No. Perhaps it was not Aristotle. It was probably our bosses who yell it out every time we complain about the draft coming through our basement offices. But, you get the sentiment.

e) By the way, there is a special VIP section in Fara Si’ol for those whose single life ambition is to assimilate into aristocracy… That applies to the wannabe sophisticates, the wannabe in-crowd, the wannabe friends with whomever is ephemerally in power. Mediocrity itself is Farinet , but then being a mediocre Fara … Ayadrss !

f) The majority stockholders of Fara, Inc., are those armchair- erNoch: armchair critiques, armchair aweqn baiyoch, armchair ayseru ayaseruwech whose analysis paralysis is more slippery than the algae at the Ghion swimming pool. They are the first to criticize anything, the last to leave the café from where they have perfected Tal Tal madreging into a wretched art form. WeiiiinnnnnE indih tedebiren anawq! Their favorite triathlon – the 10K in Backstabbing, the 20K in Spreading Vicious Gossip and the big daddy of them all, the Marathon in Cynical Pessimism- is now the main attraction at the Fara Games. They huff, they puff and in 2015 they will whimper away into oblivion. Whatever!

g) {sigh} What next? The FnCHt People’s Liberation Front? From the bottom of what is left of our Retirement Fund, can someone please do something before the All Qei Damma Peoples Organization takes arms against the Teym Assa Mesai Peoples Liberation Front? Huh??? Mn yshalal menkeraffefu? Deginnetu in 2015 the only viable outfit will be The Anti Fara Peoples Organization. Oh, yeaaaah. Until then… adera.. We hope you will come to our rescue when the Armed Coalition To Liberate Cyberspace from SELEDA tries to recruit you.

h) Nouveau Faras, welcome. Esti quCH belu. You need a break from chasing the almighty dollar with the kind of distraction that has made you forget there is poetry in life. Esti CHamchihun inawliq… you’ve been focusing all your energies on getting the bigger car and the second home, to being crassly flashy and having indiscriminately appalling taste. Ere eski kot inna krabatachihun feta feta. Wuha bitE tegonCHu … The thing is, you might easily drop 1K on yet another leather jacket you’d want to wear in the summer… or a few more Ks in a wickedly gaudy Heineken fest because you think you have “arrived”, but, funnily enough, you’d rather die than shell out a few dollars for the drought relief. Awwoonn … y’gebanal. Self Centerdinent is a full-time job, gn bihonm … Mgb mn ymTa ? Mn yqreb ? Steak with béarnaise sauce for the beeeeezeee stockbrokers among you, or filet mignon with A1 sauce or dilih for your parking lot n’uss kebertE colleague? One of these days your children will have to inherit your ill-gotten money, and Qulibiew Mike save them from an honest, decent day of hard work. Remember those? Remember our fathers and grandfathers who believed in self-sustenance, humility, understated elegance and honesty? You don’t? Afer inibla! Esun titachiu esti … bunna yfela? Oh, you gotta go plan a 1000 person wedding at the Ritz…? You’re not going to serve the food on paper plates like you did at your last wedding, are you? IndE … teChawetu inji…

i) 2015 is what, 12 years away. Ok. It might be ambitious, but it might be possible to change our décor sensibilities by then. Our velvet covered cardboard with thin metal inscriptions like “Ethiopian Crosses” and “Ethiopian Coffee”…? Out AwTulin, benatachiu!! Enough with the Haute Fara Couture! With so many incredible Ethiopian artisans out there, how the heck do we all have the saaaammmmmmmeee branna pieces that have the sammmmmmmmeeeee figures workin’ it on a muqeCHa …with the saaaammmmmeeee glaringly obvious inscriptions such as “ siweqTu”, “ sibelu” scribbled on the corner over there? IndEE ! Beqa. Aybeqam ? Ybeqal innnjiiiii ! ENa demo! We have the legacy of Negus Lalibella with which to keep up, and he don’t look kindly on his rock-hewn churches now adorning something that wants to be velvet! And, trust us, at the 2015 Ethiopian Soccer fest, no one will buy those asinine, artless t-shirts with just a picture of AtSe Menilik plastered on it! Fara Couture is unmercifully tacky. Art in 2015 will be elevated to celestial plateaus.

j) And watch out for the ultimate Faras… the Undercover Faras who pollute your cyber air with meTen yelelew chikonet. They haven’t nary a qum neger to show for themselves, but give them a forum and ufffff! They can meqebaTer the very breath out of a respiratory machine. They defile literature with guramaylE, and if they aren’t burning your ears about infantile complaints about their bosses, they are bitterly complaining about why they can’t complain about their bosses. Oh, yeah, sure, to the untrained eye their charade of being literati can be deceiving, but to you, oh sage 2015-er ET, you can see right through their siss veneer, thanks to your Fara Radar.