Well, it’s the year 2010. What happened to our dreams?

As Baby Boomers, folks who grew up in the Fifties and Sixties, we sure had a few expectations about how we’d all be living our lives in the year 2010. At least partly because we grew up watching Star Trek and the Jetsons, we expected to be flying around with rocket packs, taking vacations on the Moon, and living in an era of world peace, happy children, and responsible government.

We were wrong, of course. While we kids couldn’t have imagined some of the whiz-bang technology we’d be commonly using in 2010, I really thought we’d have made comparable progress in being civilized beings, but that’s just not how the lowest of human nature works.

The evidence? News this week of the growing epidemic of ritual child murder in Africa. I was appalled, saddened, and disgusted at a report this week that aired worldwide on the British Broadcasting Company. They reported at length on how more and more people in the African nation of Uganda are literally sacrificing children to work magic and gain riches and prosperity.

The Ugandan government told the BBC that child sacrifice is greatly on the increase, and according to the head of the country’s Anti-Human Sacrifice Task Force, “the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity, and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.”

I did more research, and found the belief and the practice to be welldocumented all over Africa, even in 2010. Many of today’s Africans, even the continent’s more modern urban and educated class, believe they can get all the “magic” of the modern world’s prosperity by cutting the hearts out of their children and burning them. As God is my witness, I wish that it was not true, that no being on the face of the planet could still believe that child sacrifice would bring them riches, but it is.

The evil beings who practice child “muti,” they call it, pay the equivalent of $250 to their local witch doctor, the sangoma, and give him the heart, liver, and blood of a child that they had kidnapped and murdered for the purpose. He burns the despicable sacrifice in a ceremony, and the Africans sit back, waiting for the rich man’s wealth to magically come to them.

The report says it’s not an isolated occurrence – there are thousands of witch doctors performing the ceremonies, and thousands of missing children. The numbers are actually growing as the citizens of Uganda and other African countries look at the wealthy, civilized world with envy and are driven to try to catch up the only way they think they can – with magic.

What’s more, there’s little government effort to punish those who are killing the children. The BBC reports that Uganda’s “Minister of Ethics and Integrity,” Dr. Nsaba Buturo, believes that “to punish retrospectively would cause a problem.” That’s the government response, but the government reflects the people’s depravity.

I’m just heartsick. Forget rocket packs and world peace. The year 2010 doesn’t sound so great when you realize that there are still millions of beings on this planet who believe that butchering babies will magically bring them wealth.

Those of us who are civilized would do well to remember that.