NEWSFLASH:  Apparently there’s places on this planet where children can’t just run free in the desert without blowing their lower extremities off from a land mine.  Members of the Western Empire need not worry, because this place isn’t anywhere in North America, and the children aren’t white.  The place is sunny Afghanistan, and it’s littered with the discarded munitions and anti-child mines from decades of conflict.  But still, multinational corporations might someday want to build a McDonalds, Taco Bell, or name-brand outlet mall on that land, so it’s a good thing that a Netherlands-based designer and Kabul native, Massoud Hassani, has invented a nifty solution to the problem.  The Kafon is based on a wind-driven toy he and his friends used to build as children, the innocent FerFrak, and we think it’s brill.  This cheap-to-construct and friendly-looking guy wanders into mine fields and wheels around, driven by nothing more complex than wind-power, until he happens upon a nasty explosive that blows a few of his bamboo legs off — and then he keeps going, searching for the next one, until he can be collected on the other side of the death-zone, get some new legs popped on, and then taken back for another whimsical journey across no-man’s-land.  Delightful!  Hopefully Hassani meets his Kickstarter goal and get to building his Kafons so that American industry can follow with strip malls and amusement parks!

Tags: Afghanistan, FerFrank, Kafon, Kickstarter, land mines, Massoud Hassani, McDonalds, Taco Bell