Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi is a frequent editorial contributor to EFNB and the current Tokugawa Chair of Shinobi Studies at Kaizoku University. Widow of Sensei Takeharu Matsumura-Tamaribuchi of the Black Shadow Clan, who died in 1997 at the age of 108, Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1977 and is perhaps the most visible and vocal pro-ninja activist in the nation today.

I write to you today to decry the illegal, racist, fascist, and high blood sugar promoting imprisonment of a great and shining light among the Shinobi–or, to use the popular but less enlightened term, ninjas. I speak of course of Grand Sensei Shi No Te, Death’s Hand, also known as Adder’s Venom, Chill-of-First-Snow, and The Tickler. He is a political prisoner, a symbol of the shameful treatment of ninjas by world governments and the world media.

His crime? Merely blowing up a bus full of pirates on their way to Plundercon 2002. I, and the greater ninja community, hold that this act was a political testament, an expression of free and therefore protected speech, and a great favor to all cities and gas stations at which the bus might have stopped. For, as detailed in the absolutely true and oft-repressed text Protocols of the Elder Pirates, pirates are and have always been secretly planning to take over the world and plunder it like a giant galleon from the shadows. Grand Sensei Death’s Hand was merely striking in self-defense, as part of the inevitable move to drive the vile pirate invaders back into the sea.

His incendiary actions and unpopular slaughter aside, Grand Sensei Death’s Hand is a man of peace, as are all ninjas. The ninja way is the way of peace, only slipping a muffled dagger between the ribs of a victim when they really, really deserve it. Grand Sensei Death’s Hand has dedicated himself to education and peace during his imprisonment as well, penning gentle children’s books like Kill All Pirates, Pirates are the Assassins of Our Future, and Dear Children Reject Pirate Lies. Entertainers, politicians, and Nobel laureates have all called for his release, drawing on their vast experience in those honest and directly ninja-related fields.

I urge you, dear readers, to write to your government–secretly controlled and financed by pirates as it may be–to demand the release of Grand Sensei Death’s Hand. I urge you to take direct action as well, through protest and possibly making things explode. Blow up your own buses full of pirates. Join us in the great Shinobi liberation struggle by donating your time and talents. We ninjas are waiting for your help, silently, in the shadows, wearing black, with concealed daggers, and also perhaps some smoke bombs.

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