Archive for September, 2003
The New African Magazine used to be an essential monthly read. It formed the starting point for many university thesis and dissertations for those of us who were studying government, history, politics or law and were writing on Africa. Then the standards started dropping. This mainly stems out of the editor’s policy of blaming everything that is wrong with Africa on the west. Victimitis. For example, in a “ground breaking interview” with Mugabe instead of asking him a proper question like, “Mr president why the hell are you messing up your country for the sake of your presidency?” they asked him questions like, “We think you are great would you mind if we ignore the fact that your goons are killing your own people right now and focus instead on your childhood?” Bollox. Just because Mugabe kicked out a few farmers NA felt it was ok for him to kill a few of his people. I stopped reading it after that. Then for some strange reason I decided to buy last month’s edition and the clowns are at it again.
This time Muluzi was the one being praised. For those of you who don’t know the background, Muluzi was elected president of Malawi after a long and tedious democratic political struggle against Banda the self styled “president for life” and one of the most brutal dictators in Africa. Malawians desperate to ensure that another Banda did not take root imposed a two limit term to the presidential office. Now Muluzi, after serving his two terms in office, has fallen into the pit most Africa leaders fall into and has decided that he is the only one good enough to be president and wants to tear up the constitution so that he can stand for another term. You would expect a magazine that claims to speak for Africa to stand up to Muluzi’s nonsense.
But no. New African says that Muluzi should be allowed to stand again because “European prime ministers do not have constitutional limits on how long they can serve” while implying that all of us who insist that Muluzi follows the constitution he was elected under are suffering from an inferiority complex towards the west. What absolute bollox. New African is a joke. By the way they were also singing Charles Taylor’s praises in the same issue. Any magazine that lauds Mugabe, Taylor and Muluzi can not be a friend of Africa. It takes more than kicking out a few white farmers to impress this Africa.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2003 at 6:11 PM
Today in history: September 26:
Tracy Thorn, singer, born 1962; Bryan Ferry, born 1945; Ricky Tomlinson, born 1939; Winnie Mandela, born 1936; T S Eliot, born 1888; Lysette Anthony, born 1963; Anne Robinson, born 1944; Lewis Hine, born 1874; T.S. Eliot, born 1888; Martin Heidegger, born, 1889; John Coltrane, born 1926; Olivia Newton-John born, 1948; Linda Hamilton, born, 1956; Serena Williams, born 1981; George Gershwin, born, 1898;and last but not least
Deez, webmaster, mentalacrobatics.com!
Happy birthday to me!
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Friday, September 26th, 2003 at 12:45 PM
Kenya is shaking again.
We have a lost a patriot .
The government is losing credibility.
The public is losing its sanity.
The debate has turned disturbing.
Let us hope our roots are strong.
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Thursday, September 18th, 2003 at 5:16 PM
Searching google for “Kenyan women” just isn’t the same anymore.
WARNING: This link is definitely NOT for people at work.
(Yes I mean u Shaf, when security come to walk you out the door don’t say I didn’t warn you bruv!)
And no, i didnt find what i was looking for.
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2003 at 10:03 PM
The reason behind the internet in one small step.
(Another one like whoa from blogjam.)
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2003 at 5:24 PM
The WTO trade talks ended in gridlock . Surprise, surprise. The US and the EU tried to bully developing countries into accepting a bogus deal. Surprise, surprise. The US’ and the EU’s strategy of pushing the “Singapore Issues” led to disaster. surprise, surprise. The alliance of developing countries did not crumble. Now that is a genuine surprise!
Better no agreement than a bad agreement
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Monday, September 15th, 2003 at 5:36 PM
Coca cola = Whack!
Vanilla Coca Cola = Legit!
Proof again that Vanilla is the best damn spice/flavouring out there.
Now if someone could come up with a recipe for vanilla flavoured prawns/shrimps/lobsters I might just start eating sea food.
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Monday, September 15th, 2003 at 5:10 PM
Things to do on my day off:
or convert my blog to php!
PHP here i come!
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Tuesday, September 9th, 2003 at 7:26 PM
At times you I take a step back look at the world around me and wonder how long this madness is going to last. This planet produces enough to feed every man woman and child nine times over yet the majority of humanity do not get enough food. The wealthiest 5% of the world’s people now earn 114 times as much as the poorest 5%. The 500 richest people on earth now own $1.54 trillion — more than the entire gross domestic product of Africa, or the combined annual incomes of the poorest half of humanity. The United States imposes tariffs of between zero and one per cent on major imports from Britain, France, Japan and Germany, but taxes of 14 or 15% on produce from Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal. The British government does the same: Sri Lanka and Uruguay must pay eight times as much to sell their goods in the UK as the United States. Last week the European Union, the US and Canada submitted a new paper to the trade talks. It proposes that the poorest countries must do the most to cut their trade taxes. Bolivia and Kenya must reduce their tariffs by 80%, the EU by 28% and the US by just 24%. (Shamelessly plagiarised from Monbiot’s article in the Guardian.)
What amazes me even more is that the richer countries on this planet think that they can keep playing the rest of the world like this. The one thing that kept them in their position of power was that information like this was unavailable to the wider public. Even our own heads of states were being played like a game of chess. We knew we were being taken for a ride, we just didnt know that we were tossing salad as well. But the world today is full of information. You can not keep this information down any longer. And once people find out, people will get angry, imagine the whole developing world angry, educated and militant. Just how much bullshit do they think that the “third world” is going to take?
(I can’t be bothered providing all the sources and references if you doubt my statistics or like me want to have the source of information yourself then go read the article called “Le Monde, C’est Nous” by Monbiot which has full references.)
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003 at 6:51 PM
Keeping with today’s clip theme here is a good one on the difference between Italians and Europeans located by ma boy Krubz.
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003 at 6:18 PM
All of ya’ll thought I was bullshitting but I finally located a clip of David Blaine removing his heart, live on TV.
Thanks to Nico Morgan
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003 at 6:08 PM
He came, he saw, he broke his promise. Bush II cut off funds to an Aids programme for refugees in Africa - six weeks after he toured the continent promising to fight the disease. First of all only $15billion was promised. Now that sounds like a lot of money but when you consider that this is the same US government which is spending $4bn a month keeping its troops in Iraq, it looks pitifully small. Anyway $15 billion was promised by Bush II which was later cut back drastically, with Congress approving just $2bn of the $3bn sought in the first year. And now they will not even give that. I know everyone hates a know it all but, I told you so.
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003 at 6:02 PM