Tolle Lege!
Tolle Lege!
St. Augustine
The Confessions of St Augustine
St. Augustine
The Confessions of St Augustine
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Add comment Friday, November 26th, 2004 at 10:53 AM
Archive for November, 2004
Kenya: Peaceful oasis
I was stopped in a corridor at work by group of colleagues who happen to be Somali. They we interested in any additional information I might have been able to share with them on the foiled
assassination attempt on Abdullahi Yusuf the new elected president of Somalia who is staying in Nairobi until things are safe enough to go back home. In the same week I had also been following a discussion on a Sudanese email distribution list debating the pros and cons of the Naivasha accords. Another item high on their agenda was the UN Security Council session in Nairobi, a rare move from its New York headquarters.
Small moments like this make me damn proud to be Kenyan. Kenya is an oasis of peace playing a vital role in helping our neighbours end their cycles of violence in one of the most violent parts of the globe. Filling in a questionnaire on Kenyan bloggers this week my mind went back to my very first blog post written over two years ago on a free site that is no longer alive [even in the google cache]. My first ever post was on how lucky and how proud Kenya and Kenyans should feel for not being at war internally or externally. Yes we have had our problems with each other and I do not intend to belittle the suffering many Kenyans went through in successive oppressive regimes. However when you look around our borders; Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia you notice the tranquillity flowing from Kenya.
In that first ever post I recalled a visit to an Ethiopian homestead hundreds of kilometres out of Addis Ababa. I had tagged along with some UNICEF officials who were out monitoring the uptake of polio vaccination in rural areas. At this homestead we found a mother tending to her son who was in 20’s and lame with polio. Somehow despite everyone else in the homestead being vaccinated he had missed out and polio had got to him. While we were busy feeling sorry for the guy his mother suddenly said,
“I thank God every day that I did not vaccinate this child against Polio.”
“Why?” we asked shocked.
“I had four sons,” she replied, “three of them along with my husband were taken by the army to fight in Eritrea. Now they are all dead. Only this son remains, they could not take him, because he is lame. He was no use to them. So they left him with me.”
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2 comments Thursday, November 25th, 2004 at 6:14 PM
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women which marks the beginning of 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. Mshairi wrote an insightful post with a lot of information.
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1 comment Thursday, November 25th, 2004 at 5:38 PM
My Adidas
My Adidas
Walk Through Concert Doors
And Roam All Over Coliseum Floors
I Stepped On Stage, At Live Aid
All The People Gave An Applause That Paid
And Out Of Speakers I Did Speak
I Wore My Sneakers But I’m Not A Sneak
My Adidas Cuts The Sand Of A Foreign Land
With Mic In Hand I Cold Took Command
My Adidas And Me Both Askin P
We Make A Good Team My Adidas And Me
We Get Around Together, Rhyme Forever
And We Won’t Be Mad When Worn In Bad Weather
My Adidas!
My Adidas!
My Adidas!
Walk Through Concert Doors
And Roam All Over Coliseum Floors
I Stepped On Stage, At Live Aid
All The People Gave An Applause That Paid
And Out Of Speakers I Did Speak
I Wore My Sneakers But I’m Not A Sneak
My Adidas Cuts The Sand Of A Foreign Land
With Mic In Hand I Cold Took Command
My Adidas And Me Both Askin P
We Make A Good Team My Adidas And Me
We Get Around Together, Rhyme Forever
And We Won’t Be Mad When Worn In Bad Weather
My Adidas!
My Adidas!
My Adidas!
Standin On 2 Fifth St.
Funky Fresh And Yes Cold On My Feet
With No Shoe String In Em, I Did Not Win Em
I Bought Em Off The Ave With The Tags Still In Em
I Like To Sport Em That’s Why I Bought Em
A Sucker Tried To Steal Em So I Caught Em And I Thwart Em
And I Walk Down The Street And I Bop To The Beat
With Lee On My Legs And Adidas On My Feet
And Now I Just Standin Here Shooting The Gif
Me And D And My Adidas Standing On 2 Fifth
My Adidas!
My Adidas!
Artists:Run-D.M.C.
Album: Raising Hell
This pair of shoes jumped out at me. They have a lot of advantages the most important one being that no self respecting gang banger, drug dealer, pimp or teenage kid would ever buy let alone wear them. Secondly, nothing wrong with a little colour in life is there? Thirdly, no one else I know would wear them; in fact everyone else seems to hate them, so there will be no embarrassing moments when I turn up at a party wearing the same shoes as the host. Fourthly only 20 quid!
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15 comments Thursday, November 18th, 2004 at 12:28 PM
Spam Bill Gates
Bill Gates receives 4 million spam email messages a day! I don’t feel too sorry for him however, as unlike the rest of us he has a whole department to filter through his email.
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Add comment Thursday, November 18th, 2004 at 12:27 PM
Quote: Steve Biko
I Write What I Like.
Steve Biko
Steve Biko
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Add comment Thursday, November 18th, 2004 at 12:44 AM
Movie Stars
In Kenya most commercial video libraries survive on bootleg tapes. The proprietor gets a copy of the latest release and tapes it for his own video library which he then hires out. Some video libraries are very efficient having good copies a day or two after the movie is released in the US. Of course you can always find a same day release but the copy will be so dodgy you might as well watch a bunch of penguins break dancing.
One consequence of this system is that there is always some space left on the video tape after the movie has ended. Most video libraries fill this space with cartoons, sitcoms, or perhaps another movie (well it’s usually half a movie because the tape final runs out). In fact part of the excitement in borrowing a film is that you never know what you’re going to get at the end of the tape.
A few weeks after finally finishing high school a group of us borrowed a copy of that classic movie, Juice. When the movie finished we settled back to watch whatever else was on the tape. What happened next was scary. The face of our school headmaster filled the screen. We could not believe our eyes and ears. It was like a nightmare. We had just spent many years trying to escape the clutches of the man and there he was looking straight at us.That voice which had haunted us during our time in school was back in our own home.
He was introducing a school play, Treasure Island, which we had performed almost 3 years previously. Suddenly there we were in fake bandanas swinging across the stage, our massive sword fights, giving our version of a horde of drunken pirates. What are the odds eh? That we would have picked a specific copy of a specific film from a specific video library that would have our acting in it? How the hell did a copy of a very old school play end up being the filler on a video library tape anyway? Did all the copies of Juice in Nairobi have us at the end? We sat there in shock for a few minutes not quite believing what we were seeing. Then started laughing, movie stars already and not yet 18!
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2 comments Monday, November 15th, 2004 at 10:28 PM
UN Security Council in Nairobi
On the 18th and 19th of November the UN Security Council relocates from the UN headquarters in New York to Nairobi. The reason: to discuss Sudan. Specifically to try and hammer out a final conclusive peace deal to the civil war in the south and of course to deal with the crisis in Darfur.
If the Security Council have any doubt about the role of the Sudanese government in the crisis they should listen to Commander Appiah Mensah of the AU force currently in Darfur.
At this level, what we do, we just respond to the complaint, investigate it, and submit our report. But we cannot go and stop the fighting, no. It’s highly restrictive because we are not even allowed to look into issues like rape and other things. Highly restrictive because it only gives us an ability to observe, verify and report … The government of Sudan forces and the militia work closely together in that area it is difficult to distinguish who is who ..
Source
Source
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Add comment Monday, November 15th, 2004 at 9:52 PM
The right to criticise
Bai Gbala feels that the African Diaspora having, “abandoned Africa” has, “correspondingly failed to fulfil the responsibility and obligation conditional to the enjoyment of the right of free speech to criticize.” Basically if you are an African living abroad you should shut up because you have lost your right to criticise African governments. He wrote this in response to Prof. Chinua Achebe rejection of Nigeria’s second highest award, the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR), saying he was dissatisfied with the handling of the country’s affairs by the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
A couple of people told Bai Gbala where he can stick his opinions.
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2 comments Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 6:44 PM
Cote d’Ivoire crisis
Ethan has a look at the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire he mentions FranceWatcher a blog on a mission. Check it out. For a quick background look go to Questions and Answers. And am I the only one who feels that you should have at least 10 planes before you call yourself an airforce? I mean two bombers and five helicopters that’s not an airforce. More like an airpersuasion, cause your not going to force anyone to do anything with just seven planes. But you might persuade them.
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1 comment Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 6:25 PM
Happy bunnies
Those in the know say Dick Cheney lives up to his name! In a good way. An alternative career beckons if the politics/oil thing doesn’t work out. Some other people in the know say Jada Pinkett Smith ain’t got nothing to complain about as well.
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Add comment Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 5:47 PM
Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat] 1929 - 2004
A hero, a villain
Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat] 1929 - 2004
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Add comment Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 5:49 AM
University rankings
Anyone with hopes for the future of Africa will find little comfort in its complete absence.
The Time’s Higher Education Supplement published its World University Rankings [free subscription required] a list of the world’s top 200 universities. As the quote above indicates, not a single African university made the list. On the other side of the world the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, published its university rankings for 2004 with much the same results. SJTU rankings go to 500 however and four African universities [in order Univ Cape Town, Univ Witwatersrand, Univ KwaZulu-Natal, Univ Pretoria] made the cut. Well I should say four South African universities.
Of course both publications do carry some controversy about their criteria and methodology. I have friends at LSE claiming only Oxbridge bias keeps them from being declared the best university in the UK [LSE comes in 11th according to The Times, wait till I tell them they only made 219 on the SJTU list!]
You do wonder how African universities can compete. For example, Harvard University [the top university in both lists] has an endowment of nearly $22.6 billion [£12.7 billion]. In comparison, Kenya’s GDP in 2003 was $14.3 billion. Below I have reproduced a letter from Philip Machanick to THES who takes them to task over this.
Your top 200 ranking [World University Rankings, November 5] needs some refinement to allow for performance relative to funding. Until June 2002, I was an associate professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, a university that did not make it into the top 200. I am now at Queensland University, which you have ranked 49th.
While the quantity and quality of my work has in some respects improved because of the much better resources available in Australia, I cannot say that the difference is as great as the relative ranking [or non-ranking] suggests.
Graduate attributes for Wits graduates are comparable to those in the best first-world universities. I offer you two suggestions: include scores that rate universities more specifically for graduate attributes, or compile a separate ranking weighted for access to funding.
The first would be difficult, but a more reasonable output measure than staff-to-student ratio. The second would be useful for students weighing up cost versus performance. South Africa is one of the best destinations for students on a limited budget, which is clearly not a factor in your ranking.
Philip Machanick
Queensland University
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20 comments Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 4:15 AM
Lake Naivasha’s water
Multinational florist conglomerates, exclusive tourist lodges, the Maasai, flamingos. All adversaries in a battle for Lake Naivasha’s water.
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Add comment Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 3:30 AM
Kilio Cha Haki
Check out Kilio Cha Haki [A cry for Justice] an album produced in a month by 37 Kenyan rappers from the Eastlands ghettos of Nairobi with Dutch and American support. The Guardian takes a look.
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1 comment Friday, November 5th, 2004 at 5:14 PM
