May 2005

It looks like the tide has turned concerning LK with most commentators, both formal and informal, concluding that she must be suffering from a mental illness. Those that claim to be in the know mention Bipolar Disorder and that it is no secret that LK has been unstable for a while.
What the saga has highlighted is the lack of information and a lack of sympathy on mental illness in general. This is not a Kenyan problem but an international one as mental health organisations and charities will testify.

Other issues which jump out at me on this:

One is the systematic and automatic abuse of power in Kenyan today. Some people are automatically above the law. When you have senior policemen begging well placed individuals not to trespass private property helpless to intervene, when people doing their jobs get assaulted and have their personal effects confiscated on the orders of a well placed individual, you have to wonder what they would have to do to get arrested.

Another thing I notice is how people automatically jump into their respective bandwagons. This LK saga has everyone revealing their true colours. It is amusing watching the façade drop:

• You have the sexists: This silly woman should be disciplined
• You have the tribalists: Only a woman from [insert location here] would act like that
• You have the trustafarians: How can she say that about people in slums? They are people too. We should reach out to them. Maybe download a few tracks on to their ipods?
• You have the guilt-trip-columnists: why are all these rich people suddenly interested in slums, you have never been to a slum, you don’t even know where the slums are, I know slums better than you therefore I am better than you.
• You have the neo socialists: we are the voice of everyone not you narrow minded members of the middle class. Wait till i get home and blog about this, in fact I’ll do it right now with my new web enabled mobile phone.
• You have the cynics: This massive smokescreen has been erected to hide the fact that Mwai can barely think straight himself. I mean why else would Lucy have had free reign in the last week
• The ultra-cynics: Hmmm weren’t those Biwott negotiations meant to be this week? The man could be roller blading in and out of statehouse in luminous yellow shorts and no one would have noticed.
• The business minded: How quickly can we print 10,000, “Who is your mother” t-shirts, or “Korogocho and proud of it” t-shirts?
• The people who pretend to read newspapers but don’t: “oh yeah I saw the headline, was it something about Anglo-leasing”

Liverpool fans have a long tradition of witty and entertaining banners.
Against ManUseless in the Carling Cup Final a few years back on the eve of the Iraq war Liverpool fans had a huge banner reading,
‘Don’t attack Iraq, nuke Manchester’ and
‘Owen, weapon of Manc destruction’.

Against Chelsea in the first leg the banners were out again:

‘Our nationality is Liverpool, our language is football’
‘Money can’t buy history, heart, soul’
‘What you dream of we have all ready achieved’.

The fans player of the year is Jamie Carragher for his heroics at the heart of the Reds defence. Most of the new banners this season are dedicated to him. Like this one here:

Another one sure to get an airing tonight is this one:

Not to forgot the internationally famous
“Wine for My Men, We Ride At Dawn“

You check out the Kenyan papers and find out the military has just bought a naval ship for Ksh4.1 BILLION. All good you say at the end of the day a country has to protect its borders, but then you read that the damn ship doesn’t have any guns so they have to spend another Ksh2.1 Billion fitting bloody armaments to it. Who the hell buys a warship bila guns? The same clowns who build a hydroelectric dam in a desert (can anyone say Turkwell Gorge? [pdf document-scroll down to page 28]). Jane’s Defense Weekly reckons the ship should have only cost Ksh1.8 billion maximum, with guns that is. A warship bila guns is not a warship it is a boat. And navys don’t need boats they need warships.

In other news:

Kenyan Members of Parliament have reviewed their medical cover to include treatment in reputable hospitals in Europe and America, and increased the number of dependants from one to two spouses and from four to eight children, in a scheme whose expanded scope will impose an additional burden on Kenyan taxpayers.

This is after MPs tried to give themselves a Ksh1.5 million ($19,480) winding up allowance at the end of their current term in 2007, a pat on the back for being so hard working, despite a survey by the Institute for Civic and Development Affairs showing that the Kenyan parliament worked for only 57 days in the whole of last year.

This is after the MPs gave themselves each Ksh1 million ($12,987) to put up a constituency office in each of the 210 constituencies in the country. And we all know where that money is going to end up.

This is after the government shelved any plans to develop a sensible medical cover plan that is accessible to all Kenyans. (Key word sensible i.e. not the Ngilu plan).

Lucy storms a police station, demands outgoing World Bank chief Diop is arrested, goes over to the Nation Centre and slaps a cameraman, harasses the editorial team while giving us vital insight into life by revealing that she wears a bikini when she is swimming. She then proceeds to order breakfast from that huge takeaway-restaurant-on-the-hill known to the rest of us as State House.
Just another normal day in the life of Lucy Kibaki then.

Rising to the challenge started by NG which has all ready been tackled bravely by
Ms.K, Wanjiru
amongst others, here is my picture:

For more KBW photos check out A Thousand Words, part of the Begins At Home family.

Should we laugh or cry?

Ati who is your mother? LOL. Kweli equality has reached the top. Before it used to be, “who is your father?” Now it is, “who is your mother?” As for the poor bodyguards …
Our first lady has done it again. It is getting impossible to keep up with all her drama. Hmmm i can feel an idea coming along …