I’ve always found it interesting to consider how people rationalize arguments to spin their own agenda – whether in politics, in civil society circles, in business or in relationships. The one common thread that runs through the spin cycle is the cryptic question about “who benefits?” – when negative, inaccurate and in most cases, misleading arguments carry the day.
Take Kibera for example. Rightfully or wrongly, this stretch of Nairobi real estate that spans over 2.5 sq km (give or take a football pitch either side) – has garnered a world-wide reputation for being the largest slum in Africa with at least 1 million residents.
A first assumption you’d make is that the government in Kenya or some form of reliable public body or statistics agency actually did a head count and figured out that the number of folks who live in Kibera topped 1 million.
On the 3rd of Feb, I wrote Chickens come home to roost as the credit crunched bite back. As they say in football – when the home supporters get antsy about their team’s usually lousy performance, “the natives are getting restless”. Not surprising though, as human nature has a habit of defaulting us to protectionism when we’re faced with adversity that we don’t understand.
The British are now making concerted noises about the fact that the number of foreign workers in the land of the queen has doubled in the last 10 years to 3.8 million. I’m not sure yet whether this is the primary fact that irks those shouting about it – or its the fact that over 66% of these foreign workers were born outside the European union.
Seeing that folks are all getting lovey dovey and using every excuse under the sun to try and get some for Valentines day, I thought it might be good to get into the groove with a love song selection – or as they call it in the maze plantation, shika shika time selection.
In no particular order…I hope you enjoy what I’d play for you and your partner if I was your DJ for tonight….
1. My my my by Mr. Johnny Gill
Without a doubt, one of the best talents of the legends of love music…and a nice strong voice to boot. We need another legend to take over from Luther Vandross so hope he permanently comes out of retirement. This song reminds me of many moons ago when my girlfriend at the time loved Johnny Gill so much she said it was so bad that she could cut his head off and put it in the freezer just so she could see him every day. Needless to say, we did part ways…LOL!
2. Have you ever by Brandy
What a voice? This young lady will top my list of all time favourite vocalists any time.
3. Rock me tonight (for old times sake) by Mr. Freddie Jackson
Now how can this song not do it for you. I tell you, panties have fallen around the world coz’ of this tune. Good ol’ Freddie.
4. He is by Heather Headley
Ladies, if you’ve got a good man who loves you, this song is one to dedicate to him. Make sure you’re singing the lyrics out loud to him if you want to stroke his ego…just for Valentines day only, otherwise he’ll get used to it.
5. For you by Kenny Lattimore
Definitely a contender for the Capital FM (Nairobi) “Lie like a man” gag….any guy who sings the lyrics of this song to a woman on Valentines day (as opposed to any other regular day) is probably lying like a nonsense…but hey, if it gets you into her panties (shrug) do what you have to do to make her happy on Valentines day.
6. I love me some him by Toni Braxton
Good ol’ Toni. Always dependable when it comes to unleashing some serious love songs. She’s got a dirty mind too if she wants to…but a good old fashioned slow jam to get you into the mood anyway.
7. Last night by Az Yet
Plucked right out of the Nutty Professor Soundtrack – without a doubt a song that doesn’t need explanation or one that masks intent with mob mooshy lyrics. It simply talks about being inside of you…go figure….And by the way, its intresting to note that President Obama’s “Chief of Stuff” (or his bodyman) has the same name Reggie Love, as Eddie Murphy’s alter ego in the Nutty Professor movie…but I digress. Last night it was.
8. Stroke you up by Changing faces
A favourite from back in the days of my mis-spent youth. Lots of memories from the days when R Kelly and Keith Sweat were in their element as producers…The sort of song that used to give guys boners hadharani.
9. Someone to love by Jon B featuring Babyface
Without a doubt one of my fav songs…and another one that reminds me of the more romantic days of my mis-spent youth and self perceived prowess with them of the fairer sex. A good tune to romance to.
10. Red light special by TLC
This song is just outright dirty…LOL! Decent enough if you’re not really paying attention – but with lyrics like “I’ll let you touch if you wanna go down, and I’ll let you go further if you take the south route”…yeah, further to the red light special – go figure.
Now if you don’t get laid with all these props on Valentines day…..Hhhhmmmm!
The images and anguish of Australians this weekend as we all watch whole towns in Victoria being obliterated is a poignant moment that fails to leave the mind.
My friend 3TOC thinks that mother nature is very angry with us and it’s hard to argue against that when you consider how the elements have conspired to unleash the most fierce and devastating bush fires that Australians and the world have seen in their lifetime.
I sincerely hope that those affected will eventually find some peace and begin to understand and come to terms with this tragedy. This is a powerful reminder of how precious life is and how we take a lot of things for granted.
Call me paranoid, call me sceptical, call me a conspiracy theorist – but I think I’ve just been tagged by big brother with the complicity of Google and the staff at blogger.
This is how I know:
I write a lengthy perspective article on a current issue about civil rights that is quite controversial and involves outright violation of an individual’s civil liberties.
I publish the post and blogger confirms that its published.
I view the post and Internet Explorer tells me that it’s not possible to open my blog and that the operation has been aborted.
My blog is live because I can test all the other permanent links from other posts and I can view them this way
I publish a test post (without any controversy or drama) and it publishes and views fine
I edit my hot post and remove certain keywords that are being watched – usually for the sake of national security) and republish the post, and I get the same blog aborted message.
I publish this post
Lakini some people jomoko yawa….
How did we get to the stage of stopping bloggers live from publishing controversial material that IS a matter of civil liberties – and because they’re potentially embarrassing? And the damn frigging news is in the public domain….
They start with pretences of applications that will be useful for straight forward things like finding out where your child is if they’re late from school, or informing a friend of your where-abouts if you’re somewhere strange…yada yada yada.
But Google wasn’t going to stop at zooming in on a village in rural Kenya with Google maps….Step in Google latitude. The absolute full proof way for the wife to find out whether a dodgy husband is with the “enemy”.
It’s no secret that conventional warfare goes hand in hand with propaganda war – and managing the flow of information is as critical as the battles on the field themselves.
However, when it gets to the stage of threatening someone with 14 years in prison as a guest of Her Majesty Aunt Liz, for the crime of providing accurate and necessary information that needs to be out in the open, then the old adage of truth and freedom becomes as cynical as the concept of an honest politician. Granted, the chap in question is an officer of some decorative rank in the British army, but his interpretation of the often touted “Official Secrets Act” deserves another medal on his breast plate, if not a pat on the back.
Clearly, we’ve all known that NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan have been feeding us bullshit about the numbers of civilian casualties, in Bush’s disastrous so called ‘War on terror’. In their (the military and politicians) misguided enthusiasm to test the understanding of the public’s intelligence, they often want us to believe that their superior military precision and advance weaponry and rockets can manoeuvre corners, navigate traffic lights, pass through open windows, and knock on an enemy’s door before exploding just when the enemy opens the door – therefore keeping civilian casualties to a minimum.
Lt. Colonel Owen McNally clearly had a morality attack (or maybe he was just getting some on the side and gave in to pillow talk – who knows…) – it gets to a point where the motivation for unleashing the info becomes an irrelevance. He has been arrested by the British authorities for revealing very ‘sensitive’ information to a female human rights campaigner he befriended in Afghanistan, alluding to the true numbers of civilian casualties in the Afghanistan war.
The public have clearly been lied to about the true numbers of civilians dying. Pray tell why we want to throw the book and entire legal cabinet at someone who feels that keeping this info from the public is wrong. Slapping the official secrets act as a blanket all clauses gagging order for someone who is telling the truth about the true cost of this war is more repugnant than the tactics of the so called bad guys that they’re chasing out there.
Read McNally’s story here
Apparently, American generals are also pissed off like a nonsense. Funny, they have enough trouble minimizing the Dover effect by keeping the numbers of military body bags arriving back in the states away from the glare of the public…without some British loose cannon on deck unleashing true numbers of civilian casualties.
It was only a matter of time before Jo Public decided they were going to do and say something about the now almost cliché “credit crunch” cop out that we all seem to hear so often. Credit crunch has become a by-word for excusing any manner of transactional inactivity as if in a shruggy shoulder kind of “we’re all screwed by the financial system” sort of way.
Everyone is complaining that they’ve got too much month left at the end of the money, folks have seen their life savings disappear faster than you can say Lehman Brothers, and the skeletons of a greedy and unscrupulous financial sector are surfacing at the top of the sea so fast, it’s almost like someone down there is chucking them loose with a machete. businesses of all manner are struggling to meet cash flow requirements and sales targets, forcing redundancies and business failures.
Last week may have seen the manifestation of the ordinary person’s anger, frustration, anxiety and fear that is brewing and simmering below the surface, as the so called economic experts and gurus, as well as world leaders continue to dither, fumble and engage in significant intellectual masturbation under the guise of saving the world’s economic order and financial infrastructure. It’s not uncommon to hear news of another world leaders, or financial ministers G8 or G20 meeting, or some EU organized meeting where dignitaries and experts just seem to do little but threaten us with a solution to this economic mess. A mess which I might add that for lack of a better explanation, they have been perpetrators of, either knowingly or by the incompetence of their inaction and omission.
A few examples of the manifestation of this frustration by the public:
Last week in the UK, wild cat strikes erupted all over the country, prompted by a decision to bring in hundreds of Italian and Portuguese workers as contractors in favour of British workers, for a £200 million plant at the giant Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire. Unions claimed British workers never even saw the job applications, let alone get a chance to compete for the jobs.
Protestors at the Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire – UK
In France last week, over a million people united in protest in a strike that highlighted their dissatisfaction with the way the French government were handling their economic woes. Most people in France are angry that the banking and financial sectors got a get out of jail free card worth billions of Euros, while the ordinary man on the street and his business continue to languish. Not that France is a stranger to mass strikes and protests, but this one last week was sanctioned by over 75% of the union movement.
French protestors in Paris at last week’s strike
In Russia, protesters are calling for the head of Vladimir Putin and the resignation of his government. The economic slowdown in Russia is triggering a wave of public discontent that most political commentators fear will destabilize Russia. Following the success of last week’s protests, the communist opposition party is threatening to mobilize masses around the country to express their anger and dissatisfaction about the economic slowdown.
Managing strikes and street protests, Russia style
If there’s anything you learn from strike action and protests, its that it provides an environment for a snowball of activity to easily take hold and assume a life of its own. This is a constant factor that doesn’t change – evident right from the first known strike in history by workers of the Royal court of Pharaoh Ramses III of the 20th Dynasty in 12th century BC in ancient Egypt, to the brazen tactics of the sailors in London in 1768 who ”struck” and sabotaged the sails of ships at dock in protest (incidentally, the derivation of the term strike) – through to the teamsters in the 1930s wielding pipes and clashing with armed police in the streets of Minneapolis, to the more recent strikes of yesteryear that have brought public services to its knees.
In most if not all of the examples of strike action of recent generations, governments, authorities and employers have had some control and leeway in developing solutions that would talk down the strikers and protesters into considering acceptable arrangements for their grievances. What is glaringly obvious, and actually very dangerous in this case, is that governments, industry and whoever might care to call themselves a stakeholder haven’t got tangible solutions that will get us all out of this self inflicted quagmire.
Most of the so called experts, politicians and economic advisers are spending enough time navel gazing and plotting solutions in their smoke filled conference rooms in the bubble of 5 star hotels in the west, that its hard to see how they continue to muster the nerve and the audacity to stand in front of cameras and proclaim to the world that they’re fixing the world’s economy. Forget the fact that most of these punks had a hand in getting us credit crunched in the first place. As for fat cat bankers of the city and wall street who think this is just a blip and continue to live like it’s a cycle that is natural and will correct itself, the words arrogance and impunity come to mind – but I digress. This is not the post to dedicate to our anally retentive banking fat cats.
What is worrying is that it will only be a matter of time before the anger, anguish, frustration, anxiety and desperation of the people who have to face high food and fuel costs, stare at unemployment’s ugly face, and battle with the constant dilemma of finding new and legal ways to feed their children –will explode up onto the street with the citizenry of the world demanding that their governments do something about it. Some will say that this explosion of public anger is not a badthing after all – its our taxes being shafted in the name of fixing the economy.
Matter of fact, it’s already happening in scenarios that people may not necessarily connect, but the scenarios are part of the bigger picture of public discontent.. Case in point, the situation with teachers in Kenya, who don’t even know whether they’ll be paid next month – let alone get arrears in salary owed to them, while bandits and crooks masquerading as Kenyan members of parliament defy all expectations of convention and refuse to pay tax – and even legislate their refusal to do so. Did I mention that these punks are the highest paid legislators in the world taking home over US$17,970 a calendar month each, tax free and while teachers can’t even buy lunch at school, pay for their transport and feed their families?
