Oscars...

Chris Rocked the place, the set was beautiful, i actually enjoyed it quite abit. MSM (Mainstream media) has covered the highlights. Chris Rock looked rather dapper, Morgan Freeman was eloquent and you know how he oozes absolute cool, i could bathe in his sweat. The comedy was the best part ofcourse. There was a bit where Chris interviewed several black people at the magic johnson theatre, and ofcourse most of them had not watched most of the oscar nominated movies. Why is that? I really did not even know i would pose that question. On the African front, a south african movie called Yesterday was nominated. For a synopsis please click here. The camera spent all of 2 seconds on Don cheadle's face, i wished i could have seen more. Jamie Fox, awesome ofcourse.

On the other hand, you do not give an opera type song to someone who sings 'I need a soldier...and he carries big things if you know what i mean' and expect it to turn out well. Beyonce does pop very well...Opera..not so well. IMHO, Denyce Graves would have been spectacular. At one point Chris Rock referred to 'chemistry' between Josh Groban and Beyonce when they were singing 'believe'. Oh dear, by the end of the song, i was atheistic or perhaps agnostic...No it wasnt chemistry it was a major voice mismatch. I may not be much of a musical person, but it just didnt sound right. Counting Crows sounded great with the song from 'Shrek 2'. the producers really tried to funk it up, in some sense they succeeded, but giving Beyonce 3 songs was kinda much. (she must have an uber agent). All in all organized and i just might watch next year...if they get David Chapelle to host!!

Cool Black eyed peas vid featuring characters from

the game SSX3. They animated the characters to dance to "Lets get it Started" Click on Christina Millian's Mtv2 video mod,When the player window pops up, click on the one just below Christina Milian's 'dip it low'. Towards the end of the vid, check out the part where the bigfoot looking character does 'ripala'. The Video Mod for "Shut Up" is also preety cool.

this is crazy...reprehensible and just down right wrong

Have you seen this?I found the link on one of the blogs from dailykos.I cant seem to find the bloggers' name(sorry) Its reprehensible! I almost puked. Its soo ridiculous.
They have Kwame Nkrumah listed as a radical. Sergio De Mello was killed in Iraq and he is included there...Apparently you cant be feminist either. Gloria Steinem? Oh crap. This is nuts. I could go on for awhile, but i wont. Do people really believe this crap?
It is edited by David Horowitz who is apparently a Fox News buddy buddy, besides other things. Look at all this stuff about him from Media Matters for America.

Tax breaks in Kenya for people who use solar...

I remember a conversation i had with bankelele awhile back about tax breaks for people who use solar energy. He pointed out that some of the clashes right now and in future will be about water. I cant seem to find the email, anyhoo, i was still thinking about how solar energy can help lessen dependence on charcoal and fuel for energy. If you are away from home and want to really help people at home, set them up with solar energy. My grandma loves it sana. About 500$ coz you need a really good battery, luckily my anke and bro did the wiring themselves, so i dont know how much it would cost to have it installed mara moja. Will post more info later.

Q and A on investigation of valerie plame leak.

The Question: Roves' involvement with Gannon seems highly plausible. I wonder if he will be nabbed for it[leaking identity of Valerie Plame as CIA agent in retaliation of Joe Wilson's discrediting of the Niger, yellowcake story], he just seems so powerful, almost invincible right now.The good thing about America is that there are processes to follow inorder to get to some measure of the truth, Watergate...Irancontra...etc. Can that process be counted on or has it been infiltrated by the GOP and corrupted beyond repair? It makes me think of the case of Tom de lay and the ethics committee ousters...
The Answer by JJR: In the case of Watergate, you had a Republican president and a Democrat controlled house and senate. If at least the Senate were controlled by Democrats right now, our government would work alot better. You would have senate committees with subpoena power digging into the Valerie Plame situation and the Jeff Gannon thing. As it stands, the committee chairman (who is a republican) has to set the hearings and issue the subpoenas to investigate any issue, thus, nothing is going to happen or, if it does, it will be a watered down job. Special prosecutor for the Valerie Plame case, Patrick Fitzgerald, is from Chicago and has a reputation of being somewhat independent but, as long as the reporters involved and all the republicans in the know keep quiet, I'm not sure how he cracks the case. I give the guy some credit though as he has subpoenaed everybody in sight and has forced at least one reporter to jail for failing to talk. The republicans are doing so many other things highly damaging to the country and of questionable legality that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Recapturing the senate for the democrats would absolutely huge. The backstop in the American system when the government does not do its job of policing itself is the independent press. Right now Bush (with the aid of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and his crowd, and the Jeff Gannons of the world) absolutely have the mainstream press cowed. Look at the Dan Rather situation. Amazingly, Jon Stewart at Comedy Central has become something of the standard carrier for the progressive media. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC has recently picked fights with Brit Hume and Bill O'Reilly at Fox so he is in our corner as well. It was the progressive bloggers who broke the story about Jeff Gannon. The internet is an amazing tool to aid in struggles such as ours. I really believe that ordinary people such as ourselves talking about the issues on blogs and messages boards helps to raise the profile of these important matters. Keep blogging!
Joe

It is not clear what will happen or what has happened Robert Novak who broke the story on valerie plame. Explainer in Slate does a great job of explaining.

Kenyans Away from Home(KAFM) Blog Meme

Kenyan Blog Meme. I had to look up the definition of meme! - apparently its an idea, behaviour or usage that spreads from one person to another within a culture. now that i know...

1. Favourite Kenyan food:
(a) Any Meal prepared by any kenyan mum visiting anyone. And i do mean anyone
(b) Nyama choma
(c) Goat from

2. Favourite drink:Malibu with Red Bull, or any kind of rum for that matter I have heard of some people drinking 'Thangaray" as in Tanqueray gin.

3. Favourite TV programme: Daily Show with Jon stewart. Hands down the best fake news tv show ever! fave segment 'This week in God'. I love the sound effect of the 'god machine'. Chapelle show is another, though they've repeated the old seasons so much we know tyrone's words by heart..'I smoke rocks' etc.

4. Top Four Kenyan away from home hang outs: I dont hang out much...


5. Top holiday destination: Kenya Rondo Retreat Centre in Kakamega.

6. 3 ____ phrases you use a lot
(a) Ha lala! (is that arabic? I use it alot though)
(b) Oh Crap!
(c) aargh (typically when i happen to watch fox news.) check out this inauguration bit from ifilm..

7. Three/ Four things about Kenya/kenyans that make you go 'hmmm'
(a) Asking each other how long they've been here, (whichever place they are at the time) and running out of things to talk about within 5 uhh make it 2 minutes, then proceed to look at each other with empty silence.
(b) The weng/shrub rolled into one. Nothing like it. Especially a Kamba weng/shrub...and a kale pronouncing 'thirty' but trying to sound American. It ends sounding like "Thurdee".
(c) The obsession with luxury cars we can ill afford.


8.Three things non-Kenyans say about Kenya/Kenyans that make you go 'hmmm'
(a) You are so articulate!

9. Three things about Kenya/Kenyans, which non-Kenyans ought to know.
(a) Africa is not just about animals and stuff you see on discovery channel or those commercials of Save the children. We need help yeah, but we also have urban cities with people and a rich culture! If you are in the US there is a great series on PBS that chronicles real lives in Africa. It includes the animals too.
(b) Please enunciate! sometimes we cant figure out what you are saying, and some of us will just nod and say "yes" rather hesitantly yet you did not pose a question.
(c) The media here sucks. Fox news resembles KBC during the KANU years when Kenya had a dictatorship. Really, its uncanny!Please read other international media too! *note that we know some of you already do...
(d)We drink- Alot

Complete this sentence: I am Kenyan because...i have 2 pairs of bata bullets, i wear them proudly and well the kenyan thing is fundamentally genetic.
And finally list 3 members of the Kenyan Blog Ring you would like to see complete this quiz. Chanuka, Kenyanpundit, and Mshairi.

*i edited some identifying info...(i might be getting kidogo paranoid but the whole point of blogging is to remain anonymous. plus i did the meme in haste and inadvartently included some answers from bankele. sowwy! .)

Another movie about the Rwanda Genocide

premiered Thursday at the Berlin Film Festival. "Sometimes in April" full article from reuters. It is more graphic than hotel rwanda.

Reconstructive surgery for 2 kenyan boys

whose penises were cut, allegedly for a portion to cure AIDS. The story in Reuters... "The adolescent boys, from a remote region near the border with Uganda, were mutilated after being given drugged food or drink by strangers.
"They had attacked them to cut off their penises to sell ... for making a type of potion which according to a local belief cures AIDS," Doctor Pedro Cavadas, from the Levante Rehabilitation Center told radio station Cadena Ser."

I am at a loss for words.
The outcome...
"Cavadas, who noted this type of attack was rare in Kenya, said the boys had been transformed by their surgery.
"They are fantastic, happy, their faces have changed and their lives have changed. They don't have to use a catheter ... and they can live like children, messing around and being naughty."

lifestyles of the rich and the

roidy . The book by canseco, summarized. If you are a chiefs' fan and especially like Tony Gonzalez (Gonzalez is not implicated in the juicing)
"When his daughter Josie was still an infant, Canseco's estranged second wife Jessica, the Hooters girl, disappeared. He called a friend at "one of the airlines," who managed to track Jessica to Kansas City. When Canseco finally reached her, Jessica said she had left him for another jock: Tony Gonzalez, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Canseco was grief-stricken. He walked to his bedroom closet and pulled out a Street Sweeper machine gun."

more on nuclear waste dumping in Kenya

Article in Allafrica from standard.Hmm Now we have a former minister who bought the land then leased it to the 'oil exploration company'. Follow the money. It will be interesting to know who this minister is. Anyone have a clue? Its so aggravating when reportage is so mysterious. Again, no pictures.

He said the lobby was also investigating claims that a former minister in the Kanu regime bought the land and leased it to the Americans for dumping purposes.

www.xinhua.net of china covered the story. Surprised? Its actually a decent news org, it reports on stuff some media here wont.

The word tribe as noted

in Koigi Wa Wamwere's book, Negative Ethnicity from Bias to Genocide, he quotes Professor Bethwell A. Ogot of Maseno University in Kenya.

The definition of ethnic groups as "tribes" is a concept that was racist and ahistorical in the sense that it regarded the various nationality groups as being static, exclusive and homogenous. In this sense the concept of a "tribe" was therefore an intellectual abstraction, a mental invention of the colonialists that was intended to convey or portray the picture of a people without government, without culture and without history, in order to justify colonialism.

This was interesting because when you hear 'tribe', it doesnt really connotate people . But when you hear community...its really about people. Koigi wa Wamwere proposes the idea of 'negative ethnicity', to show ethnic hatred and Bias. He does this by examining language.

From the Gikuyu or kikuyu - nduriri which is a neutral word but can be used to affect dislike of foreigners. As in "Mwana Wakwa ndekuhikira nduriri" - My daughter shall not marry a foreigner! i.e an inferior foreigner.

From Luo - jamwa meaning uncultured, uncivilized and inferior.

O.k other words from other communities? Anyhoo, the point is, awareness of how African's perception towards other tribes...oops communities forments issues. There is a rich history of Africans before colonialism, it would be interesting to examine intercommunity relations before The Scramble for Africa. The little that i recall from school involved some form of government in the community level, and issues being settled though inter community dialog , though there were 'wars' or 'skirmishes' i rather doubt it was at the scale that is exhibited by places like Rwanda or Darfur. What changed? Hopefully his book will explain this. The distinction between 'tribalism' and 'ethnicity' seems important though. Professor Ogot's words gave me pause though.

On a totally unrelated front...Has Oprah had a facelift? Her cheeks look alittle stiff, i just hope in 10 years she doesnt end up talking like Barbara Walters with her perpetually pursed lips.

what a

chauvinist. There are many more terms to describe his comments...besides vulgar...aargh niaje tuna watu kama hawa in positions of power? Kwanini??

articles and papers from AU conference in Dakar

Mahmood Mamdani and others...
http://www.au-ciad.org/CIAD_NEW/main%20paper.htm

more on rwanda and aftermath in the congo..the genocide continues

Article by Michael Kavanagh More happening now in Congo, a continuation of what happened in Rwanda. When the Hutus genocidaires were driven out of Rwanda, they went into congo and are linked to part of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) What a misnomer. Here is a detailed report from crisis web dated 17 Dec 2004. Recent article in Allafrica indicate a more refugees fleeing the eastern DRC into Uganda. I am just beginning to study the issue. Meanwhile, AU is paying lip service (Or is it just too broke?) BTW, africans in the diaspora need to contribute to the AU too, the site is actually not too bad, there is an anthem too! A section to contribute online (ala' the red cross and UN sites) to specific programmes would be great, please send them an email for them to consider this,i couldnt find a pr contact on their site, i sent an email to Directorate of Administration dadmin@africa-union.org if you come up with a better contact, please comment...
I dont feel like contributing (though meager) to the UN and see them move slowly or have whatever needs to be done be vetoed by the big 5 members of the security council.(Do note that i still like the idea of the the UN and they have had some major successes in conflict resolution. I believe it is an important instituition, though not suited? or unwilling or handicapped in dealing with African issues) AU seems to be the hope that Africans can look towards in terms of resolving uniquely African issues. Currently reading Koigi Wa Wamwere's Negative Ethnicity, published by Seven Stories Press. In the first chapter he notes that Negative ethnicity is one of the leading causes of death in Africa (manifest in terms of conflicts rwanda, kenyan tribal issues etc). I dont know...negative ethnicity sounds soo loaded, wacha i see what he is saying...

Nuclear Waste Dumping in Kenya..questions

The exclusive appeared in the standard..
The article on Allafrica
The sites in question are Modica, Shanta Abak and Amuma in Garissa District, Gal, Adow and Arbajahan in Wajir and Elwak in Mandera District.
Another article by Boniface Ongeri and Victor Obure
All the articles talk of an American Company, but does not name the company nor its location in the US. Why is this so and can we find out which company it is. What fora can be used to address this issue, International Court? One thing for sure, when dealing with America, go for the companies' checkbook. Some high powered legal machinations would have to occur.Lets start with a time frame, the announcement by moi was made in 1983. I've dug in Lexis nexis and did not find anything yet,(nothing in the energy and utility news) i will continue digging using other sources.
A visit to the region reveals that the company excavated deep trenches and later covered them with concrete slabs.
Residents who were employed by the company as casuals during the purported exploration confided that they would be unceremoniously laid off whenever the depth of the trenches reached a certain level.
"The top company managers would herd us from the site whenever the project reached a certain stage," says Hassan, who was one of the casual labourers.
He further intimated that huge loads from trucks would be offloaded at the sites just before the labourers were laid off, fuelling speculation that the company did not wish the locals to see the contents.
More pictures from the standard would be helpful because the public needs to react to this in order for something to be done. Besides, it would not be for naught if the pics made their way to international media (Oh that's a joke...laugh hertily o.k! it wont be covered in america, maybe by bloggers, but cnn wont touch it unless the story gets too big) Recall the reaction to nestle decades ago, when the public found out about their illegal practices in africa involving baby formula, i.e telling women formula was better than natural mother's milk- It changed how they do business. Ofcourse i am assuming that an 'American Company' is actually a company and not...
Nema also heard that residents in the affected areas had suffered from strange skin illnesses, throat cancer, barrenness and giving birth to children with deformities. Their livestock too gave birth to strange young ones, they claimed.
The pics that are available by standard online edition were of equipment dug up i wonder if there were pics in the print version) No pictures of the people affected...aargh. The land does look quite barren.

no sagging in VA, propaganda from Talon news..

excerpts from the CNN article...
The state's House of Delegates passed a bill Tuesday authorizing a $50 fine for anyone who displays his or her underpants in a "lewd or indecent manner."
...Del. Lionell Spruill Sr., a Democrat who opposed the bill, had pleaded with his colleagues to remember their own youthful fashion follies.
The bill's sponsor, Del. Algie T. Howell, has said constituents were offended by the exposed underwear. He did not speak on the floor Tuesday.
Spruill and Howell, also a Democrat, are both black.

Watch out, next year they will be out to get your 'whitey'

On other matters check out the propagannon on www.mediamatters.org and more on dailykos, interesting stuff by susan g interview with joe wilson of wilsongate. Did they ever find out who leaked his wife's undercover work to the media?

Hotel Rwanda Thoughts

Hotel Rwanda is the most powerful and significant film I have seen in decades. The one thing I was struck by the film is the need for Africa to be independent. The complicity of france in the genocide that occurred is something that Africans need to note quite clearly (If you watch the film there is a telling scene involving a phone call from Rwanda to Belgium to France, back to Rwanda). The same complicity that China has in Darfur because of Oil (I will find a link to a great summary by a Nation correspondent later)is mind boggling. Africans just need to realize that no one cares. If you do not care for each other and take care of each other, others will continue to use your differences to undermine your society, kill your people (or rather have you kill each other – its cheaper for them ofcourse) and rob you blind. Rob you blind since your eyes are fixed on your neighbor. The film is another wake up call. Africa needs to rely on itself. Africa needs to be cynical. We haven't woken up have we?