something to watch before you vote

Tags

2013, elections, Kenya

Here’s some food for thought, courtesy of the people at @TheWaziCampaign.

to my friend for whom I am very grateful

Tags

friends, happiness

Sometimes a person pops up in your life and makes you question yourself as a person. Sometimes they leave you feeling good about yourself, so much so that you actually strive to be a better person and all that other mushy ‘growth’ stuff.

I found someone like that. You know who you are. You make me phenomenally happy. Thank you very much.

Ernest Bazanye’s ‘The Ballad of Black Bosco: A Novella’

Tags

Bazanye, Black Bosco, fun, novella

Because I have awesome friends, and I’m an awesome friend, I’m sharing this story.

View this document on Scribd

More stuff by Bazanye on his site. Enjoy.

to every wheel, turn

I find myself putting out the fires that ideas start in my head, with the extinguisher of reason and the excuse of inability…

I’m caught somewhere between accepting the fact that I have an identity to actively maintain, and the desire to craft out a name for myself from the bricks and mortar that I regularly use as weapons when provoked. Rather than douse the ideas in petrol and watch them burn, I want to water them, watch as they grow into trees that flower and fruit in abundance, on which I can build a house of truth and substance, from where I can see the horizon, the line that marks the end, beyond which is a world of dreams and lights and colours so bright…
I want to think again, to put these thoughts down, to inspire…

"Freedom Ain't Free" - On The Integrity Bill and Online Freedom

Reblogged from Diasporadical:

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Before I start, R.I.P. to the many souls departed in the past few days. It's been a difficult time for the country without having to lose so many in such a short time.
And now to the matter at hand...

Let's talk about the impunity of our government in regards to the above issues and how we can tackle it.

Read more… 1,084 more words

#EK - ALL IS NOT WELL AT TEAM KENYA CAMP...

Reblogged from EDDY KIMANI:

By Elias Makori.

Kenya came into the London Olympics with high hopes, everyone confident that we would surpass the performance of Beijing four years ago where Team Kenya scooped six gold, four silver and four bronze medals.

But the pre-Games tension between the National Olympic Committee of Kenya and Athletics Kenya has thrown Kenya’s campaign to the dogs.

It is sad watching our sports officials, with their bloated egos, fighting turf wars at the expense of the country’s respected name and image.

Read more… 751 more words

Hopefully sanity will return,and the culprits behind this will be punished... But that is highly unlikely.

All the Epigraphs from ‘The Wire’

Tags

television, The Wire

“…when it’s not your turn.”
“You cannot lose if you do not play.”
“The king stay the king.”
“It’s a thin line ‘tween heaven and here”
“…a little slow, a little late.”
“…and all the pieces matter.”
“A man must have a code.”
“Come at the king, you best not miss.”
“Maybe we won.”
“And then he dropped the bracelets…”
“Dope on the damn table.”
“This is me, yo, right here.”
“All in the game…”
“Ain’t never gonna be what it was.”
“They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out.”
“What they need is a union.”
“If I hear music, I’m gonna dance.”
“They used to make steel there, no?”
“It don’t matter that some fool say he different…”
“Don’t worry kid. You’re still on the clock.”
“How come they don’t fly away?”
“The world is a smaller place now.”
“It pays to go with the union card every time.”
“I need to get clean.”
“Business. Always business.”
“Don’t matter how many times you get burnt, you just keep doin’ the same.”
“There’s never been a paper bag.”
“The Gods will not save you.”
“Why you gotta go and fuck with the program?”
“I had such fucking hopes for us.”
“Just a gangster, I suppose.”
“Conscience do cost.”
“Crawl, walk, and then run.”
“…while you’re waiting for moments that never come.”
“Call it a crisis of leadership.”
“We ain’t gotta dream no more, man.”
“We fight on that lie.”
“Lambs to the slaughter here.”
“I still wake up white in a city that ain’t.”
“I love the first day, man. Everybody all friendly an’ shit.”
“No one wins. One side just loses more slowly.”
“If you with us, you with us.”
“Don’t try this shit at home.”
“Aw yeah. That golden rule.”
“We got our thing, but it’s just part of the big thing.”
“Might as well dump ‘em, get another.”
“World goin’ one way, people another.”
“You play in dirt, you get dirty.”
“That all there is to it?”
“If animal trapped call 410-844-6286″
“The bigger the lie, the more they believe.”
“This ain’t Aruba, bitch.”
“They’re dead where it doesn’t count.
“Buyer’s market out there.
“Just ’cause they’re in the street doesn’t mean that they lack opinions.”
“If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.”
“They don’t teach it in law school.”
“A lie ain’t a side of the story, it’s just a lie.”
“Deserve got nuthin’ to do with it.”
“…the life of kings”

Shamelessly copied from http://post.ly/7z2gw via @mkaigwa

Africa is a Category

Reblogged from Africa is a Country:

Last year, BET introduced a category into their annual awards show called "Best International Act: Africa." I wasn't that surprised. We've been heading down the road towards a mainstream acknowledgement of #InternationalBlack-ness for a while. I chalk it up to the purchasing power and cultural influence that African immigrants in America and England have been able to amass in recent years.

Read more… 1,011 more words

What defines Africa to Africans outside the continent? Familiarity.

la liberté

Tags

freedom, life, random thoughts

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Freedom is an expensive commodity. A commodity that is traded over and over, that is compromised every once in a while to gain something that may be fleeting. That we yield our freedom to protest by clicking Yes to the terms and conditions without reading them speaks volumes.
All around the world, men live in slavery, belonging to others, to work until their fingers are worn to the bone. This sounds exceptionally sad, but it happens all the time. Men don suits and put silk nooses round their necks, spending their most productive years listening to orders and churning out the same stuff day after day. If you ignore the creative spirit long enough, it atrophies and you’re left with a shell…
Set yourself free.
But pardon the music.

slowly comes the light

Tags

25, growth, light

(or what to do with a quarter century’s worth of knowledge)
So another year has passed, and this one has not been uneventful. As has become routine, I’ll say a couple of things, sound smart, and then walk away.
Life is like a hill… The beginning is hard, where every day you see is a milestone to achieve, then slowly the climb becomes bearable… Eventually the peak is reached, the height of physical achievement, then the downhill stretch that’s either thoroughly enjoyable or absolutely terrifying happens…
Light is amazing. The smallest light can make a difference, even in the darkest night. Strike a match, and for that brief moment, as the flame swallows up the wood, you can see around you… What you do next determines everything. You could wait for the flames to work their way down to your fingers, blistering them and returning you back to the state of darkness you were in, or you could set something on fire, use the light to change things and eliminate the darkness for that much longer…
Darkness of the mind leads to death of the individual. The mind perceives things, but from the moment we are born, we start closing off the open mind. Cutting off the light leads to atrophy. And the light can’t be substituted for something else…
In everything, therefore, let your light shine…
The title of this post is from the Icelandic cellist Ólafur Arnalds, in the track ‘Hægt, kemur ljósið’

(or what to do with a quarter century’s worth of knowledge)
So another year has passed, and this one has not been uneventful. As has become routine, I’ll say a couple of things, sound smart, and then walk away.
Life is like a hill… The beginning is hard, where every day you see is a milestone to achieve, then slowly the climb becomes bearable… Eventually the peak is reached, the height of physical achievement, then the downhill stretch that’s either thoroughly enjoyable or absolutely terrifying happens…
Light is amazing. The smallest light can make a difference, even in the darkest night. Strike a match, and for that brief moment, as the flame swallows up the wood, you can see around you… What you do next determines everything. You could wait for the flames to work their way down to your fingers, blistering them and returning you back to the state of darkness you were in, or you could set something on fire, use the light to change things and eliminate the darkness for that much longer…
Darkness of the mind leads to death of the individual. The mind perceives things, but from the moment we are born, we start closing off the open mind. Cutting off the light leads to atrophy. And the light can’t be substituted for something else…
In everything, therefore, let your light shine…
The title of this post is from the Icelandic cellist Ólafur Arnalds, in the track ‘Hægt, kemur ljósið’