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AfricaOne night I was told, jokingly, by a girl I met here that I hadn’t fallen in love with the city because I had instead fallen in love with the other girl who was sitting at the table. As I recall it, the night was cool - but I doubt that was so - the night sky was inky with depth and the pavement terraza we were drinking beers at was lit with a wash of yellowy light. As with all things I have discovered here, the girl’s statement was at once an endearing fiction and the shadow of a fact. Wrapped up in my new towel and with my feet in my sandals, I picked up a toothbrush and found a tube of Colgate toothpaste in my drawer by my new bed. As I walked along rows of beds of so many students, I realised that I had arrived in a world so different from my own in the village of Amuru. The feeling was surreal and, in a single night, all my dreams seemed to have been fulfilled. Khira screamed in between sobs about wanting to learn no more from antiquated ways. Mahma hugged, "But, my jewel, you seem to forget that that's your sword over him - the proper Luo maiden, not another Europeanised African. With this sword you’ll either kill him or make him a man of surpassing achievement in men’s world, as well as in your home as your muscled infant and the father of your children. So." More When I read a BBC news phone text on the plan by the Obama administration to tie aid and diplomacy in the bid to protect the rights of homosexuals globally, I took a deep breath. Indeed, coming shortly after Nigeria’s legislature passed an anti same-sex marriage bill with a 14-year jail stretch for its infringement, you need not be a rocket scientist to know that while the US threat has global implications, its point is aimed at Nigeria’s heart. If my country’s government soft-pedals on its hard-line posture against the LGBT movement, other so-called underdeveloped, especially African, countries who loathe homosexuality will lose much of the steam in their rampage. The Sadness of Doctor Ouverez’s Violin, by Malcolm Cumming (S. Africa) Posted 11/20/2011He did not have far to run and he reached his house within minutes. By that time he was already soaked through, his flesh showing against the white of his cotton shirt. Water dribbled from the sides of his moustache as he fumbled in his pockets for the key to his front door. He burst in and quickly swung the door closed behind him, and panted, the water from his clothes already beginning to form a puddle on the floor of his living room. He flicked his hands to dry them and lifted the strap of the satchel off of his shoulder. Remarkable, he thought, a grown man afraid of water. His walk along the beach last evening had assisted him tremendously in replacing his anxieties with the fond memories of the past. Mombasa was, to use an ancient phrase of seafarers, where his ship had come in. Strolling casually with the ocean lapping at his bare feet, trousers rolled up, he’d remembered how by candlelight, moonlight and starlight, his child-goddess and him had chosen their live crabs and lobsters, had them grilled, then ate with their fingers, stargazing. Their first grand soir romantique. She’d danced with him to the tourist trimmed drums and instrumentals, laughed and smiled mysterious enchantments which, to him, rustled with the palm trees around them, and came in the Wagnerian waves of the ocean only a few yards away from them. More Sudan: The Carcasses in the Desert, Chapter 6, by Olatunbosun Adetula (Nigeria) Posted 11/27/2011As he ordered more beers in the restaurant, he suddenly saw her. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He thought it was a dream, but here she had come to the restaurant, so happy and so full of life. She came out of his dream and into his life, right there in Addis Ababa. The revolution raging through the Middle East and North Africa has claimed its first presidential casualty, and what a prize. The death of Colonel Mummar Gaddafi of Libya will undoubtedly be a source of indigestion to the strongmen of Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and other countries in that part of the world where the cosmos has been stood on its head by people’s power since February this year when an authority-ravaged youth set himself ablaze in Tunisia. I write this article with a heavy heart because, like anyone who grew up in Plateau State in those seemingly ancient days when it was a model of peace and multi-ethnic concord, I am at a loss for words. What brought Plateau State and its hilly, temperate-climate capital, Jos, so low? Why is the ‘home of tourism’ now the home of bombs and bullets? Satan’s new headquarters is in Jos. Tonderai turned and tossed around trying to get some sleep but none would come. The reed mat proved to be harder than any other night. It was ages before the rooster crowed and at that little sign of the crack of dawn, he leapt out of his tattered blankets and rucksack in hand, and he was out of the hut in a flash. He decided to bid farewell to his aged parents but later thought it was best not to disturb their sleep and with one final glance over the compound he made his way swiftly to the bus station. Bath didn’t believe that Ruth could survive the barrage of bullets that tore into her body. Had he known she would survive, he would have strangled her in a bad way. When they told him that Ruth survived and was in the hospital, he had gone to the place with Kabonski under the cover of darkness but they were stunned by the number of policemen and women that surrounded the big hospital.More Princess Kadet smiled smugly at the King’s statement and kept quiet for a while. “Father, I don’t need any other thing but the throne and the entire kingdom. I wish to take over the empire; I wish to be in control of the land. I no longer wish to be under you. I pray you grant my request”. Kadet said, as she watched the king curiously whose countenance had fallen. The king quickly removed his hand from hers’ and started coughing heavily. She was always going to be the death of me. I knew that the minute I first laid eyes on her. It wasn’t because she was exceedingly beautiful or because she fired my loins up the way my wife Shiku did when I first spotted her bare breasts as she bathed in a river. With memsahib it wasn’t like that. As usual, when our interests, our rights, our needs are unmet, there would be always upheaval in different ways. Pacific one or coercive one. For the oppressed Ivorian people, the gun was the ultimate solution to let their voices be heard. So an open war erupted in October 2000. That cool Thursday evening the previous two months, he was clad in a 3-piece dark blue suit wherein his tall medium-built stature fitted closely. A detailed look at him revealed his oval flat face. A lining of beard had been fashionably sculpted up around his lean lips, curving upwards to the earlobes. His hair was black and naturally curled. His black pin-pointed shoes matched well enough with the rest of the clothes. He sat squarely facing me, making me feel quite uncomfortable. It is January 1986. Mum is subletting this Bugolobi apartment from an uncle who has told her that she can live there as long as she doesn’t mind sharing the space with her second cousin, Kasongo, and making him one meal a day. Kasongo sleeps during the day, only waking up at night to go drinking in Middle East. He seems to have no money, no job, and doesn’t speak much to us. Mum thinks that he probably has a girlfriend who supports him, maybe a barmaid who lets him sweep up the bar after closin Gertrude exchanged pleasantries with her market colleagues as she scurried into her shed. She inspected the bananas that her son, Oche had displayed on the ware table before going to school earlier that morning. Satisfied, she dropped her handbag beside the long bench at the entrance of her stall and deposited her huge behind on a commensurate portion of it. The bench squealed in protest. The coup started a chain of events that culminated in the Nigerian civil war. May we learn from the past and arrest destructive trends in our country before they get out of hand.More Everything in Malindi starts with the wind. To know whether it is going to rain or if there is enough fish for the days catch we test the direction of the wind. For hundreds of years the sailors of the eastern lands harnessed the power of the winds to sail to the east coast of Africa. They found riches on the islands of Lamu and Malindi which gave rise to the great dhow trade. The northeast monsoons carried the small and big dhows the jahazis and mashuas to and from the Indian Ocean. Arab and Indian sailors traded spices, porcelain and cloth for timber, ivory and hides. Many of the sailors settled and intermarried along our Kenyan coast. It was the birth of our great Swahili culture… My name is Mulenga, which means painter, or creator. It is a common name for both men and women in Zambia. Why my father gave me such a name I have never asked. Perhaps my parents wanted me to be an artist, or an engineer, and if this is the case, then I have failed them, for am neither an artist nor an engineer. Instead, I am a primary school teacher, who is on his way to taking up a teaching post in the countryside. There is no doubt about it today: sexual failure among married couples is one of the most important reasons why the world is experiencing a serious breakdown of the institution of marriage. The problem - which afflicts both the old and the young struggling to live together as a man and a wife, has seen the world enter a state similar to the one that existed in the ancient Roman Empire before its collapse around fifth century A.D. Seneca, a great Roman philosopher living within the vast empire, reportedly said that his contemporaries “divorce in order to remarry” and “marry in order to divorce” My mother puts henna on her hair and massages potions and lotions into her skin, the fine lines around her mouth and her eyes. She looks young for her age. She’s not just attractive; she’s beautiful. Then she takes curlers and rolls her hair in until she looks like someone alien, a being from another planet, outer space. I found solace in empty rooms with books, other spaces, mostly internal and private like my journal or acting on the stage. I was a child actor. I replaced the rage that reached fever pitch in my household with elegant words; mouthing my way through monologues and Shakespeare that was my game. Feature: Nigerian literature predates Nigeria’s independence. As far back as 1789 Olaudah Equiano, a former Igbo slave, published his account of his life in bondage and in freedom. There were many other literary offerings right into the twentieth century, including those inspired by competitions organized by the colonial government. Then in 1952 Amos Tutola’s fantastic magical tale ‘The Palm Wine Drinkard’, which was written in an equally fantastic brand of English, put Nigeria on the literary map. The world began to see that the pen was being well wielded in Nigeria. US/Canada
Being proposed to had certainly done something to me and all at once I felt a sympathy with mothers who wanted to see their daughters profitably wed. I began to wonder what was the matter with me that I hadn’t fallen in love like the rest of the girls, and I wrote in my diary, “I don’t see why I’m not in love unless it’s just that I’m too childish and immature.”More "I know senora that your husband is to arrive soon." He spoke in soothing reassuring tones. "That is why I must treat your shoes now before he arrives. Fine leather such as the shoes will crack and eventually fall all to pieces without the proper care." He implored. "Please get them and put them in the basket and I will have them back to you within the hour." More For such indolence the Lord rebuked the older brother. “Because you always raise cane, both figuratively and literally, from this day forward you shall be known as Cain." More It was Friday morning and Milan had watched the spider spin its web for an hour while waiting for Detective Bowen and just as the spider caught the fly, Detective Bowen appeared as if from the web. Bowen gazed at Milan for a moment, then he introduced himself, "Detective Bowen L.A.P.D. Homicide, and you are Milan Tarvo?". More Suddenly a young lad shot out from a gap in the walls just behind Faheem and grabbed for his bag. He was known among youth of the area for removing money or jewelry without the knowledge of the owners, who would only notice their missing valuables next time they made a purchase or rested for the night. Coincidentally, Faheem’s nervous hand motion caught the hot flesh of the youth and gripped fast so Faheem could pull the boy to his side.More “This is a message for Dr. Cook. It’s New Year’s Eve—yes, I do know what day it is, Dave, and I know where I am--and I’m having my surgery tomorrow. I’m very scared, but also very excited. I’m sorry that you can’t be here with me, but I understand why it can’t be that way. And it makes me feel better knowing that you’ll be able to hear this, in case things don’t . . . you know, turn out..More The good news: Osama bin Laden is dead; the bad news: Osama bin Laden is dead. Rightfully, we are celebrating in America. We should. We’ve earned it; more correctly, our military has earned it. Let us not think or believe that there might not be repercussions..More Your footprint is smaller than mine, yes. But you have to start now and follow mine. If you step out of my footprint, you may step on the snakes or you may also fall down, because, if you step into my footprints, it means that the pathway has been paved and cleared from any danger. My heart pounded wildly as I ducked behind the stone wall. Tripping on my boots, I lay there in darkness waiting for the guards to come and find me. Why had I left the dungeon and risked my neck? Did life really hold that much for me that I would risk it?More As I watched TV in America today, and witnessed the culmination of many days of an unfolding demonstration of unity of a people and a nation to remove a dictator and a repressive government as leaders of their country, tears streamed down my face when the announcement was made that Hosni Mubarak would step down and relinquish the power he has wielded over the people of Egypt for the past 30 years. More Pro or Con Comments? Visit Authorboard The foundation in its rudiment form had been laid. All the areas had been properly measured and roped off. Essentially all the construction materials including the suitable substitutions had arrived. Christine’s interior décor materials had also arrived, so much, to the point that she needed a storage trailer of her own. More A fifth grade teacher began her first day with a new class. All the students were neat and well-behaved, except for Jack, a boy in the front row, who was slumped in his chair and seemed to need a bath. She felt annoyed by his lack of effort, and delighted in marking his papers all over with her red pen, giving him a big 'F'. More Some time ago, a mother punished her 5-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and she became even more upset when the child used the gold paper to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her mother the next morning and said "this is for you mama." The mother was embarrassed by her earlier over-reaction, but her anger flared again when she opened the box and found it was empty. More EuropeThe African continent has a particular image, a brand or logo, if one will, that does not seem to budge. People like Bono, Clooney or Bob Geldof who mean to be do-gooders only succeed in reinforcing the negative image of Africa while placing themselves at the helm as having good intentions and being humanitarian. Professional degradation is far from being humanitarian. While what Bono and Geldof do seems to count and elevate them as do-gooders, those for and to whom they do it – Africa and the Africans – only fall deeper into the negative zero label, to the “bad branding” or “hopeless logo” continent. Bad branding cobbled onto hopeless logo becomes a volatile mix, like saltpetre and water.More The British government is at the moment debating on whether to ban or lawfully forbid fashion designers who’ve in recent years come up with “sexy” underwear for girls from the age of 5 complete with padded bras (little women again, not little men!). Padded bras. So why were bras burnt once upon a time in the name of emancipation, feminism and freedom? Already the public debate is divided into BadMumsClub, ChristianMumsClub and GoodMumsClub.More Concerns about privacy, intervention of government in people‘s lives, growing identical concern from such intervention from large internet conglomerates such as Goggle and those who are or will follow in these footsteps as the world awareness weakens slowly, so enmeshed with the internet wonders prompts a question, that of widening up the public debate, a sort of democratization and globalization of the citizen of this global world as one and unique, without the inconvenient of professing or advocating openly rights supposedly acquired and granted by the constitutions of our democracies. More Fishermen and fish mongering types swarm the Quay. Larry can tell them apart by their dress. Fishermen engaged with their affairs, dressed in their thousand-miler Guernseys, with the usual knee length Sea boots, some in faded, well worn smocks others in oilskin jackets. All wore sensible, sound headgear, Greek fishermen’s caps and woolly rib hats de rigueur.More Fishermen and fish mongering types swarm the Quay. Larry can tell them apart by their dress. Fishermen engaged with their affairs, dressed in their thousand-miler Guernseys, with the usual knee length Sea boots, some in faded, well worn smocks others in oilskin jackets. All wore sensible, sound headgear, Greek fishermen’s caps and woolly rib hats de rigueur.More On the Burma Way, looking at the notice board. A Wanted poster up for the “Phantom Crapper”. Threats and much malign condemnations from exasperated pigs regarding his evacuation expeditions merely enhanced his popularity. More No clouds, no birds, no wavelets. Breezeless, unruffled, blue. The Mediterranean winged smoothly away to a clear, magnificent horizon. A broken horizon. Poised gently on the surface relaxed one of Her Majesty’s paraffin pigeons, settled agreeably upon her air bags with her aircrew settled even more agreeably upon her airframe. The aircrew a happy bunch having just ridden out a fall from the sky a la Icarus, with no wax to blame.More Brest, Finistère, Finis Terræ - end of the earth, Bretagne, Frogland. Fortified Naval town in an Atlantic Bay some 300 miles from Paris. The home of the French Marine, it’s landlocked and can only be entered through a mile wide opening, the Goulet, with a rock, correction, island, in the middle. The town is on the summit and sides of a projecting ridge and the entrance is decidedly fortified. It is a steep place and there are places only pedestrians can reach - a voiture free zone. The whole is built around a deep-water harbour..More Mid sunny afternoon on the Tagus. Tower of Belem reflecting limestone sunlight onto the muddy waters. First time here he imagined Magellan journeying past this bastion on his circumnavigating way, but a punch up in the Philippines did for him and he never made it back to see it complete. He must have seen the Tower’s beginnings in 1515; he didn’t sail away until 1519, allegedly. The old sailor did get a Strait named after him but would he be a happy soul to find a penguin bearing his name? What occurs there? Penguins are Antarctic beasties and Ferdy was never big on that continent. But, in mitigation, he has got a cloud in the stars..More In Germany a doctorate raises your salary 25% above those of others with similar jobs but no doctorate? Not only that. You also become an instant expert on everything – and I mean EVERYTHING. You’re the guarantee at the fund-raising gala dinner that the media will flock in and celebrities dip generously into their spending hearts; If Africans stop butchering each other for dirt, plundering the continent’s wealth and then stashing the wealth in economies outside the continent, rejecting to buy local home-made clothes for some cheap synthetics from “abroad” (read “inferiority complex”) Taiwan or China, we’d long be manufacturing our own Sunny PlayStation, pumping resources into the R&D of African tropical diseases in super labs in the continent and lending development money to the rest of the world. Latin AmericaThis article exposes some points of reflexion about the right to abortion as part of a human’s rights question. Therefore, it is important a deep understanding about the ways that this question have been thought in Brazil, where there are restricted laws and a high maternal mortality rate decurrent of unsafe abortions. The discussion that is intended focuses on these consequences of unsafe abortion. Furthermore, is present in this discussion the idea of sanctification of women as mothers in Brazil, and how this social construction influences the debate about (un)safe abortion. AsiaIncludes References, EndnotesSince its establishment, the United Nations has become a formidable force toward disarmament, demobilization, reinsertion, repatriation, resettlement, rehabilitation, and (re)integration (DDRRRRR) (Pathak: September 13, 2011:3) or disarmament, demobilization, and (re)integration (DDR) of the armed/military forces and the right sizing of military and armed forces as a whole. Advocating Civil Military Relations (CMR), Huntington developed the objective of civilian control theory, encouraging professionalism of the forces and subjective control for the autonomous run of their institution. Janowitz tried to minimize the difference between objective and subjective controls by defending military effectiveness and democratic civilian control, whereas Haltiner pursued political-military theory on the basis of civil, military, and citizenry elements, reducing conscriptions en mass. The Plot Thickens, in more ways than one, Chapter 18, BlackEagle Girls and The Quest To See, by Kenneth Mulholland (Australia) Posted 11/20/11
Includes Bibliography, EndnotesThe paper provides an overview of the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) practices existing in the world. It researches when and for what purposes the United Nations initiate DDR programs in post-conflict countries. It examines the scale and consequences of the various roles of ex-combatants, particularly the women ex-combatants in a transitional society. It aims to compare and explore some of the best and worst practices of DDR and militarized masculinity before, during, and after the violence. Secondary literatures mostly draw on to learn from yesterday, analyze to live for today, and encourage to hope for tomorrow. Managing the Boss is like managing one’s wife: one must give more than what one wants to get, but ironically, the wife afterwards thinks she has gotten less than she gave. “Then why the hell do I ever need to manage him?” you might be asking the author. Well, it is because he wants to be managed. Middle EastAbstract: At this point in time we, humans, have attained two symmetry axes. They are, due to repeatability myths, one over time, and the other due to human-screen interactions which make symmetry over personality. We need an engine which makes the surrounding’s capabilities available and at our disposal. We ended as a part of a mechanical existence, even our choices are taken according to a "game theory". It is a convergence-divergence point, either we choose to continue as humans or turn up as biological machines. Although we have not yet completed our first step, the engine, we claim reaching the theory of everything as. A new definition of energy is given and a new philosophy is presented. Herein is not a new formulation; it is a new understanding. Referring to the Islamic ontology of knowledge our current knowledge has an outside boundary we cannot overcome. This is out of scope however what is the end of programming, control and logic? Writing rituals. A word in English is a sense while in Arabic it is a wound. The ontology of “word” is the basic knowledge of telling us what words are acceptable. In Arabic practicality, while in English sensibility. Your words in English must make sense and this is common. If a word is wrongly chosen anybody can tell that Every time I try to reach the frontiers of an American writer I find it difficult. When I read a short story I feel how much I miss of reaching sufficient comprehension or suitable appreciation to the full ideas’ forms and meanings of certain expressions of the author. The last short story revealed to me more about my limited acquaintance. I found it swirling about a pointless subject. My conclusion was related to relevance not values. I stood up and left the story. How could I read about a boy who lost his pet? It looked for me a freak act. I began to think of the differences between us, who find difficulty in maintaining life, and those Americans who have strange subjects to write about. After discovering that there was nothing else to do I returned to the same story, to know how it could be completed.. Vocabulary and meanings are the mirrors of behavior. Can we imagine that all meanings of every word we say are bound to a story? How we learnt them and how their meanings were developed in our awareness? What is the effect of professions on the meanings that people pronounce; sometimes it is a simple side effect. Even puns appear part of the convictions of the speaker. Analysis of the narration does not reach only the vocabulary and meanings but extends to conduct and wisdom as lessons learned through different behaviors. ...our universe is actually exploding, what is not stated with its reasoning is that when we complete explosion, there will be no notice for our new off-state. No neighboring – what ever is it- recognizes our presence; we are so hidden that we make no difference. This is a warning I care not to reach its destination. They met each other in one of the Amman cafés. "Every time I call you, you complain about your work. Can I help you?" "I do not think that you have helped more than of my helpful theories." Here are some Arabians' threads that make it hard to gamble with his achievements in life. The biggest achievement is maintaining safety. I will be talking now about what not to talk about. The taboos that no Arabian dare to violate (this view is changing and the target of this article is to define and put a circle around it). "Gasoline tank... gasoline ...run…run…" the running man was shouting. At this stage people’s understanding worked no longer. It was too late for some persons because the screaming man himself got away and ran for himself without looking behind. He had done his role; the tank was delivered, but to the wrong destination. The tone has components and they are the attitudes (How much one likes or dislikes... ?) of the source (of the message) toward the subject and towards the target (audiences) and as it concerns attitudes, some people might want to hide them in certain ways founding themselves forced to give relative statements but surely not useful ones. The real tone might deviate from the apparent meaning of words. Attitudes toward the audiences (part of a tone) are how this deviation happens. Why do we appreciate logic so much in our minds while it is not so appreciated by things around us? Scientific natural laws are not the logical response – as we know - of things around us; nothing in our science say that. The true knowledge is taken by experimenting with things around us. I think that we should expand our imagination to see that there is some governing (will) which makes a link between ethical values and behavior of matter. The true knowledge is taken directly by experiments about things around us. If we find a breakthrough, then one can sit at his office or even in his bathroom and be assured what will happen somewhere out of new phenomena born in his logic, but is this yet accepted and - more - important is it logically possible? Either we do not know comprehensively what part of knowledge logic is and what really composes it, or there are no such restricting paths defined by something called logic. |
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