Its official, Kony is nuts

Joseph Kony has just granted an interview to a British journalist in which he claims that everything he does, he does on behalf of the spirits. The spirits guide him and give him instructions.

Its at time like this that I wish I had the powers to order an all out carpet bombing of his hideouts (which are known) and have this holy spirit rebellion business done with.

If the spirits give orders that lead to the suffering of thousands then I say we silence the medium.

For their sake, at least.

Better Luck Next time

The Black Stars have proved they can tussle it out with the best. See you in SA in 2010.

Does anybody else feel that the refereeing could have been better?

Finally

Finally the template change is done. Still a few things to sort out though.

What do you guys think.

More blog problems and other World Cup issues

 I am still trying to change my template and I thought , what the heck, while I am at it let style the whole thing up. unfortunately my knowledge of HTML is only as old as my knowledge of blogger (very limited). Therefore I do not want to run the risk of screwing stuff up.

Hopefully by tomorrow everything will be all right.

P.S. I am in a bit of a quandary here. Ecuador and England are going to meet in the second round. Ecuador, I want to proceed for reasons I have already expressed. England has been a team I have supported consinstently for as long as I can remember (except for a while after the 1990 world cup, when they "stole" the semi-final from Cameroon- I still curse Gary Lineker to this day).

I guess it will be like whenever I try to play chess or cards alone. I always end up playing for one of the "two" sides against the other.

Disclaimer: This was not posted with the intention of having Savage slit his wrists. It is the World Cup season and inevitably these things occupy most people's (scratch that) men's minds.

Blog Problems?

I inserted a background picture sometime back but it only appears in the preview and not on the blog page. I was surprised therefore when LA said that it was killing his eyes. Carlo also mentioned that she cannot read complete posts on my blog because they cut off before the end.

Since I do not notice any of these maybe something is weird with my blog when viewed from other computers. If there is anyone who has any problem viewing this blog let me know so that I can make whatever changes that are neccesary.

Football Racism?

This is not about Samuel Eto’o being insulted by hooligan fans or about black players having bananas hurled at them while they are on the pitch. It is about me and what role race plays in my making a decision to support a team. I will almost always support a team that is fully or majority black against a team that is not. Does that make me racist? I guess it does in a way.

International tournaments like the world cup are the ones that always bring this out in me the most. I have done little else over the past few days but watch the world cup and except for England (which I have a particular soft spot for) all the other teams I have supported vigorously have been dominated by black players.

My Ivorian chaps went and put up a great fight but fell to the Argentines after playing the better game and being victims of a dodgy offside goal. Earlier on the Andean brothers from Equador had humbled Poland. Then came the soccer warriors from Trinidad and Tobago who held Sweden to a goalless draw when everybody thought that they were going to get thrashed thoroughly. The Angolans also lost gallantly against their former colonial masters Portugal, who were expected to use Angola as a practise session for their meeting with Mexico. I can barely wait for the Ghanaians to take on the Azzuris tonight.

Like I was saying, all the teams I have supported above are made up mostly of black players and that is essentially why I supported them. The fact that they were playing teams I can find no reason for supporting may also be part of the reason. That I automatically decide I am going to support Ecuador, yet I have never seen them play outside the world cup beats me.

Every time I am pondering these issues I come across information that just makes me understand why. Take the Ecuadorians for example. Black Ecuadorians have for years lived on the fringes of society and are by far the poorest of the various groups in that country. They have been kept in that state by a kind of institutionalised racism that favours the white and Mestizo (mixed white and Indian) population. However, in 2002 when the predominantly black national team qualified for the world cup, everybody was falling over themselves to identify with the team. This publicity has in a small way made the previously “invisible” minority visible and slowly a few doors are being opened for them.

The same can be said about other black minorities. The fact that their brothers are doing well on the sports scene gives them a reason to be proud (think of the French world cup winning team of 1998). Something positive to claim as theirs after suffering daily racism and being painted as lazy, criminally-minded types that are a strain to other harder working members of society (think of the French world cup winning team of 1998). This applies almost everywhere from Brazil to England to Holland. The Black guys on the pitch are the heroes of their people.

Therefore, if sometimes I tend to support all the African teams regardless maybe its because I want them to go out there and win one for the continent. Let the headlines be positive for Africa for a few days at least.

So am I racist or is there a better term for my “condition”?

Friday night with Richard Pryor

For once in a very long time I was at home on a Friday evening and the odd thing was that I was comfortable and I didn't feel like I was missing out on the usual Friday "fun".

The reason for this unlikely state of affiars was a chance meeting with a DVD hawker, which resulted in me purchasing Richard Pryor's (RIP) "Live from the sunset strip" video concert. The hawker couldn't imagine why somebody would be interested in something he had been carrying around for ages and he practically gave it to me for free, considering it was original (I kept wondering who he might have pilfered it from and I felt a bit guilty). Those of you who live in Kampala might understand how hard it is to get such "non-mainstream" DVDs (without parting with 10% of your salary that is).

I first encountered Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions when I was about 10 and for years his movies with Gene Wilder were some of my favourite. Later, when I discovered stand up comedy, I discovered that many of the famous stand up comedians of today and the past (Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Dave Chappelle etc) were inspired by Pryor.

Pryor pioneered the in-your-face, honestly vulgar brand of stand up that has become the norm for many Africa-American standup comics. Stand up that is replete with the F-word and has a no-holds-barred take on subject matter. He was the first comedian to openly use the word nigger in his routine and he got a lot of flak for that.

While watching his 1982 concert on DVD I understood why he was at one point considered the funniest man in America. His honest self denigrating style is endearing. His routine on how he set himself on fire while freebasing is so funny yet it should be a sad testament to a life of excesses and self destructive addictions.

Pryor uses the search for his roots and identity to great comic effect. He describes his trip to Africa and how it opened up his eyes. After seeing black people going about their lives as bankers, diplomats, polticians (and drunks too) in their own countries, he vowed never to call any other black person nigger.

I will be watching the DVD many times again and I plan to start scouring all the bootlegging joints for any other such gems that they might ignorantly be too eager to dispose of.

I can see where you live

I dowloaded google earth a while back but I had not really checked it out until just now and I think I have found me another reason not to leave this laptop. Google earth lets you zoom in on virtually any location on earth and for the most part the pictures are of good resolution.

I have just taken a virtual tour of Kampala and its been quite interesting.

Check out Nakivubo/Newpark Area and Queens clock tower.

I just might be getting the layout of where one of you guys lives.