Just Ranting Nothing Much
Patience is a virtue that my personality tends to lack quite acutely. My patience last all of two seconds. If you have ever been in line ahead of me and hesitated or balked when it came to your turn, or had your credit card rejected while at the grocery store and you were in line ahead of Magaidi, it is possible Magaidi said something about the shape of your head. Besides this, I have no ‘poker face’. When I’m thinking happy thoughts i’m probably smiling. I could not bluff you or whoever you’re sitting close to right now. When I’m making completely irrational and illogical conclusions about how that massive head can be so empty when you whip out your check book for a $2 purchase, i’m probably biting my lower lip to stop me from saying ‘nice things’ about you and yours. In the short period it has taken me so far to write this, someone has called me once, and I ignored it. They called right back again. How bright. Since I ignored your initial call, i’ll pick up if you call twice. Only babygirl and close family get express call pickup from me all the time. Those other schmucks can wait, or i’ll call you back. I don’t like spending much time talking on the phone, especially not that gossipy chit chat to ‘pass time’. A telemarketer called me on my cell phone to offer lower rates on my long distance home phone service
Call came through at approximately 08:31:02 Zulu.
Call answered at approximately 08:31:07 Zulu
Call terminated at approximately 08:31:09 Zulu
I have more missed calls than anyone I know. As of this day, I have lifetime calls of 168:51:42 on my phone which I have had for close to 10 months now. This means I spend on average approximately 17 hours on the phone each month. I don’t know if this is too much based on the average cell phone usage in the United States, what I do know is that I spend way less time on the phone than baby girl. That and an assurance from this study that my cell phone habits will not skew my reproductive capabilities. I received a no-holds-barred invitation to be in on a phone conversation between babygirl and her close friends after err..uh voicing unfavorable opinions on spending too much time on the phone. We estimate she spends 30 hours each month. Now that will be quite interesting.
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Media Hits - Legal Implications
Very few investigative bodies can rival the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in its thoroughness and investigative abilities when it comes to unearthing evidence in accident cases. Their expertise is valued even in the remotest of cases occurring in areas where they have no jurisdiction such as the KQ 507 Crash in Douala Cameroon or the TAM Airlines Airbus A 320 crash at the Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo Brazil. Called upon to investigate an accident involving of two news choppers that collided and crashed while covering a high speed chase in Phoenix, Arizona, the NTSB team will be cautious and meticulous in trying to bring to light reasons as to what led to the mid-air collision. The investigative team will take nine months to complete the reconstruction of the choppers, simulate various aspects of both flight paths in order to determine what happened and issue its recommendation. What we know preliminarily however, is that one of the choppers was rising and barelled into bottom of the other leading to both crashing. As always, our prayers are with the victims’ families.
So how did we get here in the first place? How did ‘getting the news first’ become such a hot point for news channels the world over? Is the thirst for breaking news so great? Perhaps, but clearly the chase for the ‘latest breaking news’ in this modern age has meant that newsworthy happenings’ are streamed live to your medium as they happen within minutes. This means prolonged news bits such as burning buildings and in this case a high speed car chase are covered via cell phones and/or news crews covering the ongoing story on-site or from news choppers trasmitting live streaming images. Generally, news choppers fly in such infrequent patterns and below radar thus communication with Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) is minimal at best. This low flight path and the difficulty and dangers of vertical maneuvers make helicopters more susceptible to accidents than the regular airplanes.
Related to this incident, the DA has chosen to charge the high-speed chase suspect with 4 counts of murder as a result of the crashes. Perhaps this is to send a message to other would-be high speed chase suspects that they will be prosecuted for incidents that arise as a result of their actions regardless of whether they caused them directly or indirectly? This is sure to cause great debate in the legal community. A conviction, which at this point would be a stretch, if somehow a judge were to let the charges stand, would be almost impossible to get IMHO. How, pray, is the suspect directly responsible for a pilot error on a chopper covering a chase he was involved in? How do you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the driver was implicitly involved in the crashes of both choppers? Talk about jurisprudence absurdity!
Vick in the dog house:
There is little doubt that Michael Vick, star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons football team’s case will end up in a plea bargain. Anyone who has read the 18 page indictment brought against him and four others for allegedly - note: allegedly being involved in a dogfighting operation that included transporting pit bulls across state lines for illegal prize fights, will no doubt be left gagging at the level of brutality that some of the dogs mentioned, faced. Few pages in the 18-page indictment will cause more damage than paragraph 83 on page 17 which reads:
“In or about April 2007, PEACE, PHILLIPS and VICK executed atleast 8 dogs that did not perform well in “testing” sessions at 1915 Moonlight Road by various methods, including hanging, drowning and slamming atleast one dog’s body fo the ground”
Predictably, pet lovers have come out in arms against Vick protesting against dog fighting and fueled by images being portrayed in the media from incidents of dog fights. Nike and Adidas have pulled merchandise bearing the native Virginian’s name from the shelves. The National Football League (NFL) has wisely ‘requested’ him not to report to training camp pending their decision after a review of the case. And predictably the NAACP came late to the party, made the most noise, least sense and got on TV. Did we not learn anything from the Duke Lacrosse case?
Legally though, Michael Vick’s lawyers will no doubt be overly concerned about the illegal gambling charge for which he could end up getting more time than for any of the dog fighting charges. I’d like to know what questions will be asked during jury selection, if we get that far. The guy should just cut a deal.
Racism in Jena, LA:
If you thought that racism in America is going away any time soon, think again.
Beer Tales
Those of us who occasionally enjoy the good brew will undoubtedly be familiar with such brands as Corona, Heineken, Bud Light, Budweiser, Samuel Adams, Michelob light, Coors Light amongst many other beers. I was mildly surprised to find out that Corona, a flagship brew of the Grupo Modelo in Mexico is the number one imported beer in the world. It is also number one in sales in the continental United States. My guess would have been Heineken. You can easily see why; by my estimates, approximately 60% of Kenyan beer drinkers prefer Heineken. I actually believe we spend more cash on Heineken than we send back home to help folks as a group. That’s an issue for discussion at some other time though. Take a look at any photos of us cavorting at one of our many party places. There will be the ubiquitous two-finger salute (what is up with that!), the guy clumsily holding a heineken flashing his brightest smile without a care in the world, scantily dressed women and the camera man might capture the odd jokestar with the “Nairobi City Council” t-shirt or the Jamhuri high school uniform.
My interest in beer was sparked by a conversation I had with a Mexican lady friend a couple weeks ago at a get together. I had just gotten myself an ice cold corona, you know how we do, trying to put the slice of lemon in. She approaches and tells me I’m doing it wrong. Apparently, you need to cut the lemon slice just thick enough to slip into the bottle and hold it upside down till the sucker gets to the top (bottom). We talk mostly about similarities between Kenyans and Mexicans. I say Mexican food is as close to Kenyan food as you’ll get out here unless of course you go to a predominantly Kenyan restaurant such as Safari in Washington DC or Nai Lounge in Dallas, if you ask me. The rice and beans, the way they make chicken, what they consider salsa in some cases we would call “kachumbari”. The Mexican lady, I’ll call her X, says Kenyan food is very easy to make, turns out she can make chapatis. I am not a big chapati fan but from what I tasted, they were pretty good. She can also make “mokimo” which is my favorite dish.
We talk beer again, this time though I interject that Kenyan beers are far much more superior in quality and taste. From memory I am able to recount several Kenyan brews such as Pilsner Ice, Tusker, Tusker malt lager and others. Like Kenya, Mexico has myriads of local brews in addition to the aforementioned Corona; there is also Tecate, Dos Equis, Estrella, Noche Buena and the likes. I sampled Dos Equis once, I believe I will not be sampling Dos Equis again. I had always been a Pilsner Ice drinker till I went back home and tried Tusker malt. My boy Wawesh introduced me to it when I visited and I loved it. Having gotten back to the states, I decided to perform research on what Kenyan beers were available here. I was surprised to find that Tusker was actually being sold at a liquor store close to my home, I bought some. This was indeed the worst tasting beer I have ever tried. It rivals comparably to sisal juice (not that I have ever drunk sisal juice and any stories of such an event are just malicious lies from those out to finish me). Of course there are worse tasting beers in my opinion. If you drink bud ice, mad-dog 20/20, B-40 Bull Max, Old Milwaukee, Bootie Light, Busch Lite or the crap that is Miller lite you might want to try something else.
A Hidden Message?
I had a dream I have to share with you all. In this dream I was giving directions to a pilot! Apparently he was lost somewhere and had to make an emergency landing on a beaten path off a dirt road. I was there (somehow)! Apparently he was supposed to be flying to a small town in Florida. Details get abit fuzzy here. I can’t remember the name of the town. I remember though distinctively pointing out to him, “You’re headed in a southwesterly direction, you need to turn around and head East for 125 miles and then turn northeast. It should take you about an hour 15 minutes to get there.”
I have never really been one to think dreams have any meaning; I’m not that superstitious to begin with anyways. If they did, to me, and I believed in it, I’d have a hard time trying to figure out what this one meant. Maybe there is some sort of hidden message. Whatever the case though, I thought this is one of the more weird ones I’ve had.
Gender Sensitivity & Education
I made a comment this weekend to a friend after a discussion on gender sensitivity that left her quite upset. I told her that as long as society views women’s problems as just that - ‘women’s problems’ and not society’s problems as an extension, then all these ‘women’s caucuses’, ‘maendeleo ya wanawake’, ‘educating the girl child’ initiatives championed by women would continue to lag in the back burner of society’s ‘hot stove’. I went on to explain that such causes had a delicate balance and needed a well-calculated approach, which I honestly don’t think we have. My bone of contention was the fact that all these societies are run exclusively by women, for women. I explained that it even seemed hypocritical to advocate for ‘gender equality’ while sitting on a board whose membership comprises exactly 12 women.
Her retort: No one understands women’s problems better than women themselves.
Am I missing something here?
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About
Magaidi.com is the journal of the African kid. A diary of sorts, a collection of musings and a discussion point on the way forward for the motherland.
