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Showing posts from October, 2015

The State of the Media

The Parliamentary Service Commission Bill 2015 is yet another attempt by the August House at legislative subjudication. The most disappointing part is the media coverage though by both The Star, Kenya and The Standard Media Group. Their selling point is the proposal that MP's wives should qualify for diplomatic passports. The secondary sections also highlights, in passing, the fact that: 1. It establishes the Parliamentary Fund, where all money allocated to Parliament, including gifts, donations and grants, will be paid into. It also ensured autonomy over all the money it gets and it gets to keep all the unused money instead of handing it back to the Treasury as is the norm. 2. It seeks to curtail freedom of information if the request is “prejudicial to national security or the interests of Parliament.” It proposes a fine or imprisonment for anybody who leaks the confidential information which they will only be able to access after swearing to represent the confidentiality

From Your Castle Up Above.

"In 1999, a poor Colombian told me that his eighty two years had finally dulled his fear of violence which had tormented him because he had been robbed many times; once they'd cut his belly open-I  requested  opinion of the rich-He clenched his fist and said:Oh,they don't do nothing for the poor people! The ones who harmed him were poorer than he-and still he hated the rich." This is an excerpt from Poor People by Michael Voltmann searching for a different view on poverty-seeking a first hand account from poor people all over the world. It's an interesting adventure through India and a few other countries through the slums and farmlands asking this a few simple questions: Are you poor? Why do you think you are poor? Why are some people rich and some people poor? The first lesson I have learnt is that the only people who really understand poverty are those swimming deep in the dirt-lavished,sewer-decorated,waste adorned abodes of splendid misery. Those are th