My Views on Nothing|Anything|Everything

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...

"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...

I have slowly discovered a few things. I control nothing, I really don't. The world owes me nothing. Bad days happen. Bad days will always happen. Take time, count your losses, mourn then get back up. Sometimes you feel like giving up. Find someone to tell you the reason why you shouldn't or be that person, yourself. Sometimes you have to be your own cheerleader. Ask for what you want. Say what you mean. Reliability is quantifiable. It's not just a feeling. It's actions. It's time given, it's being listened to, it's a surprise visit, it's that call at midnight, it's something, it's not just a feeling. Take time to call an old friend once in a while. It gives them the joy that you would get by hearing a familiar voice after a long time. Money really is just money. I was not brought to this earth to make money, I was born to make a difference. Money does help you exist, passion and satisfaction help you live. If your passion and ...

  TUSKEGEE AND GUATAMALA November 16 th 1972 saw the hurried end and closure in Macon County, Alabama of a syphilis research program more famously known as The Tuskegee Experiment. Researchers had intentionally not treated 600 participants who had syphilis despite the fact that penicillin had been discovered as a cure and was available, withheld information about penicillin and prevented them from accessing syphilis treatments available for the purpose of monitoring and documenting the progression of syphilis in human subjects, all under the guise that they were receiving free health care from the national government. The experiments went on for 40 years before a leak to the media eventually caused its demise. This may be arguably the most infamous biomedical experiment in US history. While researching the Tuskegee Experiment in 2005, Professor Susan Mokotoff found documents detailing yet another heinous experiment cloaked as research known as the Guatamala experimen...

This has been quite the amazing month in our political sphere and in Kenya at large. I really don’t know why comedians stick to the rubbery tasting tribal jokes when we have all this going on. Some amuse, some befuddle but all are part of our dear Kenya. Uhuru ‘big talk, no walk’ Kenyatta was at it again making a long-winded hollow address justifying the Anglo-leasing payment that will be(had already been) made. He took a swipe at the AG’s office for the failure and said that he has kept his stance but ‘was forced’ to make the payment otherwise we would not be eligible for the upcoming Euro-bond issue. The president who led a house committee investigating the matter back in the day had this to say about Anglo-leasing on April 5 th 2006- “I have no fear in saying that those individuals have no loyalty to this country but to themselves. They existed in the previous government and exist in the current one,” he said, referring to the Kanu regime under which the deal...

“Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.” ― G.K. Chesterton , George Bernard Shaw O, let him pass. He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. Shakespeare Nothing sparks more flames than discussions on life and death and perhaps the crux in this imperfectly weighing boat is our understanding of the nature and meaning life. This debate should include retrospect (looking at the cultures, traditions and norms that we held), the present (the extent to which they have changed and our willingness to re-draw the lines) and the future (the social, economic and normative effects.) The media, the purveyor of all things newsworthy (arguable) have for a long time portrayed euthanasia as an individual decision with effects on the individual only but matters of this magnitude may apart from being prone to abuse, have an e...

ROMEO O, she is rich in beauty, only poor, That when she dies with beauty dies her store. BENVOLIO Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste? ROMEO She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste, For beauty starved with her severity Cuts beauty off from all posterity. Romeo uses a metaphor of wealth and spending to suggest that Rosaline's vow of chastity is akin to hoarding her "riches" (her "beauty). By refusing to have sex and, therefore, children who might carry on her legacy, Rosaline is basically "wasting" her "beauty," which will "die" with her instead of living on in her children. Let’s move past the law and what we traditionally consider right and wrong for this particular discussion. Let’s talk about sex, condoms, contraceptives and abortion. Let’s talk about these dirty words our sanctimonious selves won’t even utter out loud as we read this. According to the Ea...