A Thought ~ 18: Claims

It goes without saying that, in scholarship, the claims that you make must be evidence-based. Citation is the first step in this journey. You enrich it with well-distributed paraphrases and quotations. But your voice must be clearly heard, as well, through it all.

A Thought ~ 10: Radio Waves

The invisible side 
Of our youth 
Was pure radio waves.




NOTE: More on Radio Waves

A Thought ~ 9: Nature's Protector

If you are on top of the food chain, 
As you are,
You can certainly choose what not to
Eat, or kill -- or let die
At your own proverbial hands.
You are, 
You were born to be, a protector.
Be one!

A Thought ~ 6: Playing Your Song

People shouldn't (be expected to) play your song -- and won't want it played for them -- out of a misplaced empathy with poor you (though parents and family and some friends may show such blind love and mean it, at least for a while). And you shouldn't help anyone along that dreary path any longer than love can bear. They should play it because they honestly like it, or want to hear it -- again and again, even.

To like it, they must first know it -- having heard it. They might of course like it in anticipation, having heard of it from people whose tastes, and perhaps sentiments, they trust; and even from you. 

Better to hear it directly, though, so as to be certain about what is to like about it. And so it must fit into a genre that appeals to them -- though the ear, whose twin is the more judgmental eye, is the abode of a more generous and accommodating sense. Generally, then: to hear it, one must know where and how to get it; and one must have the means and the inclination, and peace of mind, to do so.

A Thought ~ 5: The Twerk

The twerk, which (as so often happens with the things that draw our keen attention) precedes the word which comes to frame it, is a fertility dance for a species without the luxury of its own radiant feathers. 

But the roles are reversed and one-sided in this unprecedented dance. And so it is a 'false' expression of powerlessness. False, if you think about it, only in the tradition of the snake-charmer -- who remains by virtue of his 'flute' the cobra's dedicated 'master'. 

This dance of the ages reminds us of something that's deeply settling: that civilization, all civilization, is at its core the progeny of fertility. Even pretenders to the throne, any throne, know this. And so should all those made stiff by skin-deep prudery. Still, everything must be done with finesse, and without an excess of frequency or undue preoccupation.

A Thought ~ 3: Protests and Violence

Protests, it seems to me, don't last; 
not as long as many may want, or fear.
But violence and killings can, and have.
Are the post-election street marches
across America now
going to fizzle according to this script,
or are there, here, the makings of the Mother
of All Protests?

A Thought ~ 2: Messenger and Message

The messenger is neither 
the message nor the medium, 
but the sourcer.

A Thought ~ 1: Prejudice and Ignorance

Much prejudice arises from ignorance;
ignorance of who one really is,
and of what kind of place
everyone has been before.

Africa Singapore Business Forum: A Thought

An ad in the April 2016 edition of Forbes Africa magazine has just caught my attention. It announces the 2016 edition of Africa Singapore Business Forum, scheduled for August 24-25. My first reaction was: What a cocky (or perhaps naive) deflating of the Africa brand!

As the saying goes: Africa is not a country, it is a continent. Singaporean organizers of the forum are in obvious denial of this fact. Singapore is an Asian country, but it is not Asia -- contrary to the forum's publicity stunts. It is a success story of no mean repute, yes; but, importantly, it is an island nation! It is, indeed, a city-state -- with huge ambitions. Even from outer space, Africa is not an island. Its potential and ambitions are obviously larger than Singapore's, but as yet decidedly understated

I have subsequently read elsewhere that Singapore has been hosting this discrepant gathering since 2010. But Singapore has no capacity to push the African agenda, the way it must be pushed, in any consequential way, regardless of the island's history, annual growth rate or GDP per capita. It can only push its own, in a subconscious if belated sort of scramble. It can only feed off the African promise. So a little sense of proportion, in this 21st century, will do Singapore's business and thought leaders some good; as it will do leaders from those little countries of Europe that continue to imagine that they know what's best for Africa.

So let's be friends, of course, but this condescending frame of mind is not healthy for those it possesses.

Road to Goma: Haiku

Past Morendat, all
Thought turn'd, cleverly, to the
Unfinished journey.

It Was Morning Again: Haiku

I walked in shallow
Thought. ’Twas morning in Chin Ya –
Rain and fire crack.













[Nairobi: Jan 16 & Jan 22, 2005]