Opalo's weblog

• zuma defends polygamy at davos

  Posted: January 28, 2010, 7:53 pm by kenopp

  Yesterday South African president Jacob Zuma defended polygamy at Davos, adding that those who think their culture is superior have a problem. This is absolutely ridiculous. The fight against polygamy is not a cultural war. It is a war against the unfair treatment of women. It is very irresponsible of Mr. Zuma to set such a [...]

• in defense of swahili

  Posted: January 20, 2010, 5:16 am by kenopp

  Update: the ministry of education has disowned the directive discussed here. Apparently there are still a few sane people under Prof. Ongeri’s docket. Now if only they could also tell us where they took the free primary education money… When it comes to Swahili I suddenly go nationalist. I think there is something to be said [...]

• some good news from Guinea

  Posted: January 18, 2010, 10:16 am by kenopp

  Abubakar  Diakite, the guy who almost assassinated Guinean dictator Moussa Camara, should be handsomely rewarded. Well, unless he was actually responsible for the massacre of more than 150 pro-civilian-rule opposition protesters last year in which case he should be tried for crimes against humanity and locked away for life. Either way his actions may have [...]

• please do away with the “omnipresent smells of donkey dung”

  Posted: January 14, 2010, 3:23 am by kenopp

  Big business and economic development in “pristine lands” is awful. Especially if you grew up with the comforts of indoor plumbing and general over-abundance of the purest hedonistic-capitalist kind. It is only when you have the choice to pop in and out of “tropical obscurity” that you would find the intellectual courage to defend a [...]

• KENYAN MPS TO GET PAY HIKE

  Posted: January 7, 2010, 12:35 am by kenopp

  Can someone please tell me how these guys sleep at night given that they run a country with the following stats????? Infant mortality: 54.7 deaths/1,000 live births Life expectancy: 58 years Female literacy rate: 80% Urban population (crude measure of peasantry rate and level of industrialization): 22% of total population (2008) PER CAPITA GDP: $ 1,600 Posted in africa Tagged: Corruption, [...]

• so what exactly do they do at the AU? seriously

  Posted: January 7, 2010, 8:29 am by kenopp

  If the African Union has a PR section then they should all be fired. I am beginning to think that all they do at the AU is convene every year to elect the worst dictator among them as president – Gaddafi is the current president. Well, on top of issuing statements defending the actions of [...]

• more on economic development

  Posted: January 7, 2010, 8:05 am by kenopp

  In line with the theme of my previous post here is a link to Chris Blattman’s blog. This is the kind of stuff that should be bugging economic planners in capitals all over the Continent. How do we grow medium-sized to large corporations that are gonna create jobs? Of course corporations have problems too. But [...]

• jua kali will not take us where we want to go

  Posted: January 6, 2010, 11:57 am by kenopp

  Sometimes I wonder whether instead of the US paying the Ethiopians to invade Somalia it might have been better to have the Islamic Courts Union run the country. Well, at least for some time before incentivizing their being less predatory and misogynistic. Most politicians the world over have a price. Especially once they have tasted real power.

• Happy New Year!

  Posted: January 1, 2010, 4:34 pm by kenopp

  Happy New Year to all of you out there. Let’s start off the year by looking at the one thing that the Continent needs really badly: economic growth. Uganda’s New Vision reports that African business people have positive expectations for the new year. Responding to a survey by Africa Practice most of them believed that intra-continental [...]

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes