Black Stars

Win or no win, hats off the Black Stars. Looking forward to cheering them in South Africa next time.

Oh, and here's some South African Ghana vs. USA humour:

A friend of a friend (of a friend's friend friend) says he'll cheer for France in this World Cup because he believes that a truly African team. The French team's the face of the United Nations of (West) Africa. While this theory is almost as appealing as it is amusing, I'm going to shamelessly go back to cheering the Brazilians, as is the age old Ethiopian tradition. If they continue to play as haphazardly as seen so far, it should make for one helluva ride.

Why Sience is Cool

Or better yet, why scientists are the coolest.

Street Children

BBC photojournals the lives of street children in Addis:

"Across from the main post office, there is a sewage drain. It draws little attention.

Thousands of people walk across its steel bars every day without giving it a second thought. This is good for Mohammed and his friends. They do not want their home to be discovered."

Used to be good for them until it became good for you, BBC.

The Many Faces of Tobian

Tobian in this blog is for e-Tobian or eTobian, otherwise written as Ethiopian. Or maybe it's the Amharican for a citizen of Tobia , a Tobiawi or yeTobia sew ...

Whodathunk Tobian is also a language currenlty spoken by about 100 (50?) indivuduals from the island of Tobi in the Phillipine sea.

The language tree goes something like Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central Eastern, Eastern , Oceanic , Central-Eastern, Remote, Micronesian, Proper, Ponapeic-Trukic, Tobian

It also seems:

Both Tobi Island and Helen Reef have been invaded by Monomorium destructor, a so called ‘tramp ant' species that is widely dispersed by human commerce and trade. The ant causes extensive economic damage in human settlements by damaging fabric and rubber goods and removing insulation from electric cables. On Tobi Island particularly communication means (phone cables) and solar electricity systems are under threat but humans also directly suffer from the insects’ aggressive nature. The resident population in Tobi Island has decreased significantly due to disturbance by this ant.

Well, good luck and sabuho.

...

A year since Ethiopians dared to demand that thier votes be counted.

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Facelift coutesy of this Flickr collection.

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wusedegn yalsh we de gas light
ibete molto gazna isat

(something i can't hear) soderen banay
shower iniwsed biret miTad lay

indachi lale shenqata lij
min yaregal kitfo bombolino in'j

Dereje & Habte

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Chachi : things you don't see people in habesha libs do on TV often. The song's been around for a while, but I'd not seen the video.

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Funny Meles interview. Again, this has been around for a while ... but if you've not seen it and you are too deep in love with Meles ...

Favoritelines : "yetNawa mist nat?" & "Inae I don't worry. Yichin libs man indesefat alwaqm. Des alech'N. Gezahuat. Lebeskuat"

Tintin and Tutu

At first when I saw the headline I thought, 'surely, it must be another Tintin'. On BBC it said, "Dalai Lama awards Tintin and Tutu".

So I clicked on to see who on earth named their kid Tintin. To my initial relif, and subsequent amusement, it turned out it was good ol'Tintin of Tintin in Tibet , an adenture which, over half a century later, won him this award.

So the Delai Lama honored Tutu and Tintin in the same berath?!?! Ha ha! (well, the award was for the Herge Foundation, established in
memory of the author of the Tintin cartoon adventure books ... but that's a minor detail you don't get to until 10 years into the news article.)

In his speech, Archbishop Tutu paid tribute to his friend.

"I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama," he said. "Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: 'You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian'?"

Hmm ... I wonder ... what did Tintin have to say?

I liked Tintin. I guess I still like Tintin for old times sake. But since growing up, looking at some of the pictures, I'm less amused by the depiction of black characters. They're so ... Bamboozled!

So Confusious!

I’m confused. If it’s not something to do with everyday drudgery, it’s to do with those high school (I hope!) kids who smoke pot in the laundry room beneath my apartment (what a choice of location if you don’t want to piss off strangers. ይጨብጨብቸላው), or with rare, but sufficiently convoluted US immigration laws … or something.

ለምሳሌ… when they say, “Those here for longer than five years -- an estimated 7 million people -- could earn legal work status immediately …”, does it mean that one had to be illegal for all of the five years? I’m wondering because suppose I hurried to violate my visa status now, and I have been in the US legally for longer than 5 years, do I still qualify for the amnesty? Alternatively, can I lie and claim that I lied when I first got my visa to enter this country, which will make my visa void, and thereby make my more than 5 years of stay in this country illegal? How about if I became illegal for the next five years? You see …I’m confused … unless I’m confused about being confused.

This, I believe, is the state my fiend calls ‘confusious’. I am confusious!

“ሌላስ?”, you say. I’m confusious because I don’t understand why EPRDF decided to ban all these blogs. I mean … no, I don’t mean … really, just why? Consider how many people have access to Internet. A diminutive proportion of the Ethiopian population. Consider what kind of people have access to internet. I would say Addis Ababans, in general, the same people that voted CUD whole heartedly into almost all their constituencies.

IMHO, all this is what habeshas aptly describe as, ‘He started from the ground and wanted me a thing!”. The government opened and stirred a perfectly content, ተከድኖ የሚንተከተክ ዶኬ. Now all this ሽሮ is መፈናጠቅing around, international journalist groups yapping, apolitical blogs are preaching censorship avoidance techniques, and amidst my confusion I have to go back and ask the basic question: all this for what? If Addis Ababans aren’t busy reading these websites and agreeing, they’re busy writing them. Are Addis Ababans about to change their minds and love EPRDF if they read or wrote less? Um. No. So ለማን እና ለምንድን ነው censorshiፑ?

Anyway, the fact that EPRDF tried to do something about the blog situation means that it’s tickling some people in the government the wrong way … which naturally leads this former Addis Ababan to the conclusion, nay affirmation, that something very worthy is being said here. Something so worthy that perhaps it should be spread beyond the Diaspora and internet-accessing Addis Ababan populations. These blogs should be made into a (bi-)weekly newspaper.

Between Aqumada’s poetry and essays from funny, yet misogynistic students of medicine, Enset's unconventional wisdom, Weichegud’s acerbic commentaries, Ethiopundit’s unrelenting politi-economico-blows, Seminawork’s ፍቺ of ወቅታዊ ጉዳዮች, Bernos’s … well, ምን ያልታሸ መድረክ ቀረ?, Meskel Square’s የአደባባይ ምስጢር, CoffeeChilliSun’s ጸሃይ አያስሞቁ ፤ ቡና አያስጠጡ ፤ ቃተኛ የሚያስቆርሱ መጣጥፎች … እንዲያው ምኑ ቅጡ … herein lie the perfect fodder for a pot luck publication.

I say, somebody should select articles from the past week (with the consent of the bloggers, of course), print it, and sell it cheap, darn cheap (well, no need to pay reporters, after all) just in case those who cannot afford time & money for Internet in Addis miss out on the best of የተወገዙ bloጎች.. .

No?

Yes?

No?

Maybe?

Curiously, I’m now a lot less confusious. Really.

Got my route laid out and my mind is clear
Got my pen and my pad, gonna get it all down
'Cos words are a road that lead outta town