Kids and adults can write jokes that have negative consequences or cause social and political change. Emmerson Mnangagwa, "the crocodile" who took over when a military coup deposed Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe's President last November, may have comedians, Carl Joshua Ncube and the group called Magamba Network, to thank for his election on July 30, 2018.
Before voters go to the polls, the May 26 - June 1, 2018 issue of The Economist tells how the Magamba Network and Ncube and his white Zambabwean sidekick, Samm Monro, known as "Comrade Fatso," will ridicule the country's previous administration in "fun." Their jibes also are designed to prevent backsliding by those who continue to exercise power in the party that ruled with Mugabe. In addition, the laws that made mocking the president and restricting news reporting illegal are still on the books. Current opposition leaders claim they are now prevented from campaigning in some areas of the country and that their overseas Zambian supporters won't be allowed to vote in the July election.
While Mnangagwa tours outside Zimbabwe spreading the word that his country is now "Open for Business," even for white-owned farms and companies, back home, comics count on widespread mobile phone usage to keep gags, parodies, and satire working for change.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Travel Tip Reminders
Even though airlines are allowed to offer short times to make connections with different flights, travel experts recommend allowing two hours between domestic flight connections and three hours to make connections with international flights.
A US friend who broke a foot in Spain found out Medicare does not cover medical expenses outside the US.
Since poachers use social media photo tags to locate rare animals, safari travelers are advised to disable geotag functions on smartphones.
Might be a good idea to discourage a culture of begging by not handing out cash or goods while on vacation.
On a trip to a park where wild animals run free, stay in vehicles. Don't get out to take pictures like one visitor who was saved from attack when a friend called out to tell her a bear was approaching.
Be aware of surroundings when taking all photos. On trips, I've seen someone back up without noticing he was getting too close to the edge of a cliff, a giant wave knock down and swamp a couple, and a child about to step off a board walk into a volcano's flowing lava.
A US friend who broke a foot in Spain found out Medicare does not cover medical expenses outside the US.
Since poachers use social media photo tags to locate rare animals, safari travelers are advised to disable geotag functions on smartphones.
Might be a good idea to discourage a culture of begging by not handing out cash or goods while on vacation.
On a trip to a park where wild animals run free, stay in vehicles. Don't get out to take pictures like one visitor who was saved from attack when a friend called out to tell her a bear was approaching.
Be aware of surroundings when taking all photos. On trips, I've seen someone back up without noticing he was getting too close to the edge of a cliff, a giant wave knock down and swamp a couple, and a child about to step off a board walk into a volcano's flowing lava.
Monday, May 21, 2018
China Beyond the Headlines
Much is made of the contrast between the corruption overlooked in Russia and the crackdown on corruption in China. But other Chinese behaviors and practices deserve examination.
Stealing is rampant in China; the country's prohibition on tax evasion and gambling is evaded; and a form of discrimination is legal. Foreign companies expect their intellectual property rights to be ignored. Chinese companies contracted to manufacture products for foreign firms readily produce knock-offs of those same products. Even exchange students find they have to keep a sharp eye on their belongings or they will disappear. An engineering student from a U.S. Ivy League college, who planned to stay in China for a couple of months, left after a week when her caliper was stolen.
China is not exempt from tax dodgers. There is the revenue a company makes, the amount it reports for tax purposes, and the difference deposited in overseas banks or in Khorgos, an out-of-the-way Central Asian Chinese town on the Kazakhstan border. Along with film studios, media outlets, financial services, and over 14,000 other companies, Chinese movie star, Fan Bingbing, who earned $43 million in 2017, registered her company in Khorgos. Ever since China began a probe into tax evasion on June 3, 2018, Miss Bingbing has not been seen in public, and she has been fined $129 million. Her 62 million followers on social media correctly speculated she was caught in the Communist Party's anti-corruption, tax evasion campaign. She also might be a victim of President Xi Jinping's new morality crackdown on culture and behavior not in line with socialist values.
Gambling is illegal on the Chinese mainland. Beijing stopped approving new gaming apps created by China's Tencent tech leader and pressured Apple to remove gambling apps in its Chinese App Store. But casinos attract Chinese gamblers to Macau, a Special Administrative Region of China, and Chinese travelers freely gamble on overseas trips. "Justify," the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes is owned by the China Horse Club, as is "Audible," the horse that came in third in the Kentucky Derby. No doubt Chinese handicappers won plenty of cash, when "Justify" won all three legs of the Triple Crown.
Finally, the U.S. State Department's annual report on religious freedom called attention to the million Uighur Muslims China holds in secret re-education camps. In another example of discrimination in China, members of China's poor underclass, unskilled rural transplants earning little in city jobs, find they are victims of the hukou system. They are shut out of health care, housing, and quality educations in state-run schools. They also have been shut out of watching some short-form videos on Douyin, the app Chinese authorities find shallow and addictive and monitor for illegal or morally questionable content contrary to socialist values. Young Chinese viewers say they enjoy watching good-looking amateurs tell jokes, sing, and perform imaginative stunts on Douyin; it's fun and relaxing.
Stealing is rampant in China; the country's prohibition on tax evasion and gambling is evaded; and a form of discrimination is legal. Foreign companies expect their intellectual property rights to be ignored. Chinese companies contracted to manufacture products for foreign firms readily produce knock-offs of those same products. Even exchange students find they have to keep a sharp eye on their belongings or they will disappear. An engineering student from a U.S. Ivy League college, who planned to stay in China for a couple of months, left after a week when her caliper was stolen.
China is not exempt from tax dodgers. There is the revenue a company makes, the amount it reports for tax purposes, and the difference deposited in overseas banks or in Khorgos, an out-of-the-way Central Asian Chinese town on the Kazakhstan border. Along with film studios, media outlets, financial services, and over 14,000 other companies, Chinese movie star, Fan Bingbing, who earned $43 million in 2017, registered her company in Khorgos. Ever since China began a probe into tax evasion on June 3, 2018, Miss Bingbing has not been seen in public, and she has been fined $129 million. Her 62 million followers on social media correctly speculated she was caught in the Communist Party's anti-corruption, tax evasion campaign. She also might be a victim of President Xi Jinping's new morality crackdown on culture and behavior not in line with socialist values.
Gambling is illegal on the Chinese mainland. Beijing stopped approving new gaming apps created by China's Tencent tech leader and pressured Apple to remove gambling apps in its Chinese App Store. But casinos attract Chinese gamblers to Macau, a Special Administrative Region of China, and Chinese travelers freely gamble on overseas trips. "Justify," the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes is owned by the China Horse Club, as is "Audible," the horse that came in third in the Kentucky Derby. No doubt Chinese handicappers won plenty of cash, when "Justify" won all three legs of the Triple Crown.
Finally, the U.S. State Department's annual report on religious freedom called attention to the million Uighur Muslims China holds in secret re-education camps. In another example of discrimination in China, members of China's poor underclass, unskilled rural transplants earning little in city jobs, find they are victims of the hukou system. They are shut out of health care, housing, and quality educations in state-run schools. They also have been shut out of watching some short-form videos on Douyin, the app Chinese authorities find shallow and addictive and monitor for illegal or morally questionable content contrary to socialist values. Young Chinese viewers say they enjoy watching good-looking amateurs tell jokes, sing, and perform imaginative stunts on Douyin; it's fun and relaxing.
(Also see the earlier posts,"China's Plan for World Domination" and "China Stretches a Napoleon-Style Belt.")
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Peaceful Matchmakers
Can the marriage of Meghan Markle from the United States and Prince Harry of Britain revive matchmaking for peace? Perhaps their romance was inspired by the marriage between King Seretse Khama, Botswana's first president, and his British wife, Ruth Williams, the love story told in the film, "A United Kingdom." It is said, on Meghan's and Harry's trip to Botswana, they got to know each other, and rumors speculate the country is their honeymoon destination.
In earlier centuries, monarchs adeptly used strategic marriages to achieve peace. In the 12th century, Henry II of England picked up French Aquitaine by marrying Eleanor, not by going to war. And Sicily's heiress, Constance, joined the Hohenstaufen dynasty's holdings by marrying a German Henry.
By the 15th century, Henry VII, the first Tudor King of England, arranged his son Arthur's marriage to Catherine, the daughter of Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. His daughter Margaret was married to King James IV of Scotland, which led to a joint crown for Britain and Scotland in the 17th century.
By 2020, China expects to have more well-educated women than better-educated men willing to marry them. Could these demographics offer an opportunity for new peaceful alliances?
In earlier centuries, monarchs adeptly used strategic marriages to achieve peace. In the 12th century, Henry II of England picked up French Aquitaine by marrying Eleanor, not by going to war. And Sicily's heiress, Constance, joined the Hohenstaufen dynasty's holdings by marrying a German Henry.
By the 15th century, Henry VII, the first Tudor King of England, arranged his son Arthur's marriage to Catherine, the daughter of Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. His daughter Margaret was married to King James IV of Scotland, which led to a joint crown for Britain and Scotland in the 17th century.
By 2020, China expects to have more well-educated women than better-educated men willing to marry them. Could these demographics offer an opportunity for new peaceful alliances?
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Corrupt Government Turnaround in Angola?
In Angola, President Joao Lourenco attempts to join Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria, Adama Barrow in The Gambia, and Emmerson Mnanggagwa in Zimbabwe, the new leaders trying to break with a tradition that allowed African rulers to put their own interests ahead of their countries'.
After unseating Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola's president for 38 years, Lourenco began a crackdown on corruption rampant among the country's elite. Starting with the former president's rich daughter and son, he removed Isabel as head of the country's national oil and gas company, Sonangol, which exported $640 billion since the end of Angola's civil war in 2002 and charged Jose Filomeno with fraud for attempting to transfer $500 million from the country's $5 billion wealth fund through a London account.
Although the price of crude oil has rebounded from its 2014 low, as Africa's second-largest oil producer after Nigeria, Angola was still left with public debt, mainly to China, hovering between 65% and 80% of GDP, and missing billions, when Lourenco took office. To revive the economy, the new president no longer requires foreign investors to have local partners and asked the International Monetary Fund for advice. Suggested next steps include: an independent audit to discover where revenue from oil and diamond exports went, especially to overseas accounts. Locals share information about the corruption crackdown in Brazil, another former Portuguese country, that has sent former high-level officials to jail.
Additional needed reforms include: elimination of excessive licenses and regulations that provide bribery opportunities for those issuing or waiving them; improving living and health care conditions to reduce the country's high child and maternal mortality rates; stripping courts of political influence; freedom of the press and media, especially to report on corruption; and Angola's first local elections in 2020.
Meanwhile, in Portugal's other former African possession, Mozambique, the continuing 3-year attacks by a group of radical Muslim jihadists resulted in new beheadings in May, 2018.
While African leaders like Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebels who overthrew the Hulu regime responsible for genocide, and President Pierre Nkurunziza in neighboring Burundi intimidate their opposition and dictate constitutional reforms that enable them to extend their presidential terms to 2034, every indication of a gradual shift to responsible government by the rule of law on the African continent is welcome.
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After unseating Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola's president for 38 years, Lourenco began a crackdown on corruption rampant among the country's elite. Starting with the former president's rich daughter and son, he removed Isabel as head of the country's national oil and gas company, Sonangol, which exported $640 billion since the end of Angola's civil war in 2002 and charged Jose Filomeno with fraud for attempting to transfer $500 million from the country's $5 billion wealth fund through a London account.
Although the price of crude oil has rebounded from its 2014 low, as Africa's second-largest oil producer after Nigeria, Angola was still left with public debt, mainly to China, hovering between 65% and 80% of GDP, and missing billions, when Lourenco took office. To revive the economy, the new president no longer requires foreign investors to have local partners and asked the International Monetary Fund for advice. Suggested next steps include: an independent audit to discover where revenue from oil and diamond exports went, especially to overseas accounts. Locals share information about the corruption crackdown in Brazil, another former Portuguese country, that has sent former high-level officials to jail.
Additional needed reforms include: elimination of excessive licenses and regulations that provide bribery opportunities for those issuing or waiving them; improving living and health care conditions to reduce the country's high child and maternal mortality rates; stripping courts of political influence; freedom of the press and media, especially to report on corruption; and Angola's first local elections in 2020.
Meanwhile, in Portugal's other former African possession, Mozambique, the continuing 3-year attacks by a group of radical Muslim jihadists resulted in new beheadings in May, 2018.
While African leaders like Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebels who overthrew the Hulu regime responsible for genocide, and President Pierre Nkurunziza in neighboring Burundi intimidate their opposition and dictate constitutional reforms that enable them to extend their presidential terms to 2034, every indication of a gradual shift to responsible government by the rule of law on the African continent is welcome.
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Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Plan A Global Menu
McDonald's rotating menu of region-specific food items at its Chicago headquarters reminded me to incorporate foreign dishes, even if only rice and pasta, with domestic favorites, at home. As a tribute to the company's worldwide presence, McDonald's goes a bit further, according to trendwatching.com.
At headquarters, a lighted map shows which countries' food items are on the menu that day. Trendwatching gives examples of the following food McDonald's serves and replaces with new items every two months: Chinese purple taro burgers, Australian curried noodles, Latin American desserts.
In the Northern Hemisphere, when most students have a couple of school-free months, a library visit can find a cookbook offering foreign foods a family can cook together for any dinner or a special international feast. Outdoors and in, students can plant a variety of herbs used by cooks around the world.
At headquarters, a lighted map shows which countries' food items are on the menu that day. Trendwatching gives examples of the following food McDonald's serves and replaces with new items every two months: Chinese purple taro burgers, Australian curried noodles, Latin American desserts.
In the Northern Hemisphere, when most students have a couple of school-free months, a library visit can find a cookbook offering foreign foods a family can cook together for any dinner or a special international feast. Outdoors and in, students can plant a variety of herbs used by cooks around the world.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
You Have To Be Carefully Taught
If a child has never met a blind student from Peru, a Muslim actor, or a rich Chinese businessman, how will he or she feel about these people? In the musical, South Pacific, the U.S. soldier who begins to fall in love with an island girl he meets during World War II sings "You have to be carefully taught."
Lucky children like Meghan Markle might have a black and a white parent, and a young President Obama even had a mother from the United States and a father from Kenya, got to spend early years in Indonesia, and grew to a young man in the diverse cultures of Hawaii. Lucky kids might get to know Hispanic, black, and white kids while playing basketball together on a neighborhood court. Korean and Italian kids could meet singing together in a church choir. And before a teen in a wheelchair and the school's aspiring ballerina publish their first comic book, they might have worked together on the school's newspaper.
All sorts of robotic, marketing, math, trivia, and forensic competitions bring together kids with different backgrounds and genders. Yet, news events constantly show the danger of relying on luck to form children into adults who acknowledge the similarities and respect the differences of others. The fact is, children have adult mentors who influence them to think about people in ways that help or harm the world.
In the United States, children are about to honor their Mothers on Mother's Day this weekend and their Fathers on Father's Day next month. Around the world, mothers and fathers should be honored, because they are in a powerful position. They can pass on their prejudices or open young minds.
When trendwatching.com reports the Mexican startup company Sign'n, uses software to employ artificial intelligence that translates speech into Mexican sign language, we suspect someone nurtured a young inventor's concern for those marginalized because of their hearing disability. Likewise, visually-impaired Brazilians employed to use their enhanced smell and taste senses as beer sommeliers have someone to thank for helping a young person learn to consider and remedy the needs of others.
A Muslim friend recently introduced me to a book, Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets, that uses rhymes and English translations of Arabic to present various shapes and to convey Islamic traditions and terms. At the end of the book, a Glossary provides definitions of the Arabic words used and a phonetic guide to their pronunciations.
As an example of the way the book's author, Hena Khan, and artist, Mehrdokht Amini, combine words and art, picture how, under an arch embellished with complex borders and patterns of flowers and vines that resemble those in Persian rugs. readers learn:
Lucky children like Meghan Markle might have a black and a white parent, and a young President Obama even had a mother from the United States and a father from Kenya, got to spend early years in Indonesia, and grew to a young man in the diverse cultures of Hawaii. Lucky kids might get to know Hispanic, black, and white kids while playing basketball together on a neighborhood court. Korean and Italian kids could meet singing together in a church choir. And before a teen in a wheelchair and the school's aspiring ballerina publish their first comic book, they might have worked together on the school's newspaper.
All sorts of robotic, marketing, math, trivia, and forensic competitions bring together kids with different backgrounds and genders. Yet, news events constantly show the danger of relying on luck to form children into adults who acknowledge the similarities and respect the differences of others. The fact is, children have adult mentors who influence them to think about people in ways that help or harm the world.
In the United States, children are about to honor their Mothers on Mother's Day this weekend and their Fathers on Father's Day next month. Around the world, mothers and fathers should be honored, because they are in a powerful position. They can pass on their prejudices or open young minds.
When trendwatching.com reports the Mexican startup company Sign'n, uses software to employ artificial intelligence that translates speech into Mexican sign language, we suspect someone nurtured a young inventor's concern for those marginalized because of their hearing disability. Likewise, visually-impaired Brazilians employed to use their enhanced smell and taste senses as beer sommeliers have someone to thank for helping a young person learn to consider and remedy the needs of others.
A Muslim friend recently introduced me to a book, Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets, that uses rhymes and English translations of Arabic to present various shapes and to convey Islamic traditions and terms. At the end of the book, a Glossary provides definitions of the Arabic words used and a phonetic guide to their pronunciations.
As an example of the way the book's author, Hena Khan, and artist, Mehrdokht Amini, combine words and art, picture how, under an arch embellished with complex borders and patterns of flowers and vines that resemble those in Persian rugs. readers learn:
Arch is the mihrab
that guides our way.
We stand and face it
each time we pray.
In contrast to picturing Muslims as over a billion religious people known for the early contributions of their mathematicians and astronomers, today's news reports Boko Haram added to its Nigerian terrorist kidnappings and killings by bombing a mosque and market. And Islamic fighters in Iraq commit genocide and sell Yazidi women and girls into slavery or hold them as sex slaves. Somehow these Muslims have not been carefully taught right from wrong.
Regimes, like those in Iran, China, and Russia, seem oppressive because they censure the broadcast and social media they allow their populations to see. But aren't we doing much the same thing, when algorithms select the books we read, the films we watch, and the news and ads we see, or when we self-censure by only watching the cable news stations that agree with us? Teaching ourselves and our children to keep open minds takes work, work both needed and worth doing...very carefully.
Monday, May 7, 2018
Live A Large Life
While residents of the Southern Hemisphere are coming inside for the winter and those in the Northern one are about to go outdoors, both groups are entering periods conducive to thinking about the future. Whether reading by the fire or surrounded by the wonders of nature, students can find seasonal inspiration for life choices that plunge them into the whole wide world.
For a little help in seeing beyond the here and now, Luke Jennings, a British journalist and avid fisherman, provides his brief book, Blood Knots. Beginning with his title that combines references both to family ties and a way to prepare fishing tackle, Jennings shows young people how to push beyond the ordinary to reach the personal joy of achieving expertise in any field.
Jennings' own inspiration came from a father who bore scars from pulling fellow soldiers from a burning tank in World War II, and the free-spirited, falcon-owning Robert Nairac, who valued the precision of dry-fly casting that demanded the frustrating "hard right way." Even before meeting Nairac, however, Jennings wrote there was no one in his family who ever fished, "So I learnt from library books by Bernard Venables, Richard Walker, Peter Stone, and Fred Taylor.
What can be learned from books is not limited to fishing. Even in summer, there are rainy days, when a trip to the library can stimulate an interest that leads to adventures in foreign countries the way fishing took Jennings to Guyana, Australia, Hong Kong, and South Africa.
Books enable young people who lack financial means to experience the same new ideas and cultures others derive through travel. In Blood Knots, I learned, for example, fishing hooks come in different sizes, a #18 is smaller than a #12. Dry-fly casting for trout begins with making a fly using a delicate bit of silk and feather and requires, like kite flying, an open space where swinging a fishing line overhead and forward will not tangle it in an overhanging branch. No wonder, trout anglers don hip boots and wade into rivers.
If students are lucky, reading will enhance their means of expression and chances of winning Scrabble by sending them to a giant dictionary to expand their vocabulary with new words, such as numinous, pellucid, ilex, ferrules, elegiac, jejune, and jinking, some of the words Jennings used in Blood Knots. Young people also will begin to find themselves observing and describing their experiences the way Jennings did in the following sentence: "Pigeons flew over us, cresting the roadside trees with a single wing-snap and gliding to their roosts."
Once students recognize time as a fusion of past, present, and future, the way Jennings came to view it, a lifetime holds a world of opportunity.
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