In His Grip

Jokes about David Haye after he shamefully blamed his toe after losing to Vladimir Klitschko

2011-07-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

DAVID HAYE lost to Vladmir Klitschko on points after 12rounds in Hamburg. Haye (also known as Hayemaker) had filled columns of newsparer columns with pre-match bravaddo, sometimes shameful about how he was going to knowck out Vladmir. However, following his disgraceful loss, he blamed his toe...saying a toe on his right foot got broken 3weeks before the boxing match, hence he could not land his killer punch!

Obviously, this generated a lot of jokes from twitter followers and the following are some of them.....

1) From #hayemaker to #toemaker

2) David Haye: "Apologies to amm my fans, my toe couldn't land the killer punch."

3) Hey coach, I couldn't beat him with my mouth or my toe, maybe next time I try to punch him?

4) My ego is cashing cheques my toe can't cash..."

5) I am disappoin-toed with the outcome of the fight. #teamhaye

6) Sky box office have apologised for lack of phone staff earlier for David Haye fight....... all had a broken toe.

7) #teamhaye never mind chaps, toemorrow is a new day, dont be a heel, sock it toe 'em

8) That was a #toerrible match

2011-01-23T12:27:00.001-08:00

Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan"

2011-01-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

I just watched Black Swan with a female friend a few hours ago. It is about a young girl Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who works hard to perfection, in order to fulfil her dream as ballerina. I must say, the movie itself is both rubbish and brilliant!

Her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) is a controlling mum, a somehow twisted character. She gave up her dream to care for Nina, and in a sense, while Erica doesn’t want her daughter to screw up; she is living her unfinished dream through Nina. After all she had been taking Nina for dance classes ever since she was a young child. . It is a tragedy that children sometimes have to live the unfulfilled dreams of their parents!!

When Nina tries to live her own life, Erica throws a tantrum, and almost wants to destroy the cake she has just made to celebrate her breakthrough. That breakthrough is that Nina has landed the coveted role of Queen Swan, in a musical Swan Lake directed by Thomas Leroy(Vincent Cassel). Her journey towards landing this role is a mind boggling cinematic experience that will make you either hate or love the movie.
Lily (Mila Kunis), an ambitious dancer is Nina’s rival to the coveted Queen dancer role. She befriends Nina, but seems to have ulterior motives of her own. Lily introduces her to the partying and drugs lifestyle, and they either up having full lesbianism sex, or maybe Nina is just imagining things. This scene is too graphic, and can leave you scarred for life. I had to look away several times. I go with the former. This is for a movie, only rated 15®. Shows the state of our society, and the world our children are growing up in! And the future itself could be even more worrying. Well, are we to be swept along in this dark and turbulent wave, or can we as individuals contribute in some small way in influencing it?!

The journey travelled by Nina to being the Swan Queen gives you the dark, horrific themes of the movie. As one person put it “An innocent girl is driven to the depths of hell in her pursuit of the world. It’s maddening, it’s horrifying, and it’s disturbing. Despite this, in a way, the story draws us in. We can relate to the obsession with the world in ways that should scare us.” The pursuit of perfection is one theme you continually come across.

The film gives you more than a glimpse into the state of Nina’s mind….and what she has to give up or go through to achieve her dream. While her performance of the white swan if masterful and excellent, Thomas, her music instructor, advises her to let go of herself, and throw away her inhibitions. He even seduces this young fragile innocent girl (probably a virgin) saying “That was me seducing you. It needs to be the other way around” Thomas advises her to get engaged in some sexual experiments! Only then, apparently can she seduce the audience and successfully play the role of the dark and sensual black swan! It is pretty much stepping beyond the boundaries!

Nina fights hard not to become like Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder), the now unstable, psychotic dancer and one time top start in the music company she has replaced. You are filled with hope, that maybe she will manage to do just that. It is this transformation of Nina into what Thomas Leroy calls “metamorphosis into her evil twin “that is both depressing, and make you wonder whether the price was worth the sacrifice!!

Nina is plagued by nightmares, fantasies, dreams and all of these horrific things. Her mother pleads with her not to go the long awaited performance. They have to
almost fight. You almost sense things will wrong. Is there a connection between this ballerina performance, Erica giving her dream and the music instructor Thomas? One thing is certain; Nina Sayers has sacrificed her very soul, her life and has been driven to the very depths of hell, in search of the perfect performance of “Swan Lake”. You ask yourself, when all is said and done, is it all worth it?

Yes, the film director Darren Aronofsky is a genius at work, a master craftsman, brilliant at using cinematic and visual artistry to great effect. He also sseems to blur the line between fantasy and reality. Just like his previous movies The Wrestler and Pi, Aronofsky’s theme are almost always the same….dark and visceral. It is only this time he has used the ballerina world to reflect this. While Tchaikovsky’s legendary music has been used, Aronofsky doesn’t do the ballerina performance justice.

Sme other reviewer did all the hard work and listed the following..."Heavy to extreme—Portman stripped naked to panties / Portman wears just a towel / two female masturbation scenes (Portman) / male gropes Portman / female gropes Portman / female gropes male dancer / prolonged lesbian sex scene (Portman and Kunis) / vulgar sexual conversations /partially undressed female dancers / etc.”

As Others See Us

2010-06-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

Found the poem below on a tea towl. Yeah, I know...quite a weird place to find a poem! I thought i would share it. I found it quite interesting.

I do not know who wrote it, for the tea towel gave no clues! I didnt bother doing a bit of googling to answer that question, because honoestly, i could not be bothered! Yeah?!!

Herein below, is the poem presented verbatim.

As Others See Us

There were the Scots
Who kept the Sabbath
And everything else
they could lay their hands on.

Then there were the Welsh
Who prayed on their knees
and their neighbours.

Thirdly, there were the Irish
Who never knew what they wanted
But were willing to fight for it
anyway

Lastly there were the English
Woo considered themsleves
a self-made nation
Thus relieving the Almighty
of a dreadful responsibility.

Revolutionay Road

2010-03-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

Slept a friend's place last night...it her house warming kinda thing...and it turns out that since she didnt have anything in the frigde..Therefore all the three of us had in the morning was hot cup of tea, and some conversation. Nothing else!
Well our conversation drifted from this topic to that topic...and for some weird reason, Arjun talked about his trip back home to India a few months ago when he was promoted from business class to first class because of the many air miles he had accumulated! Obviously he talked about how short the trip was, with all the excellent treatment. You could see he had never had that kind of treatment before. That is not to say I was not a tad jealous. With his baby-ish face, an air hostess easily mistook him for a kid who is travelling without his parents, but he cut her short by saying he works for the oil and gas industry....and then requesting for his drink!

He then mentioned that it reminded him about the movie UP IN THE AIR starring George Clooney, as Ryan Bingham, a corporate dude who is hired by cowardly bosses from the round the world to fire employees for them. As such he is always on the plane, travelling round the world, and spending a few days at a time in hotels. More importantly, is Ryan's philosophy, since he lives a life free of any relationships with people and things. He is got no mission in life, except this. To accumulate the a million air miles, as he believes only six people have done this. Of course, as you might have guessed, after achieving this ambition, he realises that his philosophy was after all wrong.

This movie reminded me of THE REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, a movie I watched a few months ago on a weekend away with a group of friends. They have similar themes running through them! It also brings back The TITANIC stars, Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet (reunited again after The TITANIC). The movie is based on Richard Yates’ acclaimed 1961 debut novel, going by the same title. It is directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition). Warning is, there are scenes with nudity and sexual nature,

This is a movie that you can’t just watch for fun! After watching it, my ex-girlfriend (then my girlfriend) said she didn’t enjoy it because it was a bit depressing, some other friends called it their movie of the year. Others were simply astounded. It is not the classic Hollywood, happily ever after kinda movie. It is simply different.

The story revolves around a beautiful couple living in sub-urban America in the 1950s. Don’t fret, because it is story that has huge relevance even to us today. April (Kate) is a beautiful wife, and a stay-at home mother raising two kids, while Frank Wheeler is her handsome an office employee. They exude a calm, confident exterior of an extremely happy married couple; you almost admire their lives, seemingly full of joy and warmth. A prefect couple, an idyllic image of the American Dream we all have come to admire. Everything seems perfect; their neighbours are all full of envy.

Is there a creeping frustration within them, an inability to be fulfilled by their relationship and careers? Whether someone feels a sense of regret over past actions, or is facing certain mid-life struggles. The characters in the movie are all faced with these questions...and maybe a more important question. This couple believes they are somehow more special than the people living around them on Revolutionary Road (by now, you know where the movie borrows it title), and they deserve better than this.

Was a doomed marriage from the start? What seems to be the real problem here?? It sometimes hard to know whom or what to blame for the film’s events! Is it the sub-urban surroundings? Is it the place where you live that normally kills your dreams? The job you are doing? The people around you? Are they therefore victims of the very system that ensnares them? Or are they victims of their poor decisions? Either way, it is a tragedy, and the movie constantly forces us to ask this hard questions!!

Could it be that April’s dreams and passions in life died when she became a stay-at-home mother? Will flying away to Paris, and getting a job there solve the problem? Perhaps, Frank deserves better, can quit his job, do some writing in Paris, as he figures out what he wants to do in life! Could he be better than the job that he currently does? Unfulfilled dreams and passions? How do we explain the temptations of infidelity? How does April escape her emotionally dead life? Flying to Paris and starting all over again seems to be the perfect solution. What is wrong with Frank’s philosophy when he says that "All I know is that I want to feel things, really feel them."

Then enters, John Givings, the mentally unstable son of a local real estate agent (Kathy Bates). While watching him, you cant help but think that he may not be crazy after all. Maybe everyone around him is crazy! He seems to see through the veneer of all this. In one of the brilliant quotes from the movie, John says “Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.” Perhaps, it will take an encounter with a “crazy” person to drum sense into all of us.

Richard Yates, in talking about the book said in 1972, that “I think I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the 1950s. Because during the Fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs — a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price”
Wait, a minute, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM here? Until we correctly diagnose the problem, we cannot prescribe the right medication. Are the Wheelers’ lives an anomaly, or are they norm? Is life all about a happy marriage, secure dream job, or nice neighbourhood that we aspire for? Is our purpose in life bland, and mundane? Or like April Wheeler says “Look at us. We're just like everyone else. We've bought into the same, ridiculous delusion.”

The truth is infront of me!

2009-04-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

In one of those days when I felt particularly patriotic (Yes, I am a good student), I stumbled across Don’s Wanyama’s blog, was laughed hysterically when I read the African proverb on at the top of his page “However much the buttocks are in a hurry, they will always remain behind.”... I thought that was very funny! It made my mind go in a few circles, wondering of the many people who are on a road going nowhere...and thus will always be left behind!

But that is fodder for another day!

I was impressed by Don’s analysis of the Teddy Cheeye’s debacle and the source of his perceived arrogance. But one thing that took my particularly attention, when at the emd of the article, he asked the question “...can we say the time to shake the status quo has begun? Or was he a mere sacrificial lamb??”
And I would like to give my thoughts to this. I believe that it is time to shake the status quo. But not in the way you think. Before we even go there to confront people, and tell them how they need to change. We need to start with ourselves.

I think we ourselves need to have the courage to look at ourselves critically and realise that many times we are living comfortably within the same status quo that we are telling others to leave. Charity has got to begin at home.

Now you might wax lyrical about how good you are, and tell me that you have not YET stole any millions of funds, or constructed shoddy roads. The question is, how many times have you refused to give a bribe when asked for one? Did you give that the traffic policeman 5,000/= because you were trying to avoid the longer, more painful and very inconvinient route! Well, the bad news is that you contributed to corruption. I know, we are guilty of this many times! The most important thing is admitting ths fault and doing something about it!

We have given in so many times to the demands of the society. I am not saying that I am innocent, I have been guilty many times, and I have realised that change has got to start with me. My attitudes! As long as I beleive that nothing can be archieved without corruption, then I am an utter failure and should as well wallow in it. But I should retain that little hope, and have the courage in the face of daversity to say "YES, WE CAN do it the honest way and still succeed"

Has there ever been a time when you hired the right candidate, the best candidate even if it means leaving out your relative in the cold. This requires courage....but it is the price for change. How many times have you asked the question “Whom do you know there?” whenever there was a rumour of a bid, job, or an event you wanted!

As the bible rightly put it...the truth is not out there, but right here...in front of us!

Dance school....

2008-11-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

I am an avid dance fan! These days I have taken to waltz, ballroom and tango. I am doing Argentine tango in one school onFridays and ballroom dance in another. I have done a little bit of salsa, but it was during a very busy period of my life so i didnt learn much.

Now I have failed to coerce, cajole or convince a girl to go with as a partner! yeah, Iknw you will all say I am not that smooth! But guess what,I get to dance with the teacher. The last two weeks, I have gotten to dance with thedance-teachers best student. Infact she told me that the dance teacher is her god-mother. The girl herself is training to be a dance teacher, dance is her passion, she actually quit college to pursue dance..blah blah! She has got the moves,looks...almost everything except that she has a Geordie accent! Hopefully I will be ableto work around that! I will find out about her beliefs later.....

Well, we have sort of struck a cord, and I talked about whether she is free so that we can get-together for coffee sometime! That was last Thursday, I got her phone number then! I gave it a few days, didnt want to call her the next daylike most guys would do!

Thing is, I called her up today..unfortunatey the phone wasnt answered and it went straight to voicemail. I wanted tol eave a message. I actually attempted..after a few minutes of recording my message, listening to it, and re-recording it..i just discovered that my voice and tone made me sound way too nervous! So i deleted the voicemail! I might cal again sometime..and will think about leavinga message!

I googled myself!

2008-11-08T13:41:00.001-08:00

I am sure most you guys use Facebook? Chances are that you must have heard of Compare, that Facebook application. The risky assumption I am making here is that you, dear blogger, are very media (or rather internet) savvy. Whether or not you use it is another question, after all we are bombarded with all the applications which actually ever add value to our lives, whether in monetary of entertainment value! The one thing most of these applications do is waste our time. Yet we have only 24 hours a day!

Now, the Compare application has a fine way of advertising itself. They say.......“It's a pyramid of how many people trust the people that trust you. And the people that trust them - it goes pretty far. This number also means that if you wanted to send a message or thought to the whole world, these are the people who would accept your message as trustworthy, because they have faith in people who have faith in you. Think of it as your influence and reach.”

Pyramids of trust? Bollocks. Man, that is one good trick to keep us hooked to it, especially if you have ambitions! Do not ask me what sort of ambitions, because I still need to stay alive in order to do achieve it. So I actually decided to check out how popular (or infamous)I am by doing a rough internet search about myself. I had to look for a benchmark with to compare myself. Who better than Barack Obama, well be cause for starters we have a few things in common. And he is just guy who wouldn’t mind this exercise.

So I took Googled Obama, and it yielded 163,000,000 English pages for Obama in 0.23 seconds)” Damn, the guy beat me! Google yielded 4,390 English pages for in 0.18 seconds. Wait, the playing field was not level. I used both my first name and surname. So I decided to search only my surname, and my internet popularity improved by 1073.12%. The Google search yielded 51,500 English pages in 0.18 seconds. Yeah, he still beats me there.

But guess what, I at least beat him on time! The search for me was 5 seconds faster. Damn it. Was the CIA screening my search for Obama? They went, right...who is this bloke? What is the IP address of his laptop? Right, what does he want with our President. OK,he can goon...and by the time they answered all these questions, 5 precious seconds had gone by!!

Ratios:A lesson in maths!

2008-10-31T15:30:00.001-07:00

It’s amazing what ladies want! That movie “What Women Want “in which Mel Gibson starred in was quite a classic. I mean the title was confusing enough; you would dash to watch because you think it would help you sort out all the mystery. But when you go to the cinema, with a knowing smile on your face, thinking...”maybe, just maybe this time...”, and alas, you get disappointed...like you do when you watch many of the current movies!

On a rather random note, I am going for a potential date on Sunday to watch the new James Bond movie, Quantum ofSolace, and am hoping she says she will inform me tomorrow, but somehow I think she will say yes! My my gut feeling is that it is over rated and over hyped..like most things with a British link!

Anyway, whenever you ask the ladies what it is that attracts them to men, they have all sorts of answers. The legs, eyes, the way he walks...well, nowadays...even the size of the wallet if a big deal! Nevertheless, the answers are as diverse as they are weird! Long gone are the days of true love. Broke guys like me are in shit!!
But there is one thing that most Ugandan girls all agree on is one thing, that the dude has got to be “tall, dark and handsome” () Is it possible for the guy to be tall, dark and un-handsome??

Now, we guys from the North have always had an edge when it comes to the tall, dark and handsome bit!! In this respect, the playing field has always been to our advantage! But there is one thing, one area where we have always fallen short!
Now just one thing....now we guys do not need you to tell us that our accent is kinda-not-so-cool!! Well, a little bit off the mark! But this is an area that we have always worked around, with some effort, and probably exposure! I know we the Okellos of the world know that we have got all...almost everything in place!! Pull your chair closer, and let me narrate to you a story!

I had a maths teacher in my early days in secondary school. He was a brilliant man, by any standards! Thinking back, I still wonder why he didn’t end up in NASA, or even ended up teaching rich kids in then Mpigi or Mukono if all options had run out! Well, perhaps he was inspired more by love for his nation of his land than by anything else! There are only a few good men remaining!

In one class, he was teaching the topic of RATIOS. And he had to use an illustration to drive the point home. He used two guys Ochibo (pronounced as Ochibo, with an “h”) and Ochora an example. This is what he says, or rather this is what I heard “If Osibo and Osora are to sare mangos in the rasio of sree to sree, Osibo will not seat Osora and Osora will not seat Osibo. They will get equal sares”

Until, we get our act together and learn how to deal with words that have “ch”or “sh” in their pronunciations we still have a long way to go!

Famous quotes!!!

2008-09-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

This is one of the greatest quotes to ever emerge from the annals of criminal court history....right here in our backyard!!! Who said these words??

“We submit that this whole case is and was a fabrication from beginning to end, calculated to embarrass KB. This sad case was born in the deluded mind of Ms JK, it was nurtured and developed in SH. It was cooked to imperfection in the DIC of the UP. It was presented into full inadequacy by the DepDPP. Now it’s courts time to dismiss it.”

No FB!

2008-09-19T02:09:00.001-07:00

1) I just started workin on Monday. And that was after i had handed in my dissertation on Fri. And that was after flexing for 3 months..well, just more than one month,...with optmisation and simulations!

2) Being a gud company that it is, almots all sites are blocked..including Facebook. You try to access any of teh sites, I am starkly warned...ACCESS DENIED!
So i guess am not paid to surf FB, chat onlie,or even check mail!! That does not mean i have been paid yet, coz am only five days old)

Man, life is tight. So i need a house that has got internet in it.
Ok, i better sign out, lest i be found blogging....else I am forever screwed!! Did i just hear the door opening..????

No FB!

2008-09-19T02:09:00.000-07:00

Reader's block...

2008-09-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

Damn,I realised the previous posts are only 7 parts, i had originally intended it to be 12 parts...u know just because it sounds nice..12parts!

But then, hey, some one told me 7 is the perfectnumber! Iam not sure i beleive it, but if it works for me, why not!

First of all, I am going to bet my money! No one will actually one full particle....from any of those 7 parts!! Because they are too long!

But I wont remove it. It will sort of standthere staring in all y'all faces! A big mountain you cant climb! Reader's block or som' like that!

Let me be nice, I have attached her a youtubelink tothe same message! Its froma christian, attacking modern christianity..you know the name it and claim it stuff! The "God wants tomake you healthy, wealthy" stuff. I do not buyinto any of that nonsense! IthinkGod has some other priorities!!

But if you dont wanna go through all the reading....since there are more interesting blogs out there to visit! Just go to the Youtube link below and just listen. If you hate Youtube,am not sure who does, thenyou can go here.

Shocking Message-Part 7

2008-09-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Let’s get down. What does the Word of God say? How does your life stand in front of that blazing fire which is the holiness of God on that final day? Beloved, precious little girl, beloved, precious young man, on that final day will your confession hold true? Are you saved? And I’m not talking about, “Well, I think I’m saved.” You know, there’s a way that seems right unto a man, but it leads unto death.

“Well, I feel in my heart of my hearts that I’m saved.” Well, let me ask you a question. Did you
ever read that the heart is deceitfully wicked; who can know it? Shouldn’t you go to the
testimony of Scripture?

“Well, I know I’m saved because my mom, my dad, my pastor, everybody else told me I was
saved.” Well, I’m telling you this. What does the Word of God tell you?

We talk so much about being radical Christians. Radical Christians are not people who jump at
concerts. Radical Christians are not people who wear Christian tee shirts. Radical Christians are
those who bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Radical Christians are those who reverence and
honor their parents even when they feel like their parents are wrong. Radical Christians are
those who do not––now listen to me. This is going to make you mad, and I’m talking to boys
and girls. Radical Christians are those who do not dress sensually in order to show off their
bodies. If your clothing is a frame for your face, God is pleased with your clothing. If your
clothing is a frame for your body, it’s sensual and God hates what you’re doing. Everybody
wants to talk about a prophet, but no one wants to listen to one.

I’m talking about Christianity. I have spent my life in jungles. I have spent my life freezing in
the Andes Mountains. I have seen people die. A little boy, Andrew Myman [phonetic], the
Muslims shot him five times through the stomach and left him on a sidewalk simply because he
cried out, “I am so afraid but I cannot deny Jesus Christ. Please don’t kill me, but I will not deny
Him.” And he died in a pool of blood. And you talk about being a radical Christian because you
wear a tee shirt, because you go to a conference. I’m talking about holiness. I’m talking about
Godliness.

I wish––you know what a move of God would be in this place? If all of you came under conviction, if I myself came under conviction of the Holy Spirit, we fell down on our faces and
wept because we watch the things that God hates, because we wear the things that God hates,
because we act like the world, look like the world, smell like the world, because we do the very
things, and we know not that we do these things, because we do not know the Word of God.
Because, even though we claim as a denomination that the Scripture is the infallible Word of God, basically all we get is illustrations, stories, and quaint little novels. Oh, that God will glow
on this place, that we would turn away from our sin, that we would renounce the things that are
displeasing to God, and, then, that we would run to Him and we would relish Him and we would
love Him.

Oh, that God would raise up missionaries. I don’t wish the same things your parents want for
you. They want for you security and insurance and nice homes. They want for you cars and
respect. I want for you the same thing I want for my son, that one day he takes a banner, the
banner of Jesus Christ, and he places it on a hill where no one has ever placed a banner before,
and he cries out, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” even if it costs my son his life. Oh, when he’s 18 years
old, if he says to me the same thing I said when I was a young man, “I’m going into the
mountains. I’m going into the jungle.” And they said, “You can’t go there. You’re insane. It’s
a war. You’re gonna die.” I’m going. When that little boy puts on that backpack, I’m going to
pray over him and say, “Go! God be with you, and if you die, my son, I’ll see you over there and
I’ll honor your death.”

Oh, God, let’s pray, let’s pray.

Oh, God, I don’t care about reputation. I don’t care what men think. I want You to be honored.
I want these young people to be saved. I want those that are saved to stop looking around at a
cultural Christianity that You hate and will spew out of Your mouth, and that they will look at
the Word of God and say, “I will follow Jesus.”

Oh, God, I pray for youth ministers and pastors and I pray that You’d fill them with the spirit of
wisdom and love and boldness and discernment. And dear God, whatever the cost, I pray that
you will raise up missionaries. I can’t help but look at these kids and think of my own little boy.
Oh, God, that You would save Ian and that You would raise him up and send him into the worst
part of the battle. Oh, dear God, raise up missionaries here. Raise up missionaries. Raise up
preachers and pastors and reachers and evangelists that know the Word of God. Oh, God, work
in this place, please work in this place, dear God. Please. Please. Please. Please.

Now with every head bowed, is there anyone here tonight that would say, “Brother Paul, I have
been living a lie. I claim to be a Christian but I love the world, and I look like it and smell like it
and I hate myself for it, and, Brother Paul, I am so tired of this Christianity that I’m living. I’m
just sick of it. I’m just sick of it. I want to be saved. I want to be saved.” I just want you to stand up. “Brother Paul, I want to be saved.” Amen. Is there anyone else? Amen. Amen.

In a moment, we’re going to have an invitation. Those of you who stood up––I’m going to come
down here and I want you to meet with me. I want to talk to you. Now, you may be seated,
thank you.

Now, I want to talk to those of you who claim to be Christians. Does your life honor Jesus
Christ? Are you looking in His Word to find out how you’re supposed to live? I pray with all
my heart, the only thing that’s going to save the church in America, there’s only two
possibilities. One is a total reformation in our preaching and our study of the Word of God, and
the other is fierce, horrifying persecution. That’s the only thing that’s going to save the church
in America. Oh, I pray, I pray that you would return to the Word. I pray––listen to me, young
person. You need to know. You need to say, “Okay, how am I supposed to live before my
parents?” Go into the Word, find out, obey it. “How am I supposed to dress?” Go into the
Word, find out, obey it. “How am I supposed to talk?” “What am I supposed to listen to?”
Bring every thought, word, and deed into subjection to Jesus Christ.

Now, I’m not going to ask you to stand because I am so tired of people coming forward and
making those commitments, and those commitments last them two minutes. I’m not here so I
can write up in my magazine that a gazillion of you came forward. I want you to go home and I
want you to live for Jesus Christ with all your heart. But if you need counseling, you say,
“Brother Paul, I want to––I want to live for Jesus Christ. I don’t know how. I don’t know how.”
In a minute, we’re going to give an invitation, and I do want you to come forward, not to make a
commitment. You want to make a commitment, you make that commitment right where you’re
seated. If you need to tell somebody, you go tell your pastor. You go tell your youth minister,
and you know what, we’ll know if that commitment lasts. You know how? Because it will last,
we’ll know if it’s from God.

Let me tell you something. For everyone who’s here right now, I want to tell you something. If
you made a decision to follow Jesus Christ, if you made a decision to get saved in these last two
days, I want to tell you something. If it was genuine, it will last. If after a few weeks you go
right back into the world, live like the world, act like the world, I want you to know something,
you didn’t get anything here this weekend. You got emotion, that’s about it. If you really got
something from the Lord, I want you to know something, it will last. And even if you try to run
away from it, you won’t be able to do it. You won’t be able to do it. Oh, I love you so much. I
love you so much.

I would ask that we all stand. If you need counseling about a decision that you have made but
it’s not clear, I want you to come forward. And I’m going to come right down here. Those of
you who stood up––there were many of you over there who say, “I need to know Jesus Christ,” I want to come down here right now and I want to meet with you, and I want to go back over here with you and some other counselors and I want to talk to you. And I want to tell you something, not a five-minute deal, not a ten-minute deal. If you need to talk all night, we will stay. That is the attitude of every counselor in this place. We will stay all night if necessary, all night. God love you. God love you. Let me pray for you.

Dear God, please, Lord, there has been so much movement. Last night, Lord, I don’t know how
much of it was real, and I know that I saw people last night weeping. I saw people trying to
make commitments, and I believe that there was a great deal of what happened last night because of You. I saw this morning a young man preach, Father, give his testimony, and I saw real working of the Holy Spirit. I don’t know how much of all the decisions were real, but there was real things going on. I pray right now, Father, I don’t know how much will be real. Only time
and eternity will show us that. But, oh, dear God, please, please, work, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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So_Biblical_He_Was_Never_Invited_Back-15280.html

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Shocking Message-Part 6

2008-09-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

You say, “Oh, you’re talking about works.” No, I’m not. I’m talking about evidence of faith, and it goes like this. Your profession of faith is no proof that you’re born again because everybody in this whole country professes faith in Jesus Christ. Barnard tells us that 65 to 70 percent of all Americans are saved, born-again Christians. The most Godless country on the face of the earth. Kill 4,000 babies a day but, bless God, 70 percent of us are born again. How do you know that the faith you have is not false? A style of life that is concerned about doing the will of the Father, that practices the will of the Father, and when you disobey the will of the Father, the Holy Spirit comes and reprimands you either personally through the written Word of God or through a brother or sister in Christ, and God puts you back on the path again. If you’re a genuine Christian, you cannot escape Him.

Let me give you an example. If I was your pastor and you were, let’s say, 14 years old and I came back from preaching at one o’clock in the morning and I saw you standing out there in a
park or on a corner with a bunch of hoodlums, doing things you shouldn’t be doing and you’re a
member of our church, I would tell you, “Get in the car.” I would take you home to your father.
I wouldn’t be mad at you. I’d be mad at your father. I would tell him, “Sir, you are a derelict
father that you would allow your child to be out in such circumstances.”

I want you to know something. God is not a derelict father. If you can play around in sin, if you
can love the world and love the things of the world, if you can always be involved in the world
and doing things of the world, if your heroes are worldly people, if you want to look like them
and act like them, if you practice the same things they practice, oh my dear friend, listen to my
voice. There’s a good chance you know not God, and you do not belong to him.

Now, we bring this to a close, verse 22: Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many
miracles. Then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

You say the most important thing on the face of the earth is to know Jesus Christ. That is not
true. The most important thing on the face of the earth is that Jesus Christ knows you. I’m not
going to get into the White House tomorrow because I walk up to the gate and tell everybody I
know George Bush, but they will let me in if George Bush comes out and says, “I know Paul
Washer.”

You can profess to know Jesus, but my question for you . . . do you know Jesus? Does Jesus know you? And look how he describes the lost man here. He said, Depart from me you who
practice lawlessness. In Greek, anomia––a negative particle, a, “not”; word nomos, “law”––“no
law.” And this is what it means. Let me give you an accurate translation of this. Depart from
me––Listen to me, if I could come out there and hug you while I was telling you this, I would.
Listen to me. He says, Depart from me those of you who claim to be my disciples who confessed
me as Lord and, yet, you live as though I never gave you a law to obey.

I just described a great majority of North American Christianity. If anyone starts talking about
law, if anyone starts talking about Biblical principles on what we’re supposed to do and not
supposed to do, how we’re to live and not supposed to live, everyone starts screaming,
“Legalist.” But Jesus said, Depart from me those of you who live––you called me Lord, but you
lived as though I had never given a law.

In American Christianity today, pass through the gate. Praise God. Live like the rest of the
world and it’s okay. You’re just carnal. Maybe one day you’ll come back. Do you know what
happens because of our bad evangelism? We have gazillions of children saved in vacation Bible
school, and when they hit 15 years old, they enter into the world and live like demons, a great
majority of them. And then when they’re around 30, they come back and rededicate their life.
Maybe they just got saved. Because, folks, it’s more than just telling someone you’re saved
because you acknowledged that Jesus is Lord. Satan acknowledges that Jesus is Lord. Is your
life in a process of change?

And then He drops down and He talks about two people––two foundations. Do you know what
this passage in contemporary . . . See it’s important to study theology and it’s important to study
history. The contemporary interpretation of this passage about the rock and the sand is basically
like this. If you’re a Christian, you need to build your life upon the rock because, if you build
your life upon the sand, you’ll be an unhappy Christian and your life won’t go right. That is not
what Jesus is teaching and history backs me up on it. It was hardly ever interpreted that way.
Do you know what the interpretation is? It goes like this.

There are two ways. There’s a narrow way and a broad way. Which one are you on? There are
two types of trees. There is a good tree that bears good fruit, and it’s going to Heaven. There’s a
bad tree and you know it’s bad because it bears bad fruit, and it’s going to hell. It’s going to be
cut down and thrown into the fire. There are those who profess Jesus is Lord and they do the
will of the Father who is in heaven, and there are those who profess Jesus Christ is Lord and they do not do the will of the Father who is in heaven, and they go to hell––not because of a lack of works, but because of a lack of faith demonstrated by the fact that they had no works.

And then he goes on. He says, not two Christians building their house on two different
foundations. No. This is a saved man and a lost man. The lost man hears the Word of God
preached but he lays no foundation. You cannot see in any way in his life how the Word of God is forming and building and sustaining his life. His life is not––how many people in the Southern Baptist Convention, regardless of all our numbers, regardless of everything we say, if we were to simply take this passage and compare the people to this passage and say––Are you building your marriage on the Word of God? Are you raising your children on the Word of God? Are you doing your finances on the Word of God? Are you living, separating yourself from the things of this world based upon the Word of God? How many would be able to answer positively?

No, none of that. “I profess Jesus. He’s my Savior. My Sunday school teacher told me so.” Oh. I know, like Leonard Ravenhill, an acquaintance of mine before he passed on, used to say, “I preach in a lot of Baptist churches once.” I preach in a lot of places like this once. I could have got up here today with a vocabulary that would have astounded you and preached you things that would have lifted you up and floated you around this room. I could have told you stories that would have made you laugh and stories about dogs and grandmas that would have made you cry, but I love you too much for that. I know . . . I know, because the Word of God is true, that there are people who believe themselves to be saved and they are no more saved. They’re not.

I know that there are some of you who look around and you think, “Well, I’m saved. I mean,
look, I look like everybody else in my youth group.” What makes you think your youth group is
saved? “Well, I’m like my parents”; or, “I’m like the adults in my church or the deacon or the
pastor.” What does that matter? You won’t be judged by them on the day of His coming. My
question for you, beloved, my question for you, little child––I mean, you could be my children,
and I pray someday when my little boy grows that there will be a preacher who will stand before
him and say, “Enough of this!”

Shocking Message-Part 5

2008-09-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

Listen to me. If everyone in this town believes themselves saved, and we know that’s not true by Scripture because the Bible says that few will enter in, how do you know that you’re saved?
How do you truly know that you are saved? Because someone told you? Because you prayed a
prayer? Because you believed? Well, let me ask you a question. How do you know you believed? Because everybody says they believe. How do you know you’re not like them? Do you know how the Bible teaches you that you know you are saved? Do you know how Baptist theology, up until about 50 years ago, would have told you how you know you have been saved? You know you have been saved because your life is in the process of being changed, and your style of life is one of walking in the paths of God’s truth.

And when you step off those paths in disobedience, as we all do, God comes for you and puts you back on the path. One of the greatest evidences that you have truly been born again is that God will not let you talk as your flesh might want to talk. God will not let you dress as the sensual world and the sensual church allows you to dress. God will not allow you to act like the world, smell like the world, speak like the world, listen to the things that the world listens to. God will make a difference in your life.

He says here, as we go on, verse 16: You will know them by their fruits. How will you know a false prophet? In the wider application here and all of Scripture, how will you know if someone is a genuine Christian? By their fruit. By their fruit, my dear friend. Look at your life. Look at the way you walk. Look at the way you talk. Look at the passions of your heart. Is Jesus in there somewhere? Or is He just some accessory that you add on to your life? Is He just something that you do on Wednesday or Sunday? Is He something that you give a mental assent to? Is He an accessory or is He the very center of your life? And what is the fruit that you’re bearing? Do you look like the world? Act like the world? Do you have and experience the same joys that the world experiences? Can you love sin and relish it? Can you love rebellion and relish it? Then you know not God. You will know them by their fruit. God has the power to change them.

Let’s imagine for a moment Jesus teaching this passage, and you’re sitting out there listening.
And He looks at you. He says, “Thistles, thistles. Do you find thistles on fig trees?”

And you respond, “Of course not, Jesus. I mean, you’re not an agriculturalist; you’re not a
farmer. I mean, you’re a carpenter. But everybody knows, Jesus, you don’t find thorns on fig
trees.”

“Well, then, let me ask you another question. Do you find figs––good fruit––on thorn trees?”

“Why, no, Jesus. That’s absolutely ludicrous. I mean, you’re never gonna find thorns on a fig
tree, and you’re not gonna find figs on a thorn tree, Jesus. To say that could be possible––anyone who tells you that, Jesus, you can mark it down . . . they’re either crazy or they’re a liar.”
And then Jesus responds to you. “Well then, those who call themselves my disciples and bear
bad fruit, would not it be the same to say that they were either lying or out of their mind to make such a statement?”

Let me take it a little further. Let’s imagine that I show up late and I run up here on the platform, and all the leaders are angry with me and say, “Brother Paul, don’t you appreciate the fact you’re given an opportunity to speak here and you come late?”

And I’d say, “Brothers, you have to forgive me.”

“Well, why?”

“Well, I was out here on the highway, and I was driving and I had a flat tire and I got out to change the tire, and when I was changing the tire, the lug nut fell off, and I wasn’t paying
attention that I was on the highway and I ran out and I grabbed the lug nut, and as soon as I
picked it up in the middle of the highway, I stood up and there was a 30-ton logging truck going
120 miles an hour about ten yards in front of me, and it ran me over and that’s why I’m late.”
Now, there would only be two . . . I know no one studies logic anymore, but there would only be
two logical conclusions. One, I’m a liar or, two, I’m a madman. You would say, “Brother Paul,
it’s absolutely absurd. It is impossible, Brother Paul, to have an encounter with something as
large as a logging truck and not be changed.”

And then my question would be to you––What is larger? A logging truck or God? How is it that
so many people today profess to have had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and, yet, they are not
permanently changed? Let me give you a few things to think about. You know I’m telling you the truth. How many times do you go and rededicate your life over and over and over again? How many times do youth groups go to things like this and get fired up and go back to the
church, and it lasts about a week and a half? And yet, “Oh, it was a great move of God.” No, it
wasn’t. If it doesn’t last, it wasn’t a great move of God. It was emotion. It was so many things,
but it wasn’t a great move of God. Has God worked in your life? Is God working in your life?
You will know them by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit.

Now, we go on, verse 19: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire so you will know them by their fruit. Look at this. You need to understand something
about Hebrew literature. When you and I want to emphasize something, do you know what we
do? We raise our voice. If we’re writing, we put it in bold letters, or we capitalize it. But to a Jew, it’s different. When he wants to emphasize something, he repeats it and he repeats it.

That’s why you find Hebrew parallelisms in the Book of Proverbs. The wicked shall not live in the land. The wicked shall be destroyed. He’s saying the same thing, just in a different way to
give greater emphasis. That’s what Jesus is doing over and over again here. You will know them
by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit. You will know them by the path that they walk
in. You will know them by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit. And He says, Anyone
who does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. What is He talking about? My dear friend, He is talking about the judgment of Almighty God that will one day fall upon the
world, that will one day fall possibly upon you.

Oh dear friend, I cannot look into your heart. I am so easily deceived by my own heart, but there is One who is not deceived. There is One who is not deceived, and He is not deceived by a
contemporary Christian culture. He knows. You will know them by their fruit.

And He goes on and He says this, verse 21: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Do you know what your profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth? Absolutely nothing. Yes. Did you read that passage? Study it. Not everyone who comes to me and says, Lord, Lord . . . not everyone who professes, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven. There are many
people who are going to profess, “Lord, Lord,” but they are not going to enter into the kingdom
of heaven. My dear precious child, are you one of them? “Lord, Lord.”

Now, again, let’s go back to Hebrew literature. He said, Lord, Lord. He didn’t say, Lord. What
does that mean? This fellow who is making this profession, he is not someone who just all of a
sudden decided, “It’s judgment and I better profess Him to be Lord.” This is a person who
emphatically declares to other people that Jesus Christ is Lord. He walks around saying, “Lord.”
He dances up in front while the musicians are playing, saying, “Lord.” He sings the songs,
“Lord.” But Jesus said to him, Depart from me. I never knew you.

Do you know, Billy Graham is one of the kindest, lovingest men; yet, Billy Graham has said he
believed that a great majority of people who attend Bible-believing churches are lost. He said
that he would be happy if even five percent of all the people who made professions of faith in his
campaigns are even saved.

When I’m in Nigeria . . . I was there last year visiting a mother whose son was in our church and
was martyred by the Muslims. In Northern Nigeria, when someone professes faith in Jesus
Christ, you pretty much know they can die because of that profession. But in America, oh,
consider the cost. Think. Examine your life in light of Scripture. Do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord? Because not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but what does it say here? Look what it says. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What is the sign that someone has become a genuine Christian? I wish that we would start
teaching this again. What happened to our theology? What happened to our doctrine? What
happened to our teaching? It went right out the window. No one wants to study doctrine
anymore. They just want to listen to songs and read the back of Christian tee shirts. What
happened to truth? Truth tells you this. The evidence––the way that you can have assurance that you are genuinely a born-again Christian––is that you do, as a style of life, the will of the Father.

Shocking Message-Part 4

2008-09-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Book after book is being churned out by theologian and philosopher and sociologist alike. What
has happened to the church? We find out that abortion in the church is just as prevalent as
outside in the world. We find that divorce is just as prevalent. We find that immorality . . . you
know as well as I do, there are youth here right now who are practicing immorality and yet
worshiping God in the same breath. You know there are youth here that are doing drugs and yet
coming to youth group. You know, watching and doing things that are not appropriate for a
Christian, and yet they’re coming to the youth group, believing themselves satisfied, believing
themselves saved, and no one is saying anything except this: They’re carnal Christians. They’re
really Christians; they’re just carnal. That was a doctrine that started in a Baptist seminary, that
is not a Southern Baptist seminary, several decades ago. It is not biblical and it is not historical.
My dear friend, there is no such thing as a carnal Christian.

You say, “Now, wait a minute, Brother Paul. First Corinthians chapter 3, Are ye not carnal.
Paul said that.”
No, that’s what Paul said. You need to read the whole book to find out what he meant. You see,one of our problems, youth, listen to me . . . most of our Christianity is based on clichés that we read on the back of Christian tee shirts. Most of our Christianity comes from songwriters and not the Bible. Most of what we believe is dictated to us through our culture and not by the Bible.
The Bible never teaches that a person can be a genuine Christian and live in continuous carnality
and wickedness and sin all the days of their life. But the Bible teaches that the genuine Christian
has been given a new nature. The genuine Christian has a Father who loves them and disciplines
them and watches over them and cares for them.

My heart is breaking because you know as well as I do, young people, let’s not be hypocrites
about it. Let’s not hide it. There are so many. You know them. You might be one of them, or
you at least know that they’re in your youth group. They come to youth group. They do all this
stuff, but in their heart, they’re as wicked as wicked can be. There is no difference. There is no
light. Everything that the world does, they do, and it’s appropriate; it’s okay. My friend, that’s not Christianity. They’re not in danger of losing their reward. They’re in danger of hell. They
know not God.

What don’t we teach? When was the last time you heard someone say there’s not only a narrow
gate into Heaven but a narrow way? Jesus indicates that one of the principal signs of being a
genuine Christian is that you walk in the narrow way. Do you know what the sign for being a
genuine Christian in America is? You prayed a prayer one time. Isn’t that amazing? What are
you asked if you doubt your salvation? Did you pray a prayer one time? What does Scripture
teach? Examine yourselves. Test yourselves in the light of Scripture to see if you’re in the path,
because a Christian will be different.

Now, am I saying that a Christian is without sin? No, because, in First John, we learn that Christians do sin, and if any man does not acknowledge his sin, he knows not God. He’s not walking in the light? So what is the difference? What am I really getting at? What I am getting
at is this. If you are genuinely a born-again Christian, a child of God, you will walk in the way
of righteousness as a style of life. And if you step off that path of righteousness, the Father will
come for you. He will discipline you. He will put you back on that path. But if you profess to have gone through the narrow gate, but yet you live in the broad way, just like all the other people in your high school, just like all the other people who are carnal and wicked, the Bible wants you to know that you should be terribly, terribly afraid because you know not God.

I fear men who have spent most of their life telling other men that they are saved. I fear you if
you’ve done that. You don’t tell men they are saved; you tell men how to be saved. God tells
them they are saved. What we have forgotten to believe is that salvation is a supernatural work
of God, and those who have genuinely been converted, regenerated by the power of the Holy
Spirit is going to be a new creature. The Bible says, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. So we find out here in Scripture that there is a narrow gate and a narrow way.

We go into verse 15. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly
are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. One of the things you need to realize is
this––something a wise man told me a long time ago. He said, “Paul, your best friend is the one
who tells you the most truth.” In America, we have become so thin-skinned that no one can rebuke us. No one can tell us we are wrong. And ministers and leaders alike have bought into
this lie. We do not want to offend. We want to be seeker friendly. What you need to realize is there is only one seeker and His name is God, and if you want to be friendly to someone in your
church, you need to be friendly to God. And you need to be more concerned for the glory of God than you are for the attitudes of men. But another thing you need to realize is the person who loves you the most will tell you the most truth.

One of the greatest distinguishing marks of a false prophet is that he will always tell you what
you want to hear. He will never rain on your parade. He will get you clapping. He will get you
jumping. He will make you dizzy. He will keep you entertained, and he will present a
Christianity to you that will make your church look like a Six Flags over Jesus and keep you so
entertained you are never addressed with great issues such as these. Is God working in my life?
Am I growing in holiness? Have I truly been born again?

Shocking Message-Part 3

2008-09-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

And you know, historically––one of the reasons I’m a Southern Baptist is that the Southern
Baptists have always been quick––when other denominations have failed to realize this––the
Southern Baptists have always been quick to realize that there is one gate; there is one God; there is one mediator between God and man; and His name is Jesus Christ. It’s not multiple choice. Not every road leads to Rome. As a denomination, we have always told people what Jesus told people: I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

So, I praise God for that, that the only way any human being on this earth will ever be saved is through Jesus Christ, and that is all. Because you need to realize the Bible says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and you have no idea what that means, that we were born radically depraved and God hating, that we would have never sought God, never come to God. We have rebelled against God, broken every law. It’s not just an issue that you have sinned. The issue is you’ve never done anything but sinned. The Bible says in the prophets that even our greatest works are like filthy rags before God. And because of that, you know what we deserve? The wrath of God. The holy hatred of God.

You say, “Now, wait a minute. God doesn’t hate anybody. God is love.” No, my friend. You
need to understand something. Jesus Christ taught, the prophets taught, the apostles taught this
—that apart from the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord, the only thing left for you
is the wrath, the fierce anger of God because of your rebellion and your sin.

When I speak in universities, they’re always quick to point out, “No, God cannot hate because
God is love.” And I tell you God must hate because God is love. You see, I love children;
therefore, I hate abortion. If I love that which is holy, I must hate that which is unholy. God is a
holy God. That’s something that the Americans have forgotten. Many of the things that you
love to do, God hates. Did you know that?

Pray for revival. You’re going to have a youth meeting; you want God to move, but before you
go there you watch programs on television that God absolutely despises. And then you wonder
why the Holy Spirit hasn’t fallen on a place and why you have to create false fire and false
excitement. Because God’s not in it. God is a holy God and the only way you and I could ever
be reconciled to a holy God is through the death of God’s own Son when He hung on that tree.

Now listen to me, if you’re saved here tonight, you’re not saved because the Romans and Jews
rejected Jesus. You’re not saved because they put a crown of thorns on His head. You’re not
saved because they ran a spear through His side, and you’re not saved even because they nailed
Him to a cross. Do you know why you’re saved if you are saved? Because when Jesus Christ
was hanging on that cross, He bore your sin. The sin of God’s people and all the fierce wrath of
God that should fall upon you fell upon His only begotten Son. Someone had to pay that price.
Someone had to die. It was God the Father who crushed His only begotten Son. According to
Isaiah 53, it says, It pleased Yahweh to crush Him.

People say the cross is a sign of how much man is worth. That’s not true. The cross is a sign of
how depraved we really are, that it took the death of God’s own Son. The only thing that could
save a people like us was the death of God’s own Son under the wrath of His own Father paying
the price, rising again from the dead. Powerful to say, this is the Gospel of Jesus.

Now what are you called upon to do? You say you go through the narrow gate. How do you do
that? Jesus said, The time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is at hand. What must you do? In
Mark, He tells us . . . repent and believe the Gospel.

You say, “Brother Paul, I got saved by praying and asking Jesus Christ into my heart.” And I’m
sure you did, but you weren’t saved by a magic formula or some words you repeated after
someone else. You were saved because you repented of your sins and you believed, and not only
did you do that in the past, you continued to do it even until now, because when Jesus . . . a
proper translation of that verse He gave is this: The Kingdom of God is come. The time is
fulfilled. Now, spend the rest of your lives repenting of your sins and believing in Me.

Conversion is not like a flu shot. “Oh, I did that. I repented. I believed.” The question is my
friend––are you continuing to repent of sin? Are you continuing to believe? Because He who
began a good work in you will finish it. He will finish it.

Now, we as Southern Baptists preach that you’re supposed to go through that one and only gate
which is Jesus Christ. But we as Southern Baptists have forgotten something. And I want youth
ministers and pastors and everyone to listen to me, parents, we have forgotten a very important
teaching in the Gospel. It says that, not only the gate is narrow, it says the path is narrow. What
we basically do is lead someone to Christ, lead someone in a prayer and then they spend the rest
of their life living just like the world, and if you deny me on this, I can bring the statistics to
prove you wrong. Gallup poll, Barnard polls, every kind of poll you can possibly look at, when
it questions the morality of the church in America against the morality of those who claim to be
lost in America, the polls find no difference. Now that is statistics. It has nothing to do with
religious interpretation. Those are statistics.

Shocking Message-Part 2

2008-09-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

I want you to know that the greatest heresy in the American evangelical and protestant church is
that, if you pray and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, He will definitely come in. You
will not find that in any place in Scripture. You will not find that anywhere in Baptist history
until about 50 years ago. What you need to know is that salvation is by faith and faith alone in
Jesus Christ. And faith alone in Jesus Christ is preceded and followed by repentance . . . a
turning away from sin, a hatred for the things that God hates and a love for the things that God
loves, a growing in holiness and a desire not to be like Britney Spears, not to be like the world,
and not to be like the great majority of American Christians, but to be like Jesus Christ!

[The audience then erupts in applause].

I don’t know why you’re clapping. I’m talking about you. I didn’t come here to get amens. I didn’t come here to be applauded. I’m talking about you.

People so many times come up to me and say, “Oh, I’d love to follow you into Romania”; “I’d love to follow you into the Ukraine”; “I’d love to preach where you preached and planted churches in Peru in the jungle.”

And I tell them, “No, you wouldn’t.”

They say, “Yes, I would.”

I say, “No, you wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d be excommunicated from the church down there.”

What we need to see . . . I’m not trying to be hard for the sake of being hard. Do you realize how much love it takes to stand before 5,000 people and tell them that American Christianity is almost totally wrong? Do you know what it’s going to cost me to never be asked back again to something like this? To be unpopular? Do you know why you do it? You don’t do it because you get paid well. You don’t do it because men love you. You do it because you love men and because, more than that, you want to honor God.

I want to tell you something. We’re going to go into Scripture, and I want you to look at it as it really is. It’s not comparing yourself with others who call themselves Christians. Compare yourself to the Scripture. When someone, a young person, comes to a pastor or a youth minister and says, “I’m not sure whether or not I’m saved,” the youth minister will usually throw out a cliché: “Well, was there ever a time in your life when you prayed and asked Jesus to come into your heart?”

“Well, yes.”

“Were you sincere?”

“Well, I don’t know, but I think so.”

“Well, you need to tell Satan to stop bothering you. Did you write it in the back of your book . . . the back of your Bible like the evangelist told you when you got saved, write down the date so that any time you doubted you could point him to the Bible?”

What superstition has overcome our denomination? Do you know what the Bible tells Christians to do? Examine yourself. Test yourself in light of Scripture to see if you are in the faith. Test yourself to see if you’re a Christian.

Do you realize if I dismissed us right now and told everyone to go knock on every door in this city, do you know what we would find out? Ninety-nine percent of the people, at least, in this city believe themselves to be believers. If you go back to your hometown and knock on every door . . . because I went back to my hometown after I got saved and knocked on every door, and you know what I found out? Everyone in my town is a Christian. Eighty-five percent of them do not go to church, and those who do go to church are not concerned about holiness. They’re not concerned about serving. They’re not concerned about being separate from the world. They’re not concerned about the Gospel being preached among the nations. But, bless God, they’re saved.

Why are they saved? Because some evangelist who should have spent less time preaching and
more time studying his Bible told them they were saved, and he did it so he could brag about
how many came forward in his next revival.

I love you, and there are men here who love you. And I want to go into Scripture now, now that
I’ve shocked you into light. I want you to listen to me. Listen to the Word of God and begin to
ask yourself some questions. First of all, Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and
the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. There is a
narrow gate.

Shocking Message-Part 1

2008-09-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Paul Washer

It’s a tremendous privilege for me to be here this afternoon with you. Before we begin with any further speaking, I would also like to go to the Lord in prayer. I would ask you to pray. There is so much going on here this afternoon, so much that you don’t understand, but I’ll tell you where I’m coming from. I’ll preach as a dying man to dying men and women and youth. I’ll preach as though I will never preach again, and I will tell you things that you will misunderstand. I will tell you things that make you so angry with me, and I’ll tell you things that you will deny. And I will tell you things and you will say I have no right to tell you what I’m telling you. But before you come to any conclusion about what is being said here this afternoon, you ask yourself one question.

You see, preaching is a very dangerous thing. It’s dangerous for me because the Bible says that
false teachers will undergo greater condemnation. If what I tell you today is not true, I’m in a great deal of trouble and have every right to do this with fear and trembling, because I will stand condemned before God. But if what I tell you today is true, then you’re the one with cause for fear and trembling, because if I correctly interpret this passage of Scripture that I’m going to give you, it is as though God was speaking through a man. Your problem will not be with me; it will be with God and His Word. So, the only question that has to be decided here this afternoon is––Is this man before us a false prophet? Or is he telling us the truth? And if he is telling us the truth, then nothing else matters except conforming our lives to that truth.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Father . . .Father, I am so small and so pitiful, Father, in so many ways. You know, Lord, You know, though dear God, should false fire be the only thing ever placed on Your altar, or could fire come down from Heaven amidst all the noise and the clamor and the activities . . . could fire come down from Heaven and these dead bones live, You know me. In Your sovereignty, I pray and I beg before the throne of God that You would be gracious to us, that You would open up hearts and minds. Lord, we can’t wait for them to open theirs; they never will. Open up their hearts and minds and cause them to see biblical truth. Breathe on them. Grant them repentance.
Grant them faith. Bring them into Your Kingdom, Lord, for Your own glory, for the sake of Your own great name, do this thing, Lord. As the brother said, let it be so, Lord, so that no man will take credit for it, so that no man will lay his hand to the ark of God and, if he did, that You would strike him down dead, Lord. Oh, God, move among us, please, because we have no other hope. We have no other hope. These children have no other hope except that You move.

Amen.

I’ll be teaching from Matthew chapter 7. If you have your Bibles, follow with me. In Matthew
chapter 7, verse 13, Jesus said:

Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad
that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the
gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who
find it.
Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but
inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes
are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every
good tree bears good fruit, but every bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree
cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree
that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then,
you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of
heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter.
Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many
miracles. Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you
who practice lawlessness. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of
mine and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man who builds his
house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew
and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded
upon the rock.
Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be
like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The rain fell and the
floods came and winds blew and slammed against the house and it fell, and
great was its fall.

I stand here today . . . I’m not troubled in my heart about your self-esteem. I’m not troubled in my heart about whether or not you feel good about yourself, whether or not life is turning out like you want it to turn out, or whether or not your checkbook is balanced. There’s only one thing that gave me a sleepless night. There’s only one thing that troubled me all throughout the morning, and this is this. Within a hundred years, a great majority of people in this building will possibly be in hell. And many who even profess Jesus Christ as Lord will spend an eternity in hell.

You say, Pastor, how can you say such a thing? I can say such a thing because I don’t do my Christian work in America. I spend most of my time preaching in South America, in Africa, and Eastern Europe. And I want you to know that, when you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more upon a godless culture than it is upon the Word of God. And so many people are deceived, and so many youth are deceived, and so many adults are deceived into believing that, because they prayed a prayer one time in their life, they’re going to Heaven. And then, when they look around at others who profess to know Christ and see those people also just as worldly as the world, and they compare themselves by themselves, nothing troubles their heart. They think, well, I’m the same as most in my youth group. I watch things I shouldn’t watch on television and laugh about the very things that God hates. I wear clothing that is sensual. I talk like the world. I walk like the world. I love the music of the world. I love so much that’s in the world, but bless God, I am a Christian. Why am I a Christian? I don’t look any different than most of the other people in my church. Why am I a Christian? Because there was a time in my life when I prayed and asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart.

Every messed family!!

2008-09-06T14:02:00.001-07:00

This article was inspired by Cheri's piece about her cousin; my mind ran back to a couple of years ago!

Wait, let me allow Cheri to finish clapping for herself!!

The story is about a cousin. Yeah, it is always about cousins. Actually he is an uncle, because he is my mum's cousin. But since he is relatively younger, I prefer to call him cousin...you know, Ugandan style! In Uganda everyone is a cousin.

I remember this dude, a buddy of mine back then in secondary school...we were in a boy's school. And then there was this girl's school not too far from her...that girls' school was the place every guy wanted to date a girl from. Actually, it was generally referred to as ZOO...or sometimes Zoo-zone

This buddy of mine, Vincent, then we were in Form 1 knew some many girls, all the way from Form 1 to Form 6,and he just used to say they are his cousins! Of course he wasn’t going out with them, a young tiny Form 1 kid, with like over 15 cousins in one school. Unbelievable. But anyhow, he was never bullied at school. Older boys needed him to get through to his 'cousins'!

Anyway, back to my own 'cousin' story. You know, after reading a lot of books on globalisation, rise of China, India....global market forces blah blah, I used to religiously tell all my relatives that in a globalised world, competition is always tight, always keep ahead of the pack!

One of own cuzo took my advice too seriously...he became a dad at 16.

Was beaten at my own game! I have vowed never again to pass certain useful pieces of advice anyhow. I now have to carefully decide how I want to tell what to whomever.

PS:By the title, I meant to say every family has a mess somewhere! Perfectionis very elusive.

Rainy days...

2008-09-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

I hate England. Not hate, as in hate hate..but i just hate England! You know what i mean? It has the most horrible weather on the face of the earth!
Not only is the wather the most horrible, but it also seems to be quite clever. Theweather actually knows the dates!

Sit tight, let me explain what i mean!!

I was too busy (I still am), working hard, making ends meet as regards my dissertation! Infact too busy to enjoy the summer! Apparently, British summer is the nest time of the year, but I was too busy to notice.....and i will forever rue the missed opportunity!

So, i wake up one morning,some days ago, and a few classmates tell me:

"..summer is officially over! Y'de was the last day of summer"

Iam like "What??!! What d'ya mean?"

"Because its already Sep31st, and according to the calendar, that is he official end of summer"
So i was like, should i agree with these guys, or not!! I walked out of the computercluster, and everything seemed bright! The sun was up. What were these guyst alkingabout? Thye do not know a thing! Do they think they are weather menor something. For God's sakes, they are all a bunchof Chemical engineers..and all they do is.....

Fast forward! Two days later. I wake up in a good mood. Dress up for the summer, t-shirt,sandals and all! Grab my bag, heading for thecomputer cluster! I never even bothered to look through the window of my 7th floor Silver Core apartment!

No sooner, did i step out than I amlost began freezing! Temperatures had dropped by over 15 degrees in two days! I coudnt beleive it.

As i looked through my window now, it seems to be sunny..so deceptively sunner! But other than a few other things in life,never trust the weather in this city! It rans anytime...paka even a guy likeme is learning how to carry an umbrella with me! Well,the proof is that I have now lost a few..left them wherever i went!

Perhaps the most exciting thing thing to ever happen in this city in the last couple of days are the arrival of 1) Berbs..last minute swoop!! 2)The new British record in theform of the baby faced,finger sucking Robinho 3)the money bags ADUG!

Unfortunately(or fourtunately),am a true loyalist, my heart lies in the Emirates!! I gotta get back to work..

During Final year presentations....

2008-09-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

The following happens at various times between 9:30am and 1pm.The venue is a lecture hall. The names may (or may not) have been changed, but the occasion is MSc Project Presentations. The conversions are mainly hand scribbled, on pieces of paper.

Indian guy A: After finishing his presentations, “I am screwed”!!! Will I pass?

African guy: Like I was saying yesterday, you need to convince them about the steps- I think you were not clear on the....

Indian guy A: Will I pass?

African guy: Yeah

Indian guy A: Was I aggressive?

Indian guy A: They asked too many questions!!!

Indian guy A: The reason why they asked you a lot of questions is because you were
not very clear with the multi-period!!

African guy: You answered most of them.

African guy: That is why I did not provide them with handouts. Go to page...blah blah...!!

Indian guy A: Commenting on another guy presenting “He‘s screwed”

Indian guy B: Miriam (not real name) likes bananas!

Indian guy A: Yeah

African guy: So what are you saying? I think everybody likes bananas!!

Indian guy B: I don’t!

Indian guy B: So do you like Frenchy?

African guy: What the hell is that?

African guy: We need to get each others dissertation. Because we might need it in industry.

Thai guy: Fermentation?

African guy: You never know where we will work 5years from now.

African guy: She is preparing her presentation.

After African guy’s presentation....

African guy: I didn’t know JKK would bring up Bhari’s work!

African guy: I actually thought about whether I should include it or not.

During Indian guy D’s presentation

African guy: This dude is taking something from Fang as well.

African guy: Just like a typical Indian, “how much money are we saving?” This guy is screwed!!! Wait for the questions.

African guy: He always interrupts the lecturer. You need to talk to him. It happened during MWK as well.

After Indian guy D’s his presentation

African guy: You should not interrupt the lecturer when he asks you. You wait for him to finish

African guy to Girl A: Too many slides (23), you will need at least 20 minutes.

Indian guy: You need an average of 10 slides

African guy:”Skip the first few. Go straight to Project objectives. “He looks through a certain slide, with a few graphs plotted. “Is this your own results?”

Girl A: Yes

African guy:” You have too many slides, so if they ask you to go to a certain slide, it will take you a very long time to get there.

African guy: Explain why the results are like this. Insert----Slide number.

Thai guy: Spots the list of names in their order of presentation, then writes besides a certain Ahmad.”Who is he?

Indian guy A: Write besides two names.”Distinction!! “”Distinction!!” Then scribbles
besides his name...”Fail”

Disclaimer: Due to the manner in which they were scribbled on paper, the conversation may or may not be in the original order in which they occurred. The reader has the freedom to decipher anything that doesn’t make sense, but the author is not responsible for the meanings that the reader may decipher from this.
PS: As you can see, I had to use the word decipher!! I love English!!

Those dimes.....

2008-09-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Since everyone has been writting stuff, trying to outdo each other in a bid to meet Denis Muhumuza's criteria of a "serious blogger", let me take this opportunity to get my entry in!

This i hope will go along way to set teh agenda for the next level fo interekcho discussions! I hope and beleive, that my post, this post, ladies and gentlemen will fie up your imagination, gain your interest into the things that are happening in this your country, Uganda, which was aptly named " The pearl of Africa" by one Winston Churchill".

For those who do not know him, he was one of the first Prime Minsiters of Britain... er...I do not know exactly whether he was the first, second or third..but he was somewhere there....up there, maybe just in fame..rather than numerical position!
Ok, spare me some slack, i did PCM in high school!

uganda was also badly commercialised in the famous CNN advert as "Gifted by nature!! But they did not go as far to elaborate what this dear country is gufted in!

Therefore let me tajke this opportunity to elucidate, what they could have meant! I might be wrong. But read this....

Where is the Shs11 billion Temangalo land cash going? What about the Shs31 billion NSSF-Alcon International dime flowing? And did i hear someone mention the whooping out Shs 84 billion..for those who do not know maths, that is 120 billion minus 36billions!!!

Conspiracy theorists suggest that, we might see the dimes resurrect in 2011. I hope to be older and wiser then...perhaps maybe to allow my stomach to be played with, but not my head..if am still alive my dear friends!!

When I go crazy...right here!

2008-09-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

Damn!
i beleive we can use our blogs to air out our innermost thoguths. To some extent,use it almost diary-of-sorts. Which is true!

And then I came across this aticle by Denis Muhumza which challenged the hell out of me!!

The dude was onto to something when he said this!

He was actually correct to a greater extent. I agree with him when he says that we should use blogs could be sued to dicuss "serious issues", stuff that can change the country and the world we live.
Look at the issues affecting out society..the corruption at every level, the suffering in the North of the country no one has ever mentioned, the "deals" peole are cutting at the highest levels in office. We coudl do something to expose these things! Expose them to the world.

Am I sounding angry? Yeah, thats because i just ventured into the area of holy anger..angry because we see thinsg happening and we say nothing. Some one once said, bad things happen because good men do nothing, they cant even speak about them! We maintain a level of indifference. I am not advocatng for some sort of revolutuon.

Am just saying....uhmmm, do something!!!!!!!!!! I almost said follow your heart or even your conscience, the i aksed myself..of teh two, which one is less darkened!!

Obama: Battle of speeches!

2008-08-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

Man, it has been a long wait!

When will Barack Obama come and give his acceptance speech. i know it will be a great speech. I listened to the debut 2004 speech. I rate it as his greatest speech. And then, i rate the Iowa victory as his second most powerful. So, wil this speech overtake the last two?

i know they said it happen at 10pm ET.....somehow that means to 3am where I am!
But somehow i have waited, listend to every speaker.

Ok..its now 01:44am....and Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore has stepped in, will he finally invite Obama? U know, the big guy Barack will have to be invited by another big guy Gore.

Why is Obama a big guy? He has officially clinched the nomination..happened Wednesday night, Hillary releases all her delegates. They all say, Obama is the MAN! So, really, it was jus ta formality.
So let Gore invite Obama, the guy gives his long awaited speech, and we all go to bed!
Oh wait, there is another bigger guy who will have to invite Obama!

Howard Dean!

Damn, my wait will have to continue. At least i have a dissertation to work on. So i have a reason to stay awake!

Oh, ofcourse Gore is fusing climate change and Obama! So far one quote he has made "I beleive in recyling, but not in this election"

The wait is too long...hope he just shows up now

When u make it there.....

2008-08-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

I was shocked, confused, bewildered,
As I entered Heaven's door.
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.

Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, What's the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How'd all these sinners get up here?
God must've made a mistake.

And why's everyone so quiet,
So somber - give me a clue.
Hush, child, He said, they're all in shock.
No one thought they'd be seeing you.

My shirt!!

2008-08-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Finally my new shirt arrived...its neither a Pierre Cadeen (so old, i can nolonger remember the spelling)..andsory it's also not a Tommy Hillfiger (who still wears these shirts anyway?!!).
Its not the latest Hugo Boss-like shirt. And yes, i know Hugo Boss is a famous perfume!!

Though my shirt tarried, it arrived!And the wait has been worth it! Itsall nice, am not sure it manufactured in China....as some arebeginning to think!But then again, who cares?? It is quality!And China rocks...did u watch the opening ceremonyof the Olympics?!

Back to my shirt...........

My shirt has the famous brand Nike on it. And it also has the phrase "FlyEmirates" firmly imprinted on it. Now, for the uncultured ones, Emirates is te name of a famous airline! It was the second after Singapore airlines to fly the superjumbo A380-800 aircraft. UNited Arab Emirates (UAE) is middle easter federation of 7 states, with Dubai as its main city.....

Damn, how did i find myself talking about Dubai? Alright, let me get on with it..
Dubai is most famous for its moden architecture....and its real estates namely the Dubai Palm islands (and beaches). Dubai is also home to one of the largest airports in the world...well, that was before Beijing International airport was built! And Beijing is.......

Sorry, i have to get back to the story line......the SHIRT!

So what was i saying? Yes, by now you should have figured that i was into some kind of sports...that is, or thatwasbefore i lost ye all....with my winding or beating around the bush! I hear "beating about the bush..such a odd weird phrase!! The English should have come up with something better! Do the even have a enough bush to beat about in the West...they should have saved it for Africans! The only Bush i know in the "West" is George W.Bush (father and son) and boym whar have they done to this world!!

So, my shirt has both Nike and Fly Emirats written on it. Its a newly designed shirt, to commerate the 20th anniversaryof some victory at Anfield! I do not wat victory of 2oyears, iwant vicory NOW! Go tell the Le Professor AW.

By now, you have figured that like all men i watch soccer...and like most sane men, i support Arsenal!Why? Because I am a romantic, a purist, i love to watch the beautiful game played as it is supposed to be! So i ordered the brand new edition of first team shirt, and though it tooklonger than necessary to arrive,,,Lo and Behold, i now have it in my hands! With my name written on it! Personalised!Watch me step out in it kesho (2moro).

Now, am beginning to sound like a young boy! Who ever said their is a child in every adult was probably right!!

Asociety at its deathbed!!

2008-08-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

A prominent American’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and referring to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack, Jane Clayson asked her. “How could God let something like this happen?”

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said “I believe God is saddened just as we are, but for years we have been telling God to get out of our schools, get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, he calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessings and protection if we demand that he leave us alone?”

In light of recent events.....terrorist attacks, gun shootings, knife killings, suicide, a generation of children who seek instant gratification, drugs, sex, booze....it is bizarre what is going on.
Some say it started with Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) who complained that she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school.... We said OK. But this is the Bible that says....Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, but thou shalt love your neighbour as yourself!
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we should not spank our kids when they misbehave because their little personalities would become warped and we might damage their self-esteem. We agreed with him, because his is an “expert” and therefore he knows what he is talking about. So we said OK, the expert is RIGHT!! But this is this is the same guy whose son ended up committing suicide. I only wish we could wind back the clock and his son lives again.....

Then someone rose up and said teachers and principals should not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school had better touch a student when they misbehave because we do not want any publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued. But we need to understand that there is a vast difference between disciplining and humiliating, smacking, beating etc. Of course we agreed with the schools...and said Ok, No More disciplining our kids in schools. Yet this is the place where they spend at least 75% percent of their awake/active hours during the day.

Then someone said, let our daughters have abortions if they want. It is their choice. They won’t even have to tell their parents. And we said OK.

Then a school board member rose up and said, since boys will be boys and they are going to do it anyway...why souldntwe just give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we wont even have to tell their parentsthat they got them from school. And we said OK. We should have instead preached Abstinence until marriage, being faithful to one sexual partner when married...and then condoms should come last in the priotity list.
Then some top elected officials said that it doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t matter what the president, minister or any government officials does n private as long as I have a job and the economy is good. Ask the Americans, they have a story to tell. Ask other nations, and they will relate stories of corruption in government offices. It all stems from a desire to satisfy self above all else. We do not care what pain we cause others, as long as we are happy and our immediate needs for self-gratification are met. That carries itself from the private and shows itself in the decisions we make every day.

Then someone said lets’ print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down to earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK. And then we wonder why so many people cheat on their sexual partners! The rates of divorce are so sky high and the innocent children of course are the worst affected by all these.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and made them available on the internet. And then we wonder why the cases of paedophilia are ever rising!!

Then the entertainment industry said, let’s make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex. Let us record music that encourages rape, drugs suicide and satanic themes. Ad we said “It is just entertainment, it had no adverse effects. Nobody will even take it seriously.” And there we went. Imposing age restrictions or parental guidance will not help. The parents themselves need to be guided most of the times.

So now we ask ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they know right from wrong. But we are the ones who told them that there is neither right nor wrong. We told our kids that they are free to believe whatever they want as long as it works for them. That there is neither right nor wrong. And then we wonder why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their own classmates, and even themselves. The rates of gun and knife related crimes on the streets of London are not only increasing, but even the ages of both the victims and the criminals are decreasing. The gruesomeness of the attacks is getting worse and worse. It is not the government only to blame.

Probably if we think about it long and hard, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW”

Quotable quotes from The Life of David Galed

2008-07-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

We spend all our whole lives trying to stop death....eating, inventing, loving, praying, fighting, killing!!
But what do we really know about death? Just that nobody comes back?
But there comes a point in life when your mind outlives its desires, its obsessions, when your habits survive your dreams. And when your loss, maybe death is a gift, you wonder!!!

Taken from the movie, The Life of David Gale.

Every Morning

2008-07-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up and knows that it will have to outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.And, every morning in Africa a lion wakes up and knows that it will have to outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.So, in Africa, it doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle. When that sun comes up, you had better be running.

Author Unknown

This is one those quotes i learnt when i was reading "The World is Flat", written by Thomas Friedman,a colmnist with the New York Time magazine. It challenged me (almost said 'to death') so much. Globalisation is right here, you can now plug and play (not an original phrase) from everywherein this world!

In this world, integration andcollaboration is going to be seen in everything we do. The thing is, that there is no longer anyone to rule...thequestion that i ask myself is, how can i create for myself opportunities! This is a great book, that forces you to think beyond your environs, and start to think of yourself as a global player!!

Problem is....after reading this book, if you rae not careful....u might become more materialistic...u begin to compare yourself with the Indians who are inventing software in Bangalore, then all you think about is "How can i make it?".

Worse still, we are living in a world where people are judged by what they have...which is not right! We should judged more bythe content of our character, our right values etc. We need to read it carefully, think of how we can use the principles of the book to make a tangible difference in the lives of people...and just think f our own skin...and how we can make it thicker!!

Charismatic Revivalism vs. Character Based Renewal

2008-07-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

This is an article posted by Andrew Strom online at http://antagoniz.com . I do not know him, neither had i heard of him before. But it was worth a read.

” ICA” APOSTLE SPEAKS OUT ON LAKELAND” Andrew Strom

First, let me start by saying that Robert Ricciardelli has been incredibly bold and courageous in speaking out on this issue in recent days. He is one of the very few from NAR circles who have dared to speak up - firstly on blogs and on the radio - and even on our own Forum at RevivalSchool.com, etc. Robert is a “marketplace apostle” in Peter Wagner’s “International Coalition of Apostles” (ICA). He is the real deal. For him to speak out about Lakeland is a very brave act indeed. Plus he is a Charisma Magazine writer and a friend of Lee Grady.
Last week on July 14th Robert was a guest on Radio KGNW - where he spoke of how he had just come back from Lakeland, and told of his deep concerns and the background research that he had been doing. On July 16th he commented on one Internet blog: “Truth is there are very few people being healed in Lakeland. I have worked with Charisma Magazine editor Lee Grady in discovering how many false reports have been released as facts. These are our brothers and sisters involved in this, but this move of God has been a move of men with God still touching some who come to seek Him.”

On another blog he wrote: “Charisma reporters and a few others like myself have tried to get these verified and cannot… We actually had offered to help, because any news of a resurrection in my opinion is world news if it can be validated. But then when the totals continued to mount which led to hype and embellishment, they began to ask us to stop asking questions. Hmmmm?

“Friday night, Todd said that God said there were 1000 people that were to give $1000, and they were to receive a 1000 fold blessing. The one hour drama on this giving subject was so deceptively evident that it was embarrasing to watch. On top of that, those that would give that money were able to come to the platform to be recognized.”

Concerning the ‘Resurrections’ in Lakeland, Robert wrote: “We have investigated the 20 plus “raised from the dead” claims as we want to report them to the media, and they cannot be verified, but were only called in, or sent in from an email. This is not responsible reporting, and leaves many questions, which also adds to the claims of hype and embellishment.” [~Robert Ricciardelli blog comments - ‘jasonclark.ws’ & ’stevehickey.wordpress.com’]

The hour-long broadcast that Robert did on KGNW is also causing quite a stir as it does the rounds on the Internet

On our own Forum at RevivalSchool.com, Robert publicly added the following comments:

“Peter Wagner and Chuck Pierce nominated me as a marketplace apostle 6 years ago. I threw the title away before I ever got it. I am not into titles, but I am into functions. The Lord told us “yes” to engage, and He was going to show us some truth in the process. Being engaged has given us a great oportunity to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of the apostolic/prophetic movements. The biggest thing along the way is the friends and associates we have met that have a biblical worldview much the same as we do…

“After this year we will pray about next year and so far it looks like the Father is giving us a sense that we may not to be a part of the ICA if Peter and the leadership do not reconsider their impromptu decision to jump into the Lakeland stream, when many of us warned him not to. It was a mistake to coronate, when they needed to father and correct Bentley from the direction he is heading others into. It just put more fuel in his errant tank.

“I am praying for Todd, because he really is an evangelist, and he is a gifted evangelist. But he cannot go on embellishing, speaking untruths, hyping, manipulating, shoving, kicking, slapping, leg dropping, and bamming his way on the pulpit without consequences. God will not be mocked, and Todd and others must answer to Him for everyone led astray.

“The biggest thing about Lakeland is the lack of the fear of our Awesome God, lack of repentance and humility. Many have exchanged the truth for a lie and chosen experience over content. Angels, trances, and 3rd heaven focus has replaced the gospel as a focus… Lord do what only you can do to bring your divine alignment to all of us in Jesus name..” [-end quote]

I took note of the fact that Robert said that “many” had warned Peter Wagner not to jump into the Lakeland stream. I also noted that Robert seemed to be saying that he himself may leave the ICA over this issue. I thanked him publicly for his courage in speaking out, and asked him if there really was a lot of disagree- ment even within Wagner’s own movement?

Robert replied:
“To answer your question, yes there is at least a dozen ICA members that I know of that are extremely concerned at Peter’s endorsement and more to follow as the nonsense continues. The transferring of anointing, the focus on man bringing anything but the gospel is amazing and sad…. if Peter Wagner, Bill Johnson, and some distinguished members of the Who’s Who in Charismania say it is all good, then people just go with it. Some have begun to see the YouTube and other information and begun to change. Some go as far as to claim it as deception, others say it is a move of God that needs correction.

“It is my opinion that it was man orchestrated and demonically influenced from the very beginning. The worship has been good and Roy Fields is an awesome worship leader, so many in the worship and even watching from afar can sense God in the worship of His people. The truth is God has been engaged in the worship and has touched and healed some. This is why it has been so confusing to some. I have heard that Roy Fields has stated a few times that when the worship ends, God’s presence leaves the platform, and then Todd Bentley operates void of His presence. That is why most all of what they have claimed cannot be verified, because it just is not happening.

“We have heard a few people getting well, being touched and so on. There is a church here in North Carolina that brought 27 sick down there for a week. Some with cancer, leukemia, diabetes and such. None got healed and most were worse when they came back. The emperor is not wearing any clothes and the truth must be known. Many are claiming that Todd is the new thing that God is doing. The fact is he is still operating in the old thing, and operating with less integrity and character than the previous one man shows.

“God is about nameless and faceless people who are operating without any agenda but the Lord’s. Preaching about the King and His Kingdom, and moving supernaturally after Him, and as they do, signs and wonders follow. The problem in Charismania is that they seek the sign, they seek the thrill, they seek the craft supply quality gold dust, feathers and gems. They may get the chills and frills, but leave with nothing more than goose bumps and really little spiritual change. When they seek the King, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, you begin to see transformation take place at the heart level. This is God’s way and always has been… Bentley is just a product of the Charismatic/ apostolic/ prophetic trending away from Plumb line truth. At the same time the fact is, none of us amount to much, no not one. But in Him and dying to self and living His agenda, we can move mountains… The church is getting there, I wrote an article for Charisma that everything that can be shaken is being shaken, and this is what is happening in a great way right now…” [end quote]

Friends, please write to Robert encouraging him if you can for the courageous stand he is taking. See more of his comments + links to his article & radio show on the ‘Scrolling Forum’ at the following website (main page) - http://www.revivalschool.com

Transformation

2008-07-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

“PEOPLE DO NOT drift toward holiness.
Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness,
prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.
We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance;
we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom;
we drift toward superstition and call it faith.
We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation;
we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking
we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness
and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

-D. A. Carson, For the Love of God

Transformation is not a one time event, it takes place with time. But is an effort that is driven byth garce of God. It does not happen entirely becasue of our efforts, lest we start to feel proud and feel that we deservesalvation. and somehowGodowes us something because we have proved ourselves. Infact God doesnt owe us anything, he already gave His life for us.

Contrary to what people claim...that you know if we accept Jesus into our hearts, then all will be well in our lives, we will become rich, we shall get job promotions..etc! That is not true! The nly reason why we shouldcome to God isbecause we are sinners who need to besaved by Him.

We owe him everything. Our lives,our breath, our ambitions..everything! And the true test is when, we are willing to accept God and trust in Him, even if everything around us seems bleak! Even if trusting in Him means that we stand to lose everything. Now, this doesnt take place overnight! We need to grow in our faith in Him aswe know more about Him by the day. Infact, it is as He reveals himself to us everyday!

It cant be good for your health!!

2008-07-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have realised that however much we do....only God can do His work in a man's heart!
Picture this...u have done many Bible studies with this man.....and you get this feeling that perhaps some progress is being made in his life!

Then of all a sudden, we were discussing the danger of porn.....and the man takes a position that pornography is not actually a bad thing! My heart bled, i wanted to cry.....i rushed to my room and wanted to cry!

Ijust concluded that only God can do a work in a man's heart! It is not about us, it is about Him. How can you say you are a christian, and still claim that pornography is not bad..it can be looked at as just an art! May God help us.

The facts are simple....if a man watches pornography, he will begin to look at women in a different light....more as sex objects! He no longer sees a woman as a nother human being with whom he can relate to.

We are living in a generation that has lost its sense of direction...whoever said Generation X.

THE LONG RUN : Free-spirited wanderer set Obama’s path

2008-03-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

What is best in me I owe to her,’ candidate has said of his idealistic mother
By Janny Scott (The New York Times) March 14, 2008

In the capsule version of the Barack Obama story, his mother is simply the white woman from Kansas. The phrase comes coupled alliteratively to its counterpart, the black father from Kenya. On the campaign trail, he has called her his “single mom.” But neither description begins to capture the unconventional life of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, the parent who most shaped Mr. Obama.

Kansas was merely a way station in her childhood, wheeling westward in the slipstream of her furniture-salesman father. In Hawaii, she married an African student at age 18. Then she married an Indonesian, moved to Jakarta, became an anthropologist, wrote an 800-page dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Java, worked for the Ford Foundation, championed women’s work and helped bring microcredit to the world’s poor.

She had high expectations for her children. In Indonesia, she would wake her son at 4 a.m. for correspondence courses in English before school; she brought home recordings of Mahalia Jackson, speeches by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And when Mr. Obama asked to stay in Hawaii for high school rather than return to Asia, she accepted living apart — a decision her daughter says was one of the hardest in Ms. Soetoro’s life.

“She felt that somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core,” said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Mr. Obama’s half-sister. “That was very much her philosophy of life — to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places.”

Ms. Soetoro, who died of ovarian cancer in 1995, was the parent who raised Mr. Obama, the Illinois senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He barely saw his father after the age of 2. Though it is impossible to pinpoint the imprint of a parent on the life of a grown child, people who knew Ms. Soetoro well say they see her influence unmistakably in Mr. Obama.

They were close, her friends and his half-sister say, though they spent much of their lives with oceans or continents between them. He would not be where he is today, he has said, had it not been for her. Yet he has also made some different choices — marrying into a tightly knit African-American family rooted in the South Side of Chicago, becoming a churchgoing Christian, publicly recounting his search for his identity as a black man.

Some of what he has said about his mother seems tinged with a mix of love and regret. He has said his biggest mistake was not being at her bedside when she died. And when The Associated Press asked the candidates about “prized keepsakes” — others mentioned signed baseballs, a pocket watch, a “trophy wife” — Mr. Obama said his was a photograph of the cliffs of the South Shore of Oahu in Hawaii where his mother’s ashes were scattered.

“I think sometimes that had I known she would not survive her illness, I might have written a different book — less a meditation on the absent parent, more a celebration of the one who was the single constant in my life,” he wrote in the preface to his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” He added, “I know that she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and that what is best in me I owe to her.”

In a campaign in which Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has made liberal use of his globe-trotting 96-year-old mother to answer suspicions that he might be an antique at 71, Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, invokes his mother’s memory sparingly. In one television advertisement, she appears fleetingly — porcelain-skinned, raven-haired and holding her toddler son. “My mother died of cancer at 53,” he says in the ad, which focuses on health care. “In those last painful months, she was more worried about paying her medical bills than getting well.”

‘A very, very big thinker’

He has described her as a teenage mother, a single mother, a mother who worked, went to school and raised children at the same time. He has credited her with giving him a great education and confidence in his ability to do the right thing. But, in interviews, friends and colleagues of Ms. Soetoro shed light on a side of her that is less well known.

“She was a very, very big thinker,” said Nancy Barry, a former president of Women’s World Banking, an international network of microfinance providers, where Ms. Soetoro worked in New York City in the early 1990s. “I think she was not at all personally ambitious, I think she cared about the core issues, and I think she was not afraid to speak truth to power.”

Her parents were from Kansas — her mother from Augusta, her father from El Dorado, a place Mr. Obama first visited in a campaign stop in January. Stanley Ann (her father wanted a boy so he gave her his name) was born on an Army base during World War II. The family moved to California, Kansas, Texas and Washington in restless pursuit of opportunity before landing in Honolulu in 1960.

Brief marriage

In a Russian class at the University of Hawaii, she met the college’s first African student, Barack Obama. They married and had a son in August 1961, in an era when interracial marriage was rare in the United States. Her parents were upset, Senator Obama learned years later from his mother, but they adapted. “I am a little dubious of the things that people from foreign countries tell me,” the senator’s grandmother told an interviewer several years ago.

The marriage was brief. In 1963, Mr. Obama left for Harvard, leaving his wife and child. She then married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian student. When he was summoned home in 1966 after the turmoil surrounding the rise of Suharto, Ms. Soetoro and Barack followed.

Those choices were not entirely surprising, said several high school friends of Ms. Soetoro, whom they remembered as unusually intelligent, curious and open. She never dated “the crew-cut white boys,” said one friend, Susan Blake: “She had a world view, even as a young girl. It was embracing the different, rather than that ethnocentric thing of shunning the different. That was where her mind took her.”

Her second marriage faded, too, in the 1970s. Ms. Soetoro wanted to work, one friend said, and Mr. Soetoro wanted more children. He became more American, she once said, as she became more Javanese. “There’s a Javanese belief that if you’re married to someone and it doesn’t work, it will make you sick,” said Alice G. Dewey, an anthropologist and friend. “It’s just stupid to stay married.”

That both unions ended is beside the point, some friends suggested. Ms. Soetoro remained loyal to both husbands and encouraged her children to feel connected to their fathers. (In reading drafts of her son’s memoir, Mr. Obama has said, she did not comment upon his depiction of her but was “quick to explain or defend the less flattering aspects of my father’s character.”)

“She always felt that marriage as an institution was not particularly essential or important,” said Nina Nayar, who later became a close friend of Ms. Soetoro. What mattered to her, Ms. Nayar said, was to have loved deeply.

‘Wearied of being new all over again’

By 1974, Ms. Soetoro was back in Honolulu, a graduate student and raising Barack and Maya, nine years younger. Barack was on scholarship at a prestigious prep school, Punahou. When Ms. Soetoro decided to return to Indonesia three years later for her field work, Barack chose not to go.

“I doubted what Indonesia now had to offer and wearied of being new all over again,” he wrote in his memoir. “More than that, I’d arrived at an unspoken pact with my grandparents: I could live with them and they’d leave me alone so long as I kept my trouble out of sight.” During those years, he was “engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America.” Ms. Soetoro-Ng recalled her mother’s quandary. “She wanted him to be with her,” Ms. Soetoro-Ng said. But she added: “Although it was painful to be separated from him for his last four years of high school, she recognized that it was perhaps the best thing for him. And she had to go to Indonesia at that time.”

That time apart was hard for both mother and son.

“She longed for him,” said Georgia McCauley, who became a friend of Ms. Soetoro in Jakarta. Barack spent summers and Christmas vacations with his mother; they communicated by letters, his illustrated with cartoons. Her first topic of conversation was always her son, her female friends said. As for him, he was grappling with questions of racial identity, alienation and belonging.

“There were certainly times in his life in those four years when he could have used her presence on a more daily basis,” Ms. Soetoro-Ng said. “But I think he did all right for himself.”

Fluent in Indonesian, Ms. Soetoro moved with Maya first to Yogyakarta, the center of Javanese handicrafts. A weaver in college, she was fascinated with what Ms. Soetoro-Ng calls “life’s gorgeous minutiae.” That interest inspired her study of village industries, which became the basis of her 1992 doctoral dissertation.

“She loved living in Java,” said Dr. Dewey, who recalled accompanying Ms. Soetoro to a metalworking village. “People said: ‘Hi! How are you?’ She said: ‘How’s your wife? Did your daughter have the baby?’ They were friends. Then she’d whip out her notebook and she’d say: ‘How many of you have electricity? Are you having trouble getting iron?’ ”

She became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan, then joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor.

Visitors flowed constantly through her Ford Foundation office in downtown Jakarta and through her house in a neighborhood to the south, where papaya and banana trees grew in the front yard and Javanese dishes like opor ayam were served for dinner. Her guests were leaders in the Indonesian human rights movement, people from women’s organizations, representatives of community groups doing grass-roots development.

“I didn’t know a lot of them and would often ask after, ‘Who was that?’ ” said David S. McCauley, now an environmental economist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, who had the office next door. “You’d find out it was the head of some big organization in with thousands of members from central Java or someplace, somebody that she had met some time ago, and they would make a point of coming to see her when they came to Jakarta.”

An exacting idealist

As a mother, Ms. Soetoro was both idealistic and exacting. Friends describe her as variously informal and intense, humorous and hardheaded. She preached to her young son the importance of honesty, straight talk, independent judgment. When he balked at her early-morning home schooling, she retorted, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

When Barack was in high school, she confronted him about his seeming lack of ambition, Mr. Obama wrote. He could get into any college in the country, she told him, with just a little effort. (“Remember what that’s like? Effort?”) He says he looked at her, so earnest and sure of his destiny: “I suddenly felt like puncturing that certainty of hers, letting her know that her experiment with me had failed.”

Ms. Soetoro-Ng, who herself became an anthropologist, remembers conversations with her mother about philosophy or politics, books, esoteric Indonesian woodworking motifs. One Christmas in Indonesia, Ms. Soetoro found a scrawny tree and decorated it with red and green chili peppers and popcorn balls.

“She gave us a very broad understanding of the world,” her daughter said. “She hated bigotry. She was very determined to be remembered for a life of service and thought that service was really the true measure of a life.” Many of her friends see her legacy in Mr. Obama — in his self-assurance and drive, his boundary bridging, even his apparent comfort with strong women. Some say she changed them, too.

“I feel she taught me how to live,” said Ms. Nayar, who was in her 20s when she met Ms. Soetoro at Women’s World Banking. “She was not particularly concerned about what society would say about working women, single women, women marrying outside their culture, women who were fearless and who dreamed big.”

The final months

After her diagnosis, Ms. Soetoro spent the last months of her life in Hawaii, near her mother. (Her father had died.) Mr. Obama has recalled talking with her in her hospital bed about her fears of ending up broke. She was not ready to die, he has said. Even so, she helped him and Maya “push on with our lives, despite our dread, our denials, our sudden constrictions of the heart.”

She died in November 1995, as Mr. Obama was starting his first campaign for public office. After a memorial service at the University of Hawaii, one friend said, a small group of friends drove to the South Shore in Oahu. With the wind whipping the waves onto the rocks, Mr. Obama and Ms. Soetoro-Ng placed their mother’s ashes in the Pacific, sending them off in the direction of Indonesia.

LRA-Uganda Govt Deal

2008-02-22T15:55:00.000-08:00

Full statement of new govt-LRA deal

IMPLEMENTATION PROTOCOL TO THE AGREEMENT ON COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTIONS

This Implementation Protocol (the Protocol) to the Agreement on Comprehensive Solutions (the Principal Agreement) signed between the Government of the Republic of Uganda (the Government) and the Lord's Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) (the Parties) on 2nd of May 2007 provides as follows:

THE PARTIES AGREE as follows:
1. This Protocol sets out the framework by which the principles and commitments agreed in the Principal Agreement are to be implemented.The contents of the Protocol shall not in any way limit the application of that Agreement, whose provisions are to be implemented in full.

Participation in National Politics and Institutions (Principal Agreement: Part C)
2. In recognition of the Constitutional obligation to reflect the National Character, the Government in making public appointments shall ensure commensurate representation of the people from the conflict-affected areas.

3. In furtherance of the above provision, the liaison mechanism referred to in clause 37 (c) of this Protocol shall recommend to the Government names of persons from the conflict-affected areas to be considered for appointment into political posts as well as the public and diplomatic services; provided that any appointments made shall be based on merit and in accordance with the laws of Uganda.

Referral to Equal Opportunities Commission
4. During the implementation of the Final Peace Agreement, the Government shall ensure that the Equal Opportunities Commission is appointed and becomes operational.

5. In accordance with section 5 of the Equal Opportunities Commission Act, the Government shall consider for appointment persons from North and North Eastern Uganda to the Equal Opportunities Commission.

6. The Government shall in accordance with clauses 4, 5 and 6.1 of the Principal Agreement refer to the Equal Opportunities Commission the question of any regional or ethnic imbalances and disparities in participation in Government departments and institutions.

7. The Government shall act expeditiously on the recommendations of the Equal Opportunities Commission.

8. The Government shall facilitate any Ugandan living abroad who wishes to return to Uganda, and shall protect the personal security of those who return.

Education and Training
9. The Government shall adopt and actively promote a policy for increasing access to tertiary education and training for persons from the conflict-affected areas. This shall include the provision of additional scholarships to be allocated according to districts.

Judiciary and Policing Issues (Principal Agreement: Clause 7)
10. The Government will strengthen the institutions of justice in the conflict-affected areas especially through the programmes of the Justice, Law and Order Sector.

11. The Government will strengthen the deployment of the Uganda Police Force in the conflict-affected areas.

Institutional Arrangements for Security Organs (Principal Agreement: Clause 8)
12. The Government shall continue to ensure that the composition of the armed forces and other security agencies reflects the national character; including regional and gender diversity.

13. In furtherance of Clause 8.2 of the Principal Agreement, the Government shall assess the experience and rank of former LRA combatants and integrate into the armed forces or other security agencies any combatants who are willing to join.

14. LRA combatants who join in accordance with the above paragraph shall be afforded the opportunity to undertake training or promotional programmes.

15. The treatment of other LRA combatants shall be determined in accordance with other agreements and arrangements.

Return, Resettlement and Rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (Principal Agreement: Part D)
16. The Government shall develop and implement a strategy for assisting the return and resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the affected areas in accordance with the IDP policy. In implementing the strategy, the needs of IDPs who have already returned will be taken into account to ensure equitable support for resettlement.

17. The Government shall facilitate the process of the return of any internally displaced persons in accordance with the terms of the Internally Displaced Persons' Policy.

Economic and Social Development of North and North Eastern Uganda (Principal Agreement: Part E)
18. The Government shall promote recovery programmes in the affected areas, and in particular, shall implement the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP) expeditiously, and will further ensure that the Plan reflects the principles and commitments of this agreement.

Business incentives
19. The Government shall support business and investment initiatives in the conflict-affected areas and shall identify and commit special funds to the implementing agency for that purpose.

Environment
20. The Government shall promote policies and programmes to address and mitigate any adverse environmental impacts of the conflict.

Institutional Framework (Principal Agreement: Clause 11)
21. The programmes for recovery of the affected areas as set out in Part E of the Principal Agreement shall be implemented through the agency and mechanisms identified in Clause 11 of the Principal Agreement.

22. The Government shall prepare and introduce legislation forestablishing the agency and the relevant mechanisms, and shall ensure that the agency commences its work as soon as possible after the enactment of the legislation.

23. The mechanism of implementation will ensure easy access to dedicated funds by communities in the conflict affected areas for their resettlement and for the enhancement of productive capacities.
24. The Legislation establishing the agency will provide for the adoption of sound management and accountability controls.

25. In the appointment of officers to the above agency, the Government shall give particular consideration to persons from the conflict-affected areas with the required qualifications and experience.

Victims and Vulnerable Groups (Principal Agreement: Clause 12)
26. The Parties agree that the Government shall develop and implement a policy for the support and rehabilitation of the victims of the conflict.

27. The policy for the support of victims and vulnerable persons and the mechanisms for its implementation shall be consistent with the principles and mechanisms relating to the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation.

28. The policy shall include, and the Government shall establish, a special fund for victims, out of which reparations shall be paid, including reparations ordered to be paid by an institution established pursuant to the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation.

Livestock (Principal Agreement: Clause 13)
29. The Government shall implement the restocking programme under the supervision of the implementing agency identified in clause 11 of the Principal Agreement, and in accordance with clause 13 of the Principal Agreement.

Transitional Security Arrangements (Principal Agreement: Part F)
30. The agreement between the Parties on disarmament, demobilisationand reintegration shall specify the arrangements to ensure the safety of members of the LRA.

Issues Relating to Land (Principal Agreement: Clause 14)
31. The Government shall ensure that landowners whose lands have been used for the benefit of displaced persons or otherwise appropriated during the conflict are duly compensated or receive redress in accordance with the terms of the Principal Agreement.

32. The Government will give priority to strengthening the capacity of District Land Boards and other tribunals in the affected areas to oversee and adjudicate cases of land ownership and disputes.33. The implementing agency referred to in Clause 11 of the Principal Agreement shall monitor any redress relating to land.

Stakeholders' Conference and Implementation (Principal Agreement: Clause 17)
34. The Mediator shall receive from the Parties, as appropriate, reports on the status of the implementation of the Agreement, and shall liaise with the Parties on the preparations for the stakeholders' conference provided for in Clause 17 of the Principal Agreement.35. The full implementation of this Agreement shall commence upon the final disarmament of all members of the LRA under the Final Peace Agreement.

General Provisions36.
In the appointment of members and staff of any implementation bodies envisaged by this Agreement, overriding consideration shall be given to the competences and skills required for the office, sensitivity to the candidate's knowledge of the affected areas, and gender balance.

37. In subsequent agreements, the Parties shall make further provisions relating to the implementation of this agreement, to include the following:
(a) observation and monitoring mechanisms;
(b) a transitional period after the signing of the Final Peace Agreement;
(c) joint liaison and advisory arrangements for implementation of the Final Peace Agreement; and
(d) further timeframes for implementing provisions of the agreement.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the duly authorised representatives of the Parties have signed this Protocol in Juba on the 22nd day of February 2008

Quotes

2008-02-21T04:21:00.001-08:00

Ques of the week from around the worlds

Identity Crisis

2008-02-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

I first wrote a draft of this blog in Feb 2008, i realised i didnt return to complete this. Even if you do not get anything from this article, at least I have given hope to those who do not trust themselves that they finish something!

I have realised that Ugandans want to identify with something nice or someone famous! Is it because they derive their sense of identity from that! Are we facing an identity crisis?

Are we a classic case of a people who have lost it? Is it because we do not know where to turn to for good news, or for some sort of self worth? Alot of times, we seek our worth from something out there, something very superficial!

The reason why i am saying is that, i was a bit perplexed and surprised when I read a story in the local paper, that students from Makerere University have formed Obama Solidarity Group (OSP. The aim of this support group, which launched its campaigns at Makerere University on January 18 was to mobilise support for Kenyan born- senator, Barack Obama who is vying for the US presidency. Now this is a big joke.

Reading comments by Mr Silver Mulindwa, a Third Year student, and one ot its founder members made me a laugh. He said, "Our group has been formed to see that our candidate gets support from not only Americans but other parts of the world including Uganda because he is a symbol of Africa in a western democracy," He continues, "We have campaigned among the Americans working in Uganda and they have shown support for the candidate." Now this is uttter madness!

Mr Mulindwa claims they have distributed 4,000 copies of flyers, 1,000 badges, 800 car stickers and hundreds of posters to the American citizens, diplomats, academicians, scholars and businesses in Kampala.
"This is voluntary work," Mr Mulindwa said when asked about the campaign financiers. "We receive modest donations from the American friends and other well wishers." He claims that at Makerere University alone, there are two groups that have been formed to campaign for Obama.

We need to get a grip of our selves!!

The Kington letters: Final words of a comic genius (part 3)

2008-02-14T03:51:00.000-08:00

17 December 2007

Dear Gill,
Whenever I attend someone's memorial service, and people make witty, anecdotal, tearful, movingly comic speeches by the great and the good in memory of the late departed, I am always struck by one notable absence among the great and the good.
The late lamented himself.
Or herself.
Wouldn't it be great, I think, to have a short contribution from the person in whose honour we are all gathered, so that we could hear him once again telling one or two of his favourite stories, making caustic remarks about the other speakers and generally reminding us of why we all miss him so much?
Or her?
They do it at awards ceremonies. If someone gets a top award and can't be there for the actual ceremony, they very often manage to get the winner to do a brief video or film clip, shot on location in Mozambique, lamenting their absence and very often saying something wittier and more cogent than if they had been up on the podium in person.
So why can't they do it at memorial services? Or even at funerals? Instead of the clergyman who obviously never knew the late lamented, would it not be possible to have the lamented doing a brief last appearance instead?
For the last two or three years I have been daydreaming off and on about how I could contrive to be present at my own service.
The answer is quite simple.
Make a video in advance of my farewell speech, to be shown on a monitor from the pulpit, or on a screen behind the stage, or wherever the best place would be.
I have already visualised the opening shot.
It is of me, smiling ruefully, and saying to camera: "Hello. I'm sorry I couldn't be here in person with you today..."
That much is definite. The rest of the script remains vague. I always swore I would get down to it one day, and I still haven't, which sums up the life of the freelance writer pretty well. "When he died, he was still working on his farewell speech..."
I once touched on this idea when I was having lunch with Douglas Adams. I didn't know Douglas very well, but I liked him a lot. We were having an argument about gravestones, which he said were a waste of time and a useless Victorian survival, and should not be continued with.
I said they didn't have to be useless. It was merely the fault of the lazy masons and undertakers that they had never kept up with the times.
"What do you mean by that?" he said.
"Well," I said, "gravestones still give out the same ludicrously rudimentary information that they did 200 years ago. Date of birth. Date of death. First names. Name of loved ones left behind. A pious message, perhaps. That was it. Obituaries have moved on. It's about time headstones did."
"Yes, but how...?"
"Easy," I said. "What you should install in a headstone is a small screen and and a ten-minute video of the guy's life. The stone itself gives the basic details, but if you want more than that, you push the little button which says 'Press Here For Life Highlights', and the screen lights up and you find yourself watching a ten-minute résumé of the man's life. Maybe it wouldn't be free. Maybe you would have to put a £1 coin in, to go towards grave upkeep."
Douglas thought this would be a very good idea, and that it might even give a new meaning to the word "grave-robber", meaning someone who broke into an ObitView device and took the cash.
ObitView? Gravestone News? AdieuView? Well, whatever the name, I can see a fortune waiting to be made from the idea and whoever makes it, it won't be me, and it won't be Douglas.
I wonder, as a matter of interest, how Douglas finally decided he himself wanted to be memorialised, and what sort of memorial stone guards his resting place. And what it says on it.
You have got more time than I have to find out, Gill, and better contacts too.
Love, Miles

15 January 2008

Dear Gill,
I went to see my oncologist in hospital earlier this week, and we talked about this and that, and the importance of catching cancer early, which I found a bit annoying as they had not caught my cancer early, but it turned out he was just filling in time and wanted to talk to me about something quite different.
"Miles," he said, which he only calls me when we have moved on to safe topics, "tell me, are you still writing your book? The book about cancer you mentioned before?"
"Yes," I said. "Well, I am still firing some ideas at my agent..."
"Ah!" he said. "So you have an agent, then?"
"Yes," I said.
"Good," he said, and then stopped.
"Is that all?" I said.
"Yes," he said.
Then he shook his head.
"No," he said. "Look, the thing is, I have been writing this book of mine on cancer for several years now, looking at all the new treatments that have come along, because I know a lot about cancer and I think I have got the material for a really good book about it. But I am not good about publishing books, and I don't know how to set about it."
"Well," I said, "it's the same for everyone, really. You get a good idea. You do some writing. You get an agent interested, and the agent then gets some publisher interested. . . "
"Hold on there!" said the oncologist. "You've missed out a vital bit of information there!"
"Have I?"
"Yes. You haven't mentioned the name of the agent."
"Oh. Sorry. What is the name of the agent?"
"I don't know," said the oncologist. "I only know about cancer. You're the one that knows about books and agents."
Slowly, a kind of greeny, dim light began to dawn. What was happening was that my oncologist was appealing to me for help with his book. He seemed to think that I might be able to help him get his book published. A diabolical sort of bargain was in the offing whereby he would advise me about cancer while in return I would...
"Look, Dr Benton," I said, "..."
"Call me David," he said.
"Is David your name?" I said, surprised.
He didn't seem like a David to me. He seemed a little doubtful himself.
"I'll just check," he said.
He turned to his desk and tapped away at his computer. This is one thing I have discovered this year about the NHS and, indeed, all hospital-based medicine nowadays: that the doctor feels he has to check everything with his computer and his database before he quite dare say or do anything. That little screen in the corner is the key to all he needs to know, as long as he can remember how to access it.
"Oh, dear," he said. "I think I've forgotten my password again. I had to change it before I went on holiday last time, and I keep forgetting what the new one is."
"David," I said.
"Yes?" he said.
"No," I said. "I am wondering if your new password might not be David."
"Oh, of course. Yes, it is," he said. "How on earth did you know that?"
"People quite often choose their own name for their password," I said. "It's very unsafe, but they do."
Having established that his name was David, Dr Benton now turned his attention back to the missing agent, and to try to establish a name for them as well, which he thought I had the key to.
"You see," he said, "if only I had the right agent, I think this book on cancer would be a winner."
There then followed five minutes of close fencing, in the course of which he as good as suggested that I put him in touch with you, and I as good as suggested that my doing so would endanger our relationship for all time.
"Have you not heard of the Euroclitic Oath?" I said, improvising desperately.
"Euroclitic? What's that?"
"It's the sacred oath which all writers have to sign with their agents."
"Like the Hippocratic Oath?"
"Oh, much more serious than that," I said. "It involves... "
I was about to tell him that it involved cutting your wrist slightly and then mingling your life bloods, until I realised that he would not find this at all impressive as doctors did that kind of thing all day long, often merely by accident.
"It involves swapping bank account numbers and exchanging vital financial fluids, and things like that," I said.
He looked revolted.
"Well," he said," do you think that if you consulted your agent, he might put me on to the right person?"
"She."
"What?"
"Not a he. A she."
"Your agent is a woman?"
I had an overwhelming temptation to say, "I'll check", turn to a computer in the corner and access a database to make sure you were a woman, but unfortunately I hadn't got a computer with me.
"Yes," I said.
"I see," he said.
I don't know what he meant by that.
That is how things stand at the moment. If you don't mind, I would rather not put him in touch with you. I am happy for you to get a bestseller on cancer published, but I would much rather it were by me than by my oncologist. Tell me you agree. And remember the old Euroclitic Oath which binds us so closely.
Love, Miles

The Kington letters: Final words of a comic genius (part 2)

2008-02-14T03:50:00.000-08:00

27 November 2007
Dear Gill,
On the Kennet and Avon Canal near where I live, at occasional intervals along the picturesque towpath, there is the odd bench to sit on. Not generally provided by British Waterways, but by relatives who wanted to provide a memorial to their late departed loved one. You know that, because they generally have engraved brass plates on them:
"TO ALAN BROWN, WHO LOVED THIS CANAL", "IN MEMORY OF ALAN BROWN, WHO LOVED THIS PARTICULAR SPOT", or even, in one uninspired case, "TO ALAN BROWN".
These benches are quite useful. I have often myself used them as a place to do up my shoes on, or to sit on and write notes of stuff going round in my head during a bike ride. I have often found that the mind goes into free wheel more easily on a bike ride than anywhere else in the world, and you get some really good thoughts up there on the saddle. Indeed, some of the ideas in these letters first saw the light of scribble on one of those benches.
So, if there is any money accruing from any of the books which I may have written as a consequence of any of these letters which I have written to you, between now and my death, I would like you to arrange for a bench to be bought and dedicated to me along the canal. And I would like the following wording to be carved on the bench, or, better, put on that small plaque: "IN FOND MEMORY OF MILES KINGTON, WHO HATED THIS SPOT, BECAUSE THERE WAS NEVER ANYWHERE TO SIT DOWN AND ENJOY IT FROM".
It doesn't matter where you put the bench, as long as there isn't one there already. I'm afraid this isn't an idea for a book, only an idea on how to spend the royalties. Oh, well.
Love, Miles
5 December 2007
Dear Gill,
When you've been diagnosed with cancer (a phrase I still can't think of a good euphemism for, even though everyone I meet can think of a bad one), one of the most annoying books in the world suddenly turns out to be 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.
Have you come across this? It's a fat American paperback which lists a thousand of the most remarkable sights in the world, natural or man-made, from canyons to cathedrals.
We have had a copy of this book knocking around our hall for a year now, on the shelves where we tend to keep the travel guides. It was certainly there before the oncologist drew on his little black cap and pronounced sentence. Until that moment I quite approved of the idea of the book. Here we all were, with twenty or thirty more years to live, and it was about time we started concentrating on using those fallow years to get to places we have been too lazy, poor or blasé to have a look at so far. 1,000 Places To See Before You Die. Ha ha. But very useful and full of ideas.
When I learnt I'd got cancer, the book suddenly looked very different. Threatening. Humourless. Grimly prescient. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. Nasty. Fun-free. Evil.
"We know you are going to die," it seemed to say, "and we know you haven't got anything like enough time to see a hundred worthwhile places, let alone a thousand, so you're up against it, aren't you, pal? A lot of drastic choosing and travelling to do, haven't you? You're going to have to decide what to see next while you're already en route to the previous place. And every time you browse through the book, trying to make up your mind, you're wasting the time and chance to see somewhere. Get a move on, because while you sit there dithering... Oops – there goes the Taj Mahal!"
It would be immensely satisfying if I could round up a few fellow sufferers to mount a lawsuit against this preposterous volume, put together by one Patricia Schulz, and dubbed a "No 1 New York Times Bestseller", on the grounds that it caused intense suffering to those who are about to die and haven't a hope in hell of seeing all those places. Luckily for her, I have many enticing things to do with my remaining time; taking money from Miss P Schulz and then handing it all straight over to my lawyers is not one of them. Are not one of them. Are not two of them.
Having browsed grimly through "A Traveller's Life List", as la Schulz subtitles her remorseless catalogue of treasures, I am relieved to find that, were I to take this over-inflated travel magazine article seriously, I could do some crossing off the list already and reduce the number from a thousand to nearer nine hundred and ninety. Yes, I have been to one or two of Schulz's Sights already. Machu Picchu. Salisbury Cathedral. Wells Cathedral. The Schwe Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon. Loch Ness. The Moscow Underground... (Starting to run out now...)
Two of these I can even bracket together. In 1980 I was lucky enough to be taken by the BBC to Peru as the presenter of "Three Miles High", one of the programmes in the "Great Railway Journeys" series. Our trip passed through Machu Picchu at one point, and allowed me to see the Lost City of the Incas and the legendary craftmanship that fitted those great massive stones together so snugly, and all without the use of any adhesive.
"Is it not remarkable," said an expert to me as we stood and surveyed the remains, "that six hundred years ago another civilisation unknown to ours could construct something so brilliant?"
If he hadn't said it, I might have agreed with him.
As it was, the spirit of rebellion suddenly moved within me.
"No," I said. "Not really. At about the same time as they were building Machu Picchu, or even earlier, we in Britain had pretty much finished Salisbury Cathedral. Give me Salisbury Cathedral any day. It makes Machu Picchu look like a child's toy."
How smug I felt. And I was right, of course. The main reason that Machu Picchu looks so good, apart from its dramatic position, is that you don't expect people in the South American jungle to be building stonework like that six hundred years ago, certainly not up a mountain, and you don't expect it to be lost for centuries until American adventurer Hiram Bingham blinks in the middle of a wood, and realises he is surrounded by some nice old remains and that from now on Yanks won't have to go to Europe for all their historical kicks any more.
It's still pretty basic stuff, Machu Picchu.
Imagine if you were stumbling through the forests of Peru and came across Salisbury Cathedral standing there, whole and entire, brightly maintained, with a notice at the door saying: "While we do not charge for admission, we hope for a contribution of at least £5 from each person", then you would be entitled to say "Holy Moley", have a small nervous breakdown, clasp cold flannels to your forehead, phone everyone at home saying: "Look at this little photo I've just taken!", or whatever is your preferred reaction to joyous shock.
Salisbury Cathedral beats a full house, four queens, five aces and Machu Picchu. (It was stressed to me in Peru that Machu Picchu was not actually the only Lost City of the Incas. I was also taken to see a place called Sachsahuaman, which is full of similarly amazing stonework and, being much less frequented by tourists, is much more tranquil and atmospheric. Oddly, it is not nearly so remote as Machu Picchu, being almost within walking distance of Cuzco. It reminds me that in Wiltshire local people will always advise you against going to the full tourist horror of Stonehenge and urge you instead to visit Avebury, which is not quite so sensational a Stone Age site but more attractive and, being enmeshed in a village, much less like a museum site, and – hey! I wonder if there's a pattern here? Do you think there are enough places throughout the world which are as good as their more famous counterparts to justify a book on them? A book called A Thousand Places To See Before You Die Which Are Pretty Much as Good as Patty Schulz's Top Thousand and Not Half As Crowded? Just a thought...)
The odd thing is that I do live in Wiltshire myself and am barely an hour from Salisbury, yet I think I have been inside Salisbury Cathedral only once in my life. I have often seen it from the distance, and occasionally from close up, if you can ever properly see a cathedral from close up, and it really is the most extraordinary, floating, extra-terrestrial, perfect, fantastical stone space ship you could want. Yet I could only be bothered to go in it once. And that was while I still lived in London, and was just passing through Wiltshire!
That's the other thing they say, of course, that people who live nearby never go. It is legendarily rare to find a Londoner who has been to the Tower of London (and then only if taking a visitor there). I have in-laws called Keith and Belinda who live less than an hour's drive from Niagara Falls, and boy, are they sick to death with taking people to Niagara Falls. They couldn't care less if they never see the Falls again. When people come to stay, they now tell them: "Go and see Niagara Falls if you like, but don't expect us to come along and see the bloody thing!" (Things? Thing?)
There might be an idea for a series of books here, introducing people who live in a place what they should go and see. London for Londoners. The Billericay That Nobody Knows. The Liverpool That Nobody Likes.
Anything in this letter appeal to you?
Love, Miles
6 December 2007
Dear Gill,
I have just had a thought about the book outlined in my previous letter.
What about a small change to the title?
Instead of calling it A Hundred Things To Do Before You Die by Miles Kington, what about it calling it A Hundred Things To Do Before I Die by Miles Kington? Thus introducing an element of blackmail into the whole business. If Patty Schulz can do it, so can I. Just a thought.
Love, Miles
10 December 2007
Dear Gill,
I now realise that there is a strong possibility that my dog and cat might outlive me.
Less likely with the cat, who is fourteen and quite an old lady, even though she still behaves like a teenager. Only this morning she climbed on my lap while I was working, which was, as it always is, a) very sweet b) a bloody nuisance. She won't be around for much longer, I fear.
But our dog, Berry, is a healthy 10-year-old springer spaniel who has got at least another five years in him, probably more. I had always put to the back of my mind the thought of his final decline and death, which was bound to come when I was about seventy, especially if we finally had to have him put down.
Now, though, I see that I might be the first one to go, which puts things in a very different light.
He might not realise that I am going to die, for a start. He doesn't know about death. As I lie expiring, surrounded by people who got tickets for the event in time, how do I know that as I open my mouth and prepare to utter my carefully prepared and rehearsed last words, he may not burst in and demand to be taken for a walk?
And that my last words, after all that, will turn out to be: "Oh, for God's sake, not now, Berry!"
I have not mentioned him anywhere in my will, and yet I suppose he is a dependent of sorts. More than most, really. Should I not cater for him as well? If only to stop him asking me if I have got all my affairs sorted out?
"... To my dog Berry, who was the only one of my close ones NOT to ask if had got my affairs sorted out, I therefore in gratitude leave... Everything." Tempting.
And people seem to do well out of pet books. What do you think, in my case, of How to say Goodbye to a Dog (And How To Leave it All Your Money, If You Have To.)
It's an idea.
Love, Miles

The Kington letters: Final words of a comic genius (part 1)

2008-02-14T03:46:00.000-08:00

Ever the master humorist, Miles Kington kept readers laughing right up to the end. But at the time of his death last week, the 'Independent' columnist was also working on a literary farewell - a series of typically brilliant letters to his friend and agent, Gill Coleridge...

12 November 2007

Dear Gill
About a year ago, I said I wanted to do another book. That is, I was going to write it and you were going to sell it.
Fine, you said. What kind of book?
A bestseller, I said. Something that will be so funny that everyone will buy it, even when it isn't Christmas, and which will bring back dignity to the Humour shelves in bookshops, which are presently occupied by miserable things called Is It Me, Or Is Everywhere A Crap Town? or Why Are Penguins Camouflaged Like That, When There Aren't Any Head Waiters In The Antarctic?
Fine, you said. Got any ideas?
One thing at a time, I said. First I get the urge to write the book. Which I have already got! Then later I get the idea for the book.
Fine, you said. Let me know when you have got a good idea for a book.
Well, I think I have now got a good idea for a book which, oddly enough, was not one I thought of, but was given to me by a doctor, quite by accident.
As you know, I went into hospital in spring 2007 to have my liver looked at, because blood tests showed that my liver was misbehaving. Almost immediately they discovered the reason: I had contracted an unusual genetic disease called haemochromatosis, which makes it difficult for the body to absorb iron, so my bloodstream had become abnormally high in iron content.
(This might explain why I was being so often stopped by security people in airports. Even after I had emptied all my pockets and taken off all my metal accessories, I was still setting off the alarm when I went through the metal detector. They could never find any reason for it. But it may have been the high metal content of my blood... at least, so I claimed in a piece I wrote about it at the time.)
Haemochromatosis is no big deal and can be cleared up by a programme of blood-letting. (Every time you lose the blood, the body makes some more, and the new blood is all iron-free.) But they then spotted some trouble in my bile duct and decided to insert a plastic pipe to open up a small blockage. Then they decided to take out my gall bladder. When they did that, they spotted some irregularities in my liver and pancreas, and decided to take some samples, and it was after looking closely at those that they decided I had got cancer. Nosy parkers.
Cancer of the pancreas, it was. This was unfortunate, because, as a doctor friend of mine said to me, "that's not one of the nice ones". Not much research work has been done on it, you can't operate on it, and even chemotherapy does little more than arrest the process. So, at the age of 66, I suddenly found that my expected lifespan of another twenty years at least had shrunk dramatically.
The surgeon who had operated on me was surprisingly upbeat. "Don't think of yourself as dying," he said. "We are all dying anyway. Just think that you now know what you are going to die of. Up to now, it might have been a heart attack, or a stroke. But now we're pretty sure it's going to be cancer. Though not for ages, yet. With luck."
The oncologist who did the follow-up chat was less upbeat. "Statistically you will be doing well if you are still hale and hearty a year from now."
That was a shock. It was what finally brought me up short. Till that moment, I had been unsure what to think. My mind was full of images of writers cut off in their prime, and of La Dame aux Camélias, and of having to give up wine, and of seeing weeping relatives round my deathbed – in other words, I was full of self-pity – but suddenly all this miasma of hand-wringing crystallised into one single thought: I did not have as much time left as I thought in which to do all the important things of life, such as:
Sorting out the family finances.
Finally getting round to seeing American Beauty.
Writing a book for you.
But it did dimly occur to me at last that I had the glimmerings of an idea for a book for you. People who have been told they have cancer are sometimes brave enough to start writing books about their experience, and how they came to terms with it. For instance, the chap who was married to Nigella Lawson, whose name I can never remember. He did it. He got the TV cameras in as well, I believe. There was a woman called Picardie too, wasn't there? Ruth? Something like that. And there was a French comedian called Pierre Desproges, who I always rather liked the sound of, because not only did he write funny stuff, he also had a weekly radio or TV spot in France on which he delivered his quirky views on the week's news, and in which his newly diagnosed cancer became a weekly character. Until he died.
I also purchased a book while I was in Canada, called Typing, by Matt Cohen. Matt Cohen was a not very old writer who had suddenly been given another six months to live before he died of lung cancer, and decided to spend the time writing his memoirs, Typing. They were brilliant.
Apart from the Cohen, I have never read any of these books. I tend to shy away from bad news. But I know that a writer wouldn't devote his last months to writing about cancer if there wasn't some money in it. I'd like to do the same. Mark you, I think phrases like, "cashing in on cancer" give quite the wrong impression. What I mean is, "making cancer work for its living".
What do you think?
Love, Miles

17 November 2007

Dear Gill,
No, you are right. Although I had said I had come up with an idea for a book, I hadn't done anything of the sort. I had only come up with an idea for an idea for a book. I still have to think of an angle.
You ask me if I have mentioned this idea for an idea for a book to anyone. Yes, I have, but only to one person. To the oncologist at the hospital.
Actually, I think you would have been quite proud of my professionalism during our little interview. When he was patiently explaining to me the pros and cons of various treatments, and his views on alternative cancer treatments (described to me by one doctor I know as "an expensive way of buying love"), he said at one point: "Do you have any questions?"
I can never think of proper questions at that moment, except for cowardly ones ("Is it going to hurt a lot?") or unanswerable ones ("Will it stop me from playing the double bass?"), but this time I knew what I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask: "Can I get a book out of this?"
I am experienced enough to know by now that you have to be a bit more oblique than that, especially when talking to amateurs, so I toned the question down and we had the following exchange:
Me: "How many stages will this go through?"
Him: "How do you mean – stages?"
Me: "Well... how many chapter headings?"
Him: "Chapter headings?"
Me: "Yes. I mean, if one were, to take a wild example, writing a book about this experience, how many sections do you think it would fall into?"
Him: "Sections?"
Me: "Yes."
Him: "Well... Look, I'm going to reverse the normal pattern here, and I am going to ask you a question."
Me: "Fire away."
Him: "Are you planning to write a book about this?"
Me: "It had occurred to me, yes."
Him: "I have to tell you I don't think you will have enough time to write a proper book about your cancer."
Me: "That's a bit unfair. You may be very good at giving people time limits when they are suffering from cancer, but I am not sure how much of an expert you are when it comes to saying how long it takes to write a book."
Him: "No, perhaps not, but I know how long it takes to get to grips with a subject as complex as cancer, especially when new research is going on the whole time..."
Me: "Research? No, no, no! You've got it all wrong! I'm not thinking of a text book! I don't want to produce a research work on cancer! I'm only thinking of a personal journal!"
Him: "Personal journal?"
Me: "Yes."
Him: "I don't quite..."
Me: "Well, writers quite like to turn their experiences into books, you know, and that includes their illnesses. You know, like Dennis Potter did with his psoriasis in The Singing Detective. But it's more fashionable these days to turn it into a first-person account, as John Walsh did."
Him: "And that's what you're going to do?"
Me: "I was thinking of it."
Him: "Well, good. That would be jolly good therapy, I would think."
It wasn't till later that I realised he had obviously never heard of John Walsh, which was just as well, because I wasn't thinking of John Walsh at all. I was thinking of John Diamond, the late Mr Nigella Lawson.
Mark you, it was an understandable mistake on my part. John Walsh has written a series of amiable autobiographies in each of which he has viewed the same lifespan through different prisms. Once as growing up with his favourite films; one as growing up Irish in London, and therefore also with Catholicism; once as something else quite different, I think, but I can't remember what. Once or twice a week in The Independent he continues an account of his life as a once-or-twice-a-week-in-The-Independent journalist. I would feel suitably downcast if John Walsh did really contract cancer, because sure as eggs are eggs, he would write a witty, sparkling, Catholic, Irish, film-loving book about his life with cancer, and get there before me, curse him.
The next time I met the oncologist, he asked me again if I had any questions.
Me: "Yes. Are you writing a book about cancer?"
Him: "Yes, I am. How on earth did you know that?"
Me: "It was something you said last time. When you were anxious about me writing a book. You said you didn't think I would have enough time."
Him: "Well, I have been working on mine for twenty years already, and it's not nearly finished..."
No competition there, then. And a bit of a clue. He doesn't think I have another twenty years left. But I never did either, even before I had cancer.
I see I haven't really come up with an idea for a book in this letter either. Next time, then!
Love, Miles

Obama's speech at the Gridiron DInner- Part 2

2008-02-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

For those who didnt get the first post, here is wan article Thanks to the Chicago Tribune.

It turns out that Sen. Barack Obama not only has impeccable timing and creative writers, but the freshman Democratic senator from Illinois who has arrived in Washington to exceedingly great expectations among leaders of a party desperately in need of new leaders also can sing.

And when Obama had a chance in the spotlight tonight at the annual dinner of The Gridiron Club to poke some fun at the Bush administration, lampoon Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting mishap and even take a few pokes at himself and his own party, he rolled it all out with extraordinary ease. He unloosed a song to boot, sung to the tune of "If I Only Had a Brain,'' with the punch-line landing on John McCain.

Obama's standup was a hard act to follow. Ask President Bush, who closed the four-hour, white-tie dinner in a ballroom of a Washington hotel with a few jokes of his own but seemed at a loss for return fire.

"Sen. Obama, I want to do a joke on you,'' Bush said. "But doing a joke on you is like doing a joke on the Pope. Give me something to work with… Mispronounce something.

''Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife, also followed Obama with a de rigeur Republican response, noting with a sense of irony that the senator had "emerged'' from his "shell."

"There is one good thing about speaking this late,'' she said. "All the hunting jokes have been used up.

''Most of them were used up by Obama, who opened with a show of pleasure for the "extravaganza'' of the evening, attended by Bush, Cheney, half the Cabinet, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and a cast of media stars at a perenially private, "Closed Press'' event.

"Men in tails. Women in gowns,'' Obama marveled. "An orchestra playing, as folks reminisce about the good old days. Kind of like dinner at the Kerrys.

"Nice to see you, Mr. President and Mrs. Bush,'' Obama said to the president seated to his right and first lady to his left. "I think it takes a great spirit for the president, who we all know is an early riser, to sit here until midnight and hear himself lampooned, when he could be back at the White House enjoying a quiet, peaceful night, watching TV and approving secret wiretaps.

''Wielding a script for which Democratic political consultant David Axelrod bears a great amount of credit, Obama noted the absence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "You know, the president promised a muscular foreign policy. And anyone who's seen the Condi Rice workout tapes knows he means business.

"The truth is, I'm terrified to be here,'' he said. "Not because you're such a tough audience, but because they're serving drinks. I'm standing about 30 yards from the vice president, and I'm a lawyer. The only thing that could make this more dangerous is if he considered me a friend.

"Mr. vice president, I know you came here expecting to be a target, which, it turns out, may prove easier for you than shooting at one,'' said Obama, having fun with Cheney's recent accidental shooting and wounding of Texas attorney Harry Whittington on a quail-hunting trip in Texas. "But I do want to thank you. For years, we Democrats have succeeded in doing little more than shooting ourselves in the foot.

"You've taught us a valuable lesson,'' Obama told Cheney. "Aim higher.''

Cheney found himself pulling at his eyeglasses to wipe tears of laughter at times, though the president seemed to find less ready humor in Obama's remarks. Obama honed in on Cheney.

"There's probably only one person more sick of these jokes than you, and that's your wife,'' Obama continued, hammering on the accident which took the vice president's office nearly a day to publicly reveal.

"It's an honor to share this stage with Lynne Cheney – a great personage in her own right,'' Obama said. "Scholar. Author. A few years ago, she wrote a book called, Telling the Truth, or as they call it in the vice president's office, Telling the truth – 24 hours later.

"This appearance is really the capstone of an incredible 18 months,'' Obama said, turning to his own brief career in the U.S. Senate. "I've been very blessed. Keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the best-seller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape. And I've had the chance to speak not once but twice before the Gridiron Club.

"Really, what else is there to do?'' he asked. "Well, I guess I could pass a law or something."

About that book, some folks thought it was a little presumptuous to write an autobiography at the age of 33,'' the senator said. "But people seemed to like it. So now I'm working on volume two – the Senate months. My remarkable journey from 99th in seniority to 98th.

"Believe me, when you're the last guy to ask questions at every committee hearing, you have plenty of time to collect your thoughts,'' he said. "Especially when Joe Biden's on the committee.

"I'll tell you, that Grammy was a big surprise. I thought, for sure Jack Abramoff would win for his rendition of 'It's hard Out Here for a Pimp.' (And with that line for the indicted lobbyist, Obama drew a good sound belly laugh from Bush, who of course maintains that he doesn't know Abramoff.)

"This whole ethics thing has been an adventure,'' said Obama, cast by his party to help seek ethical reforms in the aftermath of the Abramoff scandal. "I was really excited when they asked me to be the lead Democratic spokesman. But I don't know. Turns out, it's a little like being given the Kryptonite concession at a Superman convention. I mean, how did I know it was a freshman hazing? Maybe I can explain it this way:'

'And with that introduction, the band struck up a familiar refrain from The Wizard of Oz, and Obama proceeded to sing from the podium, with a steady, unflinching, and even in-tune delivery of a song about the senator from Arizona with a reputation as a maverick and potential Republican candidate for president in 2008 with whom Obama recently shared a rough-edged exchange of letters:

"I'm aspiring to greatness, but somehow I feel weightless.
A freshman's sad refrain.
I could be a great uniter, making ethics rules much tighter,
If I only had McCain.

"I could bring us all together, no storm we couldn't weather.
We'd feel each other's pain.Red and blue wouldn't matter, party differences would shatter,
If I only had McCain.

"Oh why is it so hard, for honest men of good will to agree.
If we ever found a way to strike a deal, would we survive… politically?

"When a wide-eyed young idealist confronts a seasoned realist,
there's bound to be some strain.
With the game barely started, I'd be feeling less downhearted,
If I only had McCain.

"Still I hope for the better, though I may rewrite my letter,
cause I gotta have McCain.

''Obama offered an unnecessary apology for his solo peformance:
"Needless to say, my Grammy was in the spoken word category.

"I should say that I really do get along well with Sen. McCain,'' Obama told the reporters and editors filling the hotel ballroom. "But as you know, not everyone in politics does. Because of his superstar status, his virtuous image, the kind of hero worship treatment he gets from all of 'you, some of my colleagues call John a prima dona. Me? I call him a role model.

"Think of it as affirmative action,'' he said. "Why should the white guys be the only ones who are overhyped?''The night was incomplete without a mention of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent whose identity was revealed by members of the Bush administration, prompting a federal prosecutor's investigation that has led to the indictment and resignation of Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby.

"By the way, before I forget,'' Obama told the audience. "Raise your hand if Karl Rove didn't tell you about Valerie Plame.

"Some folks say you've lost your investigative intensity,'' Obama said. "You were a little slow to question the weapons of mass destruction. Maybe got a little used on that whole Valerie Plame thing. But, by God, you brought Dick Cheney to justice, and the world's better off for it.

"Or, at least Gridiron speakers and late-night comedians were better off for it.''

Turning for not quite equal time on his party, Obama said: "You know, the Gridiron Club is an aging institution with a long, proud history, known today primarily for providing a forum for jokes.

"To some,'' he said, "that may sound like the Democratic Party."

You hear this constant refrain from our critics that Democrats don't stand for anything. That's really unfair,'' he said. "We do stand for anything."

Some folks say the answer for the Democratic Party is to stop being so calculating and start standing up for principle,'' he said. "In fact (Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid's appointed a task force to study this option.

"The Republicans have been poking fun at Democrats for not being united behind a single voice in our party,'' Obama said. "I think that's unfair, and it smacks a little of sexism. And just because the leading voice in our party is a strong-willed, outspoken liberal woman with a famous husband does not mean the Democrats are adrift…. And I, for one, want to thank Barbra Streisand for her great leadership.

"I'm sick of people attacking Democrats as being out of touch, saying we lose elections because we're all a bunch of snobby intellectuals who can't speak the common man's language,'' he said.

"I mean, what kind of a supercilious argument is that?

"Take John Edwards. He's leading a new war on poverty – from his Chapel Hill estate. And he's educating us. I had no idea there was so much poverty in New Hampshire.''

(Cheney's glasses were starting to come off again.)

"Speaking of New Hampshire, a lot of speculation that that 2008 campaign could come down to Sen. McCain and Hillary Clinton. The thing I don't think people realize is how much John and Hillary have in common. They're both very smart. Both very hard-working. And they're both hated by Republicans.''

(Both Bush and Cheney seemed to alight on that line.)

"I mean, wow, it really has been a rough period for you, Mr. President,'' Obama said. "I missed the Oscars, so when I picked up the paper the next morning and saw Crash in the headlines, I just assumed it was another Bush poll story.

"And how about that ports deal?'' he added, with a reference to the attempted takeover of several U.S. port operations by an Arab firm and a shot at Bush's experience with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.. "I feel for you, sir. It's tough getting trapped in a storm, when no one comes to help.''

"And then there's the flap about global warming,'' Obama said. "You know, the Bush administration's been a little skeptical about the whole concept of global warming. It's actually not the warming part they question. It's the globe…. The president was so excited about Tom Friedman's book, The World is Flat. As soon as he saw the title, he said, 'You see? I was right.''

'"But when people say the administration is hostile to science, that's really a bad rap. Just last week, they asked for a hundred million dollars for the NIH to fund new research into leech therapy.

"I was told that this dinner is off the record,'' Obama said, moving on to the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic eavesdropping in search for terrorists. "No taping or recording of this event, unless, of course, secretly authorize by the president. I completely trust the president with that authority, by the way. But just out of an abundance of caution, and not implying anything, I've asked my staff to conduct all phone conversations in the Kenyan dialect of Luo.

"Truth is, this domestic spying has all kinds of useful applications for homeland security,'' he said. "And I have a suggestion in this regard, Mr. President: you can spy on the Weather Channel, and find out when big storms are coming.

"You all watch the winter Olympics?'' he asked. "I'm sure a lot of us in politics were following that figure skating, because we can identify with performers who spin wildly and sometimes fall on their butts… I also enjoyed that biathlon, where they ski and shoot at the same time…

"Probably not your sport, Mr. Vice President.

''Obama closed with obligatory praise for the work of the free press that served as host for his humor, something echoed by Lynne Cheney as well – for Bush's part, he closed with a few jokes about improving his relations with the press, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to amend the First Amendment. Instead of a free press, Bush said Rumsfeld was looking at "free checking.

''But Obama also closed with thanks for all the celebrity he has found during his brief tenure here.

"Most of all, I want to thank you for all the generous advance coverage you've given me in anticipation of a successful career,'' he said. "When I actually do something, we'll let you know.''

SEN. BARACK OBAMA'S GRIDIRON SPEECH

2008-02-14T02:36:00.000-08:00

This speech at the Gridiron Dinner in the first week of April 2006 is really filled with humor! Anyone with a sesne of humor should read this.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA'S GRIDIRON SPEECH
Thank you very much:
It's great to be at the Gridiron dinner. Wow, What an extravaganza! Men in tails. Women in gowns. An orchestra playing, as folks reminisce about the good old days. Kind of like dinner at the Kerrys.

Nice to see you Mr. President and Mrs. Bush. I think it takes a great spirit for the President, who we all know is an early riser, to sit here until midnight and hear himself lampooned, when he could be back at the White House enjoying a quiet, peaceful night, watching TV and approving secret wiretaps.

I don't see the Secretary of State is here tonight. You know, the President promised a muscular foreign policy. And anyone who's seen the Condi Rice workout tapes knows he means business.

The truth is, I'm terrified to be here. Not because you're such a tough audience, but because they're serving drinks, I'm standing about 30 yards from the Vice President, and…Mr. Vice President this is too easy!
Mr. Vice President, I know you came here expecting to be a target, which, it turns out, may prove easier for you than shooting at one. But I do want to thank you: for years, we Democrats have succeeded in doing little more than shooting ourselves in the foot. You've taught us a valuable lesson: aim higher.

There's probably only one person more sick of these jokes than you… and that's your wife. It's an honor to share this stage with Lynne Cheney -- a great personage in her own right. Scholar. Author. A few years ago she wrote a book called, “Telling the Truth,��? or as they call it in the Vice President's office, “Telling the Truth-24 hours later.��?

The Vice President and I do have one thing in common, we both married up. I want to acknowledge my wife, Michelle, who is here tonight. This is a true story: a friend sent me a clip about a new study by a psychologist at the University of Scotland, who says sex before a public speaking engagement actually enhances your oratorical powers. I showed this clip to Michelle, before we arrived here tonight. She looked it over, handed it back and said, “Do the best you can!��?

This appearance is really the capstone of an incredible 18 months. I've been very blessed. Keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the best-seller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape. And I've had the chance to speak not once but twice before the Gridiron Club. Really what else is there to do? Well, I guess…. I could pass a law, or something…

About that book, some folks thought it was a little presumptuous to write an autobiography at the age of 33, but people seemed to like it. So now I'm working on volume two-the Senate Months.

My Remarkable Journey from 99th in Seniority to 98th.

(With an introduction by Nelson Mandela.)

Believe me, when you're the last guy to ask questions at every committee hearing, you have plenty of time to collect your thoughts. Especially when Joe Biden's on the committee.

I'll tell you, that Grammy was a big surprise. I thought, for sure, Jack Abramoff would win for his rendition of “It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp.��?

As I said, it's great to be here speaking opposite Lynne Cheney. As you may know, Mrs. Cheney was a late substitution for Senator John McCain. And speaking of Senator McCain.

This whole ethics thing has been an adventure. I was really excited when they asked me to be the lead Democratic spokesman. But I don't know. Turns out, it's a little like being given the Kryptonite concession at a Superman convention. I mean, how did I know it was a freshman hazing? It gets a little depressing. So as I sometimes do when I get a little down, I wrote a song. Maestro?

(To the tune of “If I Only Had a Brain��?)

I'm aspiring to greatness, but somehow I feel weightless
A freshman's sad refrain
I could be a great uniter, making ethics rules much tighter
If I only had McCain

I could bring us all together, no storm we couldn't weather,
We'd feel each other's pain
Red and blue wouldn't matter, party differences would shatter
If I only had McCain

Oh why is it so hard, for honest men of good will to agree,
If we ever found a way to strike a deal, would we survive… politically?

When a wide-eyed young idealist, confronts a seasoned realist
There's bound to be some strain
With the game barely started, I'd be feeling less downhearted
If I only had McCain

Still I hope for the better, though I may rewrite my letterCause I gotta have McCainNeedless to say, my Grammy was in the spoken word category!

I should say that I really do get along well with Senator McCain. But as you know, not everyone in politics does. Because of his superstar status, his virtuous image, the kind of hero worship treatment he gets from all of you, some of my colleagues call John a prima donna. Me? I call him a role model. (Think of it as affirmative action. Why should the white guys be the only ones who are overhyped?)

By the way, before I forget, raise your hand if Karl Rove didn't tell you about Valerie Plame?

You know, The Gridiron Club is an aging institution with a long, proud history, known today primarily for providing a forum for jokes. To some, that may sound like the Democratic Party.

You hear this constant refrain from our critics that Democrats don't stand for anything. That's really unfair. We DO stand for anything.

Some folks say the answer for the Democratic Party is to stop being so calculating, and start standing up for principle. In fact, Harry Reid's appointed a task force to study this option.

But really, they say our party doesn't have ideas? We have ideas.

Take John Edwards. He's leading a new war on poverty… from his Chapel Hill estate. And he's educating us. I had no idea there was so much poverty in New Hampshire!

Speaking of New Hampshire, a lot of speculation that that 2008 campaign could come down to Senator McCain and Hillary Clinton. The thing I don't think people realize is how much John and Hillary have in common: They're both very smart. Both very hardworking. And they're both hated by the Republicans!

A lot of folks want to be President, but, I mean, wow, it really has been a rough period for you, Mr. President. I missed the Oscars, so when I picked up the paper the next morning and saw “Crash��? in the headlines, I just assumed it was another Bush poll story.

And how about that ports deal? I feel for you, sir. It's tough getting trapped in a storm, when no one comes up
to help!

And then there's the flap about global warming. You know, the Bush Administration's been a little skeptical about the whole concept of global warming. It's actually not the warming part they question. It's the globe.

The President was so excited about Tom Friedman's book, The World is Flat. As soon as he saw the title, he said, “You see, I was right!��?

But when people say the administration is hostile to science, that's really a bad rap. Just last week they asked for a hundred million dollars for the NIH to fund new research into leech therapy.

I was told that this dinner is off-the record… no taping or recording of this event, unless, of course, secretly authorized by the President.

I completely trust the President with that authority, by the way. But just out of an abundance of caution, and not implying anything, I've asked my staff to conduct all phone conversations in the Kenyan dialect of Luo.

Truth is, this domestic spying has all kinds of useful applications for Homeland Security. And I have a suggestion, in this regard, Mr. President: You can spy on the Weatherchannel, and find out when big storms are coming.

You all watch the winter Olympics? Mrs. Bush was there, representing our country, and that was great. I'm sure a lot of us in politics were following that figure skating, because we can identify with performers who spin wildly and sometimes fall on their butts.

And the curling. Wasn't that something? I hear Andy Stern from the SEIU loved the curling so much he's trying to organize the sweepers.

I also enjoyed that biathlon, where they ski and shoot at the same time. Probably not your sport, Mr. Vice President.

Hey, it's been great fun to be a part of this tonight. But before I go, I want to say a few words about the work you do.

For a democracy to succeed and flourish, people must have full and free access to information about what's going on in their world and, yes, in their government.

The framers of the Constitution understood that, which is why the very first amendment deals with the indispensable freedoms of speech and press. Those rights, those freedoms, the access to information citizens absolutely require in a democratic society are no less important today.

Pursuing that information is not always easy. Sometimes you meet resistance from powerful institutions that would sooner operate in secrecy. And sometimes, as in Iraq, you literally risk your lives to keep the American people informed.

Tonight, even as we laugh together, I want to thank you for that important and often courageous work and extend my prayers to those journalists and their families who have made and continue to make great sacrifices to fulfill this essential mission.

And most of all, I want to thank you for all the generous advance coverage you've given me in anticipation of a successful career. When I actually do something, we'll let you know.

Thanks for having me!

EXCERPTS FROM PRESIDENT BUSH``Senator Obama, I wanted to do a joke on you,'' Bush said, ``but it's like doing a joke on the Pope.''Complained Bush, ``..Give me some material to work with here. You know, mispronounce something.''

``I really chewed Dick out for the way he handled the whole thing. I said, ``Dick, I've got an approval rating of 38 percent and you shoot the only trial lawyer in the country who likes me.''

``You know, there are all these conspiracy theories that Dick runs the country...or Karl runs the country. Why aren't there any conspiracy theories that I run the country?Really ticks me off. The truth is I do run the country....by Dick runs me and Lynne runs Dick.So actually Lynne runs the country.And Lynne, I think you're doing a heckuva job.Although I have to say you dropped the ball big time on that Dubai deal.''

``And I'm proud that from across the political spectrum Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, came out in opposition to the port deal.I've always said I'm a united not a divider.''

NRM agrees to sell govt vehicles

2008-02-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

This artilce appeared in the Daily Monitor dated 10 Feb 2008 wittten by Chris Obore. If there us truhg in this, then ther could be something worth noting!
CHRIS OBORE
Only President, VP, Speaker and Deputy, PM to keep cars
Car repairs cost Shs68bn yearly; primary health only Shs6bn
Credibility cited in policy reform, 81bn saving expected

COMING amidst heated public debate about unequal distribution of public sector jobs, some NRM parliamentarians have released a report showing how the government’s spending priorities are skewed in favour of non-essential items such as entertainment.

The report, which was made public during a meeting of the ruling party’s parliamentary caucus on Monday last week by Mr Barnabas Tinkansimire (NRM, Buyaga), makes drastic recommendations for cost-cutting, amongst which is the wholesale offloading of government cars.

Mr Tinkansimire’s document reveals how during the 2006/07 financial year the government spent Shs10.9 billion on allowances while just Shs6 billion was spent on primary healthcare. Primary healthcare programmes mainly focus on management of common diseases such as malaria, especially in rural areas where 80 percent of Ugandans live.

Although the government has rolled out several pro-poor programmes such as agricultural extension, primary healthcare, universal primary and secondary education, the allocation of resources, especially money, does not reflect the necessary commitment to see them through.
Consequently, many critics have long pointed at the huge cost of public administration as one of the impediments to improving people’s lives in a country where 31 percent of the population lives in abject poverty.

For instance, the report notes, the government last financial year spent Shs68.5 billion on maintaining its fleet of thousands of fuel-guzzling 4WD vehicles (engine capacity ranging between 2000cc and 3500cc), while allocating a disproportionate Shs14.5 billion for the repair of district roads.

And while Shs23 billion was spent on buying fuel and oils for public vehicles, a measly Shs4.4 billion was allocated to urban road repairs, fortifying the view that taxpayers were paying more for the driving comfort of bureaucrats than for a public good like roads.

Maintenance of cars poses a particular headache with the report noting that “most government vehicles are always in garages” where they are “cannibalised … by garage owners well knowing that government will after all buy new spare parts to repair their vehicles”.

Adds the report: “On the other hand transport officers/drivers connive with garage owners to inflate bill on the job cards.”In the same period, the government spent Shs2.2 billion on “welfare and entertainment” of bureaucrats whereas it spent Shs1.5 billion on the provision of urban water.

Agricultural extension received Shs3.06 billion in the same year as the government splashed Shs10.04 billion on inland travel. A vast majority of Ugandans depend directly on agriculture for their livelihood.

The Tinkasiimire group included MPs Henry Banyenzaki (NRM, Rubanda West), Dr Chris Baryomunsi (NRM, Kinkizi East) and Dr Sam Lyomoki (NRM, Workers). In the interest of reducing spiralling public administration costs, they recommended that a car co-ownership scheme replaces the existing arrangement.

Under the scheme, ministers and civil servants would meet 50 percent of the cost of running the vehicle for five years then later own it permanently without paying taxes, which taxes will be waived.

“The [NRM] caucus adopted our report and we have been asked to sit with the ministers of Finance and Works to work out modalities on how to operationalise it,” Mr Tinkasiimire said. “After we have worked out that, we shall present a Bill to Parliament in three months.”
The MPs’ report proposes that only the President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of Parliament continue enjoying transportation at the taxpayers’ cost.

Currently, all ministers, permanent secretaries, directors, senior consultants, commissioners, heads of government projects all totalling to 670 are entitled to a government vehicle.
Other categories of staff use pool vehicles.At the headquarter level alone, government vehicles numbered 12,004 by 2005, excluding all those managed under government-affiliated projects. This figure may have more than doubled considering that the total number of public officers, starting with the President, who are entitled to cars, today stands at 40,679.

In the 2006/07 financial year, Shs221 billion was budgeted to buy new vehicles reflecting the pressure that transportation of staff exerts on the country’s already limited resources.During the 7th Parliament, Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi astonished the public when he said that ministers and other technocrats enjoy chauffeur-driven 4WD cars because Uganda’s roads are in terrible shape.

However, if the proposed co-ownership scheme is adopted by Parliament, the costs of the driver, fuel and car service will now be met by the ministers and technocrats. After all, a lot of these official cars also conduct personal business.Still, some MPs think it will not work well despite the good intentions.

“That is what the party has agreed and I can’t disagree but we tried the co-ownership scheme in 1991 and it failed,” said Mr George William Wopuwa (NRM, Bubulo East). “At the end of it all, it will be like government is buying cars for individuals by paying consolidated mileage.”
Mr Wopuwa is the chairman of Parliament’s Committee on Public Service and Local Government. He said that some officers will park their cars at home and go to office to (mis)use the few remaining government vehicles.

“The biggest problem is that the people supposed to control the use of cars are normally the ones who flout the regulations,” Mr Wopuwa said.

But Mr Tinkasiimire said they have conducted studies in countries like Rwanda, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius where co-ownership works.

Further, using the 2006/07 budget estimates, the report says that co-ownership would eventually guarantee a net annual saving of Shs81.9 billion in fuel and maintenance costs.
Mr Tinkasiimire’s report concludes that “this reform will be seen as pro-poor …. [and] it will give government more credibility amongst the local population and donor community”.

SELECTED GOVT EXPENDITURE AT A GLANCE
MINISTRY BUDGETS
Amount
Allowances to officials 10,926,500,000
Inland travel 10,043,703,000
Grants to ministries 6,015,565,000
Grants to ministries 7,764,203,000
Welfare and entertainment 2,258,836,000
Fuel and oils 23,454,685,000
Maintenance of vehicles 68,538,035,000
KEYLOCAL GOVT SERVICES
Primary Health Care development 6,095,700,000
Agriculture extension 3,060,225,000
District equalisation grant 3,494,160,000
Functional adult literacy 1,597,760,000
Urban water 1,503,910,000
Urban roads 4,404,595,000
District roads 14,510,969,000
SOURCE: Ministry of Finance (Budget 2006/2007)

My bang will last!

2008-02-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

No, I actually re-read my post, and I decided that I was wrong on the conclusion! I didn’t just want to fill in the spaces! If you had read the entire post from the beginning, it had an objective, and aim, perhaps an attempt at humour, or casting away boredom.

Which spaces am I seeking to fill by the way? Before my last post, my blog summary said something like that 10 posts since December 19 2007. This is not too bad a frequency of writing! That translates to about 3 posts a month, and that’s considering that February has hardly begun!

Ok, let me break it down for the sceptics....these means 10 posts in 48 days! Assuming, each post if contains 300 characters (and this is being very modest by the way!), it means I post an average of 17 words per day! Now that’s better than many people how have a phobia for writing! If u disagree, with my conclusions, I will advise you to go and read my assumptions above! As a true scientist, I will always make certain (favourable) assumptions to support my assertions! How many people can beat that? Both the scientific blah-blah and the wordy me!

Ok, I will improve on that character-per-day record! I will write more, and I don’t mean number of words, but sensible words! Instead we shall now have 17 sensible-things-per days! That itself was quite a record! Considering, all that you (and I mean YOU) read and watch everyday...what percentage s sensible? Sensible in that it builds you up, make you a better person, make you get out of your comfort zones, make a positive (emphasised here) difference in the world that you live in! Ok, the notion of the world might too grand for you, ok, lets say in your house, community or sphere of influence!

17 sensible things a day would perhaps win me a prize! What prize? It is yet to be even named! Do I need a prize? As I figure out that question, I have just realised that I have ranted enough in this blog!

But essentially I am back with a bang...the only question i have to answer is how long the bang will last! I hope its not like the big-bang theorists who think the profound design of this universe done in a in in instant bang! Hopefully, my “bang” will last! Ceteris peribus!

Long time!

2008-02-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Phew! It’s been so long! I mean since I last posted a blog on this page- on my own page! What were u thinking, uh?

Well, it’s because I have been kind of busy...busy reading and doing many other useful things! At least they have been useful things- like reading...unlike some of you who have been occupied with the thoughts of how you can take your share in the greedy scramble for the little available! Even if it means causing bodily or otherwise emotional harm to the other parts of humanity! You have been planning it all carefully-sort of subtle planning that makes a soon to be chess champion jealous! Now, you know whom I am talking about, don’t you?

Alright, aright...thanks! I acknowledge that welcome back” toast! Did u miss me that much? Is that the right spelling of toast? I was just pulling your leg...I am not even sure i will get the right answer...there are not very many Englsih speakers these days...if you doubt, you should listen to some the BBC broadcasters themselves! I hope the Queen is too busy taking care of her monarchy to even listen to some gibberism!

Well, I was saying (before someone distracted me with that patronising-welcome-back-thing) that I have made a new resolution that I will keep you posted every now and then, especially on what I have been thinking and/or reading. Now when I say “new resolution”, it doesn’t mean that I have already broken my old resolutions, it means something else. I will not get into that now, that will be fodder for another article! Am smiling because I have finally got something to write about next time!

For the second time, what did I want to say in this post? It’s amazing, you are still reading my post, and you think I have said something, and yet I think haven’t said anything! Somehow, two people with different perspective, but the objective is still being fulfilled- that u read as I write- or is it vice versa!

Did I just want to just fill in the missing spaces? The come-back-kid sort of thing! On second thoughts, this phrase Come-back kid has been overused used! From Hillary Clinton to John McCain to many others that you remember! Question is, who really is a come back kid! You know, kind of like show up and sign the attendance sheet...and yet i was actually dozing off (former students or errant workers know what am talking about-not al those who went to school qualify to be former students! Don’t ask me how; this is fodder for my next-next article. PHEW!)

Yes, I will keep you posted on what I have read! Post you have missed! If by now, you are wondering which of my non-existent posts you missed, and then it means that either you have been looking in the wrong places/blogs OR you plain have never attempted to look at all, which means that you have not been reading! Finally, it could also mean that you have been reading rubbish! You need a doctor to check what your brain has been storing! Goodness, I wish I were some literal doctor, I would cash in on this one!

It’s really amazing what some people feed their minds on! But then some people have decided hat we live in an era of relativism, so I will live you to your opinion on what is interesting! After all everyone is unique- like everyone else, isn’t it?! It’s more a soccer referee awarding a dubious goal, so 3 points wrongly or rightly lost or won, and then again this depends on which side you are!

What did I want to say in this post? I don’t know! Maybe you are right; I just wanted to fill in the spaces!

OneNote

2007-12-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

Its been a very period...2 moths of doing assignments, course works..that you have little time to develop yoursefl as a person! I have not been reading widely as much as i should! Somehow the book "Dutch Courage" that i picked up from the Spencers has not shifted as much! Then i just to read my flatmates' blog http://annabelseashore.spaces.live.com/ and go quite challenged by how consistent she is in updating her blog.
And then just as fate would have it, i was reading online news and i came across such articles as "Vacation checklist: prepare your PC" which led me to"7 ways to organize your e-mail".
before i realised it, i was looking through OneNote, the applications software i have in my Office2007.
I then realised that there is such a trememdous opportunity to learn and improve myself and yet i seem to be so busy! OneNote is something that can totally change the way i work! Efficiency is key in a world where there is a look out for only the best brains out there! The issue is what can i do that others cant? How different am i from the thousands of process engineers that are rolled out of the grad schools all over the world!

Only a few get to the top! There is less more space there for these few!

Queen's Speech to Ugandan Parliament

2007-11-22T16:35:00.000-08:00

Your Excellency President Museveni and Mrs Museveni, Right Honourable Speaker, Honourable Members of Parliament, Ladies and GentlemenPrince Philip and I have many fond memories of our last visit together to Uganda. In the years since, your country has made considerable advances in spite of periods of adversity.

I expect that what has helped sustain modern Uganda is the attribute that was so evident in 1954, and again today, in the generous manner we have been welcomed: the great warmth and friendliness of its people. We are delighted to be here once more.

It gives me great pleasure to address this House today in recognition of the importance of parliamentary democracy to the Commonwealth as a whole. For Uganda, the deliberations and decisions of this House, together with your respect for the rule of law, have had and will continue to have an essential bearing on the country's success in addressing many serious challenges. The United Kingdom is actively committed to supporting Uganda's efforts to deepen its democracy.

Many in the United Kingdom have been moved by the plight of the people of northern Uganda who have been suffering from the devastating conflict there. The Ugandan Government's efforts to resolve this conflict peacefully are therefore especially welcome. Uganda's regional role is also widely appreciated.

In particular, the contribution made to peacekeeping operations in Somalia has been a tribute to the courage and professionalism of Uganda's armed forces.

I am also pleased that the educational and cultural ties between our two countries are now stronger than ever before. Through its collaborative school projects, the British Council is bringing together more than one million children across Africa and the United Kingdom.

Indeed, I very much look forward to visiting later this week one of the Ugandan schools participating in the 'Connecting Classrooms' programme which does so much to increase our knowledge and understanding of each other's societies among young people.

In the years since Prince Philip and I were last here, one change in particular has come to scar Uganda and, indeed, much of Africa. The scourge of HIV infection and AIDS has touched the lives of so many of Uganda's people. It is difficult sometimes, when the sorrow associated with this disease is so profound, to avoid a sense of despair.

And yet there are growing numbers of people and organisations whose work gives cause for real hope. Today I visited the Mildmay Centre which sets a remarkable example in the provision of care and relief for those who are ill as well as in educating people about how to protect themselves and their families.

The role of centres such as this, which the Government of Uganda has done so much to encourage, will be central to achieving our common aim of controlling this cruel disease.

The continued and enlightened support of all those in authority, including this House, will play an essential part in supporting these efforts.One hundred years ago, Sir Winston Churchill, who much later became my first Prime Minister, made a celebrated visit to Uganda which he was moved to describe as 'the Pearl of Africa'.

In common with other visitors to this country over the years, he had been struck by how Uganda has been truly gifted by nature. Sir Winston had visited Munyonyo, then just 'a jetty and a few sheds', where, most fittingly, the present British Prime Minister will join his fellow Commonwealth Heads of Government this weekend.

Whether the individual links are long-standing or more recent, the United Kingdom remains a committed friend of Uganda.

Prince Philip and I have reason to recall our own associations over the years with the greatest affection and extend to you all our good wishes for the years to come.

The idiot’s guide to winning an election in Africa

2007-11-13T05:02:00.000-08:00

The followng articel written by Nicholas Ssengoba appeared in the Daily Monitor, November 13, 2007

Pumbavu” the Kiswahili word for “foolish” could easily pass as Kenyan President, Emilio Mwai Kibaki’s favourite pejorative which causes laughter whenever he liberally uses it at rallies to ridicule and put down his opponents. Trouble is that, what the opinion polls are saying about Kibaki’s chances at the presidential election slated for December 27, 2007 is no laughing matter.

Kibaki risks falling into the enigmatic category of the great African wa pumbabavu; i.e the rare species of incumbent African leaders, who while in office organise elections, stand and lose to a (mere) challenger.

With the countless number of times The idiot’s guide to winning an African election, has been updated, a president would have to be irredeemably foolish to come second at the polls. Like the typical African man who has the daunting task of tasting the meat (and picking out the choicest pieces) before any member of the family, the president in Africa has the unenviable burden of hand-picking the Electoral Commission (EC) to “his satisfaction”.

The affluently facilitated EC quickly studies the complex theory regarding the relationship between the payer, the piper plus the tune, then goes about organising “a free and fair election” with gusto.

Miracles start to happen when cleaning the voters register. The dead come to life, while the living, especially where the incumbent is unpopular becomes the “living dead”.

Coming after this fashion later at the polls, the EC sends the wrong register to the right polling station or the ballot papers without the voters register or better still the ballot boxes without the ballot papers rendering the whole process a shambles.

Meanwhile, the president uses the massive funds he has amassed over the years (the ones that make the Mo Ibrahim prize unnecessary) to bait elements into defecting from his opponents camps. Several political parties thereafter emerge under the pretext that this reflects the “pluralism and maturity of a democracy”. In effect the president’s rival’s votes are scattered.

The campaign period is the best time to implement some “sensitive” aspects of the manifesto (remember it?) The incumbent breaks the bank and starts distributing “seed money” towards “self-help groups” on the eve of the election as his relentless effort towards “poverty alleviation” with the promise of better things to come if they vote for “continuity”.

Also he creates districts out of as many counties as possible purportedly to take services closer to the people, in fact creating jobs for hangers on.

Since leaders are chosen by God, the incumbent creates an alliance with churches, and “facilitates” them to preach a gospel that promotes his cause. The gullible flock is made to understand that their pastor had a vision whereby the Almighty promised miracles to those who vote the incumbent and curses to those who “waste” their votes.

In the background, the police and the army expeditiously “enforce law and order” to ensure the polls take place in a “peaceful environment” devoid of “intimidated voters”. They devotedly disperse the opponent’s crowd, jailing and canning “troublesome” fellows. The press is made to “visit” the police from time to time for “consultations” on stories that are considered “biased” against the incumbent.

Elsewhere, the incumbent exploits his position and uses all state facilities for his campaign. He freely gets all the time on state radio and television which have the widest coverage, under the guise of a countrywide tour to sensitise citizen on “developmental matters”. The opponents with their meager finances are left to buy expensive airtime from private radio and television stations.

Since in Africa we are not so good at counting, as it is abominable to count our children, wives and cows, the EC understandably finds trouble adding up the votes even with the help of computers and signed tally sheets.

Added, some subversive election officials who “hate” the sitting president credit him with some of his opponents’ votes to “punish” him with the “unpleasant” task of running “his” backward country and taking all the insults by the press.

By this time, the cadre judges appointed before hand, will be ready to deliver those “it was theft, but not theft enough” judgments in case any misguided opponent goes to the courts seeking justice.

And because the African State is perennially a “young democracy” stuck at the “learning stage”, the result will be accepted and life will go on. And if all this works out well Kibaki, lift those term limits. Politics isn’t a school nor are politicians school boys to be limited by “terms”. Then you may rule for life, thereafter.

It is never too late in Africa. Kibaki, look at the happy neighbour on the western side of your house; you could learn a trick or two.

Leave State House Nairobi unceremoniously like a chicken thief, after only five years is not an option. It is very uncomfortable for an elder to sit among the wa pumbavu!
nicholassengoba@yahoo.com

Top 10 strangest things in space - Space News - MSNBC.com#Space_10StrangeSpaceThings_071011#Space_10StrangeSpaceThings_071011

2007-10-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Top 10 strangest things in space - Space News - MSNBC.com#Space_10StrangeSpaceThings_071011#Space_10StrangeSpaceThings_071011

Back again!!

2007-10-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

Here i am,its been a whie since i last blogged! Work and a chnage to a student again has made me very bus of late...the last few months!
I realsie that i need to blog more often to keep track of what God is doing in my life...

Yawning with Circumcision!!

2007-07-31T02:54:00.000-07:00

I now believe yawning is very contagious. I have always yawned just by seeing someone yawn!! But I have just developed another theory. I have found out that even by just reading the about yawning….or seeing that word alone...u can actually end up yawning. Amazing, is it?

Picture, here I am…sitting at my desk, perfectly fine, that means that I don’t have need to replenish any oxygen. My office is well aerated. My city is not yet too polluted. I can actually see the lush green meadows from my windows. I had a very good nights’ sleep. There is even no sign of getting tired. And by the way, I enjoy my work tremendously.

It’s about 11:00 hours, and I had a very good breakfast about an hour or so ago. And there is therefore no sign that I am hungry. All is well. I know you are beginning to feel like you should exchange places with me.

So I open my yahoo news, and the first thing I see is that this statement “New research challenges the common theory that yawns are triggered by a need to replenish oxygen…..” under a very captivating heading (they always are!!) Why we yawn
You now what happened? immediately yawned! Can you imagine??

Now I know, that just by reading this, someone has yawned already. If not, my theory may not necessarily be disproved; it just needs further fine tuning. I anyone has ideas Please send it to me, I need to make a write up, and send it to the American Journal of Science for publishing or to the State Department for few a few of Big Sam’s bucks. I seriously need to do more research on this subject!

I mean if some good people can fund a crazy research project such as looking at how circumcision can go along way into curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Even BBC devotes an entire article on how Circumcision can dramatically cut the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual relationships, and suggesting that it might actually offer hope to Africa. Goodness, are we insane, look at Ethiopia, Uganda (Mbale and Kasese),.

And by the way, a whole conference, 4th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment ,and Prevention took place in the beautiful city of Sydney Australia from 22- 25 July 2007. It was even billed as “The world's biggest scientific HIV/AIDS conference” and what did they come out with.. ….brace for this …”... new findings which suggest male circumcision can reduce infection by 60 percent” it was the

And oh, by the way..they organize a whole conference on this subject! May God jus bless our souls!! Guys, why are we wasting money, lets go back to the basics…. ABC…..yeah.....ABC.....Abstainance, Be Faithful and then if all else fails…..the use Condoms!! Say it again…ABC!

This is the strategy that worked in Uganda; it put us on the world stage as a testimony to the whole world! It gave Ugandans a sense of pride and accomplishment. It’s the first letters of the alphabet! I suspect their is an evil hand at play somewhere!! Somebody tell me something I don’t know!!

Family Jewels

2007-06-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

I just read in the New York Times that the CIA will release documents of decade old misdeeds committed by the CIA during the 1960s and 1970s. As usual, they contain livid details of spying, both domestic and international, assasination plots (only plots??), cold war material and a lot of other weird stuff similar to what we have read in Robert Ludlum or Baldacci like books or watched in thriller movies.

Now the paradox is that those documents are codenamed….”family jewels”. Yeah right, family jewels!!!!! And then, the CIA director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden took the comedy to a higher level! Watch this……

On June 11th 2007, he told a group of historians who had long pressed for greater disclosure of C.I.A. archives, described the documents, as “a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency. Yeah right, a different time and a different agency??

I beg for a thousand apologies….., on second thoughts, I think he was right, it is a different agency and a different time! Think about Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, secret overseas detention program (sounds like an education program?), domestic tap-ins,wiretaps,

Comments on “Inactions Regrets: Go jump off the cliff “Part 1

2007-02-22T05:37:00.000-08:00

I just read an article by Mark Batterson, entitled “Inactions Regrets: Go jump off the cliff”. The basic theme, idea or topic of the article is summed up in the second paragraph when he says

at the end of our lives, we’ll regret opportunities missed
a lot more than mistakes made.

Ditto, great quote, that was powerful, I always remember things when I think of them as quotes. He gets a little more scientific and says

That conviction is backed up by the research of two Cornell sociologists,
Tom Gilovich and Vicki Medvec. According to their study, time is
a key factor in what we regret. Over the short-term, we tend to regret
our actions. But over the long-haul, we tend to regret inactions.
Their study found that over the course of an average week, action regrets outnumber inaction regrets 53% to 47%. But when people look at their lives as a whole,
inaction regrets outnumber action regrets 84% to 16%.

In theological terms, action regrets are sins of commission.
And they certainly cause a twinge of guilt. But it is the inaction regrets
or sins of omission that haunt us the rest of our lives.
We are left to wonder: what if?

This is the part where I get little itch on the skin.

One of our core values at National Community Church is
everything is an experiment. And that experimental approach to ministry
gives us the freedom to fail. We’re not afraid of making mistakes.
In fact, we’re afraid of not making mistakes because that

means we aren’t taking enough risks.

Every sermon series is a teaching experiment. Every outreach is an
evangelism experiment. Every small group is a discipleship experiment.

Even our vision of meeting in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the
metro DC area is an experiment in doing church in the middle of the marketplace.

Why does he use the word experiment? I know he trying to say, you should go out and do it, but yet at the same time it could give someone he sense of doing something whether God is in it or not. So that if it succeeds, then probably God was in it, but if it doesn’t, well…you can always try again. After all, better try and fail rather than not try at all. And oh, I forgot to say this…..that again depends on what success means. You know, these days success is based on a lot of externalities. As long as God said you do it, Just Do It (thanks to Nike).

I just don’t want to get to the end of my life and my ministry and wonder: What if?
I’d rather have some action regrets from falling flat on my face than
leave a trail of inaction regrets in my wake.

It’s a great article, will hopefully comment on the rest of it in the next few days.

Opening up my blog

2007-02-22T05:29:00.000-08:00

I have always thought of opening up a blog, I realize its one of the easiest ways of expressing your opinion to masses of people across the global village. Of course I had my doubts that I might not be able to follow through and keep putting in articles. After all am always very busy with office stuff and the pressures and vicissitudes of life. You know sometimes am afraid of starting something that am not sure whether I will through. I might just write an article, and that’s the end of my blogs!

It all started when I was in China, and I became a bit bored. I wanted to read papers, but I could only do it online. Some how I started checking out whether Rodney Muhumuza or Ernest Bazanye had written any recent articles. Baz has an sense of humor, bordering on intellectual sarcasm, while I just like the way Rodney writes his articles, he know how to express himself and has a good command of the Queen’s language. Plus he is quite an intelligent guy. It was then that I came face-to-face with bloggers. I started reading what other people had written.

So, on 21st Feb, 2007, I was meeting with a group of friends one evening having coffee, David (journalist), Geopfrery (lawyer) and Denis (Engineering student) and we got to discuss all the intellectual stuff from politics, general life and everything else that young, bright people always like to discuss. And in the middle of that, we even talked about journalism without borders, Thomas Friedman mentioned in the middle of his latest book “The Worlds if flat”. A friend lent me the book to read while on the plane, since I was going to China. I must really confess right now, the book is the bomb. Go to the nearest book shop, and get yourself a copy. That’s one those book that u read and keep a copy on your shelf. Ever heard the saying, a man is measured by what he reads!!
Back to the main story, this morning, am reading an interesting article entitled “Inactions Regrets: Go jump off the cliff” by Mark Batterson. And I just want to comment and share my comments by people, that’s when it just dawned on me that I should open up my blog. I mean why not?
So here I am. Pray that the vicissitudes and pressures of life do not keep me away from writing in more.