Category: Public Square
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I Drank Tea In Japan And Felt Zen
One must-do if you ever travel to Japan is signing up for a Japanese tea ceremony in Osaka. You will end up in a ragtag group of other itinerant tourists eager to immerse themselves into a centuries-old tradition. Like you, they are looking for something to make their trip feel a little more authentic. Or…
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We, Women With Beards
The smell of Old Spice aftershave is one-of-a-kind. You could be dodging thieves and preachers in downtown Nairobi and still notice the smell if you chanced on a whiff of it. It’s not unpleasant, just potent. And I put it on my neck and chin, right under my nose, so I get a heavy dose…
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Maandamano Mandamus, But To What End?
My 20s were mostly employed on the political street beat with maandamanos that took place in the agitation for an end to the one-party rule and the clamor for a new constitution in the ‘80s into the ‘90s. Many in our midst were killed, maimed and imprisoned by Daniel arap Moi’s government. Our reward would…
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Maandamano As Political Mandamus (Misusing On The State Of The People And Their State)
“The revolution Will not be Televised” – Gill Scott Heron Inasmuch as I do not exactly consider myself a logophile, words and word play have always intrigued me. Perhaps that is where my love for poetry, rhyme, and real-HipHop, early 90s especially, comes from. I enjoy it especially when words from different languages with similar…
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Adios Twitter Check Mark
On 20 April 2023, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk retired all legacy blue checkmarks. Musk chose the date because it’s 4/20, get it? 😅 This came after previous threats to get the check marks removed so that Musk could fully roll out the $8 per month subscription service that was launched in November 2022 for…
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Time’s Ripe For An All Inclusive Constitutional Review
A few months from now more than 1.5 million wildebeest will cross the crocodile-infested Mara River into Kenya from Tanzania, in what is recognized as one of the “Seven Wonders of the Natural World.” Many thousands of them will be eaten by the crocodiles and the scavengers who lie in wait. The annual northwest wildebeest…
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Cults Flourish In Times Of Intellectual and Moral Collapse
In November 1978, James Warren Jones, an American preacher, orchestrated the mass murder by suicide of more than 900 people in a remote jungle commune in Guyana, South America. As founder of the People’s Temple, a doomsday cult, Jones managed to convince his followers to kill themselves by drinking punch laced with cyanide. About 70…
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Cadey Versus Madowe: Colourism In The Somali Community
As we engaged in unnecessary platitudes, it hit me; were it not for her distinguished raspy and deep voice, Fartuun would have been unrecognizable to me. Despite her calling me a nickname only privy to my childhood friends, she looked like a stranger. Her dark coffee skin was now artificially fair. She peeled her highly…
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Azimio’s Post-Election Slander Could End Badly
The limits of free speech and political propaganda have just been made clearer in the United States where Dominion, a vote machine manufacturer has just settled a defamation suit against Fox News for over 106 billion Kenya shillings. Since former American President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020 Fox News had become a redoubt from…
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Why were Kenyans not consulted before ban on GMOs was lifted?
It is unfortunate that Kenya lifted the ban on genetically modified (GMO) foods in October last year without sufficient public participation (a constitutional requirement) or debate on whether the growing and consumption of such foods is beneficial to the country and its citizens. As far as I know, no farmers’ associations or agricultural societies were…