Keeping the Church Holy: The church, 1 week Ago, 1 year ago and 71 years ago

I do not like writing about the church, unless am writing about its religious deeds. Worst of all, I do not like judging the church. So, I will just document a few happenings involving politics and the church, which took place last week, last year and about 71 years ago. The events do not take place ion the same place, but have much in common.

During the Spanish civil war , which was fought from 1936 -1939, and which set pace for the second world war, most Catholics and Catholic Clergy supported the nationalist movement against which the secular Republicans were fighting against. This proved to be quite catastrophic for the majority catholic nation during the war. It was said that the Nationalist used Catholic chapels and Monasteries as their hideouts, and launched attacks from them. This prompted The Republicans to attack Catholic Chapels and Monasteries. Republican Strongholds lost trust in the Roman Catholic Church, and many clergymen were killed in the war.

About 70 years later, during the 2007 disputed Kenyan elections. Certain politicians were alleged to have cut deals or what are known as Memorandum of Understanding with the Muslims. This did not go on well with the church, with religious leaders , and they came out from behind the pulpit to give their views on the issue. Several of them went a step ahead by telling us who was politically closer to the devil than the other, and who we should vote for. When Kenyans later decided to solve the dispute in ways which made the devil look like a saint. The church realized their mistake and went quiet as Kenyans engaged in worse than devilish activities, like burning women and children in churches. Maybe that is why the prime minister trashed the church when they termed his leadership as ineffective.

About 71 years later from the second Spanish Civil War and 1 year later from the post election violence, a group of university students presented their grievances to the administration. The administration addressed the grievances in a manner the students did not like. This prompted a larger number of the students to launch a demonstration towards the institutions administrative blocks,. After the professors in the administration were unable to solve the differences in a manner befitting a learned individual, the students decided to demonstrate on Thika Road, holding back Traffic on the busy road. Anti0-Riot police were called in , and were able to contain the demonstration, but students continued rioting a few meters from the road. The Professors at the university's administration block decided to close the university. They then decided to disband the university';s student union for the active role they played in the demonstration. With the aid of the university chaplain, the professors at the administration block assembled a few previous student union leaders and some Christian Union leaders. They then prepared a document that was to be read on behalf of all the students in support of the administration and against the demonstration that had taken place. The Christian union leaders were then offered some of the university's security personnel and a press statement was called at the 680 hotel. Attempts to hold the scheduled press conference failed after the conference was scuttled by officials of the disbanded student union.

Why do parties in conflict rush to indulge the church in their scuffles, instead of using the church to mediate the disagreement. Why do they take advantage of the large following of the church to skew such disagreements in their side. Is it the role of religion and God to actively take part in wars which the church did not start in the first place. Inclusion of the church in such matters has often proved to be disastrous as seen above, and should be avoided by all, at all costs. Keep the church holy!

Disclaimer: The writer is a student in the mentioned institution, and happens to have been affected by the demonstration and administration rulings that followed the demonstration.

The Stone Age

Examples of stone age tools used in current dcision making

As I was walking along a certain street in Kahawa Wendani, i had to tread slowly on stones that had been laid on the road by a contractor who was paving the road on behalf of a certain supermarket. On a parallel street, another supermarket had paved the road all the way to its parking. This got me thinking that road construction has now turned from been a government affair to a private enterprise affair.

I thought the reasons that private enterprises were now taking to pave roads is because of failure of state organs to do their jobs.This is because the concerned state organs are stuck in a stone age. Wikipedia defines "stone age" is 'The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric time period during which humans widely used stone for toolmaking'.
For this article, we shall define the stone age as a current time frame during which humans widely use stones for decision making or exist in an environment similar to one experienced in the pre historic stone age.
As for the government, they have seen it fit to return their citizens to the pre historic stone age by been moribund, as the NCCK claim. During the pre-historic stone age, human beings probably did not have proper management of resources, and probably tended to missalocate them. But this was not a problem, since the resources were too many. In this age, when people are many and resources are few, the situation tends to become a critical one if you misallocate them. The amount of resources is made worse by the fact that we have already destroyed and misallocated our forests, which dictate the availability of other resources.
The Government is not the only one that can be said to be moribund, most other administrators in charge of various organizations including companies and other public institutions like universities are giving the government a tun for its money. they too have decided to become moribund. only problem with this, is that we are at an age where the citizens will not just sit back as this institutions become moribund.
They in turn, have decided to turn into the pre historic stone age, and have picked stones as their tools of decision making. This may be due to the fact that they do not have guns and the designer scent that has now become a signature of streets in the capital city- tear gas. Stones have become such a crucial tool that the demand for windscreens and other car glass accessories has shot up despite the economy behaving as if it was operating in the stone age.
College students , usually the first in adoption of things, have embraced the re-emergence of stones as a tool, and have really utilised them , with several colleges deploying these stone tools every week. What we are left to wonder, is how long it will take for the administrators to stop operating in the stone age, and to adopt fruitful operations and problem solving methods.After all, the current students are not the first to deploy stones as a decision making tool, and the fact that they go way back in time to solve problems indicate a break down in other so called "ISO certified" modern decision solving methods. this is so true when it is discovered that some of the problems that they try solving using stones are usually in the second or greater attempt at solving the same problem.
Worst of all, is our moribund government, which has left us wondering as to how long will it be moribund. Maybe evolution to better decision making tools has hit a snag, and they might need a revolution that has faced other moribund governments through the world. It has been proven before that citizens armed with stone age tools can be a threat to a government armed with iron age and scented designer perfumes that elicit tears from their citizens and tears of joy from the moribund leaders.
Take time to stop and think if you are moribund. If you find yourself engaging in blaming who caused a problem rather than solving the problem, then you are still stuck in the stone age, and it is recommended you evolve.

Triggers, Trigger-Pulling and a case of a World War

Ww1-1914.jpg (JPEG Image, 1241x961 pixels) - Scaled (50%)
The Geramn(red) and French(blue) mobilization map

Just the other day, as a bullet lodged inside a dead student triggered riots, it got me thinking about triggers. It got me thinking about how someone, decided to pull a trigger on a students, who was protesting against a group of people pulling their triggers on 2 activists, and how the whole issue triggered a peaceful demonstration. Something else then triggered the peaceful demonstration to change into a looting spree.

Notice that we are talking about what triggered the events, and not what caused them. If you wonder what the difference between the two, I will go at great lengths to differentiate them. Basically, an event can and is usually caused by many things, but usually, the event will not occur until it is triggered. For example, in when Egerton students rioted a few days ago, it was said that they had been harbouring grievances which had gone unanswered for a long time. It was reported that the riot was caused by a black out, but they had already experienced blackouts before and not rioted. So, I can conclude that the students were tired with their grievances, and were planning to riot. The occurrence of a blackout triggered the riot that was waiting to occur.

This is not the first time that a massive reaction has been trigged by a trigger. The World War 1 is another event that was trigger triggered. The interesting story of World War 1 is that the whole war was based on complex protection treaties. At the time, they were a few European Powers, and the weaker countries had treaties with this powers that they could protect them in case of an attack from the other power. The British and German navies had also undergone an arms race, building bigger and better battle ships. The other superpower was the Russian empire. The Germans are said to have had such an industrial growth that they ran out of markets.(don't worry about such a situation in Kenya, it is unlikely to happen in the near future).The Germans are also said to have had a relationship with both the French and the Russians. The only problem with this relationship is that its temperatures rivalled those of the German winters. Other European powers that had such a relationship were the Anglo-Saxons and the Bosnian-Serbs.

In case you are wondering what I am trying to trigger in your mind, is that with the above factors in place, a Bosnian-Serb Student had something in his mind that triggered him to fatally open fire on an Anglo-Saxon prince. Apparently, he did not “close the fire” on the 14th of June that he opened it, but rather triggered a series of fast moving events. The Anglo-Saxons were not happy with the Serbian response to the trigger pulling student, and they send several demands which turned out to be so outrageous that the Serbians decided not to meet them. Now, the Anglo Saxons deemed this as an invitation to war. The Serbians had a treaty with the Russians to protect them from an Anglo Saxon attack, and in turn, the Anglo-Saxon had a treaty with the Germans to protect them against a Russian attack. The French had also asked for naval support from the British, just in case they needed it.

Since the Anglo-Saxons had invited the Bosnian Serbs to a trigger pulling event known as a war, the Russians tried to partly mobilize their army to help their Bosnian allies, but after the partial mobilization was deemed impossible, they ordered a full mobilization. As this mobilizations and R.S.V.P.s to trigger pulling events were been send around, diplomats , prime ministers and military czars were trying a diplomatic approach to trigger an end to this invites. But the fact that military czars were involved made misinterpretations and communication delays the order of the day. For example, the Germans believed that the Anglo-Saxons would keep the Russians off as the Germans engaged in trigger-pulling with the French, while the Anglo-Saxons thought the Germans would come to help pull the triggers on the Russians. Also, by the time the Germans were trying to diplomatic halt the Russian mobilization , it was too late and the mobilization was at a point of no return.

So the Russians and the Germans began their match towards the trigger-pulling event which was hosted by the Anglo-Saxons and Bosnian -Serbs. The Germans also concluded that the British, French and Belgians wanted a part of the exciting action and so decided to R.S.V.P. them by sending 7 out of 8 armies on their way to France through Luxembourg. Since the Germans were now passing through Luxembourg, they also had to engage the Neutral Belgians. The British were not happy with this, and they decided to lend a trigger to the Belgians. Now, the French needed the British navy to fight the Germans,and this they got. But as the British pointed out, you cannot fight a half war, like in the water alone. In short, their navy been involved meant that they also involved their land troops.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, that is how the largest trigger-pulling event in the World was triggered. A further 15 million souls went on to join the Anglo-Saxon prince souls in the next four years. To “close the fire” the same participants had to participate in another trigger pulling event 30 years later, known as the World War II..

Please sit back and take some time to imagine what would have happened had the Kenyans and Ugandans decided to engage in a trigger pulling triggered by the Ugandans troops on Migingo Island. Next time, think of what your actions will trigger. You can go one better by trying to solve the causes of an event before it is triggered. The world leaders decided to form the World Trade Organization(WTO) and the United Nations. The WTO would ensure that hard working countries like the Germans didn't lack markets(due to closed international markets) such that they got idle enough to engage their extra output in trigger pulling. The UN is supposed to ensure that communication breakdowns don't trigger trigger -pulling between countries.

Whether the two meet their goals is open to discussion.

It simply does not add up

Somebody just pointed out to me a document's final copy -which I designed, wrote, printed and distributed- that had a mathematical error resulting in a total figure that was Ksh. 200 short of the components that add up to it. I told him to ignore it, since most of the readers would not notice it. After all, it is not the first nor the last thing in your life that does not add up. The issue of things not adding up starts from the mathematics class room, and goes on top include many other things in our life. It simply does not add up.


Mathematics used to be an easy subject for me, until a certain point in life where sums simply stopped adding up. I guess it is the same fore most of us. I guess things stopped adding up when the alphabet started creeping slowly into simple mathematics that had involved figures. That did not stop there, strange symbols, Greek alphabets and whole theories were soon added to the mix. It was no longer an operation of numbers, but functions like integration of letters, backed by some theories that were written in bizarre languages. My grandmother, is able to handle all calculations in her life without integrating anything; so I still do not understand why a certain professor insists that I need to differentiate and integrate an expressions consisting of characters beyond the scope of the keyboard that I am using. It also does not add up, top me, why mathematicians are obsessed with the letter 'x' instead of contending with the 10 digits they should operate under. Indeed, I see a situation where Massai alphabet that could soon join the Greek alphabet in this distinguished position. A certain master of mathematics told me that letters are used in mathematics to simplify things. Please- did you see me use numbers in this article to simplify anything.


That is not the only thing that does not add up, nor am I the only person with a set of things that do not follow simple mathematics logic. A visitor to this blog, Lily , says that it does not add how busy I am, given that I get time to write stuff like “25 things”. Lily, given the unemployment rate in this country, plus the people been subtracted from the payrolls daily,you will get a lot of time to write such things. Such time is also available when you are stuck in a road with more vehicles been added into the road, and a fewer number been subtracted from the same road, resulting in a traffic jam. By the way, Lily, the roads ministry, the Nairobi City Council, and other stakeholders are simply puzzled by an equation that would involve smooth flow of traffic within Nairobi city. To them, it simply does not add up. They think their gods must be crazy. Like those gods of the economists.


About the gods of the economists, if Nielsen were to measure their craziness the same way that they measure music album sales, these gods' craziness would have gone multiplatinum. Top foreign executives plus our distinguished ones have been left with ledgers that simply will not add up. Integrating, differentiating and use of bizzare expressions in this ledgers has refused to yield any miracles, since, as I just explained, the economic gods already went crazy. The only solution has been for the firms to file for bankruptcy. In some cases, foreign firms have had to add cash of governments that they can believe in into their operations, in what the governments that we can believe in call a bail out. Such expressions as bail outs are not used in sums of economies of developing countries, as the governments in this countries run economies that under normal circumstances result in negative totals if an attempt to sum them up is made.


In case the use of the term “foreign” in the above paragraph does not add up, it refers to people of a certain nationality who our prime minister has suggested should head the countries electoral body. This is due to the habit of votes cast not adding up when counted by a body headed by a Kenyan. Apparently, a Kenyan head usually integrates the voters in some areas and differentiates voters in other areas. The last time we had such a situation, we had to subtract many heads from our population and add many politicians to the government for things to add up. This has resulted in many Governmental sums not adding up.


For example, summing the number of litres that leave the Kenya Pipeline corporation does not add up to the litres of the same fuel it received. The National Cereals Boards might also require the help of mathematicians to find out why the number of maize bags that are received by millers do not add up to the ones it dispatched from its stores.


For the president, things have simply refused to add up. There is that one sum, involving calculating the size of his family, that has turned to be the proverbial pain in his backside. He has had to give several press conferences where he gives a mathematical breakdown of his family. Despite this, other Kenyans including members of the bar like one Paul Muite have claimed that the presidents Mathematical breakdown is flawed, and have gone ahead to try to sum up the members of his immediate family.


I am sure that there are many things in your life that do not add up. Take a moment and think of it. That is how complex mathematics is. What I do not know is if that still guarantees mathematicians to introduce alphabets and theories into simple sums. Hope it all adds up one day.

Research

Been a student, I have been trying to do a lot of academic research of late.Do not ask me for the results of the above research, since a separate research done by others found out that most of the research done in this university gathers dust in the library in which I am now seated. In case you are wondering about me suffering the same fate, ie gathering dust, the chief librarian has assured me that it takes a number of years in one position to gather significant dust, in this library. therefore, I am unlikely to suffer the same fate, since the library is closed at half past eleven in the night.

He also assured me that the likelihood of me been locked in the library is quite low, and if it did happen, he would have to research on how it happened. However, I pointed out to him that a similar research conducted to find out if shoppers had been locked in a burning store was halted due to lack of eye witnesses. Nobody has researched on the lack of eye witnesses, which apparently could have been as a result of thick smoke blinding potential eye witnesses.

I go on to tell the chief librarian about other research that i have been conducting.I tell him that I may have stumbled onto a localized version of Russian Roulette as I was conducting my research. I am convinced that Kenyans have been playing a form of Russian Roulette.the Kenyan Roulette, as I will refer to it, consist of many stages, each stage been quite complex, and involving many players at a time.

Stage one s played on the Kenyan roads. Participants dive vehicles, applying the same rules that are used in Electronic Arts' Need For Speed games. such rules include:
Driving on any side of the road
Racing fellow drivers in case you get bored,(this is especially true if you are
driving a matatu)
In case you hit a pedestrian, keep driving, stopping will result in you loosing precious points
You will get points for pulling stunts, especially in accidents scenes e.g. flying off bridges
inspecting cars before driving is a waste of precious time
Between the Kenyan passengers & Pedestrians and the driver; whoever is still arrive at the end of the game wins.

Stage 2 involves a far fewer number than stage one, but its scale is quite large. It again involves playing the same version of Russian roulette with Kenyan lives. the other group of players involves stakeholders involved in supply and provision of basic necessities like medicine, maize, fuel etc. In this game, the people charged with supply will aim at irregularizing the provision of the said goods, while the Kenyans will fight for the same supplies, which will now be either in short or of poor quality such that they don't serve their purpose.Between the two, as n the original, whoever outlives the other wins.

Other than researching on such games, I also happened to research on the size of the Kenyan shilling. This was after a friend of mine suggesting that the Kenyan Shilling must be very small, since it has a habit of disappearing right in front of everyone's eyes. This is true, given that even stock brokers are left short of words when asked to explain rampant disappearance of clients money.they shrug their shoulders, and say that the Kenyan shilling has disappeared before from parastals, banks and even when been transported, and they therefore don't see theirs as an exception. Economists have also claimed that the shilling has continued decreasing in size, with more and more people been unable to find enough of it to foot their bills.

As I was doing the above research, I also learned that that the president was researching on the possibility of hiring a plumber. the plumber was supposed to research on massive leaks in the government, which had led to leaking of sensitive government data, especially from cabinet meetings. I happened to learn of this through meetings of such a meeting, which had leaked to the East African Standard newspaper.

I would have continued with my research, but i had to cut my list short in order to research on why I did not have enough time to continue with my research. Other things i would have researched on include:
. Disappearance of thousands of Kenyans, who research has shown that they likely disappeared, only to reappear in other areas as Mungiki
. I would also have researched on why the taps did not have a continuous supply of water, but I ended up spending more time looking for water instead.

I hope that you are able to carry on with your own research.