The earth is flat

Now, this is one of the many topics we have not covered on this blog and time has come for us to finally dip our feet in this murky water.

So I was reading comments on Ark’s site and I saw somethin’ about Gleason map being a masterpiece of unequaled cartography, by the site’s resident mad man, and I went agoogling. And while reading the comments, I learnt that we have all been duped, there is no gravity! It’s all density and buoyancy. Dense things fall past buoyant ones. It feels funny typing this.

And that’s not all. They lied to you about the sun being far far far away. It is not. It is in the range of 3000miles and the moon is somewhere within that range too. So forget about all you know about the sun being far, it ain’t and the evidence is here.

And finally, I will never look at sunrise and sunsets the same way.

Any flat earther passing by should enlighten me on whether they have visited the extremes of the earth and what their view is of the other planets. Do they exist? Are they also flat? Oh, one last thing, as the earth is flat, is it a disc in space or it is on terra firma that is supported by some columns or ground beams?

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On why politicians should have brains

I have expressed my disdain for politicians and pastors. However, the group of politicians I find most despicable are moronic ones and in this group, honorable mentions go to the political leadership of Nairobi, kiambu counties, just to name a few

Without providing alternative, reliable and efficient public transport, the idiots running Nairobi think that by raising parking fees, they will solve the congestion problem. You should note that this seems to contradict what the Muigai’s government, a not so clever one for that matter, is doing. Instead of assisting county government of Nairobi plan for public transport, they are expanding roads which we don’t need in the short and long term.

Maybe, it is really true, fools can’t be helped.

Before those like him come to harass me, I know businesses and offices are moving away from the CBD as a result of congestion, filth and better spaces available elsewhere.

I advocate for public transport including NMT. The county government has a duty to provide transport services to the residents. Raising taxes and levies without providing alternatives is plain stupid.

But maybe Nairobi and the country generally loves its leaders stupid and ignorant.

Creation stories

We have lately been short of news. And we don’t want to make you read any uninteresting stuff. There was a thought to ask what you good people think about marriage; should the state be involved? Is it a scam/ plot by men to subjugate women? Should we change the marriage to kind of contract, so the vows instead of being till death do us part it should read till we get bored with each other or something reasonable.

We will not dwell there but you can weigh in below what you all think.

I want however to tell you the different creation myths as told by Africans to add to that other one you know.

The Lozi narrate that god was still on earth when he created man after creating all the other things. He went on to make different peoples, each with its own custom, language and manners.

The Lugbara say that god in his transcendent aspect created the first men, husband and wife, long long ago.

The Mende say god first made all other things and then created men, both husband and wife.

The Abaluhya believe god created man so that the sun would have someone for whom to shine. Then created animals and plants to provide food for man.

For the Shilluk, god used clay of different colours in making men, which explains the difference in complexion.

For the Bambuti pygmies, god kneaded the first man out of clay, covered it with skin and poured blood into the lifeless body.

For the Akamba, the first man and woman were extruded from a rock.

There are many more such stories.

And then there is the Dogon theory of the beginning

Africa Writes 2016: Nawal el Saadawi

I don’t listen to podcasts usually but I enjoyed this one too much. It is great. Saadawi is awesomeness personified.

I like her comments on middle east, on identity politics, on academia, on post modernism, on being a doctor and an author. In short, I am, for lack of a better word, in love. I am going to look for her work.

This podcast comes highly recommended.

in this day and age when there is so much information

I find a comment such as

The terrifying truth is that all living writing systems in the world come from TWO inventions, one in Mesopotamia and one in China. Of course people have customized and extended and fiddled with these systems to produce Japanese, Arabic, Ge’ez, and many others but the truth is that to develop writing from scratch is an incredibly rare event — and even then it doesn’t always stick.

the question itself has racist undertones.

why the Medu-Netchher- Hieroglyphics have never been deciphered

I am no student of ancient writings or symbols of Egypt.

Walter Williams makes the above claim and gives the following as his reasons

• in order for the Medu-Netcher or hieroglyphs to have been deciphered, one would have had to ask the ancient Egyptians who drew the symbols what he/she meant for them to be
• no one can put a phonetic alphabetical value to symbols
• you cannot apply a language or languages to symbols that one does not know the meaning of
• it is impossible to reduce the 400 or more symbols of the hieroglyphs to 26 letters of the alphabetical system

HE argues further that pioneers in Egyptology (sic) as Barthelemy, Count Silvestre de Sacy and Champillion arbitrarily assigned letters to symbols and these were then accepted by Western academia.

Quoting Carol Andrews writing for the British Museum on the Rosetta Stone who wrote

it is not possible, strictly speaking, to compile an alphabet of hieroglyphic signs. For practical purposes, however, certain unilateral hieroglyphics have been selected to form a kind of alphabet which is universally used for the organization of dictionaries, word lists, index and for general reference purposes,

he makes the point that one can not use the Rosetta Stone to decipher the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Historians and linguists, what say you?

Who are the people?

In his defence following the first attempt to overthrow the government in Cuba, Fidel Castro, while talking about the people limits his definition to those who, for lack of a better word, are oppressed, the lowly paid and in a way those who believe they have nothing to lose but everything to gain if the regime should be changed.

Michelet and other French historians while talking of the revolution, refer only to the revolutionaries. They exclude the rich classes.

The same thing is seen in the case of Kenya. When the people are talked about, a certain group are excluded.

My question then is, who are the people?