and they're OFF!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen!
The countdown to when the General Election would be announced is over... Now it's just the small matter of a whole month of wall-to-wall coverage of every minutiae to do with the Thursday 6th May event.

Sky and BBC had 'Breaking News' from before 9am until after 4pm saying the election was being announced. We saw coverage of a helicopter taking pictures of another helicopter because the Queen was travelling back from Windsor.
Yes...if there's a tenuous link, you going to hear about it..

I myself have been waiting for and been rewarded with footage the BNP would love. People of colour complaining about "them immigants" [sic]. People who would deny to others the rights afforded to them and their parents.

No it's not quite an Obama moment, but it is democracy in action... It's going to be a lovely election, and despite my whinging, I now I'll, as ever, be up all night watching it...

Toronto's First Africentric School to open...

An 'Africentric' school is to open in Toronto; designed to fill a perceived gap in educational provision. It's backers hope it will combat high drop-out rates among Black children, with resources much more aligned to what they would be interested in or relevant to their lives.

I'm not sure I get the point of this... It appears that the parents interviewed think the school will fill the historical void that they should be providing in the home themselves. I send my son to school to learn the fundamental skills to provide and educational foundation he'll need in a 21st Century Western society; the rest I provide at home. Abdicating parental responsibility for a fundamental area like this is, to be frank, lazy...

Schools should teach the facts behind the enslavement of my ancestors and the murderous middle passage; however this should not denude the responsibility that parents have themselves to teach the next generation of what has happened, the lessons learned, and how this should not affect their aspirations for the future.

Unless this also addresses factors such as stopping high instances of teen pregnancy, removing the culture of low aspiration and moving our youth away from stereotyped careers of sport, music and other entertainment, then it it won't address those factors that we, as a group, can address ourselves...

De-Africanised World Cup 2010

Interesting article that highlights some of the fears I had for this tournament. The world have waited an age for this even to be the show case of all that, not just South Africa, but the entire continent had to offer.

Now we can see, like in many other examples, Western cultural imperialism has taken over to such an extent, that the opening ceremony will simply be a host of western music, and if we're really, really lucky, we might get to see a Black man with a drum and a spear at some point in the proceedings.

What's the point of hosting the thing, bankrupting your nation, if at the end of it, you won't be paying more than lip service to what continues to be the cradle of humanity.

This is a golden opportunity to demonstrate that Africa, unlike what the prevalent coverage, is much more than starvation, war, despots and corruption.

This is where we in the Diaspora can make our voices heard to supplement the protests in South Africa itself, and perhaps shame the organisers into doing the right thing...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/28/world-cup-south-africa-musicians-opening-ceremony-protests

Yes....I've been rubbish...again!

Once again I've been lazy.. letting life get in the way of spreading my two pennuth throughout the blogosphere.

I've let Obama go by, elections, earthquakes and wars go by... Time to talk about what is happening and will be happening!