Dancing on a Dead Blogger's Comment Box

You all know, by now, that the Vice President is mourning his recently-dead son. Ugandans are generally a very vicious bunch, of course, and they took this most-inconsolable moment in a father's life to spew forth lots of noise about politics. All this especially after the Vice President said he had wanted this son to succeed him after he is gone. Perhaps we find it hard to feel sorry for politicians (because, of course, we think we are so much more justified and righteous than those corrupt lying bastards, of course, those vile and shameless tax collectors—publicans!—and immoral vermin that are our politicians). Perhaps we don't yet know what it is to inter your own children; we still live in the ideal that what cometh after goeth after also. The shock of how quickly plans extending into the far future can be undone by a night-time phone call—“Your son (sob), hurry up (sob), to the hospital (sob), he has had an accident (sob), I think he won't survive (sob).”—and you know before you put the phone down that courage just failed your informant: you son is already dead, forever dead, and the plans you had that are 26 years old are now void and dead also. Sob. We don't know these things, most of us, and so we make light of this tragedy. We even see comedy in it, sometimes.

But I wonder what you, dear bloggers, would do if you found that the deceased we have been chuckling about was one of us?

I'm just from Zack's Utopia, and I've found out that Bryan Bukenya was also a blogger, one of us. Here is his weblog. He was blogging long before the huge majority of us started blogging. (He also stopped before most of us started.) But if you assume that he was just as lively a person on the day before he died as he was in his last blog post, you start to see the fragility of life.
His last post is a call of encouragement to his father who was (unfairly, I maintain, or at least disproportionately) being targetted for relentless, selfish, self-righteous Phariseeist criticism from our couch politicians. (Most people would have a crumbling country five seconds after being handed the Vice Presidency. Most people think that governing is easy and can be done by everyone - one of the bigger lies of democracy. Most people, also, are foolish. Connect the dots.)

Anyway, now imagine that Bryan wants to comment on our weblogs and he can't. Perhaps he wants to say something in this comments section.
Whatever, anyway. So, we had the opportunity to honour a fallen blogger, and we didn't do it. Since we will all die some time, there are many more chances to correct this grave mistake.
And when you die, I hope it won't be before your parents. That grief has no comparison, and Heaven forfend that we should ever—under any pretext—make light of it.
Anyway, when you die, remember that I'll at least pay you respects as a fallen blogger, one of us. Even as the rest of them go bananas. :o) (Remember that both you and I make many suicide attempts—willingly place ourselves in escapable positions where the probability of dying in the next ten minutes is very high—every time we sit on a boda-boda. This is before the boda-boda starts to move at all. You and I are closer to death, in fact, than he was. As the frogs say, La vie est courte.)

These Pretty Little Riots of Ours

They say that if you want to keep abreast of issues, face Twitter. Now, I'm not on Twitter (anymore, after my brief experiment with it). But it seems true. It's what all the cool kids are doing. This kid is particularly cool, if I dare say so myself. I'll explain why, later, and also why you should take my comments with a cup of sodium chloride.
But I dare say that Facebook is also alive. It is not very “activist”, but it is alive. The evidence is here.

Now, if you are out of your office (which is where almost all of Uganda gets the Internet), and you want to send to your Twitter and Facebook (and receive from there, as well!), what are you to do? Your phone can't work the web, because it's a phone. (They are for calls and SMS, those phone things.) Or perhaps it can work the web, but you don't have the airtime. Or the web is slow. What, then, are you to do? After all, these riots won't report themselves.

'Cause it's people like you,
Oh, people like me.
People need to be free, yeah.
There's a place in the sun,
Where there is love for everyone,
Where we can be, yeah.

I know a place where we can carry on!
    ~ Bob Marley (I know a place)

I know a place, where we can carry on. It is called ... UTL Facebook/Twitter SMS service. Since it is free of charge, it is, in fact, stupid not to use this service. It is currently the cheapest way to work your Twitter and Facebook in the world.

Twitter first.
Send 'tweetme' to 2299 on UTL, and you'll get information on how to sign up. I'll recap the info here, because it seems a bit complex, from the attempts to get onto the system that I've seen.

1. Send 'tweetme [yourusername]' to 2299.
   If, for example, your Twitter username is ‘enfanterrible728’, you send
   tweetme enfanterrible728
   to 2299. You'll get back instructions.


2. Get the PIN code from Twitter
   The instructions you receive on doing step 1 above include a web address. Visit that web address and Twitter will give you a PIN code. Record this PIN code down somewhere, and then do step 3.
   If you don't know where to find the messages sent to you, then just follow the web address in the message (it is shortened to make it easy to type, and to fit it into the SMS). The instructions are posted with @enfanterrible728, for example, so you should be able to find them when you check for messages sent to you via @username.
   When you complete the process, the system removes this message out of courtesy. :o)


3. Send the PIN code to 2299 as explained below
   Assuming, again, that your name is ‘enfanterrible728’, send the PIN code you received in step 2 from Twitter to 2299 in a message like this:
   tweetme enfanterrible728 123456778
   . In this example, the PIN code is ‘123456778’.
   When you send two words after the keyword ‘tweetme’, the system will think that the second one is the PIN code.


4. You're on!
   When the step above is completed, you'll be up and running. To send to your Twitter stream, you send to the keyword ‘now’. So, when you write Now The rioters have moved towards the south of the city! and send it to 2299, it will show up on your Twitter stream as The rioters have moved to the south of the city!
   To receive your Twitter stream, send ‘twitter’ to 2299. Simple.

The best thing about this service (apart from the fact that it is free) is that you can receive from your Twitter feed by sending ‘twitter’ to 2299. When you send twitter to 2299, you get your Twitter stream (since the last time you requested, or the latest 5, if it's your first time). There are other things you can do with the ‘twitter’ keyword, but they will make this too long.

Now, Facebook.
To sign up for Facebook, send 'fbme' to 2299. You will get instructions that are, in many ways, analogous to the ones described above for Twitter. When you sign up, you will be able to send to your Facebook Wall.
If you understood the instructions for Twitter, you've understood the instructions for Facebook as well. The only differences in them are noted explicitly in the messages that the system sends you. (Facebook requires visiting two web addresses, instead of one, and these are visited in strict order, one after the other. Also, there is no need to send usernames for Facebook accounts.)
The Facebook application is the less-tested of the two, so it would actually rock if you tried it, so that I can iron the bugs and infelicities out of it quickly. If you have a suggestion to make, send to the ‘bug’ keyword.

When you sign up for Facebook, you can send ‘now [message]’, and that message will go to your Facebook wall.

Now, if you are signed up for both services, Twitter and Facebook, your message will go to both your Twitter stream and your Facebook Wall, when you send ‘now [message]’. This is cool, but sometimes you don't want that. So, instead, you do the following.

If you want to send only to Twitter, and yet you are also signed up for Facebook, send the message to 2299 like this: twitter send [message] instead of using the ‘now’ keyword. That will only send the message to Twitter, when you send twitter send [message].

If you want to send only to your Facebook Wall, and yet you are also signed up for Twitter, send the message to 2299 like this: fb send [message] instead of using the ‘now’ keyword. When you send the message fb send [message], it will only send your message to your Facebook Wall.

I chose the ‘now’ keyword because it fits the reporting state better. If you want to suggest another keyword, it takes me all of 10 seconds (I'm serious) to put it into the system. For example, I'm going to make ‘omg’ an alias of ‘now’, so that you can say omg these rioters are mad! and it will show up on your Twitter stream or Facebook Wall as these rioters are mad!.

Now, the situation in Kampala has caused a premature announcement (of sorts) for this service. What to do, though? The men make plans, the gods decide. :o) It is free, this service. I've already plugged it quite shamelessly in many places. See here, for example, and here. Lucy, also has a riot timeline here.

So, what are the terms and conditions?
In short, there is no censorship, no fear, and no favour. Post away. :o) The exchanges are not cached in the system in a way that would injure privacy at all, and indeed many things are made complex (signing up, messaging) precisely because your privacy is being respected.
Thanks to all those who helped me test the service.

Über-fast Internet: Natural Mystic Blowing Through the Cables

I'm seated at UTL's headquarters at Telephone House.
Something big—quite big—and fast—very, very fast—is happening here.

You know already that the Seacom Undersea Cable landed ashore a while back. Joshua mentioned that YouTube videos have to be left to buffer (for like, I don't know, 40 times their run length, when the gods are smiling), and that it was no longer necessary.
The video he mentions in that post is too small to be a good sample of speeds.

Me, I just loaded this here one.

And, you see, I didn't even hesitate to embed it, rather than politely link to it because I am on a fast internet myself, and you should be too, so that this is not a problem.

You see, UTL has joined the fibre optic cable. And I played a video without having buffered it first. It's quite cool, actually. It's only slightly less than they say it is.
Because, you see, a faster connection doesn't mean you click faster—or read faster, or that Bob Marley will sing faster. I didn't know! :-o Quelle surprise!
But now watch the video, first. If you are on UTL (or should that be ÜTL?), it should play pretty fast. It's a good measure.
Here's some info from DSL Reports:

Now, I didn't do tests with the previous speeds, so I can't make any comparisons.

Joshua mentioned some stuff in this other post, and the numbers in the DSL Reports pic seem to match the wholesale and retail plan that he describes. Cool.
The way I understand it, again coming in at the tail end of the veritable Joshua, UTL picked the connection up by signing with Infocom. They have hurried for the market, rather than wait for the cable onto which they put money. This latter sentence should be in the subjunctive tense, if I were to write in some Latinate language. :o)

The Rogue King had a very read-worthy radio session (visit the post and see what I mean). His post is pertinent, and should temper all the excitement in a sensible way.
Now, lastly, two more links old links of pieces that you should see, if you didn't see them. One is from Jackfruity. It's here because it syndicated widely. The other is from Bazanye, so that you may know that some of the hype that you will read in the media is not news, but advertisement. You can trust this, though. When I get paid to do ads, I'll tell you.

And just to irritate you all, see that half of my prophecy has come true. The other half, the one that Rogue King tells us to watch, is a little more-precarious, but I'm hopeful that I won't be stoned to death.
Now, watch that Bob Marley video, fast connection or no. Watch the majestic entrance. Watch the reaction of the crowd. Watch the way the rhythm flow naturally. Watch, O reader, the greatest of the contemporary prophets. There's a natural mystic blowing through the (h)air. :o)

Whats Up?

Suspicious...

I have not been blogging, for a while, dont expect my posts to have been the last... But they were!

Why? What has happened to the blogloren?

No more Happy Bloggers hours? No more jokes? No more meetings of poets?

What's up dudes? Pray, tell...

gug

An afternoon

sprinkling of
hot, golden bright sunshine on
the deep, emerald jewel
green of leaves;

It covers all,
does the sun-
even the buildings
rust red and browns;
the crumbling slum
rooftops that like
mud of an overflowing
river touch valley bottoms.

The roads,
deeply holed asphalt
arteries peopled by an
abundance of men and
women, children, an overflow
like real blood cells do,

In the richer
suburbs trees tall and green
leaf the air-
mature compounds mimic
the solid, long gone green
cover of natural rainforest
and huge houses peep
jewels of colour in
green cloth of nature.

Kampala the
beautiful, indeed.



(c) gayuganda 02 April 09

Kampala, From a Distance

GayUganda

Food for Thought

Carried over from my blog here.

and following on the last post here, Debate

Feeling Cheeky. Want to poke a little sister in the eye.

And since the Pope has gone around Africa de-campaigning Condoms, I am posting this, though it seems to have passed the 'sell by date', in the news cartegory. But it still is something momentous, isnt it?

(PS, came accross a website where Ssempa was praising the Pope's statement. Laughed. Religion is all about the politics of living!)

gug

Rape row sparks excommunications

By Gary Duffy

BBC News, Sao Paulo

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins. It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.

The excommunication applies to the child's mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.

The pregnancy was terminated on Wednesday.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother's life is at risk and doctors say the girl's case met both these conditions. Police believe that the girl at the centre of the case had been sexually abused by her step-father since she was six years old.

The fact that she was pregnant with twins was only discovered after she was taken to hospital in Pernambuco complaining of stomach pains.

Her stepfather was arrested last week, allegedly as he tried to escape to another region of the country. He is also suspected of abusing the girl's physically handicapped older sister who is now 14.

Intervention bid

The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday. Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated. The Archbishop of Olinda andRecife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.

He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.

However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

While the action of the Church in opposing an abortion for a young rape victim is not unprecedented, it has attracted criticism from women's rights groups in Brazil.

Ideals outside reality. Food for thought.

Vatican backs abortion row bishop

Cardinal Re said the attack on Brazil's Catholic Church was unjustified. A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication in Brazil of the mother and doctors of a young girl who had an abortion with their help.

The nine-year-old had conceived twins after alleged abuse by her stepfather. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told Italian paper La Stampa that the twins "had the right to live" and attacks on Brazil's Catholic Church were unfair. It comes a day after Brazil's president criticised the Brazilian archbishop who excommunicated the people involved. Brazil only permits abortions in cases of rape or health risks to the mother.

Doctors said the girl's case met both these conditions, but the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said the law of God was above any human law. He said the excommunication would apply to the child's mother and the doctors, but not to the girl because of her age.

'Sad case'

Cardinal Re, who heads the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told La Stampa that the archbishop had been right to excommunicate the mother and doctors. Life must always be protected, the attack on the BrazilianChurch is unjustified "It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," he said.

"Life must always be protected, the attack on theBrazilian Church is unjustified."

The abortion was carried out on Wednesday.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, himself a Catholic, said on Friday that he regretted what he described as the cleric's deeply conservative attitude. "The doctors did what had to be done: save the life of a girl of nine years old," he said. The girl, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, was allegedly sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather, possibly since she was six. The fact that she was four months' pregnant with twins was only discovered after she was taken to hospital in Pernambuco complaining of stomach pains. Her stepfather was arrested last week, allegedly as he tried to escape to another region of the country. He is also suspected of abusing the girl's physically handicapped 14-year-old sister.

I will be very cruel. Food for thought, for my idealistic big lil sis. Food for thought.

This only works if you are not afraid to think. Or afraid not to think outside the box. Interesting. Because, in this day and age, it is important to notice that people do believe, and strongly.

Sad case? Not realy. Eye opening reality. When we 'idealists' become more cruel than the devil, all in the name of god. Or our ideals. Food for thought.

gug