Corrupt, lawless and racist

Today was hard. I always manage to convince myself that my city of birth can't be hard to live in - it's my city after all. I've been over being clamped for no reason by confused parking authorities and lost a whole day of work as a result. I've been misfined by the police themselves. I've been robbed. But today was just hard. I almost hit someone because they were crossing the road without looking, and ended up taking all the blame for a burn-mark the size of my thumb on his knee... and being called a white racist who wants to murder people on the road. Funny how, no matter how hard you try, the stranger in the midst of the public is out to fight you quite hard because that is how the world looks to him. Therefore, it's got to look the same for everyone, otherwise people just get downright shafted.

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Quote from The Blacklist

Been getting into The Blacklist , thanks to Aly. Still early days, but Raymond 'Red' Reddington went into a monologue once that goes like this: A farmer comes home one day to find that everything that gives meaning to his life is gone. Crops are burned, animals slaughtered, bodies and broken pieces of his life strewn about. Everything that he loved taken from him - his children. One can only imagine the pit of despair, the hours of Job-like lamentations, the burden of existence. He makes a promise to himself in those dark hours. A life's work erupts from his knotted mind. Years go by. His suffering becomes complicated. One day he stops - the farmer who is no longer a farmer - sees the wreckage he's left in his wake. It is now he who burns, he who slaughters, and he knows in his heart he must pay. Fantastic oration by James Spader , here and in many other monologues. Kinda reminds me of a post I wrote 6 years ago discussing heros and villians, and then a revisit o...

Tanzania is not Tasmania

Dear friends: Please let's stop refering to Tanzania as Tasmania. Here is why. Tanzania is located on the coast of East Africa, below Kenya. It is not origin of the the cartoon character from your childhood. Tasmania is an island which is part of Australia. The animal known to exist only on Tasmania is the Tasmanian Devil. Once again, you will see this is not the cartoon character you remember from your childhood. Let's summarize: Tanzania is not Tasmania.

Policy Brief 2: Why is Tanzania Poor?

(Policy Brief # 2 Submitted December 6th 2007, for Econ 346 - Economic Development, Lafayette College) Over the course of the 20th century, Tanzania experienced a multitude of social, political and economic changes. It still remains poor today. The WorldBank classifies a ‘low income country’ – such as Tanzania – as one with a Gross National Income per capita of $905 or less (WorldBank Data 2006). As of 1992, Tanzania ’s per capita income was recorded at $110, and average per capita consumption was $0.5 per day (OECD 2000). Several possible factors have been blamed for contributing to current hardships, such as Julius Nyerere’s failed attempts to collectivize agriculture between 1961 and 1975 through his socialist Ujamaa policies as the first president of Tanzania (Pratt 1980). While pre-independence plans “focused on the commercialization of agriculture and the creation of industries that could reduce the need for a variety of imports”, post-independence interventions by the Gov...

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