None that would improve it.
Wait, is that the standard? I gotta start posting less.
None that would improve it.
Wait, is that the standard? I gotta start posting less.
None that would improve it.
Wait, is that the standard? I guess I ought to start posting less.
Actually, I rather like corrupt African governments.
This is a bit of what Kenyans have in mind when they joke that a Luo has a better chance of being elected President of the United States than being elected the President of Kenya.
I had heard that Obama Sr. knew Mboya but I actually didn't know that he testified in the assassination investigation.
I ask the heavens - must charm and arrogance and driving intellect and ambition always travel together?
It is such a burden for those of us cursed with these four horseman, and yet we struggle on. We struggle on.
those of us cursed with these four horseman
Thus 14 demonstrates that charm and arrogance and driving intellect and ambition may have to travel together, but they need not be burdened by pedantry on their journey.
Thanks for posting this. I know you specifically mention that this story is not in either Obama bio, yet somehow it makes me want to read those.
14: Not always. I've got arrogance and intellect, not so much on the charm and ambition.
Not always. I've got arrogance and intellect, not so much on the charm and ambition.
For that matter, ambition and arrogance can combine in ways that lead to systemic overestimation of charm and intellect.
Spike,
There is still time. I think once you develop the ambition you will, by necessity, have to learn the charm. Your driving intellect will make this doable.
So don't give up just yet. Carry on my wayward son.
I, for one, am utterly lacking in charm. But there's something to 14 -- one of the smartest, most successful and ambitious people I know also has absurd amounts of charm and charisma. A Jobsian reality distortion field, if you will. This has a pretty powerful feedback on the ambition and arrogance and success, because everyone he talks to is instantly excited and wants to follow what he's doing. He would be successful without the charm, but with it, he's incredible.
16: Dreams from my Father is a legitimately good book. The Audacity of Hope is a good politician's book, but a lot less compelling otherwise.
News to me that Obama Snr. testified at Mboya's (alleged) killer's trial. I'm unconvinced that his testimony sufficed to end his career, since - by both Obama's account in Dreams, and the Globe piece - the trouble had begun earlier, and because Obama Snr later returned to the Ministry of Economic Planning.
Two other things.
(1) Tim Burke's stuff is usually good, but his take on the Kenyan crisis has been disastrously misguided and consistently so. Retailing Raila Odinga's self-pitying anecdote is the latest example. Luo politicans have been at the centre of the state since Independence: Mboya and Odinga were, after Kenyatta, the senior African nationalists; KADU's formation was motivated mainly by fear of the Gikuyu-Luo alliance. If you wish to argue, as you almost certainly will do, that Mboya was killed because he would have been a contender for the Presidency, then it follows that there couldn't have been a systemic barrier to his accession just in virtue of his ethncity - if he was killed because he was a plausible candidiate, then it is unlikely that he would have been rejected because of his Luoness. During the Moi era, the third-most powerful man in Kenya was Luo; and, of course, Raila came very near winning (or won, if you're that way inclined) in the 2007 election.
(2) The second part of my pseudonym accurately reflects my ethnicity - relevant only because it will almost certainly affect the assessment of my claims.
yesterday i was to write about it here, but it was like too much contrast, but anyway, i wouldn't have any presidential or other offspring to embarrass them anyway
i told to my coworker the story and he said i did right, you better be careful, i'm kinda glad to be like consoled, if anybody cares
i can't tell some things to my family, they get all worried about me
it was dark, nobody near the uni, just me standing there, leaving messages on the phone, if i was during some phone conversation i wouldn't notice anything maybe, but i was pretty alert
and a young black guy with a shaved head and swollen face comes up to me out of nowhere and says to call police, robbed
i was like trying to recall whether the face swells that quickly or something, kinda like suspicious from the beginning, the bus came then, couldn't recall what he was wearing when they at 911 asked how he looked like
if i missed the bus had to wait another hr maybe
so confused, he's the one who was assaulted and asked for my help and i got afraid of him like subconsciously, coz i was not afraid then i remember, though he was telling to call the police
people should not ask me for help after dark maybe coz i won't help them, that's like getting established within me
"I told him, 'You are parked on a yellow line. You will get a ticket," Obama, the late father of the US presidential candidate, would later testify, according to press accounts at the time. And then the two men parted.
Minutes later, Mboya was shot twice and died in a pool of blood.
Man, the traffic cops are hardcore in Nairobi.
I wouldn't feel too bad. The guy was alert and standing up, so he didn't need help in a truly immediate sense, and you did call the police for him. Once you're past that, it's not clear what good your staying with him at night on an empty street would have done -- from how you've described yourself, you wouldn't have been any physical protection for him if the people who attacked him came back.
You have to trust your instincts in a situation like that, and whether or not it was reasonable for you to be afraid of him (which it might have been) it was certainly reasonable for you to be nervous about the situation as a whole.
read,
In order to protect others you must protect yourself first. That is not being selfish. That is being smart.
And tell your family. Yes, they worry, but they worry even more when they know there are things you do not tell them. Family and friends are important. Don't be alone. You can be strong and also with family and friends. That makes you stronger, not weaker. Accept what they give.
LB, thank you so much, i think i just cried now
i'll try to be a better human though next time