Kapenda Media Group, an Umbrella for Some Cool Web Properties

 

Since I graduated from The Ohio State University in June 2009, I kept myself very busy, working and organizing some of my web properties under one umbrella, Kapenda Media Group.

I still have almost two years before I go back for my post graduate study and in the mean time, I will be busy doing what I love; having fun with my family while creating and growing some of the most innovative web tools and applications.

Kapenda Media Group, Inc. (KMG) is a premier media company dedicated to developing, managing, and marketing a diversified portfolio of web properties, mobile and social applications that are poised to efficiently provide indispensable information, entertainment, and communication services for people around the world to help them enjoy happier and more productive lives.

KMG is building one of the most innovative and comprehensive broad arrays of web properties, proprietary data tools, social and mobile applications for use by anyone, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, which consist of:

• Welated, LLC (www.welated.com), a mass social media that alert users in real-time if their mates cheat on them with anyone, anytime, anyplace.
• Wrisen, LLC (www.wrisen.com), a social application for social networks that lets users remember, honor, and cherish their passed loved ones and pets.
• RentersQ, LLC (www.rentersq.com), a rental predictive intelligence tool that lets landlords and tenants around the world efficiently share rental history reports and information.
• Tipmart, LLC (www.tipmart.com – relaunching), a localized reverse auction platform making it easier for anyone to buy and sell almost anything, anywhere.
• Zemuse (www.zemuse.com – coming soon), a social platform for anyone to buy and sell original compositions and theme sounds for Radio Ads, Films, and TV shows.
• African Prince (coming in October 2009), a mass unscripted reality TV show offering exhilarating and breath taking dramas and cool prizes.
• Jetie (www.jetie.org – coming soon), a mass platform that enables high achievers and professionals share their life and work experience with grade students anywhere.

Filed under: entrepreneur, kapenda, networking, startup , kapenda, Kapenda Media Group, networking, simon kapenda, socia media, social, social apps

The State of South Africa’s Apartheid, the Root of All Evil

What is it actually like to live your life according to how someone else dictates it for you? You go to bed and wake up at the time given to you. You cannot leave your house at anytime before 7:00 in the morning or only when the sun has risen. And if you are somewhere, no matter where, and the sun sets, you stop moving, you make your bed right where you are at that very moment, and sleep there until the sun rises in the morning. You are only allowed to move around and go to certain areas, even if you are in your own country, in which you were born and raised. If you decide that you will take a chance and try to get moving after 7:00 p.m. or after the sun set, then they shoot you to death and ask questions later.

If you are a man, age 15 years or older, then you are required to carry a State Identification Card (Kop Kard) at all times, and if you happen to not have it on you upon demand at any time, then you are subjected to harsh police brutal beating, atrocious harassment, arrested and prosecuted, and if you resist in any way, you may never return home again, and your family may never get to see you ever, again, because if they kill you due to their brutality, they simply throw your body away, and the dogs and wild beast may feed upon your flesh. Your family and relatives have no right to question them where they have taken you or what they did with you. And, if you get to come back home with all the parts of your body intact, then you are simply lucky. Because, they could have cut your ears off or your nipples, breasts (if you’re a woman), or even cut your penis off, and no one has the right to question them.

Someone can simply break down your house door and enter your house at any time without knocking or you letting him in. He can simply come in at any time of the day or night, search around your house, harass you with questions, asking you where they are and where did you hide them. He can throw away your belongings, break down any of your things, and you are not allowed to ask any questions of what he wants or looking for or why he is in your house without your permission. And if you persist to ask what he wants, then he can even beat you down to the floor, cut your ears off with his knife, or even shoot you to death and he won’t even be held responsible by any court of law. And if you survive this horrendous ordeal of what you may refer to as a house invasion, you cannot call the police. What police, he is the policeman, he is the military man, and he is the law. He can take anything he wants out of your house, whether it is your food, belonging, or whatever else he wants, and you are not allowed to ask any question of any kind. He can even take his powerful and scary Kaspir (military truck), and drive it through your house, leaving you homeless.

You have no right whatsoever, you have no one to call and no law enforcement to report this to, you simply get yourself together. If he had beaten you up or physically hurt you, but still able to get up, you simply get yourself up, have your family home-care for you. They cannot take you to the hospital, because he is the hospital, he has the right to refuse to medically treat you. You simply stay at home, let your wounds eventually heal and hope that you will eventually recover soon, or someday.

This was the State of South Africa’s Apartheid, the mother root of all evil. Several authors and different writers around the world have written everything about the apartheid system in South Africa. Some of the authors might or may not have lived it, to personally witness it, feel it, taste it, drink it, and experience it. Some might have simply read about it from other discourses and or oral stories from those who have witnessed and lived it. Yes, some have said that slavery in America South was the worst, horrendously inhumane, the worst brutality inflicted upon any human being, the worst of any kind any where. We may agree to that effect or agree to say that apartheid was the worst of the worst. In the former South Africa’s white minority regime, apartheid was the harshest, brutal, atrocious, and inhumane, than any form of political or ideological governing.

What is actually apartheid? How did it come to exist, not anywhere else but only in South Africa and its former mandate province, Namibia? Why didn’t apartheid exist anywhere else? Who caused it and why South Africa? There are several questions we may ask ourselves, which some of them we may have answers or may never be able to find relevant explanations to reason with them.

Obviously, South Africa is a country located on the tip end of southern Africa. Its earliest inhabitants were the Sans and Khoi (Khoisans), who were traditionally hunters and gathers, lived off of game and fruits of the Savannas. Later, the Bantu speakers arrived in from the north. The Zulus, Khosas, Sothos, Tswanas, and Ngunis lived alongside the Khoisans in South Africa, prior to the arrival of the Portuguese at the Cape in 1488, followed by Jan van Riebeeck of the Dutch East India Company, who eventually transformed Table Bay (today Cape Town) into an enterprise, a resting place for ships and explores from Europe en route to South East Asia (India). The company intended the settlement simply as a staging post for India-bound ships, but Jan van Riebeeck needed cattle to supply the ships with meat, and this brought the Dutch into inevitable conflict with the San and with Khoi, who possessed large herds of cattle and resisted Dutch intrusion in their lands.  More and more Boers (Dutch word for Farmers) arrived and settled at Table Bay, turning it into a Dutch colony.

The Huguenots from France and other explorers from Europe also arrived at the Cape and joined the Boers, hence the diversity at the Cape. All settlers took up Dutch language, culture and religion. Agriculture and farming became their main mode of food production. In doing so, they had to initially quell off the Khoisan, who resisted their occupation. However as the Boers subdued the Khoisans through murder and displacement, they finally agreed to trade and exchange with them. The Boers started to acquire more lands and livestock from the Khoisans, but when the Khoisans disagreed, the Boers simply killed them and stole their livestock.

As France extended its colonial Empire in Africa, so did the British. With the discovery of gold and diamond at Kimberly, the British annexed the Cape Colony in 1806, and introduced sheep production, development of trade with the Africans and the Dutch. As the British moved into the Cape, the Boers started moving away from the Cape into the interior of the country, forming new and independent free states such as Free Orange State and Transvaal.

About 4,000 Boers, accompanied by about the same number of ’servants’ entered Natal through the Drakensberg Mountains. Some others went north, but at this state the greatest part of the Voortrekkers (a group of Boers who first left Cape Colony) went into Natal. According to Collins and Burns, after 1910, as Settlers have completely occupied the Southern Africa area, they divided up the communities, differentiated them by culture, ethnicity, and race. The prosperous privileged white minority dominated the area.

In 1910, the Union Constitution and the origins of Development of Racial inequality emerged after the Anglo-Boer War, between the British and the Boers. The South African Native National Congress, modern day ANC, was formed in 1912 to help repel the Boers’ racial segregation. However, it failed to achieve its goal because its objectives were simply to enforce equal rights for all civilized men, blacks or whites, but not to overthrow white rule.

By 1919, there was a massive protest, The Rand Strike, an armed uprising of Afrikaans and English-speaking white miners in Witwatersrand. This uprising was caused by economic challenges of post World War I, due to the declining of wages, and poor working condition. This resulted in mine owners (whites) enforcing and strengthened segregation in mining.

Minority whites felt threatened and did not want to compete with the British and their influence, thus they started to create their own society. As a result, Broederbond, a secret society to protect their interests was formed. By 1934, Daniel Malan created the National Party, a white-only political party poised to govern South Africa, which sympathized with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. By 1948, the National Party won the national election, amid that no blacks were allowed to vote. The National Party instituted the Apartheid platform as the governing law. They segregated rural and urban areas, education, land, and public serves. All non-whites were required to carry personal identification cards and were only allowed to work, live, and move about according to how the Boers wanted them. And for the next decades, blacks in South Africa and Namibia lived under the hot rod of the cruel South African apartheid.

Those who opposed it were subjected to arrests and or murders. Some powerful politicians and activities emerged, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Desmund Tutu, Sam Nuyoma, and others alike. Some were imprisoned, and many went into exile, took up arms and fought for freedom, freedom for the people of Namibia and South Africa.

By 1989, under pressure, South Africa agreed to sign the United Nations Resolution 435 which led to Namibia gaining independence from South Africa in March 1990 with Sam Nuyoma democratically elected as the first black president of Namibia, while South Africa gained independence in 1994, with Nelson Mandela democratically elected as the first black president of South Africa.

How is the history of South Africa’s Apartheid going to be written in the next hundred years? Who is forever going to wipe away the tears of pain and sorrow from the cheeks of those who lived under the apartheid?

Both Namibia and South Africa have included in their Constitutions the Policy of National Reconciliation. That means, whatever had happened to anyone during the apartheid era, you just have to forgive, no matter who did what to whom, just forgive and forget, or may be never forget, but just forgive.

The next chapter is for the equality of socioeconomic development for all the people of Namibia and South Africa, so that the next generation can happily live their lives, to the fullest, without being judged and or subjected to the ideology of separation because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, and national origin, color of skin, creed, ethnicity or religion.

Endnotes

Racism and Apartheid in Southern Africa, South Africa and Namibia. Paris: The Unesco Press, 1974

Robert Collins and James Burns. A History of Sub-Saharan Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007

Filed under: article, blog this, business, culture, economics, education, living, news, politics, simon kapenda , America South, apartheid, Boers, forced labor, oppression, simon kapenda, slave economy, slavery

Modern Day Slavery the Mother Root of All Socioeconomic Oppression

In today’s mainstream pop culture, the word “slavery” is mostly synonymous with America, not because it has a better connotation or that it was invented in America, but simply because it is the country which has been mostly publicized where the African slaves were treated the worse, brutal, and horrendous, than anywhere else on earth. But is slavery an American made? Did slavery begin in America? Is America the only country that has had a slave economy? How does slavery fit in an African perspective? If slavery also existed in Africa, then how was it different from the rest of the world? These are some of the questions we are going to explore in this document.

Slavery economy is not an American made, but let us not deny acknowledging the fact that slavery has or perhaps was the sole source of developing the America South’s agricultural economy. However, slavery has a long history of existence in many parts of the world from the very beginning of life to as recent as a few centuries ago. Biblically, we read about certain slaves in the Jewish Bible, (Torah), the Old Testament, about the infamous slave of Sarah, the wife of Abraham, who had offered her slave woman to sleep with her husband, Abraham, in order to bear her a child, because Sarah believed that she was barren and was never going to have any children. Abraham obliged to the offer and had a baby boy with the slave woman, whom he named Ishmael.

In our modern world, slavery is an ancient institution that traces its origin to the Greek and Roman Feudalism Economy, where slaves acted as serfs to their lords. Even though under this practice, the serfs were simply enforced to work on the fields of the landowners in lieu of them not having to pay rents to their landowners in any kind, but simply to work on the fields as an exchange of paying their rents and also for protection from all forms of external pressures and forces. The serfs were not subjected to the systematic exploitation of harsh labor and brutal working conditions including capital punishment as the case of the slavery.

In ancient Greek and the Roman Republic and Empire, their economy thrived off of slavery. It is fair to note that the slaves in the Roman Republic and the Empire helped build large constructions, palaces, ships, bridges, aqueducts, and worked in agricultural farms which produced large massive of agricultural produce. They were partly responsible for the cause of the rise of the Roman Empire in terms of output production, which helped the Roman Empire to expand its influences and conquer its neighboring states.

In Africa, the ancient Egypt thrived under the slavery economy in the Nile Valley and Nubia.  In fact, it might come with a surprise that slavery might have originated in Africa. And there are several sources by many scholars who decry that slave trade was the basis of African economic development. Hugh Thomas in The Slave Trade states that: “Slavery was a major institution in antiquity. Prehistoric graves in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people of about 8000 BCE enslaved a Bushmen or Negrito tribe. The Egyptians later made frequent raids on principalities to the south and, during the Eighteenth Dynasty, also launched attacks by sea, to steal slaves from what is now Somaliland. Slaves helped to build the innovations of the world’s first agricultural revolution: the hydraulic system of China and the pyramids of Egypt” (Hugh, 25).

Before we continue to analyze what effects caused Slavery in Africa, it suffices to understand what slavery actually means without going out of our context. War and Slavery in Sudan by Jok Madut Jok defines slavery in the Sudanese contexts as: “The status of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. Slave means a person in the condition or status of being owned. Slave trade is defined as all acts involved in the capture and acquisition of a person with the intent to sell, exchange, or dispose of him or her” (Jok, 3). Wherever slaves were enslaved, they worked in many different capacities from serving as chattels to fighting in battle zones as war soldiers.

Sudan, one of the earliest and oldest countries in Africa may posses the richest history of the origin of slavery in Africa. However, mapping the precise location of the origin of slavery in Africa might still be a myth to solve. “The history of slavery in this distant past is complex and more intricate than the map of the current wave of slavery” (Jok, 54). What caused the high demand for African slaves might have been the rise and expansion of Islam in North Africa, and the need for labor at fair market value. As slave owners was not subjected to paying wages for the slave labor, thus the demand for the slave labor had increased to most parts of the world, including the America South. Where the need for quality labor to work in plantations instituted an urgency of acquiring more cheap laborers, and thus the high rise demand of slaves in America South.

In Africa, slave trade was a thriving economy, with each slave traded equal the value of his or her physical appearance, age and gender. The stronger and healthier the male slave appeared, the higher the price he fetched. Female and children slaves were more valuable than male counterparts, simply because women would reproduce, and in doing so, would cause to raise the slave stock of the slave owner. The slaves that remained in Africa served in various capacities from benign to brutal conditions. Some slaves worked in fields of their masters, other worked in village households where they were treated more as part of the family members. “Those who worked in large labor camps such as plantations, mines, and heavy duty labors in West Africa were treated as chattels” (Collins and Burns).

“Most slaves farmed. Slaves also wove. Cotton textile production was probably the most important industry in the Sudan, but unlike smithing and leather, it was not confined to a castle” (Klein, 7). Not all slaves were confined to brutal conditions of farm and cotton weaving labor. Some slaves worked inside the household of their masters. Some served as drivers, fishers, ship pilots, and concierges of their owners. “There were also elite slaves. Wherever slavery existed, some slaves were powerful and privileged. In Societies where slavery did not evolve into a mode of production, slavery was primarily a means to recruit people who served the elite: eunuchs, concubines, servants, soldiers” (Klein, 7).

Slavery in Africa did not only base in West and North Africa, but it also extended as far as South Africa’s Dutch Cape Colony. “The Cape slave system possessed some unusual features. The small scale of most slaveholding units and the extremely diverse ethnic origin of slaves from a range of Africans and Asian societies, together with the limited development of a locally born slave population, meant that the potential for a clearly identifiable slave culture or unity was restricted, especially in the rural areas” (Worden, 7).

In Dutch Cape Colony, because the minority Dutch settlers were outnumbered by the slaves on a ratio of one-to-one, in order to best control their slave holdings, and for the fear of slave rebellion against the owners, slave owners resorted to draconian measures, a brutal and harsh form of capital punishment, worse than anywhere else. Here the slaves were more stationed in arable lands, than in urban centers. Slavery in the Cape was not abolished as in other parts of the world, but transformed into a more rigid and brutal racial discrimination, the apartheid, a philosophy that constitutes that each race has its own unique destiny and should be allowed to develop independently.

There are numerous numbers of discourses, either herein quoted, or not mentioned, which have their own interpretations on the development of slavery either in Africa or elsewhere. Whatever it is, slavery is the worst economic institution ever instituted in the history of mankind. Although slavery has now become part of our past, its past voices and cries in the darkness and the deserts of many nations in the world, still cry out loud to us beyond their graves, crying out loud, with one solemn ensemble, urging us, the people, everywhere on earth, to come together, as one peoples, and stop any form of inhumane treatment, anywhere, either it is in Congo, Darfur, or Afghanistan. Yes, slavery trade has been abolished, but still pawning of children still exist in many parts of the world, such as in Afghanistan.

Modern day slavery still exists everywhere, in Africa, USA, or the South America’s Amazon jungle or the mountains of India and Afghanistan. This modern day slavery, the mother root of all modern day atrociously socioeconomic oppression, is not based on harsh and brutal forced labor as its predecessor, but the ignorance of denying ones any opportunity to live in peace and harmony. Such as the case of Darfur, Congo, or even Zimbabwe, where economic and healthcare difficulties have plagued the people. I cannot disagree less to the subjugation of any form of inhumane, socio-economic oppression, and brutality, either it is the cause of slavery or socioeconomic disparity.

Bibliography

Thomas, Hugh. “The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870″. The Slave Trade. Simon and Schuster, 1999.
The Slave Trade is alive with villains and heroes and illuminated by eyewitness accounts.  Hugh Thomas’s achievement is not only to present a compelling history of the time but to  answer as well such controversial questions as whom the traders were, the extent of the  profits, and why so many African rulers and peoples willingly collaborated. Thomas also  movingly describes such accounts as are available from the slaves themselves.

Modut, Jok. “War and Slavery in Sudan”. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
War and Slavery in Sudan exposes the enslavement of black peoples in Sudan which has  been exacerbated, if not caused, by the circumstance of war. As a black southerner and a  member of the Dinka, a group targeted by Arab slave traders, Jok brings an insider’s  perspective to this highly volatile subject matter. He describes the various methods of  capture, explores the heinous experience of captivity, and examines the efforts of slaves  to escape.

Collins, R. Burns, J. “A History of Sub-Saharan Africa”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
This book is the work of two historians who, between them, have been teaching Africa’s  history to American undergraduates for the better part of four decades. As any honest  professor of history will ruefully admit, those lecture notes become yellowed with age  when not continually revised to incorporate new information and interpretations. This is  particularly the case for the dynamic historiography of Africa.

Klein, Martin A. “Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998
This book warrants close attention and will open up new debates. It represents a major  and no doubt lasting contribution to slave studies and to African history in general. The  author begins with an overview of slavery in the Western Sudan as well as the now  familiar debates over the interpretation of slavery in Africa, although his discussion is  rather cursory and one-sided. Klein argues that slaves were property, produced by an act  of violence, and takes the discussion to 1960, the year of independence for Senegal, Mali  and Guinea.

Worden, Nigel. “Slavery in Dutch South Africa”. African Studies Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
This first comprehensive analysis of slavery in early colonial South Africa, based on  research in Britain, the Netherlands and South Africa, examines the nature of Cape  slavery with reference to the literature on other slave societies. Dr Worden shows how  the slave economy developed in town and countryside, and discusses the dynamics of the  slave market, the growth of land concentration, the harsh life on the farm, and the  developing polarization of rural race relations.

Filed under: article, blog this, business, culture, economics, education, living, news, politics, simon kapenda , America South, forced labor, oppression, simon kapenda, slave economy, slavery

The Latest Updates, and the Accompanying Juicy News n’ Stuff

I haven’t updated this blog in a long time. I have been busy with my classes and new projects. A lot of things have happened since I last wrote on here.

1. History in the making – History has been made; Barack Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, the first African American in the history of the United States to be nominated as the presidential candidate for a major political party, and the first African American to be elected, yes, elected President of the United States.
   
2. Musharraf – In November 2007, I wrote about Pakistani’s General (ret) PervezMusharraf falling out of favor with Bush, and well, that has certainly come to past. He’s now probably eating crackers and nuts, waiting to see if he might be court martialed.
   
3. China Olympics – China showcased its mighty with the super Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. China has been a closed society; most of us never really know what’s happening inside of China. Although its economy has been sky ballooning, since China recovered from its feudal economic system disaster in the 15^th or 16^th century, to become a communist economic system, it has always been a closed society. But the Beijing Olympic Games have shown the world what China has become, a mixture of powerful capitalist and socialist economy system, the next world economic power.
   
4. NBC Olympics – NBC’s broadcasting of the Olympics games was a disaster, because of its biased broadcasting focus. In the U.S., we barely saw other countries’ athletic performance. NBC simply focused on showing games where American athletes were the dominants, and if not, we never got to see those games. About 12 years ago, NBC paid gazillions to the International Olympics Committee for the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics games, and that simply is a sick and cruel monopoly, because, we don’t have any other option in the US to watch the Olympics game, except on NBC. And, even though we might want to watch other Olympics sports, we are forced to simply watch whatever NBC decides to show. The FCC needs to seriously look into this practice.
   
5. Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps – Congratulations to Usain Bolt of Jamaica for being the fastest man on planet earth, and to Michael Phelps for being the fastest creature of the sea. As I watched Bolt running, I could feel that he wasn’t really running to his fullest, and if he did, he could have set a high level of world records which would been hard for anyone to break them. I wonder what sprinter Frankie Frederick of Namibia was thinking about when he was watching Bolt breaking three world records. Also, looking at Michael Johnson in the BBC broadcasting booth, when Bolt broke his record, Michael simply turned around in disappointment.
   
6. The Olympics Economic Disparity – The Olympic Games were not really designed to showcase equal and just competitiveness among the world’s athletes. They are actually stupid, because you have athletes from developed countries, whose full-time career is playing whatever their fields of sports and you have athletes from developing and underdeveloped nations who barely can financially afford to live as their counterparts from developed countries.

   How can American Basketball team competitively play against an Angolan basketball team? All of the American basketball team players are multi-millionaires who chose in what house to live, what to eat and what to drive each day. Whereas perhaps some of the Angolan basketball team may not even play basketball as their full-time career and may have to worry about affording the cost of their living, not even think of what to eat for dinner. May be Angolan basketball team players are well paid and thus well off, but compare to many of the participating countries’ GNP and GDP per capita, it’s ridiculous to call the Olympic Games equally competitive. This can be seen by the countries that win most of the medals. These are the countries that equally able and capable of economically taking good care of their athletes.  This economic disparity among athletes nearly if not completely, makes the Olympics games unequally competitive among the participating athletes. They may as well call them The G8 Olympics.
   

7. Zimbabwe Inflation – What else has been happening? Oh, Zimbabwe is fighting with inner self, getting that inflation rate under control would be something. Last time I checked, about eight months ago, its inflation was at 2.2 million%, wow. But the good thing is that everyone in Zimbabwe might be a millionaire, except when deciding what to buy with the millions might be a factor. You might take your one million and be on your way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but by the time you get to the store, the price of the loaf of bread has doubled, so you have to run back home and get more millions, and again by the time to get to the store, the price has gone up again, so the process keeps repeating itself. So, is Zimbabwe the latest country to experience a hyperinflation?
   
8. Oprah Winfrey – If I ever see Oprah Winfrey, I’ll pat her on the back; she must be the happiest person on planet earth right now. Oprah is the real deal. Whatever she touches turns to gold. Nearly two years ago, Oprah appeared to her audience and to most TV viewers, urging Obama to run for the US presidency, even when Obama didn’t announce that he was interested in exploring the chore. And, there were many people who were lobbying to have Oprah run for the Office, but she said that she was not interested and that she wanted Obama to run. As the time went on, when Obama and Hillary got into their scuffle of the primaries, Oprah found her show running behind such shows as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as most of her viewers were divided between Obama and Hillary. But, the golden girl has proven otherwise. She’s gold.
   
9. Logo Designing – those who constantly email me asking me about logo design, please visit www.marshgraphicdesigns.com and ask for Lindsay. She’s the best, the god of logo design, in the business.

Well, that’s it for now folks, I gotta go…!

Filed under: article, blog this, business, culture, economics, education, living, news, politics, simon kapenda , Beijing Olympics, blog, Frankie Fredricks, hyperinfaltion, kapenda, logo design, Michael Johnson, Michael Phelps, news, online news, simon kapenda, update, Usain Bolt, Zimbabwe inflation

Run, Gore Run, Again…!

My main man, Al Mr. Gore, the joke of late night television shows and the comedy of the all-around town circus, has added another trophy to his unmatched and uncontestable long resume; the most precious Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s now a worldwide phenomenal news and long repeated tale that Al Mr. Gore has won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for his Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Which one sounds better, I wanna be like Mike, or I wanna be like Gore?

In reality, Gore has the most impressive resume more than anybody else on earth. He’s the only one in the whole world to have a resume that includes graduating from Harvard University, studied religion but later enrolled in a law school but without graduating at Vanderbilt, then he served in the Vietnam war as a journalist, then became a Congressman, serving in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1985, then became a US Senator, from 1985 to 1993, representing the Great State of Tennessee.

And then he became the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, and thereafter, he became the 2000-majority elected President of the United States, but without actually serving as U.S. President, but only after he had gotten tired of recounting and gave George W. Bush the Electoral College victory, and consequently the presidency, daaaank, Al, Mr. Gore.

Thereafter, he became a college professor, teaching at four universities in 2001 as a visiting professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University, Middle Tennessee State University, and UCLA.

Then he founded his own television station, Current TV, which has received an Emmy Award, but he was still dissatisfied, so became an Actor, starring in a self-made documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, which has won an Academy Award.

He then became a concert promoter, organizing the benefit concert, Live Earth, in an effort to raise awareness about climate change. The concert was held all over the world, with live stages in many different countries on July 7, 2007 and was televised live in many different countries around the world.

Al Mr. Gore is the author of the 2007 book, The Assault on Reason, in which he argues that “there is a trend in U.S. politics towards ignoring facts and analysis when making policy decisions”.

But Al Mr. Gore is not done yet, today, he is president of the American television channel, Current TV, which won the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television award at the 2007 Primetime Emmys.

He is chairman of Generation Investment Management, a member of the board of directors of Apple Inc., the maker of our great iPod and iPhone, Mac, and iTunes, etc., and he is an unofficial advisor to Google’s senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

And the best part of it all, is that Al Mr. Gore wrote me yesterday, and everyone else in his mailing list, saying that he will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the Nobel Peace Prize award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

Now Al Mr. Gore is going to run, again, for the presidency of the United States of America, if only DraftGore.com’s petition can convince him to run in the 2008 presidential election, and without any doubts, he will definitely win the presidency. And then, he will add to his loooooong resume, as the forty-fourth President of the United States, his Vice-President will then be Bill Clinton, yeah right, what a team would that be?

So, heck yes, I definitely wanna be like Al, and no one else.

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Finally, my education

It’s been a great struggle for me since I was a kid just to get an education, and I’ve had many great successes and failures in my life since secondary school.

One of those successes were to achieving my secondary school education, and thereafter learning and studying Audio Engineering and later worked in audio for TV, Film and music production, where I have had many opportunities of meeting and working with many great people; from many different honorable heads of states such as Tony Blair, Mandela, Nujoma, Bush Sr., etc., to many celebrities, thanks to two great people, Mr. Engh and Mr. Stender in Denmark.

At the same time, like any normal human being, I’ve made many mistakes and have had many failures in my life, and one of these mistakes or regrets were how I created WEA, not its vision and goal, because its vision and goal were and I still foresee them as something vital for many, and although it had done good for many, it also has had its shares of mistakes, simply because; I just didn’t know any better, in terms of initially setting it up, its organizational structure, functions, operations and strategy in order to making it live up to its mission.

However, I am so humbly excited now, because I am finally going to graduate in 2008 from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics, with interest in Econometrics. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me, finally getting my education. It’s better than anything I have ever done in my life, and I am so graciously happy and proud of myself, because I never knew that I would have a chance.

I know that with this education and the knowledge I have amassed from a large body of one of the greatest minds in the world, OSU, this will greatly enable me to do things at utmost best, in terms of business related, and I guarantee you that from here on, as long as I breathe, expect greater things from me.

I have always wanted to go back to college, but I always had to work to support my family, and I didn’t have the time needed to fully commit myself to studying, but the last 5 years have been incredibly productive for me, which has enabled me to focus on my education, thanks to God, my wife, family and friends for believing in me.

Today, October 10, is my birthday, as well as for my daughter, Cinnamon. I am just so thankful for everything, and I am humbly thankful for my Lord Jesus Christ who made this day, a special day, just for me and my daughter.

Well, back to my study, I have a German quiz tomorrow. The funny thing is; English is the second foreign language I had to learn and now that I am studying German, I am starting to lose my English, because whenever I learn a new foreign language, I tend to forget the other language.

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