From thoughts into words

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, and an activist and journalist, was tried in 1982 for the murder of Daniel Faulkner, a Philadelphia police officer. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death, only for the death sentence to be eventually declared unconstitutional and vacated. In December of 2011, the Philadelphia District Attorney made an announcement that there would be no further attempts to seek the death sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Instead, Abu-Jamal’s sentence would be allowed to revert to a sentence of life without parole. THE VACATION OF ABU-JAMAL’S SENTENCE Abu-Jamal’s case has been the subject of heated debate over the decades, pitting those who see it as proof of a racially-biased justice system against those who see it as evidence that justice can prevail. The December 9 th 2011 announcement by the Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams, was met with celebration by Abu-Jamal’s supporters worldwide. The nearly three decades that he had spen...

Today a popular East African radio show host received a message from one of her fans, an aspiring writer who was seeking advice about how to get published. The young writer made the mistake of sending the radio show host a message ridden with grammatical errors and typos. How did the radio show host respond? She posted the young writer’s message, complete with her name, age and alma mater on her Facebook wall, with a statement to the effect that nobody would take a self-proclaimed writer seriously if she couldn’t be bothered to write her message properly. The radio show host had a point about the importance of such details as grammar and spelling in letters of inquiry about jobs and about opportunities for publication. Hiring managers routinely disqualify candidates who send them documents that are full of errors. In their experience, people who don’t pay attention to detail in their formal communication are bound to carry the same casual attitude into the job. This is especially the...

I have enjoyed reading Kachwanya’s 2009 article, “ Kiswahili Tech Projects are falling apart, why?” because I think it addresses an important subject. The article makes it evident that there are different levels of language use and that, while a given population may find it natural to speak in one language, the same population might prefer to use technology or engage in professional writing/ speech in a completely different language. As contradictory as such a situation might seem, it reflects the linguistic complexity of our everyday experiences. I must mention that the article does have one significant shortfall. In my opinion, an article that makes claims this strong about Kiswahili technology projects should be based on more than the writer’s personal experience. Frankly, I was expecting the writer to have interviewed a wide range of people outside his/ her immediate circle and to have actual data from Facebook, Microsoft and others about the long-term success of their Kiswahili p...

Having watched this video posted on the ABC News page , I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think it was brave of Gaby Rodriguez to conceive of this project and to go through with it. It’s undeniable that the publicity that her performance drew to the issue might just force the powers that be to take action to address the stigma and challenges endured by pregnant teens. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling it is cruel to deceive so many people, especially family and close friends, all for the sake of proving a point about the social stigma that pregnant girls face. Aren’t there other ways of accessing this kind of information that don’t involve deception? Specifically, why couldn’t Gaby Rodriquez get the written or videotaped testimonies of teenage girls who were actually pregnant? A teenage girl who was actually pregnant would have to deal with so much more than Gaby Rodriguez dealt with, including the bodily changes that come with pregnancy (which do include hormonal c...