From thoughts into words

 http://nutritionafrica.blogspot.com/2012/04/delicate-balance-of-our-ecological.html When I was in school, we were taught that the cause of malnutrition in our communities was the lack of sufficient protein in the diet. Today, I am much older, and have observed that there is a malnutrition epidemic in the Lake Victoria region in Kenya where fish, a rich source of protein, is supposed to be a staple. At first, I thought this was a uniquely Kenyan problem. Then I saw Hubert Sauper 's documentary, Darwin's Nightmare . Apparently, a similar problem exists in the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania. The film demonstrates how commercial fish harvesting over the years has exhausted the fishing stock in Lake Victoria, creating an ecological crisis. The Nile Perch fillets harvested from the Lake are processed then transported by commercial aircraft to Europe. The same aircraft rarely arrive in Tanzania empty. In fact, they usually bear arms that are then off-loaded under ...

Kenyans living abroad who keep abreast of the daily papers back home are accustomed to seeing articles that portray them as hedonists, living amoral, aimless lives in the land of plenty. Without fail, those articles adopt a scandalized tone and imply that the 'traditional' values of purity and innocence have been replaced with materialism and a dog-eat-dog ethos. Many have learnt to smile and shake their heads as they read those articles, for they know that they hardly scratch the surface of the diasporan experience. Life abroad is characterized by challenges that are often impossible to relate to the people back home. In addition to these challenges, some have the unenviable burden of supporting entire extended families on their meager wages, often having to work at two or three jobs to send back enough money for school fees, medical care, construction expenses, etc. Unfortunately, the frequent reward for taking on those responsibilities is that one ends up perp...

I can't believe folks are actually trying to defend Hilary Rosen's comment about Ann Romney. This is what Rosen said: With respect to economic issues, I think, actually that Mitt Romney’s right that ultimately women care more about the economic well-being of their family and the like. But he doesn’t connect on that issue, either. What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country, saying, ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.’ Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing, in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.  And this is what Jonathan Capehart and others have to say in response to the criticisms that have been directed at Rosen: If you bother to read Rosen...

http://nutritionafrica.blogspot.com/2012/04/on-societal-disapproval-of-early.html The blog post by toradora entitled " I'm Young & Pregnant, But I'm Certainly Not Stupid " is quite the read. In it, toradora describes people's reactions to the fact that she is a young mother. Toradora highlights people's venomous comments and their condescending attitudes towards her. To me it's interesting to read her description of her experience because it confirms something that I have observed time and again: people are opinionated to the point of being offensive when it comes to parenting, even when they have no idea who they are talking to or what they are talking about. In the twinkling of an eye, absolute strangers can turn into "moral police," and proceed to lecture and insult hapless parents on subjects as diverse as breastfeeding, adoption and childbearing age. Toradora's "sin," as perceived by the strangers in her sto...

I feel saddened by the turn taken by the discourse on the story of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teen who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, the armed man in his late twenties who is described as a “neighborhood watch captain.” Initially, the general consensus was that Trayvon’s parents deserved the public’s sympathy and justice (i.e. an investigation into their son’s killing and a subsequent trial). Now, all of that has been somewhat muddied by the polarized war in the media. A number of journalists have attempted to cover the story objectively and exhaustively as it develops, but others have taken the polarizing route instead. I can’t say I’m surprised. When something touches this close home (as it does for many Americans), it is pointless to ask people to leave their emotions out of it. At the heart of many people’s responses to the story are their fears that they or their loved ones could die in a similar manner to Trayvon (which is understandably terrifying) and the...