It comes in a can

How Condensed Milk is Made in Factory | Step by Step Process

WhatsApp is eavesdropping on us

I got home from work this evening and switched on my smart television to watch YouTube to understand the news of the past few days from the comedic genius of late-night show hosts.

There is no way the news can be taken in neat from the new channels with their rolling and interminable analysis of analyses and the postulations over bizarre prognostications, the chaos from the calico bunker on Pennsylvania Avenue already puts the earth’s rotation in a wobble, only humour keeps the stress at bay.

What showed up first on my list of suggestions to playback was titled, “How Condensed Milk is Made in Factory | Step by Step Process”, that was quite scary, yet an interesting first 7 minutes of information before moving on to the production of other mass manufactured goods.

Different milks for different folks

You would recall that last week I wrote about the sleight of hand that had opened and poured the milk I brought in without me noticing as I made tea and put in some sugar. My milk was all gone by Friday morning, indicating that someone or some people do prefer whole milk over semi-skimmed milk. Whole milk is unmistakable, it has a blue cap on the bottle, semi-skimmed milk has a green cap, and skimmed milk has a red cap.

Blog - Just milking the milk

Today, rather than suffer the privation of milk by the end of the week, I bought a larger bottle of milk, our office manager even offered to have the bottle marked as private in a public access fridge, I declined as I hoped there would be much left for us to use. If that optimistic expectation fails, I might take her up on that offer.

Condensed to irrelevance

I was relating the situation to Brian as we had our regular morning chat, first by audio as I walk to the office and then switching to video on WhatsApp when at my desk, when he talked of getting condensed milk. What an opportunity to relate one of the seminal moments of my boarding school experience.

I bought condensed milk with some bread and was walking towards the field in front of the staff room, and behold my tall and almost gangly aunt, my mother’s big sister of blessed memory, had come to visit. Seeing my goods, with such dismissive disdain, she said, Ọmọ fish and chip (child of fish and chip), which would never have been the staple of Nigerians studying abroad, but for the unacculturated deviance of their kids born there. It was as cutting and hurtful as being slapped across the face, even the condensed milk lost its sweet taste after that encounter.

Whatever Brian wanted condensed milk for which I cannot remember I have had again since that unfortunate meeting, he chose to excoriate me for having condensed milk with bread when he planned to get can of condensed milk, punch a hole or slit in the top of the can, and suck out the gooey stuff like a suckling child. Just the temerity of the accusation.

It comes in a can

Indeed, it comes in a can, and one other can I do have an affinity for is evaporated milk, which goes well on my custard and in caffeinated coffee that I have barely had for almost six months. That taste returned when I was in the Netherlands, for they have a version of evaporated milk called koffie melk, milk for coffee, and it works for filter coffee better than other types of milk.

Most of the common brands now come with a tab to rip off the lid, and the cost of those cans has doubled or tripled in the supermarkets nearby. Only one other supermarket retains a reasonable price with the cans indicating two opposite depressions to make holes for the milk to be poured out freely.

Koffie melk usually comes in a carton or a glass bottle, the pasteurised cow’s milk comes mainly in plastic containers except from long life milk in cartons, evaporated milk in tins, and well, condensed milk in hermetically sealed cans, you might need a chisel and hammer to get to the contents and who better to give all muscle to the can, than you know who.

Someone is eavesdropping with AI transcription

As for the YouTube video I was presented with, we only had a conversation on WhatsApp, I fear WhatsApp with its AI mechanisms was eavesdropping on our conversation and it presented the topic of our conversation to YouTube. It was no coincidence, and we never searched for anything regarding condensed milk during or after that conversation.

The history of condensed milk goes back to France in 1820, England in 1835 with sugar as a preservative, but the successful commercialisation of the process came in 1865 in the United States after the proprietor visited England.

Opinion: Invisible Children & Joseph Kony

This is an opinion piece unlike my usual blogs, I have simply expressed a whole range of views and posted no links within the text. Thank you.

The numbers are big

Nine days on, the legendary #Kony2012 video has had over 78,000,000 views, 1,329,774 likes, 95,942 dislikes – that statistic alone shows the interest, the passion and impressions conveyed – I expect the numbers to retain this basic ratio.

Now, I will not attempt to rehash the issues here, a simple Google search will reveal opposing arguments for and against the video apart from the attacks that Invisible Children has suffered in the last week.

A striker without a team

In my view Invisible Children must feel like a striker in a home football match that got the ball, dribbled the visiting team until he was left with just the goalkeeper, kicking the ball right into the net scoring a goal.

Meanwhile, his team mates stayed on their side of field, retreating towards their own goal in disgust that the striker had scored, the prospect of winning the game being so repulsive that neither the striker nor the team could celebrate, the referee being on the verge of disallowing the goal for the fact it looked like there were three teams instead of two on the football pitch.

That is a somewhat extreme analogy but it so clearly represents the state of affairs today.

It’s not unusual

Invisible Children is an advocacy group that mainly informs and engages people in the work towards helping communities that have been destroyed by the menacing antics of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Their fund-raising activities are not so entirely unique; for decades we have had pop concerts staged for the enjoyment and entertainment of more comfortable parts of the globe to help disadvantaged groups and countries buckling under the weight of all sorts of disasters. Tickets, T-shirts, bracelets, bangles, packs are all means of exchange with the hope that the profits will end up helping the unfortunate.

Another interesting narrative was that of the White Saviour Industrial Complex where the white man comes from afar as Messiah to helpless and hapless ethnic populations. I cannot subscribe to this notion with regards to Invisible Children, the principals could easily have been happy-go-lucky filmmakers travelling around the globe taking snapshots of poverty and suffering but they got involved, got engaged and developed strong relationships in the spirit of compassion and humanity.

It may not have been obvious to some, but the 6-year old son had knowledge though maybe not fully understanding what his father did in Africa, he recognised the people his father had brought to their home and for his little mind had a clear sense of the need for justice.

That White Saviour Crap

A better and extreme example of the White Saviour Industrial Complex is illustrated in the recent game-hunting trip of Donald Trump’s sons to Zimbabwe. Having killed a bull, an elephant and a crocodile they justified their actions by saying they donated the meat of the dead animals to apparently very grateful villagers who could be fed for up to a month.

There is no need to go into the detail of whether the locals were allowed to shoot wildlife that is under threat of extinction in their neighbourhoods but white men could come from afar shoot for thrills and rather than skin the animals for trophies, the meat is given to the hungry savage natives – even one can only be in praise of such uncommon kindness.

Making complex issues simple

Invisible Children gets accused of over-simplification, there probably is just cause in that view but this is a very complex problem and complicated problems do not get solved by relating to the problem as complex or cmplicated but by breaking the problem down into componential parts then resolving each of the simplified tasks until all the simplified tasks of that complex problem are solved, thereby, solving the problem.

In the case of the film, the complex situation had to be simplified for the consumption of a global and varied audience, situations like this will go for the lowest common denominator – simplicity – this simplicity allows for the very basic information to be conveyed and easily assimilated.

It is however incumbent on the viewer to conduct additional research if more detail is required in better understanding the problem.

As in football

Returning to football analogy, more often than not, if one has not had the opportunity to watch a match what the person needs to know is who won. One can then delve into detail as to who scored, when, how the teams played, what strategies were used, the controversies of refereeing, who the substitutes were, the number of fans in the stadium, who the commentators were and where on the league table the teams have ended up.

In other words, football is a complex interaction of commerce and sport, skill and application, conditions and aspirations, 90 minutes or more, goals, personalities, fans, moods, permutations, statistics and whatever else to raucous, volatile armchair analysis – depending on the audience you package the information to suit the ease of consumption.

Just the facts

I do not think Invisible Children is war-mongering by associating with the Ugandan army in the pursuit of Joseph Kony and the splintered remnants of the LRA scattered beyond the borders of Northern Uganda. The fact is if Joseph Kony is to be apprehended Uganda is the only country in that region with the means to go after him.

We must not forget even though there may not be recently recorded LRA atrocities that Joseph Kony is an evil man who needs to be brought to justice for his crimes against children – recruiting boys in an army with the options of death of killing one of their own and girls being co-opted into sexual slavery – there is no authority or length of time that can exculpate this absolutely rotten and despicable man.

For reconciliation

That is not to say the Ugandan regime does not have its faults, it simply calls for a kind of Truth and Reconciliation model that will allow the children who were once abused and are entering adulthood to find their places back in society as able and prosperous members of their communities and worthy ambassadors of their country against these acts. All parties involved should also be made to confess to their complicity in allowing for this untenable situation to fester for so long.

It is a hydra-headed conundrum and Invisible Children has only gone after one of the many heads, I would have hoped the momentum generated despite the other apparent failings would have had others tackle the other heads of the hydra but in ferociously attacking Invisible Children we have ended up within the context of the first football analogy of my blog.

If Invisible Children is guilty of anything, it is at worst naivety; a case of not fully understanding the problem but nevertheless doing something in the context of what they do understand and from the clamour that has ensued it has become evident that they appear to have done a lot more than those who know and understand the problem too well but have failed to act.

YouTube versus Islam - Between discernment and ignorance

Mosque smarts and technical dunces

When I wrote Temple smarts and street dunces as the subtitle to my write-up Earth-queers quaking in Israel on the 21^st of February, I was not anticipating writing Mosque smarts and technical dunces 5 days on.

On Sunday, the Pakistani government had ordered ISPs to block all access to YouTube because of content deemed offensive to Islam and they all complied.

The smarts at Pakistan Telecom hijacked the IP address of the YouTube web server and in conjunction with PCCW an ISP sent seekers of that site down a rabbit hole.

In fact, it sent the global user community of YouTube down the rabbit hole for two hours.

The jury is out as to whether this act was deliberate or just a case of ignorance about how Internet protocols work because Morocco, Thailand and Turkey have successfully implemented bans to YouTube without bringing the whole house down.

Accountability or ridicule

Did I not say, “The sooner adherents and followers call their leaders to account the less their beliefs and dogma are subjected to ridicule”, to leaders we now have to add technical people.

This also extends however tenuously to the use and abuse of knowledge, when Pakistan acquired knowledge of nuclear weaponry the smarts involved opened an illegal market of nuclear proliferation threatening global peace.

Fostering an intellectual environment

Sadly, the real problem is the fact that the Pakistani government has failed to foster an intellectual environment amongst its people.

In the weekend, a friend sent me a few links from YouTube to do with a grandmother doing some “commendably” shocking things like kicking a toddler out of the path of an oncoming train – I found the material utterly offensive and definitely not funny, I did not bother to view the other link but deleted the email and was ungentlemanly enough not send acknowledgements or thanks.

What I am saying here is I made the decision to view the content and once I found it was not to my liking, I refused to create more revulsion by viewing the rest of the material.

If the email had come with a clearer idea of the content, I would not have opened the links at all.

Give the people more credit of discernment

Surely, the people of Pakistan should be able to make informed decisions like that; as refusing to view YouTube videos with refer to the Mohammedan cartoons (Warning: Links to the cartoons, you exercise a personal prerogative in clicking on the link) or Geert Wilders’ Islamic ruse called Fitna to be released in March and still be about to seek out videos that glorify Islam or teach Internet protocols properly.

Censorship is a very blunt and unwieldy hammer to hit the nail where the government has lost the persuasion of ideas that they have to use the coercion of tyranny by resorting to blanket bans.

Very typical of ordering everyone to wall off the windows in their homes because the wind is blowing and it might carry bad odours when people should have the choice to open or close their windows at will to let air in or keep it out as they will.

In the process, technical ignorance on the one part and government policy failure on the other have combined to depict proud, independent and intelligent Pakistanis as ignorant, incapable of making informed decisions and brought Islam to unnecessary ridicule in the name of protecting the self-same religion.

Vigil for the cow eternal

To die or not to die

Activism is becoming the salve of every grievance and we are back to the great message of salvation, the salvation of the sacred cow.

Last week, I raised the issue of a cow which tested positive for bovine tuberculosis and the Welsh Assembly Government had ordered the cow to be slaughtered.

What should have been in an advanced state of decay lives and breathes in a Hindu community of monks at Skanda Vale farm in Llanpumsaint, near Carmarthen, Wales.

A High Court judge granted a reprieve, saving the cow from certain death, but this was appealed by the Assembly and now the order by the Court of Appeal in London has been given to sacrifice the cow on the simple principle of commonsense.

An infected cow is a danger to other cattle, species and possibly humans too, the consequences of which we cannot begin to fathom.

Testing again

Unfortunately, this holy cow, oblivious of its situation would not die quietly, because Hindu adherents are now keeping vigil and praying for the cow to be saved, one would wonder if this is to save it from the scourge of the consumption or from the weapon of the executioner.

As this tale twists and turns like the tail of a happy cow, the adherents have now written to the Welsh Rural Minister asking for a magnanimous gesture of testing the cow again since the original test might have produced a false positive.

Bent athletes who dope would hope to be able to ask for this kind of reprieve after the A sample and B sample have turned up positives, maybe they are all false positives.

This is all a red herring to keep the cow alive for a few more days or weeks and some smart chap or monk cooks up another scheme to convert the sacred cow from mortal to eternal.

It would appear the last resort of civil disobedience and obstructing the path of justice is very well on the table to thwart every way and means to bring Shambo to the bovine gallows.

If this magnanimous gesture of a second test is offered and it returns a positive; what next for Shambo?

If you feel affected by all this, the need to register a protest or want to say the last rites - Visit Moo Tube.

Religion saves cow for consumption

Senate disorder on religious guest

Two events juxtapose religion and the state or civil society, in both cases a conflict ensued though the resolution may not be to the liking of observers.

The first comes from a post on Chxta's World, a YouTube clip shows a Hindu priest invited to the Senate - the highest legislative authority in the United States - to pray, opening a session of deliberations for the day.

Taken from Chxta's World

Just as he composes himself to utter his elegy, not necessarily sorrowful, a loud voice offers a hostile rebuke to his presence invoking the name of Jesus, this discourteous act was repeated once again in the middle of his prayer.

Now, the interrupter might well think they are speaking up for their religion and the selfsame notion of the Christian roots of America forgetting that this so-called Christianliness was what almost wiped out the indigenes of the America they now call their own.

Besides, the act was as unChristianly that anyone can get, treating a guest with such seething hatred and hostility when the message of love should be the warmth of evangelism.

Doing the devil's work

I doubt if the priest would leave the Senate thinking highly of those who so loudly profess their religion with utter disregard of others, suddenly the job of winning souls becomes one of losing souls - simply doing the work of the Devil and not knowing it at all - that is what happens when you lose objectivity for religious fanaticism - is the Christian version of a Jihadist (radicalised Islamist) now Crusader (radicalised Christian)?.

Anyway, what I found more heartening about the unfortunate event was the convenor immediately stepped to the microphone and rather than warn the culprit to behave he asked the orderlies to restore order to the chamber.

If that involved marching the person out of the chamber, so be it, it showed that the act was deemed unruly, disorderly and disrespectful of the house - hopefully a lesson was learnt; it showed that civil order matters more than zealous and religious bigotry.

Too sacred for the death

Swimming back over the pond we arrive at the Shrine of Shambo and a group of zealous Hindu worshippers. Apparently, Shambo was tested and inconclusively considered to be bovine-tuberculin indicative. If Shambo were on a cattle ranch or on the way to an abattoir, he would immediately be put to sleep and the carcase destroyed.

Not this Shambo, the bull and Holy Cow assumptive at the Skanda Vale Hindu monastery in Wales.

This became a tussle between veterinarian official and Hindu adherents who became activist and would not suffer any harm to befall Shambo.

Technically, this is illegal, unlawful and the obstruction of public officials in pursuit of their lawful duties and so the law was called in to deal with this matter which then ended up in court.

Taking risks of the law

For now the court has ruled in favour of the highly regarded Shambo and asked the authorities to reconsider other means of addressing the matter like treatment of the tuberculosis if found to be existent.

If Shambo does end up posing a serious health risk to other animals that would have been the court erring on the side of recklessness, worse still, with the lavish religious fawning of humans to their object of sacred respect the risk of the contagion jumping the species barrier is possible and how do you treat a person suffering from the bovine-induced tuberculosis?

It would be far-fetched to then consider the actions of the court bordering on the criminal, but a point of law would have been made not to allow religious activism and community clamour to override the basic element of civil law and order in our communities.

Without religion, Shambo would have already been dead and really quite dead, I say.

You Toob Brute Shows the Real Saddam Execution

No dignified execution

I can only add to the sentiments if not indignation of Nkem in African Shirts on the death of Saddam Hussein since he has written his piece before me.

Generally, I have never been in favour of the death penalty because there is no really dignified way of observing a man die except on his deathbed surrounded by those with whom he shares the fellowship of love.

Even in America where an almost blood and gore manifestation of a Moses leadership reminiscent of the Old Testament during the Exodus would find resonance, the states of Florida and California recently suspended all execution activities on humane grounds that the science of killing still caused too much pain and discomfort, it probably unsettles the observers more than the person being killed.

It would appear a bit of modern-day civilisation is creeping in the polity of the death penalty; it can only be the right thing.

We cannot do vengeance right

However, it is interesting to note that even Jesus the leader of the Christian values that the Americans so profess did say that revenge, on the basis of an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth was passé, there can be no closure, no restitution, no relief, no release if your life waits for judgment to be taken on those who have offended you, most especially if they have to die.

When the Scripture says vengeance is the Lord’s, there is probably something more at play than we see of the issues that surround us, what if the person that so offended us has now made peace with his God? Here we are baying for blood and flesh, the person with assurance and dignity takes the punishment meted out by his fellowmen who think he is off to hell, but then he is off to the comfort and bosom of his God. What a mystery.

The democracy of information rules

With this out of the way, let us return to the execution of Saddam Hussein, we were offered an official silent movie of the event, however, it became evident that the introduction of talkies did change the way audiences relate to films, someone of the You Tube generation was able to record the whole event and then publish for us to see, vision, sound and all, this is democracy and it is hightime the Iraqi government gave up on trying to find out who gave us this insight into their machinations.

How it could be that amongst the ruling Shia, they could not find people who could hold themselves in dignified reverence at the execution of a man who was once their leader. The ridicule of it all was exemplified in the fact that the man being executed was hoodless whilst his executioners and some of the people who taunted him wore hoods.

It showed how sectarian Iraq had become and how the rush to judicial murder was more an exercise of revenge that followed on from the circus of a trial that he had before. None of what happened as the trap-door swung open would do well to assuage the violence that plagues Iraq.

Dignified in death

If Saddam had anything to say, even at what was his most vulnerable, he was not the broken man we were told he was, in fact, he was a picture of dignity who berated the less-than-men who congregated like a Coliseum crowd that roared to the lions that ate humans or a rowdy mobs of idle hands who witnessed witch-burnings of old.

The savages who were about to eat Allan Quatermain would find a higher pedestal of dignified acknowledgement than these men who for good measure should be exposed for their public shaming.

As America tries to backtrack from being complicit in this rush to dispense of Saddam Hussein before the New Year, it would not be lost amongst the Sunni Muslims that Shia Muslims chose to perform this act in the middle of Hajj – a new schism could well develop out of this singular act – if only men could be more aware of the consequences of their actions.

This was botched execution which in no way would serve the justice and need for peace that the Iraqis do deserve in 2007.