Driving confidence

Driving ahead

They say a horse can sense the fear and nervousness of a rider in the saddle, as I am not a horse rider, I hope the first time I do mount a horse, it will feel that beyond my being a learner, I intend to have a really good time exuding confidence that I am being borne with dignity to the extent that the horse would contribute to the experience.

I found myself observing an interesting stance on the control of the automobile. Interestingly, I do not drive, and I cannot drive because of issues with my eyesight reduced by no conception of stereo vision, I have a lazy eye making judging distance and speed of approach quite difficult.

Bosom driving

A lady literally had her chest on the steering wheel, and that was not because of her ‘Dolly Parton’ assets, she had leaned so far forward, her forearms had no clearance as her hands gripped the top of the steering wheel, every so intently, I could sense the apparent lack of confidence in her driving.

It was like her exercise of caution had become a dangerous safety issue if at any time she needed to execute an emergency manoeuvre. Even a non-driver could see it. I would hate to be a passenger in her car.

Then think of those holding the steering wheel at arm’s length, leant back with both hands on the wheel, probably not monarchs of the road but not shy either.

Driving with Mrs

A husband and wife in the car and relaxed driving, both arms dropped down and the steering wheel lightly held at the bottom. They are probably on a leisurely day out.

Then thinking of the man with an arm on the side window and a finger hooking the side of the steering wheel, the other hand on his lap, maybe his head is bopping to the sound of the loud music in his car. That's self-confidence bordering on the supercilious.

My mother started driving in the 60s, though she cannot drive anymore due to sight degeneration. She was always confident and assertive, even on one instance in the mid-1970s, after she was overtaken by a bus driver, he popped his head out of his window to look as if in disbelief that it was a woman driving and driving so well too.

The driving kings

Yet, the kings of the road are not the fast car aficionados who have taken their middle-life crisis to the Ferrari or Lamborghini without having kept trim that they are forklifted into the car, and they have to crawl out on hands and knees, the indignity, it was a widely shared video on social media.

They are in fact, the truck and coach drivers who through use and practice with their fully aware responsibility of human or goods cargo have with practice and experience mastered both vehicle and route, their steering wheels quite like plates angled slightly over their laps and the manoeuvrability that would leave you amazed.

They are confident and effortlessly so.

Driving from the back seat

But I must end with the backseat drivers of which my father is a prime example and from whom I have acquired so much driving theory, I could well be a professor of theoretical driving. In his professional years in senior management, he had company cars that came with his role, and to the company cars were assigned drivers.

One such driver had before been a truck driver and had the penchant for slightly overshooting a turning before turning in as one would when driving a truck or heavy goods vehicle with the length that defines them, this is far different from the shorter length of a 4-door sedan car, and even from being absorbed in the morning newspaper, the Chief Accountant would thunder from behind, the alert for a driving admonition to the driver began with what essentially was his mannerism, “Look!”

Yes, “Look!”, was the equivalent of Jesus’ statements that began with ‘Verily, verily,’ in the King James Version of the Bible, it was the notification to prick your ears for an incoming pearl of driving wisdom. Whilst sitting in the front passenger’s seat, it was there that I learnt, you do not need to put your foot on the brakes to slow down on a motorway, if you have a lot of stopping distance, just shift your gears downward and enjoy the science of automobile engineering.

I have resisted every urge to be a backseat driver where partners like Steven in the 1990s and Brian presently are concerned, they are very good drivers though and I thank them for having such driving confidence, if I had the eyes for it, their example would have stood me well.

An embrace that has no words

A new embrace

There was a closing scene on CSI: Miami last night where a family had thought they had lost a husband and a father, met up on tarmac about to board a plane to Brazil. The boy on recognising his father cried out Dad! and ran up to meet him, that encounter was short.

The wife was first confused, then came to, realised the man on the gangway was husband first expressed her gratitude with hugging Horatio Caine, before walking towards her heretofore presumed dead husband.

They both came together, no kiss, no words, just an embrace and that triggered both memory and the yearning in me.

The look of love

There is only one person I could give that kind of embrace, in whose grip the intensity would be so passionate, hands over each other almost in a ravenous rage, and when our lips meet, the feeling would be utter bliss. At that moment, my head would sink in the crook of his neck, as I sigh, laugh, and cry, all at the same time. The sounds we make, no one will understand.

What I saw was the look of love, the deepest expression of it, it can only happen between lovers and no words can begin to articulate how we have missed each other and what a miracle we are living to once again be in each other’s arms.

This thing that I appreciate many may never come to understand for all sorts of reasons is a language of hearts meeting hearts, for which everyone has the capacity regardless of the pairing involved. In my case, I found him, and I cannot begin to tell you how much I love him, much as I realise, I have never loved this way before. Maybe, close, but not as deep and committed as I feel and see this love.

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Nigeria: Lost are the arms of right and wrong

Through a window pane

Peering through a glass pane into the world of a country that is kaleidoscope of humanity and the people who live it can be an interesting experience.

Nigeria is as colourful as any subject matter would get and this one paints too many shades and hues to be adequately covered in a blog, but I would attempt something.

A 13 year old was knocked off a motorbike [Source: BBC NEWS | Africa | Threats over Nigeria amputation] by a truck which in turn lead to the loss of both her arms just above elbow – with it comes a story of sadness, intrigue and everything all too typically Nigerian.

Witnesses to the accident caused such a commotion that a doctor in a private clinic was attracted to the situation, admitted the girl to his hospital where he observed she was bleeding profusely that he decided he could only save her life through amputating both arms.

Witnesses say the truck had shattered the bones in her arm that severance was routine, meanwhile the amputation took place without the consent of the parents who had to be called to the hospital.

It has become a police case that has had the doctor arrested and bailed, a sad case because a medical clinic is now closed to business and a bizarre case because the doctor is being accused of amputating the arms for ritualistic purposes.

The accident

The report makes no mention of the driver of the truck or the motorbike and nothing is recorded from them about the state the girl was in after the accident. It is likely people gathered round and wailed rather than helped the poor girl to some medical facility.

The girl contends she still had her arms intact immediately after the accident, which would be interesting because one would expect she would have gone into shock – however, witnesses who might have a tendency to exaggerate could have seen a lot but observed little.

The doctor

He swears that the milk of human kindness and compassion along with taking the Hippocratic Oath [Source - Hippocratic Oath - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia] (how old-fashioned) lead him to take on the treatment of the girl without registration or payment.

On balance, the least the doctor could have done should have been to take photographs of the girl and her wound, better still take an X-ray of the condition that would have lead the doctor to amputate.

Poor documentation of state and status remains one of the banes of the Nigerian society and it affects the management of the law of evidence when we rely on just sworn statements rather than corroborative hard facts.

Considering the girl was a juvenile, there would have been the need to get parental or guardian consent for the operation – this could have come from the motorbike rider who was not mentioned.

This was a weighty decision the doctor took, there are places in the world where he would most definitely be struck off the medical register for such an egregious exercise of medical privilege even though he presumably saved a life.

The situation

In most cases in Nigeria, a child that is handicapped is automatically seen as a burden, no one dares to think outside the box and wonder much can be made of what they have.

What a child needs for school are brains which could be nurtured, whilst there could be an opportunity of learning to write holding a pencil with the toes.

Sadly, we have a society that first sees children as a blessing but before they are out of childhood they are viewed of future investments for a lucky break that would take their parents out of penury.

Meanwhile, a child is a help, an extra hand, a servant and almost a slave who cannot complain because once you have provision for food and shelter you have to be the most grateful. Love is a misunderstood bonus; or rather fathers think provision is deep love.

The parents

The story does not say how long it took the parents to get to the hospital before they learnt that their daughter had lost all her arms.

The moment the parents disputed the decision that had already been taken to amputate, they fuelled the impression that those arms were being used in some ritualistic activity.

In certain countries the doctor could be done for a criminal offence that would include negligence.

I would surmise that they could have taken an objective path to some resolution but it became an opportunity to extort money from the doctor, not really to compensate for the child’s misfortune but to cash-in early on what fortune that child was expected to bring back to the family in the future.

When the doctor did not give in their demands but offers a smaller sum of money with help to acquire prosthetic arms for the girl, the police got involved such that the authorities ended up closing his clinic and seizing all his medical instruments – it is not clear what he is being charged with.

The doctor gave the parents the amputated arms and they have since buried the arms near their farm.

A future possible

I do not believe the girl completely lacks prospects in life because of the loss of her arms, we need to move beyond making the child twice a victim, first because of the accident and then as one unfortunate in society.

She might not be able to help on the farm but she should not be taken out of school to lay waste – we need to move on from the concept that arms and hands are a core requirement for living, they are useful and we all who have them might not be thankful enough for their use.

I cannot drive and I remember once when I say a lady who must have had stunted limb growth – phocomelia [Source - Phocomelia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia] – of arms not reaching the elbows probably due to the thalidomide [Source - Thalidomide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia] drug issues drive a car without having any special adaptations made to the steering wheel – I might well ride with her, if that opportunity came, without fear.

In the end, the girl is alive, she needs help to realise her potential, her potential is in the use of her brain and her remaining limbs, and she can have a dream to make her a worthwhile and useful contributor to society – Oh God! If only circumstance and most especially her parents would not kill that dream with despair.

Condolezza brings condolences - maybe more

Would Condi be doing Condolences?

One can only begin to wonder what Condolezza Rice would be attempting to achieve when she gets to the Middle-East today.

There is no argument that Israel does have the right to defend itself and it should be done vigorously, however, the manner and strategy at play does leave one wondering what they intend on achieving.

I am still of the view that focus has shifted – if that was ever the focus - from dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah militarily to the point that it is looking like the economic obliteration of those societies and psychological propaganda with the hope that wanton destruction of all types of infrastructure would make people withdraw support from those organisations.

Whose terrorists are they anyway?

Until we move from the view of looking at those organisations through the blinkered view of terrorists, because only Israel, America and Europe labels elements of Hamas and Hizbollah as terrorist – we would fail to realise that these groups also represent the aspirations of people who have been deprived and wronged on the one hand, they are also the least corrupt of the leaderships emanating from their peoples.

There is no doubt that Europe and America are very well at variance on the matter in the Middle-East, it was evident in the eavesdrop between Bush and Blair – where Bush thought Syria held the keys to stopping the shit and Blair saw a bigger issue.

Arms away

To now hear that in the midst of the outrageous abuse of military might Israel is acquiring new precision weapons from America leaves one completely gob smacked – America is helping to add fire to an untenable situation which might now go on for another few weeks.

The Arabs would take good note of that and hopefully would give a Condi a stern view of this atrocious development.

I could be that it is American weaponry that is used to cause suffering, pain and loss in the Middle-East, the availability of which feeds Israeli bravado to the drunken swagger of believing there is a military solution to this conflict.

I think NOT.

Peace born of negotiation

Like it or not, Israel would have to negotiate with these “terrorists”, if they do succeed to eliminating military threat of Hezbollah by bombing television stations amongst other things, they had better be ready for guerrilla warfare.

Taking a foothold in Lebanon might bring in a less desirable grouping of terrorists – Al Qaeda in Lebanon on the border of Israel would be the least acceptable conclusion to this military escapade.

I have my doubts any of the proponents can achieve the objective of peace with this indiscriminate bombing and the possibility of new arms from a seemingly rotten cause.

Beyond planting a suicide in the headlines

Mere mortals at NASA too

Hardly 100 hours had passed since the horror of Virginia Tech when a seriously troubled young man first gunned down two people in a dormitory, then posted a multimedia package of his thoughts to NBC and returned to snuff out another 30 including himself; another saga was playing out at NASA.

A man who had been a NASA contractor for 12 years took two people hostage and ended up kill both himself and one of the hostages. He had a bad job review, but is that all there is to it?

In the passed few months it would appear there is an underbelly of troubled NASA personnel who till recently had probably been sent to the NASA sanatorium but are some are now escaping detection and playing out their desperately flawed humanity for all to see.

There would be inquiries as to how security was breeched in a premier Ministry of Defence location, what psychological frame of mind the man was in, what triggered it and how to avoid such embarrassing shows of instability.

The fear of dying unsung

However, there is a deeper issue to be reviewed here which is now beyond the right to bear death (arms), this is the way fragile people with a grievance now seem to assuage their troubles with a suicide mission and a suicide.

Suicides occur everyday, but are seriously under-reported and they never allow for a decent professional analysis of why it happened as the fear of dying unsung and uncelebrated clouds the mind of the person. So, it has been become a standard activity in America for suicides to include innocent people in their demise as if to properly highlight why they killed themselves.

Whether that gets adequate airing as others grieve for their lost loved ones and recriminations fly as blame is apportioned all around is left to be seen. But a good study of why and the social underpinnings of what lead to the outrage and carnage has to be objectively taken to be able to see the early signs of a disintegrating human before they take out themselves and innocent bystanders.

David in Thoughts of a Naija man begins an analysis of what could have lead to the massacre at Virginia Tech.

References

Inside Cho's head

Wither America?

Wither America ...

Alastair Cooke

Watching a tribute to Alistair Cooke, an Englishman who for 50 years penned and broadcasted "The Letter from America" [1] for BBC Radio and died in March this year, for once one realised that we as the world had lost the objective assessment and analysis of news issues that pertain to America with the deluge of adversarial commentary on the 24-hour rolling news channels.

The title chosen reflects a very poignant saying in which he said he would not be found writing a book with the same name.

However, topic after topic that he touched on revealed an amazing understanding of events, their historical context and wealth of experience.

These being the war in Korea; the assassination of JFK; then of Robert Kennedy; the assassination of Martin Luther King; war crimes of Vietnam; Watergate, WhiteHouse and Whitewash; Reagan's Inauguration; the Columbine Massacre and the September the eleventh.

No right to bear arms

The Columbine Massacre in which two school boys gunned down 11 of their schoolmates and a teacher before committing suicide [2] highlighted a more sentimental issue in the American psyche - the right to bear arms. The film "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) [3] tried to explain these issues to the world at large.

Mr Alastair Cooke's research on this topic was most poignant in that the often quoted right to bear arms is not in and of itself a right without the situation in which it is based. The National Rifle Association [4] the behemoth lobby group that supports this misguided right quoted the truth out of context.

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of the free state, then the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." [5][6]

This is the text of the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights; any ordinary student of English would read this as the right to bear arms is necessary for the security of a free state in a well regulated militia.

As Alastair rightly observes, the regulated militia which was common place over a century ago is now replaced by the armed forces of the United States and the National Guard.

This amendment does not in any reading support the individual's right to bear arms except as part of a regulated militia - now if the reading is that each individual in America is a well regulated militia of one - this point is defensible.

However, amendments would not hold their mysticism if not shrouded in ambiguity that can be disputed and appropriated by those with the will to use or abuse it to their own ends.

Herein is the power of lobbyists, the ability to take part of a whole truth and convert it into a mantra that represents the whole truth. This is one of the failings of American democracy amongst other issues.

What is most interesting is that bearing arms in a responsible and regulated fashion in society does not need to be enshrined in the constitution in the 21st Century, just as the definition of marriage from a particular doctrinal stand-point does not have a place in the constitution.

To then slant this issue towards the idea of this right infringing on the freedom to hunt game is disingenuous in the least and dishonest at the most.

But who in America has really read the constitutional amendments without tinted glasses?

I do feel, before long the top ten titles on the New York Times bestsellers list night would include the book titled - Wither America? Only the American People can help us prevent a pending apocalypse.

References

[1] BBC News ¦ Letter from America
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/default.stm

[2] The Depressive and the Psychopath - At last we know why the Columbine killers did it. By Dave Cullen
http://slate.msn.com/id/2099203/

[3] Bowling for Columbine (2002)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310793/

[4] National Rifle Association
http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/Releases.aspx?ID=4614

[5] BBC News ¦ Letter from America ¦ These are my times and I must know them
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/340113.stm

[6] Encyclopaedia: Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Second-Amendment-to-the-United-States-Constitution