He's got a museum piece to give

Horses for courses

Jonah Falcon does conjure up the image of the whale and Jonah in the bible, only that there is something of the whale about Jonah rather than the whale swallowing him. Apparently, Jonah Falcon came to international attention with the claim that he has a 13.5-inch (34 centimetre) penis when fully erect.

Not that this has been independently verified, but the claim to fame stands that he has offered to donate his organ to the Icelandic Phallological Museum upon his death, and therein might we possibly ascertain whether the claim fits then myth.

A gift adrift

Obviously, my interest is completely nonchalant for there is only an extent to which being well-endowed might be a treasure until it becomes a burden. In the case of Mr Falcon, I am fully persuaded that his appendage does belong in a museum as the narrative suggests when it comes into its own the blood needed to keep it useful causes light-headedness that might make the person useless in that department, except where a second heart with a separate blood system exists to augment supply.

The legend goes that he once was a person of additional security scrutiny because of the bulge in his pants. Not that it proves anything and this is not a descent into penis envy, because its utility is of paramount importance, else we are just left with a mere curiosity and nothing more.

We must agree, that this material extension regardless of when it is excised does belong in a museum, or can be endowed to probably a few males in the quest for the gift of length in an area where other remedies tend to the snake oil variety.

Blog - Hello Dr Dick, my friends need a ...

That’s begging to be human

In his own words, he says, “I don’t need a fancy car, I don’t need a gun… because I do not have to prove my masculinity to anyone else, I’ll wear all pink, dammit!” Au contraire, my friend, that is not proof of masculinity as we do not normally determine it by trouser snake yards, it is more equine or cetacean than hominid.

Finally, as if one cannot be twice afflicted by gift and name, no one has surmised whether as in falconry when the falcon lands on the gloved arm, the girth of you know what is anywhere close to where the excitement is the onset of a fainting spell. We are fascinated but not interested enough to want to see more than we have been told.

Courtesy, The Week 18/09/21 Issue 1349

Nigeria: Our exorbitant government

The brood of corruption

It can be so easy to be blind-sided with the claims and counter-claims of Nigerian politicians and lose sight of the serious piece of information that underlays the mudslinging.

The former President Olusegun Obasanjo had in a recent interview accused the National Assembly of corruption and offered examples and figures to justify his claim.

However, members of the minority parties did not take this lying down, they accused the ex-president of grandstanding, spreading falsehoods without substantiation and rounded that up with saying he was their grandfather in corruption [1].

Slush funds to each for favours

The conflated interviews and statements of the President Obasanjo and various minority members of the National Assembly give an interesting insight into the workings of our legislature and probably our democracy too.

The president opined that the legislators allotted bogus allowances to themselves and inflated budgets with the view to profiting from the allocations because they chose their preferred contractors and consultants in the execution of the projects.

The legislators accepted that accusation then confirmed that President Obasanjo in the quest for a third term in government bribed legislators with NGN 50 million (c $330,000) each, then challenged the press to seek audited sources of income of the ex-president through his tenure.

Cost of corrupt enterprise

They were all agreed that politicians are corrupt but tried to subscribe to pedantry by asking the ex-president to identify specific legislators who are corrupt, but that is beside the point.

The core issue is that the Senate costs 3% of the national budget, no mention is made of the additional cost of the Representatives, but even if that cost an additional 2%, it beggars belief that such a non-productive sector of country can drain 5% of the budget.

One senator offered that the recurrent expenditure in our democracy always exceeds the capital expenditure, the latter being what really benefits the people.

Each legislator according to the ex-president now costs more than NGN 250 million (c. $1,7 million), I would suppose that means annually.

Telling it as it is

He laments the lack of transparency which cannot be asserted if the National Assembly would not pass the Freedom of Information Bill that has languished in the legislative doldrums for years.

At least, we cannot say that the ex-president does not know what he is talking about when it comes to the cost of the legislative arm of government and he believes they are costing too much for the Federal Government to maintain.

Whilst he compared the cost of the legislature in 1999/2000 to today the article in the Vanguard failed to provide that comparison correctly because the current cost of NGN 250 million per head is the same as the $1.7 million quoted in the article at today’s exchange rate.

Exorbitant is unacceptable

But the most important piece of information in these exchanges is really in the statement made by the Minority Whip, Senator Olorunimbe Mamora and he said, “My sincere view is that the cost of running government is exorbitant in Nigeria.”

Taking the word exorbitant, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary [2] defines this as not coming within the scope of the law or exceeding the customary or appropriate limits in intensity, quality, amount, or size.

The WordWedOnline [3] volunteers: Greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation and Answers.com [4] suggests: Exceeding all bounds, as of custom or fairness with excessive, aberrant, flagrant and extreme as synonyms.

This corroborates views [5] I have expressed variously about the outrageously lucrative perks of Nigerian political office, irrevocably damaging the democratic landscape with people going to unmentionable extents [6] to grab office and remain indefinitely incumbent.

Change has to come

It is means on the basis of cost alone, our democracy is unsustainable but one does wonder how change can be made to bring the costs down to reasonable, fair, just and equitable.

In the end, we can only thank the ex-president and the legislators for volunteering information we have never been able to obtain by any other means, we wish they continually taunt each other with abuse, accusation, blame and chicanery, the results might just be their undoing and the hopefully the making of our democracy.

Long live Nigeria and death to the leeches that have bled her to a chronic anaemic state.

Sources

[1] Senators, Reps lambast Obasanjo « Vanguard

[2] Exorbitant - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

[3] exorbitant- WordWeb dictionary definition

[4] exorbitant: Definition, Synonyms from Answers.com

[5] Nigeria: Percentage Allowance Legislators [akin.blog-city.com]

[6] Nigeria: Our politically immature systems [akin.blog-city.com]

The UK: My thoughts are with David Laws

One revelation and a story

I have just read with sadness the resignation of David Laws the coalition Secretary to the Treasury on the matter of claiming expenses for accommodation on the premises of his partner.

The unfortunate consequence is that Mr. Laws has inadvertently been outed as gay in a long-term relationship with the man purported to have been his landlord.

There are many angles of looking at this story but the one that most draws my sympathy is that Mr. Laws who is just a month older than I am had settled into the convenience of being in the closet as a single man in public office without any of his close relations knowing of this secret affair – however, it is all now exposed and ones thoughts are prayers are with all concerned.

An ambiguous rule of life

Obviously the commons rules about claiming accommodation expenses require that claimants do not do so when with partners, relations or business associates.

Technically, if Mr. Laws had not declared his residence in plush Kensington to the West of London people might have said there are a quid pro quo scenario developing leaving a Member of Parliament open to influence, his claiming expenses however has lead to this rather human tragedy of sorts from which I do hope he does recover well.

The nation has lost a smart and possibly very able minister to scandals and the plural is deliberate – the scandal that prevents people from being confident of acceptance as gay if they should so choose to declare that fact, the scandal of claiming expenses whilst living with one’s partner even though there is no legal or common law basic for same-sex relationships in the UK except where a civil partnership has been entered into and the scandal of newspapers that have no compunction in exposing anything that would help sell their copy.

The Daily Telegraph has averred that it had no intention of outing Mr. Laws but there is no way that story would have made any news without that consequence as part of its sensational import and interest.

Politicians are not saints

I do not believe that our politicians should be subject to the kinds of moral standards we should expect of the clergy, they are not saints, they are people like you and I who have offered to serve our country in whatever capacity they have been elected and selected to serve.

This would obviously not encourage capable and competent but seemingly flawed people to enter politics for the fear of being mauled by the rabid dogs of the press pretending to be cuddly kittens.

It reminds me of the resignation of Lord John Browne from the chairmanship of BP when in trying to conceal the matter of his sexuality he perjured himself and was vilified for perjury despite the more personal issue at stake.

Acceptance is not a given, even in the West

There is no doubt that even though the middle-classes in the general sense might have the liberality of accepting and tolerating homosexuality, those with influence and in authority, politics or even international sports are not that at ease with revealing who they truly are – it leaves them prone to blackmail and possibly ignominy – the saddest case of those consequences of declaring ones sexuality can only have one looking at how that revelation lead to Justin Fashanu’s suicide in an abandoned garage in East London.

The fear of rejection looms large, more so the threat of homophobia which has not been eradicated even from Western societies and the misfortune that might accompany being disowned by loved and trusted ones – it is not an easy life and our humanity is the poorer for how difference stops people from being the best they could ever be by first being truly themselves.

Sources

BBC News - Treasury Minister David Laws resigns over expenses

Other references

Lies - Between human frailty and the law [akin.blog-city.com]

Obituary: Justin Fashanu - Obituaries, News - The Independent

Thought Picnic: Justifying MPs Expenses

A broadsheet village rag

It would be disingenuous of me to pretend that The Daily Telegraph looks anything like the quality paper I am familiar with.

Over the last week we have been regaled with a catalogue of the expenses of the UK Members of Parliament (MP) which were apparently purchased under from underhand scheme and have been revealed under the atrocious auspices of public interest.

I have found more editorial finesse in the Court Circular pages, the Obituaries and Sport pages, elsewhere, besides the business pages and a few reviews; I might well be viewing the titillating smut of Page 3 girls and gossip columns.

There might indeed be some public interest in what for 6 days is beginning to look like village gossip and tittle-tattle on expensed claims which tap on the sensational rather than core objectives.

Home away from home

When on holiday or when I stay at a hotel, I expect it to be of a particular standard which for me is a minimum comfort of my home or better – I am not one to stay in a 1-star cockroach infested dump, with no recourse for any redress.

Also, I have never really liked expense claims, I probably have thousands of pounds and Euros of receipts that I have never put through just because I thought they were an encumbrance and hard work.

If I did have a personal assistant, I probably would have given that task away and let things take their course.

The alternative to these revealed claims for homes, furnishing and upkeep would be a more expensive burden on the taxpayer and it is hypocritical for the papers not to view that perspective.

The alternative costs

The MPs are probably the equivalent of middle management, I would think that means a 4-star type hotel would be typical which in London could be upwards of GBP 250 per night – spending 100 days in London for parliamentary business would easily add up to the payments they get for a second home.

This does not include meals which would be fully expensed if they were in hotels rather than in their homes at about GBP 50 per head, if these MPs have families they cannot be completely excluded from the wellbeing factor of the MP.

Porn-ed expense

I was amused rather than annoyed when the husband of the Home Secretary put in claims for premium television viewing of pornography. Here we have a man whose wife is out serving the country in London and he at the constituency home tending the roost. In the need for some conjugal fellowship he makes for the less controversial between calling and escort or watching pornography.

How much sacrifice should a consort have to make in service of fatherland before their needs can be justified? I was amused, definitely not annoyed.

More than just a person

If the standard for expense claims is what an MP needs to do his job, I would add comfortably, because a person serving their constituency in privation and in a less than comfortable environment is not going to an effective MP.

The hotel solution would not have worked because about 500 hotel room rooms would have to be block booked in London for about a hundred days with changing seasons and rate with the possible unprofitability to hoteliers.

Having a second home in London is necessary and when you spend a considerable time away from your home constituency you want your London home to have a modicum of comfort, an MP is not a student living in digs.

By the time the home is furnished to a particular standard based on the John Lewis list, the costs add up, we should not forget, it is a home, not a hotel. If the MP has family, you have to consider the possibility of family visiting and suddenly an MP having a second home in London is not just some island of a person but a subject of humanity with needs as an MP that cannot be narrowly focused on the individual.

Time for things or deeds

Constituency work can be time-consuming and quite involved and there is the garden to tend, the swimming pool to clean and all sorts of household chores that suddenly require help because the MP cannot attend to them – they all then become expense claims.

To look at the claims in isolation of just the claim itself is unfair, there is a whole set of circumstances that result in what has been revealed in the receipts and this is leading to policy on the hoof to allay public anger, there might be anger, I view it more as jealousy because very few of the so-called indignant public would have acted differently if they were MPs.

No laws broken

But that is still beside the point, the real issue is no laws were broken, there was a reviewing board to challenge the expenses if they were irregular, if the board had no teeth, then that is not the fault of the MPs but the regulatory framework necessary to monitor expenses.

That needs to be changed, a retrospective analysis of expenses going back 4 years is as arbitrary as it seems, why not 2 years or why not since parliament was started – it is absurd and I think MPs should stand and defend the claims that have so far been passed, it is what is done from hence that should matter but with a bit more thinking rather than being driven by drivel to create rules that would not stand the test of time.

There is the nuanced view of the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter but that is more from the perspective of those who sit in judgement and envy rather than the participants.

Finally, the bigger question is? Do we pay our MPs enough? We probably don’t, this then raises the question of choices made by the person to be an MP, the availability of talent that would not take such a career path because of poor remuneration and what really helps an MP do their job whether that involves the complete welfare or the singular needs of the person alone.

Meanwhile, can I claim my holiday on expenses?

North Pole: If you believed ...

If …

The chorus goes – If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon (Lyrics by R.E.M) – well, we saw the footage, but no one to tell us where they got it from.

If I believe they’ll dig a hole at the pole, it probably would not be far off. I expected some level-headedness in dealing with the rush to the North Pole and the planting of the Russian flag in the abyss of the dark de-icing waters of the pole, but that is becoming far-fetched.

First the Canadian Prime Minister sets off on an Arctic trek then deploys military bases on their sovereign claims, now the Danes are setting off from a Norwegian port on a Swedish boat with the aid of a Russian ice-breaker to conduct a geological survey to decide who would take the spoils.

Changing the world and believing nothing

At the moment, the United States have not shown their hand, but I am getting prepared to see a fundamental realignment of latitudes and longitudes if not the obfuscation of time when nuclear weapons are set off on the North pole radically altering the rotational axis of the earth and turning the constituted order we have into a seriously inebriated wobble.

I am however not ready to believe anything that comes from any of those expeditions because the Russians in all their heroics presented footage from the Hollywood blockbuster – Titanic – as a record of their visit to the bottom of the sea.

It took a 13 year old – Waltteri Seretin from Finland who lives not too far from the North Pole to spot the deception; deceptions which seem to be pervading our screens all around the world lately; the presentation of footage as reality that it is not.

If you believed they put a flag at the pole, flag at the pole – who is going to find out if they really did? I lay claim to my hotel room, now I need a flag. I have no heart for this nonsense, it cannot go on.

References

This gas flare marks the North Pole

My Heart will go on – Celine Dion

The Arctic “Gold Rush”

Catholic Church pays off paedophile accusers

Tithes and Offerings

I have not been the most ardent adherent of Malachi's Gospel, just before the offertory in Church many a preacher has re-enacted the Garden of Gethsemane as pleadings become mendicancy and entreaty betrays desperation that the honesty, purity and spirituality of the message is lost to the quest for filthy lucre.

It is almost an in-joke to Nigerians that when a person opens a church, it is like opening a business where worshippers can be persuaded beyond stupefaction to part with the rewards of the sweat of their brow to fund the lavish lifestyle of the founder who must live and exude the excesses of the prosperity gospel.

But the people have kept the faith because beyond filling the House of God with food there is a promise to be fulfilled, the blessing that floods your beyond a deluge as God opens the windows of heaven - think Noah's flood of blessings and you had better have an ark to ride in.

Now, many might have their views about the work to which tithes and offerings are put to in the Church, I have never been involved in Church government or management, but there is no doubt that standard practices of auditable control are necessary lest the organisation falls fouls of the law.

The settlement

We now hear that the Roman Catholic Church and the one true Church according to a document that receives the blessing of Pope Benedictvs XVI (Another story) is through its Los Angeles Diocese settling child abuse claims to the tune of $660 million, just 6 short of the mark of the beast that should be emblazoned with a hot brand on the priests who have seriously abused the office, the trust, their calling and children.

People in positions of religious responsibility who hold moral sway over their communities and in whom too many repose trust to the point that they believe their children are safe in the company of religious tutelage only to find out that the child's innocence is stolen in sexual duress by trusted Father String Himup.

It is fine that the Church is paying up, but this would not repair damaged lives, it allows the Church to wipe the slate clean whilst not fully exposing to the law the extent of seriously criminal activity and the culpability of the clergy in conniving, concealing, condoning these acts when they should have been challenged - they were comfortable with harbouring and shielding addicted sociopathic unrepentant paedophiles who just happened to be priests.

Paedophiles they are

Unfortunately, paedophile is one word that has never been used to address the matter of Catholic priests abusing children and just to properly set our minds on the revulsion of these acts the definition of paedophilia in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object.

And now, the tithes and offerings of the faithful Catholic laity would pay to make child abuse less synonymous to paedophilia, over $2 billion has been paid out, this is seriously big business and money - No wonder religion remains definitely the opium of the people.