The moral dilemma of mother rabbits

The mother rabbits

A number of stories of children meeting misfortunes from families that make one feel smugly decent are causing me a bit of disquiet.

Between situations of carelessness to the delusions of paradise in Goa – an English "family" that consisted of a mother, 43, her 9 children and her boyfriend had gone on a six month tour of India.

Part way through the holiday she left her 15-year old daughter in the care of a “guardian” who is a tour guide in Goa as she went on a month long trip with some of the younger kids.

This tour guide happened to be a 25-year old and it now transpires the said tour guide was the 15 year old’s boyfriend.

Now fighting a last fight

The mother is now fighting a battle to get to truth of how her daughter who was first presumed drowned was then after clamour for a second post-mortem found to have been drugged, sexually assaulted and possibly left for dead.

One man has been charged with rape, not murder and two others detained as the story unfolds into one of neglect and irresponsibility on the part of the mother whose children come from 5 different men and an underbelly of crime, murder and drugs in Goa.

In Goa, it appears the police do nothing to properly investigate crime or prefer not to be bothered with crimes against foreigners who probably should be anywhere else but Goa.

Alternative lifestyles, unspeakable dangers

For whatever trendy and fancy reasons that lead a mother to herd her kids round India for 6 months when ideally they should be homed somewhere in some stable setting attending school and away from dangers, one is saddened by the death of the child and if she had attended to motherhood with the vigour that she now exercises to find out who killed her daughter we might have a different story.

I cannot say Fiona MacKeown has been a good mother to Scarlett Keeling; it is such a sorry tale from a woman who has lived a life dotted with circumstances she eventually allowed her daughter to succumb to.

Missing and found in a drawer

Back home, in England, a 9-year old girl who had gone missing for 24 days was found in a drawer under a bed, alive and well. Her mother, aged 32, has 7 children sired by 5 different men, 4 of the children including the girl live with the mother and her partner of 22 – Extended family profile.

Apparently, the girl was distressed and wanted to run away from home, at least her grandparents believed she was unhappy at home along with a few other people.

Her mother and step-father however disagree saying that the girl was happy and had never been physically abused; the girl’s natural father who inadvertently is unemployed believes that girl had no problem with her step-father.

I was quite bemused when the police in their investigations [timeline] decided to focus on the extended family of the mother and all her liaisons because this has now resulted in rescuing the girl from premises of the uncle of her step-father.

Although the girl has been briefly reunited with her mother, the authorities have exercised some discretion in putting the girl into care rather than sending her back to the “loving” comfort of her family.

A social problem and moral dilemma

What these two events exposed could well be the everyday lives of people that many of us would never encounter. Women to give birth to litters of children but have inadequate means to give the children stable functional homes.

Men who hop from bed to bed sowing wild oats and producing children they are usually completely detached from till something serious happens, if they ever can be found.

One wonders if there is a moral debate to be had about these events and what the social consequences of these developments are.

For now, I would keep my counsel; it does not make me any less perturbed.

No race issues about Obama or Clinton

Boldly going

One could be forgiven for ignoring the obvious and hoping that things are a lot different but the reality is hitting people in the face like a Mike Tyson fist on the rampage but a solitary confinement from society awaits anyone who dares to give it voice.

Geraldine Ferraro was one such person who treaded where angels fear to tread by observing that Barack Obama and his hold on the Democratic Presidential Nomination ticket thrives on race.

Imagine another truth

Her statement was probably without malice, it had a bit of forthrightness and having been a vice-presidential aspirant to Walter Mondale may know a bit about measuring the dynamics of American politics.

Now, we all want to be as altruistic as Utopia would allow us and see no colour in the colourful and vibrant campaigns to represent the Democratic Party in the presidential elections but if our naivety beclouds our vision for a hope and inspiration that takes us to a new place we land with a death defying thud in some interesting stuff.

Recorded history

The Harper’s Magazine is a publishing institution that has existed since 1850, during one of my searches; I came across a list of race related events in America since the year 2000, 124 in all.

You only have to read through a few to realise that the obvious does offer the warning of air-displacement as the Mike Tyson fist of realities hits you smack-bang in the middle of the face.

Fearfully burning crosses

But leave out the cynicism and the negative connotations that indicate America is in bondage to race related angst then read that Bob Allen, a one-time member of the House of Representatives who was a co-chair of Senator John McCain’s Florida campaign offered oral sex to a man in a park because he was afraid of black men.

Fair point, the things that really bother us and make us do irrational, if not criminal things, the police however did not buy his bull and he got convicted having earlier sponsored a bill to curtail sex in public parks – what a killjoy. Event recorded 3^rd of August 2007.

The last race related event on 2007 recorded on this site refers to a white family finding three burning crossings in their backyard in Florida. Event recorded 3^rd October 2007.

Bald hairstyles

None have been recorded for 2008, in fact, from the site which appears to veer into prognostication, the next two race events are recorded on the 8^th of July 2020, the first of which warns of the dangers of cornrows causing permanent bald patches.

As the Houston City officials distribute a Ghetto Handbook which is an interpretation of prevalent hood-speak.

I could not care less about the permanent bald patches, I have no hair, but anyone who dares say there is no racial undertone and obviousness about the presidential nomination might well have their cornrows pulling out their brains.

Eliot Spitzer: A man like you and me

The fall of man

The resignation of Eliot Spitzer as the Governor of New York State brings to the fore the sad tale of another man who had a public persona radically different from his private life. Too many examples abound, not for this blog to list.

Now, I am not going to rake over the salacious coals and dregs that the tabloids and newswires are already doing with aplomb, I could not better any of them as they wallow in the gutter over the man’s misfortune.

Our strengths and our secrets

Let us come back to the substance of what makes us human beings, our great strengths, our vigorous fights, our unwavering activism and our deep felt convictions.

Then ask ourselves that one question that we never get to handle before we are caught out and left in disgrace, dishonour and shame.

What is it that I am so publicly against and so identified with as a crusader that I for my weaknesses as a man cannot avoid participating in and revelling in whilst fearing getting caught out?

Caught out

Then wonder if you are going to be smart enough to find ways to deal with it now or still be driven by the thrill of it that its addiction would lead you to the worst place you never want to be.

Exposed, caught out, pants down, torch shining on your face, facing down the barrel of the gun, captured vividly on celluloid, made a laughing stock of or even made a public show of.

We are really holier than thou

Too many men have suffered from getting caught in a weakness that evolves into what we all can smugly call hypocrisy from our “Holier than thou” temples of saintliness – we are but men, weak, prone to failure, able to make mistakes and sometimes unable to help ourselves.

As we try to remove the speck from the eyes of others who have fallen, do we fail to notice that we have been blinded by tree stumps too big to yank out of our ever observant eyes, held in place by the utter disgust expressed in our so horribly contorted faces but with branches that clear the way for our mouths to speak words that condemn others to oblivion beyond redemption?

Before you step forward to cast the first stone without the thought of your eligibility to do so.

STOP! Think!

Let us reflect on our strengths and our weaknesses as we think kindly of the Spitzer family, it can happen to anyone and most especially, we, the ones who would never ever be caught in that kind of situation. Really?

Pause:

Time for confession - which new sin do I have to confess to before them, the absolvers of Rome?

Those Super Delegates

The incessant electioneering

Roosevelt at MoThanSkin highlights in his blog an issue I have been thinking of writing about.

The nomination of a presidential candidate from the Democratic Party in the States is driving us to distraction as wins and losses are used to prognosticate the future of the world.

Interestingly, since the GOP has concluded their selection in Senator John McCain, he has had no additional new coverage.

The battle between Obama and Clinton continues apace and it might have to come down to the Super Delegates.

Delegates by individual right

The Super Delegates are current or former officeholders or party officials of the Democratic Party; they are delegates by virtue of a completely separate process from the primaries and caucuses that pervade our newswires.

It appears this nomination would be deadlocked by reason of the primaries and caucuses not being able to decide decisively in favour of either candidate and hence the job of decision-making would fall to the Super Delegates.

Some commentators are suggesting that the Super Delegates vote according to the decision of the electorates, in that case, there would be no need for Super Delegates that there should be ways to break the deadlock through the primaries and caucuses.

The Super Delegates are delegates in their own right, they have already by virtue of some election or selection within the party to make decisions for the good of the party since they already work within that framework.

Super Delegates are independent

No Super Delegate is facing an election, a recall or vetting by the electorate in these Presidential primaries, hence they are not necessarily beholding to the outcome of the primaries before the Democratic National Convention.

To assume that a Super Delegate needs to follow the desires of an electorate voting for a candidate and representation that is not aligned to the continued electoral significance of the Super Delegate is to try and renew the mandate of the Super Delegate through an unintended process.

The function of the Super Delegate in the convention where a deadlock is looming is to break it by voting according to how the Super Delegate has been persuaded of the candidates and what is best for the party which includes the hierarchy and the people in general.

The independence of the Super Delegate must be assured and promoted in view of the weight of their responsibility and duty at the Democratic National Convention.

If the people cannot decide

If this vote changes the expected tally of votes, it would mean that the candidate might have been able to persuade the general public but not the party machinery. Anyone who would be a Presidential candidate needs the party machinery most of all to push their candidacy to the goal of claiming the Presidency.

It is incumbent on the Super Delegates to note that they have an obligation as delegates to the national convention to be persuaded by reason of their convictions regarding the candidate and not be externally influenced by the primaries or caucuses which are of no particular concern to them.

The rules do not need new interpretation

There is no reason to attempt to rewrite the rules in the middle of the game just because a situation has developed that would put the definitive result out of the hands of the primaries into the hands of the Super Delegates.

The rules are clear about the role of the primaries and the role of the Super Delegates and no where does it state that either should respect the intentions of the other.

The Super Delegates should be at liberty and will, without being under duress to follow their own minds because that is why they are Super Delegates.

My Mother's Generation

Introducing the M Generation

Some were born just before Hitler’s guns were silenced and it stretches to just about when the Korean War ended.

A generation of women we probably fail to understand and appreciate who were our mothers, our teachers, the market women or successful business or career woman, all still with strong opinions and views.

I call them my mother’s generation (The M Generation) and maybe one should have researched this more, but in the advent of the scurrilously annoying bill about indecent dressing sponsored by one of that generation in the Nigerian Senate, the passing of the International Women’s Day and the incessant cases of violence against women, something had to be written.

The indecent dress divide

Did I not chat to one of that generation about the indecent dressing bill only to be regaled with examples of ladies looking like ladies of the night and unworthy of respect, ready meat for abuse?

Well, at the risk of inviting unpalatable commentary, even if one were dressed like a prostitute, the whole idea of prostitution was that you paid to obtain a service – nobody has the standing right to violate the person of another person regardless of relationship, appearance, situation or opportunity.

The acquiescence to sexual menace divide

That should be a cardinal law which when violated should attract the heaviest sanctions, to paint men as salivating uncontrollable sexual beasts who run rampant and criminal on sighting any form of “indecent dressing” is unhelpful.

Everyman should have control of their bodies and urges, as human-beings they should have an advanced sense of societal responsibility not to behave like animals on seeing a sexually attractive female.

Unfortunately, the M Generation has given men carte blanche, rather than call the men to order and wipe out unacceptable behaviour; they expect young women to fend off these “beasts” to maintain peace in our communities.

The sexual education divide

Many a time, I saw how they were able to detect that a young girl had taken in whilst still trying to remain oblivious of the fact that adolescents can and do become sexually active and find outlets for those urges that inadvertently lead to unwanted pregnancies.

A typical inquisition of a girl of suffered that misfortune went along the lines of

M Generation: You are pregnant, your eyes are whiter and you have been spitting all day, whose is it?

Girl: I don’t know

M Generation: What do you mean I don’t know, did it jump on you? (The Yoruba version is O fo mo e ni?)

Girl: I don’t know

M Generation then goes through a list of probable men and boys without a sense of irony, if she hits on the right man, it is unlikely that the man would get anything more than a warning to keep away from the girls, whilst all girls are told to be wary of the man.

It is amazing how abortion comes easily to mind and many have been done with unwavering religious conviction. Where the pregnancy comes to term there have been things less cruel than taking the baby into care without letting the young mother know that the baby survived.

Many of these misfortunes might have been avoided if they ever deigned to talk to us about sex but it was always a taboo subject and the way they express surprise at the consequences is breathtaking. However, from the questions they ask afterwards, it is evident that they do know what it takes to end up in that situation and how it could have been avoided.

It is all for the good divide

This, according to them is all for the good, because, regardless of what they do, and usually what they do is wrong in the long run, it is all for the family for the honour of the family and to avoid shame in the community.

Some of the M Generation have suffered horrible and rotten marriages but they have always been stoic, taking all the abuse within the four walls of their homes but defending their atrocious husbands to the hilt in the streets.

They exercised a loyalty that would be utterly alien to the generation that comes after them, therein is the wide generation gap – even if we have conservative ideals, we are still considerably more liberal than they are in many things.

That is not to say they were wrong, it does not make them right either – they are a product of their own generation, one that had broken free to gain independence of will and means but willing subjugated it all for the preponderance of their men or men in society.

They are our mothers, we cherish them; they have taught us, we honour them; but I doubt if we would willingly follow them down the path that they have laid out – we have lessons to learn from the M Generation and many are about – How not to do some things.

The faucet apothecary

Water throw-ups

There was a period of about 10 years when I could not drink water without falling sick. One time, I was offered pills at a clinic with a glass of water and promptly threw up the whole thing in less than five minutes.

You cannot imagine the after-taste of bitter sick aided by pills that usually have to be sugar-coated to be ingested in the first instance.

Now, I can handle sparkling water quite well whilst still water makes me quite uncomfortable.

Beyond washing out my mouth with tap water, it would never go down my gullet, however, boiled water for tea or coffee is fine with me.

Water in the bottle

A few weeks ago, we had this entire rumpus about bottled water being immoral, now, there might be scientific or environmental studies that support the view that bottled water is not environmental sound, but when it gets hijacked by activists, anarchists and carbon Nazis, I suddenly go deaf to it all.

Then there is the view that we are wasting money and environmental clout on bottled water when tap water would suffice – that might be good for some, but how do I get the sparkle into my tap water? I definitely would not be doing D-I-Y (Do It Yourself) sparkling water – that is completely out of the question.

The faucet chemist

Just as one ventures toward the moral faucet of holy water, news comes to us from the States that Americans are subjects in a seeming homoeopathic drug trial of antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones.

It appears their tap water contains traces of these drugs, that is not to say that some bottled water that is just the repackaging of tap water does not contain traces, if tested for specific pharmaceuticals.

Traces and homoeopathy

I used the word homoeopathic earlier to highlight a worrying situation that we would be told to ignore considering scientists do not believe that homoeopathy has any efficacy.

Some people have benefited from homoeopathy to various extents where medicaments are diluted to a point that they are scientifically untraceable before being administered in treatment.

Advocates contend that water has a way of memorising information stored in it at one time no matter how much it is diluted – science contends the dilutions make the homoeopathic remedies no better than placebos.

I would say homoeopaths have not offered conclusive proof and scientists are testing within the framework of ideas and laws that may not explain to the best possible extent of knowledge available to man why homoeopathy is efficacious to some users and benefactors and not to others.

Curative water supplies

However, back to the stream of the modern faucet, if tests are able to detect with such assuredness the presence of pharmaceuticals a lot higher than typical homoeopathic dilutions, what is to say many are not already self-medicating through tap water to deal with bacterial infections, epilepsy, depression, sex alteration or erectile dysfunction? Perish the thought.

But with the price of drugs in the States, you can drink in New York what would fill you with heart medicine, infection fighters, oestrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabiliser and a tranquilliser.

Choose your city

The city of brotherly love would cuddle you with medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems, in fact, 56 pharmaceuticals or their derivatives.

You will never have a fit in Southern California and gender adjustment might just do fine in San Francisco – no allusions to realities there.

If you happen to live in the following cities of Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; and Virginia Beach, Virginia, there is nowt in the water, you need a new water board.

It is safe, they say

Before we get irrationally hysterical, we are told that all these supplies meet all federal and state standards for quality of water – which might mean standards have to be raised and some more exploratory tests need to be conducted to ascertain what comes to all in drinking water.

Meanwhile, when I sing in the shower, I might just wear a shower cap over my lips to create a new type of sound, this type of water pollution; which, it is, without any shadow of a doubt; is not confined to those across the pond, apparently.

Habiba Garba: Religion and violence against women

Picture courtesy of the BBC

An attack most evil

Ababoy covered this topic last week, but I have not seen enough clamour about this issue that I have decided to contribute to this matter and hopefully gather a head of steam to ensure that justice is done and seen to be done.

Mrs. Habiba Garba, a women’s leader of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in Kano, Kano State had crossed political party carpets from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP); politicians change allegiances all around the world, it is a matter of persuasion or conscience, no big deal.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Garba seems not to have realised she had left the company of Neanderthals, chief of whom was a Labaran Abdu Madari who being a member of the PDP employed thugs to harass and threaten her with violence, then he eventually committed her to hospital having beaten her to a pulp in the presence of witnesses that included the police.

The photographs are the evidence

As she lay in hospital, photographs were taken of her condition including bruises and effects of body blows which naturally exposed parts of her body that would normally be decently covered.

Any court of law that would judicious determine this case if assault charges are brought and pressed to the limits of the law for the harshest sanctions, should and must see both a doctor’s report which would have involved exposing selfsame these parts to non-relations of possibly the opposite sex and the photographs taken by a professional and certified to be of her.

Mullahs of disgust

It is saddening to hear that the publication of these photographs which show the level of barbarity and utmost disregard for women in the Nigerian society is being condemned by religionists who contend that nudity is forbidden under Sharia Law.

Nudity for lascivious purposes, I can understand; nudity revealing the extent of criminal assault in order to expose an unacceptable barbaric act - I disagree. Nobody should be above the prospect of being exposed as an animal unworthy of existing in a civilised community. Religion can take a back seat.

What really is the purpose of Sharia Law if such despicable violence by men in authority against a fellow human-being regardless of sex is not condemned outright and the victim given succour?

What is the purpose of religion when it has lost its compassion and service to humanity?

How did people witness this utterly criminal act and not intervene, if not take the man and beat him to a pulp?

What was the function of the onlooking policemen who witnessed a crime on the premises of the police station and only acted to arrest the man rather than prevent the blatant abuse of rights?

No safety with the police

Mrs. Garba, went to seek redress at the police station for the harassment she was receiving from thugs in the employ of Mr. Madari, it is impunity that allowed Mr. Madari to challenge that arrest and then set on the woman without fear of being dealt with.

This is the culture that needs to be eradicated in Nigeria. One that places the needs of foreign religions over the present need for human compassion.

One that allows men to maltreat women without fear of the heavy sanction of the law and harsh judicial process.

One that makes men think that they have domineering authority over any woman to abuse them if they do not submit to the wishes or commands of men.

Ekaette’s wrong-headed crusade

This is the crusade that stupid (forgive my intemperance, I am incensed) Senator Eme Ufot Ekaette should be fighting, not that nonsense about indecent dressing, we have more pressing issues at stake.

Yesterday, I watched with heart-rending sorrow the CNN World’s Untold Stories about Nigerian women being trafficked in Denmark and the way they had been abused, dehumanised, defiled, denigrated and treated like dogs by unscrupulous men and women, I almost cried.

Women used in prostitution that unwittingly get pregnant and are forcefully taken for abortions in underground clinics then put back on the street the same day.

This is a ready-made crusade

That is the depth of depravity and human misery meted out to Nigerian women, if Madam Ekaette needs a crusade she has a ready-made one which she can spearhead to a conclusion that would bring accolades untold.

If there is anyone who can bring persuade the honourable senator of this better purpose, I would be most obliged.

As for the fate of Mr. Madari; not only should he be prosecuted with the prospect of the harshest penalties, he should be made an example of – we must not again tolerate violence against women to aggrandise male chauvinism.

It is unacceptable in any modern society; Nigeria needs to rise up to that worthy cause. As for the religious leaders, shame on them, we really should be done with you utterly outrageous lot.