music
I’m working on a collection of poems investigating fear and loathing:
MY BROTHER, THE JEW
Under the banner of peace and brotherhood,
my body to be scattered in bits in the noisy,
sudden, non-peaceful tearing of flesh.
My body a weapon against cousinhood.
I have many cousins -
one that smokes by the Ganges and really hates blood.
one that used to be stupid but now rules the world.
one devilish one – very quiet but very sharp sword.
The one that vexes me is not my cousin.
The fuck is my brother. Bastard.
P.S.
My friend Olumide (aka Loomnie) runs NigeriansTalk, where I previously posted this.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Friday, March 05, 2010
Short Story: Assassin
music
Can you believe that there are cable channels for Africa Magic Yoruba and Africa Magic Hausa? Go Nollywood!
I don't watch Africa Magic myself, but I can tell you it's a big addiction and not only for bored housewives. Maybe the most popular channel in Nigeria right now.
I wrote this Jason-Bourne-inspired piece late last year. Enjoy.
ASSASSIN
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
It’s 8pm and Frida is just leaving the office. As a precaution, she takes the backdoor exit, where two guards wait, robot-like, to escort her to her car. Notwithstanding the bodyguards, or her discreet bulletproof vest, Frida has reason to fear for her life: even with the President’s backing, one could not be too careful in her position as saboteur of those called untouchable in her country.
In reality, she is not afraid.
Frida’s car is a neat blue jaguar worth a hundred thousand dollars. The annual income of most people in her city? One thousand dollars.
The untouchables are people who have much more money than Frida with her jaguar. They claim to work, but the devil in hell claims to work hard too. The way to know them is perhaps their non-work; but definitely by their plenty money and by the fear people have of speaking of them.
People speak about Frida’s family; they talk about her brother the chief and her father the colonel.
Her brother was the Minister of Commerce for one year. The day he was sacked, he cleaned the coffers of the ministry. That day, he stole one million dollars, or about ten jaguars. He took his daughters, wife, and nanny to Spain within the week and never looked back.
Before Frida’s brother, their father had also been what you would call in government a petty thief. In her father’s day, you built a sunny house or two, planted colourful gardens, lay crushed granite on the floor of the car shed and driveway, and fed a gatehouse-full of armed security detail from the National Forces.
Back then, the price of the elite lifestyle was absolute submission to the will of the President. It was a high price but many strove to pay it. Then that president was killed. Then the next. Then came an interim government that handed over to civilians for the first time in twenty years.
Remember that day? O, see dancing in the streets! The civilians are hopeful; the young and able soldiers swiftly withdraw to their barracks, while the potbellied soldiers like Frida’s father choose to retire.
The retired still have to eat – have you forgotten? The retired still have to pay their children’s fees in schools in Europe and Japan. So the ex-military become specialists in disorder. They become consultants, one may say, in the field of bureaucracy that the nation has been and still is. See, whenever a redtape is cut, money gushes to the pavement like blood such that a retired colonel like Frida’s father can suck enough to last until the next feast comes around.
Soon, Frida’s elegant mother dies, then her father. For the next six years, their boy fills his father’s shoes as the man who “knows who to call.” Then comes exile for him, and a promotion to Assistant Chief of Police Intelligence for the girl, Frida.
It may seem strange that Frida has been allowed to rise so highly in the police, considering that there is nobody of clout in her family. The truth is that not everything depends on connections in this country. Her next promotion doesn’t depend on connections either: the President needs some people disgraced, the Chief of Intelligence, Frida’s boss, is not deemed competent to perform even this simple task, so the chief is transferred to head Staff Development, and Frida is named the new chief of intelligence in that capital city in which it would take a dozen people a few years of income to buy her jaguar.
Normally, the office of intelligence is not expected to do anything other than keep the status quo, keep quiet, make some money, buy something nice or whatever. But now the president needs something done about a pair of officials, from amongst those people called untouchables. The president imagines that Frida, with her fancy European degree, can investigate, where her predecessor probably couldn’t spell the word.
The issue at hand in this investigation is no petty theft. The Minister of Petroleum, who has been feuding with the Minister for Finance, tipped off the intelligence office to some of the Finance Minister’s money-laundering antics. The Central Bank Governor is also involved, since he helped the FinMin launder the money, about one thousand jaguars worth altogether. The President is particularly irritated with the Central Bank chief for being allied with a coterie of businessmen that pretends to support the President but actually hopes to field a candidate in the next presidential elections. Hence, he wants to use the police intelligence office to dissolve the wayward Banker’s power.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum Minister is safe in his job because he is the President’s personal fool. This leaves him free to stash some money for himself, fifteen jaguars worth in the past year. He is not a very smart man and his method of operation is fittingly crude: two conspicuously vanished consignments of crude oil, twenty thousand barrels in all, precede two deposits of about 700 grand each in his personal current account in the bank run by his childhood friend.
When Frida was a child living in a nice military house with a fine garden and small orchard, these new untouchables were known to her as lively youths and family friends. Now she knows them as cold, with blue steel in their veins, not blood. They don’t go around torturing people – no. Torture died away, thank God, along with military rule. The new flavor of evil consists in being utterly useless to society. Useless as a boil on your bum.
Where their parents reigned as mere bureaucrats, the new breed of kleptocrats possesses more charm, refinement, and knowledge of the klepto-arts. Round-off error accumulation, extra-zero insertion, goods diversion, public offer vapourization, currency perambulation – these are some essential klepto-arts. Along with cronyism and bold-faced lying, these skills help the upper class suck the lifeblood of the country and keep the other class subdued.
Within one week, Frida’s office has the documents to show that a large extent of money laundering has taken place. Some of the documents were found by bank clerks and civil servants in the investigation, while some were designed by ‘artists’ in the intelligence office.
The president is pleased to think how devastating for those two crooks when they find the law caught up with them. He is eager to see them out of play for the foreseeable future. In fact, he has replacements ready for their positions, a pair of unemployed associates sure to be full of gratitude at being named to Finance and the Central Bank, and consequently eager to please the President.
Suddenly, the Central Bank chief is found dead, of poison apparently, on the marble floor of the thirteenth floor toilets at the apex bank. The newspapers are overfilled with reports of his unfortunate “cardiac arrest.” The Times, The Crier, The Post, The Nation, The Union, The Punch, The Barrel – all the newspapers are bursting with obituaries. In them, bank chiefs and party chiefs, men on the rise and those waiting in the wings, young and old, seize the opportunity to be seen bidding adieu to such a high-ranking official. They eulogize a ‘man of timber and caliber’ who died too soon, leaving his loving wife and adoring sons.
The President instructs Frida to close the money laundering investigation. The death of his comrade banker has left him shaken; he had been plotting his downfall, but never his death.
However, the Petroleum Minister, still angry with the Finance Minister, tips off a newspaper to the investigation. The FinMin reads the unpalatable rumours accusing him of massive corruption. Guessing their source, he decides to put up a fight once and for all. First, he secures more of his money in foreign banks.
Satisfied about his financial safety, the FinMin releases a tip of his own: the PetMin, although married to the President’s beautiful goddaughter Tara, regularly visits seedy bars abroad for sex.
As you can imagine, this creates headaches in the PetMin’s home. The President even becomes irritated with him. In frustration, the PetMin leaks to the press that the FinMin in his early days killed two former schoolmates while jostling for position in his state. The newspapers, of course, fail to print such a scandalous accusation without evidence. Still, the rumour spreads among the rich and the poor people. They shrug alike, too busy with their lives to do any more about the murders.
Things are not going well for the PetMin. He has stashed enough money to retire and nothing else of importance remains to be done at work. He is bored but can’t travel for fear of the FinMin’s mean machinations against him. His wife starts a fight with him every day at home, since she is still sore about the disgraceful rumours of his philandering.
Then a new rumour starts around town that the two bickering Ministers are lovers. The papers do not fail to print this, and the people do not fail to buy, read, and snicker. Here is comic relief to help them cope with their busy lives.
Frida has been Chief of Police Intelligence for five action-filled weeks now. It’s 6pm and she is already home from work. After a quick snack, she packs her automatic, pulls on her hooded raincoat and goes out for a walk in the evening drizzle.
She treks through golden fields of cereal stump and stalk and soon reaches the smooth, tree-lined asphalt road where the Finance Minister will soon take his daily jog. In two minutes, the FinMin is dead. Frida turns her back on his body and discreetly hurries home.
Can you believe that there are cable channels for Africa Magic Yoruba and Africa Magic Hausa? Go Nollywood!
I don't watch Africa Magic myself, but I can tell you it's a big addiction and not only for bored housewives. Maybe the most popular channel in Nigeria right now.
I wrote this Jason-Bourne-inspired piece late last year. Enjoy.
ASSASSIN
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
It’s 8pm and Frida is just leaving the office. As a precaution, she takes the backdoor exit, where two guards wait, robot-like, to escort her to her car. Notwithstanding the bodyguards, or her discreet bulletproof vest, Frida has reason to fear for her life: even with the President’s backing, one could not be too careful in her position as saboteur of those called untouchable in her country.
In reality, she is not afraid.
Frida’s car is a neat blue jaguar worth a hundred thousand dollars. The annual income of most people in her city? One thousand dollars.
The untouchables are people who have much more money than Frida with her jaguar. They claim to work, but the devil in hell claims to work hard too. The way to know them is perhaps their non-work; but definitely by their plenty money and by the fear people have of speaking of them.
People speak about Frida’s family; they talk about her brother the chief and her father the colonel.
Her brother was the Minister of Commerce for one year. The day he was sacked, he cleaned the coffers of the ministry. That day, he stole one million dollars, or about ten jaguars. He took his daughters, wife, and nanny to Spain within the week and never looked back.
Before Frida’s brother, their father had also been what you would call in government a petty thief. In her father’s day, you built a sunny house or two, planted colourful gardens, lay crushed granite on the floor of the car shed and driveway, and fed a gatehouse-full of armed security detail from the National Forces.
Back then, the price of the elite lifestyle was absolute submission to the will of the President. It was a high price but many strove to pay it. Then that president was killed. Then the next. Then came an interim government that handed over to civilians for the first time in twenty years.
Remember that day? O, see dancing in the streets! The civilians are hopeful; the young and able soldiers swiftly withdraw to their barracks, while the potbellied soldiers like Frida’s father choose to retire.
The retired still have to eat – have you forgotten? The retired still have to pay their children’s fees in schools in Europe and Japan. So the ex-military become specialists in disorder. They become consultants, one may say, in the field of bureaucracy that the nation has been and still is. See, whenever a redtape is cut, money gushes to the pavement like blood such that a retired colonel like Frida’s father can suck enough to last until the next feast comes around.
Soon, Frida’s elegant mother dies, then her father. For the next six years, their boy fills his father’s shoes as the man who “knows who to call.” Then comes exile for him, and a promotion to Assistant Chief of Police Intelligence for the girl, Frida.
It may seem strange that Frida has been allowed to rise so highly in the police, considering that there is nobody of clout in her family. The truth is that not everything depends on connections in this country. Her next promotion doesn’t depend on connections either: the President needs some people disgraced, the Chief of Intelligence, Frida’s boss, is not deemed competent to perform even this simple task, so the chief is transferred to head Staff Development, and Frida is named the new chief of intelligence in that capital city in which it would take a dozen people a few years of income to buy her jaguar.
Normally, the office of intelligence is not expected to do anything other than keep the status quo, keep quiet, make some money, buy something nice or whatever. But now the president needs something done about a pair of officials, from amongst those people called untouchables. The president imagines that Frida, with her fancy European degree, can investigate, where her predecessor probably couldn’t spell the word.
The issue at hand in this investigation is no petty theft. The Minister of Petroleum, who has been feuding with the Minister for Finance, tipped off the intelligence office to some of the Finance Minister’s money-laundering antics. The Central Bank Governor is also involved, since he helped the FinMin launder the money, about one thousand jaguars worth altogether. The President is particularly irritated with the Central Bank chief for being allied with a coterie of businessmen that pretends to support the President but actually hopes to field a candidate in the next presidential elections. Hence, he wants to use the police intelligence office to dissolve the wayward Banker’s power.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum Minister is safe in his job because he is the President’s personal fool. This leaves him free to stash some money for himself, fifteen jaguars worth in the past year. He is not a very smart man and his method of operation is fittingly crude: two conspicuously vanished consignments of crude oil, twenty thousand barrels in all, precede two deposits of about 700 grand each in his personal current account in the bank run by his childhood friend.
When Frida was a child living in a nice military house with a fine garden and small orchard, these new untouchables were known to her as lively youths and family friends. Now she knows them as cold, with blue steel in their veins, not blood. They don’t go around torturing people – no. Torture died away, thank God, along with military rule. The new flavor of evil consists in being utterly useless to society. Useless as a boil on your bum.
Where their parents reigned as mere bureaucrats, the new breed of kleptocrats possesses more charm, refinement, and knowledge of the klepto-arts. Round-off error accumulation, extra-zero insertion, goods diversion, public offer vapourization, currency perambulation – these are some essential klepto-arts. Along with cronyism and bold-faced lying, these skills help the upper class suck the lifeblood of the country and keep the other class subdued.
Within one week, Frida’s office has the documents to show that a large extent of money laundering has taken place. Some of the documents were found by bank clerks and civil servants in the investigation, while some were designed by ‘artists’ in the intelligence office.
The president is pleased to think how devastating for those two crooks when they find the law caught up with them. He is eager to see them out of play for the foreseeable future. In fact, he has replacements ready for their positions, a pair of unemployed associates sure to be full of gratitude at being named to Finance and the Central Bank, and consequently eager to please the President.
Suddenly, the Central Bank chief is found dead, of poison apparently, on the marble floor of the thirteenth floor toilets at the apex bank. The newspapers are overfilled with reports of his unfortunate “cardiac arrest.” The Times, The Crier, The Post, The Nation, The Union, The Punch, The Barrel – all the newspapers are bursting with obituaries. In them, bank chiefs and party chiefs, men on the rise and those waiting in the wings, young and old, seize the opportunity to be seen bidding adieu to such a high-ranking official. They eulogize a ‘man of timber and caliber’ who died too soon, leaving his loving wife and adoring sons.
The President instructs Frida to close the money laundering investigation. The death of his comrade banker has left him shaken; he had been plotting his downfall, but never his death.
However, the Petroleum Minister, still angry with the Finance Minister, tips off a newspaper to the investigation. The FinMin reads the unpalatable rumours accusing him of massive corruption. Guessing their source, he decides to put up a fight once and for all. First, he secures more of his money in foreign banks.
Satisfied about his financial safety, the FinMin releases a tip of his own: the PetMin, although married to the President’s beautiful goddaughter Tara, regularly visits seedy bars abroad for sex.
As you can imagine, this creates headaches in the PetMin’s home. The President even becomes irritated with him. In frustration, the PetMin leaks to the press that the FinMin in his early days killed two former schoolmates while jostling for position in his state. The newspapers, of course, fail to print such a scandalous accusation without evidence. Still, the rumour spreads among the rich and the poor people. They shrug alike, too busy with their lives to do any more about the murders.
Things are not going well for the PetMin. He has stashed enough money to retire and nothing else of importance remains to be done at work. He is bored but can’t travel for fear of the FinMin’s mean machinations against him. His wife starts a fight with him every day at home, since she is still sore about the disgraceful rumours of his philandering.
Then a new rumour starts around town that the two bickering Ministers are lovers. The papers do not fail to print this, and the people do not fail to buy, read, and snicker. Here is comic relief to help them cope with their busy lives.
Frida has been Chief of Police Intelligence for five action-filled weeks now. It’s 6pm and she is already home from work. After a quick snack, she packs her automatic, pulls on her hooded raincoat and goes out for a walk in the evening drizzle.
She treks through golden fields of cereal stump and stalk and soon reaches the smooth, tree-lined asphalt road where the Finance Minister will soon take his daily jog. In two minutes, the FinMin is dead. Frida turns her back on his body and discreetly hurries home.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Why gild the lily?
music
I have no interest in my face. I mean, I'm sure it's a perfectly nice face with all the requisite parts, good structure AND function. On the rare occasion that my conscious mind observes my reflection in a mirror, it thinks (and often pronounces) "wow, hot."
Most boys get along just fine with this mentality.
Not sure why girls have to make like film actors or talk show hosts, working endlessly at adorning and perfecting...It's the standard, and the results are often good, but even where there's gold, I'll always have a soft spot for the lily.
I have no interest in my face. I mean, I'm sure it's a perfectly nice face with all the requisite parts, good structure AND function. On the rare occasion that my conscious mind observes my reflection in a mirror, it thinks (and often pronounces) "wow, hot."
Most boys get along just fine with this mentality.
Not sure why girls have to make like film actors or talk show hosts, working endlessly at adorning and perfecting...It's the standard, and the results are often good, but even where there's gold, I'll always have a soft spot for the lily.
Friday, February 26, 2010
What's good?
music
The winners of the 2010 bloggies will be revealed this weekend. Meanwhile, all the nominees are here at http://2010.bloggies.com. Lots of yummy stuff to check out.
The new gig is cool, but the traffic! so I'm moving in with somebody next week that lives in that area, maybe my uncle, until I move on campus. Don't want to spend 30% of my waking hours commuting. You shouldn't have to either.
The winners of the 2010 bloggies will be revealed this weekend. Meanwhile, all the nominees are here at http://2010.bloggies.com. Lots of yummy stuff to check out.
The new gig is cool, but the traffic! so I'm moving in with somebody next week that lives in that area, maybe my uncle, until I move on campus. Don't want to spend 30% of my waking hours commuting. You shouldn't have to either.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Poem: Ballroom Dance
music
Just wrote this ten-liner.
Posting it because, I guess I thought ErikLeRouge might like it.
BALLROOM DANCE
In the early days, we would
dress up and watch couples
floating like a dream
across the gleaming floor
While me and my husband,
we tripped clumsily
over twenty fat toes
then argued whose fault.
Still in love, we trip
clumsily, daily; privately.
Just wrote this ten-liner.
Posting it because, I guess I thought ErikLeRouge might like it.
BALLROOM DANCE
In the early days, we would
dress up and watch couples
floating like a dream
across the gleaming floor
While me and my husband,
we tripped clumsily
over twenty fat toes
then argued whose fault.
Still in love, we trip
clumsily, daily; privately.
Monday, January 18, 2010
I'm No Superman
music
I should totally have watched SCRUBS all those times I saw it on TV in Cali. Ah well, I bought the pirated $1.50 version. Just finished Season One. Bliss. On to Season Two. I just curled my toes, feel so good thinking about it.
I've been living in my parents' home since late July 2009. Thank you. We're in the phase in which they think I'm a Barbie - I've been so compliant. I'm breaking the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - something about taking responsibility for your actions, "Be Proactive." Not being proactive sucks. But I'll call it research for my book, lol.
Scrubs is really amazing. I should have watched that in grad school, instead of the dating show marathons. Ah but they were good: Elimidate, Change of Heart, The Fifth Wheel, the other one I can't remember, Blind Date...then the weeklies: Bachelor, Bachelorette etc. Ah what a mindless shame.
I wonder what the world is up to now in its race towards its future reality. Hope it's good.
I should totally have watched SCRUBS all those times I saw it on TV in Cali. Ah well, I bought the pirated $1.50 version. Just finished Season One. Bliss. On to Season Two. I just curled my toes, feel so good thinking about it.
I've been living in my parents' home since late July 2009. Thank you. We're in the phase in which they think I'm a Barbie - I've been so compliant. I'm breaking the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - something about taking responsibility for your actions, "Be Proactive." Not being proactive sucks. But I'll call it research for my book, lol.
Scrubs is really amazing. I should have watched that in grad school, instead of the dating show marathons. Ah but they were good: Elimidate, Change of Heart, The Fifth Wheel, the other one I can't remember, Blind Date...then the weeklies: Bachelor, Bachelorette etc. Ah what a mindless shame.
I wonder what the world is up to now in its race towards its future reality. Hope it's good.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Things to buy
music
Look, art, from Nigeria.
1. Ituen Basi
great stuff in 2009. I hope she does even better in future when I have more money and interest in fashion.
http://www.bellanaija.com/2009/06/17/arise-africa-fashion-week-ituen-basi/
2. Gidan Nodza
the best bags, possibly made by a friend, or maybe just someone with the same name and intellect.
http://houseofnodza.blogspot.com/
3. Nike Arts
her new gallery in Lekki (Lagos) is the place to visit. she sells top-of-the-line wall art (paintings, especially) typically in the low four-figures (six figures in naira.) It's really big. My friend says it's like the Tate (London.) Nothing else like it in Nigeria.
http://www.nikeart.com/shop.php
Look, art, from Nigeria.
1. Ituen Basi
great stuff in 2009. I hope she does even better in future when I have more money and interest in fashion.
http://www.bellanaija.com/2009/06/17/arise-africa-fashion-week-ituen-basi/
2. Gidan Nodza
the best bags, possibly made by a friend, or maybe just someone with the same name and intellect.
http://houseofnodza.blogspot.com/
3. Nike Arts
her new gallery in Lekki (Lagos) is the place to visit. she sells top-of-the-line wall art (paintings, especially) typically in the low four-figures (six figures in naira.) It's really big. My friend says it's like the Tate (London.) Nothing else like it in Nigeria.
http://www.nikeart.com/shop.php
Friday, January 01, 2010
Tribute to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
music
Pat-down searches now required at airports - assuming the airport security staff is mostly gorgeous people, this could be healthy fun for everyone. Let's do this groping worldwide, not only in America. Imagine the possibilities...
Humour - His attempt at terrorism has been called The Christmas Crotchfire Attack. And today, as we lit up firecrackers for New Years Day, the ones that wouldn't ignite were named the Abdulmuttalibs. Abdul Mutilate-A-Balls. Because we love fart and butt jokes and we still can't pronounce non-Anglo names.
Now that it's clear that I don't really mean the title, and that there's no need to put me on any bloated security lists even though I have been to Yemen (possibly my most beautiful place in the world ) and sometimes say insha'Allah and al-hamdulillah, let's take a look at serious reasons why I don't exactly pity or loathe the guy:
he "got radicalized." He came to believe in something so much that he was willing to give his life for it. Although clarity and singleness of purpose can be beautiful, I, as a scientist, do not have ANY fundamentalist beliefs - who knows what modifying discoveries tomorrow may bring?
I may admire his quest for purity, but I don't admire his willingness to kill other people to make his political statement. I think from now on, we need to think more Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson, Mandela - more nonviolence - and less war. I know he'll come to this realization over the next many years in prison, and I hope he can make amends for this foolishness that caused him to take to the air and nearly kill hundreds of people, human beings.
I think renegade terrorists and state-sponsored terrorists alike need to move on from their brutal business.
I think terms like preemptive strike and war-on-terror are rubbish, and that by my standards I haven't yet seen a just war fought by the US in the last ten years.
What happened to the Powell Doctrine? Where are our military philosophers? Are they really dumb and unimaginative, are they not being heard or are they just not speaking up anymore?
Fear is not an excuse for war. Greed or creed should never be an excuse for war. Land and country often have been excuses for war. I say we get some flexibility about how important "owning" land is, or how sacred country or faith is relative to a single human life.
The only thing that ought to excuse war has been extinguished by now: a need to get food to survive. The world now produces enough food (in total, not evenly so.) My friends, we now have no excuse for killing one another.
Because we are young as a human race, there may still be times when a show of violence is needed. In those times, it will be very clear that what was averted was a clear and certain danger of big big size compared to the violence applied. Such a war won't take years, costing even the aggressor hundreds or thousands of lives.
By this standard, Israel-Palestine is a rubbish war that ought not to be happening. Maybe we need to execute - ok, not really - the leaders on both sides because both countries are mired in hopelessness (one being reduced to a military state, the other a prison) while the leaders seem to think fighting is cool. End the bloody war: Call in Powell, Mandela, and friends. Divide up the land between the warring groups. Take feedback for a short while and make adjustments, supervised by people / institutions with high credibility as people of fairness and peace. Use military or legal force against those few who would rather have the baby cut in half, who want Jerusalem for themselves alone at whatever cost to their civilization.
Likewise, Iraq and Afghanistan should be about getting the so-called Allied Forces out while keeping down the risk of civil war. I mean, really, I feel bad for the soldiers whose mission seems impossible to accomplish simply because it is endless. To think some of them only joined the Forces to get money for school.
This first day of 2010, one week after the averted body bomb attack, I am thankful that George W. Bush is no longer the POTUS. Because sometimes bone-headed crackerpants come from accomplished families.
Pat-down searches now required at airports - assuming the airport security staff is mostly gorgeous people, this could be healthy fun for everyone. Let's do this groping worldwide, not only in America. Imagine the possibilities...
Humour - His attempt at terrorism has been called The Christmas Crotchfire Attack. And today, as we lit up firecrackers for New Years Day, the ones that wouldn't ignite were named the Abdulmuttalibs. Abdul Mutilate-A-Balls. Because we love fart and butt jokes and we still can't pronounce non-Anglo names.
Now that it's clear that I don't really mean the title, and that there's no need to put me on any bloated security lists even though I have been to Yemen (possibly my most beautiful place in the world ) and sometimes say insha'Allah and al-hamdulillah, let's take a look at serious reasons why I don't exactly pity or loathe the guy:
he "got radicalized." He came to believe in something so much that he was willing to give his life for it. Although clarity and singleness of purpose can be beautiful, I, as a scientist, do not have ANY fundamentalist beliefs - who knows what modifying discoveries tomorrow may bring?
I may admire his quest for purity, but I don't admire his willingness to kill other people to make his political statement. I think from now on, we need to think more Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson, Mandela - more nonviolence - and less war. I know he'll come to this realization over the next many years in prison, and I hope he can make amends for this foolishness that caused him to take to the air and nearly kill hundreds of people, human beings.
I think renegade terrorists and state-sponsored terrorists alike need to move on from their brutal business.
I think terms like preemptive strike and war-on-terror are rubbish, and that by my standards I haven't yet seen a just war fought by the US in the last ten years.
What happened to the Powell Doctrine? Where are our military philosophers? Are they really dumb and unimaginative, are they not being heard or are they just not speaking up anymore?
Fear is not an excuse for war. Greed or creed should never be an excuse for war. Land and country often have been excuses for war. I say we get some flexibility about how important "owning" land is, or how sacred country or faith is relative to a single human life.
The only thing that ought to excuse war has been extinguished by now: a need to get food to survive. The world now produces enough food (in total, not evenly so.) My friends, we now have no excuse for killing one another.
Because we are young as a human race, there may still be times when a show of violence is needed. In those times, it will be very clear that what was averted was a clear and certain danger of big big size compared to the violence applied. Such a war won't take years, costing even the aggressor hundreds or thousands of lives.
By this standard, Israel-Palestine is a rubbish war that ought not to be happening. Maybe we need to execute - ok, not really - the leaders on both sides because both countries are mired in hopelessness (one being reduced to a military state, the other a prison) while the leaders seem to think fighting is cool. End the bloody war: Call in Powell, Mandela, and friends. Divide up the land between the warring groups. Take feedback for a short while and make adjustments, supervised by people / institutions with high credibility as people of fairness and peace. Use military or legal force against those few who would rather have the baby cut in half, who want Jerusalem for themselves alone at whatever cost to their civilization.
Likewise, Iraq and Afghanistan should be about getting the so-called Allied Forces out while keeping down the risk of civil war. I mean, really, I feel bad for the soldiers whose mission seems impossible to accomplish simply because it is endless. To think some of them only joined the Forces to get money for school.
This first day of 2010, one week after the averted body bomb attack, I am thankful that George W. Bush is no longer the POTUS. Because sometimes bone-headed crackerpants come from accomplished families.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Bookish Santa
music
The very bright and amiable Nigerian writer Eghosa Imasuen wrote this story and gave a nice reading in October at a Farafina event in Lagos. Enjoy: New Generator.
Farafina Books (Kachifo Limited) has a mouth-watering catalogue of African Literature. Enough reading to get you through the holidays and half the coming year. Priced low enough that you can get them ALL for $100 or less. As with many Nigerian businesses though, I think Kachifo is not big enough. OK, that's a subject for the other blog, not this one.
Merry Holidays and hope the recession ends and the party returns in 2010.
The very bright and amiable Nigerian writer Eghosa Imasuen wrote this story and gave a nice reading in October at a Farafina event in Lagos. Enjoy: New Generator.
NEW GENERATOR: ‘I PASS MY NEIGHBOUR'
A short story
By Eghosa Imasuen
Mr. Ochuko’s decision to buy a new generator was taken with the help of his wife seven months
ago. They lived in one of those suburbs that NEPA seemed to have forgotten about. The electric
company’s staff always hustled around the transformer just beside the junction to their street,
light came up for about five hours and then was gone for another three weeks. Then the NEPA
staff came again.
“Junior, wait. Let me enter the house first,” Mr. Ochuko said.(Read More...)
Farafina Books (Kachifo Limited) has a mouth-watering catalogue of African Literature. Enough reading to get you through the holidays and half the coming year. Priced low enough that you can get them ALL for $100 or less. As with many Nigerian businesses though, I think Kachifo is not big enough. OK, that's a subject for the other blog, not this one.
Merry Holidays and hope the recession ends and the party returns in 2010.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Agassi Open
music
I adore Andre. Want to be like him when I grow up. Can't wait to read his book, though not sure when I'll get to...
More Agassi Open - the 60minutes interview ... Part 2
Good luck to Richard Gasquet with the cocaine charges. It's not a performance-enhancer, rather the opposite effect - shouldn't that be important in judging these cases?
And good good luck to Billy. He's been in jail nearly six years already.
I adore Andre. Want to be like him when I grow up. Can't wait to read his book, though not sure when I'll get to...
More Agassi Open - the 60minutes interview ... Part 2
Good luck to Richard Gasquet with the cocaine charges. It's not a performance-enhancer, rather the opposite effect - shouldn't that be important in judging these cases?
And good good luck to Billy. He's been in jail nearly six years already.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Inspire Me!
music
Viktor & Rolf always inspire to lose the walls, artistically speaking.
Watch the Fashion Show and hours of video in their archives.
Check out their website tour. No wonder Rufus loves them!
Viktor & Rolf always inspire to lose the walls, artistically speaking.
Watch the Fashion Show and hours of video in their archives.
Check out their website tour. No wonder Rufus loves them!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Writing a bit
music
and waiting for 'Tech. Can you believe I'm itching to get back to Caltech?
A bunch of poetry books in the pipeline. I tried to stop writing them for a while, then someone upset me and I started a third book to be titled "Big Girl" with poems about the yuppie/wealthier-class young woman in Nigerian/similar climes.
I just started reading a Nigerian novel I found around the house that is very good. It's as vivid as Things Fall Apart (by Chinua Achebe), although it describes a different time (the 60s I bet, just after Independence) and place (a hypothetical university with a mix of Nigerian staff and expatriates.) Understanding this novel (I don't, really, although the language is simple like Things Fall Apart) you understand the politics of today's Nigeria. I'm surprised that even terms like "godfather" were already in use then. The novel is The Naked Gods, by Chukwuemeka Ike.
and waiting for 'Tech. Can you believe I'm itching to get back to Caltech?
A bunch of poetry books in the pipeline. I tried to stop writing them for a while, then someone upset me and I started a third book to be titled "Big Girl" with poems about the yuppie/wealthier-class young woman in Nigerian/similar climes.
I just started reading a Nigerian novel I found around the house that is very good. It's as vivid as Things Fall Apart (by Chinua Achebe), although it describes a different time (the 60s I bet, just after Independence) and place (a hypothetical university with a mix of Nigerian staff and expatriates.) Understanding this novel (I don't, really, although the language is simple like Things Fall Apart) you understand the politics of today's Nigeria. I'm surprised that even terms like "godfather" were already in use then. The novel is The Naked Gods, by Chukwuemeka Ike.
Friday, September 25, 2009
My mind is changing, changing...
music
What is the nature of time? Read the winning essay by Julian Barbour on The Nature of Time, then browse more Expository Essays on the same topic at the FQXi, the Foundational Questions Institute.
Shortly, you will be able to view essays on this year's topic, "What is Ultimately Possible in Physics?"
What is the nature of time? Read the winning essay by Julian Barbour on The Nature of Time, then browse more Expository Essays on the same topic at the FQXi, the Foundational Questions Institute.
Shortly, you will be able to view essays on this year's topic, "What is Ultimately Possible in Physics?"
Monday, September 21, 2009
Public Art
music
COMMITTEE FOR RELEVANT ART, CORA (Winner of Prince Claus Award 2006)
We Are Cultural 'Landscapists'. The MISSION is to create an enabling environment for the flourishing of the contemporary arts of Nigeria and to increase human capacity of the continent. VISION is to make Culture the Prime Investment Destination for the Country and the Continent by 2018.
I attended the CORA book party yesterday, celebrating the nine shortlisted works for this year's Nigeria Prize for Literature (Poetry.)
Had an excellent time meeting some of Nigeria's sweetest poets, some of whose works I've started reading. Reading poetry is not bad. It doesn't hurt. Nor does it bore if you choose well.
COMMITTEE FOR RELEVANT ART, CORA (Winner of Prince Claus Award 2006)
We Are Cultural 'Landscapists'. The MISSION is to create an enabling environment for the flourishing of the contemporary arts of Nigeria and to increase human capacity of the continent. VISION is to make Culture the Prime Investment Destination for the Country and the Continent by 2018.
I attended the CORA book party yesterday, celebrating the nine shortlisted works for this year's Nigeria Prize for Literature (Poetry.)
Had an excellent time meeting some of Nigeria's sweetest poets, some of whose works I've started reading. Reading poetry is not bad. It doesn't hurt. Nor does it bore if you choose well.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Fiction: Honeymoon
music
Tradition holds that newlyweds would spend thirty days away from their friends, family - their routines. The period is spent visiting sites of history and culture. As the new couple soared together, gliding among monuments, they would learn about love and permanent marriage. This obligation is so sacred that every newly-married couple in the land is given leave from work to enable it.
Per and Flooy are a newly married couple on their honeymoon.
THE WEDDING
On the wedding afternoon, the friends of Per and Flooy dutifully escorted both to the town square after work. Weddings were conducted outdoors in a green patch surrounded by tall, important buildings and dense, colourful traffic. One by one, the couples came in focus of a camera to declare verbally that they were new spouses. After every three declarations, an intern rang a small, shrill bell; this constituted the wedding proper. The whole show was typically broadcast on screens above the roads throughout the town.
Per and Flooy declared just after the bell, adding that “permanent love and marriage” would be their goal. They waited for the next two couples, and then the solemnization by the bell, before kissing and then skipping off to join their friends.
THE PRESENTS
Among their crowd were their cousins who handed Flooy tickets to see the ancient town of Jerusalem. Their workmates gave them a very classic trip – up the Nile to Sudan to see the oldest human skeleton. Their uncles and aunts had collected enough to present them with a fifty-meal dining card, so that they could enjoy fantastic dinners on the honeymoon.
The couple glowed and hugged thanks throughout their company, while everyone tingled with excitement about the parents’ gift.
As you already guessed, the parents of both newlyweds were expected to come together to pick out the most fantastic tours of their children’s honeymoon. Per and Flooy soon found out that it would be “The Seven Ancient Wonders.” Flooy had been hoping for the moon, not the kitsch Seven Wonders tour. Her in-laws could afford it, and she was certain her own parents knew it was the most desired honeymoon gift of the decade.
THE HOTEL
Soon, the guests left the couple alone with the clerks who led the couple to a newlywed hotel. Here they ate marvelously, slept luxuriously, and in-between these they spent hours holding hands and talking dreamily about all the trips they would soon make.
Two days later, it was time to begin touring.
The morning was glorious, with the sun’s rays bursting into their room, signaling time for breakfast. They had a jam and marmalade feast that was laid out with twenty cubes of exotic breads, all different, all appetizing.
Breakfast in bed was followed by a nap. Then they bathed and dressed for their trip. Flooy chose a dress in ivory printed with tiny begonias, while Per wore a youthful teal-and-khaki ensemble. They decided to get some exercise, so instead of calling for a vehicle, both strapped on their streamliners and soared out of the hotel window.
They traveled for a number of hours in the direction of the mountains, and soon were present among the ruins of the old city of Jerusalem, making small spirals on the rough ground in an attempt to brake their flying.
MOSQUE
Their seventieth hour as a couple found them in the vast courtyard of the mosque, where beggars used to crowd in wait for the alms of the faithful. In those days, hundreds of years back, after Friday worship, the mostly wealthy pilgrims would drop their zakat, their alms, with the men who lived in the streets or the poor shanties of town and made their living on the mosque grounds. Now, the courtyard was the starting point for tours of the mosque.
A guide led the tourists to another area, a confection of small, hexagonal tiles said to have been once covered in shoes of every tribe and type. The guide showed them moving pictures of the same room over the centuries until the time of the Great Quake that sunk Jerusalem.
From the shoe room, they entered a grand room in which the faithful had prayed on thousands of mats facing Makkah in the south. On the screen, the patchwork of colourful carpets looked like a most elegant velvet quilt.
The building used to have five minarets, but three were now broken and hadn’t yet been restored. The central dome that roofed the praying area glistened with a gold that recalled similar domed houses of Australia and Antarctica. Mohammedans could be found in both countries, hence the architecture in parts of these islands used gold, and domes, and minarets, and even retained the use of a star in a crescent moon perched atop the highest reaches of the building.
Mohammedans were few anywhere outside these two places, the movies explained. The people of Mohammed believed that a man would find at most four permanent loves in his lifetime. Since they also believed that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman, and each woman of course could only marry one man, it was usually the case that all the desirable women were already married. Mohammedans often took wives from among the wider communities of non-believing women, and this helped remedy the imbalance in their spousal pools.
SYNAGOGUE
Per and Flooy were flying hand-in-hand as they passed over the tall birch trees that separated the mosque from an ancient mud wall into which the Jews had wailed their prayers for a thousand years. The tradition held that the Father of the Jews lived in the wall. Hence, the faithful took off their sandals and donned black robes over their street clothes before proceeding to whisper into the wall, in deep conversation and prayer which caused them to rock back and forth. Sometimes, if they didn’t feel like talking, they squeezed a letter in one of the many gaps in the wall.
The tour guide at the synagogue explained chattily that Jews busied themselves with two things: successful careers, and preparation for the coming of the son of God. One percent of the world was Jewish, more than the Catholican population of the day, the guide said.
The Jews didn’t believe in flying. They couldn’t shave their heads, eat meat, or gather with non-family members after sunset. These practices made them stand out in the world since bald heads were on every model in every magazine, most meals contained meat, and most parties or socials took place at night. In those days too, young people liked to spend their free time flitting around in the air, as it was a fun and inexpensive mode of transport.
Per had no sympathy for the superstition of this people, but he envied their dedication to work and vocation. Neither he nor his wife was superstitious. What sense was it, they thought, to revert to the thought patterns of millennia past, days so clearly inferior in quality-of-life to the present? In distant history, hunger had caused people to see monsters in benign shadows, while delirium made them merge physics and god; disease was always the result of jealousy backed with anti-god powers.
Yet Per’s wife had idols of a sort; idols in the here and now – her friends, her sisters, and their total acceptance meant as much to her as the thunder god or moon goddess might have meant to her early ancestors.
CHURCH
The sun had been one of the most worshipped gods in this land. Now, the cross held dominance. The sun was getting low in the sky now, and the couple determined to visit another monument before retiring to their hotel room. They traversed the cobblestone on the west side of the synagogue and found a short bridge where the gentle breeze loosened bright red flowers from the trees above, causing a shower of sorts. They walked on, hand-in-hand, in the direction of the former Catholican shrine that also lay in the valley of the ruins.
Per knew Flooy’s superstition about conformity. This was why he was careful to learn about fashion; perhaps she would never leave him, but only if he behaved according to convention at all times.
He hoped this would be enough.
He hoped he would be enough.
He glanced over at her, the most beautiful thing he knew in the world, his lily flower, his new bride. He watched her bald head and auburn eyebrows. Yes, he would do anything to see her face every morning. He smiled thinking the way her eyebrows crinkled then arched animatedly when she talked. He remembered the way she looked when she first undressed and thought grimly that he, for his part, would never leave her.
At the moment the couple arrived at the crosses that marked the shrine and cemetery, their thoughts - at that moment - ran perpendicularly. Flooy suspected this, Per did not. As Flooy Lily Wura’s brilliant red-lashed eyes focused, first on her husband, then on the statues of a Catholican married couple – a man in black tuxedo and his bride in head-to-toe white, with a silver heart behind them and a brown cross before them, as Flooy took in this picture of splendidly correct marriage, she smiled to think how nice the next ten years would be with a good man like Per by her side. She saw visions of babies and trips. Youthful sex. Afternoons comparing notes with her sisters on aforementioned babies and trips and sex.
While the shrine and cemetery had served for fifteen decades, her youth would last for fifteen years at most. With Per, her adorable first husband, she was determined to spend ten of them, and then retire like was the fashion, until she made a mid-life marriage.
Why then did she, just three days ago in the center of the town, swear to love him forever?
Because, silly you, romantic weddings all have the forever clause.
HONEYMOON
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
Tradition holds that newlyweds would spend thirty days away from their friends, family - their routines. The period is spent visiting sites of history and culture. As the new couple soared together, gliding among monuments, they would learn about love and permanent marriage. This obligation is so sacred that every newly-married couple in the land is given leave from work to enable it.
Per and Flooy are a newly married couple on their honeymoon.
THE WEDDING
On the wedding afternoon, the friends of Per and Flooy dutifully escorted both to the town square after work. Weddings were conducted outdoors in a green patch surrounded by tall, important buildings and dense, colourful traffic. One by one, the couples came in focus of a camera to declare verbally that they were new spouses. After every three declarations, an intern rang a small, shrill bell; this constituted the wedding proper. The whole show was typically broadcast on screens above the roads throughout the town.
Per and Flooy declared just after the bell, adding that “permanent love and marriage” would be their goal. They waited for the next two couples, and then the solemnization by the bell, before kissing and then skipping off to join their friends.
THE PRESENTS
Among their crowd were their cousins who handed Flooy tickets to see the ancient town of Jerusalem. Their workmates gave them a very classic trip – up the Nile to Sudan to see the oldest human skeleton. Their uncles and aunts had collected enough to present them with a fifty-meal dining card, so that they could enjoy fantastic dinners on the honeymoon.
The couple glowed and hugged thanks throughout their company, while everyone tingled with excitement about the parents’ gift.
As you already guessed, the parents of both newlyweds were expected to come together to pick out the most fantastic tours of their children’s honeymoon. Per and Flooy soon found out that it would be “The Seven Ancient Wonders.” Flooy had been hoping for the moon, not the kitsch Seven Wonders tour. Her in-laws could afford it, and she was certain her own parents knew it was the most desired honeymoon gift of the decade.
THE HOTEL
Soon, the guests left the couple alone with the clerks who led the couple to a newlywed hotel. Here they ate marvelously, slept luxuriously, and in-between these they spent hours holding hands and talking dreamily about all the trips they would soon make.
Two days later, it was time to begin touring.
The morning was glorious, with the sun’s rays bursting into their room, signaling time for breakfast. They had a jam and marmalade feast that was laid out with twenty cubes of exotic breads, all different, all appetizing.
Breakfast in bed was followed by a nap. Then they bathed and dressed for their trip. Flooy chose a dress in ivory printed with tiny begonias, while Per wore a youthful teal-and-khaki ensemble. They decided to get some exercise, so instead of calling for a vehicle, both strapped on their streamliners and soared out of the hotel window.
They traveled for a number of hours in the direction of the mountains, and soon were present among the ruins of the old city of Jerusalem, making small spirals on the rough ground in an attempt to brake their flying.
MOSQUE
Their seventieth hour as a couple found them in the vast courtyard of the mosque, where beggars used to crowd in wait for the alms of the faithful. In those days, hundreds of years back, after Friday worship, the mostly wealthy pilgrims would drop their zakat, their alms, with the men who lived in the streets or the poor shanties of town and made their living on the mosque grounds. Now, the courtyard was the starting point for tours of the mosque.
A guide led the tourists to another area, a confection of small, hexagonal tiles said to have been once covered in shoes of every tribe and type. The guide showed them moving pictures of the same room over the centuries until the time of the Great Quake that sunk Jerusalem.
From the shoe room, they entered a grand room in which the faithful had prayed on thousands of mats facing Makkah in the south. On the screen, the patchwork of colourful carpets looked like a most elegant velvet quilt.
The building used to have five minarets, but three were now broken and hadn’t yet been restored. The central dome that roofed the praying area glistened with a gold that recalled similar domed houses of Australia and Antarctica. Mohammedans could be found in both countries, hence the architecture in parts of these islands used gold, and domes, and minarets, and even retained the use of a star in a crescent moon perched atop the highest reaches of the building.
Mohammedans were few anywhere outside these two places, the movies explained. The people of Mohammed believed that a man would find at most four permanent loves in his lifetime. Since they also believed that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman, and each woman of course could only marry one man, it was usually the case that all the desirable women were already married. Mohammedans often took wives from among the wider communities of non-believing women, and this helped remedy the imbalance in their spousal pools.
SYNAGOGUE
Per and Flooy were flying hand-in-hand as they passed over the tall birch trees that separated the mosque from an ancient mud wall into which the Jews had wailed their prayers for a thousand years. The tradition held that the Father of the Jews lived in the wall. Hence, the faithful took off their sandals and donned black robes over their street clothes before proceeding to whisper into the wall, in deep conversation and prayer which caused them to rock back and forth. Sometimes, if they didn’t feel like talking, they squeezed a letter in one of the many gaps in the wall.
The tour guide at the synagogue explained chattily that Jews busied themselves with two things: successful careers, and preparation for the coming of the son of God. One percent of the world was Jewish, more than the Catholican population of the day, the guide said.
The Jews didn’t believe in flying. They couldn’t shave their heads, eat meat, or gather with non-family members after sunset. These practices made them stand out in the world since bald heads were on every model in every magazine, most meals contained meat, and most parties or socials took place at night. In those days too, young people liked to spend their free time flitting around in the air, as it was a fun and inexpensive mode of transport.
Per had no sympathy for the superstition of this people, but he envied their dedication to work and vocation. Neither he nor his wife was superstitious. What sense was it, they thought, to revert to the thought patterns of millennia past, days so clearly inferior in quality-of-life to the present? In distant history, hunger had caused people to see monsters in benign shadows, while delirium made them merge physics and god; disease was always the result of jealousy backed with anti-god powers.
Yet Per’s wife had idols of a sort; idols in the here and now – her friends, her sisters, and their total acceptance meant as much to her as the thunder god or moon goddess might have meant to her early ancestors.
CHURCH
The sun had been one of the most worshipped gods in this land. Now, the cross held dominance. The sun was getting low in the sky now, and the couple determined to visit another monument before retiring to their hotel room. They traversed the cobblestone on the west side of the synagogue and found a short bridge where the gentle breeze loosened bright red flowers from the trees above, causing a shower of sorts. They walked on, hand-in-hand, in the direction of the former Catholican shrine that also lay in the valley of the ruins.
Per knew Flooy’s superstition about conformity. This was why he was careful to learn about fashion; perhaps she would never leave him, but only if he behaved according to convention at all times.
He hoped this would be enough.
He hoped he would be enough.
He glanced over at her, the most beautiful thing he knew in the world, his lily flower, his new bride. He watched her bald head and auburn eyebrows. Yes, he would do anything to see her face every morning. He smiled thinking the way her eyebrows crinkled then arched animatedly when she talked. He remembered the way she looked when she first undressed and thought grimly that he, for his part, would never leave her.
At the moment the couple arrived at the crosses that marked the shrine and cemetery, their thoughts - at that moment - ran perpendicularly. Flooy suspected this, Per did not. As Flooy Lily Wura’s brilliant red-lashed eyes focused, first on her husband, then on the statues of a Catholican married couple – a man in black tuxedo and his bride in head-to-toe white, with a silver heart behind them and a brown cross before them, as Flooy took in this picture of splendidly correct marriage, she smiled to think how nice the next ten years would be with a good man like Per by her side. She saw visions of babies and trips. Youthful sex. Afternoons comparing notes with her sisters on aforementioned babies and trips and sex.
While the shrine and cemetery had served for fifteen decades, her youth would last for fifteen years at most. With Per, her adorable first husband, she was determined to spend ten of them, and then retire like was the fashion, until she made a mid-life marriage.
Why then did she, just three days ago in the center of the town, swear to love him forever?
Because, silly you, romantic weddings all have the forever clause.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
I didn't realize he was dead
music
Naguib Mahfouz, one of the world's great people.
Biography @ Wikipedia
Pictures @ images.google.com
He died August 30, 2006.
Guess I was too preoccupied to register the obituary.
Naguib Mahfouz, one of the world's great people.
Biography @ Wikipedia
Pictures @ images.google.com
He died August 30, 2006.
Guess I was too preoccupied to register the obituary.
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