POLITICS - Freedom Day 2013: The South African dream, still deferred

Perhaps there were too many noble ideals. Perhaps the founding fathers were too romantic about our future and therefore set unrealistic and unachievable goals. Maybe we ran out of good luck, or good leaders, or good faith. What if we were never the miracle nation anyway, but just an average people who attained freedom because the status quo was no longer sustainable? Maybe that’s why we are failing to be what we envisaged we would be 19 years ago? Democracy shaped a united thriving nation, which is now turning on itself. Freedom Day 2013 is a world away from that beautiful day in 1994. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-04-26-freedom-day-2013-the-south-african-dream-still-deferred/

POLITICS: Happy Constitution Day! To a country that apparently doesn't know The Constitution well!

In this first comprehensive survey of constitutional knowledge, it turned out that although most Americans (over three-quarters) say that they are very proud of our Constitution, only five percent could accurately answer ten basic questions, like those above, about its contents. Sixty-two percent couldn’t name the three branches of the federal government (Legislature, Executive, Judiciary) and one third couldn’t name even one branch; over half did not know the number of senators (100); only six percent could name “the four rights” guaranteed by the First Amendment (free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of peaceable assembly and the right to petition for redress of grievances – or is that really five rights?) and one quarter couldn’t name any; one sixth incorrectly believed that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/organization-news-and-highlights/happy-constitution-day

POLITICS: Happy 225th Birthday, U.S. Constitution! Now let’s give you a makeover for the next two centuries—by looking to the states.

Today marks the 225th anniversary of the Constitution of the United States, publicly unveiled in Philadelphia amid considerable fanfare. As Americans think back on the last two and a quarter centuries, we should also think ahead by the same amount. What will and what should the Constitution look like 200 years hence? Or if that seems too mind-bendingly futuristic, what will and should it look like in 2020 or 2121?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/09/the_225th_anniversary_of_the_u_s_constitution_now_for_the_next_200_years_.html

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Africa's Forgotten Soldiers

Heard this recently in a podcast from the BBC. When I was in Africa, I always thought a book about the African fighters in World War II would make an interesting book!

I first learned about this myself when I was teaching in southern Africa. I was waiting the Immigration office to open from lunch. And it was next to the city park so I was just hanging out there since it was a nice day.

And I checked out the sculpture in the middle on it. On it was listed all the countrymen who had died in World War I and II. Until then, I didn't know that Africans had fought in the World Wars!

I talked to the older folks in the country and they told me of relatives who fought in the north part of Africa and even in Europe!

So if that peaks your interest, give this show a listen! - OlderMusicGeek

Africa's Forgotten Soldiers

Seventy years after the start of the Second World War the overwhelming impression is of a conflict fought on the battlefields of Europe by white troops.

Britain’s war effort was bolstered by soldiers from the white Commonwealth – Australia, Canada and New Zealand and later by the United States.

The war in the Far East is often overlooked, as is the fighting that took place in Africa. Yet one million African troops participated in the conflict, fighting their way through the jungles of Burma, across the Libyan deserts and in the skies over London.

For Africa the war began in 1935, when Italian forces backed by Eritrean troops, invaded Ethiopia.



Ethiopian guerrilla forces, known as the Patriots, continued fighting even after Emperor Haile Selassie fled to England. After 1939 Britain began an intensive programme of recruiting soldiers from across its African colonies. Some were conscripted by force, others were only too keen to sign up.

An intensive programme of training got under way, to turn raw recruits, many of whom had never left their own village, into soldiers.

For a good number it was a real shock: the first time they had eaten processed food, the first time they had seen the ocean, the first time they had been taught to read and write. And all too soon they were transported thousands of miles from home, to fight on foreign soil.

It was years before they would come home, since home leave was almost impossible. When they did return they found little had changed, but their own experiences were entirely new and some went on to fight for their liberation of their own countries from colonial rule.

In this documentary, Martin Plaut hears first hand from the African troops who participated in the war – and who played a critical part in freeing the world from the threat of fascism.

First broadcast 13 November 2009

A link to the original website

CULTURE/SOCIETY, POLITICS and ENTERTAINMENT: Wasteland Of The Free

I guess some won't find this the most appropriate song to play on Independence Day, but what Iris said back in 1996 is still unfortunately very true 12 years later. And if we love our country, we ought to do something about making this song less true. - OlderMusicGeek



Living in the wasteland of the free...
We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
but they don't look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and if you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free
We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade written test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call THAT the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free
While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free



Here's a video that's been done recently to the song...



wastelandofthefree.com, a website inspired by the song
Iris Dement's home page

HUMOR: Humor for Lexophiles

I'm sucker for a good pun - or even bad ones! So I pass these along that Ernest T Spoon sent me. :) - OlderMusicGeek

- I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
- Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
- Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
- The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
- The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
- To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
- When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
- The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
- A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
- A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.
- Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.
- We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.
- When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
- The math professor went crazy with the blackboard. He did a number on it.
- The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.
- The dead batteries were given out free of charge.
- If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
- A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.
- A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
- A will is a dead giveaway.
- Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
- A backward poet writes inverse.
- In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.
- A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
- If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
- With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
- Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.
- When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
- The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
- A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
- You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
- Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
- He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
- A calendar's days are numbered.
- A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.
- A boiled egg is hard to beat.
- He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
- A plateau is a high form of flattery.
- Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
- When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
- If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
- When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
- Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
- Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
- Acupuncture: a jab well done.