The English Premier League, the most watched football league in the world, came to a dramatic end last weekend. With that comes, for some like me, the most dormant four months of the year and so got me wondering about what one does during the European off-season.

In my opinion, this is the perfect time to create more attention to the local league which is still ongoing. Apart from the local derby i.e. Gor Mahia vs AFC Leopards not much attention, on a larger scale, is given to our local league. More so due to the competition in audience brought about by the European leagues. Most people have the mindset that the local league is not as exciting as the European leagues and so this would be a perfect time to create more audience for the local league. I think most of the focus should be taken away from the big local teams and set on the other teams to kind of create a local following. The different teams are based in different communities and it would be good to create a show that profiles each team in the context of the communities they represent and what their influence is.

Now that my Saturdays are not spent waiting for the game at 2pm I have a whole weekend afternoon to spare. I don’t think I am alone in this predicament and believe there is a whole audience out there that would be drawn to football related content. I spend quite a sum of time checking football rumors online so why not have a show that profiles local players and talks about the transfer madness that is set to hit the footballing world come June. Who knows we could attract a few scouts from European teams.

It is not all gloom and doom though with the Confederations cup coming up soon and a few international friendlies here and there.

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Have you heard of David Karp? No. You should. David Karp is the founder of Tumblr and recently made headlines due to the billion dollar deal between Yahoo and Tumblr that is set to earn him a windfall of about 250 million dollars. Despite all this one of the most interesting things from his story is that he dropped out of high school at the age of 14. Yes, 14. More interesting to this was that it was at his mother’s suggestion.

A lot has been said about college drop outs and the headlines being made by them in the tech industry from the late Steve Jobs, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Question is whether this is really a viable option in an African context. Having grown up in a society that places the highest value on education – i.e. university degrees- do we lose out on the entrepreneurial potential that is there, especially in our youth, by having them finish through a university or even high school education?

The new Government has set it in its manifesto to get laptops to class 1 pupils but a lot of questions have been raised about the move. Despite it being a grand idea to have our young exposed at an early stage to technology, the question is raised if we have set the context and environment for such a generation to be brought up in. As we give them the exposure to the technology we should also set in place an environment so that this technology may be relevant and maybe then will we have a society that accepts dropouts who set out to pursue their passion outside the education system.

Read David’s story here.

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We have all watched movies and television series such as CSI that are made to associate with a certain country or region. According to a paper by Nikolaos Vagionis and Maria Loumioti (Movies as a tool of modern tourist marketing), the image we construct for a country is often the sentimental image that has been created in our minds from narrations of other persons, from books and, to a large extent, from watching films that have been shot in the country or region. Film tourism has been termed as the tourism that is generated as a result of the appearance of a destination or attraction in the cinema, video or television (Hudson and Ritchie 2006).

It has been suggested that people often choose their tourist destinations depending on what they have seen at popular audio visual means like television and cinema. Butler (1990) suggests that as lately people read less, anything appearing in films and in television penetrates easier into society.

With the onset of the county governments and the need for such to market themselves is the use of county based content a viable solution. This could be used both as a source of local content and a means of marketing so as to attract tourists or gain investment as each county contains their own beauties and attractions.

Issue would be that this would promote a stereotype view of certain regions or people and this might be seen as a negative to the use of such content but it all depends on what side of the coin such content is viewed. It is true that certain regions and people may be associated with certain aspects but this could be seen as a positive and be used to promote the cultures of those regions.

At a meeting to discuss the impact of using ICT, art, culture and sport organized by Tunaweza, the question was passed to the audience as to why we have never exploited having the cradle of mankind in Turkana as a tourist attraction. Is it the work of the county government to promote such existing attractions and gain revenue from it and would county based content be the solution?

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I ran into some articles when skimming through Linkedin and was amazed by how much there was to be gained by recent graduates in terms of wisdom. Having several of my friends who had recently finished campus I thought I would share some of what I picked and hope you take the opportunity to read the articles.

Live your life as you would want it to be read in your eulogy. In the article by Geoff Yang, a partner at Redpoint Ventures, he asks graduates to embark in life considering what they want it to be like and what they hope to accomplish. He asks them to write their eulogy thinking of how they want to be remembered by family and friends and use it to shape their life. It may seem like a drastic planning way but if the shoe fits why not wear it.

Find something you are passionate about.  In his article, Richard Branson says that the best advice he could give to any graduate is to spend their time working on whatever they are passionate about in life. Geoff Yang advises them to do something they would do even if they didn’t get paid to do it. If you don’t then life will just be a chore. Ilya Pozin, founder of Ciplex, goes to the extent of telling graduates that your degree means nothing.

Gain some experience. Ilya advocates for an end to the “silver spoon complex” where graduates believe simply gaining a degree is a golden ticket to gaining a job. His advice to graduates is to take some time to do some freelance work and gain some experience. Branson advices graduates to travel and take on new experiences so as to drawn upon those when making future decisions that will shape their future.

Don’t rush and be one dimensional. In the words of Geoff Yang, “There’s a fine line between chasing your dreams and not being willing to lay a long-term foundation for success”.

For more advice check out the links below

Write Your Eulogy, Then Live the Life You Want by Geoff Yang

You’ll Never Again Be so Unburdened; Do Something Bold by Richard Branson

The power of pause by Maria Shriver

Four Things You Must Unlearn Immediately by Daniel Shapero

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In cognizance of the dual sim phone market we have decided to do a series on the dual sim phones available in the Kenyan market. Our first focus will be Samsung dual sim phones.

Samsung Dual Sim Phones

1. Samsung Nari E2232 – Kshs. 3,400

The Nari E2232 is an entry level dual sim feature phone. It is the cheapest dual sim phone Samsung have in the Kenyan market. It has an internal memory of 20MB and a microSD slot that handle SD cards of up to 8GB. It comes with a VGA Camera (640×480 pixels), a 1.77 inch screen (128 x 160 pixels) and it has FM radio. It uses GPRS to connect to the internet.

It is quite light at 79grams and it has impressive battery life of up to 11 hours (talk time). It’s not much to look at but it’s an awesome phone for its price range.

2. Samsung Champ Deluxe C3312 – Kshs. 6,000

The Champ Deluxe C3312 is a feature phone. It has an internal memory of 30MB that’s expandable to up to 16GB via MicroSD. It has a 1.3 Megapixel camera (1280 x 1024), 2.8 inch touchscreen (240 x 320 pixels) and FM radio. It uses EDGE and GPRS to connect to the internet.

It weighs 100grams and its battery has a talk time of 14 hours.

3. Samsung Galaxy Pocket Plus – Kshs. 10,000

The Galaxy Pocket Plus is an android smartphone that runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Pocket Plus is The an upgrade of the Galaxy Pocket. It has a 2.8-inch touchscreen (240 x 320 pixels), a 2 megapixel camera and 3G connectivity. It comes with a 850MHz processor, 4GB internal storage and 512MB RAM.

It weighs 97.2grams and its battery has a talk time of 5.6 hours.

4. Samsung Galaxy Music Duos – Kshs 14,000

The Galaxy Music Duos is an android smartphone and it comes with android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. It has a 3-inch touchscreen (240 x 320 pixels), 3.15 Megapixel camera (2048×1536 pixels) and 3G connectivity. It comes with a 850MHz processor, 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage.

It weighs 106.9 grams. Its battery has a talk time of 15 hours on 2G and 6 hours on 3G.

5. Samsung Galaxy Grand – Kshs 31,000

The Galaxy Grand is a high-end dual sim android smartphone that runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. It has a 5.0 inch WVGA screen (480 x 800 pixels), 8 Megapixel back camera (3264×2448 pixels), 2 Megapixel front camera and 3G connectivity. It has a Dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage.

It weighs 162 grams. Its battery has a talk time of 10 hours.

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All news outlets and social media sites have been ripe with the same headlines for days. Dog pornography, protests over MPs salary. Some of us have made light of the situation and even cracked jokes about it. But this seems to highlight our acceptance of the rise in moral depravity in our society.

If you watch news keenly, read newspapers and listen to conversations around you, there is always something scandalous going on. Maybe it’s a child that’s been raped, or a story of prostitution and drugs. Such issues make up a large part of our news. What shocks me is our reaction to it.

When you hear such a story, your first reaction is outrage. You wonder how such a thing is possible then you feel sad that it happened. After a while, you seem ok with it. After all it’s nothing new and tomorrow there will be something new to talk about.

Such stories make us lay blame on the victims. It is their fault. They choose to go down that need. We publicly denounce them and make it known that we have what they did. Very few of us go that extra step to question why that happened.

For the longest time we have sat silent as more rape stories have been aired. We are comfortable with the status quo of our politicians being greedy and earning too much. When one person speaks up about the situation we shy away from them. It is their fight, we want nothing to change. Our sense of right and wrong is so warped that we find it more of an issue to protest actions by politicians rather than oppose their wrong doing. We laugh when a woman is stripped for wearing a short skirt. We oppose adverts advising women to use condoms rather than encourage it to keep them safe. We enjoyed the mpango wa kando ads and missed out on the message. Moral depravity is on the rise but we seem content with how things are.

Asking questions about what we consider to be immoral is rare. We like the comfort zone and do not want to stray from it. Our routine of outrage, sadness/pity then acceptance is what we know and practice. We have condoned so much for so long that we seem to e spiraling out of control. Things are getting worse as we become a sick and demented society of evil doers

I don’t know about you but I think we have no one to blame but ourselves for the moral depravity. If we spoke up against it and sought the root problem, maybe we could fix it. I am not the most moral person in life but I think we need to have a voice of reason and question all these things and keep them in check before it’s too late.

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To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men – Abraham Lincoln.

Protests are used to express objections, by words or actions to events, policies and situations. To some, protesting is seen as a form of art and can take many forms. Protest art itself is a broad term that refers to creative works that concern or are produced by activists and social movements. Like all forms of art, everyone has their interpretations to what it may mean or see it as a waste of canvas.

Various reactions have been observed about the “occupy parliament” protest held on the 14^th of May by activists in Nairobi. The protest was held to draw attention to the attempts by Members of Parliament to raise their salary and their attempts to arm twist the Salaries and Remunerations Commission into doing so. Most of the attention however has shifted from the reasons for the protest to the use of pigs as a representation of the MPs.

The term MPigs used by the activists and some Kenyans is drawn from the animal farm, as told by Boniface Mwangi, and is used as a symbolic term to associate the Members of Parliament with the nature of pigs. To some, especially the MPs it is seen as offensive whereas the activists think it’s a reflection of their characteristics.

Being that the protest was legal, as by law, the protestors were charged in court for animal cruelty and the use of the pigs also raised an outcry from some section of animal activists despite it being said that no pigs were hurt during the protest.

The question is raised then on where to draw the line in the use of symbolism in protests. Previously, protestors have used effigies for example as a symbolic representation to various persons but rarely do one come across the use of live animals. Would it have raised any difference if the protestors had used effigies to represent the Members of Parliament or have is been used to drive attention away from what the protest represented.

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It’s the beginning of a new semester in some public universities around the country. New and continuing students stream in large numbers to either begin another step (maybe the last of their 8.4.4) while others are almost getting done. Some in their third or fourth years in campus. Hustling here and there while balancing it with the widely spaced lectures. In a nutshell, school is officially in session for these universities. However, new students just amaze!

Most new girls think campus is all about the dress code. The skimpier the better. Some believe they are being ushered into a model agency where they will be expected to strut on the runway. Girls are weighed down by large handbags (Studies should be conducted on their psychological importance and what motivates girls to have them anyway). The latest Android handset here with long earphones plugged to the ears. Welcome to the university pretty one. Oh, and I forget, the outsized earrings that accentuate the equally sized ‘African’ bangles that boisterously jingle into lecture halls after class has commenced. The incessant tip-tap-tock of the their high-heeled shoes that are supposed to create a ‘wow’ effect [read distraction] as a lecturer explains that complex theory that he/she luckily forewarns you will come in the next CAT. Fellow classmates are meant to lift their heads as the freshly ‘minted’ beauty catwalks momentarily to a seat behind. Mother of Jesus; this is not a goddamn modeling agency of some sort. Class time is class time. That is unquestionable. If one harbors the talent aforementioned, right channels are there. Notice boards do the talking, don’t they?

That’s girls. But boys I think are the worst. Our side of the divide. They think as American icon Nas raps in the song ‘I Can’ “… life’s all about smokin weed and ice.” Yes, there is the species that comes to school with the misinformed perception, nay, warped belief, that campus is all substance abuse – hooch every weekend- rolling joints and giving yourself lung cancer to fit in. No. I am no moralist or a church hireling sent in the midst of new students to bring their still ‘normal state of disorder’ to a certain normalcy but some popular beliefs are not funny at all. Sex is another gigantic distress that afflicts boys in their entire years in campus. Ask my boy Mesh. Some of your gang members pressurize you to ‘leave a mark.’ And that convoluted argument that it ‘must happen’ between you and any random chic is again a misstep that troubles many a night of some new students. God help us ALL.

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Eleven young women and a Swiss national were last week arrested on suspicion of shooting pornographic video content with a dog In Mombasa. When the story broke, we were accosted with images of the young ladies and the foreigner involved. Our diligent journalists apparently spent over seven hours waiting for the court to make its ruling. In the end”however, the prosecution asked for more time to investigate the matter.

The women have become overnight celebrities with their names being printed in newspapers, mentioned on TV and posted online on websites and social media. The conversations about it have largely revolved around the immorality of the alleged pornographic act, especially because it involved an animal. A majority of the comments frowned upon the said escapade with a call for a crackdown on brothels and prostitution rings and an introspection of the moral decay of our society.

This is not the first time a shocking story from the Coast has made headlines but this particular one has caused more ripples. A couple of months back, one of the local TV stations ran a story of women at the Coast that prostitute themselves in a forest. The women claimed that poverty drove them to sell their bodies for as little as fifty shillings and transact this business under trees and in bushes.

I do not condone prostitution or pornography and I do support the shutting down of establishments that promote such activities. However, I think the society should begin to focus more on helping rehabilitate and empower the women and nowadays, men involved in these activities. It takes a certain level of desperation to engage in pornographic acts with a dog for a few thousand shillings. The level of poverty and/or warped thinking that pushes young women to such acts of desperation is what should be addressed rather than launching moral tirades. At the end of the day, even if all brothels were to be shut down, those who still want to engage in prostitution would still find ways to do so. Necessity is after all the mother of all invention.

As we comment and make fun of these young women and the predicament they have found themselves in, let’s also think about the root causes of some of these vices and figure out practical solutions to them. Otherwise, these sort of things will continue happening. Who is to say that this is the first dog pornographic video to be shot in Kenya?

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This week we are focusing on some classic rock songs. I don’t know much about rock so I enlisted the help of Mwende Ngao. Enjoy and do have a lovely weekend.

Bon Jovi – Livin’ On A Prayer

Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine

Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock

The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

Led Zeppelin-Stairway to Heaven

Queen – ‘Another One Bites The Dust’

Blondie – One Way Or Another

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