Sheta's shared items in Google Reader

Maz and Joe

2010-12-14T21:24:00Z

Chiswick, London

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

The Dutch book is now available to order from Amazon, here.

Leerestademoda.com - Did you know the BOOK? English subtitles

2010-12-01T10:28:00Z

Snow Angel Sleep

2010-10-17T17:20:00Z

A brief return to the old chestnut of both assumed and unplanned sleeping positions, it's still being explored but in no particular order:

a) I fell from 30000ft without a parachute, fall broken by trees and landed in snow.

b) Collapsed statue.

c) The well and truly embalmed mummy.

d) Ophelia.

e) Cartoon rabbit falls down a cartoon rabbit hole.

f) "I've overeaten."

g) Polar bear hibernates.

h) Polar bear dozes.

There's more work to be done on this...

Death and Taxes

2011-10-04T21:01:00Z

Grottaglie, Italy

The image above was another street installation from last year's Fame Festival in Italy. This one had a miniature speaker and mp3 player hidden inside the cigarette box, playing sounds of coughing. We moved in to a busier area where Angelo (founder of Fame Festival) and I filmed reactions to the installation as people passed by. We would have liked to have shot more, but it was right before a big festival at the church (right behind where we placed the installation) and they kept ringing the church bells. And then the brass band started up. I think that is why every parent tries to shoo their child away - "Come on, get to church!"

En million sjiraffer

2010-09-20T15:26:36Z

Jeg fikk en mail fra en fyr som heter Ole i juni i fjor. Han skulle vise kompisen sin at Internett var fantastisk ved å samle inn en million sjiraffer innen 2011. Jeg lastet opp et bilde som en av de to hundre første, og blogget om det.

Her er sjiraffbildet mitt:

Nå, 440 dager etter at han startet nettsiden, er han i mål. En million sjiraffer for å bevise hvor fantastisk nettet er. Yay.

Det kommer en sjiraffbok, og det er fortsatt mulig å laste opp sjiraffen sin på nettsiden. Boka er en slags «Hvor er Willy?» med alle sjiraffene i små, små mosaikkbilder der du kan lete etter din sjiraff.

Her er sjiraff nr. 1000000

*Danser den lille Internett-hurra-dansen*

What use is your religion?

2010-09-05T15:28:57Z

Religion is always going to be a very touchy subject. Does God exist, and if so, what does He want from us? Why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? Why does He allow wicked people to prosper? Where is the justice in this corrupt world? When we die, will we burn in hell for eternity or simply cease to exist? Why do people with ‘Blood of Jesus’ stickers on their car drive so badly? Why won’t one of the versions of God come down from Heaven/Paradise/vacation and answer these questions once and for all?

Fortunately or unfortunately, religion is one of those things that is based on belief and faith, which basically means trusting what you cannot see. For a lot of people it is a dead redundant thing. Not so for one lady I read about in last week’s Sunday Vision. Hajat Aphwa Sebyala is using Islam to plant lots and lots of trees. It makes sense, because the colour of Islam is green – not the blood red with which peaceful people like her are getting painted these days. Aphwa says she believes she will be rewarded one day for looking after Allah’s earth – and I believe her. She was a great inspiration to me last Sunday, and I think that is a large part of what religion should be – inspiring people to want what you have and to be better versions of themselves.

We can sing from the rooftops all day about how holy we are and how much our respective God has chosen us to be his pets but what use is our religion or belief or choosing if it does not influence our day to day activities? If we love God so much, doesn’t it make sense that we would love what He has created and given us (including ourselves)?

Many religions and beliefs agree that a Supreme Being made us, gave us a garden to play in and has subsequently been watching to see what we do to ourselves, our neighbours and this garden. Human beings, on the other hand, have been concentrating on finding the things which separate us, rather than those which unite us. Regardless of which Big Bang or Buddha put us on the earth, there is only one earth – and we are losing it. A quote I saw last week sums it up best: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” At the rate we are going, our children will have no clean air to breathe.

I would like to applaud Aphwa (and hopefully get off my lazy butt and emulate her) for taking her love for her God and translating it into something real and inspiring. If you do not love the body you live in and the earth that sustains you, what is the point of singing about a Great Creator? Fix your environment before you move on to the specks in other people’s eyes.

Published on Sunday September 5, 2010

August 30, 2010

2010-08-30T00:00:00Z

Another day...

2010-08-25T19:14:00Z

...another UFO flies over the main western road junction near Newton village, West Lothian. When will our little grey brothers, sisters and others (?) just leave us alone to get on with the perfectly normal progress we are making in developing our mirrored lives and mind reading techniques? By the abnormal amount interest they are currently showing in us I'm beginning to think that we may be on to something. Could it be something to do with the recent French Toast formula discovery, the research into near vertical spiral paths or the prototype Flux Capacitor Mark III stored in the garage? Best not to speculate and simply carry on with the good work, at least they are just over flying us at present with their beams set to minimum scan (less of a burning sensation I find). The landing platform in the woods wont be ready for a few weeks either and there is a huge pile of ironing to be done.

When We Ride

2010-08-25T19:41:02Z

Shared by Sheta
"Potholes just roll up one night and sit in the middle of this and every other road in the city."

Potholes used to feature a lot in newspaper columns. Even by those written by my favourite columnist and Ian Clarke.

The two of them would often, when their hacks were raised, thrust their fists quivering into the air. And harrumph loudly. And belch plumes of fire into the sky. While doing all this, they would simultaneously type spirited and beautiful tirades about the state of Ugandan roads all over my newspaper.

I couldn’t relate. Potholes, schmotholes. As a member of the public transit class, such a set and confirmed and prolific taxi rider that I even had a favourite seat, I had no idea potholes were anything but picturesque deviations to the general grey of the road.

Taxi drivers are, as we all know, forged in the fires of hell. They are not humans created by God. The other guy made taxi drivers.

The dark one who created them also endowed them with certain powers, including the ability to float over, snake round, or teleport through potholes. I could sit in the back left seat with my wap-enabled mobile phone and facebook at my cool friends and the other friends, too, as the taxi vroomed and rattled along, never knowing what this whole pothole hullabaloo was about.

Then I, myself, me who you see me here, me, I got a car. Her name is Fiona, The Silver Queen of Kyali, and my love for her is real.

Now, when I drive her, I drive her in Kampala and, consequently, on Kampala’s roads, which Doctor Ian Clarke and Angie Kintu had kept warning me about and when I was all being stubborn, all acting like I already know everything I need to know about life. He who knows not and knows not he knows not. Those things.

I would say, banange. There greater potholes on the road to development than potholes, and think I was being clever.

But then you get a car you like and try to move down a Uganda road with it and you will see things other ways.

These roads are ridiculous. First of all, they are narrow as sewing thread. And there are two long streams of cars trying to use this road that is as narrow as sewing thread and these cars are moving in opposite directions.
Some of these cars are ridden by Ugandans with whatever kind of major malfunction it is that makes a person buy a gigantic four-wheel-drive vehicle and then try to squeeze it through a road little more than half a foot wide.

That same road is being shared by pedestrians because roads in Uganda don’t like to have pavements. Most of them just assume footwalkers can go (do rude things unto) themselves. Where a pavement has somehow manages to occur even against the odds set up by our cherished traditions, it’s soon filled with hawkers and traders and merchants selling underwear, hats, shoes, roasted maize, old magazines, jeans, transistor radios which make every song they broadcast sound like it’s being performed by cockroaches tapdancing on the corpses of other cockroaches and, soon, copies of my upcoming novelette, The Adventures Of Chandler And Fraisier (Yeah. I’ve started advertising. Haven’t even finished the book itself).

The pedestrians cannot walk there. They have to walk on the road. Well, they are either walking, or they are leaping out of the way of bodabodas, which are piloted by the effluvium that was left over after the dark one created his taxi drivers.

I shall also mention that there are fools who PARK their cars on the sides of these roads.

How can this possibly be made worse?

By potholes. Potholes just roll up one night and sit in the middle of this and every other road in the city.

I presume the potholes in Nairobi and Dar and Arusha and Kuala Lumpur and Little Rock and, well, other parts of the world, just show up and be. Our potholes don’t be. They do. They perpetrate actions. These things are alive.

They exhibit what my biology teacher Mrs Nakayima (Shout out!) taught me were the signs of a living thing. They eat and they grow. They feed on shock absorbers and then put on weight. They not only expand in breadth; some of them buck the trend and decide that growing wide is for losers. For them they are going to grow deep. When your wheels plunge into them you hear echoes.

Kampala potholes are dangerous and merciless and vicious. They should be deployed for national defense.

In other, unrelated news, I hate Abba so much I wish they were food products so I could shit it out of my ass. I may have to edit that sentence out of the post a bit later.

Foundations

2010-08-23T08:32:50Z

In January 1958, the New Yorker published a dispatch from Liberia:

The city [has] faded charm and color. The former American slaves who were the original settlers built Monrovia in the time-improved image of the South that they carried int heir minds. They built with a touching and preposterous affection for Greek columns, porticoes, pilasters, and decorative staircases, and a century of Liberian sun and rain has reduced their creations to splendidly theatrical shacks.

The former slaves also brought with them classism, hierarchy, and a devaluation of life. These values were the foundation of both the architecture and modern Liberian society, and these values both directly and indirectly lead to the devastating civil war in Liberia.

Most of Monrovia was destroyed during bouts of urban warfare, and buildings that were ramshackle in 1958 were gone long before 2010. But in Harper, some of them remain. The thumbprint of history is still visible, and that is part of what continues to draw me there.

I’m headed there this morning, if the rain lets up for long enough that the UNMIL plane can take off, for what is most likely my last trip to Harper for the foreseeable future. I’m going there with a bit of a heavy heart – stories like the Ducor and the residents of the King George home and this one – features from obscure places about obscure issues that feel so important to me – are especially hard to publish and fund as the media crumbles.

That may or may not change soon. But, part of my work in Harper feels like a race against the clock — I need to take these photos before the humidity and ocean air and lush jungle triumph over the few remaining foundations that can remind us where Liberia came from.

Fremmedfrykt og terror

2010-08-10T22:18:00Z

I Norge har fremmedfrykten fått råde de siste ti årene. Fremmedfrykten, som vi deler med en del andre "vestlige" land, har kommet svært tydelig frem de siste årene med oppsvingen av sympatisører av høyreekstreme grupperinger. Men det er også tydelig at man, for å forsvare krigføring i både Irak og Afghanistan, har latt media fremstille et bilde av islamister som ikke gjenspeiler virkeligheten.

I dag ble rapporten "Terrorism Situation and Trend Report" lagt frem av Europol. Denne rapporten viser at islamister på ingen måte har dominert terrorbildet i Europa de siste årene. Det er snarere tvert om. Her er det separatister, nasjonalister og rasister som står for terroren.

I Europa har det de siste fire årene vært 1890 terrorhandlinger. Av de nesten totusen terrorhandlingene står islamister bak 6 av dem. Videre forteller Europol at av terroristene i Europa utgjør islamistene 0,3 prosent. Altså er det 99,7 prosent sannsynlig at neste terrorangrep i Europa ikke er av en islamst.

Etter å ha lest utdrag av denne rapporten har jeg tatt et oppgjør med mine egne holdninger, og jeg tror endel andre bør gjøre det samme. Med utgangspunkt i disse tallene bør vi strengt talt være mer skeptisk til irer enn til muslimer. Så neste gang du er på terroristjakt; slutt å se etter en turban, se etter det røde håret.

Awkward.

2010-08-18T15:24:15Z

Hat tip: Jill

Alle vennene mine er døde

2010-08-05T18:30:21Z

Snakk om en fantastisk måte å markedsføre en bildebok på! Så enkelt, så sjarmerende, og så fint forfatterne bruker nettet for å spre boka. Jeg fant gif’en hos LordX, men boka er over alt på nett.

I Have A Theory

2010-08-11T14:02:07Z

Mrs Ruth Kavuma Nvumetta is a Ugandan member of parliament. She represents the islands of Kalangala. She was recently seen participating in the continent-wide reality TV show Big Brother Africa, prompting much distress. Big Brother Africa is known as a place for pointless social misfits to compete, if you can call it that, in idleness. [...]

Africa calling

2010-08-09T16:29:11Z

Abid dropped science with his status message recently. His FB update told us that there wre more mobile phones than toilets in sub-Saharan Africa, according to statistics he had just encountered. I’m sure his mind was blown, as was yours just now. But you do get over the initial shock and horror that come from [...]

August 18, 2010

2010-08-18T00:00:00Z

August 16, 2010

2010-08-16T00:00:00Z

August 9, 2010

2010-08-09T00:00:00Z

The Sights

2010-07-27T17:06:00Z

The Acropolis, Athens, Greece

The truth, the whole truth etc.

2010-07-15T13:34:18Z

One of the prime values of the professional news media is something called impartiality. It is held that an objective and disinterested approach to the news is the best way to prevent bias. But sometimes objectivity and impartiality just get in the way and you find that you, as a journalist, cannot tell the whole truth of a story while being impartial at the same time.

For example, here is an impartial BBC news report.

The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab has said it was behind twin blasts which hit the Ugandan capital Kampala on Sunday, killing 74 people.

In a statement in Mogadishu, spokesman for the group Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage threatened more attacks.

Police said the bombings targeted football fans watching the World Cup final.

You see how much is lacking from this report? If only the writers had been allowed to tell the whole, uncensored truth, then it would have been more accurate. As follows.

A spokesman for Al-Shabab, a bunch of cowardly scumbags who, by attacking the defenseless and the innocent, mock the profession of soldiering and blaspheme the name of the God they purport to serve, has opened his obscene maw and shamelessly uttered a confession, admitting that they were behind twin blasts which hit the Ugandan capital Kampala on Sunday, senselessly murdering 74 or our brothers and sisters.

The statement was delivered from the safety of faraway Mogadishu, by a spineless hyena named Ali Mohamud Rage. We shall not demean the honourable title of “sheikh” by placing it in front of the name of such a disgusting rogue.

Police said the bombings targeted football fans watching the World Cup final.