four simple structures of a functional democracy needed in Uganda

Structure one; Democracy needs citizens:

Structure one is the most important in all democracies. Democracies needs citizens. Citizens do not need democracies. Citizens are the most important people; they are the costumers paying all the dues of who they elect to lead them. They would want the best for their shillings. Citizens accept that their loyalty is to the processes their share must override the loyalty to their own political side. (Kenya) Kenyans leadership understands the idea of “loyal opposition.”  Kenyans have grown to accept the legitimacy of a government run by their opponents, assured that they will have their turn when the time comes.

Citizens should not use political space to destroy the ability of their opponents to operate in peaceful electoral systems. They must accept the lawfulness of dissension, even enthusiastic protests. They must rule out the use of force at all cost for political gains. A country without common citizens is poised on the edge of break up or civil war.

Structure two: democracy needs guardians;

Guardians hold positions of political appointments, (like Judges) Bureaucratic   (ministries,MPs,RDCs, chairpersons, etc) law and order (internal affairs, police) and military power.  What makes them guardians is that they must always be the one to check and keep in check all the aspects of Checks and Balances, and guard the moral law in accordance with objective rules or in favor of the commonweal. Queen Elizbeth is a great example of this. The motive of the guardians should not be to seek power. Although powerful is the appointments. Power follows wealth and Power and wealth are conjoined. Guardians should vet those seeking power to avoid those who just intend on shooting and looting the political systems. Those that come in power by looting and shooting will always loot and shoot; this is no basis for democratic legitimacy and will never be. It is only similar to vote rigging.

Structure three: democracy needs an economy

Okay,

So in Uganda I have noticed that they is a lot of mere talking about turning the country into middle class. Well, if by middle class we mean the abuse of power of the country to turn public into private wealth, as it has happened in so many corners of our countries; so much of this generation builds its wealth on theft are just as illegitimate as the Lords who allow them. A chairman collects a fee for a letter of reference, large percentage on phony land deals etc, and RDC is even worse! ANYWAYS!

          A proper function market, supported by a long plan back boned well function state provides an easier space to do business.  Kenyans are building a market for their citizenship. They wakeup and work. They are not just talking about becoming middle classing! They working to become middle class, they act middle class! They provide service like they are middle class not some luck bush/village boy who got appointment to a big government job and all the powers of tribalism that maybe be. Stable state supported markets are created when prosperity and power meet. This makes it possible for citizens to regard the outcomes of elections as important, but not as matter of life and death. When prosperity and power meet it lowers the temperature of politics from the burning to the bearable.

All democracies need accepted laws,

Laws shape the rules of every society for the systems of democracy to be effective. The law must be enacted and implemented in accordance with accepted procedures. This makes up the political, social and economic face of a nation. The country the lacks the rule of law is on a verge of chaos, tyranny- the unhappy fate of Uganda’s history. Democracy then is about much more than voting and voting rigging. “it is a complex web of rights, obligations, powers, and constraints” Those that win election should never just do as the wish. They should do what’s best for all of the people of the country for those who voted for and against them. Anything short of that is not democracy and it might just be elected dictatorship!

In Uganda, there will be no easy path to complete democracy

In Uganda, there will be no easy path to complete democracy....and democracy as we have come to know it the 21 century is dead.

The answer to the question of if Uganda will ever become a stable liberal democracy is yes. Will this happen under the currently (NRM) regime. The answer to that question. We do not know! We do know that other countries have overcome “elected dictatorships” and reached a destination of complete democracy. We also know as much, that universal suffrage democracy is a faint plant, in its early years like ours here in Uganda. We have many examples to look at, democracies like that of Egypt, Thailand, Ukraine, Kenya, Tanzania or even Russia to underline that truth, because democracy in crucial respects is an unnatural game.

In history of grown-ups, the governed must be provided with their alienable    rights to hold accountable their democratically elected governments. This is what is happening in Uganda, Liberia, Zimbambwe and South Africa. This is the only suitable form of ligament government because all other forms of government treat its citizens like little children. In the past, during colonial times, and the reason why the colonists had such success in ruling Africa was that they turned people against themselves, and created a space where traditional understandings where seen as illiterate. Such paternalism could have been okay, but it can longer be true.

As Ugandans have become more informed and a government that treats them in a “colonial military” way is eventually seen as less acceptable. I expect (or pray) that this seen among those voted to lead the country.

          They are a few underpinnings of a stable and successful democracy. A democracy that requires a double set of limits; among the people (The ruling parties) and between the people (the opposition) and the country (the three branches of government).  These limits can be summed up in four simple structures, which are all important.

Government offices are not sanctified places and those that hold them should know

Happy New Year…

I must begin the new year by acknowledging the fact, in some respects, I am becoming increasingly fond of the wild opposition movements going on in different African countries, their red colour campaigns, their new phases like the “Togikwatako” in Uganda and their raucous plead for ending life-presidencies and strong rulers like ours. 
In a very straightforward and uncomplicated manner, I feel that these opposition leaders are probably the only truly religious people in our country. Whether consciously or unconsciously, they are protesting blasphemy and among them a Messiah will come ..

This may come to some as a surprise; to those who are close to me, those who know me as a very devout man. As devout as an altar boy.  Uganda has too many fake Prophets , too many wolves in sheep clothing. Mere men wanting to be called prophets. Leaders unquestioned ....self proclaimed.. .only next to God.

Personally I accept literally the concept of the virgin birth, the trinity and the resurrection. To me, these things happened and at a communion service I am literally drinking the blood and eating the body of Jesus Christ. 

I am merely bored with the earnest, emancipated, pedestrian minds who explain to me with such a fervor that these concepts are superstitious hangovers from spring fertility rites, Babylonian mythology, and Greek philosophy, which spoke truths that have not been so well stated in over 2,000 years and more so in these last few decades

          
All of this is totally irrelevant somehow to human life.

The basic point of my unquestioning faith begins and ends at the communion rail. THEREORE, on all other matters of society, I reserve the right of skeptical judgement. And I believe that the only real blasphemy…the deadliest of sins…is the deification of mortals and sanctification of human institutions.

All of us human being especially those trusted with public discourse are guilty of this and retribution is certain.

How many of us have stood by without protest through meetings where glorified nonentities expound profound platitudes in the awkward, ungainly language of modern liturgy the “ creative” nonthought and the innovative no proposal?

These obscenities have become the condition of life in the modern Africa/Uganda… in business, in labor, in liberal and conservative organizations, in publishing, in education, and even in our religious groupings.

But when these obscenities reach our governments where decision made are life and death for hundreds of millions of people, they reach the ULTIMATE of intolerable. Under such circumstances the Four Horseman ride not as a dreaded force but as a welcome relief.

Today, looking around with what’s going on politically in Uganda/ Africa. Some of us especially those in areas of influence should stand their ground and scream some four letter words to a few men that are trying to bring the rest of our countries/continent down to hell with them. 

Really, nothing else today is more adequate as a protest to the large constitutional injustices of the reversing of the rule of law and of abusing the powers granted to one by a constitution.

We are restrained not out of fear but out of our carefully cultivated reverence for institutions which were holy only in the sense that all men and women are children of GOD, which is for sure quite a different thing from deification.

Today’s leaders in government, of course are tragically wrong because they would destroy not only obscenity but the tradition of civility, which is probably the closest to excellence of any product of human civilization. But their rage and invective are wholly understandable. It fits far too much in the world which they live in verses the world we live in.

I am a trained professional teacher, and I do not like four letter words and normally have reserved them for moments of great stress when they are essential to preserve sanity. But they describe the current situation of entitled leaders in Africa/Uganda. From the president to the lowest of elected members of government.

Things that are truly holy cannot be splattered no matter what is thrown at them. And that which can be befouled deserves its fate.

Somehow, in order for there to be perfect harmony in Uganda/Africa. Things have to be made human again. Somehow, we must learn to govern ourselves from an office that is secular and not from a court that is sanctified. Government offices are not sanctified places and those that hold them should know. There is no holiness to the position and power vested in them. We must govern all government business from a secular place. Not from a court that is sanctified. If our destruction comes, it will be because we placed our faith, our unquestioning faith in institutions that are only brick and wood and in men or women who are flesh only and blood and this seems to be the condition of the first half of this century here in Uganda.  

Boyhood Journal

I'm here; recalling my boyhood. Back when the years of phallic obessions began.
Perhaps i was unlucky or not bold enough but it had more to do with the place and the time, the Slums of Kasubi in Kampala Uganda is where i grew up.
...

Here girls had unwritten code that a good Ugandan girl did not give her self to boys and that she had a reputation to keep ....
Back then we learned everything about sex from what other little boys told you to do.. Things like, "you just put it in jere." in what?
The line was drawn by the girls; if one of the girls agreed to play with her ...there was no touching beneath the clothes, there was no kissing with the tougues touching. ...all these things were just told to you as you engaged in adolescent games with the opposite sex... You didnt know what you wanted. ..or how to ask for it...
Notably; the least dengerous form of this type of play was petting, that was when a girl let you place your boy hand on her breast, while she's was fully dressed and with her bra lock in covered by two or three layers of clothing, a blouse, a bra, a sweater and woe to the boy that could breakthrough all that and get to the hidden treasure. .....
I must have been 16 years or even 17 the first time I saw a girl's breasts that wasn't related to me...on that fateful day; i recall asking myself if i was blind and now i see... And if heaven was on earth and on Tiffany's chest!
Part 1 the End. ..

Star day

You are here

Neutron Stars

StarDate: 

February 20, 2017

Orion, perhaps the most beautiful of all constellations, stands high in the south as night falls. It’s outlined by a rectangle of four bright stars, with a short diagonal line of three stars at its middle.

Within a few million years, though, all seven of those stars will disappear. Each star will explode, leaving behind a corpse that’s one of the most extreme objects in the universe: a neutron star.

A neutron star forms when a massive star can no longer produce energy in its core. Without radiation to counteract the pull of gravity, the core collapses to the size of a city, even though it’s a couple of times as massive as the Sun. Under that crushing gravitational grip, electrons and protons smash together to form a sea of neutrons, which give these odd stars their names.

The layers of gas around the core fall inward, then rebound, creating a titanic blast known as a supernova.

As the neutron star collapses, it spins much faster, like an ice skater pulling in her arms — up to hundreds of revolutions every second. As it spins, it emits a beam of energy into space. If we happen to line up along that beam, we see the star pulse on and off like a celestial lighthouse, making it a pulsar.

A neutron star may have a crust made of solid iron. But astronomers are still trying to model how neutron stars are put together and how matter deep inside their hearts behaves. A new space telescope will help with that effort. More about that tomorrow.

 

Script by Damond Benningfield

Star day

If you keep intending to learn a few stars and their constellations but never seem to have the time, tonight offers an easy way to check a few off the list. Several prominent stars will surround the Moon, making it easy to find the stars and their home constellations.

As twilight fades, look for two bright stars to the left of the Moon: Pollux and Castor, the twins of Gemini. Pollux is a stellar giant that’s nearing the end of its life, while Castor is a system of at least six stars.

Next, look about the same distance to the right of the Moon for bright orange Betelgeuse, which marks the shoulder of Orion. Betelgeuse is heavier than the Sun, hundreds of times wider, and tens of thousands of times brighter. Before long the star will explode, briefly shining brighter than all the other stars in the galaxy combined.

The same fate awaits most of the other bright stars of Orion, which stretch to the lower right of Betelgeuse. Three stars form a compact line known as Orion’s Belt. Rigel, Orion’s brightest star, is on the opposite side of the belt from Betelgeuse.

Canis Minor, the little dog, stands below the Moon, marked by its single bright star, Procyon. And the brightest star in all the night sky stands to the lower right of Procyon: Sirius, the leading light of Canis Major, the big dog.

That gives you four constellations in a single glance, perhaps jump-starting those plans to learn more of the geography of the night sky.

Script by Damond Benningfield

 

Star day

You are here

Moon in the Middle

StarDate: 

February 7, 2017

If you keep intending to learn a few stars and their constellations but never seem to have the time, tonight offers an easy way to check a few off the list. Several prominent stars will surround the Moon, making it easy to find the stars and their home constellations.

As twilight fades, look for two bright stars to the left of the Moon: Pollux and Castor, the twins of Gemini. Pollux is a stellar giant that’s nearing the end of its life, while Castor is a system of at least six stars.

Next, look about the same distance to the right of the Moon for bright orange Betelgeuse, which marks the shoulder of Orion. Betelgeuse is heavier than the Sun, hundreds of times wider, and tens of thousands of times brighter. Before long the star will explode, briefly shining brighter than all the other stars in the galaxy combined.

The same fate awaits most of the other bright stars of Orion, which stretch to the lower right of Betelgeuse. Three stars form a compact line known as Orion’s Belt. Rigel, Orion’s brightest star, is on the opposite side of the belt from Betelgeuse.

Canis Minor, the little dog, stands below the Moon, marked by its single bright star, Procyon. And the brightest star in all the night sky stands to the lower right of Procyon: Sirius, the leading light of Canis Major, the big dog.

That gives you four constellations in a single glance, perhaps jump-starting those plans to learn more of the geography of the night sky.

 

Script by Damond Benningfield