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

Song for a lady

Song for a lady

 

Let me go now and write a song for a lady

I write, mind you well

That her kiss

Warm, frisky, moist-mouthed,

Eager, timid and indeed sweet, driven by love’s thirst

 

Far from love

Far from love in the quickest, a blink of an eye

 

But close to love

Close to love, close like my own skin

 

Let me go now and then and write a song for a lady

I write we danced to love songs

We smiled in youth having fun I write

 

Together happy as in ever after

In this moment I dream and do not believe

That I have heard the singing of her heart on my chest in tune beat per beat it never went silent

 

 I write a song for a lady borrowing many imagined expressions, such as, love; love like it will never end

Or maybe I should use: everything with a start has an end, I write a song for a lady

 

SLUMS OF KAMPALA, UGANDA

Slums of Kampala, Uganda

 

Think how you may about these slums, their streets frightening, ghettos pocked by sudden violent spaces, with a smell of hell amidst a bright day.

 

How come, I ask myself…how may it be that I do not remember myself here; I do now…. as a child, walking barefoot perhaps on broken shards of glass, going on open latrines hoes, sewage in the front yard; the way of flies at a festival

 

It is how it is here in Natete, Nakulabye, Bwaise, Kawempe, Kamokya, Kasubi, Kawala, Kikoni, Kibuye, Kansanga, Namuwongo, Kinawataka,

 

Perhaps since my being lacked fullness here; I had to forge a different direction; beyond my birth borders and the evening sun above these ghettos….

 

 

I must have gone far away from here, I must have grown up in the land of concrete spaces; skyscrapers made of diamond and washrooms made of marble, beautiful lawns, properly lit streets and people with smiles as white as snow. But I still remember myself in these slums…as if this morning I remember my mother here, I remember my first steps here!