Links

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Why Are Musicians Not the Happiest People in the World?

Another way to read the title of this post is to read it as stating that musicians should be the happiest people in the world because I do not see any good reason why they should not be. I am not a musician but I think being a musician is perhaps the happiest thing that one can be. Some of the best moments in my own life are often moments when I listen to music, especially good music. It seems to me that when God speaks to humans, God does so in music. Perhaps this is why music is central to the worship of God or in connecting with spiritual entities in many religious traditions. There are some forms of music I do not like but I have seen many others who are ecstatic about them. The dexterity with which the fingers caress the keys of the piano, the sound of the stretching of the strings of the cello or guitar, the calling of the trumpet, the piercing of the air of the tenor or the baritone - all calling for reconciled attention and moments of cheerfulness. Music can make the heart leap out of one's chest. I love reading, and I love reading carefully woven phrases or lines, but none delights as much as the stanza put into song or the stretched string of the guitar. I have hardly met people who totally do not care about music. I have met people who do not care about football, hockey or baseball but I have hardly met people who totally reject music. Music has a way of connecting people to the sublime. I would imagine that those actually making the music (the musicians) should themselves be intimately connected to the sublime. Yet, some of the crappiest people I have met or been aquuainted to are musicians, especially teachers of music! Why is this so? Why are musicians not the happiest people in the world? Because they should be!
Ladies and Gentlemen, for your edification and enchantment, I bring you "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" whose acquaintance I made through The New York Times.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Why Boris Johnson, London's Mayor, Is A Racist

Irked by President Obama's opposition to this view that Britain should quite the European Union, the current mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has borrowed a leaf off Donald Trump's book and is calling Obama names instead of arguing his case on its merits. What he said of president Obama is clearly pulled out of the racist pot brewed in America. His suggestion that President Obama may be opposing Brexit because he is "part-Kenyan" is an argument that the Republicans used to discredit Obama even when he was running for President. Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and one of the 2012 presidential candidates, is among the first to float the idea that Obama's Kenyan background may lead him to have an aversion to American imperialism. That was however a racist code for saying that Obama should not be taken seriously because he is not one of us. Today, Boris Johnson pulled a trick out of that hat. The fact that Obama has an Irish background carries no consequence for Boris Johnson; the thing to fear is his Kenyan background. Racism has a way of making people not to think straight. Such is the case of Mr. Boris John of London.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Two Years of #BringBackOurGirls: A Disappearing Act

Two years ago a disappearing and almost magical act happened in Nigeria: a group of girls was syphoned from their school - never to be seen again! Well, we see some of them in a recent CNN video. That is the closest the world has gotten them, in spite of all the big talk in the wake of this dastardly event. In a world where we proclaim the acceleration of technology, where a single individual can be targeted from the air and bombed, we have been unable to find a group of 219 girls carted away by a group of ragtag bandits. Something is not quite right with this picture.


Monday, April 4, 2016

Where Women Give Birth in Churches

It is a very significant development when churches begin to compete with hospitals as venues where women prefer to give birth. This significant development is currently happening in Nigeria where some women prefer to deliver their babies in churches with the help of traditional midwives than at hospitals which they see as a godless place. Why churches have come to be competing with hospitals is a story that is still to be properly told. What can be said, for now, is that this state of affairs need not be so. Churches are not places intended for delivery. This is what hospitals are meant for. Churches should be building hospitals if they want to help women deliver in a safe and godly way.
small town-hall meeting
Image caption Dr Linda Ayade is trying to persuade people to go to clinics to give birth (From the BBC)