When Man Goes Into Self Destruct Mode

By all accounts, Anthony Weiner, a former member of the United States House of representatives from New York City, was a brilliant politician who had everything going for him. However, he careered off the track because of his amazing ability to ‘self-destruct’. You see, Weiner had a thing for sexting. His first scandal began when as a Congressman, he tweeted a link that contained a sexually suggestive picture of himself to a 21-year-old woman – a habit that went on for a number of years until 2016 when he pled guilty to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor.

 

Antony Weiner Self Destructed His Political Career

Others with the gift to self-destruct include golfer Tiger Woods, former President, Bill Clinton and the artiste R. Kelly for example. Now the question begs - do you think Wiener, Woods, Clinton and Kelly woke up some morning and decided to destroy everything they worked for in their lives? Probably not. So what would drive accomplished men to do something so self-destructive?

 

Tiger Woods Had It All Until He Hit the Self Destruct Button

The answer has to do with how the brain works. Our brain likes to operate on autopilot as much as possible because it takes energy to focus on important tasks. And the brain likes to conserve its energy for those actions that require focused attention such as learning or other important tasks. That means we only have so much energy to focus on several things at once. Everything else that is already learned is being controlled in the background.

Self-Destruct Case One 

Closer to home, Odongo so I am told, is brilliant at what he does as a Gulu based accountant – except as you have already guessed, he self-destructed. The last time he did it - which I might add, saw him sent off the coolers for three years, was after picking up sh38m or so from Supplier to bank on the company account – something he didn’t do. Instead, he banked it on his personal account. When asked why he did it, his answer sneered: “The bank was about to close and I would not have made it in time to the bank where the company held its account. My bank was closer.” Odongo further continued to hit the self-destruct button when it emerged that the company bank, was just across the street from his bank plus, he didn’t credit the company account the following day when there was enough time. Rather, he feebly only tried to do so 14 months later when he heard a snap audit was being carried out in which he was rumbled.   

 

Self Destruct One

Self-Destruct Two

When Fred asked Tight to pick up his car from the bond and have it registered, Tight duly obliged. Two days later Fred flew out for a year of studies in Scotland. When he returned, the car was in his garage where it had been parked for a year. A couple of days later and on his first outing into town in the ride, around The Village Mall in Bugolobi, a Premio pulls up behind him starts flashing lights with the occupants all over themselves pointing that he should pull over. He did so but took the precaution of driving to the police post lest they were thieves. They were not thieves. Instead one of them was the real owner of the car for while he was away, Tight had given in the log book as collateral on a loan which he had not serviced.

 

Self Destruct Two 

Self-Destruct Case Three

When Manesh who had blatantly cut work was called into the office by Female Boss and asked where he had been, all he had to do was say “at the sites solving problems”. Instead he told her: “I was in town.” Frowning she asked: “In town doing what” to which he duly hit the self-destruct button in the most spectacular way. He said: “Nothing.” Is there any need to guess what she spewed out of her mouth at him?

Self Destruct Three

Can Somebody Tell Former MP Emmanuel Ddombo To Stop Winging?

Can somebody please tell former Bunyole East MP, Emmanuel Ddombo to quit whining after the stark and bleak headline in New Vision (Monday 29^th October), that would have been hard for anybody to miss – especially if you are current or a former Member of Parliament. It read: “Former MPs living miserable lives.”

 

Simply Seeking Attention? - Emmanuel Ddombo 

But surely, that can’t ring true because a study exposed that Ugandan parliamentarians are the second highest-paid in the East Africa after Kenya. Kenyan legislators earn $13,740 each month, which amounts to about one-and-a-half times the monthly salary of a Ugandan MP. Our honourables’ as they so often like to remind us of their title, earn a basic taxable salary of sh11.18m, but they also take home a raft of untaxed allowances, which elevates their total pay package above the sh20m-mark - a figure that many would deem good pay for a honest months work.

But the LG (life is good) factor for most MPs concludes the moment they lose the elections in that they end up living miserable lives outside parliament. At Imperial Royale hotel a few weeks ago, Ddombo literally wailed: “Do we become useless because we have lost an election? Can’t Government recognise former leaders such as MPs?”

Hmm and that’s what irks about MPs. An entire term is spent in parliament wanting to be recognised at nursery school openings, baptisms, borehole commissioning, weddings and graduation parties. And still, they want to be recognised once they no longer have the MP title and have been reduced to being the mere plebes that they have always been because before they went to parliament, they were ‘ordinary people, especially ones from the lower social classes’.

Former Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi, also joined the recognition deliberation when he said: “We still have energy to contribute towards the development of this country and we should be recognised.” But why should government or any of us recognise them?

Former Prime Minister Amama 

Let’s see what happens abroad – in the UK for example when an MP loses their seat. In the House of Commons, MPs don’t spend their time drifting the corridors looking for respect. They do more than that, in that they use their stint as an MP as a stepping stone to financial security after parliament.

Mr Ddombo, marvel at Ruth Kelly, a former Transport Secretary. Ruth didn’t go howling all over London’s bus tops looking for recognition. Instead, she used her MP links to land herself a senior fat paying job with HSBC, Britain's biggest bank within its strategy unit.

Mr Ddombo, there is also Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary who once launched an unsuccessful coup to topple Gordon Brown. When she left parliament, British Telecom appointed her a senior independent director on a six figure sum and has been on the company's board since March 2008. There is also John Reid, the former Home Secretary, who went on to become chairman of Celtic Football Club on £34,066 a year.

 

Patricia Hewitt Rakes In A Six Figure Sum 

Others Mr Ddombolo, use their Westminster contacts to begin careers in the lobbying industry. Andrew MacKay, the former Tory MP for Bracknell has a senior role at Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's biggest PR firms, which boasts HSBC and Danone among its clients and he rakes in excess of £350,000 a year.

So Mr Ddombolo, in all the years that you spent in parliament, what on earth were you doing? Did you think you were going to be there for life and thus didn’t need to plan for life after it? Another thing Mr Ddombolo, how is government supposed to recognize you as a former MP when you spend your ‘miserable life’ whining at every taxi stage that government is not recognizing you as a former MP.  Why should they? Dude get a grip, MAN UP and take a leaf from your UK colleagues. Do you see where I’m coming from? 

PICTURES: kampalapost.com, the guardian.com

God Told Patience M7 Blatant Economic Fibs......

There is, a very good chance that in a million years I would have never heard of John Piper - founder of desiringGod.org, if I had not done research for this Sunday tirade. Piper wrote: “Early Monday morning, March 19, 2007, a little after six o’clock, God actually spoke to me. There is no doubt that it was God. I heard the words in my head just as clearly as when a memory of a conversation passes across your consciousness. The words were in English, and had an absolutely self-authenticating ring of truth.”

John Piper  - Founder Of desiringGod.org

On the other hand, Mother Teresa so claims Fr. Vazhakala, who co-founded the contemplative branch of the Missionaries of Charity says she (Mother Teresa) kept notes of her conversations with Jesus and adds he has a document handwritten by her where she discusses what Jesus told during a period lasting from Sept. 10, 1946 to Dec. 3, 1947.

Mbu Mother Teresa wrote that one day at Holy Communion, she heard Jesus say: “I want Indian nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so united to me as to radiate my love on souls.”

Did Mother Teresa Actually Document Her Conversations With God?

Closer to home, sometime last year, the man in the white suit – Pastor Mbonye that is, audaciously admitted how he had met Jesus. That he (Jesus) came to his bedroom and far from being anything like the pictures of him (Jesus) with a scraggily hair and beard that have circulated the globe for years, he is a young man who is handsome and beautiful.

Why Didn't Mbonye Take A Selfie With God For Evidence 

Everybody has the right to talk to whomever they want to talk to just like I will talk to whomever I want to talk to – be it family, friends or even foes. I have conversations – some of which are documented because minutes are taken, and sometimes because I am in the company of other people, or on radio or television.

When I turn in, I do just that - turn in. I’m asleep and when I sleep like most sane people that I surround myself with, we do that – sleep and nothing else. I don’t have conversations with myself, God, Jesus or anybody else. But when people claim to have talked to or met God, my first thought as a sane person are to ask the men in white coats at Butabika to expect a new intake.

I’ve never had any real interaction with Patience, daughter of The Man With The Hat. I don’t hang in her circles because her circles are too ‘godly clean’ for my liking plus, I doubt her friends and especially her mum, would approve of my wayward lifestyle and morbid views on religion.

Getting back, according an online news feed, Patience told her church congregation that: “I saw God with my own eyes, he promised to transform Uganda.” Hmm, statement enough to alert the men in white coats to get the straitjacket ready? I think so. And what did God have to tell her? That: “Uganda is the heart of Africa. Just as a light comes from a heart that is transformed, a life is transformed. When Uganda is transformed, he said, Africa will be transformed.”

Where Was Patience When She 'Saw' God?

After she reads this paragraph, Patience will brutally learn that  you need not go putting all your faith in God but into Google because if he (God), had done some simple Googling as I did, the African Economic Forecast Reports as of September 2018 from IMF, World Bank and ADB amongst others, would have told him that the countries transforming Africa are not Uganda, but Ghana (8.3%), Ethiopia (8.2%), Côte d’Ivoire (7.2%), Senegal (7.1%), Tanzania (7%), Sierra Leone (6.3%), Burkina Faso (6%), Benin (6%), Rwanda (5.9%) and Niger (5.2%).

Do you see where I’m coming from Patience, don’t you think Africa stands a better chance of transforming by sticking with Ghana or Ethiopia?

 

A Zungu's Beef With Rasta

An understanding of what Rastafari is all about is in order before we get into the meat of today’s ramble. Rastafari, sometimes termed Rastafarianism, is an Abrahamic religion developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. Rastas refer to their beliefs, which are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible, as ‘Rastalogy’. Central is a monotheistic belief in a single God—referred to as Jah—who partially resides within each individual. Former emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is given central importance with many Rastas regarding him as an incarnation of Jah on Earth and as the Second Coming of Christ.

 

Was The Haile Selassie Really Jah Even Though He Had No Dreads?

In reality, many – especially those of my parents’ generation have a different perception of what Rasta’s are all about. In the 80s, I was in school with Shirley Ashbridge who as the surname suggests is white. Born to a farmer and a housewife of a mother, she came from a small town called Cold Kirby in North Yorkshire, in England. Cold Kirby back in the 80s was farmland territory and a village at that. It was such a small village that everybody knew each other and if any of them bought new shoes, the entire village would get to know about it. Another thing about Cold the village that forms the basis of this ramble, is there were no black people or Asians.

 

Talent In Dreads - Lauryn Hill

At Shirley’s invitation I went up there with Norris Wiltshire who was also in school with us. Though British, Norris came arrived in England from St Kitts when he was four years old. And over the years, he cultivated and grew his dreadlocks to a thick and impressive length.

 

Despite His Dreads, Yanick Noah Was A Top Ten Tennis Player

While the rest of England was sort of used to seeing dreadlocks, as far everybody in Cold Kirby was concerned, black people – especially anybody with dreadlocks was a gangster, a thug, a goon, was high on cocaine and were most likely going to rape the first white woman they came across.

The two things that Shirley didn’t tell her parents about is that Norris and I were black and that Norris had dreads because when we rolled up to their farm which also doubled up at a small inn, ‘time stopped’. Her mother had the most terrified look on her face while her that of her dad to the best of my recollection, read something along the lines of: “Take what you can but please don’t kill me and please don’t rape my wife.” 

 

Buju Banton - An Awesome Voice In Dreads

It didn’t take long for the village to find out that there were black people in town that they thronged the inn to see, to catch a glimpse of us. While there were no racial connotations to their curiosity, many of them had never seen a black person save for on television. And the majority that came to see, were men. No wives and certainly no teenage daughters – just in case they got ‘raped’.

The irony of a black weekend in Cold Kirby, is that whenever Dale went to the store, pub or restaurant with his dreads fraying all over the village, he pulled out cash to pay for whatever he had bought or eaten and not a machete. And when he smoked, it was not a ganja joint that he smoked, but Marlboro. And when he talked to the women, no he didn’t want to rape them but have a conversation with them. And that despite the dreadlocks, he was in university studying psychology, yet most of the village had never gone beyond O-Levels. 

Even White Women Wanted More From Bob Marley Than Just His Music IF You Get My Drift 

So to American Lady in the blue jeans, white blouse and UN baseball cap who was in KFC, Entebbe two weeks ago on Saturday and who threw a ‘Rasta’s are scum’ tantrum because three Rasta boys politely asked her to pick up her tray and go throw her rubbish into the rubbish chute, I feel so sorry for you. I really do.