Archive for January, 2011
Honeymoon Safari in August
Hi Answerman, So glad I came across your site! My fiance and I are currently planning our honeymoon for the first 2 weeks in August and want to visit Africa for the first time. We want start with a safari and end with some R&R on a gorgeous beach somewhere. We’ll be travelling from New [...]
What does Egypt mean?
Egypt’s popular rising by a better educated generation reflects a global interconnectivity that transmits the will of the people as effectively as bar photos. But do Americans in particular understand what these people really want? I don’t think so. Cries of “Freedom!” are easily translated from most any language, but “democracy” is another word altogether. [...]
When Right is Wrong
Not just Gabby shot, but now David murdered in certain part because of the hatred created by the American Right. There are two things I just don’t understand: (1) how can anyone deny this obvious link, and (2) how could we possibly have let these happen? Who will be next? Wednesday afternoon one of the [...]
Animals Are Not People
Animals are not people. Sorry about having to tell you this, they are living things deserving our utmost respect, but there’s not a hippo I know who is really Mama Cass with a preference for long, lacey dresses. I’ve tried avoiding the attached video, just as I’ve tried avoiding talking about the lion who adopted [...]
State of the Union, State of Africa
As I listened to President Obama last night, I thought of the State of Africa, and I realized that real hope for future justice in the world is squarely with Africa, today, not America. Many will consider me foolish: yesterday was a day of tear gas, rioting and general upheaval in much of north Africa. [...]
Global Warming Spins East Africa
We are just beginning to understand how severe global warming impacts the equatorial regions like East Africa. We know that Vanuatu may flood away, but we now suspect that important parts of East Africa will both blow and flood away, too. Short rains in specifically defined areas of East Africa failed the end of last [...]
Birthplace of Man, and of Slavery
Posted by jimheck in Arts and Culture, History on January 24, 2011
The last day that human slavery was legal in the civilized world was June 19, 1865, and every day since extraordinary efforts to understand and document the horrific practice have been unrelenting. Now Tanzanian scientists are debunking several established concepts about the origin and explosion of slavery in the 17th century. Amistad and Goree Island [...]
Mugabe dying, but not his Empire
Robert Mugabe, czar of Zim, may be coming to an end. But the era of Robert Mugabe is set to last a very, very long time. Mugabe remains in Malaysia where he returned unexpectedly following his annual vacation, for emergency prostrate surgery. He was too paranoid to have the surgery in Europe, which is nearer [...]
No Yawn, but not a Scream Either
Southern Sudan has voted to split from the North in a peaceful, fair election. Minor trouble was reported in the border regions, but all the players took it in stride. It was not and never should have been considered the moments before doomsday. We have known for 5 years this would be peaceful. George Clooney, [...]
Don’t Evict the Bees!
Posted by jimheck in African Traditions, Culture, Economy on January 18, 2011
Do you sacrifice a small group of ancient people to promote a larger society? We put Indians onto reservations. Should the Kenyans evict 36,000 Ogiek from their forest? It’s one thing for an activist to threaten you and your grandchildren with no clean water. It’s another when your kitchen faucet stops dripping. That’s what’s happening [...]
A Holiday Great for us & Africa
Today is an American holiday, Martin Luther King Day. I am a white man who has spent nearly half of every year of his working life in black societies. I am witness to the change that King’s type of philosophy has made in Africa and at home. King was America’s black civil rights champion, and [...]
Poorly Guided Tourists Hide Wilde
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Great Migration, Serengeti on January 14, 2011
This week the Huffington Post said the “migration was delayed.” True. It was delayed. About as long as getting stuck in Chicago traffic delays a dinner engagement. “I can assure you the raingods are smiling,” the owner/manager of Ndutu lodge emailed me this morning. “The animals have streamed back onto the plains!… Everything right now [...]
Sudan Update: Going Well
Half way through the referendum election process, the birthing of South Sudan is going well. Folks are voting, militias are firing, and U.S. celebrities have egg on their faces. (Or should I say, posho on their jowls.) There is fighting along the proposed border near the oil-rich Abyei oil fields, and this should not be [...]
Religious Partition to End Wars
Until now many efforts towards peace in troubled parts of Saharan Africa have focused on fomenting coexistence betweenf Islam and competing religions. What the Sudanese referendum says is that coexistence of Muslim and non-Muslim ideologies won’t work. When the election in The Sudan ends this weekend and shortly thereafter South Sudan declares itself sovereign, Muslims [...]
No Bribes for Boeing
Posted by jimheck in Corruption on January 10, 2011
Wikileaks’ cable publication confirmed last week what we already know: that the Obama Administration has reversed the Bush Administration’s questionable bribing policies and that Tanzania has not changed at all: business by bribes still prevails. Corruption is hardly an African exclusive and hardly less a Tanzanian exclusive, but as countries throughout Africa increasingly move away [...]