Kathy Lagoli and my blog stats..

A few days ago I posted on this blog a warning about spam emails that some person named Kathy Lagoli had sent out, apparently to anyone whose email address she/he could get hold of. Unbeknown to me at time of posting, the Lagoli person was sending the same emails that I'd received to many others and as is to be expected, many of these people went searching on Google for the name 'Kathy Lagoli', just as I had done. However, by this time my post was already on Google and many of those who went searching for Kathy Lagoli wound up on my blog. This blog's sitemeter statistics for today tell the story:

Things I feel strongly about Site Summary
VISITS
	Total	29,866
	Average Per Day	66
	Average Visit Length	4:29
	Last Hour	68
	Today	1,476
	This Week	460
PAGE VIEWS
	Total	84,283
	Average Per Day	153
	Average Per Visit	2.3
	Last Hour	80
	Today	1,906
	This Week	1,073

As is clear from the above, the average number of visitors that I would receive on this blog per day is 66. Yet as I typed this blog post, there had already been a record breaking 1,476 visitors to the blog today, a number that normally would amount to something like my monthly total. There was even one hour during the afternoon when 110 visitors visited the blog within the hour. And not surprisingly, 99.8 percent of all these visitors came looking for more information about Kathy Lagoli. The 55 comments that they left behind are testimony to the extent to which Kathy Lagoli's spam emails were circulated..

Who is Kathy Lagoli?

I received an email today from someone who calls herself Kathy Lagoli. Her email address is kathylagoli@thingdiamond.com. The wording of the email is as follows:

Re: things i feel strongly about: women are heroes..

From:	Kathy Lagoli View Contact
To:	anengiyefa1@yahoo.com

---

Hello,

Would you be available to discuss this on the phone ?

kathy,

Innocently, I replied, as is the natural thing to do, even though I was somewhat surprised by the email. My reply:

From:	anengiyefa Add to Contacts
To:	Kathy Lagoli

---

Hello Kathy,

Of course. Can you give me a hint of what in particular the discussion will concern?

Regards

Anengiyefa

Then out of curiosity, I thought to google 'Kathy Lagoli' and the first item in my search was this post which I have set out in full below:

DO NOT OPEN ANY EMAIL FROM KATHY LAGOLI

Just wanted to let everyone know that today I received an email from someone named "Kathy Lagoli". The subject line contained an"re:" about one of my recent posts. The body of the email contained this message: "Would you be available to discuss this on the phone?" This comes after someone who has me on their contacts had their email account hacked into.

I didn't know what to think, so I didn't reply, then decided on a whim to google the name and came upon several sights that said they had received the exact same email, so it appears to be a scam of some sort....so DO NOT REPLY to any such emails.

Update: Just checking my traffic feed, there are TONS of people googling this name, so it would seem pretty widespread.

Thank heavens I did not divulge my telephone number, even though I am somewhat worried as to the possibility of some cyber criminal hacking into my email account through my reply.

At a Crossroads

I know of no one who has been faced with the situation that I am currently faced with and am therefore not able to draw from any other person's experiences in the very important choices that I am soon going to have to make.

The background to this is from a few years ago when intervention action was taken by my professional regulatory body into a firm at which I was a partner. The practice was closed down and all of the firm's partners were suspended from further practise. I have previously written about this on this blog here. Following the intervention, I alone of all the firm's former partners applied for the reinstatement of my practising certificate. My certificate was reinstated, but with the condition that I could not practise as a partner and was allowed to practise only in employment as an assistant, and in an employment for which the regulatory body had given prior approval, as there were supervisory and support requirements to be met by the prospective employer.

I was able to return to practise even while the regulatory body's investigations into the affairs of the now defunct firm were still in progress. Perhaps it was quite clear to the regulatory body that none of the factors which gave rise to the intervention into that firm were attributable to me personally, but instead to my former partners. And I enjoyed the staunch backing of my former boss, who stood by me and supported my application to return to practise.

The problem now is that I left the employ of my former boss, having entered into a fee-sharing arrangement with a different firm. By that arrangement, the firm purported to be satisfying the requirement for support and supervision imposed on my practising certificate, when in fact I was doing my own work. Suffice it to say that after a couple of months, the relationship with that firm too broke down. I found them crude, onerous and overbearing and thought of them as undeserving of my competence.

I cannot now return to my former boss, because he too has since run into difficulties with the regulatory body. So I am left high and dry, as I find that not many firms will accept me with such a cumbersome condition attached to my practising certificate. The reason is simple: the partners at those firms render themselves liable to disciplinary action for failure to supervise, in the event that something goes wrong; and this is not to mention the certain increase in their professional indemnity insurance premium as soon as the insurers become aware of my professional history. It is not surprising then that I have received the cold shoulder at the doors on which I have knocked.

So what are the choices? Well, I can either wait on the unemployment line until September when the disciplinary proceedings will be finalised, without an inkling as to the likely outcome of those proceedings; or I can consider making a clean break from the profession altogether and move in a completely different direction. The new academic session begins in September, so one must act promptly if one is to take advantage of it.

The fact of the matter is that whatever the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings, the intervention into my former firm (and the reasons thereof), will always be recorded against me. It is sufficient merely to state in one's application that one was a partner at a firm that was intervened, for professional indemnity insurance premiums to quadruple. And it is professional misconduct not to disclose this in your insurance application. It is irrelevant that I was not directly responsible.

Even if the conditions are removed from my practising certificate after the disciplinary proceedings, I shall be totally unable to afford to pay all of the regulatory body's costs for bringing those disciplinary proceedings against me, pay the likely financial penalty to be imposed by the disciplinary tribunal and then thereafter, also pay for the insurance needed to enter into practice on my own. Any prospective employers too will be wary of the potential increase in their insurance liability if they were to employ me.

All in all, forging ahead in the same direction portends a very rough time ahead, which makes the case for a career change. I am now considering going back to college or university to retrain. This seems drastic, I know, but my view is that some situations require radical action, and this is one of those situations. I am not sure that I am willing to spend the remainder of my career encumbered with responsibility for the acts of others, my former partners, who in any event are themselves no longer interested in practising. Incidentally, one of them, the major culprit, fled the jurisdiction with the proceeds of his deeds, and the latest I heard of him is that he lost his bid to be elected to the Nigerian Senate..

Law Society Library 

Slaves of the lake

'Slaves of the Lake' is a documentary about Emmanuel and Dominic, two young boys, aged around 10 and 13, whose families sold them as slaves into the fishing industry in Ghana. This film is a haunting journey through the boys' past and their memory of that past. The landscape of the film is the eerie but beautiful Lake Volta with its muddy banks and murky waters, as well as the colourful coastal town of Winneba.

In the film, we discover how Emmanuel and Dominic were taken from their home town of Winneba, in the southern part of the country, to remote fishing villages in the northern part of Lake Volta, several hundred kilometres away. Emmanuel was sold by his mother for £16 when he was seven. Dominic was sold by his grandparents when he was just two years old, for an equally small amount.

The boys spent several years in enslavement, either living in the open or in the tiny mud huts they shared with other slave children. They were often deprived of food and sleep, made to work in harsh conditions and violently beaten by the master and his family. In this film, Emmanuel and Dominic talk about their daily routine in slavery and how they passed their time when they were not fishing or diving in the lake.

Both the boys have tragic memories of seeing several of their friends die as a result of the master's beatings or because of diving in the lake. In the film Dominic talks about how he often feared for his life because the work he did was dangerous and life threatening.

Emmanuel and Dominic were rescued by a charity called Challenging Heights and brought back to their families with an understanding that they would not be sold again. In the film, the boys talk about being enrolled in school and enjoying a life of normalcy, where they play football with their friends, have lessons in school and dream about their future. Unfortunately, Emmanuel's recovery has been much slower than Dominic's. His behaviour is often erratic and he has trouble adjusting to his life back in the village. In the film, Emmanuel explains why he resents living with his aunt and what he experiences at home.

'Slaves of the Lake' is the story of two children who lost their childhood and are now determined to get it back.

Note: This thought provoking video is taken from here. The video might be available for viewing only in certain locations.

Poverty as entertainment?

This post is a direct response to Rasna Warah's post in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper of 20 March 2011. I came across it here where it was reposted.

I watched Famous, Rich and in the Slums (here on YouTube) when it was aired in Britain by the BBC recently and my consternation at the issues featured was directed neither at the makers of the documentary, nor at those who participated in it. My anger, instead, was directed at the authorities in Kenya, who seem to be clueless as to their responsibility towards the country's citizens and in particular, the inhabitants of Kibera, a slum area in the country's capital city. Lest I incur the angst of my readers, I make haste at this point to clarify that this is not intended as an onslaught on the aptitude of the Kenyan government singly, since such failure is characteristic of the majority of the governments of Africa.

The author in the Daily Nation opined:

"There are dozens, if not hundreds, of charities operating in Kibera and other slums like it, with few significant results to show for their efforts. 

There may be slightly more sanitation facilities in the slums now, but the living conditions have become only slightly less appalling - they have not improved dramatically. And the slum continues to grow."

And I ask, in all of this where are the Kenyan authorities? What function does the municipal authority in Nairobi perform when a sizeable segment of the city's population are forced to live in such squalid conditions? The author in the Daily Nation was critical of the NGOs that operate in the slum and seemed unhappy about what was referred to as "slum tourism", but I beg to differ.

It's puzzling that we do nothing about a problem and then think that we are justified in criticising the foreigners who make an effort to tackle our problem, one which we have previously ignored. Why do we become angered when westerners point at our festering sores that we have pretended did not exist? Most annoying for me is the fact that Raila Odinga, Kenya's Prime Minister, holds the parliamentary seat for Langata Constituency, which covers much of the Kibera slum.

My take on this is that it was never the intention of the makers of and participants in this documentary, (participants who in any event, include a considerable number of Kibera residents themselves), merely to provide entertainment for the film's viewers. What the film did for me was to vividly highlight the failure by another of Africa's governments to take an interest in, and responsibility for the welfare of those whom they govern. The situation is the same in much of Africa and I have written about the same thing in relation to Nigeria previously on this blog.

Female mechanics..

I find this very heartening. Its always interesting to see a challenge to what we consider to be the norm..