Mother Nature clears her throat

Mother Nature clears her throat, and we humans in all our arrogance, are humbled.

The bolts of lightning appearing in the plume of the ash-spewing Eyjafjallajokull volcano are pretty to look at, but the truth is that the process that creates this kind of lightning in erupting volcanoes remains something of a mystery. Lightning, which is usually associated with severe weather such as thunderstorms, hurricanes and the like, is also produced by the rolling debris clouds of volcanoes.

It is thought that the lightning in a volcanic plume is connected to the rotation that these hot gases and ash undergo, sort of like a tornado. As a plume rotates, it can spawn waterspouts or dust devils, which gather together the electric charges in the plume to form a sheath of lightning.

Lol, I'm not an expert, obviously, but I've been doing some reading and you can join me by having a look at this site.

All in all this ash cloud business has become rather a nuisance. I did see a few vapour trails of aircraft flying over London today, but the explanation came when I heard that some other European countries had opened their airspace to aviation and that these were aircraft flying across Britain from the European continent, possibly towards North America and vice versa. I learnt also that a few airports in Scotland and the north of England and in Northern Ireland had opened, but only very few aircraft movements had been reported.

Then I was pleased this evening to hear of several British Airways long-haul flights from all around the world headed for London, even though UK airspace remained officially closed and many of the earlier flights bound for London had been diverted to Madrid instead, from where weary travellers were left to make their own way across Spain and France to the channel port of Calais so as to board a ferry to Dover, (if they could manage to get a place on the ferry that is).

But there was then a report that a BA 747 had just touched down at Heathrow, with live footage to boot. Shortly after these pictures were shown, the 10 O'clock news, which had begun with the announcement that UK airspace was still closed and was not expected to reopen before tomorrow morning, ended with the surprising announcement that the airspace was now officially open. What a difference half an hour can make!

So now, we should all feel better that the end to this chaos is finally in sight. But lets not ignore the important lessons that this has taught us, the first being that the world is totally unprepared for an event such as this. Especially, when one considers that this Icelandic volcano is only a minor volcano.

God bless you, you're doing a great job

"You're doing a great job, thanks and God bless you. Your special number today was powerful and I believe that your ministration on Sunday will be even more powerful..." is the text of the SMS I received from the pastor of my church last Saturday. It's not the first time either that he has commended my efforts as leader of the choir. Sometime ago I blogged about my appointment as choir leader in January this year. At first it was daunting, the prospect of managing the complex affairs of a choir. But I dug into my role with gusto and have found myself actually enjoying it.

I am in charge of a group of choristers many of whom are married women with small children, who also have jobs. So there is the fact that members of the choir oftentimes cannot find the time to attend choir practice, (small children can be such a handful sometimes). Then there are issues concerning family commitments and so forth, and it hasn't been an easy ride for me. But I've been open and honest with them that I am quite inexperienced at this. And by appearing to be naive, I've somehow warmed my way into their hearts, apparently, because all of the members seem to be much more enthusiastic about the choir now than I remember them ever being. And this enthusiasm shows too when the choir ministers during the church services.

I think this might have something to do with the fact that soon after my appointment as leader, I delegated different responsibilities to various members, each of whom was assigned a set of tasks. Also, I have been careful to always encourage them in carrying out those tasks, praise them when they deserved it, seek their opinions, listen to their suggestions and defer to the judgement of the more experienced choristers when making decisions. Such that each of them feel as if they are actively participating in the decision making, and any previous resentment about my appointment as leader appears now to have dissipated.

It was my idea that rather than attending for choir practice on Saturdays and losing our Saturday evenings, we should instead meet for practice after service on Sunday, a time when I calculated that everyone would be in a good mood. This idea has turned out to be quite popular, hence the improvement in the quality of our performance. It is still my job to choose which song(s) the choir would sing at the Sunday service, teach the song to the choir if necessary, and direct the music. But I'm not complaining because I genuinely love doing this. For next Sunday I have picked this delectable song.

Zimbabwe, 30 years under Mugabe

On April 18th 1980, the Union Flag came down in Harare and the last Governor of Southern Rhodesia, Lord Soames, transfered executive power to the first Prime Minister of independent Zimbabwe. On the thirtieth anniversary of Zimbabwean "freedom", how is it working out?

This article is reproduced here with copyright permission from Independent News and Media Limited. You should read Mark Steyn's take on the Zimbabwe story too, which some think might be closer to the reality on the ground in Harare...

General Babangida must NOT become President of Nigeria

It is being reported that a spokesman for General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has told the international media that General Babangida will run for president in the 2011 presidential poll after seeking the nomination of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP)

Personally, I cannot think of a more inappropriate candidate for the presidency of Nigeria. If the PDP candidate must be from northern Nigeria, there is a multitude of Nigerians from the north who are better qualified than General Babangida and whose reputations are not tarnished in the way that Babangida's is.

As my friend and fellow blogger Akin so aptly put it, "New Blood NOT Incredibly Bad Blood" is what Nigeria needs at this moment for the country's leadership. "General Babangida is incredibly bad blood" Akin states, and I am in complete agreement. It was under Babangida's tenure as president that corruption became endemic in Nigeria, the economy deteriorated and democracy was shoved aside. In fact, it was on the back of Babangida that the evil Abacha regime came to power.

Nigeria as a nation is already in a weakened state, due largely to the inept and incompetent leadership of recent years, a malaise that potentially will only be exacerbated by a Babangida presidency.

Given that sycophants abound in Nigeria, many of whom were enriched and thereby empowered by Babangida and his evil progeny Abacha, and who therefore are today in positions of power and influence, I am justified in my fear that the voices of millions of concerned Nigerians will be ignored; those who like me dread the return to power of the "Evil Genius", (a nickname Babangida gave himself). Shockingly, Babangida on his website even refers to himself as "Nigeria's Best President". May God help us...

You may want to read this interesting piece written by Sola Salako.

Even after death the abuse continues

Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in Africa any more.

Madieye Diallo's body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home of his elderly parents.

The scene on 2 May 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone, sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.

"I locked myself inside my room and didn't come out for days", says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo's who is ill with HIV. "I am afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?"

A wave of intense homophobia is washing across Africa, where homosexuality is already illegal in at least 37 countries. In the last year alone, gay men have been arrested in Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria. In Uganda, lawmakers are considering a bill that would sentence homosexuals to life in prison and include capital punishment for 'repeat offenders'. And in South Africa the only country that recognises gay rights, gangs have carried out so called "corrective" rape on lesbians.

"Across many parts of Africa we've seen a rise in homophobic violence", says London-based gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, whose organisation tracks abuse against gays and lesbians in Africa. "Its been steadily building up for the last 10 years but has got markedly worse in the last year."

To the long list of abuse meted out to suspected homosexuals in Africa, Senegal has added a new form of degradation, the desecration of their bodies. In the past two years, at least four men suspected of being gay have been exhumed by angry mobs in cemeteries in Senegal. The violence is especially shocking because Senegal, unlike other countries in the region, is considered a model of tolerance.

"Its jarring to see this happen in Senegal," says Ryan Thoreson, a fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission who has been researching the rise of homophobia here. "When something like this happens in an established democracy, its alarming."

Even though homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, colonial documents indicate that the country has long held a clandestine gay community. In many towns, they were tacitly accepted, says Cheikh Ibrahima Niang, a professor of social anthropology at Senegal's largest university. In fact, the visibility of gays in Senegal may have helped to prompt the backlash against them.

The backlash dates back to at least February 2008, when a Senegalese tabloid published photographs of a clandestine gay wedding in a suburb in Dakar, the capital. The wedding was held inside a rented banquet hall and was attended by dozens of gay men. Some of them snapped pictures that included the gay couple exchanging rings and sharing slices of cake.

The day after the tabloid published the photographs, police began rounding up men suspected of being homosexual. Some were beaten in captivity and forced to turn over the names of other gay men, according to research by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Gays immediately went into hiding and those who could fled to neighbouring countries, including Gambia to the south, according to the New York based commission. Gambia's erratic president declared that gays who had entered his country had 24 hours to leave or face decapitation. Many returned to Senegal, where they lived on the run, moving from safe-house to safe-house.

Read more: Even after death the abuse continues 

My day in court

Do you have a boss? How do you feel about him or her? Mine is absolutely wonderful! I joined his firm many years ago as a junior. I was newly qualified then and was keen to prove to my employer that taking me on was the best possible decision he could have made. I suppose in working so hard to establish myself in the firm, I made a good impression on him, because, although I left him after about four years to join another firm as a partner, he welcomed me back with open arms when I returned to his firm after that other firm was closed down, having run into difficulties with our professional regulatory body. The regulation authority suspended the practising certificates of all of us who were at that other firm, but just months later I was back in practice. Indeed, I alone am still practising of all those that were at that firm, because my current boss stood by me and assured the regulation authority that he would provide me with the supervision and support that the regulatory authority had imposed as a condition for my returning to practice.

The law is that when a firm is closed down, as my former firm was, the partners at the firm are liable for the costs incurred by the regulation authority in effecting that firm's intervention and closure. A series of invoices were sent out to me and the other partners, amounting to a sum in the region of £50K, said to be the costs for the intervention and closure. Now, because I'm the only one of the former partners remaining in practice, (the others have ignored all correspondence from the regulation authority), I am having to face the brunt of this, (carrying the can, so to speak), whereas the actuality is that none of the issues that gave rise to the intervention in the first place can be attributed to myself personally. I just happened to have entered into partnership with the wrong bunch of people and got myself into the mess that I find myself in. Through all of this, my boss has quietly supported and encouraged me. He assures me that he is confident that I have no personal involvement in the matters that led to the closure of that firm.

Today was the hearing in court of the court case that the regulation authority has instituted against myself and my former partners, to recover its costs arising from the intervention/closure. The hearing was in the afternoon, so I thought I'd attend the office in the morning and deal with some pressing matters before heading to court later. On arrival at the office this morning, I was informed by his secretary that my boss had left the office ten minutes earlier, on his way to court, to be with me at the hearing. This surprised me. I had neglected to explain that the hearing would be in the afternoon, simply because I had not expected that he would want to attend. So I quickly rang him on his mobile phone, told him the hearing was in fact at 2pm and he turned around and returned to the office. Hours later, after quite a busy morning, I peeped into his room to say that I was leaving for my hearing. To my surprise, my boss insisted on attending the hearing with me, which meant that he had to drop everything he was doing, (and there was a lot on his plate too..).

He stayed with me throughout the hearing, and waited with me for hours while the Judge considered the matter. Of all the defendants I was the only one present in court, and the case did not go very well for me. To put it in a nutshell, I've learned my lesson about being very careful when entering into a partnership with people you hardly know. And it's a lesson that I've learned the hard way too.. But I've also learned that there are in fact people, like my boss, who are genuinely kind and dependable. His presence at the hearing and his words to me afterwards helped to lighten the burden on my mind. I have always respected him, but after today, my respect for him has grown and taken a new dimension. He is truly an extraordinarily wonderful man and I am blessed to have him as my boss.